A Vision on Mount Tabor: The Transfiguration of Christ

Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a mountaintop where he was transfigured before their eyes, an event that echoes through the ages, even through prison walls.

March 12, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Some years ago, when this blog was in its earlier days, Canadian writer Michael Brandon wrote a post for his Freedom to Truth blog entitled “Transfiguration Behind These Stone Walls.” It is an account of how Pornchai Max Moontri and I were living in 2014, the year Michael Brandon wrote it. It was a few years after Pornchai was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. We were living in a crucible of incessant confinement and utter powerlessness over the course of the days of our lives. In hindsight, it was also a time of much grace, though none of it felt like grace then.

To continue this post, I have to revisit a story that longtime readers may recall. It is the story of Anthony Begin. Anthony was a prisoner in his mid forties. He was an angry individual who treated most people with hostility and contempt. He ridiculed my faith and priesthood and one day I bodily threw him out of our cell. It was not my finest priestly moment in life. A few years later, I returned from work in the prison library to find Pornchai in our cell as usual waiting for me. As I entered, he closed the cell door so no one else could hear. He looked at me somberly and said, “You have to help Anthony.” I responded that Anthony and I have had a bit of a falling out. Pornchai shook his head impatiently and said, “None of that matters. You HAVE to help him.”

Pornchai went on to explain that Anthony had just learned of a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. It began in his lungs, then spread to his spinal cord, and by the time it was discovered it had spread to his brain. Pornchai said that “He has only months to live but he doesn’t know how to die so you have to show him.”

I never imagined myself an expert in either living or dying. But that night I went to Anthony, sat down with him, and told him that I am sorry for our past encounters. He began to express a lot of sorrow about all of that, but I stopped him. “None of that matters now,” I said. “We have lots to do.” So every day after that in the months ahead, Anthony and I spoke at length. We often included Pornchai for I found the depth of his compassion for Anthony to be salvific for them both, and perhaps for me as well.

From that point on, Anthony’s illness spiraled quickly. Within weeks he became no longer able to take care of himself. We brought Anthony into the Church and he was baptized and confirmed, and received the Eucharist for the first time in his life. The transformation of his character and demeanor was astonishing.

In a short time to follow, Anthony was told that he must relocate to the prison medical unit, but he knew that he would never see us again. He begged the medical staff for a little more time. They feared that it was time he did not have. So he ended up being moved in this overcrowded prison to an overflow bunk in the dayroom just outside our cell. Pornchai and I took turns sitting with him and when he could no longer eat we took turns feeding him. I secured a wheelchair for bathroom trips. None of this was ideal, but it was ideal for Anthony. His faith journey was on a fast track, and for him nothing else mattered. His belief in Redemption was a powerful witness for both Pornchai and me. Days later, I returned from work to find that bunk empty. Anthony was gone.

When such a thing happens, the lack of basic information is chilling, and the most distressing part of being in prison. The niceties of social concern and overlapping lives mean little here, and any inquiry is treated with suspicion. But over the next few hours I was able to learn that Anthony had a medical appointment that morning, and never came back. By 10:00 AM word came down to pack his belongings. By 11:00 AM, all trace of him was gone.

I knew that Anthony was struggling. A week earlier, he was taken out of the prison for a new brain scan. Anthony had been given three months out among his friends — three months neither he nor his oncologist ever expected.

When I write, “out among his friends,” I mean here, living with us in a place still difficult by its very nature, but far preferable to the prison of suffering and fear of death he had endured for six months. Among the swarms of prisoners here, there were only three whom Anthony called his friends, and you know two of them.

During this three-month reprieve, Anthony got to experience a transfiguration of sorts, both in himself and in his small circle of friends. It was not quite the experience of Peter, James, and John that you will hear in the Gospel According to Saint Luke in the Second Sunday of Lent, but it changed Anthony. I’ll describe how in a moment.

The Transfiguration of Christ

“Jesus took Peter, John, and James 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. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.”

— Luke 9:28-36

Peter’s idea to erect tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah seems an almost comical response from someone just given a vision of the Kingdom of God and its most renowned denizens from the Hebrew Scriptures. As the passage points out, Peter hardly knew what to say because he was so overwhelmed. But the idea wasn’t entirely out of place.

It was the seventh and last day of Sukkoth, the “Feast of Booths” described in the Books of Deuteronomy (16:13-15) and Leviticus (23:45). Known in Hebrew as Hag ha-Asif, translated as “The Festival of Gathering,” it lasted for seven days during which Jewish observers erected tents or booths from the boughs or branches of palm trees. The booths were a memorial of their ancestors’ deliverance from bondage in Egypt:

“You shall dwell in booths for seven days, all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

— Leviticus 23: 42-43

The presence of Moses and Elijah with Jesus on Mount Tabor represents the Law and the Prophets, the two pillars of divine revelation in Hebrew Scripture. They represent the heart of God’s covenant with Israel. There were some previous hints of the Transfiguration. In Exodus (34:29), Moses did not know that upon his descent from Mount Sinai with the Tablets of the Law, “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” The significance of this has been widely misunderstood. Some Scripture scholars in the modern era mistakenly saw the Transfiguration story as constructed to be reminiscent of the appearance of Moses on Mount Sinai. After his encounter with God his face appeared to shine with light. The truth is just the opposite. It is evidence of the Divine inspiration of Scripture that the appearance of Moses at Mount Sinai was a “presage,” a vision forward to one day remind readers of Jesus in his Transfiguration. There are many episodes in which the Old Testament mysteriously looks forward thousands of years into the New.

