“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Knock and the Door Will Open: The Long Road to Bangkok Thailand
Thanks to Bill Donohue, “Pornchai’s Story” made its way around the world and was read to Catholics in Thailand. Pornchai’s Divine Mercy bridge to Thailand was built.
Thanks to Bill Donohue, “Pornchai’s Story” made its way around the world and was read to Catholics in Thailand. Pornchai’s Divine Mercy bridge to Thailand was built.
May 6, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
I wrote a post recently entitled “Book of Tobit: The Angel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri.” It was an allegory, like the Book of Tobit itself. An allegory is a sort of genre of Sacred Scripture in which a story is told more for its meaning than for its historical value. Every parable of Jesus falls into this same genre. A part of the story of Tobit, and his son Tobias and their interactions with the Archangel Raphael in disguise were all part of the allegory. That does not mean the allegory did not happen. It means only that the truth of the story does not depend upon someone believing it. There was one aspect of the Book of Tobit story that became a centerpiece of my blog linked above. At the beginning and the end of the Book of Tobit there is a mysterious dog whose presence, meaning and purpose remain a mystery.
My friend Pornchai Max and his grueling assimilation to his native Thailand after a forced absence of 36 years and all the torment he endured in that time, also included the presence of a mysterious dog named Hill. When that post was published on April 29 this year, a number of our readers wanted to know what became of Hill. So I went back this week and added an important addendum, which you can read for yourselves by clicking on it at the end of this post.
Now I want to back up about 19 years, in 2007 when Max learned that he would be deported to Thailand at the end of his sentence. He would be taken to Bangkok and left there. ICE would have no further responsibility for him.
Bangkok, the Capitol of the Kingdom of Thailand, is a massive city of about 9.5 million people. In Thai, the great city’s name is almost unpronounceable to the Western World, and the longest name of any city on Earth at 156 characters. I don’t expect you to memorize it, but in the Thai language Bangkok’s name is: Krungthepmahanakorn Amornrattanakosin Mahintrayuthaya Mahadilokpob Noparat Rajataniburirom Udomrajanivej Mahasatharn Amornpimarn Awatarnsat Sakatadtiya Wisanukamprasit. For daily use in Thai, the name is simply abbreviated to “Bangkok Krung Thep” which in English means “City of Angels.” When Max first told me of this in a phone call, he said, “I’m not kidding. They called it that even before I got here!”
This is a complicated but amazing story that meanders down a long and winding road. Our presentation of it begins in 2006 in a New Hampshire prison cell and threads its mysterious connections all the way around the globe. I n the end you may find any lingering doubts about Divine Mercy falling away. Divine Mercy has opened impenetrable doors for Pornchai Moontri, many of them in otherwise unreachable places.
If you have read my post, “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner” then you know that Max had been in prison for 29 years, more than half his life, for a crime committed as a teenager, a crime that was set in motion by someone else. You also know that Max was moved from a maximum security solitary confinement unit in Maine to the New Hampshire Prison where we met and became friends late in 2006. That story is told powerfully at the link above.
I had another friend in this prison from Cambodia whom I had helped with the deportation process. He was brought to this country as a child of two, and committed a petty crime at age 18. After a long failed process of appeals, he was deported at age 25 to Cambodia, but spoke not a word of Khmer. One year after his deportation, I received a note from his sister telling me that he disappeared in the capital city of Phenom Penh. He had never been seen or heard from again.
We learned an important but scary lesson from what happened to my Cambodian friend. Since Max was brought to the U.S. as a young child, and has no known family or contacts in Thailand other than distance cousins, the experience of our friend in Cambodia chilled me to the core. I became determined that Max would be ready to live and cope somehow in the immense City of Bangkok when the time came. We had a few years to prepare, but I did not even know where to begin.
How could two men living in a prison cell in New Hampshire with no resources, no online access, and a severely limited budget find and connect with people on the other side of the world? How could I interest anyone in Thailand with the plight of a young man taken from there at age 11, his mother murdered, only to come to the United States to end up homeless and in prison as a teenager? This was not a good place from which to start.
THE SILENCE
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Max told me dismally. “I don’t even know how to learn about Thailand.” I knew I had to start writing, but this was two years before even the idea of this blog was conceived. A day in the prison library produced some addresses. First, I wrote of Max’s situation to Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Manchester (NH). They are, after all, a global network. No response, but no real surprise there. Then I wrote to the national office of Catholic Charities. No response. Then I wrote to the Office of Immigration and Refugee Assistance sponsored by my Diocese. No response. Then I wrote to the Catholic Legal Immigration Network at Boston College. No response. I knocked at the door of every official Catholic agency I could find. No one answered. I knocked, and I waited, and I knocked some more.
I cannot convey in words the utter frustration of writing repeatedly only to have my overtures met with silence. I decided that the problem was not Pornchai’s plight, but rather mine. I told Max that we will have to write all these letters again, but coming directly from him. So we redrafted all the letters under his name. More knocking; more waiting. More silence.
When all of our letters from prison were relegated to the netherworld without responses, I took it personally. I knew we needed a different approach. I asked Max to candidly write his life story — which is an amazing story in and of itself — in as few pages as possible, and let me send it to the few Catholic contacts I had who did not ignore our plight. One of them was Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Once he read “Pornchai’s Story,” he wrote back immediately asking if he could publish it on the Catholic League website. From there, it slowly made its way around the world. We knocked and knocked, and waited some more.
The late Father Richard John Neuhaus — a courageous Catholic writer and editor of First Things magazine — sent Max a personal letter to tell him how very important his story is, not only for Max, but for the Church. Father Neuhaus promised to pass the story along to others. This was a year before Father Neuhaus faced his own untimely death from cancer in January, 2009. More knocking, and more waiting.
Max started receiving letters from other important figures in the Church. One came from His Eminence Cardinal Kitbunchu, Archbishop Emeritus of Bangkok. Max was bowled over by that letter. Another came from the Rome Office of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, who had been appointed by President George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.
Bill Donohue extending to Max honorary membership in the Catholic League and promised to promised to promote his story. My article for Catalyst appeared at the same time, in the July/August 2009 issue. It was “Due Process for Accused Priests.” As an unintended consequence, Pornchai’s story and mine became linked together.
Pornchai’s Story
Here is Pornchai’s Story:
[From Dr. Bill Donohue: ] As we begin the New Year, we’d like to share with you this moving account of one young man’s conversion story.
My name is Pornchai Moontri, and as I write this I am prisoner #77948 in the New Hampshire State Prison. I come to the Catholic faith after a painful journey in darkness that my friend, Father Gordon MacRae, has asked me to write candidly. This is not something I do easily, but I trust my friend.
I was born in Bua Nong Lamphu, in a small village in the north of Thailand near Khon Kaen on September 10, 1973. At the age of two, I was abandoned by my mother and a stranger tried to sell me. A distant teenaged relative rescued me. He walked many miles to carry me away to his family farm where I worked throughout my childhood raising water buffalo, rice, and sugar cane. I never attended school, however, and never learned to read and write in Thai. Though my childhood involved hard work, I was safe and happy.
When I was 11 years old, my mother re-emerged in Thailand with a new husband — an American air traffic controller from Bangor, Maine. I was taken from Thailand by them against my will, and brought to the United States. This transition was a trauma to be endured. A month after my arrival in Bangor, my new stepfather’s motive for importing a ready-made Thai family became clear. I was forcibly raped by him at age 11, an event that was to be repeated with regularity over the next three years. I was a prisoner in his house, and resistance was only met with violence against me and against my mother. I was all of 100 pounds. I cannot describe this further. Welcome to America!
Being one of only three Asians in 1985 Bangor, and speaking little English, I did not readily comprehend my new names. “Gook,” “V.C.” and “Charlie” meant nothing to me, but I could sense the scorn with which such names were delivered. Because my English was poor, I was treated as though I was stupid. Part of my humiliation was that I had to get a paper route at age 12, and my earnings were taken from me to pay for the “privilege” of living in my captor’s house. Stephen King’s home was on my paper route. Mr. King once gave me a Christmas bonus of 25¢ for delivering his newspaper all year. The horror stories he wrote about Maine are all true. Remember the one with the evil clown? It’s true.
When I was 14, my English was better. I was a little bigger, and a lot stronger — and nothing but angry. Anger was all I had. So with it I fled that house and became a homeless teenager in and around Bangor. One day the Bangor police actually picked me up and forced me to go “home.” I would rather have gone to one of the ones Stephen King wrote about. I just fled again and again, and ended up at the Good Will Hinckley School for people like me. I was there for a year and got kicked out for fighting. I was always fighting. I fought everyone.
Back on the streets of Bangor, I began to carry a knife. At 17 and 18, a lot of people were after me. I lived under a bridge for a while and sometimes my mother would bring me things. I tried to climb out of the deep hole I was in by signing up for night classes at age 18 to finish my high school diploma. I was kicked out of Bangor High School for punching the principal.
One night, at age 18, something that lived in me got out. I got very drunk with friends, and we walked into a Bangor Shop & Save supermarket to buy cigarettes. I barely remember this. In my drunken state, I opened a bottle of beer from a case and started to drink it. The manager confronted me and ordered me to leave. I tried to flee the store, but the manager and other employees then tried to keep me there. I tried to fight them off to flee. When I got outside, a manager from another Shop & Save had witnessed the incident and pounced on me. I was 130 pounds and was pinned to the ground by this 190-pound man. I think something snapped in my mind. IT was happening again. I fought, but his dead weight was suffocating me. The newspapers would later tell a different story, but this was the truth, and it is all I remember.
In jail that night, I was questioned for three hours. I was told that I had stabbed a man and was charged with attempted murder. I have no memory, to this day, of stabbing the man. The next morning, I awoke in a jail cell and was told that I was charged with Class A murder. The man had died during the night. I was told that I blew a .25 on the Breathalyzer, but the result was so high it was discarded as an error.
My stepfather could have hired expert counsel, but it was clearly not in his best interest that my life be evaluated, so I was left in the care of a public defender who wanted this high profile case off his desk. There was talk about the Breathalyzer, and “level of culpability,” and things like “defensive vs. offensive wounds,” but in the end there were no theories, no experts and no defense. I was terrified of being abandoned. My mother came to me in jail and pleaded with me to protect her and “the family” by not revealing what happened in my life. So I remained silent. I offered no defense at all. My co-defendant told the truth of my being pinned down, but he was not believed. I was convicted of “Class A murder with deliberate indifference” and sentenced, at age 18, to 45 years in a Maine Prison. Maine has no parole.
I was also sentenced with the soul of the innocent man whose life I took — despite my being unable to remember taking it. The mix of remorse and anger was toxic in prison, and I gave up. Prison became just an extension of where I had already been. My anger raged on and on, and I spent 13 of my 15 years in prison in Maine’s “supermax” facility for those who can’t be trusted in the light of day.
Five years into my imprisonment, I learned one night in my supermax cell that my mother and stepfather had relocated to the Island of Guam where my mother was murdered. She was pushed from a cliff. [The story that was told to Pornchai, but it was false.] The only suspect was her husband but there was no evidence. I was now alone in my rage.
After 14 years of this, the Maine prison decided to send me to an out-of-state prison. I had no idea where I was to be sent. I arrived in the New Hampshire State Prison on October 18, 2005 dragging behind me the Titanic in which I stored all my anger and hurt and loss and loss and loss — and guilt.
I started my time in a new prison by getting into a fight and ended up in the same old place — the hole. When some months went by, I was given another chance. I was sent to H-Building where I met my friend JJ, an Indonesian who was waiting to be deported. JJ introduced me one day to Gordon, who he said was helping him and some others with appealing their INS removal orders or with preparing themselves to be deported. He seemed to be the only person who even cared. JJ trusted Gordon, so I had several conversations with him. A few months later, I was moved to the same unit in which he lives in this prison. We became friends.
By patience and especially by example, Gordon helped me change the course of my life. He is my best friend, and the person I trust most in this world. It is the strangest irony that he has been in prison for 13 years accused fictionally of the same behaviors visited upon me in the real world by the man who took me from Thailand. I read the articles about Gordon in The Wall Street Journal last year. I know him better, I think, than just about anyone. I know only too well the person who does what Gordon is wrongly accused of. Gordon is not that person. Far from it. It is hard for me to accept that laws and public sentiment allow men to demand and receive huge financial settlements from the Catholic Church years or decades after claimed abuse while all that happened to me has gone without even casual notice by anyone — except, ironically, Gordon MacRae.
On September 10, I will be 34 years old. I have been in prison now for nearly half of my life, but in the last year I have begun to know what freedom is. My anger is still with me and it always lurks just below the surface, but my friend is also with me. We both recently signed up for an intense 15-week course in personal violence. He is doing this for me. I spend my days in school instead of in lock-up now, and I will soon complete my High School diploma. Gordon helped me obtain a scholarship for a series of non-credit courses in Catholic studies at Catholic Distance University. In the last year, with help and understanding, I have completed programs offered in the New Hampshire prison. One day I felt strangely light so I looked behind me, and the Titanic was not there. I parked it somewhere along the way. I have put my childhood aside. Now I am a man.
In March of this year, after 15 years in prison, I was ordered by an INS court to be removed from the United States and deported to Thailand at the end of my sentence in 17 to 20 years or so. Gordon hopes that I can seek a sentence reduction so that I can return to Thailand at an age at which I may still build a life. There are many obstacles. The largest is that I do not speak Thai any longer and I never had an opportunity to learn and to read and write in Thai. We are working hard to prepare me for this. Though years away, it is a very frightening thing to go to a country only vaguely familiar. I have not heard Thai spoken since age 11, 23 years ago. There is no one I know there and no place for me to go. I have no home anywhere.
