Irish,Catholic and Dangerous

A Message From The Bishops Of The USCCB

2009-11-01T17:24:00.005-05:00

USCCB NATIONWIDE BULLETIN INSERT

Tell Congress: Remove Abortion Funding & Mandates from Needed Health Care Reform Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation on the House and Senate floors. Genuine health care reform should protect the life and dignity of all people from the moment of conception until natural death. The U.S. bishops’ conference has concluded that all committee approved bills are seriously deficient on the issues of abortion and conscience, and do not provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor. The bills will have to change or the bishops have pledged to oppose them.

Our nation is at a crossroads. Policies adopted in health care reform will have an impact for good or ill for years to come. None of the bills retains longstanding current policies against abortion funding or abortion coverage mandates, and none fully protects conscience rights in health care.

As the U.S. bishops’ letter of October 8 states:

“No one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion. It is essential that the legislation clearly apply to this new program longstanding and widely supported federal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates, and protections for rights of conscience. No current bill meets this test…. If acceptable language in these areas cannot be found, we will have to oppose the health care bill vigorously.”

For the full text of this letter and more information on proposed legislation and the bishops’ advocacy for authentic health care reform, visit: www.usccb.org/healthcare.

Congressional leaders are attempting to put together final bills for floor consideration. Please contact your Representative and Senators today and urge them to fix these bills with the pro-life amendments noted below. Otherwise much needed health care reform will have to be opposed.

Health care reform should be about saving lives, not destroying them.

ACTION: Contact Members through e-mail, phone calls or FAX letters.

To send a pre-written, instant e-mail to Congress go to www.usccb.org/action.
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: 202-224-3121, or call your Members’ local offices.
Full contact info can be found on Members’ web sites at www.house.gov & www.senate.gov.

MESSAGE to SENATE:
“During floor debate on the health care reform bill, please support an amendment to incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights. If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed.”

MESSAGE to HOUSE:
“Please support the Stupak Amendment that addresses essential pro-life concerns on abortion funding and conscience rights in the health care reform bill. Help ensure that the Rule for the bill allows a vote on this amendment. If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed.”

WHEN: Both House and Senate are preparing for floor votes now. Act today! Thank you!

Reason #3,987,243 Why Women Can't Be Priests

2009-11-01T14:37:00.002-05:00

A nice, succinct article on why women can't be priests.

The Flood Is A Type Of Christian Baptism

2009-10-24T10:35:00.004-05:00

Many apologies to the three people who still read my blog for not posting in a while. I am teaching a new class this year and have been quite consumed by the work. One of the things I taught my sophomores earlier this year is that the flood of Noah is a type of Christian baptism, based on St. Peter's acclamation in 1 Peter 3:17-22:

"For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him."

We can see this by observing the parallels between the flood and baptism. Before the flood, there was sin in the world. The flood then washes away the sin. Noah is saved through the flood, yet the potential to sin remains in the world.

For baptism, we are born in Original Sin. Baptism washes away Original Sin. We are then saved through the waters of baptism, yet we still have the potential to sin.

After I taught this to my class, I was thinking about it some more and came up with another parallel. After the flood, God promises Noah that he will never destroy the world by a flood again. So the flood is a one time event. This corresponds to baptism which is done once for the forgiveness of sins.

The Last Supper As Prophetic Action

2009-09-07T15:03:00.003-05:00

“Jesus’ actions with the bread and the cup—which there is excellent warrant to regard as historical—must be seen in the same way as the symbolic actions of certain prophets in the Hebrew scriptures. Jeremiah smashes a pot; Ezekiel makes a model of Jerusalem under siege. The actions carry prophetic power, effecting the events (mostly acts of judgment) which are then to occur. They are at once explained in terms of those events, or rather of YHWH’s operating through them. In the same way, Jesus’ central actions during the meal seem to have been designed to reinforce the point of the whole meal: the kingdom-agenda to which he had been obedient throughout his ministry was now at last reaching its ultimate destination. Passover looked back to the exodus, and on to the coming of the kingdom. Jesus intended this meal to symbolize the new exodus, the arrival of the kingdom through his own fate. The meal, focused on Jesus’ actions with the bread and the cup, told the Passover story, and Jesus’ own story, and wove these two into one.”

-N.T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of God.

What Was The First Heresy Amongst The Disciples Of Christ?

2009-08-22T12:19:00.004-05:00

According to St. Augustine, the first heresy amongst the disciples of Christ was the failure to believe that Christ truly gives us His precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist:

“For certain things in the scriptures were seeming hard, while they were obscure; when explained, they have been softened. For even the first heresy in the disciples of Christ, as it were from the hardness of His discourse. For when He said, ‘Except a man shall have eaten My flesh and shall have drunk My blood, he shall not have life in himself:’ they, not understanding, said to one another, ‘Hard is this discourse, who can hear it?’ Saying that, ‘Hard is this discourse,’ they separated from Him: He remained with the others, the twelve. When they had intimated to Him, that by His discourse they had been scandalized, ‘Will ye also,’ He saith, ‘choose to go?’ Then Peter: ‘Thou hast the Word of life eternal: to whom shall we go?’ Attend, we beseech you, and ye little ones learn godliness. Did Peter by any means at that time understand the secret of that discourse of the Lord? Not yet he understood: but that good were the words which he understood not, godly he believed. Therefore if hard is a discourse, and not yet is understood, be it hard to an ungodly man, but to thee be it by godliness softened: for whenever it is solved, it both will become for thee oil, and even unto the bones will penetrate.”

