+JMJ+ Greetings, y’all! I didn’t plan to do two posts last week, but when challenged to answer some Protestant objections on Twitter/X, I ended up writing a blog post instead of a long, hard-to-write-and-read thread. So I’m going to continue working on something this week and let that second post stand-in for tonight’s post, along with what I’m about to tell you about what I’m working on. 

Now, it may not have escaped your attentiont that I’m one of those people who pays attention to language. And something has been bothering me about the use of certain words in our language for quite a while, though I was not able to put it into words. 

Then yesterday I read something that brought me some much-needed clarity and I’m still reading and thinking about it. There are words that mean one thing to those of us who are Catholic—at least, to those of us who are Catholic and pay attention to words—but mean something very different to non-Catholics, especially those who are not particularly friendly to Catholics and Catholic ideas. 

Some of those words are “values and virtues” and “secular and religious” and one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about this and reading about it is that Catholics have begun to use these words the same way the not-so-friendly non-Catholics do, and this is doing damage to our language and to our education and formation, too. 

Let me give you some links to you can read for yourself and understand more about it while I think and work away. And please share these links with your friends and family who might be interested.

• Values and Virtues: A Modern Confusion, by Iain T. Benson, at CERC. (Catholic Education Resource Center).
• Secularism and the Deeper Questions of Religion and Society, by Iain T. Benson, at CERC.
• Seeing through the secular illusion, by Iain T. Benson, at SSRN (Social Science Research Network).

Those are some of the things I’m reading and thinking about right now. We’ve let our words and terms and thus our thinking get watered down for too long and enough is enough. Time to start noticing every time we hear someone use these words without thinking and when we hear ourselves do it, too. We are where we should start, really. 

If I haven’t made any sense, I will when I write the actual post after I’ve had more time to think and digest the articles I’ve saved. And those articles at those links say it better than I will be able to, anyway. So please do read them, if you care even a little bit about where our culture is going and where even the Church, or a lot of people in the Church, seem to be going, too.

Thank you for visiting and reading. Sacred Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like unto Thine. And may we be not afraid to become saints! God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Notes and Links

• Values and Virtues: A Modern Confusion, by Iain T. Benson, at CERC. (Catholic Education Resource Center).
• Secularism and the Deeper Questions of Religion and Society, by Iain T. Benson, at CERC.
• Seeing through the secular illusion, by Iain T. Benson, at SSRN (Social Science Research Network).

Image: The Church Spiritual and Material, in heaven and on earth. My title. I don’t know where this poster came from, I’ve found it all over the web. I don’t think it’s under copyright.

+JMJ+ I was asked by a non-Catholic on Twitter/X to defend some Catholic practices, and since these nearly exact same charges, assertions, and issues come up over and over and over again, day after day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade, and since I can’t answer them in long form on Twitter/X, I decided to write a blog post and answer them here. I’m still working on my apologetics section. This will become part of that project. So many projects, so little skillful time management!

In some cases the answers are so long and have been answered by professional apologists in a much clearer way than I feel I can, so I have provided a brief answer and then have linked to their articles. 

Question: If the beads of the rosary have no special spiritual power and are simply a tool for counting prayers, why bless them? 

Response: I’m amazed that anyone thinks that we think there is any kind of special power in the beads we use for keeping our place in the devotion we are practicing. The bead set is a tool we use that helps us when we pray and meditate on the Gospel, and helps us pray together when we pray with others. The beads also help to keep us grounded so that the feel of the beads in our hands helps keep our minds from wandering, so that the prayers do not become what non-Catholics so often accuse them of being, and that is, mindless verbiage. One’s mind can wander while one is doing anything, that’s a reflection on how our human minds work, not on the value of the work we are asking them to do.

Now, why bless them? The Church has set apart things we use from the very beginning. Priests have blessed farm animals, farm implements, transportation vehicles, etc., because those things are tools that we use to help us accomplish something sacred. The labor we do to serve our families and communities is sacred and the tools we use are set apart to help us do that work. The beads we use to pray the Rosary are set apart from any other use because what we do with them is sacred: reflecting on the life of Christ in the Gospels, and learning about the life of the Christian disciple so that we can live that life in ever deeper union with Christ, our Lord. 