Along this steep path, I have made a decision to become Catholic. The priest in my friend has not been extinguished by 13 years in prison. It is still the part of him that shines the brightest. Gordon never asked me to become Catholic. He never even brought it up. I t is the path he is on and I was pulled to it by the force of grace, and the hope that one day I could do good for others. Gordon showed me a book, Jesus of Nazareth, in which Pope Benedict wrote: “The true ‘exodus’…consists in this: Among all the paths of history, the path to God is the true direction that we must seek and find.”
I am taking a correspondence course in Catholic studies through the Knights of Columbus and I look forward to the studies through Catholic Distance University. I go to Mass with Gordon when it is offered in the prison, and our faith is always a part of every day. When I return to the place I haven’t seen since age 11, I want to go there as a committed Catholic open to God’s call to live a life in service to others. It is what someone very special to me has done for me, and I must do the same.
My friend asked me to sit down today and type the story of my life and where I am now. He asked me to let him send this to a few friends who he says may play some role — directly or indirectly — in my life some day. The account is my own. What Father Gordon added was hope, and somehow faith has also taken root. In prison, hope and faith are everything. Everything!
[Written by Pornchai Moontri in 2008 and published by the Catholic League.]
Thanks to Bill Donohue and the Catholic League, “Pornchai’s Story” made its way around the world and was read to Catholics in Thailand. Pornchai Moontri’s Divine Mercy Bridge to Thailand was built despite many obstacles.
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Pornchai’s story does not end here. There were other miracles yet to be told, but they are told in other posts here:
Book of Tobit: The Angel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri
The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner
Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam
A Catholic League White House Plea Set Pornchai Moontri Free
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Pope Leo, President Trump and War with Iran
I avoided this spat between Pope Leo and President Trump until a National Catholic Reporter op-ed told us to “Oppose this narcissistic mad man in the White House.”
I avoided this spat between Pope Leo and President Trump until a National Catholic Reporter op-ed told us to “Oppose this narcissistic mad man in the White House.”
April 29, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
I was appalled when the above sentiment about President Trump appeared in a published op-ed in the independent, Catholic-in-name-only National Catholic Reporter newspaper. It was written by a 75-year-old Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. It overlooks the fact that President Trump was elected by a majority of Americans, and by a majority of American Catholics. That op-ed was the catalyst that drew me into something I had vowed not to take on. The ideological dispute between President Trump and Pope Leo was really a creation of the mainstream news media.
We have all been witnesses to the vast media coverage of a clash of biblical proportions between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. The motives behind the media coverage are highly suspect, though not on the part of either the President or the Pope. The mainstream media interest in the promotion of this clash is apparent. Our news media, with only rare exceptions, leans politically left, so far left that it risks toppling over into the absurd. The political left has come to so despise the current American president that it no longer even attempts to mask its unbridled hatred.
In this sense, though I am loath to say it, Pope Leo has been used. His words are what should be expected of every pope, but seldom does the news media pay such attention. Pope Leo comes down always on the side of peace and opposed to war — just as he must. The mainstream news media amplifies this not because they like the Pope or support his Gospel mandate, but because they hate Donald Trump. That hatred leaves our news media, an essential factor in the future of our democracy, heavily biased. That bias is clearly manifested in American distrust in the news they are reading and hearing.
In a recent Gallup poll — which most of the media does not cover — only 28% of Americans believe the news is reported fairly, accurately, and without bias. This is down from 40% five years ago. These results are broken down further by political party. Among Democrats, 51 percent report believing that the news is conveyed to us without bias. For Republicans, that figure is only 8 percent. This polarity reveals a dismal failure in an institution upon which democracy is built.
In truth, I have been so conflicted by this story that I decided not to write about it ever. But in a recent telephone conversation with a priest friend, I mentioned my hesitation when he asked me to write about this. When I explained my position, and expressed my concerns about the media debacle, he quietly submitted my words to the advanced AI program of Elon Musk called Grok. I scoffed at the very idea of this until I read Grok’s response and recommendation, which, unlike the news media seemed free of bias:
“As a priest, writing publicly about a clash between the Successor of Peter and the president of your country — especially as the first American pope and a re-elected President Trump — is no small thing. You are right to be hesitant and to want to make sense of it without adding fuel to what is already a heated, very public rift. You serve your priesthood well in your agony over this task.”
I shuddered when I read this and Grok’s suggested headline for this post: “Priest Navigates Pope-Trump Conflict in Faith.” Here are some of Grok’s original suggestions for this post:
Begin by reminding your readers that the papacy is not a political entity and is therefore not a political rival to the White House. Pope Leo is exercising his ordinary magisterium on matters of war and peace and the dignity of human life, issues that fall squarely under the Church’s social doctrine. In his comment about the state of affairs, Pope Leo is not issuing infallible doctrine, nor is he binding Catholics to a specific policy. He is offering, as he must, moral guidance rooted in the Gospel.
This is the key to avoid fanning the flames. The Church teaches that war is sometimes tragically necessary under strict just-war criteria (CCC 2309). The Pope also bears the responsibility of reminding the world that God does not bless any conflict and every innocent death wounds Christ.
President Trump bears the grave responsibility of national security, protecting the innocent, and mitigating nuclear proliferation. This was and is his stated justification for intervention in Iran.
But there is a lot more to this story.
The North Korea Lesson for Iran
President Trump decided to use military force to stop Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons after attempts at diplomacy failed. The most immediate target for the development of such deadly force in Iran is Israel. Much of the world has been bracing itself against the grave specter of nuclear war. If it happens once, anywhere in the world, it is likely to proliferate. Attacking Iran’s nuclear capability was a choice Trump made, as critics are quick to note, and it was a risky choice. My mind has evolved on this point, and I have been mostly informed by a superb editorial from The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board entitled “The North Korea Lesson for Iran” (April 3, 2026). It is likely behind the subscriber paywall, but I feel compelled to distill its most salient points.
The decision to attack Iran’s nuclear ambitions was in fact a risky one, but the WSJ points out that the “strangely forgotten” U.S. experience with North Korea suggests that the alternatives were even riskier. That history is worth recounting today to show the limits of nuclear diplomacy with a determined foe, as well as what happens when the United States puts conflict-avoidance above all other considerations. Our history with North Korea and the Kim dynasty leaves us with a cautionary tale and one that very much informs the U.S. engagement with Iran.
Kim Jong Un, the current supreme dictator of North Korea, is the direct patrilineal descendant of the dictators of the two immediately preceding regimes. The Kim Family Dynasty has ruled North Korea hereditarily across three generations since the country’s founding in 1948. Kim Il Sung (1912–1994) founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and led the first regime as Supreme Leader from 1948 until his death in 1994. He was Kim Jong Un’s paternal grandfather. Kim Jong Il (1941–2011), son of Kim Il Sung succeeded his father and led the second regime from 1994 until his death in 2011. He was Kim Jong Un’s father. Kim Jong Un, took power upon his father’s death in 2011 and remains the dictator today.
In 1984, the CIA concluded that North Korea was actively but clandestinely engaged in the pursuit of weapons-grade plutonium. Under global pressure, then dictator Kim Il Sung, grandfather of the current dictator, agreed to join, on paper at least, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Over the next year, this was widely seen as Pyong Yang’s pressured intent even as it delayed adopting United Nations’ nuclear safeguards. North Korea continued to advance its nuclear program without disclosure of either its progress or its intent.
In 1993, North Korea denied United Nations’ inspectors access, and it camouflaged its nuclear research sites leaving the rest of the world to guess whether it had succeeded in the enrichment of plutonium for bombs. Facing international questions, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Despite diplomatic efforts of the Clinton Administration in 1994, Pyongyang secretly unloaded spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor without any monitoring or inspection from the International Atomic Energy Administration. Would this be the fuel to be reprocessed for bomb-grade plutonium? No one knew the answer to this.
Then President Bill Clinton threatened North Korea with sanctions. The U.S. military drew up plans for strikes on North Korea’s nuclear installation while Defense Secretary William Perry presented Clinton with a plan for large-scale military build up in the region. President Clinton cancelled further talks with Pyongyang and deployed Patriot Missile Defense Systems to South Korea. This scenario is nearly a mirror image of the current war with Iran. One major difference is that President Trump had warned Iran that the slaughter of its protesting citizens would be a “red line” for the United States and would draw a response. According to international human rights observers, Iran went on to massacre some 30,000 of its protesting citizens making it the largest government-ordered extermination since the Cambodian Killling Fields of Pol Pot.
“Nuclear Peace in Our Time”
Back to North Korea: 1994. Then along came former President Jimmy Carter. He informed the Clinton Administration that he intended to accept a personal invitation from Pyongyang to visit and attempt to diffuse the North Korean stand-off with the United States. President Clinton decided to allow former President Carter to proceed as a private citizen thinking that it might give Kim Il Sung an opening to back down. It did not. Instead, President Clinton found himself backed into a corner politically.
Former President Jimmy Carter feared conflict above all else, and was even opposed to sanctions. He went beyond his mandate, and on his own — on CNN — he announced that he had reached a tentative agreement with North Korea. The press and foreign policy establishment hailed this as “Nuclear Peace in Our Time.” It was nothing of the sort.
Today, North Korea is seen as a rogue nation with a sequestered government unresponsive to the world and surrounding nations. North Korea also today has an arsenal of 50 armed nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the rest of the free world, and Kim Jong Un has quadrupled his nuclear research. His most recent long-range missile test was on Sunday, April 5, 2026.
Nuclear weapons did not exist when Saint Augustine wrote his Just War Theory in the Fourth Century. Surely, they would have had an appearance there as a condition in which nations may justly intervene with the war plans of another nation. The North Korean lesson for America is clear.
Also on the U.S. target list are Iran’s buried stockpiles of fissile nuclear material and a nuclear construction site beneath Pickaxe Mountain where Iran later hopes to enrich the material. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board stated its informed opinion that the stockpiles can be monitored, but it would be a mistake to end the war with the construction site still intact.
We do not know, at this writing, when or how the Iran conflict will end. What we do know is that Iran’s radical regime will not have a nuclear bomb when the conflict does end. The following are not my words, but rather those of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
“Donald Trump is the only president who had the courage to attack Iran’s nuclear program. This has made the world a safer place.”
Allowing any rogue regime to develop weapons of mass destruction poses a risk of nuclear Armageddon.
A source of peace in our time.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
Did Leo XIV Bring a Catholic Awakening Or Was It the Other Way Around?
Iran, by Another Name, Was Once the Savior of Israel
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Book of Tobit: The Angel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri
The Old Testament Book of Tobit provides a setting for this story of a familiar wanderer and his dog and their angelic quest for healing from a traumatic past.
The Old Testament Book of Tobit provides a setting for this story of a familiar wanderer and his dog and their angelic quest for healing from a traumatic past.
April 22, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
The young man went out and the angel went with him, and a dog came along and journeyed with them.
— Tobit 6:1-2
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There are 46 books in the Old Testament of Sacred Scripture. Among them are 14 that are in the category of Historical Books. Each tells a story about the history of God’s people from the earliest times. The Historical Books of the Bible do not convey the Word of God in the same way as the Law and the Prophets, but in them we come to know God through the power of story. I wrote of one of these wonderful accounts in the category of Historical Books in “The Holy Spirit and the Book of Ruth at Pentecost.”
Also among these Historical Books are two that are set against the background of the time of exile in Eighth Century BC. They are the Books of Tobit and Esther, each presenting a story of exile far from the Holy Land.
Today’s post is about the Book of Tobit in which we found a modern-day version quite reminiscent of it, in which God’s fidelity in the midst of our suffering and hardship is revealed even in the far-off places. The Book of Tobit mirrors a chapter in the contemporary life of a good friend on the verge of the next chapter in his life.
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Up to now, I have written about only two of the named angels of Sacred Scripture. So as not to distract you from this post, I will link to those other accounts at the end of this one. In a most strange way, the Archangel Raphael has placed himself into the cast of characters at work on our behalf beyond these stone walls. It is a profound account with lots of twists and turns like the Book of Tobit itself, but I will try to straighten the curves a bit.
This is a Part Two of sorts to an earlier post about our friend, Pornchai Moontri and his return to his native Thailand after an absence of 36 years. Pornchai is now 52, and has been struggling to adjust to the land of the free in a country he had not seen since age eleven. Part One of this post was “For Pornchai Moontri, a Miracle Unfolds in Thailand.”
Before I continue that account, I have to comment on the photo atop this post. After the reunion with his family described in the post linked above, Pornchai left with Father John Le for the nine-hour drive back to the Bangkok area and the Society of the Divine Word home, where he had first been living upon his arrival in Thailand. While there, Pornchai learned of an annual Thai custom called, in English, the “Water Festival.” It occurs in mid-April to mark the Thai New Year. It is tradition that Thai citizens honor the dead — a tribute akin to All Souls Day — by cleaning and restoring their tombs. So Pornchai decided to return there for a month to clean and honor the tombs of his Mother and Grandmother. The Water Festival is from April 12 to 16.