-Saint Augustine, On the Psalms 50.22

We must follow the example of Peter and believe the words of Christ, hard though they be. If Christ says that it is His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, then it is so. As God's speech has the power to bring things about in creation, so does He have the power to change the very bread and wine He holds in His hands at the Last Supper into His Body and Blood. When this truth is realized, it will, according to Augustine, penetrate even to your bones. Your entire life will be changed. Believe Christ and see the depth and beauty and wonder of the Eucharist!

Working For God

2009-07-17T21:20:00.001-05:00

“I used to enjoy climbing up the cathedral towers to get a close view of the ornamentation at the top, a veritable lacework of stone that must have been the result of very patient and laborious craftsmanship. As I chatted with the young men who accompanied me, I used to point out that none of the beauty of this work could be seen from below. To give them a material lesson in what I had been previously explaining to them, I would say: ‘This is God’s work, this is working for God! To finish your personal work perfectly, with all the beauty and exquisite refinement of this tracery stonework.’ Seeing it, my companions would understand that all the work we had seen was a prayer, a loving dialogue with God. The men who spent their energies there were quite aware that no one at street level could appreciate their efforts. Their work was for God alone. Now do you see how our professional work can bring us close to our Lord? Do your job as those medieval stonemasons did theirs, and your work too will be operatio Dei, a human work with a divine substance and finish.”

-St. Josemaria Escriva

Patristic Exegesis: The Transfiguration

2009-07-17T10:36:00.002-05:00

“The analysis of a text ‘involved the investigation of the “story” presented in the text being studied,’ to historikon. Relating the historia concerning a text gave a narrative context that was necessary for understanding the point being made. When John Chrysostom explains the presence of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration, he reminds the reader of certain facts that make their significance patent. First, Jesus had been confused by the multitudes with Elijah and the prophets of old. The presence of all three at the Transfiguration makes clear the difference between ‘the servants and the Lord.’ John also mentions that Jesus had been accused of breaking the Law and making himself equal to God. The presence of Moses and Elijah clears Jesus of these charges, for Moses, who gave the Law, would not have stood with a transgressor, or Elijah, who ‘was jealous for the glory of God’ with a blasphemer. The task of interpretation for Chrysostom, then, involved relating what the reader must have in mind in order to understand a given text.”

-Stephen Hildebrand in The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek Thought and Biblical Truth.

Augustine On Theological Reflection

2009-07-15T15:26:00.003-05:00

“Augustine locates the enterprise of theological reflection within the economy of redemption in three key ways. First, we can only understand the task the theologian faces by grasping something of the nature and purpose of the redemptive drama as a whole. Only when we see how that drama represents God’s speaking in the world so that we may no longer be subject to it and to its powers can we grasp the full task of attempting to talk of God. Second, Augustine’s conception of theological reflection is, more particularly, part of the Christian’s participation in the mystery of dying, rising, and ascending with Christ: only within this movement may the inner and the outer person be restored and the mind come to imagine God, as far as it may, without delusion or self-deceit. Third, the exegesis of Scripture provides the point of departure for the enterprise of Trinitarian theology and for the conjoint exercise of the rational powers that is central to that enterprise: but we can only come to see what is involved in reading this Scripture through seeing how that text fits within God’s overall redemptive economy. Only then may we see how the materialism of scriptural texts about the divine challenges us to move beyond the material and to begin to develop a grammar of divine distinction from the world—in Augustine’s case to begin to develop a grammar of divine simplicity—in order to secure God’s fully Trinitarian nature. Thus, struggling to apply the grammar of simplicity to the Triune God plays, for Augustine, a small part in the movement of the human being, in Christ, towards God as the creator and source of all wisdom and power and truth.”

-Lewis Ayres in Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology.

Nature Is Not Opposed To Grace

2009-07-14T15:51:00.001-05:00

It all comes down to nature and grace. If your understanding of nature and grace is wrong it will affect your entire theology. Case in point is the Protestant doctrine of “total depravity.” This doctrine leads them to have a fundamentally wrong understanding of Soteriology (among other things). God does not just declare us righteous as a judge in the courtroom. We do not gain a mere legal status. Rather, when God declares us righteous, we actually become righteous. We do not gain a legal status, but adoption into the Familia Dei, the Family of God. Because of our baptism, we can truly call God “Father” as Jesus taught us to do. We must always remember that grace does not destroy nature, but elevates, heals and perfects it. The Protestant understanding of imputed righteousness denies the power of God’s grace. The logical consequence of the doctrine says that God is not powerful enough to bring about an ontological change in the justified man (not that the nature itself changes, a justified man is still a man, but his nature is perfected in Christ. The Protestant understanding would not have it so). Here is a great summation of nature and grace by John Haas:

