Sifted Like Wheat
Reflections on My Getting Fired/Canceled
SIFTED LIKE WHEAT: REFLECTIONS ON MY GETTING FIRED/CANCELED
Note: This is a longer read (7k+ words). It’s about my getting fired from my job as Principal at a Catholic School a month ago. Given the weight of the situation, I expounded more than I otherwise would’ve. TL:DR: I was fired and had to work hard to try to process the weight of what I experienced so that I could ultimately retain my faith, strive to keep charity intact, and persevere in my conviction for my role in education. +
A month ago (Friday, October 25th) I was fired from my job as Principal at St. Wenceslaus Catholic School. I had been there for four-and-a-half months. It was a very trying time for me and my family, but one that had the Lord’s hand all over it. A man’s mind plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9) At the beginning of October an elderly parishioner, with no relations in the school, came to my boss—the parish priest—with, what was told to me, a “stack of papers” of things I’d written and spoken about publicly. What was passed on to me was that one podcast appearance the parishioner mentioned--that I did a year prior, before my time working there--brought them to tears and they asked how I could be Principal of the school with such views? The priest asked me about the podcast appearance, what he was going to find on it, and what I said in it. I told him that I always try to speak honestly and with respect about anything I talk about. I didn’t recall much from the podcast, and certainly not every comment I’d made on it in that moment, but I knew what my principles are: the rule of the faith, the things our great saints teach, the principles of charity (no unjust harm against God/neighbor). I consider myself quite well restrained. I don’t speak publicly that often; I don’t tweet or use social media. But I told the priest, “if you find things I said that are contrary to the faith—please tell me, because I want to be right with the Lord. That matters more than anything.” He voiced his support of me but warned me that people in the community were coming after me.
The meeting ended positively and over the next week we touched base a few times about the podcast. We both watched it over. I told the priest that I very clearly stand behind what I said on the podcast—I thought it was both true and well restrained. He too believed what I said to be good and beautiful and that he thought I was a moderating force on the podcast. What emerged, though, was that all the concern was about what others said on the podcast—not what I said. He told me that the podcast was causing problems with other people in the community it was being spread to. The feedback he’d received was that those who were watching it universally believed that what I said was really beautiful but that they were very troubled by the overall podcast.
1.
One of the first things I did when this started was tell my wife about it all. The nerves and the pressure were intense. I told a friend of mine that weekend, “my days might be numbered [at St. Wenceslaus].” He asked, “why?” I told him that there were people coming for me—that they want me gone for things I’ve written and podcast appearances I’ve done. He was shocked to hear this was a possibility—“no way this leads to you getting fired.” I told him, “in our society—it’s definitely a real possibility.” “What do you mean, how so?? You work in a Catholic school and you believe what the Catholic Church teaches—how can that possibly be grounds for being fired?” He responded. I told him that in our society that’s no guarantee of protection. “And plus, theology is more dynamic than that. I draw from the saints as best I can, but there are many factions within the Church that disagree with one another… I won’t be fired for saying that I believe Jesus is literally God, or that Mary was immaculately conceived—but I could easily be fired for any number of things that our modern culture is in revolt against that I profess & teach: sexual ethics; the necessity of Christ in salvation; the necessity of the Catholic Church & her sacraments; the primacy of the natural law and my conception of the natural law; real distinctions between mortal and venial sin; real distinctions between men and women; the headship of the father in a household.” These are highly combustible issues in our society—I think their major importance is why they are such combustible issues. No one cares about issues that have no- to little- bearing on our day-to-day lives and how we live. But the ones that do—those are hotly contested. With enough momentum and hatred against me in the right spots, my head could definitely roll over this.
2.