In the weeks before the Festival began, Pornchai had been spending his time doing yard work around the unfinished home of his Mother, left vacant since the time of her death. You may recall that after her own return to Thailand, she left that home in 2000 not knowing that she was going to her own untimely death, a victim of an unsolved homicide on the Island of Guam. She was almost the same age Pornchai is now. Being there, and coming to terms with all that transpired before, is an essential part of a most painful journey.
While in the village of Phuwiang (pronounced poo-vee-ANG) Pornchai had been rebuilding his relationship with his distant extended family from which he had been estranged for 36 years. “You can’t go home again.” That was the title of an American novel by Thomas Wolfe. His title signifies that you cannot return to the past, childhood, or old places, as time, change, and memory make the original “home” impossible to truly revisit. They were a close-knit family when Pornchai was taken from them against his will at age eleven. I cannot begin to fathom the depth of alienation and pain behind these reunions. I had been talking with Pornchai daily during this time. I usually called him at 11 AM which is 10 PM for him. It was the month of April, the hottest time of the year in Thailand. One night when I called he was out walking on the street with his late mother’s elder sister. They were surrounded by a pack of loudly barking dogs.
The connections between humans and dogs is a little different in the rural north of Thailand than in the Western World. The dogs are pets only in a loose sense of the term. They bond with someone who feeds them so they are not left entirely to their own devices, but they otherwise roam free to rule the street, rarely if ever coming indoors. They are more or less feral dogs. When I called Pornchai a few nights later, he told me that one of the dogs, the “Alpha” dog who seemed to be the leader of the pack, started following Pornchai every place he went. If Pornchai entered a building, the dog would sit outside and patiently wait for him. He also kept all the other dogs away from Pornchai.
The dog’s name seemed to be “Hill.” No one knows where either the dog or the name came from. Perhaps it means something in Thai, the sole language that Hill had ever heard. Hill attached himself to no one, but over those few weeks, he and Pornchai had become the best of friends. I asked for a photograph of them together, and the one atop this post appeared on my GTL tablet the next day. It broke my heart. Hill, like Pornchai, had a very tough life. Hill exhibited all the wounds and scars of life on the outside that Pornchai bears on the inside. He has had to be a ferocious dog to survive, but in Pornchai’s presence he was as docile and gentle as a lamb.
Enter the Archangel Raphael
I’m not at all sure what prompted me to do this, but after meeting Hill from afar, I began to research the role of dogs in Sacred Scripture. There are 46 references to dogs, and all but two of them are negative. “Many dogs surround me; a pack of evil doers closes in upon me” (Psalm 22:16). But it was the two references that were positive that caught my attention. Both are in the Book of Tobit (6:1-2 and 11:4) and they refer to a single, mysterious dog who appears at the beginning and the end of Raphael’s healing mission with Tobias, the son of Tobit. The dog has no part in the story other than to be there.
The name, Raphael, comes from the Hebrew for “God heals.” Raphael is a prominent figure in the ancient traditions of both Judaism and Christianity. He is identified in Judaism as an “Angel of the Presence,” one of four (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel) who surround God’s Throne and live in his eternal Presence. In the Hebrew Talmud, he was one of the three angels who visited Abraham (Genesis 18) setting in motion the birth of Salvation History. He appears in the Hebrew Shema before retiring: “In the name of the God of Israel, may Michael be on my right hand, Gabriel on my left hand, Uriel before me, Raphael behind me, and above my head, the Divine Presence.”
In Catholic tradition, Raphael is venerated as an angel of healing. Ancient Christian lore presents him as the head of the Guardian angels, the angel of knowledge, and an angel of science. In the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, Raphael binds the fallen angel, Azazel, and casts him into the desert darkness. In the Canon of Sacred Scripture, Raphael appears in only one place, the Book of Tobit and the Bible’s most memorable healing journey. Written up to eight centuries before Jesus walked the Earth, The Book of Tobit reflects the commission of Raphael in the more ancient Apocryphal Book of Enoch:
“Tobias remembered the words of Raphael ... and made a smoke. When the demon smelled the odor, he fled to the remotest parts of Egypt where the angel bound him.”
—Tobit 8:2-3
I wrote some years ago about my bout with Azazel, this demon of the desert, but it was long before I realized that Raphael is the angel who bound him. For a glimpse of who and what Azazel is, and his role in our misery, see “Christ in the Desert: A Devil of a Time,” also linked at the end of this post.
The Book of Tobit Is Pornchai’s Story
The Book of Tobit was originally written in Aramaic, the language of the Jews before the development of Hebrew and their settlement in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. A version of the story was preserved in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. Fragments of it were also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran.
The story of Tobit is brief but complex. Though written in Aramaic, most scholars date its origin in oral tradition in the Eighth Century BC and its written form at least two centuries before Christ. Among Jewish scholars, it was seen not as a historical book, but as Wisdom Literature. In the Canon of Sacred Scripture today the Book of Tobit is among the Historical Books for its focus on story, which is not a measure of historical accuracy, but of meaning. Its characters are historical persons, but its point is to convey a Scriptural truth. The story begins with Tobit, a devout and charitable Israelite who is deported into exile in Nineveh. Even there, he is an exemplary man who cares for his son, Tobias, his wife, and other captives in exile.
Then one day, due to an accident, Tobit loses his sight. About to lose everything else, he commissions his son, Tobias, to journey to far away Media to recover funds left in the care of a distant relative there. Tobit’s wife thinks Tobias is being sent to his doom, so Tobit issues a desperate plea to God to protect his son and recover his fortune. Meanwhile, in Media, Sarah, the daughter of the distant relative, is plagued by the presence of a demon named Asmodeus who has murdered everyone she loves. Sarah also prays a desperate plea to God for deliverance.
God hears both their prayers, and assigns Archangel Raphael to be the instrument of His Divine Mercy. Raphael involves himself in the Great Tapestry of God to see to it that these desperate lives converge safely upon Media and their paths cross. In the form of a stranger named Azarias, Raphael shows up in Nineveh to accompany Tobias safely to Media, a journey that will bring about the healing of both Tobit and Sarah and the rebuilding of their lives.
Strangely, as the opening lines of this post suggest, on the day Tobias and the Archangel depart on their healing journey, a dog shows up and walks with them (Tobit 6:1-2). The dog has no part in the story other than to accompany them. In the footnotes of the Scripture scholars who analyze this story in the Revised Standard Version, the dog is referred to simply as “surprising.”
In the end, the balm made by Tobias under Raphael’s instruction for the ultimate healing of Tobit’s blindness also exposes the demon haunting Sarah. The demon Asmodeus flees into Egypt where the Archangel Raphael binds him and imprisons him in the desert. Then Raphael acquires the sum of money needed by Tobit, and they all commence the long journey back to Nineveh to heal Tobit’s blindness. And for the second time, the Book of Tobit mysteriously reports, “So they went their way, and the dog went along behind them” (Tobit 11:4).
In the end, Raphael revealed himself to Tobit, Tobias and Sarah. He told Tobit that God has seen all the good he has done even in exile:
“I am Raphael, one of the Seven Holy Angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence in the Glory of the Holy One ... Do not be afraid, for I did not come on my own part, but by the will of our God.”
— Tobit 12:15ff
To Be Reborn In the Land of Your Birth
I am writing this post on Divine Mercy Sunday, the day and date that Pornchai became a Catholic in prison in 2010. In a call to him this morning, he told me that he attended Mass at Saint Joseph Church, a small Catholic parish thriving in the Buddhist enclave of Nong Bua Lamphu Province in Northern Thailand where many have gathered for the Buddhist Water Festival to honor the tombs of their loved ones.
Among them is the tomb of Wannee, Pornchai’s Mother who was also murdered by the demon, Asmodeus. You may note from the photo with Hill atop this post that Pornchai has a large tattoo on his left shoulder. It is from a portrait of his Mother, etched masterfully on his arm by an artistic prisoner just days after Pornchai learned of her death. It was at the time his only means to memorialize and to mourn her.
Pornchai has felt lost in Thailand. After a 36-year absence, and five months in horrible ICE detention, he has been free for just over five years at this writing. How could he feel anything else but lost? One of our good friends, a young man whom Pornchai has helped much, said as I write this that “Pornchai’s mission right now is not to do, but simply to be.” That is a very wise young man.
Please join me in a petition to Our Father to send Raphael to accompany Pornchai on this long and arduous journey of healing from the wounds of the past. And perhaps even a prayer for Hill, a battered dog who now walks with Raphael. Pornchai dearly misses him and commends him to the Angel of Presence.
O Raphael the Archangel, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us. Raphael, Angel of happy meeting, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for. May all our movements be guided by your light and transfigured with your joy. Angel, guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the feet of Hirn whose unveiled face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired, crushed in spirit by the separations and sorrows of life, we feel the need of calling to you and pleading for the protection of your wings so we may not be as strangers in the province of joy. Remember the weak, you who are so strong, you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder in a land that is always at peace, bright with the resplendent glory of God.
Addendum: Max Moontri and the Fate of Hill, the Dog
My post above about the Book of Tobit caused a stir among our readers who wanted to know the fate of Hill, the dog. Hill arrived in Max’s life in mystery and left the same way.
After I wrote “Book of Tobit: Angel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri,” I received a larger-than-usual number of messages from readers who all had one nagging question: “What happened to Hill, Pornchai’s dog? Did he die? That would be just awful!” I agree, but that outcome was by no means certain. It is likely that Hill has in fact died, but like the rest of that story it remains shrouded in mystery. Max had decided not to leave Hill on the streets in the Village of Phuwiang, Max’s place of birth. Instead, after talking with me, Max and I both decided that he should bring Hill to the home where Max was living in the City of Pak Chong. Hill was an older dog who, like Max in a darker time of his life, was forced to live on the streets. It was the only life Hill knew, and Max agonized over what to do. The stories told to him by cousins in Phuwiang, that every time Max went there and then left, Hill would linger in a lonely vigil outside the house of Max’s late Mother waiting for Max to return.
So we decided on a trial run. Max would bring Hill to Pak Chong, where he would be better cared for, and Max could always bring him back after a few days if Hill showed signs of distress. Getting Hill into the car was a challenge at first. Hill had never before been in a car. But with a little coaxing and a little food, Hill jumped in. He slept through most of the long ride and appeared to adjust quite well. He was well fed and cared for over several weeks and seemed to love Pak Chong. Max and Hill would run in the large, walled off front yard. Hill would stand guard while Max did some landscaping, and would snarl whenever another dog or unknown person would approach the wall. Then one night, Max was outside with Hill, and they were running together. Hill would run immediately behind Max. Then Max stepped into the house for just a moment. When he came out Hill was mysteriously gone without a trace. Max searched the entire property. Hill was nowhere to be found. The only conclusion was that he must have jumped over the wall. Max searched for days in every direction, but with no sign of Hill anywhere. That was about three years ago, and no trace of Hill ever showed up. Max was heartbroken and felt that he had let Hill down. I took the opposite view, that Max had given Hill his only human companion in life. Why and how he left remains a mystery.
I like to think that, like the mysterious dog in the Book of Tobit, Hill went with the Angel Raphael.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: After five years in his native Thailand, some of it on the verge of homelessness, my friend Pornchai Max is about to embark on another journey to which Divine Mercy has summoned him. This has developed only in the last few weeks, so I will have more information coming soon. In coming days Pornchai will relocate to the far northwestern corner of Thailand where he will undertake a mission in support of one of Thailand’s alienated hill tribes.
Thank you for reading and sharing this post, but don’t stop here. For more on this amazing and moving story please see:
For Pornchai Moontri, a Miracle Unfolds in Thailand
Christ in the Desert: A Devil of a Time
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael: Allies in Spiritual Battle
Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The Resurrection of Christ: Further Along the Road to Emmaus
What are we to understand when we speak of the Resurrection of Jesus? Ancient Scriptures and interpretations from a brilliant theologian-pope provide amazing clues.
What are we to understand when we speak of the Resurrection of Jesus? Ancient Scriptures and interpretations from a brilliant theologian-pope provide amazing clues.
April 8, 2026 within the Octave of Easter
by Father Gordon MacRae with theological assistance from Pope Benedict XVI
Note: The following is Part 2 of our Holy Week post, “The Darkness of the Cross Enlightened on the Road to Emmaus.”
In the above captioned post, we left you on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus of Nazareth had been accused of blasphemy by the Jewish Sanhedrin. He was handed over to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate for judgment. He was placed on trial, convicted, mercilessly scourged and then crucified. Those who followed and believed in him were devastated and lost. Some had hoped to find in him the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. Some hoped for a messianic end to the tyranny of Rome and its occupation of Judea. Others hoped for redemption. All were left demoralized. All had come to ruin. This is where we left you on the Road to Emmaus.
Some of the disciples of Jesus remained in Jerusalem in hiding. Others left, believing that all hope had come to an end. This includes the two who encountered a stranger on the Road to Emmaus about seven miles down that road from Jerusalem. One of them, Cleopas, and his fellow traveler, disciples of Jesus both, were among those who had hoped that Jesus would ultimately reign as a king in Jerusalem and rescue their nation from the oppression of Rome. Jesus, after hearing of their plight, while still disguised from their sight, challenged them: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)
That Christ should suffer is a mystery foretold in the Old Testament according to Acts 3:18. On the Road to Emmaus Jesus gives to the two fleeing disciples an overview of Salvation History from the Hebrew Scriptures. His entire life was foreordained in Scripture, his birth, his earthly ministry, his death and his Resurrection.