“The saeculum, or the natural order, is distinct from the spiritual order but it is not separated from it and is certainly not opposed to it. One of the errors that arouse in much Protestant thought, and persists to our own day even in secular culture, is that the natural and supernatural orders are opposed to one another. Because of the doctrine of the total depravity of man, classical Protestantism tends to look at fallen man as radically over against God. In the classical Protestant theory of justification, man is never truly made righteous. God merely regards him as righteous by virtue of the saving actions of Jesus Christ performed on his behalf. Man is treated by God only as though he were righteous, that is, he has righteousness imputed to him. Man remains a depraved sinner even as he is justified, which is the Protestant doctrine of simul Justus et peccator, that is, one is justified, treated as just, even though he remains a sinner.

As a result of this erroneous thinking, there has developed in the general Protestant/secular culture the perception that nature and grace, nature and supernature, the profane and the sacred, the secular and the religious are opposed to one another. While this mistaken thinking has profoundly influenced even some Catholic thinkers, it is a notion that is profoundly un-Catholic. Even though an infinite gap separates the Creator from the creature, as articulated in the thought of Saint Thomas, they are not in opposition to one another.

The saeculum, or the natural order, is distinct from the spiritual, but it is not separated from it. In the hierarchy of being, the natural order is ordered toward the supernatural so that it never loses any of its own proper, distinct, and unique created essence, derived from the Creator itself.”

-John M. Haas, “The Relationship of Nature and Grace in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in The Ever-Illuminating Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine's Mystagogy Of Identification

2009-06-26T15:33:00.003-05:00

"Religious symbols are used by Augustine to draw believers ever more intimately into the divine life. The liturgy thus becomes the locus deificandi, the place where the drama of human salvation is not only reenacted but effected. Surrounded by the temple of praise and all that is within, human persons are to see how God bids them to become his living signs. Gold, oil, trees, the altar of sacrifice, the Sabbath, and the laud Christians sing are all constituted to cultivate the full life of the baptized so as to draw them into a closer union with the divine, becoming gods by becoming God's."

-David Vincent Meconi, S.J., in "Becoming Gods by Becoming God's: Augustine's Mystagogy of Identification," Augustinian Studies 39:1 (2008) 61-74.

Four Principles To St. Paul's Exegesis

2009-06-22T22:52:00.001-05:00

“First, Paul’s strategic deployment of scriptural texts is profoundly contextual, taking into account both the near context and the larger narrative context from which he quotes.

Second, Paul’s exegesis is salvation-historical in orientation, meaning that the location of his OT allusions and citations within the entire arc of the biblical story of God’s redemption of his people is significant.

Third, Paul employs a typological methodology to correlate different texts, figures and events of salvation history in a theologically meaningful pattern. Thus Paul often cites in tandem thematically related texts from patriarchal and Israelite narratives (see Gal 3:6-9, 10-14; 4:21-31), inviting his readers to find significant elements of historical continuity in God’s dealings with his people. For example, by viewing the typological correlation of the Abrahamic and Israelite images in Galatians 4:21-31, it becomes clear that Paul (unlike many modern covenant theologians) does not explain the Old and New Covenants exclusively in temporal terms (i.e., before/after Christ). Instead, by linking the New Covenant with Abraham, and the Old Covenant with Moses, Paul shows how the new surpasses the old precisely because it preceded it, in view of the promise and oath that God pledged to Abraham.

Fourth, Paul argues in a teleological style. In other words, he deploys OT citations and allusions earlier in his discourse with a view to a certain endpoint or telos, that is, a scriptural argument or conclusion introduced only later or at the end of his discourse. For example, the typological interpretation of Genesis 16-21 in Galatians 4:21-31 forms a certain climax of Paul’s argument in Galatians, shedding light on the scriptural citations employed earlier. Thus, interpreters need to read Paul’s arguments in both directions, since later portions shed light on earlier ones, and vice versa.”

-Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises.

Gregory Of Nyssa On The Figural Reading Of Scripture

2009-06-12T22:10:00.000-05:00

“By an appropriate contemplation of the text, the philosophy hidden in its words [may] become manifest, once the literal meaning has been purified by a correct understanding. Paul somewhere calls the shift from the corporeal to the spiritual ‘a turning to the Lord and the removal of a veil.’ In all these different expressions and names of contemplation Paul is teaching us an important lesson: we must pass to a spiritual and intelligent investigation of Scripture so that consideration of the merely human element might be changed into something perceived by the mind…We know that even the Word himself, who is adored by all the creation, passed on the divine mysteries when he had assumed the likeness of a man. He reveals to us the meaning of the law…Christ trained his disciples’ minds through sayings veiled and hidden in parables, images, obscure words, and terse sayings in riddles.”

-Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs.

