Nothing is your fault

You may have read the headlines yesterday where the AMA (American Medical Association) labeled obesity as a disease.  That's right.  Obesity has now joined the undistinguished and now easy to get into club of diseases joining AIDS, cancer, alcoholism, the common cold, flu, chicken pox, etc..  You can read details here. 

What does this say about the AMA and society at large?  We have essentially made a lack of willpower into a disease which is therefore out of someone's hands to control and must be treated medically.  Are we saying that the deadly sin of gluttony is just a medical condition?  I hope not.  Now, before you condemn me for being insensitive, let me be clear that I do realize that there are medical conditions such as those that affect the hypothalamus or thyroid gland that can trigger overeating and also obesity is a trait in my family and something that I particularly have to guard against especially if I want to remain on the earth long enough to raise my son with my wife.

So, what is the AMA telling us?  Quite simply: it's not your fault.  Just like alcoholism: it's not your fault. You have a disease. You're powerless. You need medicine, you need doctors, you need pills, you need hospitals or rehabilitation centers.  YOU'RE NOT AT FAULT!

I doubt if the AMA was looking towards modern Protestantism when it redefined obesity as a disease, but modern Protestantism does seem often enough to emphasize that it's not your fault since God loves you anyway.  Maybe that same cultural opinion has informed the AMA.  The point is that this should not be surprising in any way.  Our culture regards sin as something that results from mitigating circumstances.  The reason he murdered that person is because he wasn't loved as a child. The reason she stole is because she grew up impoverished.  The reason he raped is because he was spurned by women.  The list goes on and on.  What are we responsible for anymore?  Nothing, it seems.  Everything can be reduced to a legal justification and now, a disease.

When Christ (and also St. John the Baptist) began his ministry, his first word was "repent!"  Now, the Greek word for "repent" is μετανοιετε.  Literally, it means to change your nous which is often mistranslated as mind.  The nous is called the window into the soul by St. John Damascene.  It is more than an intellectual sifter. I could dedicate a whole post to what the word means.  The nous, though, is something that sets us apart as human beings, created in the image of God, from the animals.  Repentance is created by change of our very self, not mere words or platitudes we say, but a  change in who we are to grow in union with Christ.   If nothing is our fault, then there can be no repentance.  Repentance demands us to see fault.  How can we change if we don't know from what we need to flee? 

Repentance also demands the use of our will oriented towards God.  St. Augustine says that the will is a medium bonum, a so-so good thing.  It can be used for good just as it can for evil.  The will also is one of the Trinity of the mind.  Will is joined with memory and reason.  All of those coexist or subsist within each other yet will is not reason and reason is not memory and memory not will. (Very Trinitarian, wouldn't you say?). If one of those is shackled then the others are affected.  God's will, reason and memory are perfect.  Ours are not.  But if God is also just, how can any of us be condemned if we were not responsible for our own actions?  Free will may be shackled, but it can still break the chains.

I wonder how many of us will plead before the dread judgment that our sins are not our fault?  Hopefully, someone will shut us up before we get that far.  Fortunately, Christ is also merciful and compassionate and loving; maybe He will overlook the fault that we should declare and simply say, "Come and sit at my right hand."

Don't take communion or you could get the flu!

It's flu season and the CDC and the press are already saying that the sheer amount of flu cases this year has reached epidemic proportions.  Now, I'm no pathologist nor epidemiologist so I'm willing to listen to their suggestions as to how to reduce my exposure to the flu for the sake of my own health and that of my family.  However, one thing I will not do is abstain from the life giving body and blood of our Lord!

Now, I don't believe the CDC has actually made any suggestion for Christians communing during the flu season to stay away from receiving the Eucharist, but that's not stopping congregations and even Archdioceses from implementing policies to remove the blood of Christ from the lips of the faithful! 

First of all, metallic surfaces do not transmit viruses or bacteria and particular metals like copper are well documented for their antimicrobial properties. 

Secondly, those people who abstain from the Eucharist (and those who withdraw it) show what little faith they have in the sacraments.  Such people, I'm assuming,  regard the sacraments as something to be honored and done but that there is no real power behind them.  I wonder why they receive the Eucharist at all!  Is not the Eucharist for the healing of body and soul?  I'm not suggesting that the Eucharist will cure you immediately of your ailment; you still need rest and fluids.  But to stay away from the Eucharist for fear that you may contract or spread the flu shows a real distrust in God and His power as it is contained in the Eucharist. 

It's also incredibly egocentric.  The thought that one person (or even two or three or more) could somehow contaminate the body and blood of Christ for others is absolutely rooted in anthropocentrism--that man is the center of all things, that man affects God's will.

From the news reports, it seems that the Roman Catholics are the one who are leading the charge on this.  Considering that the Roman Catholics for many years withheld the life-giving blood of the Lord from her faithful, this is just another reason for them to reinstitute that flawed Medieval practice.  I'm sure some Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and other denominations are also withholding out of the same (irrational) health fears. 

However, I have never noticed any Orthodox Church every sanctioning such a move.  It could possibly be that there was no press (only the Catholics and Episcopalians and liberal Lutherans get attention from the media, it seems), but I have never seen any directive from any Metropolitan or Bishop in any Orthodox jurisdiction in this country telling parishioners to abstain from the Eucharist.

If you attend a church (I'm only speaking to Orthodox here) where the priest says that sick people should abstain, then you should report that priest immediately to the bishop.  Unless you are under penance and/or excommunication or you have not observed the prayer and fasting prior to receiving, the Eucharist is to be given to you for the sake of the healing of both soul and body.  Because the faithful receive the Body and Blood from the spoon (which is metallic), you will not transmit nor receive the flu.  I'm so sick of these stories and the seemingly faithless people who propagate them.