Having come to the village in which they intended to stay, while the stranger intended to go further on, the two disciples asked him to remain with them saying “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” While they were at table in that village the stranger took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them recalling the sequence of his actions at the Last Supper. Immediately their eyes were opened and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. Then he vanished from their sight.
“Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
— Luke 24:32
They immediately abandoned their flight from Jerusalem and returned as quickly as they could. They found the Eleven, the Apostles, gathered together along with other disciples who remained. Some of the Eleven declared to them what the others in the room had already heard with great excitement, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told of what happened on the road, and of how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The disciples became animated as the horror of the Crucifixion was slowly transformed into this newfound hope of the Resurrection as the appearances of Christ multiplied. They had no expectation or notion of what this meant. Coming down from the mountain after their experience of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13), Jesus cautioned them to tell no one what they had seen or heard. “So they kept the matter to themselves while wondering what rising from the dead meant.” The disciples did not know, and could find out only by encountering the reality of it. So what exactly did the Resurrection of Christ mean? For my answer to this, I count heavily on the view of one of the most accomplished Catholic theologians of our time, Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.
An Evolutionary Leap
“ ‘If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified that he raised Christ’ (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). With these words to the community of Corinth, Saint Paul explains drastically what faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means for the Christian message. It is its very foundation. Our faith stands or falls on the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the dead.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol 2: Holy Week, p241
Our answer to the question of the Resurrection will determine whether Jesus merely was in history or also still is. This is a most important question. So what actually happened to Jesus? For the witnesses who encountered the Risen Lord in Scripture, it is hard to say because for the most part they did not fully understand this new reality about Christ. There are multiple “resurrection” stories in the New Testament. Luke (11:17) tells us of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain. Mark (5:22-24, 35-43) tells of the raising of the daughter of Jairus. John (11:1-44) famously relates the raising of Lazarus.
What happened to Jesus is entirely different from these. His Resurrection was not merely the miracle of a resuscitated corpse. We have all heard stories of people brought medically back from the brink in near-death experiences. What the Gospel relates about Christ is very different from any of those accounts. The Resurrection of Jesus was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but rather lies beyond it. The Resurrection of Jesus opens up a new dimension not only of his existence, but also of ours.
Reading these conclusions from Pope Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth, his masterwork of theological exegesis, almost seems like science fiction, but it is neither science nor fiction. It is not a newly written script for an episode fo Startrek: The Next Generation. It is rather an account seeking understanding that has always been at our fingertips. Benedict XVI cautioned that this opens up an analogy that could be easily misunderstood, but delving into it is a necessity of salvific truth and faith. The Resurrection of Christ constitutes an “evolutionary leap,” a new possibility of human existence that affects everyone and that opens up a new kind of future for humanity.
The Cosmic Body of Christ
On the basis of all this biblical evidence, what are we now in a position to say about the true nature of Christ’s Resurrection? Pope Benedict presents it as something akin to a radical “evolutionary leap” in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence.
This is what is meant by those passages in Saint Paul’s letters written from prison (Colossians 1:12-23 and Ephesians 1:3-23) that hint at the cosmic Body of Christ, indicating that Christ’s transformed (Resurrected) body oversteps the boundaries of what we are able to conceive. Here is an example:
“He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son … . He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God is pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his Cross.
— Colossians 1:13-20
The Resurrection of Jesus points far beyond history but has left a footprint within human history that was attested to by witnesses as an event of unprecedented kind and importance.
This man Jesus, complete with his body, now belongs totally to the sphere of the divine and eternal. The evidence in the Gospel is clear. The Resurrected Jesus can walk among us. He shows the Doubting Apostle, Saint Thomas, the wounds in his hands and side. He lets Thomas probe those wounds that are now for eternity a part of him, accepted on our behalf.
From here on, in both spirit and body, Jesus has a place within God. Even if man by his nature is created for immortality, it is only by virtue of the Resurrection of Christ that the place exists for our immortal souls to find their “space” in which immortality takes on its meaning as communion with God. This is hinted at in a mysterious passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians written from prison. It was the Second Reading for our Easter Sunday Mass this year. I, too, have written some things from prison that press against the boundaries of easy understanding, but I do not hold a candle to Saint Paul:
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
— Colossians 3:1-3
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. It is unclear whether I have shed any light at all on the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus. But it is most clear to me now that the Resurrection of Christ sheds light on us as we stand in God’s Presence.
You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
The Darkness of the Cross Enlightened on the Road to Emmaus
The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Our Holy Week Retreat for Beyond These Stone Walls
Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.
Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.
Holy Week for Beyond These Stone Walls
As many of our readers know, this blog began in controversy in 2009. Born out of a challenge from the late Cardinal Avery Dulles to rise above suffering and consider instead its legacy. Many posts in my long Prison Journal since 2010 have been about the injustices that I and other priests have faced. But in the weeks before his death in December 2008, Cardinal Dulles sent a series of letters to me in prison. He challenged me to dig deeper into my own passion narrative. Cardinal Dulles wrote:
“Someone might want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Alfred Delp, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Saint Paul, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”
And so in preparation for Holy Week in 2010, I began to make a concerted effort to set aside my own unjust plight to write a post about the Passion of the Christ. I compose a new Holy Week post every year since to present a different scene in the Way of the Cross. For me, this has become a sacred obligation as a priest to take part in my own unique way in the events that led to Calvary and beyond. And, yes, there IS a beyond.
Many readers, especially those who have also suffered in ways large or small, have found these posts to be inspiring. No one has been more surprised by this than me. So we have collected our Holy Week posts in the order in which they appear in the Gospel narrative to become an invitation for a personal retreat. We invite you to make these posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter observance.
If any of them touches your heart and soul in some way, or gives you a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, then please also share a link to them with others. I hear from many newer readers who first came to this blog in just that way, and then found in these pages spiritual consolation and a path to peace.
We will add a new post on Wednesday of Holy Week this year and will make the title linked here, active at that time.
The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage (2020)
Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.
Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light (2020)
The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.
Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane (2019)
The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.
The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ (2024)
The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.
Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands (2014)
‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’
The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’ (2017)
The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.
Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross (2023)
Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.
Dismas, the Good Thief Crucified Next to Christ the King (2025)
With Jesus before him, Pilate asked the chief priests, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ They replied ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ Only a criminal saw Christ the King.
To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell (2022)
The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.
Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb (2015)
History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.
The Darkness of the Cross Enlightened on the Road to Emmaus (2026)
At Gethsemane Jesus of Nazareth agreed to bear the Cross to his own Crucifixion so that following him to Heaven’s Gate would not be a burden of impossibility for us.
The Resurrection of Christ: Further Along the Road to Emmaus
What are we to understand when we speak of the Resurrection of Jesus? Ancient Scriptures and interpretations from a brilliant theologian-pope provide amazing clues.
Before the gates there sat, On either side a formidable Shape
One of Gustave Dore’s illustrations of the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton (Courtesy of University at Buffalo)
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Don’t Let the Noonday Devil Tip the Scales
Anyone who has experienced the grip of depression knows it is a spiritual disease as much as it is mental and physical. Is there a spiritual path out of the dark night?
Anyone who has experienced the grip of depression knows it is a spiritual disease as much as it is mental and physical. Is there a spiritual path out of the dark night?
There is an old and wise foreboding in Catholic monastic traditions to “Beware the Noonday Devil.” That was also the title of an excellent 2007 post by Father Paul Scalia at Catholic Exchange. For monks who arose in the night for the Divine Office prayer of Matins, and then arose again early in the morning for Lauds, the noonday period sometimes induced lethargy and sloth that left monks in the grip of depression. Noonday with its exhaustion and malaise was seen as a spiritually vulnerable time. Thus in monastic life depression came to be known as “the noonday devil.”
Support for the monastic concern was also found in Sacred Scripture, notably in the Gospel: “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). An admonition of Saint Peter warns us to “Stay sober and alert for your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Psalm 91, my favorite of the Psalms, addressed the noonday dread more directly:
“You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that lays waste at noonday.”
— Psalm 91:5-6
For anyone who has ever suffered from chronic depression, Saint Peter’s characterization of “a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” pretty much captures it. So does the Psalmist’s “the destruction that lays waste at noon.” As Holy Week approached this year, I began to look at how I could challenge my own occasional depression. Then I decided to make a post of it, and invite others to join this battle.
First, however, if you are prescribed medication for depression, don’t give that up for Lent! I can offer no medical expertise for treating the insidious disease of depression, but I do have some hard-won experience on depression’s spiritual toll. I can also offer some of the spiritual guidance that, for me, at least, has proven effective in taming this roaring lion for it has devoured me too often. I’ve learned an important truth about coping with depression in my current milieu, but that lesson begins with a painful and depressing story.
Solitary Confinement
Several years ago, when our friend Pornchai Max Moontri was still here with me, I was lying in my bunk one night at 10:00 PM. My little television was tuned to a PBS station. I was just about to turn it off when an episode of PBS Frontline began. “It’s like being buried alive,” I heard a shaky voice say. “It makes you mean; it makes you violent, it [expletive’s] up your head,” said another. Added a third, “If you don’t have a strong mind, this place can break you quick.”
Then a somber voice introduced Rodney Bouffard, Warden of Maine State Prison’s “supermax” unit who said, “You can have them do their whole time in segregation, but I don’t want him living next to me when you release him.”
I suddenly realized that I was about to see a Frontline production about the solitary confinement“supermax” unit of the Maine State Prison where Pornchai Moontri spent thirteen years before being transferred to the New Hampshire prison where we met and became unlikely friends. As Frontline introduced the story, Pornchai was fast asleep in his bunk just a few feet above me. I pondered for a moment whether to awaken him, and then decided against it.
Each night at 9:00 PM, Pornchai was given medication for a diagnosis of acute anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The meds generally sent him into a deep sleep by 10:00 PM on every night except Sunday when he struggled to remain awake for Mass in our cell. So I decided to brave Frontline’s “Solitary Nation” alone and then tell him about it the next day. By the time it was over, Pornchai remained fast asleep while I spent much of that night in a state of restless horror.
The Frontline cameras spent six months filming in a place rarely seen by the public. I followed the plight of a few Maine prisoners who spent months at a time in and out of solitary confinement, rendered, as the Warden predicted, socially disabled and emotionally broken because of their months in solitary. One prisoner who spent a year there in one stretch was the one quoted above who described how it made him mean, violent, and broken.
As the documentary unfolded, I saw prisoners covered in blood having cut themselves in their solitary madness. I saw fecal matter come flying out the food slots in the cell doors during fits of anger toward guards. I watched the horror of a screaming young man being placed for the first time in one of those bloodstained and horribly smelling tombs. I saw men so broken and mentally ill by the time they moved on that I knew they could not last long out among the living, only to land in solitary again.
Then I recalled that Pornchai spent a total of over thirteen years there, confined in one stretch of solitary confinement for three-and-a-half years in what had to be the longest any prisoner survived in Maine’s supermax. I could conceive of no modern horror more destructive to one’s humanity than what I witnessed on that small screen. The fact that I was seeing for the first time the conditions Pornchai lived in, and still lives with, made me unable to turn away or turn it off.
I remember reading Pornchai’s somber details in “Welcome to Supermax,” a courageous article he wrote years ago published by the prison reform organization, Solitary Watch. I knew Pornchai never exaggerated any of his experiences there, but articles can be easy to intellectualize. Now I had a visual to go along with it, and it woke me up to the bitter reality of what had happened to him.
It was important that I understand this. If you want to understand it as well, I recommend viewing “Solitary Nation” at PBS.org. In the morning when I told Pornchai about this he said simply, “Now you know.”
The human mind tends to store up its traumas. Because we do not know how to cope with them, we just shelve them away where they remain unaddressed, unresolved, and gradually inflated. We relive them again and again to inflict their suppression of all consolation and peace in our psyche.
When I look back over the years since Pornchai was moved from there to here with me, I can see more clearly now that he came back from the brink of total despair. Pornchai himself wrote about this. It was after our entire nation suffered trauma in Uvalde, Texas. In a mirror image version of that story in Thailand, a former police officer off the rails on drugs went into a Thai preschool and murdered 36 people including 24 preschool children. It was one year after Pornchai returned to Thailand after a 36-year absence. Nothing like this had ever happened in Thailand before, and it happened just a few kilometers from the village where Pornchai was born. As the Kingdom of Thailand struggled to find meaning in any of this, Pornchai boldly wrote about it and what he wrote helped to mend many hearts (including mine). His post was “Pornchai Moontri: Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand.”
When Pornchai first arrived here after solitary confinement in the State of Maine, I met him for the first time in the prison dining hall. One of my friends, Jaclan Wawarunto, a young man from Indonesia whom I had helped to prepare for deportation, saw me enter the dining hall and shouted “Hey, G, sit over here with us. This is my new friend Pornchai. He just got here, and he wants to ask you a question.” So I sat across from them. The young man Jaclan wanted me to meet appeared hostile. He glared at me as he said, “I just want to know if you can help me get transferred to a prison in Bangkok.” Ironically, I had just finished reading 4,000 Days, a book about the horror of life in a Bangkok prison. I told him that I would not help him do anything that would only destroy him. He turned to Jaclan angrily and asked, “Who is this jerk?”
That was our first encounter.