Figural Reading Of Scripture

2009-06-12T14:17:00.002-05:00

“Alongside ‘grammatical’ techniques early Christians used ‘figural’ reading practices (Dawson 2002). David Dawson has helped us to see how Christian figural techniques describe relationships between one scriptural text (usually from the Old Testament) and an aspect of the incarnate Word’s mission as described in the New Testament, using the former to inform a reading of the latter. Thus, for example, the relationship between the soul and God; the details of the life of Moses could be used as an allegorical resource for describing the stages of the Christian life. The phrase ‘an aspect of the incarnate Word’s mission’ used above requires further discussion. For early Christian readers the progress of purification or sanctification that constitutes Christian life is intrinsically connected to the life, activity and purpose of Christ, the incarnate Word. The ‘mystery’ of the incarnation includes the ‘mystery’ by which members of the Christian community are united to the person of Christ and purified towards the vision of God. Using a text from the Old Testament to illustrate the course and struggles of this mystery is of a piece with using Old Testament texts to illustrate Christ’s actions and life. The figural reader seeks figures within the text both to understand the incarnate Word and to participate in the divine speech and action in creation.”

-Lewis Ayres, "The Patristic Hermeneutic Heritage" in The Bible in Pastoral Practice: Readings in the Place and Function of Scripture in the Church.

The History Of Interpretation: Colossians 2:15

2009-06-05T12:03:00.001-05:00

“Christ ‘stripped’ the rulers and authorities. The meaning of the verb apekdysamenos has occasioned much discussion, with three possibilities surfacing. The Greek Fathers took the verb to be in the middle, or reflexive, voice, thus translating it: Christ ‘stripped off himself’ the hostile forces that had clung to him on the cross like an alien garment. The Latin Fathers took the verb to be active in voice but intransitive (though they understood the object to be Christ’s death). The resulting translation is: Christ ‘stripped himself’ of his flesh through death on the cross, since the flesh was the means by which the evil powers could exercise their tyranny over humans. Most interpreters today, however, believe the verb is active in voice and transitive: Christ ‘stripped the rulers and authorities’ of their power by virtue of his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection.”

-C. Marvin Pate, The End of the Age Has Come.

Student Question

2009-06-01T22:03:00.002-05:00

A student asked, "Since you say the priests are married to the Church, how can the Church have multiple husbands?"

A: The Church has only ONE husband and that is Jesus Christ. The priests, when ordained, become alter Christus (another Christ) and act in persona Christi (in the Person of Christ). So while there are many priests who, when they become priests, are married to the Church, they are so because they act in the ONE Person of Jesus Christ.

Cyprian Of Carthage's Rehabilitation Of Tertullian's Rigorist View Of Purgatory

2009-05-31T14:17:00.002-05:00

“In Tertullian’s Montanist essay On the Soul a step is taken which leads to the concept of Purgatory in its proper sense, though even here we are not dealing with an idea which is straightforwardly identical with the teaching of the mediaeval councils. Tertullian’s starting point is Jesus’ parabolic advice to reconcile oneself with one’s opponent on the way to court, since otherwise:

…you will be thrown into prison. I tell you solemnly, you will not get out till you have paid the last penny.

Interpreting this text in terms of human destiny in the world to come was made easier by the fact that phylake, the word for ‘prison,’ was also one of the current terms for Hades. For Tertullian, who had become a rigorist, the text meant that the time between death and resurrection is a time of imprisonment in which the soul has the opportunity to pay the ‘last penny’ and so to become free for the resurrection. A new theological rationale is being offered for Hades, and this rationale ‘makes the interim state into a necessary purgatory for everyone.’ Cyprian of Carthage, dying in 258, removed Tertullian’s thesis from its rigorist context and gave it a new look on the basis of the tasks of a pastor in a period of persecution. In this way, Cyprian succeeded in eliminating the pagan element. He managed to work out the authentically Christian form of an insight which, though derived from the Church’s Jewish roots, had earlier seemed equivalent to the Greco-Roman conceptions. Cyprian’s contribution set the Western Church on its way. He asserted a definitive salvation for those who have died in faith, and notably for the martyrs. He was similarly clear about the definitiveness of Hell. His actual pastoral problem concerned the well-intentioned but weak, average Christians who did not find the strength to accept martyrdom in times of persecution. They had carried out the demands of the State religion, and thus had publicly denied Christ. Nonetheless, they wished to remain Christians and asked for reconciliation with the Church. The saying found in Matthew 5:26 offered Cyprian an occasion for thinking through a possible continuation of penance in the afterlife. Against the protesting voices of the rigorists, this enabled him to readmit the weak to communion with the Church. Certainly they cannot, in their present condition, enter into definitive communion with Christ. Their denial, their half-heartedness, stands in the way. But they are capable of purification. The penitential way of purification exists not only in this world but in the world to come. With this interpretation, that there is purification in the future life, the root concept of the Western doctrine of Purgatory is already formulated clearly enough.”

-Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life.

