• • CCUSA Presents the Washington Weekly
• • Faith and the Common Good
• • Trivia
• • Connections

Overview: Happy Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates Mexico’s victory over France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, although it took another five years to completely expel the French from the country.

President Biden invited Speaker Kevin of the House McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to a meeting next week to discuss the debt ceiling stalemate. The Senate this week began public hearings about the bill approved in the House, which  would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for significant cuts in discretionary spending, but will not put the bill to a vote. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department said the U.S. could reach its debt limit by June 1, which adds urgency to the administration and Congressional leaders working together for a solution.

This week, the CCUSA Social Policy team made several visits to Congressional offices, introducing members and staff to the programs and services of the Catholic Charities network. Also this week, CCUSA sent a letter to Senate leadership regarding the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill (See “Appropriations” paragraph below). CCUSA is drafting additional letters to the appropriations committees.

A job-seeker leaves a job fair for airport-related employment at Logan International Airport in Boston in this Dec. 7, 2021, file photo. For more than 130 years, popes have made the dignity of workers a moral issue, a tradition continued by Pope Francis. (CNS photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)

Economy: In the week ending April 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 242,000, an increase of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 1,000 from 230,000 to 229,000. The 4-week moving average was 239,250, an increase of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 250 from 236,000 to 235,750.  The U.S. economy added 253,000 jobs in April, surpassing analyst forecasts of 180,000 new jobs, according to Labor Department data released Friday. The unemployment rate remained historically low at 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent the previous month.

Immigration: CCUSA has great concerns about H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which came out this week.  Provisions of this bill would endanger unaccompanied children and inflict harm on other vulnerable persons, decimate access to asylum, mandate damaging detention and removal practices, restrict access to legal employment, limit—and potentially eliminate—Department of Homeland Security partnerships with faith-based and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and more. CCUSA is reviewing the bill and preparing a response.

Appropriations: CCUSA urged the U.S. Senate’s leadership, as they consider the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill for fiscal year 2024, to invest in programs that protect and support poor and vulnerable children, families, persons facing behavioral and mental health crises and elderly persons. Read the full letter here.

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Consider the exasperation of Jesus when, after he asks his disciples to have faith in him, Philip says, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” (See the gospel for this Sunday).

Philip’s question reveals a desire on his part to be released from the exercise of faith. He wants to be rid of all doubt. Jesus responds firmly and quickly: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus has given evidence of who he is, but it’s not the evidence Philip wants.

Does this sound familiar?

Maybe we know someone who has said similar things to God? Maybe we have said these things: “Just get me out of this mess, and I’ll change my life.” “If you give me the virtues of a saint, then I will be holy.”

Such requests are problematic to say the least. For one thing, we are asking God to conform to us. And we’re also asserting (unconsciously?) that if God just provided us with the necessary gifts, we could handle life on our own.

Jesus would agree that we can and should conform to God and his will, made known to us in the Bible and tradition. We should definitely ask for spiritual gifts, cultivate virtues and do good works. But it’s important to acknowledge that even our good efforts manifest God’s grace in our lives. Indeed, following God is like a beautiful dance between freedom and obedience.

Given the necessity of yielding to God when we walk by faith and God’s grace, one might conclude that a faithful person is less free. But that’s not how it works in reality. Jesus yielded to God in everything, and he remained perfectly free. If we follow Jesus, then our faith and God’s grace cooperate with our freedom.

Men receive lunch during a training session on worksite safety at Catholic Charities Bronx Day Laborer Center in the Bronx borough of New York City Feb. 16, 2023. The training was run by Catholic Charities Community Services, who works in partnership with the Day Laborers to provide educational workshops, leadership training, and opportunities for economic empowerment. (OSV News photo/Shannon Stapleton, Reuters)

Consider how Jesus lived. The primary concern for Jesus, the decision that formed a foundation for everything else, was to subject himself to God the Father. Jesus, in perfect freedom, unites his will to the Father’s. Therefore, he is able to say, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own” (Jn 10:17-18). At the same time, he can assert that the “Father who dwells in me is doing his works.”

The second concern for Jesus was to save the world, to bring humanity to God, by uniting all men and women to himself. By his incarnation, his death and resurrection, and his gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus frees us from sin and death and gives us the ability to share in the life of God: “I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus says. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

In the 4th century, St. Hilary expressed the same truth this way: “In the sacrament of his body [Jesus] gives us his own flesh, which he has united to his divinity. This is why we are all one, because the Father is in Christ, and Christ is in us. He is in us through his flesh and we are in him. With him we form a unity which is in God.”

The first step for us in this process of being united to God is to have faith in God’s words, to yield to them and to follow them. It does not mean that we avoid questions, or that we stop trying to understand more deeply the meaning of God’s words. But we do need to avoid Philip’s mistake, which places conditions on God’s words and seeks proof before acting on faith.

It’s when we take the leap of faith that we receive its fruit. Moreover, Jesus says, the person who lives by faith “will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these…”

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Q. Who was the leader of France when French forces lost the Battle of Puebla (Mexico) in 1862?

Please send your answers to [email protected]. 

Last week's question and answer:

Q. What is the oldest active military unit in continual existence since 1506?

A. Anne Dryden, retired CCUSA archivist, was first with the answer: The Swiss Papal Guard.

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