When Pornchai and I first became friends in 2006, he had periods in which he sank into deep, hopeless depression. I remember one day that his cellmate at the time came to me and said, “I don’t know what to do. He hasn’t spoken or eaten or even gotten out of bed in days except to use the bathroom.” That was many years ago. I remember going to talk with Pornchai, and feeling very concerned about the lifeless expression and hopelessness in his face. It is a common look in prison, but Pornchai had perfected it. So I told him that I was not leaving his cell “until you get your butt out of that bunk and talk to me.” He obliged, but only to get rid of me. The anger in his eyes masked deep, deep chasms of pain and distrust born of betrayal and abuse.
Over the long run, as you know if you have been reading from Beyond These Stone Walls, friendship found a well of trust, and then a source of hope, and then the courage to have faith, and then the discovery of Divine Mercy and, finally, a radical conversion. All these years later, it seems impossible to reconcile the account above with the face of Pornchai Moontri at his 2012 high school graduation in prison, it radiates hope and promise and redemption.
The Destruction That Lays Waste
How does one go from years of abuse, followed by years of brutal solitary confinement in a supermax prison to that? The question becomes ever more mysterious if you watch the Frontline video. As Pornchai himself described that transformation, “I woke up one day with a future when up to then all I ever had was a past.”
Some years ago, as seems inevitable in prison, I sank into a depression of my own. Actually, I have noticed that every time I have become depressed in prison, it was always a result of thinking myself into the depression. Feelings of hopelessness and futility crept in, and as I dwelled on them, I played their messages over and over in my mind, filling up all the empty moments with my inner language of injustice and resentment.
I always ended up on the slippery slope toward a bout of depression. Few of my episodes lasted long, but at some point, the destruction that laid waste came from inside my own mind, and left me unprepared to stand my ground. It was precipitated by a visit from my bishop, the first after many years of silence, and presumably the last.
The visit was far from transcendent. Every attempt I made to speak in my own defense was rebuffed and silenced with the raising of his hand to stop me from speaking. He was clearly not there to listen. It became clear to me that the script had already been written, and Church officials would continue to refuse to allow any defense, any due process. At the same time, an American cardinal assured writer, Ryan A. MacDonald that every accused American Catholic priest is afforded due process and a full canonical defense. The disconnect between rhetoric and reality is… well… depressing!
As I sank into my own depression, I became oblivious — as the noonday devil often demands — to its effect on others. Then one day I witnessed something I had not seen for a long time in the face of my friend, doubt, uncertainty, and grief. Pornchai’s own bouts of suffering from deeply felt discouragement and abandonment had diminished. Now he was suffering from mine. As my spirit slowly descended, I came to see that I could not afford to let it fall any further. I was losing my grip not only on my own cross, but also on someone else’s. Just imagine Simon of Cyrene letting that happen.
Our Editor at the time sent me a message that she had ordered a book for me. I doubted I would ever see it as most books sent to me require that I give one up to receive it, and that is sometimes difficult. Without a hitch, however, the book arrived, and it is a treasure. The book was The Catholic Guide to Depression by Aaron Kheriaty, MD, with Father John Cihak, STD (Sophia Press, 2012). I had a chuckle because our Editor at the time was in Australia from where she ordered the book, while Sophia Press its publisher was but 15 miles away from me in Manchester, New Hampshire. When I first opened the book, I landed immediately on a page I believe I was meant to read.
“The well-known psychiatrist Viktor Frankl observed that hope is essential if one is to go on living under difficult circumstances. Frankl was a Jew imprisoned in Auschwitz who years later wrote his most famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning… . Frankl argued that survival in such circumstances required that a person find some meaning, some noble end or purpose to his life.”
— The Catholic Guide to Depression, p. 210
This blog began in 2009 with that same book, Viktor Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Meaning. In a subsequent post for this blog, I wrote back then of how it led me to this great modern Saint of Auschwitz, how it taught me to cope with the prison of depression and despair by placing the pain of others ahead of my own, and of how Pornchai, moved by Saint Maximilian’s sacrifice, took his name at the time of his Divine Mercy conversion in 2010. I wrote of how finding meaning in his suffering transformed Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and ultimately transformed us in my post, “Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance.”
Saved by Hope
I found it astonishing that both Viktor Frankl and Aaron Kheriaty, MD went on in their respective books to cite Saint Maximilian Kolbe as an example of the virtue of hope lived for the good of others. “Hope is a virtue that changes everything,” Dr. Kheriaty wrote. He quoted Pope Benedict XVI in his magisterial encyclical, Spe Salvi, Saved by Hope: “The one who has hope lives differently.”
Around the time I was first encountering Dr. Kheriaty’s book, Pornchai Moontri and I were in the prison’s main dining hall for dinner. It was unusual that we were there at a time when it was especially crowded. We managed to find a table with two empty seats, but quickly other tables all filled up with several prisoners standing and holding their trays while looking for a seat. Suddenly one of the men sitting with us got up and left while one of the waiting inmates quickly moved into his empty seat. We did not know this person, and he did not speak at first. So Pornchai and I just continued our conversation. Suddenly this young man looked very interested. He said, “Excuse me, can I ask you guys a question?” I said, “Sure.” He asked, “Do you write for a blog?” And then to Pornchai he asked, “Are you from Thailand?” Most prisoners would find this very invasive, but we did not. The young man said that he had arrived in the prison only a few weeks earlier, but before his arrival, while being sentenced was still a looming threat, he was visited in a county jail by his grandmother. She told him that she had been reading about two guys in the New Hampshire Prison “who lived differently from everyone else.” The young man said, “You guys are famous! My grandmother won’t believe I met you.”
So Pornchai invited him to the Catholic Mass in the prison chapel. This was sadly in the days before Covid and before any sign of a Catholic Mass was extinguished. But our association with this young man gave him hope, something he expressed to us with gratitude as he was preparing to leave prison two years later.
Only by failing to instill hope in others can the roaring lion of depression ever devour you. Once such a thing takes place, there is no room for depression. It loses its will to feed itself, and ceases its descent. Saint Maximilian gave his life because he found a suffering greater than his own, and that became his cross, willingly borne.
The key to coping with depression is to become Maximilian Kolbe, to bear the cross of another, never putting it down long enough to make room for self-absorption. It gives birth to hope, and “the one who has hope lives differently.” It’s what places you, as Psalm 91 promises, “In the shelter, of the Most High, abiding in the shadow of the Almighty,” a worthy destination for a Lenten journey.
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Editor’s Note: Dr Aaron Kheriaty has a one-hour video about coping with depression. The setting was an interview at Franciscan University in which he discusses the major points of A Catholic Guide to Depression.
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Note From Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Sharing it on social media may place it before someone who really needs to read it. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
Pornchai Moontri: Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand
Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance
The Measure By Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Science and Faith Are Not Mutually Incompatible
Albert Einstein honored Georges Lemaitre, the priest, physicist and mathematician whose Big Bang Theory is now the scientifically accepted origin of the universe.
Albert Einstein honored Georges Lemaitre, the priest, physicist and mathematician whose Big Bang Theory is now the scientifically accepted origin of the universe.
March 11, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
In 2016, an issue of the former Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor profiled some eye-opening research in an article entitled “Young People Are Leaving the Faith: Here’s Why” (August 27, 2016). It was an analysis of two national studies conducted by The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) to provide insight into the reasons why a third of “millennials” who were raised Catholic reject the faith of their parents as young adults.
In the CARA studies, “Millennials” are defined as those born in 1982 or later. The majority of the young adults who responded with comments on the research indicated that they left their faith for science, concluding that Catholicism cannot be reconciled with science at the high school and university level. They report finding little in the Catholic presentation of faith that challenges that view. The OSV summary included a sampling of the responses behind their decisions:
“As I learn more about the world around me and understand things that I once did not, I find the thought of an all-powerful being to be less and less believable.”
“Catholic beliefs aren’t based on fact… nothing can be disproved, but it certainly shouldn’t be taken seriously.”
“I realized that religion is in complete contradiction with the rational and scientific world, and to continue to subscribe to a religion would be hypocritical.”
“As I started to enjoy math and science more, I realized the discrepancy between religion and science… Catholicism especially did seem to clash fairly well.”
“[Faith] no longer fits into what I understand of the universe.”
These responses reflect a pattern of thought familiar to many parents of young adult Catholics and others concerned about the dismal conclusions of the CARA research. This is also one of the most common pleas I hear on a global scale from parents and grandparents and other readers of this blog.
I must seem to be an enigma to those who have left our faith or are pondering doing so. Judging from my posts of the last ten years, though it was never intended to be so, I seem to devote almost equal time to both faith and science. For example, we have recently collected in one place a number of posts dedicated to the understanding of Sacred Scripture. We called this collection, “The Bible Speaks.” Apparently it speaks quite loudly. There are presently some 43 titles in that collection, and some have broken records among the readership of this blog.
But there is a similar phenomenon that has been taking place in more recent years. I have also written several posts about science and especially the sciences of cosmology, astronomy and particle physics. One of my friends here who comes to the library where I work has asked me for copies of posts over the last few years. He recently complained of feeling a sense of whiplash, bouncing between science and religion, but he said he finds both to be fascinating. To demonstrate this phenomenon one recent post has broken all records in numbers of readers and especially in numbers of readers who come to it again and again, and who share it. That post is “Did Stephen Hawking Sacrifice God on the Altar of Science?” It seems that many people believed that he did, but I have made a case for the opposite. What strikes me most about that post is the unfathomable number of educational institutions of higher learning that are also sharing it and recommending it.
The same has held true for another recent post that blends principles of both science and faith entitled “The Higgs Boson God Particle: All Things Visible and Invisible.” Our Editor has observed and commented on the high number of academic institutions that have also been visiting religious titles on this blog. Some of these institutions are dedicated to scientific research, and yet here they are suddenly delving into the mysteries of Catholic faith. And yet no one is denouncing anything. They seem to come here to observe and to learn, not to refute.
True Believers
I have some firsthand experience with the challenging questions posed by science for the faith of younger Catholics. A decade ago at one university, the son of a reader of this blog, a science major, sent me a letter filled with questions. The previous summer, his mother had emailed him with a link to one of my forays into the science of cosmology entitled, “Science and Faith and the Big Bang Theory of Creation.” In his letter to me the student wrote that he pretty much just dismissed the post as irrelevant without having read it. He read his mother’s email, but didn’t bother clicking on the link until two months later. The student wrote that he grew up in a devout family that accepted Catholic teachings about the world and universe without question. He attended Catholic schools until switching to a public high school, then abandoned his faith in adolescence because his interest in science made faith seem irrelevant.
He believed, or rather was led to believe, that science and religion are mutually incompatible, unable to coexist in a person of science. “The bias fed to me in academia,” he wrote in a much later letter, “was that science is the new source of all faith, and to be taken seriously as a scientist requires setting aside the faith of my parents in this new world order.” And thus ended his identity as a Catholic. It is a troubling story given that for every convert entering the Catholic faith in America in recent years, more than six others left.
The exit of millennials is not at all for the reasons typically put forward by older Catholics who become disenchanted with their Church. In the CARA study, Catholic scandal and the Latin Mass are barely touched upon as influential reasons. And the millennials are not leaving to embrace some other faith. They now constitute the fastest growing expression of religious belief in America — the “Nones,” who self-identify with no religious affiliation at all. A decade ago in “A Crisis of Faith, Not of Worship,” a soul-stirring post at The Catholic Thing, (Aug. 24, 2016) Father Mark A. Pilon made this point well:
“The real underlying problem is simple: it’s a massive loss of faith… About thirty years ago, a reliable survey revealed that only about 30 percent of Catholics believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist any longer. Why didn’t the bishops call an emergency meeting to reflect on this loss of faith, as they did in 2002 to deal with sexual abuse? … The highest priority has to be this basic question: What caused this massive loss of faith, and how do we work to resurrect that lost faith?”
These are very relevant questions, but some have already begun to change. In early 2025 I wrote a post entitled “On the Great Biblical Adventure, the Truth Will Make You Free.” Something happened over the preceding year that signaled a great cultural change toward openness to religion and especially biblical studies. Book publishers have observed that Bible sales greatly increased by double digits toward the end of 2024. A lot of factors were proposed as contributing to this, including the election of 2024, the assassination attempts on the leading U.S. presidential candidate at that time, and later the assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. These were inflection points causing broad swaths of America and elsewhere in the free world to pause and reassess where we are and where we are going. The biblical interest and its resulting growth of interest in faith also has continued to this day. For those who have suggested that Catholic leaders need to take advantage of this trend, a good start would be to moderate “climate change” as an example of our highest priority while abandoning other priorities, such as respect for life. Our hierarchy might also want to reconsider its revulsion for the Traditional Latin Mass and for those who find spiritual comfort in it, many of whom are younger Catholics. And a prohibition against kneeling to receive the True Presence of Christ is simply mind-boggling for true believers. We cannot welcome back a generation of young believers by browbeating them to abandon the evidence for their belief.
The Folly of Leaving Faith Behind for Science
The answer to the suspected disconnect between science and faith is not as simple as seeking relevancy by replacing faith with science. True believers in both find not only “common ground” but windows to the universe that will leave the believer in awe. The student who had been writing to me, for example, is now on his way back. As time wore on, his mother asked him what he thought about the post she sent him. He scurried to find “Science and Faith and the Big Bang Theory of Creation” buried in his inbox, and then he actually read it.
He later wrote that he was “bowled over” by it, and that it turned on its head the entire scientific orthodoxy that had been fed to him claiming that only freedom from religion could legitimately engage him with the world of science. Science with a bias against faith experience prevented him from seeing the bigger picture.