Pentecost

2009-05-31T08:24:00.000-05:00

“Every Catholic knows, dearly beloved, that today’s solemnity should be counted among the principal feasts. No one questions the respect due to the day the Spirit made holy by the miraculous gift of Himself. This is the tenth day from the day when the Lord ascended to sit at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. It is the fiftieth day from His resurrection. Pentecost holds great mysteries in itself, mysteries new and old. By them it is clear that grace was foretold through the old law, and the old law was fulfilled through grace. When the Hebrew people were freed from the Egyptians, the law was given on Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after the sacrifice of the lambs. So, after the suffering of Christ—the true Lamb of God, who was slain—and on the fiftieth day from His resurrection, the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles and the crowd of believers. The true Christian can easily see how the beginnings of the Old Testament prepared for the beginnings of the Gospel, and that the second covenant was founded by the same Spirit who had set up the first.

The apostles’ story testifies: ‘When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’ (Acts 2:1-4).

Oh, how swift are the words of wisdom! How quickly the lesson is learned when God is the teacher! No interpretation is needed for understanding, no practice for using, no time for studying. The Spirit of Truth blows where He wills (cf. Jn 3:8), and the languages of each nation become common property in the mouth of the Church. So, from that day, the Gospel preaching has resounded like a trumpet. From that day, the showers of gracious gifts, the rivers of blessings, have watered every desert and all the dry land. To ‘renew the face of the earth’ (Ps 104:30), the Spirit of God ‘was moving over the face of the waters’ (Gen 1:2); and to drive away the old darkness, flashes of new light shone forth. By the blaze of those busy tongues, the Lord’s bright Word kindled speech into fire—fire to arouse the understanding and to consume sin. Fire has the power to enlighten and the power to burn.

God’s Word has authority, and it is ablaze with these and countless other proofs. Let us, all together, wake up to celebrate Pentecost. Let’s rejoice in honor of the Holy Spirit, through whom the whole Catholic Church is made holy, and every rational soul comes alive. He is the Inspirer of Faith, the Teacher of Knowledge, the Fountain of Love, the Seal of Chastity, and the Source of all Power. Let the spirits of the faithful rejoice. Let one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—be praised throughout the world, by the confession of all languages. And may that sign of His presence, the likeness of fire, burn perpetually in His work and gift. The Spirit of Truth makes the house of His glory shine with the brightness of His light, and He wants nothing in His temple to be dark or lukewarm.”

-St. Leo the Great

A True Theology Of The Body

2009-05-30T12:21:00.001-05:00

Recently, there has been criticism of Christopher West’s interpretation of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. I would have to agree with the criticism and I am surprised that it has taken so long to come about (I say this with the full affirmation that, as one commentator has noted, West is incredibly loyal to Holy Mother Church and intends to serve her and would even give his life for her. Yet, devotion to the Church does not excuse an erroneous presentation of the faith). I have long thought that West reduces the Theology of the Body down to sex. It is so much more though! The Theology of the Body is not merely about Marriage or sex in Marriage. It is rooted in a Trinitarian and Christological view of the human person who is endowed with inherent dignity by God as one of his creatures. It affects how man and woman relate with each other and how they think of themselves. This means that the Theology of the Body is just as valid for single people as it is for married. For my part, I would recommend two things:

1) Read John Paul II’s Theology of the Body from the source. It isn’t that difficult to understand. See what the source says and not what someone interprets it to be. (Here one might argue that West’s is meant to be a popular presentation so it is more accessible. Yet, John Paul’s presentation is also meant to be popular! That’s why it was presented at his audiences and not in a theological treatment meant for academics alone.)

2) Read the passage below from St. John Chrysostom (You will get much more out of it then anything you will get from West). He is talking about Marriage as a mystery (based on St. Paul’s writings) referring to Christ and His Church. Yet, what he says doesn’t merely apply to married couples, but to all people made in the image of Christ. Always remember, the Fathers know best!

“What, then? Is marriage a theater? No! It is a mystery and a symbol of something mighty. Even if you don’t show it honor, then honor what it symbolizes. “This mystery,” says St. Paul, “is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:32). It is a symbol of the Church and of Christ. The two come together, and they make one. When two come together, they do not make a lifeless image, or the image of anything on earth, but of God Himself. Two come to marriage, about to be made one body. See again a mystery of love! If the two do not become one—if they remain two—they do not make many. But when they unite, then they make many.

What do we learn from this? That the power of union is mighty. The wisdom of God, in the beginning, divided the one in two; but He wanted to show that it remained one even after division. So He made it impossible for either alone to be enough for procreation. For neither can be one until united with the other. Each is only half. Each alone can produce no children.

Do you see the mystery of marriage? He made one from one; and after He made these two into one, He made one, so that now, also, children are produced from one. For husband and wife are not two, but one. This may be confirmed from many sources; for instance, from the words “male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). If he is the head and she the body, how are they two? From the very fashioning of the body, one may see that they are one, for she was made from his side, and they are two halves.

And how do they become one flesh? As if she were pure gold receiving pure gold, so the woman receives the man’s seed. She nourishes it and cherishes it and adds her own share, the two fused by pleasure. And so she gives it back as a child!

The child is a sort of bridge, so that the three become one flesh, the child connecting, on either side, each to the other. Two cities, though divided by a river, become one if a bridge connects them. How much more, then, if the very bridge is formed of the substance of each.