One of the comments my wife made to me a few days after this all started was that when I first told her about this her initial reaction in her mind was, “he could lose his job… we wouldn’t be able to pay our mortgage… we could lose our house!” And then she told me that she said to herself, “it’s ok. If we have to lose our house, we lose our house. We can move into an apartment. We can do what we have to do. What matters is our family.” Hearing her process this like this and say this was one of the proudest moments of my life and my marriage. When I began writing and speaking publicly I told my wife from the beginning that it was possible I could one day be fired for these things or face real persecution. Her initial reaction was one of disgust at me doing any of it then: “well then you shouldn’t say anything!” But I told her that that’s not how Christian obligation works. We don’t get to avoid things because people may persecute us for what we believe. Now we should certainly always try to be respectful, but we have to stand up for what’s true not simply because it’s true, but most of all because it’s good. We don’t believe in the Catholic Church and what the saints teach because, sorry, it just happens to be true. No!, we believe in it because it perfectly conduces to charity. Charity—love of God & love of neighbor (for the sake of loving God)—is why we do it. What the Church teaches is charity—when you live it out you experience the profound joy, peace, patience, hope, clarity, and meaning that it brings with it. That’s why we do it.
I’ve always spent a lot of time in my marriage preemptively talking to my wife about things of loss and death—and not in the abstract. We talk about what it would be like to lose one of our children—we name them each specifically when doing this. We talk about what it would be like to lose one another. We talk about what it would be like to be fired and lose a job—to have to move and to have to struggle to find a new place to work. Each of these things were met with intense emotion up front, but that’s why we bring it out and return to it: it’s only in the face of real loss that the most important, because eternal, principles emerge. It’s the only way to anchor your life in the wisdom that- and do the things that- most conduce to eternal life. Memento mori (“remember death”).
3.
Charity is not simply “being kind to others”; charity is not simply “calling out hurtful things.” It is those things, but only when rightly qualified by justice. What does this mean? It means that it’s not kind to affirm someone in their sins; it means that it’s not “calling out hurtful things” because someone else is subjectively hurt by something that is not contrary to God. Charity is entirely about love of God. The “love of neighbor” attached to it is tethered to the first principle: love of God. We love our neighbor for God & in God. If we love our neighbor in a way that separates them, or us, from God, there is no charity.
This is what it means that the relationship between charity and truth is held together by justice: by recognizing what others are rightly due. Above all what is due to God is a total gift of self—mind, soul, heart, and strength. St. Thomas Aquinas, in one of his most beautiful and accessible works—his treatment of the Ten Commandments & the Law of Charity (https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~DecemPrae) —lays out what each of those parts mean: mind, soul, heart, and strength.
- He says that heart represents a good intention (i.e. wanting to do good to others, especially others in need).
- He says that soul represents a conformity of ones will with the divine will (i.e. your actions should be in line with the justice God prescribes in His commandments—You shall not murder, steal, lie against another, commit adultery, blaspheme, commit idolatry, dishonor your parents—and all their extensions that Christ lays out in his sermon on the mount.)
- He says that mind represents the surrender of one’s whole intellect over to God (“for many do not sin by deed, but they like to think much about sins.” (DP:I:5:vi:¶4)).
- He says that strength represents all that we do (i.e. outwardly).
- “So to love God, the following must be given to God: intention, will, mind, and strength.” (DP:I:5:vi:¶5) [1]
It's not simply the case that being charitable means you say nothing that would harm another in any way, or cause others discomfort in hearing. Being charitable means you say nothing that is contrary to God, and by extension, the natural law. That is what it means to say that being charitable means you say nothing that would cause *unjust* harm to another.
4.
As the weeks mounted the pressure mounted with it. Meetings were called with advisory councils and trustees and even the archdiocese made an appearance. My first instinct—that this could legitimately lead to me being fired—was looking more and more like a reality. When I told the priest in the first few days of this beginning that my wife and I had begun to process the potential consequences of this all the priest reassured me, “to be clear, this is not a fireable offense.” It was a very kind gesture of him to say, and I truly believe he was being sincere, I just also knew that the pressure hadn’t mounted yet like it might. I told my wife what he said but also that it could still be the case I end up being fired. Social/professional persecution pressure is very intense and very hard. Intensity in a moment is different than sustained intensity across weeks/months. What my boss thought initially could change with time as the intensity spread from one moment to a prolonged stretch of days & weeks. I knew that there are no guarantees in this life, and that that’s ok.
5.