We bless our children, too, to set them apart and to protect them. We bless our animals on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, and we bless throats on the feast of St. Blaise.

• Why do Catholics bless stuff?

Video, Catholic Answers Focus: Why Do Catholics Bless Stuff?

Q: Why use a rosary specifically, rather than counting mentally or on one’s fingers? 

R: I have done that many times and so have many of my friends. But I prefer using the beads because I like the way they feel in my hands and it’s easier to not lose my place with them. With my fingers I can easily get lost, but I have used them in the car and at the park, etc., many times. It’s a matter of preference, for me and probably for others, too.

Q: What additional spiritual function does a blessed object fulfil[l]? 

R: We call them sacramentals, not to be confused with sacraments. Here’s a bit about them.

One difference between sacraments and sacramentals is that the latter do not produce sanctifying grace, a power that belongs to sacraments alone. Another difference is that sacraments were instituted directly by Christ while sacramentals were instituted by Christ through His church. Sacramentals should never take the place of sacraments. The sacraments are necessary for salvation; sacramentals are not necessary. Nevertheless, the prayers, pious objects, sacred signs, and ceremonies of Mother Church are means to salvation.—Sisters of Carmel.

Mother Angelica called them Holy Reminders.

Q: Furthermore, the objection centres mainly on 

• the repetition of set prayers (Matthew 6:7), 
• the invocation of Mary and the saints as intercessors, 
• the absence of a biblical mandate for this practice, and 
• the risk of associating devotion with a blessed religious object.

Q: the repetition of set prayers (Matthew 6:7)

R: Are you familiar with liturgical worship and prayer? They are not the same thing, though there is some overlap. Liturgical worship and prayer is what Jesus and the Apostles and disciples did in the synagogue every Sabbath. (See Luke 4:16.) If you’ve ever looked into Jewish worship or prayer, you’ve noticed their use of Scripture, especially the Psalms. They prayed the Psalms so often, in a cycle, over and over, out loud, that they learned them by heart. Hearing the opening words of a psalm was all it took to bring the whole psalm to mind. To think of reciting these psalms as “vain repetition” as so many non-Catholics call it, would be a way of thinking entirely foreign to them, including Jesus Himself. He isn’t knocking the use of set prayers. He’s knocking the pagan use of them as if they were magic incantations, contraining the false gods to do what the pagan desires. Jews and Christians alike are with Him on that. Liturgical worship and prayer is not that pagan act but something quite different. 

• Liturgical worship and prayer.

Q: the invocation of Mary and the saints as intercessors, and the absence of a biblical mandate for this practice

R: The answer to this tends to be a long one. So I’m going to provide some excellent links. Reading these will go a long way to helping one understand what and why the Church practices what she practices, teaches what she teaches, hand on and guards what she hands on and guards.

As far as a biblical mandate, I think that will be covered by the way the Early Church viewed this and what they did, and what Scripture itself says. I think these links will help. But it might be helpful to remember that not all what you call mandates will come from the Bible but will come up as time goes on in the life of the Church and Christians in the Church, and the Church will offer what she can to her children as the Holy Spirit leads her to do.

• How to Defend the Intercession of the Saints
• In the Early Church
• The Saints & the Power of Mary’s Intercession – Catholic Truth Society

Q: the risk of associating devotion with a blessed religious object.

Here I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. Do you think we are in danger of thinking that there is some magical power in physical objects? That’s the only thing I can figure you mean. You’ll have to help me understand what you mean if I’ve misunderstood. I don’t know many people of such a primitive mindset who would misunderstand things in such a way, though I did know one atheist who had apparently been influenced by some new age ideas who had similar thoughts but I disabused her of them in short order after she began more seriously inquiring.

Q: There is no

• biblical basis for the practice of the rosary, 
• the prayers it contains, or 
• the role attributed to Mary within it.