Why are you blushing? Leave that to the heretics and pagans, with their impure and immodest customs. For this reason I want marriage to be thoroughly purified, to bring it back again to its proper nobility. You should not be ashamed of these things; if you are ashamed, then you condemn God who made marriage.

So I shall tell you how marriage is a mystery of t he Church. The Church was made from Christ’s side, and He united with her in a spiritual union. For one man said: “I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor. 11:2). And he goes on to say that “we are members of His body” (Eph 5:30).

Think about all these things, then, and let’s not cast shame upon so great a mystery. Marriage is a symbol of the presence of Christ. Tell me: If you saw an image of the king, would you dishonor it? By no means.”

I Present To You, Patrick Brendan Marcellinus Garland

2009-04-29T15:10:00.004-05:00

Patrick was born on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 8:28am and weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces!

For those wondering about his name, here's the breakdown:

Patrick- The great Irish saint (also my favorite Irish saint)

Brendan- Also a great Irish saint, also known as "Brendan the Voyager." He traveled as far as America way before Columbus and founded several monasteries. (My second favorite Irish saint)

Marcellinus- The 29th Pope. He was martyred under the Emperor Diocletian. His Feast day is April 26th.

Religious Freedom Doesn’t Mean Religious Silence

2009-04-23T20:55:00.001-05:00

"The rights of conscience, Pope John Paul II once wrote, are the "primary foundation of every authentically free political order." If that is so, then we better redouble our vigilance. Here in the United States, where we fancy ourselves religiously tolerant, recent high-profile cases suggest that First Amendment rights are widely misunderstood.

In an ongoing imbroglio, Catholics around the country have lodged objections to the University of Notre Dame's decision to grant an honorary degree to President Barack Obama. They are upset that the university's honor comes in the wake of a series of decisions that flout Catholic teaching on abortion and they judge that Notre Dame's action contradicts a directive issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004. Some of these objecting Catholics happen to be bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago among them. In response, William M. Daley, in an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, reacted with dismay. The former co-chairman of Obama's presidential campaign called the cardinal's remarks part of "a worrisome pattern in which the Catholic hierarchy in America is mixing religion with politics." Faith, he implied, is a private matter, and religious figures violate the separation of church and state by offering their opinions in a way that might affect the public discourse.

Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a state law prohibiting homosexual men and women from marrying same-sex partners. The decision depended on the court's finding that there was no "rational basis" for Iowa's statute. More specifically, the Court determined that opposition to same-sex marriage was all (or mostly) motivated by "religion." By endorsing the law, the Court concluded, it would be endorsing religion, which is forbidden by the First Amendment.

Legal scholar Matthew Franck summarizes the implication of the court's argument well: "if a moral argument finds support in any religious commitment, then the promulgation of that argument in law is a violation of the principle of religious disestablishment." More to the point, Franck observes, this approach to First Amendment jurisprudence is "logically fallacious, historically illiterate, and politically brutish."

It is politically brutish because it, like the approach taken by Daley, tries to shove religious people from the public square by disallowing their views any influence in the formation of law or public policy. As George Weigel pointed out in a commentary on the Tribune column, it is ironic that Daley, the son of the Chicago mayor who helped John F. Kennedy win the presidency, would try to vitiate the authority of Church leadership by invoking a hoary anti-Catholic myth about bishops scheming for political power.

The problem should concern everyone, believer or not. As the Iowa case demonstrates, any religious view will be suspect, so long as it grates the sensibilities of whomever the political elite happen to be at the time. Even the views of non-religious people can be ostracized in this way. In Iowa, if an atheist favors a traditional definition of marriage, that position is nonetheless deemed unconstitutional because it happens to fall in line with the policy views held by some evangelical Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, or any other religious group.

It should be obvious that this is no way of building a pluralistic society that is free and peaceful. The American Founders knew better when they fashioned an amendment forbidding the national government from establishing a church, guaranteeing all people the right to practice their faith, and leaving the rest to local custom and personal freedom.

Recognizing the influence of religion, tyrants have always begun their quest for absolute power by coopting religious leaders. Where they have failed in that enterprise, would-be despots have neutralized them by undermining their authority or doing away with troublesome ministers altogether. History's tyrants recognized the progression that some of us have forgotten: Where people are free to act according their conscience, they will demand the right to determine their political destiny. Where they choose their political leaders, they will seek the space to exercise economic freedom as well. The many dimensions of freedom tend to rise--and to fall--together.

These are the connections that John Paul II, a churchman under Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, understood and articulated. Those who love freedom, be they of devout religious faith or none at all, should resist attempts to silence believers under the auspices of a perverted notion of separation of church and state."

- Kevin E. Schmiesing Ph.D.

Be Prepared!

2009-04-20T20:10:00.001-05:00

Today I received a great blessing….I had a chance to defend and explain the Catholic Faith. And yes, that is a blessing.

Even though I teach theology every week day to unwilling youth forced to bear my class on pain of not graduating, who provide ample opportunity to defend the Faith, today was different.

I also answer many questions emailed to me from this blog, yet today’s defense was new.