I was talking regularly with my priest (not the priest that was my boss at the school) and other priest friends, my closest friends that are all ardently living out the faith, and I was committing myself to whatever God’s will in this situation was. I was hopeful that it wouldn’t have to mount to me being fired, but if it would, I dedicated myself to striving with everything in me to not forsake charity and not forsake my duty to God, to His Church, to His saints, or to anyone I knew that I’ve ever podcasted with, whom I judge to be earnestly trying to live out their Catholic faith in conformity with those things. There would undoubtedly be things that could be criticized—though even that doesn’t mean they’d be criticized fairly. There would undoubtedly be things that I err in doing myself, either in things I’ve said, or motives for doing this or that thing. My motives are not infallible: I say things on podcasts or write things in articles that may spring from desperation, or a desire to “make a splash” and be known—these are failings, but I strive earnestly to subject my motives to God and let Him work on them.
I recognized that another trap of the Evil One would be to draw me into extreme self-justification: claiming that I am beyond reproof and that this is an unprincipled persecution. It may be—but no one can be a judge in their own case… “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.” (Proverbs 21:2)
I gave into this temptation to justify myself many times over the last two months—but, with the grace & assistance of the Lord, I fought to not settle myself there.
After Christ, no one that is persecuted is persecuted with perfect innocence. We are all in need of God’s mercy—“Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin’?”. (Proverbs 20:9)— and some more than others. I am certainly one in great need of His mercy for I have many failings. If I were to be sifted by the devil, there would be fault found, but I knew that I had to try to not take the bait and try to justify myself. As Saint Augustine puts it, let me not claim I have no debts to pay, but only that my debts have been forgiven by the one that no one can ask repayment from.[2]
6.
The fear mounted in the inner circles where I worked. I was asked to give account not only to what I said, but more significantly, what others said and what my views were in relation to those I’ve done podcasts with. I was advised by people in the school community to defer to things like, “you don’t have to agree with everything someone else says”; “their views don’t have to be your views”; etc., etc.. These suggestions were not of the Lord. They were suggested from a place of fear: fear that my leadership would lead the school astray; fear that my character might be wicked in actuality; fear that under my leadership the school could be headed toward financial ruin. Those are always real possibilities, and we have to do our best to account for them, but they were causing us to no longer try to evaluate what God teaches and how we can be right with God going through this trial—it was oriented toward others anger in the community and trying to assuage them for fear of retaliation and backlash.
The advice I was given—to distance myself from others I’ve podcasted with in the past—will never be of God because it leads us to a place where we are left on an island—where no one shares what we think but ourselves; where we distance ourselves from our fellow Christians; where we become the only authority in our lives—and a tacitly infallible authority at that. This method is a self-centered one; it conduces to a radical pride; it leaves you isolated and thereby more vulnerable to attacks from the wicked one. It’s a mindset that has proliferated in our [especially conservative] world, and it’s one I will not endorse.
There are views I’ve once held that I no longer hold. The views I now hold I hold because I think they are right, even if imperfectly fleshed out or understood. Our minds know bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece—that’s what it means to have a rational intellect. Our knowledge is always imperfect in this life. Why would that not be the case for others? And what is it that really matters in the views we hold? The answer must be whether the vectors of the general directions of our views are correct or not… Which means that they are pointed earnestly and courageously at the things of God according to what the Church and her Saints/Popes teach, or not… Which is determined by whether we hold to them especially in regard to the most difficult teachings to affirm in this day and age.
7.
I want to briefly revisit a point I shared earlier: there are any number of views you will be unlikely to be attacked for holding in our Catholic world. If you believe Jesus is literally God, that Mother Mary was immaculately conceived; lived her whole life without sin; retained her virginity through her whole life, etc., etc.. If you believe that abortion is wrong, or that marriage is between a man-and-a-women, you’re in slightly more vulnerable territory, but you’re still rather securely within the bounds of acceptable view in our general Catholic world. What starts to distinguish your safety here is whether you really believe these things to be wrong or whether you simply think it’s your duty to submit to them because the Church has still not abrogated their teachings. That is, if you really think these things are wrong, you’re more exposed. If you defer to them because they’re what the Church teaches—essentially because you think they’re “true” but you publicly and outwardly hide, or reject, that they are good—then you’re less exposed. When you begin to realize this dynamic alive in our Church today, you see with greater clarity what we’re facing.