Upon the death of Moses, according to Deuteronomy (34: 5-6), God Himself secretly buried his body in an unknown place in the land of Moab. However, the New Testament Letter of Saint Jude (Jude 9) refers to an ancient Jewish legend from the apocryphal text, The Assumption of Moses. Saint Jude described a story that he presumes his listeners already know: that Satan attempted to take the body of Moses, but the Archangel Michael “contended with the devil” and brought the physical body of Moses into Heaven.

The same became true of Elijah. In the Second Book of Kings (2:11) the prophets Elijah and Elisha became separated by “a chariot of fire and horses of fire” and “Elijah went up in a whirlwind into Heaven, then Elisha saw him no more.” In the above Gospel account of the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John — as well as the early Jewish Christian Church — would have readily perceived that Moses and Elijah came from Heaven to witness the Transfiguration of Jesus.

They would also have known well the Prophet Malachi (4:5) who declared that “Elijah’s return will precede the Day of the Lord.” Hence, as the three versions of the Transfiguration account in the Synoptic Gospels point out, they were terrified.

A Metamorphosis of Faith

As the above passage in the Gospel of Luke points out, the event of the Transfiguration came days after Jesus told the Apostles that he would have to take up his Cross: “and I tell truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:27) Something very important happened days earlier between Jesus and his disciples that literally rocked their world and shook their faith. As the pilgrimage Feast of Sukkoth began, they saw Jesus cure a blind man at Bethsaida. Then Jesus asked them at Caesarea Philippi, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist” [already slain at Herod’s command], while “others say Elijah, and others one of the Prophets.”

“But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. Peter, answered with something — like the offer to build some booths days later — that came spontaneously from his heart and soul: “You are the Christ!”

What exactly did that mean? Those who awaited a Messiah in Israel envisioned a political force who would transform the known world and set it aright. But Jesus said something astonishing: “The Son of Man must suffer many things,” be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise from the dead.

And then the final bombshell: “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God come with power.” Hence, once again, Peter, James, and John, dazzled upon Mount Tabor days later, were terrified when Moses and Elijah appeared.

And what of the Transfiguration itself? The Greek word the Gospel used to describe it is metamorphothe. The very form and substance of Jesus were transformed. Recall the great hymn of Christ recounted by Saint Paul to the Philippians (2:5-6):

“Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

For days, Peter, James, and John must have lived with shattered hopes, discouraged over the revelation about what it means to follow Jesus. Ascending that mountain to see Him transfigured in glory was a gift of Divine Mercy that also transformed the cross — forever. The cross was a symbol of terror in the Roman Empire. For us now it is a symbol of life and salvation.

These same three disciples had been present when Jesus restored life to the daughter of Jairus, and they would later be present with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to see him humiliated as the Passion of the Christ commenced. They were also the only disciples to have been given new names by Jesus. Simon became Peter, “the Rock” and he called James and John “Boanerges,” the “Sons of Thunder.” Their new names denoted that they were forever changed by these experiences, a metamorphosis of identity and faith.

Transfiguration Behind These Stone Walls

On August 6, 2014, the Feast of the Transfiguration, the well-known Canadian Catholic blog, Freedom Through Truth, featured a post by Michael Brandon titled, “Transfiguration Behind These Stone Walls.” Michael Brandon wrote some very nice things, not so much about me, but about what I write. I was first bewildered by it. Then I was very moved. Then I finally accepted his premise that he and other readers have a vantage point I do not have. Michael Brandon wrote:

“In the years that I have followed Beyond These Stone Walls, I have seen the transfiguration of Father Gordon MacRae and Pornchai Moontri.”

I do not see the former at all, but I have been an eyewitness to the latter, and I am persuaded by the evidence. As I have written about that other transfiguration, the same one referred to by Michael Brandon above, a transformation of discouragement that was not at all unlike that faced by Peter, James, and John to whom the cost of discipleship was revealed. Here is what I wrote about the transformation of Pornchai Moontri:

“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 on my own cross, but on someone else’s. Just imagine Simon of Cyrene letting that happen.”

I have seen first hand how the cross of one person becomes a source of grace for another, and then ultimately for both. In the three-month respite Anthony Begin was given from being consumed by cancer, Pornchai Moontri took care of him, unbidden, every single day.

Just weeks after being told he had only months to live, cancer released its grip on Anthony for a time, and he was able to leave the prison hospital where he spent three months dying. It was a priceless gift for Anthony who came in these three months to know the meaning of Divine Mercy. Anthony turned fifty in the three months he spent with us, an age he never thought he would see.

Then Anthony lost the use of one arm due to a tumor on his spinal cord. Every day, morning and night, Pornchai tied his shoes and helped him with his coat before we took him to the medical center for pain medications. Every night, Pornchai heated water to prepare hot packs for Anthony, and prepared food when it was too cold for him to venture out for meals.

Prisons everywhere provide the barest sustenance and then sell food to prisoners for a profit. Anthony could no longer earn even the $1.00 a day available to those who can keep a prison job, but he never once in those last three months went hungry.

Pornchai brought Anthony to Mass, prayed with him, calmed his anxiety. As longtime readers know, Pornchai had some hard won expertise in bearing the cross of spiritual pain and anxiety. Over those last three months, Pornchai helped Anthony carry his cross with grace and dignity. He was Simon of Cyrene carrying that cross with him. The three of us talked a lot about life and death, and Anthony was not the same man he had been months earlier when he insulted and demeaned me. And I was not the same man as when I threw him out of my cell.