It happened outside of the classroom and out of the bounds of email. It happened at Starbucks.

On my way home from school, I stopped off to get a cup of coffee and I patiently awaited my turn in line. When the man at the register received his beverage, he turned around and saw the hat I was wearing and asked were I got it. I told him and he confessed that he was looking all over for a hat to wear with a suit. The conversation then moved onto my profession. I told him that I taught theology at a Catholic High School. It then came out that he was an ex-Catholic. I asked why he left.

Immediately, I could sense the Holy Spirit at work. I’ve never had a situation like this occur before. Here I am minding my own business, seeking nothing but a cup of good coffee for the drive home and I end up engaged in a twenty minute conversation about the Catholic Church. We explored all aspects of the Faith; Mary, the Saints, the Structure of the Church, the Papacy/Authority, Salvation Outside of the Church, Purgatory, excommunication, etc. He kept jumping around as I answered each objection he brought forth. I didn’t mind, I expected it (this is the way most Protestants debate against a Catholic). Then we came to the real reason why he is an “ex” Catholic. He left when he was in college after seeing so many Catholics around him not living the whole Faith, but rather picking and choosing what they want to believe.

The scandal of “Catholics” who go against the teaching of the Church is great, as evidenced by Joe Biden and Notre Dame. Yet, I appeal to all non-Catholics out there, do not judge the Church by those who claim to be members, yet refuse to obey its teachings. You would not judge any Protestant denomination by that standard, so why the Catholic Church? Rather, look to what the Church believes and teaches and look to the faithful who do indeed strive to live out their faith. For every cafeteria Catholic that is produced, a Catholic who adheres to the Church’s teaching can also be found. Look not upon the sins of the people, but the Faith of the Church!

I left him with my number in case he wanted to dialogue more and also a recommendation to read Scott Hahn’s book “Reasons to Believe.” We will see what comes of it. I believe that with the Holy Spirit’s help a few seeds were planted and he will again begin to think about the teachings of the Catholic Church. Hopefully he will realize that the Bible does not contradict the teachings of the Church and the Church does not contradict the Bible.

The point of this post is to be prepared! You don’t need a Masters Degree in Theology to be able to defend the Faith. All you need is to be committed to the study of the Bible (read it daily), the Catechism (read it with the Bible), read books on how to defend the faith (from authors such as Hahn, Madrid, Kreeft, Aquilina, Armstrong, etc.), and pray that the Holy Spirit will grant you the wisdom to know how to answer any questions that may come your way. Always be prepared to make a defense for the hope that is within you….even at your local coffee shop.

Christus Resurrexit! Vere Resurrexit! Alleluia, Alleluia!

2009-04-12T08:07:00.003-05:00

"'This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it' (Ps 117[118],24). It is not by chance, brethren, that today we read the Psalm in which the prophet invites us to rejoice and be glad and in which holy David invites all creation to celebrate this day. For today Christ's resurrection has opened the resting-place of the dead; the Church's newly baptised members have rejuvenated the earth; the Holy Spirit has shown us heaven. Hell, now opened, gives up its dead; its youth renewed, the earth buds forth those who are risen; and heaven opens wide to welcome those who mount up towards it.

The thief has gone up to paradise (Lk 23,43); the bodies of the saints enter the holy city (Mt 27,53)... At the resurrection of Christ all the elements, moved by a kind of momentum, are raised towards the heights. Hell hands over to the angels all those whom it was holding captive; heaven presents to the Lord all those it has received... Christ's resurrection is life for the dead, pardon for sinners, glory for the saints. Thus great David calls all creation to celebrate Christ's resurrection and encourages it to leap for joy and gladness in this day the Lord has made.

Yet you will ask..., heaven and hell have not been set within the daylight of this world's, so can we expect these elements to celebrate a day that completely misses them? But the day the Lord has made penetrates all things, contains all things and encompasses at one and the same time heaven, earth and hell! Christ's light is not blocked by walls nor broken by the elements nor darkened by shadows. The light of Christ is truly a day without night, a day without end. It shines forth everywhere, radiates everywhere, remains everywhere."

-Saint Maximus of Turin, Sermon 53 on Psalm 117

Holy Saturday

2009-04-11T10:29:00.000-05:00

“On Good Friday our gaze remains fixed on the crucified Christ, but Holy Saturday is the day of the ‘death of God,’ the day that expresses the unparalleled experience of our age, anticipating the fact that God is simply absent, that the grave hides him, that he no longer awakes, no longer speaks, so that one no longer needs to gainsay him but can simply overlook him. ‘God is dead and we have killed him.’ This saying of Nietzsches’s belongs linguistically to the tradition of Christian Passiontide piety; it expresses the content of Holy Saturday, ‘descended into hell.’