If you believe in the natural law—if you believe that the Church’s moral teachings spring from the natural law, and are thus a question of philosophy and observation; if you believe that the Church conforms to the natural law because it is infinitely good, the direct manifestation of the eternal law in material creation, and therefor perfectly conforms to charity, then you are in much more vulnerable territory.
More than a distinction between “tradition” and “progress”, the distinction between being a “natural law Catholic” and a “non-natural law Catholic” is much more descriptive of the fault line we see dividing our Catholic world. The non-natural law Catholics tend toward an arbitrary authoritarianism—and this can happen on both the progressive and the traditionalist side (though the middle ground is not equidistant between “tradition” and “progress”, it is undoubtedly much closer to “tradition”). They submit to what has been stated by the Church, but they argue over who has said what—they discredit the individuals who propound things they disagree with. Their stress and contention springs from a belief these things can change because the people in authority can simply change what they say. They manipulate the concept of authority to serve their agendas.
A natural-law Catholic, however, believes, fundamentally, that God sewed his eternal law into creation. He gave us general desires that have to be perfected—neither misused nor abnegated—but because they manifest His will for creation. Things like survival, reproduction, truth, harmony, bodily expression, beauty, union—these are these general desires that must be perfected, yet manifest God’s will for creation. A natural law Catholic believes in real distinctions of authority, that are observable in nature and experience. A natural law Catholic doesn’t bracket the more controversial (by modernity’s standards) parts of the writings of St. Augustine, or St. John Chrysostom, or St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Padre Pio, or whoever else that’s a great saint, because they are unpalatable with modern sensibilities—they want all of it and they trust in the holiness of these people in no small part because they are so detached from social fears: they are focused entirely on God & what is true in His creation.
Many young Catholics & Catholic families—people like myself, and the families I’m friends with, are converts/reverts to the faith and are drawn to the Natural Law version of Catholicism that is so robustly bore out in the lives of the great saints. We desire tradition because it’s a much closer approximation to this real and right instinct toward sin, grace, redemption, reverence, praise, and gratitude. We want all of those things—they’re the central things we want.
This is the world that my views represent, and this is what put the crosshairs on my head at my job.
8.
As the momentum built I brought the real possibility of my termination to my teachers. I spoke honestly and plainly with them. I told them that there was a real chance I would be fired. I told them that one podcast appearance in particular was really angering certain camps of people—a podcast appearance I made on the CMASC podcast titled “Dump Her”. It was an easy podcast to evoke a visceral reaction from non-Natural Law Catholics, and an easy one to put a target on the back of the people that contributed to it—myself included. Even so, I had many supporters—and I’m grateful for those people to this day—but my detractors possessed much vitriol for me and vehemently wanted me gone. A desire to kill what we hate will often overwhelm our desire to save what we love if we don’t know what we’re looking at. The landscape of the battlefield is not very clear to most of us. Even for me it’s only gained greater clarity precisely because I went through this trial…
The reason I knew that a simple apology or distancing myself from the views of those who have been generous enough to invite me on their podcasts wouldn’t even work, practically speaking—not to mention it would be a grave offense against charity because it would be an injustice against them—is because when people are persecuting you for views that you hold, it’s rarely constrained to just changing your views. They want you to change what you do along with what you think. They want you to abandon your views because they want their way of life to continue on unencumbered.
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen in the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls; for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it. (Wisdom 2:12-24)
People that want to get you for speaking of the things of God & His natural law do so because the estrangement they feel in themselves is exposed through the estrangement they feel to those things said. “He who is estranged seeks pretexts to break out against all sound judgement.” (Proverbs 18:1)
9.
What I did at that school when I got there infuriated certain members of the community—families that left the school and families in revolt against the more Natural-Law teachings of the saints and the Church throughout time. The first thing I did when I got to the school was implement Daily Mass, a new uniform code, make changes to the school-day scheduling to block-scheduling, and make select classes single-sex classes. They were all ordered toward reverence, self-respect, and recognition of the natural law. The school day was going to be made psychologically easier and a more natural fit by increasing things like Phy. Ed. time and giving more opportunities for outlets (arts, recess). The curriculum was being moved toward an integrated curriculum with elements of training in formal logic and interdisciplinary study. Visual timeline maps were brought into the teaching of history so that history could be made more intuitive and lighter in cognitive load. These changes (daily mass, scheduling, select single-sex classroom make up) allowed all of these things to fit together in one seamless whole—but the real key was that we were getting much more Catholic, and much more conformed to the Natural-Law, overnight. We were bringing the Lord in all that we were doing and I was very intent on improving the psychological experience of school for our kids.