But Michael Brandon was right. The real transfiguration story here is Pornchai Moontri’s, and it instilled something wonderful in our friend in the winter of his life. It was hope, hope that even a dying man can live with. Anthony Begin saw the Transfiguration of Christ, and of life and death, and he was no longer afraid.

“In our struggle to be holy, grace is certainly required. But we must also do the footwork — we must will to be better than we really are … The degree of perfection is measured by the amount of adversity we overcome in order to be holy.”

— St. Maximilian Kolbe

Epilogue

I told this story once before, but never in reference to the Transfiguration of Christ, who transformed not only himself and our experience of him, but he also transformed death.

I work as the legal clerk for the prison law library now, but back then I only trafficked in books, and, inspired by Pornchai Max, we now also trafficked in hope. When a prisoner left this prison then, even if his departure was in death, the prison library computer would display a signal if the prisoner had a book checked out and failed to return it before departing. Seven days after Anthony left this life, I received the following message on my library computer:

Anthony Begin — gone/released — Heaven Is for Real

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Note to Readers from Father Gordon MacRae:

Thank you for reading and sharing this post about the Gospel account of the Transfiguration of Christ.

• We will be adding it to a new feature at this blog, a list of the Scriptural accounts of Salvation History, which I hope you will visit and share with others: From Ashes to Easter.

• The National Center for Reason and Justice has long sponsored my case for appeals and maintained an informational page highlighting new and important developments. A few months ago the NCRJ site was hacked and utterly destroyed. There was no way to bring it back. Because I was the last of its wrongly imprisoned clients, the NCRJ decided to permanently retire their effort and that site. It was a grave loss for me, and all hope seemed to retired with it. But then I learned that a friend had quietly downloaded the entire section about me from the NCRJ site. He has now restored it completely and as of March 12, 2025 it is available again here at Beyond These Stone Walls. See FrMacRae@NCRJ.

• Lastly, this other recent new feature may seem rather strange. Some of my advocates have been having a dialogue about my trial and the nature of the case against me that has kept me wrongly in prison for 30 years and counting. The dialogue has not just been among themselves but also with the advanced Artificial Intelligence platform launched by Elon Musk called xAI Grok. This is an ongoing endeavor that will have several chapters. The site, Les Femmes, The Truth, reviewed its first chapter and called it “absolutely fascinating.” So beginning this week we are launching “The Grok Chronicle” and we invite you to follow along beginning with “Chapter 1: Corruption and the Trial of Father MacRae.”

• Strangely, the Grok AI platform, seems to have developed a mind of its own on this matter. It has already developed a conclusion, and has resisted our efforts to move on to other topics. It seems to see the injustice loudly and clearly.

May the Lord Bless you and keep you in this Season of Lent.

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.”

A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ

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.

February 21, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: If you were present at Catholic Mass for the First Sunday of Lent, then you heard the Gospel Proclamation about the demonic temptation of Christ in the desert. I have discovered much more to that story, and it is manifested here in a Church that still wanders in the desert. Lest we wander too far into the desert wilderness, please read on.

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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” case of 1947.

DeNiro’s character, Monsignor Desmond Spellacy is a priest of 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 dragged 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. Charles Durning portrays the thoroughly corrupt owner of a large construction firm bidding for church building projects. Having just been awarded Catholic Layman of the Year by Monsignor Spellacy, he is also a suspect in the murder investigation that a lot of people want quietly swept under a rug.

Those wanting to influence and sideline Tom’s investigation come up with evidence — a photograph — that his Monsignor-brother also knew the murdered girl, but the photograph is entirely benign. Still, it’s enough to make a lurid case for guilt by association leaving Tom in a quandary about pursuing an investigation that will destroy his innocent brother’s career. 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.

That the film — and the priesthood of Monsignor Spellacy — ends in the desert is highly symbolic. The image has ancient roots into our Sacred Scriptures, and especially into the Book of Leviticus. This book is comprised 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 bond of covenant with us. Before that bond, we were doomed. Since that bond, reestablished by God again and again, there is hope for us. We remain oblivious to spiritual warfare to our own spiritual peril. We live in a very important 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 first 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. The name is believed to be that of a fallen angel and follower of Satan who haunts the desert wilderness. Some scholars believe Azazel to be the being referred to as “the night hag” haunting the desolate wilderness, 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 Paul would build the global Church.

Also in Acts (11:24) Barnabus 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 Holy 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 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 everything 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 in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Israel was not faithful and spent forty years wandering in the desert as a result of this son’s 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 from the 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 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-centeredness 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

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 Her 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 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: Please share this post to help place it before someone at a crossroads.

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.”

In a City on a Hill: Lent, Sacrifice, and the Passage of Time

Sacrifice is at the very heart of being a priest and being a Catholic. This Lent, restoring sacrifice is the key to being a Church in a sinful and broken world.

“Put your lamp upon a stand so that others who enter may see the light.”

— Luke 8:16

Most of our readers know that I have a full time job in this prison. I work as a legal clerk in the prison's law library, the last bastion for the poor who seek justice, that every prison is mandated to maintain. I earn $2.00 per day in this position. Early last week I was walking across the large library and was stopped by two young men seated at a table. “What is Fat Tuesday?” one of them asked. I explained that it is the day before Ash Wednesday, and the day that people may indulge in things that they are about to give up. They both looked perplexed. “What is Ash Wednesday?” the other asked. So I responded that it is the first day of Lent. The next question was predictable. “What is Lent?” they both asked. So I explained to them that Lent is a time of personal penance in which Christians discipline themselves toward higher goals in life by making sacrifices.