Q: biblical basis for the practice of the rosary, and the prayers it contains

R: The Biblical basis for the practice of the rosary. What non-Catholics seem to mean when they say the Rosary is not biblical is that they see no one in the Bible praying the Rosary. What Catholics tend to mean when they say the Rosary is Biblical is that the words of the prayers, and the life of Christ prayed and meditated upon focus on the Bible and the truths of the faith, and on what we think flows from those truths of the faith.

• The Rosary and Scripture
• The Rosary

Q: the role attributed to Mary within it.

R: So much has been written about this because non-Catholics are always discovering the teachings about the Blessed Virgin and so keep bringing it up, so we keep having to write and talk about these things. It also means that an answer here will not be a short one. I’m going to link a couple of very good articles that go into enough depth to give a good answer. I also did a short series recently based on a book, Mary in Our Life, so you might want to look at that. See links below.

• Why Mary is So Important
• Mary in Our Life

June is devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Make our hearts like unto Thine!

Thank you for visiting and reading. May we be not afraid to become saints! God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Image: Church’s Painted Ceiling With Angels And Saints, via Pngtree.

+JMJ+ It’s true, I slept most of the day last week—well, I guess it’s truer to say I slept most of last week–when I should have been writing and then posting a post, but I needed my beauty rest more than you needed to read my witty words. True, all true. Except for the beauty part. And the witty part. Truth be told, it’s been a difficult week, a difficult couple of weeks, and, quite frankly, it’s been difficult for so long that I don’t rightly remember how long it has been so. Sarcoidosis is life-changing, ongoing devastation. That’s the best way I can describe it and the words that immediately come to mind. 

I should have gotten last week’s post written and posted. I had plenty of time to do it. But I felt so drained that when I realized my self-imposed deadline was almost upon me, I had no energy to do anything but watch it zip past. 

Now that sounds pitiful but I’m not asking for pity. I’m explaining how things are for me these days, when even writing a short blog post can seem like an unattainable goal. Working on my fiction project? In my thoughts. On my rosary books? Yes, I had planned more than one. But progress? Not much. 

I thought about writing A Day in the Life post, but then I thought who would want to read that, and one word came to me: nobody. 

Who would want to read that I have a wheelchair but using it in the house is nearly impossible? I’d have to move so much around that even the thought of it wears me out. 

Who would want to read that I got a brand new office chair so that I can roll through the house on it instead of the wheelchair because I can turn it around so easily? I can also roll right over my oxygen tube and get it stuck and have to stand up (a bigger problem than you may realize) and unwrap the tube, which means standing for more than a moment which means utter exhaustion when I sit down again on the chair, which I have to back up to a wall so it doesn’t fly out from under me, because I live alone with Miss Kitty (yes, I know that doesn’t make any sense) and she is not very good at lifting me up when I fall. Lifting my spirits, yes. My old lady body, not so much. 

Who would want to read how taking a shower with an oxygen tube is itself exhausting? Throwing the cannula over the top of the shower stall like it’s a lasso and I’m lassoing a steer that may not be running away from me, but seems a mile away from me with my back that seems to have developed a permanent curve now so that it’s only with much effort that I can lift my head and look up and see the top of the shower stall, and tossing my oxygen cannula and tube takes several tries, all while I don’t have access to the oxygen in the cannula and tube because I’m trying to hurl it up and over the stall, hoping all the while that I don’t pass out before I succeed in my quest.

What would happen then, you ask? Probably the same thing that happened to me before I had to use supplemental oxygen 24/7, or, rather, before I knew I had to use it 24/7. I ended up with hypoxia and the only reason I’m alive today is because my sister called my friends to do a wellness check on me with the police. And that’s how I ended up with my second hospital visit due to sarcoidosis and it lasted for almost two months. 

I do not want to do that again, ever. Being intubated was bad enough but the drugs they put you on so that you can endure it—those are awful!

Who would want to read about how I do all my shopping online? And just going to the door to get the packages in is challenging and then there’s putting things away. I have a box by the door for people to set things on and sometimes, most of the time, they’ll do it. But there’s always one who sets things on the very edge of the porch. Or the few, thank heavens it’s only a few, who will open the box and put the things in it and then close it back. I can’t tell you how long I waited one time because the items didn’t show on the camera and I had no idea they were there until I explored further and found the footage of the delivery itself. Adjusted the chime notifications after that, let me tell you!