Every change-leadership method I’ve ever been taught claimed that change should be slow, gradual, and effectively imperceptible. I always disagreed with this on a very deep level, though, and not arbitrarily. I come from the world of sports—and in the world of sports you change everything and you change it right away. You try to transform the culture so that you can transform the experience. You try to transform the experience so you can get momentum going in your intended direction right away. When you are trying to overcome a vice, you will never get anywhere trying to rid yourself of it bit-by-bit. You have to strive to starve yourself of the vice and learn to adapt to the new terrain. The reason is because vice is determined by inordinate desire, and continuing to satiate a vicious desire precludes it from being transformed into a virtuous desire. So long as an outlet for the vicious desire remains, you cannot quench the fire of the desire. For example: if you try to overcome a vicious drinking habit, and tell yourself you’ll let yourself drink when you “celebrate”, then your desire remains for the drinking. You must choke out the desire entirely, then virtue and peace can emerge in its place. The drinker is not looking to suppress a desire, but to transform it. What they need is a mindset change that can be paired with a tangible habit of sober living. At that point their new desire will conform with a truer and healthier model of living.
What I was doing in this school was going to be experienced as intuitive to the kids. It wouldn’t do away with difficulty, but it would focus it. The goal was not to have a kid say “I love how this school works!” on the first day, because that would be premature. The goal was to acclimate them to a more balanced form of living—a balance between tension and release; a balance between attention and relief. What it was striving to induce—and it did within the two months I was there—was a sense of natural orientation toward life and toward God. I was a teacher in the classroom in my time there because the method of learning was as important as the structural changes being implemented. The goal was being produced—seamlessly and effortlessly. Kids attention was increasing, their struggles were met sensibly, their failings were directed toward resolution in charity.
The Lord gave me enough to know that this method is real and true; that it is over the target; and that it can be really and truly replicated, right away.
10.
In a society where the foundations are relatively well aligned with God and the people are generally experiencing fulfillment in their lives, slow-and-gradual change, which really means “no” change, would be the way to do it. But in a society where people are in misery, confusion, and despair—even, and especially, in those who insist they’re not, but are utterly cut off from eternal hope—then I contend that the “slow-and-gradual” model of change is a vehicle of preserving vice and retaining rejection of God. Amidst such a landscape, abrupt and drastic change is what’s needed. This conviction has not waned in me with time, it has only strengthened—and my experience of being fired has only further proved it. The people that wanted me fired cared nothing of the principles of charity. They cared nothing of what the Church has taught throughout its ages. They never paused to ask if they were in the wrong for the vitriol they felt—they never deferred to a priest’s judgement or even paused to consider they could be in the wrong. They were viscerally offended, they wanted me gone, and they wanted to do whatever it took to get me out of there as fast as possible. As the weeks progressed, communication with me became more secretive, Just procedures of informing me what was coming fell away, ambushes started popping up everywhere. None of this was of the Lord.
What the people coming after me wanted was not an apology, but a change in direction of where the school was headed. They wanted me to cede ground to their secular worldview; they wanted me to defect from my ardent conviction for the faith; they wanted me to change my views so that I would change how things were done. They wanted to tarnish my career so that I would not be able to find another school to be Principal of, and so that the views I hold would not be able to influence and inspire others.
They may succeed in ruining my career, but the truths of God will endure. If I am getting the things of God wrong, then I will be left behind. But if I’m over the mark, then they will preponderate. I heard a priest once say, though I’ve never tracked down the quote, that Saint Augustine said, “The truth is like a lion: you don’t have to defend it, you just have to set it free.”
I feel that.
I really deeply feel that.
11.
“Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” (John 12:24)
In what would become my final week of work, the Lord brought peace to my heart. He brought peace to both my own, and my wife’s, hearts. He began to pull down the mask of those set against me. “What is done in the dark will come to the light.” (Luke 8:17) He began to rally those in support of me. He made it clear to me that this persecution was driven by hatred and fear. Hatred from those who hated what I believe; Fear from those who supported me but were scared of those who hated me. There were three camps: those who hated me; those who supported me but feared those who hated me; and those who supported me but didn’t fear those who hated me. Those who supported me and were not scared of those who hated me were not among my persecutors. But the ones that supported me yet were scared of what the ones that hated me would do, became my most aggressive persecutors.
This is deeply insightful.
More and more I was told by this group how this was all my fault—how my inability and immaturity as a leader was the problem; how I was bringing this upon myself. It was incredibly spiritually and psychologically-emotionally intense. It was a weight of scorn unlike many people will ever be subject to. I had been through much greater scorn a decade prior when I made a splash in college football by leaving my team in the way I left. It drew the ire and scorn of many more people, and it would eventually be the beginning of the end of my football career—I never ended up playing a down of football again after that. But that didn’t change that this new scorn was immensely difficult. Add to it that it was the second time I was facing it in this major way, and it became very easy to identify me as the common denominator, and hence the problem. Of course, that could completely be the case—but the Lord will sort that out in His time, and my duty is to try to continue loving the Lord, studying my faith, discerning His action in my life and in observance of how He created nature and our natures, increasing my practice of prayer, and leaning more and more into everyone around me—enemies (i.e. those who hold hatred in their heart toward me) and all.
What the Lord showed me in this were a few really beautiful and powerful things: first, that in my former-supporters that were now most vehemently against me, it was fear that had captured them; second, that you can effect much more positive change by embracing punishment and loss, not merely in theory, but in practice when you are staring it down, if you retain your desire for charity and really stretch yourself to understand what the implications of that are, as you go through loss; third, that this is not only what Christ endured, but why he endured it; fourth, that radical trust in divine providence is necessary for real psychological health in our modern world.
Being a Principal at that school for 20 years wouldn’t demonstrate the value of Christian life 1/1,000th that suffering well this trial and termination could. The Lord was honoring me by putting me through this; by giving me a chance to truly grow and lead through this all.
12.
As the Lord gave me greater clarity around all of this, I began to see how spiritually valuable it would be for me to give over the reigns of my career to him and embrace the possibility of loss—of being fired; of losing my home; of losing my reputation; of being tarnished and losing my career. Nothing in this life is not in the Lord’s hands. Even when we do evil we are not working outside of God’s providence. “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Proverbs 16:4) And:
“Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take soil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. But he does not so intend, and his mind does not so think; but it is in his mind to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few[.]” (Isaiah 10:5-7)
The Lord had and has a plan in all of this—I just don’t know what it is. He knows what I’m like; he knows what everyone in that community is like. He threw me into that place, with all my passion and conviction for Him, with all my personality dispositions and deep-seated tendencies, because He has designs over it all. Whether those designs are for me or for someone else, I do not know; but He has designs over it all. My job is to trust Him by doing especially those things I can control: be true to my obligations to pray; examine my conscience; seek His knowledge in all things; be faithful to my wife and my children; continue to love His Church.
What they meant as evil against me, God means for good. (Genesis 50:20)
13.
On Friday, October 25th, I was fired. I was offered a chance to resign, but refused. I had accepted that if they must fire me, I will embrace it. “Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it.” (Proverbs 15:16) I had drafted a letter to the community saying I was potentially going to be fired, and that if I must be fired I accept it as from the Lord. I gave over veto-power to not send out the letter to my boss (the priest) and he asked that I don’t, so I didn’t. I wanted the community to know that, among other things, like I tried to teach the kids at school in the brief two months I had been with them: we don’t want to fear punishment. Punishment is from the Lord. When we embrace punishment, it becomes penance, and penance restores the dignity of the sinner… God’s grace is not divided, where good things are from the Lord but punishments are not. Punishments are there to draw us more perfectly toward God. If I must suffer the punishment of losing my job, I will do it: the Lord is the author of my life and I submit all that I am and do over to Him. He is gentle and merciful—and He knows my family’s needs. It doesn’t make it easy, but I see in this that this is what being Christian means. Christ did not merely suffer on the cross for past sins, but all the sins ever committed—past, present, and future. Christ embraced His suffering so that we might break the bonds that our fears hold over us. He broke the bonds of fear over anxiety, over pain, over humiliation, over injustice, and over death. He gave all of himself so that we might not be afraid to give all of ourselves over as well. We are called in the Christian life to be imitators of Christ. We are called to strive to be like Christ. If we see in our sufferings an affinity to Christ in his suffering, we’re not being arrogant, we’re realizing with greater depth the humility of Our Lord to make Himself like us. God made Himself like us so that we could conform ourselves to Him. It was my turn to suffer these punishments with peace and grace so that it might break the bonds of fear for job and reputation in some of those members of that community. It was my turn to suffer these real punishments so that I might allow the Lord to help me grow in the ways He desires me to grow. Getting fired was not going to be the end—it was only the beginning, and the most trying spiritual times lied ahead.