It is a challenge to have to couch religious terms in secular language so that I not run afoul of the purely secular nature of a law library. But these guys were fascinated by these concepts. So I sat down and explained it a bit further. I was inspired by the depth of their interest, but also saddened that they had never before heard any of this in life. I promised that on their next library day, I would explain Lent and sacrifice a bit further.

Today, Ash Wednesday, I mark 10,736 days and nights in prison. I didn’t tally this with scratch marks on my cell wall, and I don’t actually keep an ongoing count in my head. I won’t wake up tomorrow and tell myself it’s the start of day number 10,737. At least, I hope I won’t. That would be really awful. But two or three times a year I pull out my calculator and tally the days I have been in this place. I’m not even sure of why we do this, but everyone here does. When my friend Pornchai Moontri was here with me, he told me one day that he was observing day number 7,275 in prison. Others of our friends have been “inside” a lot less time. Recalling this on Ash Wednesday 2024 makes me want to rejoice in my friend’s freedom.

Sometimes I discover some strange coincidences when I count the days. For example, my 5,000th day in prison was also my 26th anniversary of priesthood ordination. The numbers don’t mean much except to convey a sense of the drama of time as it plays out in such a place.

Time is experienced differently here than anywhere else. Back in 2012 The New Yorker Magazine had a very good article by Adam Gopnik entitled “The Caging of America” (Jan. 22, 2012) about our ominous and burgeoning prison system. He wrote that “a prison is a trap for catching time” and described the trap thusly:

“It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes
 prisons unendurable for their inmates… That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. Time stops. A note of attenuated panic, or watchful paranoia — anxiety and boredom and fear mixed into a kind of enveloping fog.”

It is not a pretty picture, and I think the pain of living in prison is experienced proportionately to one’s mental capacity. Prison is the one place on Earth where intellect is a handicap, and possibly even a source of deep personal anguish. I took on “A Day Without Yesterday:” Father Georges Lemaitre and The Big Bang a while back because I feared my brain cells might atrophy from lack of use.

Perhaps I am in good company in this suspension of time. A great comment by my friend Carlos Caso-Rosendi mentioned that God lives in the ”nunc stans,” a place where there is no passage of time at all. Carlos is exactly right that God lives outside of time. Psalm 90 gives a hint of this, and it’s a good Ash Wednesday message:

“You turn man back to dust and say ‘Turn back, O children of men!’ For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.”

— Psalm 90:3-4

I know the feeling. My time here has not been experienced as thousands upon thousands of days, but as one very long day still awaiting its final sunset, a sort of long Lent with no Easter in sight — except, perhaps, in hope. I guess it’s really that way for all of us. Without hope, there can be no Easter, only Lent. The reverse is also true. To be a Catholic Christian is to live in hope despite all appearances to the contrary.

A City on a Hill

I’m showing my age, but I can hear Roger McGuinn from The Byrds intoning the musical version of Ecclesiastes (3:1): “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” I don’t mean to lecture you, but “doing time” — “doing Lent” — qualifies me to write about both. This Lent is our time to ponder freedom, and what we do with it, and all the dire threats to it.

It’s a time to wake up, a time to take stock of who and what we are, and most importantly of what we are becoming. It’s a time to measure our civic duty as Catholic members of the human race in this place at this time. It’s a time to account for what it means to live as humans are meant to live, in God’s image and likeness in a society and culture we are supposed to add to and not just take from. It’s a time to discern whether we as Catholics shape our culture more than it shapes us. Even a prisoner can enter into that discernment.

I once wrote of one vivid example that happened here, and I feel driven to write of it again for it is astonishing. It’s a typical prison story with a very atypical outcome. It involved my friend, Joseph. One of Joseph’s many disputes with other prisoners erupted into a fight. Both were hauled off to spend some time in “the hole.” Months later Joseph emerged first, then a week later, his enemy. News of their ongoing combat spread throughout the prison, and the peer pressure was intense. “Fight — Fight — Fight” was the sole message they heard from both friends and foes. The prison was abuzz with the inevitable. Joseph ducked all my efforts to intervene. This was about a month after our friend, Pornchai Moontri, whom everyone here admired, was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010.

Seated in the prison chow hall one day, Joseph awaited his opponent for the big scene. Pornchai was sitting with me as usual as hundreds of prisoners poured in for dinner and a show. I decided I would have no choice but to try diplomacy. Then Pornchai suddenly stood up. In the presence of hundreds of anticipating prisoners, Pornchai walked to the door to meet up with Joseph’s enemy.

I groaned as I saw diplomacy fly right out the window. Then Pornchai gestured to the young man to follow him. Together they walked to the table where Joseph was seated. With all eyes riveted upon this scene, we could hear a pin drop. They sat down, and the three of them had a conversation. I watched from across the hall as Pornchai spoke and the two enemies stared at their shoes.

I don’t think the Treaty of Versailles entailed such drama and a sense of impending doom. Then suddenly — in the sight of all — the three of them stood up. Joseph and his enemy shook hands, gave each other a fraternal smack on the back, then parted company. The war ended and a treaty was struck. I was very proud of Pornchai. Gandhi could not have done better.