Then there’s the time someone left my delivery in my driveway almost as far down as the street. I had no idea it had been dropped off until I checked the app and it said Delivered! Really, I said, so where is it? That’s when I saw it, way down there in the driveway. Who would do such a thing? What were they thinking? I’m disabled, that’s why I ordered delivery. How am I going to get that stuff out of the driveway from way down my driveway hill?

Then there’s the time a delivery person was afraid of a neighborhood dog—because there’s always a neighborhood dog who shouldn’t even be in my yard—and so she wouldn’t get out of her car, she just rolled down her window and lobbed my order onto the grass in the front yard and took off like she was an Indy 500 driver and she resented having to make the pit stop. 

Who, I ask you, who would want to read all of that? Well, I hope you did cuz if you didn’t—I guess I owe you a real blog post instead and an apology. You’ll have the apology right now. I’m sorry! But the real blog post will have to wait at least another week. 

Thank you for visiting and reading. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us, especially those of us with debilitating chronic illness and those who have to put up with us. May we be not afraid to become saints! God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Image: Jesus healing the paralytic at Bethesda, by Palma il Giovane, via Wikimedia Commons.

+JMJ+ June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the novena begins today, June 3.

• Novena to the Sacred Heart (this is only the nine days themes and daily closing prayer; see links below for the complete novena). 
• Padre Pio’s Efficacious Prayer to the Sacred Heart (on this site).

Full novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

• Sacred Heart Novena and more at the National Catholic Register.
• Sacred Heart Novena at the Pray More Novenas site.
• USCCB Sacred Heart Novena in PDF format on the USCCB site.

Thank you for visiting and reading. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! May we be not afraid to become saints! God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Image: Sacred Heart of Jesus.

+JMJ+ Greetings, y’all! During the Blessed Virgin Mary’s month of May I’m writing posts about her. One of the books I’m reading right now is Mary in Our Life by Fr. William G. Most. This post will focus on mental prayer and touch on our Blessed Mother’s help in our spiritual life. See other posts in this brief series.

Before we begin with our text, let me share with you what I just discovered: you can read Mary in Our Life online at the Catholic Culture website. The section covered in this post is Chapter XII: Pondering in Our Hearts with Mary. I had a difficult decision as to which chapter to focus on for this, our last post in the series for now, before we return to the Carmelite books, I Want to See God and Divine Intimacy (series link). I had narrowed it down to these three, all of which show the importance of our Blessed Mother—and about her role—in the Christian’s interior life: 

• Chapter X: Aridity, Consolations, and the Presence of Mary
• Chapter XI: The Humility of His Handmaid
• Chapter XII: Pondering in Our Hearts with Mary

I finally chose Chapter XII: Pondering in Our Hearts with Mary. This chapter deals more closely with mental prayer than those others and that helps tie it in with our previous (and ongoing) series, too.

Twice within the second chapter of his Gospel, St. Luke tells us of Mary’s habit of meditating on the great mysteries in which she was taking part. After the shepherds had left, we read: “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.” Again, after the return to Nazareth, when Jesus had been lost, and found in the temple, “His mother kept all these words in her heart.” (See Luke 2:19 and 2:51.)

These two scanty references give us but a glimpse of the soul of Mary. They show her to us as one whose communion with God in mental prayer or meditation was constant. Actually her prayer was of a loftier kind than meditation: she was engaged in contemplation, the form of prayer to which meditation ought to lead in a fervent and generous soul. For if other saints have enjoyed contemplation, certainly she who was full of grace far surpassed all others in her contemplation.

—Mary in Our Life, 105.