This student had many questions. First and foremost among them was this: “How is it that you, a person obviously well versed in science, could endure such injustice and still also believe in God?” It was a good question, but the answer requires something other than science’s doubts about faith. A better beginning question was the one I posed in return: “How is it that you, a science major in an American university, never before heard or read that the scientist now considered to be the Father of The Big Bang and Modern Cosmology was a Belgian astrophysicist who was also a Catholic priest?”
That question generated several letters over the last two years, suggesting BTSW posts that he has read and reread and shown to other science majors at his school. Before I get into that, however, I want to describe another development that I read some years ago by Beckie Strum in The Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Loses Top School Ranking to U.K.’s Oxford” (WSJ, Sept. 22, 2016).
For the first time, a university outside the United States was ranked the best university in the world, unseating the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as number one. The U.K.’s Oxford University, the oldest college in the English speaking world, founded in the year 1096, took the top spot in the World University Rankings. Oxford knocked CalTech down to second place, MIT to fifth, and Harvard to sixth bin 2016. At this writing, Oxford has retained that place of primacy for a decade.
Oxford is also host to something missing from more narrowly focused American universities. Oxford is home to a research center called the Ian Ramsey Center for Science & Religion. Its Research Director at the time was Father Andrew Pinsent, a Catholic priest and particle physicist who was formerly on the science team at CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research.
Father Andrew Pinsent holds a Ph.D. in particle physics from Oxford, a Ph.D. in philosophy from St. Louis University, and advanced degrees in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He is a member of the United Kingdom Institute of Physics and the Vatican Conference for Scientists, and presently serves on the faculty and formation staff of a major U.S. seminary.
Father Pinsent has also been a guest writer at this blog. His post, “Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang” was the final leverage that my university friend and correspondent needed to accept the fact that something essential has been missing from his education and exposure in both science and religion. The fact that his science education did not include the story of Georges Lemaitre — the astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and Catholic priest who changed the mind of Albert Einstein on the nature and origin of the universe — told him that it was science, and not faith, that deprived him of a wider world view.
This is a story that has been covered and uncovered at Beyond These Stone Walls in a series of science posts that has run parallel to our collection on Sacred Scripture. Reading these, and especially exploring Father Pinsent’s work, has opened my friend’s eyes as a young Catholic scientist, but it was a part of Father Andrew Pinsent’s guest post that more fully opened my own eyes when he wrote:
“What is to be done to help raise the profile of people like Fr Georges Lemaitre? Among Catholics with some kind of popular outreach, Fr Gordon MacRae, through his widely-read blog Beyond These Stone Walls, has done more than almost anyone I know in recent years to draw attention to Fr Lemaitre. Inspired in part by Fr Gordon’s work, my colleagues and I in England have put together a series of posters called the “Catholic Knowledge Network.”
— Fr Andrew Pinsent, “Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang”
I think I have come to understand Father Georges Lemaitre’s science whose footprint in the history of modern cosmology is parallel to that of Albert Einstein. They were colleagues who became friends, primarily through Einstein’s great respect for Fr Lemaitre’s gifted mathematical and scientific mind. After a lecture about his theory of relativity at a European university in the 1930s, Einstein was approached by a science writer who asked him whether he thought anyone in the audience really comprehended his work. Einstein’s simple answer was “Lemaitre, certainly. As for the rest…”
The scientific dogma of the age was that the universe was static, eternal, and unchanging. Einstein also embraced this view, but it dismissed the beliefs of established religion that the universe was created from nothing.
However, Georges Lemaitre and Russian mathematician Aleksander Friedmann had more faith in Einstein’s mathematics than other scientists of their time. At first, Einstein payed little attention when they used his own equations to conclude that the universe is not static but expanding, and its rate of expansion is increasing when all established science said the opposite.
It was the American astronomer, Edwin Hubble (in whose honor the Hubble Space Telescope is named) who in 1929 discovered physical evidence that Lemaitre is right, that the universe is in fact expanding. Two years later in 1931, Father Georges Lemaitre concluded that the universe began “On a day without yesterday,” 13.8 billion years ago, with the explosion of a primordial atom from which space, time, and matter were created.
The idea was ridiculed, and “The Big Bang” was a pejorative term some scientists used to taunt the physicist priest. But he was right, and he turned science on its head with this revelation that has since been demonstrated with the discovery of cosmic background radiation emanating from The Big Bang.
Einstein, who first disagreed, ended up applauding the idea as “The most beautiful explanation of creation I have ever heard.” It was a bigger bang for science than even Einstein realized. It took the language of mathematics to comprehend that it points to what faith always told us: a universe arising out of nothing.
I think I finally came to some rudimentary understanding of the science behind this through the language of mathematics. For this I owe thanks to Robyn Arianrhod, and her book, Einstein’s Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics (Oxford University Press 2005):
“In 1932, Lemaitre sowed the seeds of the Big Bang theory when he suggested that the universe had started as an explosion of a ‘primeval atom’ that… continued expanding from that explosive beginning. Some of the world’s most ancient creation myths have also imagined the world exploding from some sort of cosmic seed…”
“In 1970, English physicists Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose showed that Einstein’s equations predicted the universe had expanded not from a tiny piece of matter located in an otherwise empty cosmos, but from a single point in four-dimensional spacetime. This meant that the Big Bang was not an ordinary explosion which took place at a specific three-dimensional location at a given time on the cosmic stage, but that Space and time themselves were actually created in the explosion, along with all matter and energy. Before this point … there was no time and no space. No geometry, no matter, nothing. The universe simply appeared out of nowhere. Out of nothing.”
— Einstein’s Heroes, p. 187
“The universe simply appeared out of nowhere. Out of nothing.” Take a moment to ponder that conclusion of science and it will sound a lot like a tenet of faith. Science, mathematics, and faith all open a window to the universe onto the same panoramic vista. And the awe this truth evokes is at one and the same time the comprehension of science and the inspiration of faith.
And as for my student-friend’s first question about the mystery of suffering in the light of faith, I can only gather up some prescientific humility to echo God against the protest of Job:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?… Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?”
— Job 38: 4, 31
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post.
You might also like these other posts from Beyond These Stone Walls about the great adventure of science and faith:
On the Great Biblical Adventure, the Truth Will Make You Free
Science and Faith and the Big Bang Theory of Creation
The Higgs Boson God Particle: All Things Visible and Invisible
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The Compassion of God: The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Saint Luke proclaims the Parable of the Prodigal Son as the Gospel for Saturday of the Second Week of Lent. Is there any sin that is beyond the compassion of God?
Saint Luke proclaims the Parable of the Prodigal Son as the Gospel for Saturday of the Second Week of Lent. Is there any sin that is beyond the compassion of God?
March 4, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
“Ecclesiastes calls you the All-Powerful; Maccabees calls you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you Liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Book of Kings calls you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; Genesis calls you God; man calls you Father; Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names.”
— Bishop Bienvenu in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, 1887
During Lent a few years back, I wrote “A U.S. Marine Who Showed Me What to Give Up for Lent.” Among the multiple characters appearing in that post was my friend, Martin. At the time I wrote it, I had been living in a hellish environment in this prison. My dismay at living there grew deeper on the day Martin showed up because I knew he was going to be subjected to cruelty and ridicule, and I knew that I would have to intervene somehow.
Martin was well into his eighties when he was sent to prison for the first time in his life. He was missing a leg, a fact which confined him to a wheelchair. Because of prison overcrowding, he was living out in the open in an overflow bunk in a large prison dayroom where nearly a hundred bored and lost young men raised hell day and night. One night shortly after Martin arrived, one or two of those dumbasses thought it would be cool to take his wheelchair while he was asleep and put it in the shower with the water running. Martin’s books, letters, and other papers tucked into pockets in the chair were ruined.
But that was the least of his problems that day. When he awoke that Saturday morning, when his chair was nowhere in sight, Martin sat on the edge of his bunk wondering how he would get to the lavatory. A small group of smirking young prisoners skulked like hyenas from a distance to watch the show. This is a game prisoners play with the weak or vulnerable. They place bets to see how long it would take to get someone like Martin to “check in” to protective custody.
I stepped out of my cell that morning, cup of instant coffee in hand, and spotted Martin from a distance sitting on his bunk looking worried. A quick scan of the room told me what happened. So I went in search of his chair, found it in the shower, and brought it to him. I dried it off and took him to the bathroom.
Then I brought Martin some coffee and sat with him for awhile, something that became a daily event in the months to come. I learned that Martin is a Marine who served in Korea. He long ago had given up giving up and would never cave in to the antics of thugs.
I called a couple of them over one day and introduced them to Martin. Then I put them in charge of guarding his chair at night, not letting on that I knew they were the ones who took it in the first place. Longing for a sense of purpose even more than they sought to entertain themselves, they stepped up admirably. I came back from work a few times to see one or two of them, having now absconded with MY chair, sitting and talking with Martin. His life got a little better. So did theirs. So did mine. Martin is gone now, having been paroled to a nursing home for veterans. But one hard truth remains engraved upon my brain. Prison is no country for old men — not even old Marines.
I had Martin in mind when I again unwittingly became the priest who kicked the hornet’s nest a few years ago. I stumbled upon FOX News on the evening of March 8, 2019 just in time to hear EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo in an angry rant about the thoroughly disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then age 90 and the first cardinal in a century to face the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state. “I don’t care if he’s 90” declared Mr. Arroyo. “He ought to be in jail.”
I have long respected Raymond Arroyo, but I was shocked by this and lapsed into a rant of my own. I called a friend and vented, and asked for help to post my own festering rant on social media about what I understood to be a lack of compassion for Theodore McCarrick. “Is mercilessness to be the face of the new Catholic Church?” I asked. The sins at hand were McCarrick’s, but were not his alone. He was known not only for his sins of the flesh, but even more so for his ability to raise money. Lots of money. And the eclessial benefactors of his largesse became complicit in his sin.
Over the next three days, I was roundly beaten up, on LinkedIn especially, by Catholics who agreed entirely with Raymond Arroyo on this. I had grossly underestimated the sense of betrayal and anger that American Catholics felt toward McCarrick, who died before any evident sign of remorse or repentance. But, to quote the late Pope Francis, “Who was I to judge?” I also overerestimated the capacity of some Catholics for compassion. Some of those who argued against me wrote that mercy requires repentance and there hadn’t been any. That is true. For God’s justice to be tempered with God’s mercy requires repentance.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
But compassion is different from mercy. And as Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel points out in the moving quote from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables atop this post, among all the names of God, “Compassion is the most beautiful.”
Compassion from us does not require repentance from those who trespass against us. It requires only humility, from us. It is the capacity that the Gospel of Luke presents as the most challenging portent of Jesus “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you” (Luke 6:38).
Like so much of Sacred Scripture, the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) is a story told with multiple levels of meaning. The first and most obvious is the story on its surface. Tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled. The Pharisees were a loosely knit collection of groups within Judaism that came to prominence at the time of the Maccabean revolt against Hellenist invaders around 167 BC. The Pharisees were only numbered about 6,000 during the Earthly time of Jesus. They wanted Israel to be a theocracy, a religiously oriented society governed by a strict observance of the law.
Some of the scribes were numbered among the other grumblers against Jesus who triggered the Parable of the Prodigal Son and insisted on strict observance of the law. They were antagonistic to Jesus, and in the end these Pharisees and scribes together plotted with the chief priests for his betrayal and arrest.
On its face, the famous parable is a clash between mercy and compassion. The original listeners, the Pharisees and scribes, would have found quite familiar the story of a younger brother triumphing over the goals and objectives of an older brother. The parable has echoes of Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:27-34) and Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37:1-4). In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus cleverly reverses the triumph of the younger brother to portray the younger son as a dismal failure who abandons Judaism to adopt Gentile ways.
The most stinging of his offenses, to the ears of the Pharisees, was the fact that he was reduced to feeding the pigs for a Gentile farmer. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, pigs take on another symbolism far beyond the ancient Mosaic law that holds them as unclean. In Luke (8:26-39) Jesus restores a demented and possessed Gentile to the human community. By casting the evil spirits out of the man and into a herd of pigs that then drive themselves into the sea, Jesus reveals himself as having authority not only over Judaism but also over pagan religion, demonic forces, and Roman rule, which is symbolized by the pigs. In the parable at hand, the younger son becomes a servant to the pigs, the lowest one could ever descend from the Law of Moses.
In the end of the Parable, the younger son comes to his senses and attempts a return to his Father who welcomes him with full restoration of the sonship he abandoned. The Parable directly confronts a position of the Pharisees: that there are sins that are beyond the capacity of even God to forgive.
Life After Death
There are signs that the leaders of our Church now dabble in this same distortion that there are sins that God should not forgive, and even if He does, the Church will not. This is heresy, and it is a heresy that I described in “Synodality Blues: Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” (But the heresy may not be what you think it is.)
It is expressed in striking clarity in the second part of the Parable in the reaction of the Prodigal Son’s older brother. The triumph of a younger son over his older brother is seen in the Hebrew Scriptures in the stories of Esau and Jacob, and Joseph and his brothers. In the parable at hand it becomes not the triumph of the younger but the failure of the older. Once the Father’s mercy had been fulfilled in the Parable, the older son refused to acknowledge his return as his brother. “This son of yours” (Luke 15:30) is a striking refusal of the older son to say, “This brother of mine.”