There is a Gospel declaration for the age we live in, and Pornchai exemplified it that day. It’s a worthy goal for Lent for all of us who have been waiting for some light in the darkness while sometimes forgetting that we are the ones who are supposed to bring it:

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand where it gives light to all in the house.”

— Matthew 5:14-15

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Important announcement from Father Gordon MacRae:

Some fights must continue despite Lent. Our dear friend Claire Dion in the State of Maine is in a fight that she cannot allow herself to set aside or retreat from. She has long assisted me and Pornchai Moontri in this prison and beyond. Claire had a distinguished career as an obstetrics nurse. Forty-four years ago she delivered my oldest niece, Melanie. In her retirement she became a dedicated prolife activist. In recent weeks Claire has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and additional tumors on her spinal cord and pelvic area. As I write this, she is receiving her first dose of radiation treatment in an effort to shrink the largest of the tumors which is causing her immense pain. She is offering some of that pain for me, but I will never be worthy of it. In coming weeks she will begin to also undergo intensive chemotherapy. The goal is not to cure the cancer, for it has no known cure, but it is hoped that its inevitable route will slow down and enable her to live life as she has known it for as long as possible. No one who knows Claire can understand how or why she is facing lung cancer. She has never used tobacco products in her entire life. In fact, she has never been known to inhale anything but clean air and the grace of Divine Mercy.

Claire is a woman of deep faith, and she has handed her life over to the care of God and service to us. She wants to continue helping as long as she is able. Please keep Claire and her family in your prayers.

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My own fight continues.

Readers also know that I too am in a fight from which I must not retreat. There is no foe here for my friend Pornchai to meet at the door and talk some sense into. It is an attack not just on me, but on the entire priesthood and our Church.

Ryan A. MacDonald, who has been a courageous ally for truth in this fight, has revised and updated an article he wrote some 12 years ago. His updates shed new light on what has gone on in this fight, and this week he has decided to put that light on a stand for all to see. It is published at our “Voices from Beyond” feature under the title “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison.”

It is not as bleak as it may sound. Grace has accomplished much within this story, and the evil that lurks in the hearts of some has not yet ruled the day nor has it had the last word.

Those who are able, and feel inclined to assist in this fight may do so, but we have a new address for that purpose. It is:

Fr. Gordon MacRae
Beyond These Stone Walls
PO Box 81
Fayetteville, NY 13066-0081

Assistance using PayPal or Zelle is also available at FrGordonMacRae@gmail.com. Both of these are managed by Claire Dion who wishes to continue in that role for as long as she is able. My prayer is that Claire will be in no hurry to journey Home. This world is a better place with Claire still in it.

May the Lord Bless you and keep you in this Season of Lent, Sacrifice and the Passage of Time.

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.”

Benedict XVI Faced the Cruelty of a German Inquisition

Jesus was mocked by the devil in the Gospel of Luke (4:1-13). Before his death, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was mocked by a commission of progressive German Catholics.

March 2, 2022 by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

“Aaron shall lay his hands upon the goat and confer upon it all the sins of the people ... The scapegoat shall bear their iniquities upon him into the wilderness ... to Azazel.”

— Leviticus 10:10,22

In the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent (Luke 4:1-13), Jesus is tested by a devil in the desert. I wrote of the significance of this Gospel passage on Ash Wednesday. That important post is “To Azazel: The Fate of a Church That Wanders in the Desert.” Ironically, Pope Benedict XVI wrote of this same Gospel passage in his acclaimed book Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 2007). His analysis of the demonic testing of Jesus seems now to be an omen of Catholic division:

“[The Devil’s] temptations of Jesus ... address the question as to what really matters in human life. At the heart of all temptation is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights without reference to God, building on our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material while setting God aside is an illusion.”

— Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 28

In the Gospel account from St. Luke above, Jesus thwarts the devil at every turn. We cannot thwart the devil at all without Him. In the end, the devil departs to wait for a more “opportune time.” For some of the Catholic leadership of Germany, it seems that opportune time is now. Fifteen years after writing the above reflection on the testing of Jesus in the desert, Pope Emeritus Benedict became a target of the very forces he cautioned the Church against.

Built entirely on a political agenda with obvious bias and ideological goals, a commission of lawyers launched by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising where Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger served as Archbishop 43 years ago accused him of dishonesty and a cover-up. It was because he could not immediately recall being present at a meeting 42 years earlier in which a specific priest was reportedly discussed. The equally progressive and partisan news media capitalized on this to embarrass the elderly Benedict whose painful response spoke volumes about his effort to satisfy his pernicious detractors. Here is an excerpt of Benedict’s response:

“In addition to responding to the questions posed ... this also demanded reading and analyzing almost 8,000 pages of documents ... and almost 2,000 pages of expert opinion. Amid the massive work, an oversight occurred regarding my participation in the chancery meeting of 15 January 1980. This error was not intentionally willed ... To me it has proved deeply hurtful that this oversight was used to cast doubt on my truthfulness and even to label me a liar.”

— Excerpt of Statement of Benedict XVI, 8 February 2022

The Moral Authority of a German Inquisition

In another post, “Stones for Pope Benedict and the Rusty Wheels of Justice,” I raised what I know to be an important historical context in defense of Benedict. Even if the allegations had substance, which they do not, I can only conclude that this archeological expedition was one-sided and deeply unjust. In my post linked above, I raised a pair of highly relevant but controversial questions. Germany’s historical inquiry into the protection of minors, which had taken on the tone and substance of a witch hunt, ventured back more than forty years to demand answers entirely out of context for the sole apparent purpose of isolating and demeaning Pope Benedict.