Mental prayer “aims at a union of the soul with God. Therefore its two essential parts are, first, the work of the mind, which reasons and ponders; and second, the work of the will, which, deriving motivation from the work of the mind, unites us to God in a loving conversation with Him…no matter what method we employ, this is its purpose. Method is useful or useless to us on any given occasion according as it helps or hinders us in the accomplishment of these ends. (Page 106)

If you’ve read any other Catholic Christian works on prayer, you probably already know about its general structure, and this is not meant to be too closely followed, I mean, not held to so closely that one is not open to the leading of the Holy Spirit during prayer. But self-deception can sneak up on one so easily that using some method helps to guard against that. Or else we can spend our entire prayer time with our minds wandering while we talk to ourselves, not praying for even a moment. 

Fr. Most spends much of this chapter showing how to go about mental prayer. I highly recommend that you read it and then read it again. I like the helps he mentions—using the Gospels, the Psalms, the Rosary, the Way of the Cross, the Passion, some other good book for prayer and meditation. 

Some lines I highlighted in my own reading follow.

After recalling our minds to the presence of God and making acts of adoration to Him, we should remember that “the graces of meditation come to us through Mary, and since she is so intimately associated with her divine Son throughout all the work of redemption, we will do well to try to make our whole meditation in mindfulness of her presence as well as of His…In meditation, however, even though we are not at every moment calling on Mary, yet her help is constantly supporting us, for all graces come through her. ” (107. Emphasis in the original.)

Fr. Most suggests we spend a brief period of self-examination which should be “followed by acts of sorrow, for true contrition is really love expressing its regret for sin.” (109-110. Emphasis mine.)

He also reminds us that emotions are not the essential thing in prayer. They may or may not be present or make themselves felt. And their presence or lack thereof does not tell us anything about the quality of our prayer or our spiritual life. They can be a distraction and we would do well not to go looking for them.

This reminded me at once of something I think I read long ago by St. Francis de Sales, probably in his Introduction to the Devout Life (read online): we should seek not the gifts but the Giver of the gifts. (I’m paraphrasing St. Francis. And I’m not even sure he was the one I’m thinking of. Perhaps someone will mention it in the comments. When I find it, I’ll add the citation here.) And this, of course, reminds me of John 6:22-27 (RSVCE) where the crowd follows Jesus around because they’re hoping for more bread, not because they have witnessed His miracles and recognize Him as the Lord, the Son of God.

It’s worth, I think, repeating that emotions are not necessary in mental prayer. They may or may not be present so don’t be thinking that your prayer is worthless if you don’t come away from it with all sorts of great emotions and consolations and feeling like you’re floating along on the clouds like a harp-strumming angel. The Lord may grant you some consolations and He may not and that’s not the point anyway so we have to get back to what we’re supposed to be doing, which is praying, not stopping by to get a quick charge and then go off on our merry way. This is what some people do when they should be worshiping: they try to stir themselves up into a frenzy and then call that being spiritual and worshiping God when they’re worshiping themselves and doing just what the people in the Gospel did when they chased Jesus all around, hoping for a miracle and a piece of bread, not to strengthen their faith but to satisfy their curiosity and their bellies.

At some point we need to stop talking and listen for that still, small voice, those inner promptings that we are so good at ignoring. And we also need to take some time to gaze at Him, the One Who we know loves us, because He is Love.

One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple.

—Psalm 27:4 RSVCE.

I recommend the whole chapter, and the whole book, to you and there we will leave it for now. Thank you for visiting and reading. And may we be not afraid to become saints! God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Notes and Links

• You can read Mary in Our Life online at the Catholic Culture website. Just discovered that today, May 28.
• Mary In Our Life, by Fr. William G. Most: Hardcover, Paperback, published by Literary Licensing, LLC; or this Paperback with a pretty cover, published by Angelus Press (Amazon affiliate links, see Full Disclosure below).
• Mary In Our Life, by Fr. William Most: direct from Angelus Press, Paperback or ebook. I think it you can get Kindle, Nook, and Apple Books (formerly iBooks) versions from them.
• Introduction to the Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales: Paperback (TAN Classics), Kindle (not the TAN book) (Amazon affiliate links, see Full Disclosure below) or read free online.

Images: Virgin of Humility, by Fra Angelico, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Adoration photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash

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