Though the Father’s mercy has been fulfilled, the older son’s compassion has failed. The great challenge of this parable is the fact that it is left open-ended and without a resolution. It is left with the older son — the one who according to the law alone has always been faithful — standing outside the Father’s house with the Father trying to convince him to enter the banquet feast. The younger son is made righteous by grace and mercy while the older son is revealed as self-righteous. I wrote of this aspect of the parable in another post, “Pope Francis Had a Challenge for the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother.”
At another level, this Parable narrates to its original listeners — the Pharisees and scribes — the account of Israel’s history that they fear most. It is an allegory about what happened after the reign of King Solomon — the one who called God “Compassion.” Israel divided into Northern and Southern kingdoms, living as two brothers with one in exile. Then in the Eighth Century BC the Assyrians carried the Northern Tribes of Israel into “a far country” — just like the younger son in the parable — where they abandoned God and worshipped idols. It was a sin that the Prophets called “harlotry” (Jeremiah 3:6 and Hosea 4:15).
The Cardinal McCarrick story has made this ever more complicated. Please do not confuse my compassion as excusing him. As Cardinal McCarrick, he was one of the chief proponents of the Dallas Charter that cast priests into the desert as scapegoats, in many cases — and I am one of them — guilty only for being accused. It is not easy to hold onto any sense of compassion for him, but there are a lot of things that my conscience says I must do that are not easy.
I cannot speak to the Church’s application of mercy. There does not appear to be any justice as there does not appear to be much in the way of McCarrick’s public repentance as an acknowledgment of his need for mercy. I can only speak to compassion — my own and that of others. I fear that it is becoming an endangered species in our Church as we circle the wagons to declare who is inside and outside the house.
Let’s face this other scandal head-on. Stop wishing old men into prison. Some of us confuse righteous with self-righteous. If mercy fails, we are doomed in the hereafter. But if compassion fails, we are doomed in the here and now.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Don’t be like that older brother. Please share this post and follow us on X.
You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls
Pope Francis Has a Challenge for the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother
Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean
Synodality Blues: Pope Francis in a time of Heresy
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix
A Note About the Rembrandt Masterpiece Atop This Post:
One of the most inspiring artistic renderings of the Return of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15 is Rembrandt’s masterful oil painting, created between 1661 and 1669. Housed in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, it captures the parable’s profound themes of repentance, forgiveness, and unconditional love through a deeply emotional scene: the ragged son kneeling in humility before his compassionate father, whose tender embrace symbolizes mercy and homecoming. The composition’s use of light and shadow, along with subtle psychological details — like the father’s hands evoking both strength and gentleness — creates a timeless sense of spiritual solace and human sympathy. Art historians praise it as a pinnacle of Baroque art, with some calling it one of the greatest paintings ever, serving as a spiritual testament to redemption that resonates across centuries.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The Law and the Prophets and the Transfiguration of Christ
Moses and the Prophet Elijah are present for the Transfiguration of Christ. They represent the Law and the Prophets, the two pillars of Israel's faith and ours.
Moses and the Prophet Elijah are present for the Transfiguration of Christ. They represent the Law and the Prophets, the two pillars of Israel's faith and ours.
February 25, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
“Nothing new in the Holy See.” I hear these words from our Editor every week as she reviews with me a global traffic report for this blog. Being blind behind these stone walls to everything going on with a post after it leaves my archaic typewriter, this opportunity to know that someone out there is actually reading is vaguely comforting to me. We cannot know who is reading any particular post, but we can see where they are, and how many they are.
Our call always ends with “Nothing new in the Holy See.” It means that no one there has stopped to look from Beyond These Stone Walls. There is a sadness in that. There is a lot of controversy in Rome these days, and because I have a stake in it, I am both anxious about it and anxious to have a voice in it. I look intently at the affairs of Rome even if no one there is ever looking back. Current events there are sometimes manipulated by those with an agenda to reshape the Church in their own image, or to filter the Way, the Truth, and the Light through the age of relativism.
But all this has more to do with our politics than the far more important opportunities to explore, and allow to be shaped within us, the profoundness of our faith. Unlike other Catholic bloggers, I can write only one post per week so the affairs of Rome will have to wait. It is Lent, after all, and the Transfiguration of Christ in the Gospel this week shakes the Earth under my feet while the affairs of Rome only make me tremble a bit.
So no offense to my fellow Catholics embroiled over the dramas of Rome, and the tug-of-war closer to home as struggles over altar rails and Latin in the Mass threaten to replace our struggle to live the Gospel. I am painfully aware that in 2013 Pope Benedict XVI left the Chair of Peter. My entire life as a priest had been overshadowed by the light of two great men who became giants not only in faith but in the world. I will never forget that 1978 knock on my seminary room door and the voice that followed: “The Pope has died!” I shouted back, “That happened a month ago!” The face of the Church in the modern world changed as the first non-Italian in centuries became pontiff in the person of Saint John Paul II. Twenty-six years later in 2005 he was followed in the papacy by the brilliant Joseph Ratzinger, a theologian par excellence who became Benedict XVI. I have always been aware that the two popes who followed them had to fill the shoes of giants, so I have to always remind myself to cut them a little slack. I fend off any tendency to judge or compare them with their predecessors.
These are dark days for priests, and often dark for faithful Catholics as well. But darkness preceded the Transfiguration of Christ at the center of the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent, and as usual there is a story on its surface and a far greater one in its depths. Lord, be our Light.
Who Do You Say That I Am?
All three Synoptic Gospels have an account of the Transfiguration of Jesus, and the accounts are remarkably uniform. This week for the Second Sunday of Lent, it is Matthew’s turn, but all the elements he presents in his presentation of the Transfiguration of Christ are also presented by Luke who adds a component. Luke alone presents a reason for the Lord to bring three of His Apostles to the top of Mount Tabor:
“Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.”
— Luke 9:28-30
I wrote of this same event and its place in Salvation History in my recent post, “Covenants of God.”
Some immediate understanding of this event would have dawned upon any faithful Jew and certainly registered with Peter, James and John. The account is highly reminiscent of an event in the Book of Exodus that took place some 13 centuries earlier:
“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Law in his hands, as he came down from the mountain Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, because the skin of his face shown, they were afraid to come near him.”
— Exodus 34:29-30
Though the event of the Transfiguration of Jesus would vividly bring to the Jewish mind that passage from Exodus, it was also very different. It was like the difference between the Sun and the Moon. The Moon only reflects light radiated from the Sun. As brilliant as a full moon can appear in the darkness of night, it produces no light of its own. The face of Moses only reflected the light of grace radiated from God.
The Sun, on the other hand, radiates its own dazzling light, and to look too long would cause blindness. The light of the Transfiguration of Christ was “dazzling,” and it came from within. In those few moments — for Peter, James and John could have stood no more than a few — God lifted a corner of the veil to reveal the nature of the person Peter declared to be the Christ:
“The only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through him all things were made. For our salvation he came down from heaven.”
— The Nicene Creed
I wrote of this account a few years ago in “A Transfiguration Before Our Very Eyes.” That post was more about the conversion that this episode can bring within a person who comes to some understanding of its spiritual dimensions. Canadian Catholic blogger Michael Brandon at “Free Through Truth” actually wrote a post about that post — and his was far better than mine — which he entitled, “Transfiguration, You and Me.”
The conversion that Michael Brandon and I both highlighted was that of Pornchai Moontri, and it is a most important story, not just for him, or for me, but for a Church embroiled in scandal. If you think I may beat this drum of Pornchai’s conversion too much, I challenge you to delve into it for I cannot emphasize it enough. Given the story told in “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom,” his conversion — a change not just of heart but of substance — should have been impossible. And he found no light in me, for I radiate none.
In the Gospel, the Transfiguration of Jesus was preceded by two pivotal events. On the command of Jesus, the Apostles fed 5,000 people with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish. When it was over, he asked the Apostles, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered, “Some say John the Baptist” (for he had already been beheaded by Herod) “while some say Elijah or that one of the prophets of old has arisen.”
But what about you, asked Jesus. “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered for all: “You are the Christ of God”. Jesus then told them a startling revelation bringing them to an inner darkness:
“You are to tell this to no one. The Son of Man, must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever will lose his life for my sake, will save it.”
So answer for yourself the question that Jesus asked Peter, and, through the Gospel, asks each of us: “Who do you say that I am?” But before you answer, keep in mind a central tenet of human nature. Just like many of the Jews in the desert with Moses after having been delivered from bondage in Egypt, how many Catholics do you know who do not esteem the faith they inherited through the Blood of the Lamb of God and was passed on to us through countless martyrs at the cost of their lives? Your answer must cost you something of yourself. “What you inherit too cheap you may esteem too lightly.”
A Conversation with Moses and Elijah
I would like to delve deeper into the theological significance of the Transfiguration account and into its spiritual resonance. First, the very important story behind the story. The account is filled with great spiritual meaning. First, why do Moses and Elijah appear?
A lot in Sacred Scripture happens on mountaintops. In the Book of Exodus, Moses received the Covenant from God on Mount Sinai. In the First Book of Kings, the Prophet Elijah encountered God on Mount Horeb. On Mount Tabor — the place where long-held tradition places the Transfiguration — Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets, the two central pillars of faith in Judaism, and the foundations of God’s Covenant with Israel.
But how can they be present in heaven before the Resurrection of Jesus and the Exodus from sin and death? The greatness of Elijah is attested to by the sheer number of allusions to him in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Hebrew mind, it was Elijah who affirmed the supremacy of Yahweh over nature and human history, and was seen as the principal defender of traditional Hebrew morality.
Elijah can be present at the Transfiguration because he was taken on a chariot into heaven (2 Kings 2:1-18). It was an ingrained belief of Hebrew tradition that God would return Elijah to Israel even before this prophecy was set forth by the Prophet Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes” (Malachi 4:5). Knowing the Scriptures, the presence of Elijah must have struck both hope and terror into the hearts of Peter, James and John.
But how is it that Moses was there with Jesus on Mount Tabor? This is where the Hebrew Scriptures and the legends of faith intersect. The Canon of Sacred Scripture reveals the story of Salvation History from Abraham to Jesus, but Israel also had a collection of oral and written traditions accepted by Rabbinical teaching as “Deuterocanonical” meaning, “Secondary Canon.” Some of these are also called “Apocryphal” texts from the Greek, “apokryphos” which means “hidden.” Some of what is in these texts intersects with the Bible, but remains a matter of pious traditional belief instead of historical verification. I once wrote of these discoveries in “Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse.” There are others perhaps not yet discovered. The Book of Daniel (12:9) speaks of “words that are shut up until the end of time.”
An example of how one such text contributed to popular belief is the “Protoevangelium of James.” It circulated in the Early Church and was cited by one of the Church Fathers. It is the only source for a tradition that the parents of Mary were Joachim and Anna.
There were several texts outside of Scripture from which legends and traditions circulated regarding Moses. These include the Books of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, and the Assumption of Moses. They influenced early Rabbinic beliefs and teachings about angels, for example, and the lives of Moses and other Biblical figures.
The Assumption of Moses reveals a tradition, now lost from the fragments of the text that have survived, about the death of Moses in the Sinai desert. In that legend, Satan tried to claim the body of Moses, but Michael the Archangel contended with Satan and won. Michael then escorted Moses into heaven, like Elijah, body and soul. That this legend became engraved into the beliefs of Israel, and passed to the Early Christian Church, is evident in the New Testament Letter of Jude who is writing to an audience that obviously already knows of the account:
“But when the Archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, ‘The Lord Rebuke you.’ ”
— Jude 1:9
It may be from this legendary story that, from the earliest time in the Christian Church, Saint Michael the Archangel has the role of escorting the souls of the dead to salvation. This is how Moses could thus be present with Elijah at the Transfiguration where they are reported to have discussed with Jesus the Cross, the Second Exodus. The road upon which Jesus is embarked is connected to the Law and the Prophets. It is to be an Exodus from the bondage of sin and death in which God will Himself pay the price for release that he once exacted from Pharaoh: The sacrificial death of his own Son.
The Feast of Tabernacles
The entire Gospel account of Transfiguration takes place against the backdrop of the Feast of Tabernacles. This is why, in his dreamlike ecstatic state, Peter wants to delay the parting of Moses and Elijah from Jesus by saying,
“Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Peter misinterprets the reason why they are all present in that place as being the annual Harvest Feast of Tabernacles (or tents), called in Hebrew, “Sukkot.” It is one of three Pilgrimage Feasts in the Hebrew calendar. It was originally a harvest feast, something like the American Thanksgiving, and called the “Feast of Ingathering” in the earliest Hebrew traditions. It lasts for seven days.
As I researched the connection between the Feast of Tabernacles, with its origin in Exodus 23:16, and the Transfiguration of Christ some thirteen centuries later, I came upon a long and detailed article about its history. As I studied the article, I was shocked to see at the end that it was written by my uncle, the late Father George W. MacRae, a renowned Scripture scholar who became rector of the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and Stillman Professor of Catholic Studies at Harvard University. It was an article he wrote for Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1960, much of which became included in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary.
The Feast of Sukkot — variously interpreted as Tabernacles, Tents, Huts or Booths — had its roots in early Palestine as little huts were built in the fields, orchards and vineyards during the harvest. Much later, the Pilgrimage Feast was given a deeper religious meaning when it became connected to the events of the Exodus as a memorial to how the Israelites lived during their forty years of wandering in the desert after following Moses through the Red Sea.
It is an irony of Biblical proportions that this formed the scene for the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God about to enter Jerusalem for the New Exodus, the Exodus through the Red Sea of sin and death. It is the Exodus of the Cross through which Jesus will lead us to the New Jerusalem, the Promised Land, if we pick up our Cross and follow Him.