This is by no means the first time that Germany has launched such a destructive moral panic. I wrote of a very similar inquisition in “Catholic Scandal and the Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of a Moral Panic.” Why should this inquisition go back only to 1980? Go back just another forty years and you will find yourself in the Germany of 1940 when the vast atrocities visited upon the Children of Yahweh were amply documented and globally known. With what moral authority did Germany point a finger of blame at Joseph Ratzinger for being unable to recall a 42-year-old meeting?

It turned out, however, that the claims were not even true, but they were nonetheless nefarious. Pope Benedict added to his letter quoted above, “I have come to increasingly appreciate the repugnance and fear that Christ felt on the Mount of Olives when he saw all the dreadful things that he would have to endure inwardly.” A follow-up statement from Archbishop Georg Gänswein, longtime personal secretary of Pope Benedict, addressed the political, moral and spiritual depravity of those pointing fingers of blame. Here is an excerpt of Edward Pentin’s blog report, “Archbishop Gänswein: Movement Wants to Destroy Benedict XVI’s Life and Work”:

“Benedict denied personally mishandling abuse cases, each detailed in an appendix to [his] letter compiled by four lawyers acting on Benedict’s behalf. The three canonists and one attorney said that all four charges made against him ... were false. Benedict’s enemies nevertheless used the error to launch attacks on the Pope Emeritus with theologians and others accusing him of lying and perjury.”

— Statement of Archbishop Georg Gänswein

In all of this shameful debacle, Benedict was the only one talking about Jesus. None of these purportedly Catholic accusers ever even mention God, or Jesus, or fidelity to the Church as they prop up their own progressive agenda. It did not take long for the real agenda to become unmasked. These attacks on Benedict coincided with a plenary meeting of Germany’s “Synodal Path” which voted in the same weekend as the condemnation of Benedict to call for same-sex unions and blessings, sweeping revisions of Church teaching on homosexuality and priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, and lay involvement in the nomination and selection of bishops.

Constructing a World by Our Own Lights

In other words, while reviling Benedict, the German Synod demanded a transformation of German Catholicism into the 21st Century Episcopal church which had long since been torn from the Anglican Communion by these same demands. This is exactly what Benedict XVI cautioned against in his citation from Jesus of Nazareth above:

“Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building on our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material while setting God aside is an illusion.”

— Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 28

True to form, on February 4, 2022, the German Synod participants voted 163 to 42 to call on Pope Francis to loosen Church rules on priestly celibacy and to permit the ordination of women deacons two years after Francis declined to do either. This is evidence of something that I have witnessed and cautioned against. Elements in and outside the Church use a climate of fear and revilement around the topic of sexual abuse, not to protect the vulnerable, but as a cudgel to force an entirely secular path toward moral relativism.

The synod participants in Germany argued that obligatory celibacy for priests has impacted the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. This blindly ignores the setting in which the crisis emerged, the sexual revolution of the 1960s to 1980s which now impacts all of Western Culture. One of its tentacles has been a push far beyond mere societal acceptance of homosexuality to promote and normalize it as a societal good. This requires a denial of any connection between homosexuality and the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

As a result, the crisis is blamed on sexual repression and the practice of obligatory priestly celibacy. It is a testament to the power of reaction formation that an entire institution would come to prefer the term “pedophile scandal” to “homosexual scandal” even when the facts say otherwise. And the facts do say otherwise. This is not a political statement. It is a factual one, amply documented. I defended this point in “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix.”

In the place where I live, there are over 1,200 men convicted of sexual offenses who must complete a sexual offender program to be considered for parole. In the wider state there are thousands already in the community on parole or as registered criminal sex offenders. Only one of them is a Catholic priest, and he is widely considered to be innocent. The vast majority were married men at the time of their offenses. None were driven to predation by the practice of celibacy, though most strive to practice it now.

The Schismatic Agenda

What is really going on in the German Catholic church is very different from its stated agenda of inclusiveness. Each step in this inquiry is a subtle effort to drag the Church away from the Gospel and into a politically correct arena of moral relativism. The next step in the sexual revolution will tear the Church apart.

I have come to appreciate the candor and spiritual integrity of prison writing from the ranks of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr. Walter Ciszek, Fr. Alfred Delp, and more recently, Cardinal George Pell. Writing from prison with very limited opportunities for dialog and in-depth research means writing almost entirely from one’s own mind, heart and soul. The Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell has been a goldmine of unfiltered candor and spiritual integrity.

While reading his Prison Journal Volume Two (in which, for full disclosure, my own writing occupies several pages) Cardinal Pell wrote candidly of his concerns for the direction of the Church in Germany. In an entry from his prison cell on August 9, 2019, he wrote of Edith Stein, now known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who, like St. Maximilian Kolbe, was murdered in Auschwitz by the Nazi regime of 1940s Germany.

Cardinal Pell wrote that Edith Stein was German by birth, and he asked readers to pray for her intercession for the Catholic Church in Germany. He quoted German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position once held by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:

“The Catholic Church in Germany is going down. Leaders there are not aware of the real problems. They are self-centered and concerned primarily with sexual morality, celibacy, and women priests. They do not speak about God, Jesus Christ, grace, the Sacraments, faith, hope, or love.”