14.
It’s been a month since I was fired and it did not get easier after it was done—quite the opposite. The Lord gave me peace in the days leading up to being fired, but in the week or two after there were even stronger demons I had to wrestle with. When one demon leaves, seven more come and take their place. (cf. Matthew 12:44-45) Now my deepest faults were coming out one-after-another. Desires for vengeance, for self-justification, for glory and for personal enrichment. Major blows were leveled at my marriage: disgust, doubt, cynicism, anger. This fueled the desire for vengeance even more, for self-justification, for self-aggrandizement. My faults were stronger and more vehement after it all than they were before and during it. It had been over a decade since I wreaked vengeance in my football career—it had been easy for me to imagine that tendency was no longer in me. But the Lord is good, and He wants all of us, not part of us. He knew that I wouldn’t uproot that tendency for vengeance unless the temptation to do it was really and truly before me again. I envisioned countless scenarios of avenging myself, of inflicting pain on those who had pained- or wronged- me. But the Lord was better still to me: He showed me that these are things I must confess to in the confessional. My musings of vainglory and vengeance were themselves sins. I was taking pleasure in imagining them. I was consoling myself through them. I’d experience dread in their wake. In that dread, my anger would grow, and I’d pursue them more vehemently still.
Mass every day.
Confession every day.
Never once did I have to confess falsely. The Lord was showing me not only that I need his mercy for my past wrongs—He was showing me that I need His mercy indefinitely into the future. We cannot go through life freed from the possibility of sinning. St. Thomas teaches us this in De Veritate, answering whether a person in the state of grace is able to avoid sin (DV:24:13resp)[3]: They can in each act, because to avoid sin in a one-off scenario is called a “negation”—a negation from committing a sin; but to avoid sin indefinitely would require an “affirmation”—an ability to put oneself in a state where sin is not able to exist in him. That is, to avoid sin indefinitely by one’s own power would require them to be capable of making themselves unable to sin—and this is not possible. So it goes that no matter who you are, no matter how steady in good you are, or how given to sin you are, you utterly need God’s mercy to make it through this life and find your way to heaven.
My failings did not diminish by embracing my firing—they came out through it. God gave me the greatest blessing He could: the opportunity to work on my truest faults and the help to begin to see it through.
15.
In the last two-or-so weeks God has turned my sights back on education. There is so much ground to cover. There is so much that needs to be done to strengthen the educational experience of our kids and our larger society. The Lord has put a conviction on my heart to keep working to perfect the educational experience—and I ask the Lord’s help to carry out the work He has assigned to me. Let me love my family with greater fervor, devotion, and honesty. Let me be a better husband to my wife and a better father to my children. May this unfortunate situation stir in whoever reads this a more ardent desire to love the Lord.
I will continue to work—and I hope that you all will too. “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.” (Proverbs 16:3)
God is good! His justice is merciful! The Lord is all that matters!
May God bless you all and confirm you in charity forever. +
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I am spellbound reading your story. I am awed by the strength of your faith.
People will not understand the depth of your anguish unless they had gone through a similar suffering. This is also where our perception of our limitations and boundaries are stretched and defined, and ability to see from new kind of eyes to see reality.
A.J., this was an excellent read. It also is a stark reminder that even the Catholic schools are not a safe bet for my children (which gives me great sorrow to write) - given that views like yours, which align largely with my own, aren't even safe to hold.
I pray that God grants you, your wife, and your children some peace and eyes for the beauty that will undoubtedly unfold as a result of this travesty.