“This is my Son, my Chosen. Listen to him.”
— Luke 9:35
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse
He Has His Mother’s Eyes: The Vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe
“What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?” (Luke 10:25)
On Good Authority, “Salvation Is from the Jews”
Readers have told us that our Sacred Scripture collection, The Bible Speaks, is a treasure trove of meaningful biblical literature and fine reading for Lent.
Don’t be a stranger. Follow Father Gordon MacRae on X.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Christ in the Desert: A Devil of a Time
The Gospel according to St Luke tells the story of Jesus, revealed to be Son of God, led into the desert to be tested by the devil who does not give up easily.
The Gospel according to St Luke tells the story of Jesus, revealed to be Son of God, led into the desert to be tested by the devil who does not give up easily.
Ash Wednesday, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
Many of our readers are aware that the Church follows a three-year cycle for Sunday Scripture Readings. As Ordinary Time now gives way to the Season of Lent, I explore the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent. Being in the “A Cycle,” the Gospel from Saint Matthew (4:1-11) seemed very familiar. Like much of Scripture, I knew that I had read about this passage, but I also felt certain that I had written about it. It is the story of Jesus following the revelation that he is the Son of God revealed at his Baptism in the Jordan. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is led into the desert by the Spirit to face Satan and a series of temptations for which, if he failed, his redemptive mission would end before it even began. All three of the Synoptic Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, tell the same story but from different perspectives and traditions. Saint Mark’s version appears in Year B in just three lines of Scriptural text (Mark 1:12-15). The Gospel According to Saint Luke is the most theologically nuanced of the three. So even though in our current cycle, the version from Saint Matthew is used on the First Sunday of Lent, it is very similar to that of Saint Luke. So I have chosen the latter to present in exegesis form for our post this week.
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In my estimation, one of the best movies about Catholic life in America taking a wrong turn has been deemed by some to be a bit rough around the edges. Robert DeNiro portrays Los Angeles Monsignor Desmond Spellacy, and Robert Duvall is cast as his brother, LAPD homicide detective Tom Spellacy in the 1981 film, True Confessions. The film is from a novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne based on the famous Los Angeles “Black Dahlia” murder case of 1947.
DeNiro’s character, Monsignor Desmond Spellacy is a priest of some prominence in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the late 1940s at the epicenter of the power politics of a Church beginning to succumb to the world in which it thrives. Amid corruption while being groomed to become the next Archbishop, the Monsignor nonetheless clings to an honest spiritual life just starting its inevitable fraying at the edges as he is drawn ever deeper into a tangled web of deceit.
Robert Duvall portrays his older brother, Tom Spellacy, an honest and dedicated — if somewhat cynical — L.A. homicide detective whose investigation of the murder of a prostitute brings him ever closer to the perimeter of an archdiocese circling the wagons of self preservation. The Church in America would see a lot more of this in the generation to come. Actor Charles Durning portrays the thoroughly corrupt owner of a large construction firm bidding for church building projects. About to be awarded Catholic Layman of the Year by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, he is also a person of interest in the murder investigation that a lot of powerful people want quietly covered up.
Those wanting to influence and sideline Tom’s investigation come up with evidence — a photograph. It depicts the murdered woman in a social scene with a few prominent people, one of whom, standing next to her, is Monsignor Desmond Spellacy, heir apparent of the archdiocesan throne.
The photograph is entirely bening, but it becomes for Tom Spellacy, as it was intended to be, evidence that the Monsignor knew the murdered woman. Many readers would be reminded by this today of the frenzied media fiasco that has been playing out to much fanfare, recriminations, and disgust about the Jeffrey Epstein files and the many lives, some innocent and some not-so-much, who are entangled by a mere photograph in Epstein’s posthumous web of corruption and deceit. In the hands of politicians on the eve of battle in the midtern national elections, such photographs have been honed as weapons of war in our bitter partisan politics. The film ends with the case solved, but Monsignor Spellacy banished to a small parish in the California desert, his hopes for political advancement in the Church destroyed.
Nonetheless, in the hands of media and various other entities, the photograph remains evidence and a legal and political quagmire for Detective Tom Spellacy tasked with an open and public investigation of a murder scene leading to political corruption. Tom knows that any pursuit of the case that involves this photograph will inevitably destroy the career and good name of his innocent brother. Tom struggles about what to do, but in the end he does the right thing. He pursues the truth of the matter wherever it leads.
The case is eventually solved and of course Monsignor Spellacy had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Someone is convicted (You have to watch the film to find out who). But in the moral sensitivies of the time, which was very much like our time, the photo with the murdered prostitute and the Monsignor becomes more enticing for the press than the murder itself. The photo ends up on the Front Page of the LA Times, and Monsignor Spellacy ends up where our Gospel passage begins: in the desert where he is exiled to a tiny parish in obscurity.
Being exiled in the desert is highly symbolic in Sacred Scripture. It has ancient roots in the Book of Leviticus. This book is composed of liturgical laws for the Levitical priesthood reaching back to 1300 BC as Moses led his people through a forty-year period of exile in the Sinai desert. Some of the ritual accounts it contains are far more ancient.
In a recent Christmas post, “Silent Night and the Shepherds Who Quaked at the Sight,” I wrote that the troubles of our time are the manifestation of spiritual warfare that has been waged in the world since God’s first covenant bonds with us. Before this covenant relationship, we were doomed. Since the covenants of God there is hope for us. We remain oblivious to spiritual warfare to our own spiritual peril. As I have written many times, we now live in a vulnerable time in God’s covenant relationship with us. The Birth of the Messiah and his walking among us are equidistant in time between our existence now in the 21st Century AD and Abraham’s first encounter with God in the 21st Century BC.
Our Day of Atonement Begins
The Gospel according to St Luke (4:1-13) is also set in the desert as the Day of Atonement begins for all humankind. Revealed in Baptism as the Son of God …
“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.”
— Luke 4:1
The scene has roots in an ancient ritual for the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16:5-10. Aaron, the high priest …
“Shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering .... Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the tent of meeting; and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer it as a sin offering, but the goat upon which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the desert wilderness to Azazel …”
— Leviticus 16:5,7-10
This describes the ritual for purification known in Hebrew as Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, from Leviticus Chapter 16. The ritual reaches far beyond Moses into the time of God’s covenant with Abraham some 2000 years before the Birth of the Messiah.
There are two goats mentioned in the ritual: One for sacrifice, to Yahweh, and the other — the one bearing the sins of Israel — is “for Azazel.” This name appears only in Leviticus 16 and nowhere else in Scripture except here in the Gospel of Luke and in some of the apocryphal writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of them is the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, the name of a figure in Genesis who “walked with God” and “was taken up from the Earth.” As such, Enoch is presented in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke (3:37), and thus was spared the deluge of Noah and the destruction intended for all mankind.
The name Azazel is believed by most scholars to be the name of a fallen angel and follower of Satan. Azazel haunts the desert wilderness. Some scholars believe Azazel to be the being referred to as “the night hag” in Isaiah 34:14.
The Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible called the second goat “caper emissarius,” (“the goat sent out”). An English translation rendered it “escape goat” from which the term “scapegoat” has been derived. A scapegoat is one who is held to bear the wrongs of others, or of all. The symbolism in the Gospel of Jesus being led by the Spirit into the desert to face the devil is striking because Jesus is to become, by God’s own design, the scapegoat for the sins of all humanity.
In the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, Jesus is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit.” This term appears in only three other places in Scripture, all three also written by Saint Luke. In the Book of Acts of the Apostles (6:5) Stephen, “filled with the Holy Spirit” was the first to be chosen to care for widows and orphans in the daily distribution of food. Later in Acts (7:55) Stephen, “filled with the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God” as he became the first Martyr of the Church.
The witnesses who approved of the stoning of Stephen “laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58) whose radical conversion to become Saint Paul would build the global Church.
Also in Acts (11:24) Barnabas is filled with the Holy Spirit as he founded the first Church beyond Jerusalem for the Gentiles of Antioch. The sense of the term “filled with the Holy Spirit” in Saint Luke’s passages alludes to the hand of God in our living history.
In our first Sunday Gospel for Lent, Jesus, filled with the Spirit, “having returned from the Jordan,” is led by the Spirit for forty days in the desert wilderness. The Gospel links this account to his Baptism at the Jordan at which he is revealed as “Son of God.” This revelation becomes, in the desert scene, a diabolical taunt, and knowing that Jesus has fasted becomes the devil’s first temptation: “If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.” Jesus thwarts the temptation and the taunt with a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures (Deuteronomy 8:3), “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
The symbolism is wonderful here. Like the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son — also from Luke (15:11-32) — God had two sons. In the Book of Exodus (4:21-22) Israel is called God’s “first-born son”:
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles which I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let my son go, I will slay your first-born son’.”
It was the fulfillment of this command of God that finally broke the yoke of slavery and caused Pharaoh to release Israel from bondage. But, as the Parable of the Prodigal Son implies of the Prodigal Son’s older brother, Israel was not faithful to the Word of God, and spent forty years wandering in the desert as a result of its infidelity.
In the Gospel of Luke, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity assumed the humanity of the first son, and was led by the Spirit into the desert to save us in the Second Exodus, our release, through the Death and Resurrection of the Son of God, from the eternal bondage of sin and death.
Clerical Scandal and the Scandal of Clericalism
The second temptation is the lure of political power. In a single instant, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said, “I shall give you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me… all this will be yours if you worship me.” This has been the downfall of many, including many in our Church. Jesus again quotes from Scripture, “It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone” (Deuteronomy 6:13). This Gospel revisits the lure of political power immediately after the Institution of the Eucharist:
“A dispute arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves… I am among you as one who serves.”
— Luke 22:24-26
The Greek in which this Gospel was written used for the word “leader” the term “hēgoumenos.” Its implication refers especially to a religious leader. The Letter to the Hebrews (13:7) uses the same Greek term for “leaders,” and it is not their Earthly power which is to be emulated, but their faith to the extent to which they reflect Christ:
“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
— Hebrews 13:7-8
Though it doesn’t generate the media’s obsession with sexual scandals, hubris and self-centered aggrandizement have been a far greater problem in our Church, and are the underlying catalyst for almost all other scandals, sexual, financial, and reputational. This culture has led Church leaders into the temptation of Earthly Powers, and too many have been eager participants. Some refer to this as “clericalism,” and in my opinion the best commentary on it was a brief article by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things entitled, “Clerical Scandal and the Scandal of Clericalism.”
The Payment of Judas Iscariot
Catholicism in America thrived when it had to earn its dignity. Once it became politically accepted, it went on in this culture to become comfortable, and its leaders (“hēgoumenos”) perhaps a bit too comfortable. Religious authority and the sheer masses of believers spelled political power. The pedestals upon which we stood grew in height with every clerical advance, and our bishops stood upon the highest pedestals of all with palatial trappings more akin to the courts of Herod and Caesar than the Cross of Christ the King, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
It is no mystery why, as the height of our pedestals grew, so did our scandals. This is perhaps why Jesus offered to us the way to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It is because he alone could be led by the Spirit into the desert of temptation and emerge without dragging along behind Him the evil He encountered there.
As the last temptation of Christ unfolded in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, it is now the devil, in a final effort, who dares to quote and distort the Word of God. He led Jesus to Jerusalem, and to the parapet, the highest point of the highest place, the Temple of Sacrifice. And now comes his final taunt:
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’.”
— Luke 4:9-11, quoting Psalm 91
This devil of the desert takes up the argument of Jesus, the Word of God, quoting Psalm 91 (11-12). The taunt to test God and “go your own way” is far deeper than the mere words convey. In Jerusalem, the devil will take hold of Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3) leading to the trial before Pilate and the Way of the Cross. In Jerusalem, the powers of darkness, first encountered here in the desert, are mightily at work: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53)
The Church in the Western world has entered a time of persecution but thus far the institutional response — having traded the Gospel for “zero tolerance” in a quest for scapegoats to cast out into the desert to Azazel — does not bode well for the faith of a Church built upon the blood of the martyrs.
Perhaps, as the Spirit leads us into this desert, it is our vocation, and not that of our leaders, that is essential. Perhaps it is not clerical reform that is needed so much as a revolution — a revolution of fidelity that can only be lived and not just talked about. We will not find the Holy Spirit in a revolution that manifests itself in blessing sin or in any politically correct acquiescence to same-sex unions that some now call the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and other moral distortions of our time. Those who abandon their faith in a time in the desert were leaving anyway, just waiting for the right excuse. To use the behavior of leaders to diminish and then abandon the Sacrament of Salvation is to cave to the true goal of Azazel. He could not lure Christ from us, but he can lure us from Christ and he is giving it a go.
The devil finally gives up in the desert scene of the Last Temptation of Christ in Luke Chapter 4. But the devil is not quite done. Luke’s Gospel tells that he will return “at a more opportune time.” Satan finds that time not in an effort to test Jesus, but rather to test his followers. He targets Judas Iscariot in the last place we would ever expect to find the devil: “Satan at The Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light.”
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this Ash Wednesday post. You may also like these other posts from Beyond These Stone Walls as we proceed through Lent:
Pope Francis Had a Challenge for the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother
A U.S. Marine Who Showed Me What to Give Up for Lent
Satan at The Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light
Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah
We presently have 39 titles in our collection of Scriptural posts, The Bible Speaks.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”