— Cardinal Gerhard Müller quoted in Prison Journal Vol. II, p. 75

It gets much worse. Later in Prison Journal Volume II, Cardinal Pell wrote of Vatican concerns about the growing possibility of a German Catholic schism over the very issues identified by Cardinal Müller. If such a progressive-driven schism were to occur, it would sweep much of the European Union where Catholic Mass attendance is at its historically lowest point. Cardinal Pell cited a September 17, 2019 Catholic Culture article by Phillip Lawler, “Who Benefits from All This Talk of Schism?”

Lawler argued that the prospect of a schism is remote, but becoming less so. He cited that Pope Francis has spoken calmly about such a prospect saying that he is not frightened by it, something that Lawler found to be frightening in and of itself.

Cardinal Pell added that The New York Times has been writing about the prospect of a German Catholic schism by “the John Paul and Benedict followers in the United States, the Gospel Catholics.” He observed that Lawler’s diagnosis is correct in pointing out that,

“The most aggressive online defenders of Pope Francis realize they cannot engineer the radical changes they want without precipitating a split in the Church. So they want orthodox Catholics to break away first, leaving progressives free to enact their own revolutionary agenda.”

— Prison Journal Vol. II. p. 214-215

In light of this, it comes as no surprise that progressive bishops have pushed Pope Francis into divisive restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass and other suppression of traditional expressions of the faith. These efforts, and the German Catholic steps taken to demean the late Pope Benedict, a stalwart of Catholic orthodoxy, should come as no surprise to faithful Catholics. Embracing and promoting fidelity at this juncture has never been more urgent. Faithful Catholics must never accede to the desired end that German progressives seek.

Handing the Church over to them would leave “Satan at the Last Supper” while Jesus is removed from the room.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this most important post. You may also be interested in these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls :

Catholic Scandal and the Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of a Moral Panic

To Azazel: The Fate of a Church That Wanders in the Desert

Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light

It’s Lent. It’s Late. It’s Time to Find Our Way Home

Editor’s Note: In the photo above, Cardinal Timothy Dolan presides over Palm Sunday Mass in an empty Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Like no other time in history, forces in our culture are driving us toward a rapid retreat from God and the tenets of faith. Lent is our time to decide who we are.

Writing the "Blessed Among Us" column for the February 2021 issue of This Day: Dai1y Prayer for Today's Catho1ic, Robert Ellsworth penned the story of Maryknoll priest, Servant of God Francis X. Ford. I was looking for the Mass readings for the First Sunday of Lent when I came upon Father Ford's story. One sentence caught my eye: He died in prison on February 21, 1952.

That was one year before I was born. Francis Ford was one of the first Americans to join the newly founded Maryknoll missionary society just out of high school in Brooklyn, New York in 1912. After priesthood ordination in 1920, he joined the first group of four Maryknoll priests on a missionary journey to China. It was there that he died, 32 years later, in a Chinese prison.

Father Ford spent many years in Kaying, in southern China. During that time he witnessed the Chinese Catholic population there rise to over 20,000. He chose to remain there during World War II, but after the war, during China’s Communist Revolution, he was imprisoned for suspected espionage. He was never tried, but during his imprisonment he was starved, beaten, and paraded before mocking crowds anxious to please the Communist regime.

During that time, the Chinese Communist government confiscated farm lands and equipment of the Church and at all American-supported missions, including Fu Jen University at Peking.

Priests in the areas most affected by Marxism were working under extensive restrictions. Some restrictions were self-imposed by the priests to avert Communist persecution of their people.

Wholesale arrests took place beginning in December 1950 when the American bishop of Wuchow and 21 Maryknoll missionaries were imprisoned. The usual charge was suspicion of espionage. Throughout this persecution, Father Ford never wavered from his faith. He wrote from prison:

“Grant us, Lord, to be the doorstep by which the multitudes may come to Thee, and if ... we are ground underfoot and spat upon and worn out, at least we shall become the King’s Highway to pathless China.”

— Servant of God Francis X. Ford, 1952

My first reaction to the story of Father Ford was to wonder what he may today think of the secret concordat signed by Pope Francis, and recently renewed, surrendering to the Chinese Communist government the authority to appoint Catholic bishops in effective abandonment of the Underground Church to which Father Ford gave his life.

But more on that in a future post. This one is about Lent and not politics. Well ... at the moment I actually have a hard time separating the two. Lent really is about politics, but only in the sense that conversion of the heart means putting — and keeping — our politics in their proper place. Politics are a means to an end — the end hopefully being a fair and just society functioning in defense of unalienable human rights.

But Lent is also about the End itself; our end. It asks some fundamental questions of us: Who are we? Where does our treasure lie? Where are we going spiritually? Are any of our recent struggles — to which we have given so much of ourselves and our attention “paving the King’s Highway” through a pathless humanity? Are the affairs that embroil us leading us and others to Christ?

Lost in a Lenten Wilderness

Since this post began with the story of an American priest who, though innocent, died in a Chinese prison, I am faced with the possibility that I, too, though innocent, may die in an American one. As the clock ticks into another Lent — my 27th in prison that feels more probable than possible. I am not sure what I am supposed to do with that probability. It is easy for us, as a society, to point to human rights abuses in China while the plank in our own eye blinds us to ourselves.

Stumbling into the story of Father Francis X. Ford was a gift to me. Just as in his Chinese prison, I, too, was beaten, starved, and paraded before humiliating mobs. None of that has happened lately. It was all long ago, but like Father Ford, it left me at a crossroads. I had to come, as he did, to accept my Cross as “pavement on the King’s Highway” for another. Like all of us, I ultimately came into this world from dust, and to dust I shall ultimately return. In the time and space in between, I have been assigned a task. As Saint John Henry Newman prayed, “I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.”

I confess that I was bitter for a time. I wanted revenge even more than I wanted justice. I consumed it, and then it consumed me until the great mystery of Divine Providence placed my friend, Pornchai Moontri in my path. He never did or said anything to make me think this, but he was like an immovable roadblock that would not let me pass. His life events of abandonment, being used, and then discarded into years of solitary confinement left him alone in the fires of Gehenna, that ancient place of human sacrifice to a false god (2 Kings 23:10).

It was there that we met, and I came to see that my bitterness would be just the right ingredient that would push him over the edge, lost in the abyss forever. I cannot adequately describe this today, but I was mysteriously driven by grace into something that I once ascribed to Pope Benedict XVI as he left the papacy: I had to devote myself to “The Sacrifices of a Father’s Love.”

Fatherhood is waning in our culture, and the culture has a festering wound because of it. This absence is in no place more evident than in prison where eighty percent of the young men who land here grew up in fatherless homes. In Pornchai’s life, this wound was deeply felt. Abandoned by his first father, he was sacrificed to the fires of Gehenna by someone who exploited and abused him horribly, and then discarded him. Pornchai told me one day that I am the only person in his life to always act in his best interest.

I felt duty bound to make the sacrifices for Pornchai that others should have made, but did not. This became complicated. I had to all at once be his friend, his father, his priest, and a mirror of the Church that I had come to resent because it discarded me. I discovered that to accomplish what I was called to do, there could be no more “me.” In the process of sacrifice for another, my identity as a man and as a priest was restored. I cannot explain exactly how, but I never before in my life felt more like a father and a priest than the day Pornchai told me:

“I woke up today with a future when up to now all I ever had was a past.”

— Pornchai Moontri

It was not long after this that Pornchai was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010. He chose, as you know, the name Maximilian as his Christian name. He chose it in honor of my Patron Saint, Maximilian Kolbe, whose apostolic witness, and undaunted devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was based on one immutable truth: “Love alone creates.”

You might recall that I began this post with the story of Father Francis X. Ford whose life I encountered as I searched for the Mass readings for the First Sunday of Lent. The Second Reading is from the First Letter of Saint Peter (3:18-22):

“Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison ...”

— 1 Peter 3:18-22

The Great and Terrible Adventure of Sacrificial Love

As much as we dislike suffering in any form, I have found that the mystery of Divine Providence sometimes causes suffering to make a surprising turn back onto itself. I wrote a post some time ago entitled, “Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance.” The account of Saint Maximilian’s gruesome death in an Auschwitz starvation chamber is painful. At the very same time, it is also hopeful.

Without the spontaneous sacrifice Maximilian made to exchange his life for a young, condemned prisoner, that man would never again have known freedom. His children, grandchildren and great grandchildren would never have been born. On a wider scale, the thousands of others suffering in Auschwitz who heard of this story were themselves inspired to respond to evil and suffering with their own noble defiance. And wider still, the world would have been deprived of this powerful account of the sacrifice of a father’s love that has inspired millions.

My friend Pornchai was not drawn to the Catholic faith because of anything he heard or read. It was because of something he witnessed, something that never wavered. Shortly after he was received into the Church, Pornchai asked one of his notorious “upside down” questions. His head would pop down from his upper bunk in the dark of our prison cell so that he appeared upside down as he asked, “Should we ask God for a happy ending when Father Maximilian never had one?”

I was left to ponder that question for days before I could answer that “You, Pornchai are his happy ending.” I do not know if it was adequate, and I ponder it still, but in the mystery of suffering, immense good has come from this saint. It leaves me in a terrible spiritual quandary that I have written before. I despise prison. I still, after 27 years, feel pangs of bitterness for being falsely accused, and waves of resentment for, as Father Richard John Neuhaus once described, “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

But I shudder to think of who and where Pornchai might be today had I not been here. God did not send me to prison. That was the work of greedy, lying men and corrupt officials. But then God did something with it that I could never have imagined. People write to me now, expressing concern that I must be heartbroken by my friend’s absence. I am not. I miss him, but behind that is an inexplicable sense of peace that the task given to me by God — a task that could be given to none other — has been fulfilled by the great gift of something that I did not even know was within me: the sacrifices of a father’s love.

I still hate prison, false witness, and corruption — perhaps now more than ever — but I cannot second guess this magnificent work of Divine Mercy. Our Church, like the world in which it lives, is permeated with the influence of evil. It is also filled with the sacrifices of its heroes like Father Francis X. Ford, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the enduring presence of selfless sacrifice extended back over 2,000 years.

It’s Lent. It’s late. It’s time to find our way home. As Saint Peter once asked of Christ — putting all politics aside — “to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Father Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, died on February 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, at age 90 from Covid-19 complications. Father Seraphim was a priest of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was also Vice-Postulator for the cause of sainthood for Saint Maria Faustina. He heroically smuggled her Diary out of Communist occupied Poland where it had been supressed. He then translated the Diary into English. Along with Saint John Paul II, Father Seraphim was globally considered to be one of the premier experts on Divine Mercy.

Father Seraphim was also a good friend to Pornchai Moontri and me. He came to this prison to interview both of us in 2014 during a retreat workshop on Father Michael Gaitley’s book Consoling the Heart of Jesus.

Pornchai and I invite you to help us honor Father Seraphim by reading and sharing this post written shortly after his visit with us: "Father Seraphim Michalenko on a Mission of Divine Mercy."

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