This article of the Creed always reminds me of two scenes in the Bible. The first is that cruel story in the Old Testament in which Elijah challenges the priests of Baal to implore their God to give them fire for their sacrifice. They do so, and naturally nothing happens. He ridicules them, just as the ‘enlightened rationalist’ ridicules the pious person and finds him laughable when nothing happens in response to his prayers. Elijah calls out to the priests that perhaps they had not prayed loud enough: ‘Cry aloud, for he [Baal] is a god; either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened’ (1 Kings 18:27). When one reads today this mockery of the devotees of Baal, one can begin to feel uncomfortable; one can get the feeling that we have now arrived in that situation and that mockery must now fall on us. No calling seems to be able to awaken God. The rationalist seems entitled to say to us, ‘Pray louder, perhaps your God will then wake up.’ ‘Descended into hell’; how true this is of our time, the descent of God into muteness, into the dark silence of the absent.

But alongside the story of Elijah and its New Testament analogue, the story of the Lord sleeping in the midst of the storm on the lake (Mk 4:35-41), we must put the Emmaus story (Lk 24:13-35). The disturbed disciples are talking of the death of their hope. To them, something like the death of God has happened: the point at which God finally seemed to have spoken has disappeared. The One sent by God is dead, and so there is a complete void. Nothing replies any more. But while they are there speaking of the death of their hope and can no longer see God, they do not notice that this very hope stands alive in their midst; that ‘God’, or rather the image they had formed of his promise, had to die so that he could live on a larger scale. The image they had formed of God, and into which they sought to compress him, had to be destroyed, so that over the ruins of the demolished house, as it were, they could see the sky again and him who remains the infinitely greater.

….The article about the Lord’s descent into hell reminds us that not only God’s speech but also his silence is part of the Christian revelation. God is not only the comprehensible word that comes to us; he is also the silent, inaccessible, uncomprehended, and incomprehensible ground that eludes us. To be sure, in Christianity there is a primacy of the logos, of the word, over silence; God has spoken. God is word. But this does not entitle us to forget the truth of God’s abiding concealment. Only when we have experienced him as silence may we hope to hear his speech, too, which proceeds in silence. Christology reaches out beyond the Cross, the moment when the divine love is tangible, into the death, the silence and the eclipse of God. Can we wonder that the Church and the life of the individual are led again and again into this hour of silence, into the forgotten and almost discarded article, ‘Descended into hell’?

…If there were such a thing as a loneliness, that could no longer be penetrated and transformed by the word of another; if a state of abandonment were to arise that was so deep that no ‘You’ could reach into it any more, then we should have real, total loneliness and dreadfulness, what theology calls ‘hell.’ We can now define exactly what this word means: it denotes a loneliness that the word love can no longer penetrate and that therefore indicates the expose nature of existence in itself. In this connection who can fail to remember that writers and philosophers of our time take the view that basically all encounters between human beings remain superficial, that no man has access to the real depths of another? According to this view, no one can really penetrate into the innermost being of someone else; every encounter, beautiful as it may seem, basically only dulls the incurable wound of loneliness. This hell, despair, would dwell at the very bottom of our existence, in the shape of that loneliness which is as inescapable as it is dreadful.

…In truth—one thing is certain: there exists a night into whose solitude no voice reaches; there is a door through which we can only walk alone—the door of death. In the last analysis all the fear in the world is fear of this loneliness. From this point of view, it is possible to understand why the Old Testament has only one word for hell and death, the word sheol; it regards them as ultimately identical. Death is absolute loneliness. But the loneliness into which love can no longer advance is—hell.

This brings us back to our starting point, the article of the Creed that speaks of the descent into hell. This article thus asserts that Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness, that I his Passion he went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there he is. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it. Now only deliberate self-enclosure is hell or, as the Bile calls it, the second death (Rev 20:14, for example). But death is no longer the path into icy solitude; the gates of sheol have been opened. From this angle, I think, one can understand the images—which at first sight looks so mythological—of the Fathers, who speak of fetching up the dead, of the opening of the gates. The apparently mythical passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel becomes comprehensible, too, the passage that says that at the death of Jesus tombs opened and the bodies of the saints were raised (Mt 27:52). The door of death stands open since life—love—has dwelt in death.”

-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

Good Friday

2009-04-10T12:02:00.002-05:00

Passion and Pathology.

Christ, Our Pascha

2009-04-09T21:35:00.003-05:00

"Pascha (passover) is not, as some think, a Greek noun, but a Hebrew: and yet there occurs in this noun a very suitable kind of accordance in the two languages. For inasmuch as the Greek word paschein means to suffer, therefore pascha has been supposed to mean suffering, as if the noun derived its name from His passion: but in its own language, that is, in Hebrew, pascha means passover; because the pascha was then celebrated for the first time by God's people, when, in their flight from Egypt, they passed over the Red Sea. And now that prophetic emblem is fulfilled in truth, when Christ is led as a sheep to the slaughter, that by His blood sprinkled on our doorposts, that is, by the sign of His cross marked on our foreheads, we may be delivered from the perdition awaiting this world, as Israel from the bondage and destruction of the Egyptians; and a most salutary transit we make when we pass over from the devil to Christ, and from this unstable world to His well-established kingdom. And therefore surely do we pass over to the ever-abiding God, that we may not pass away with this passing world. The apostle, in extolling God for such grace bestowed upon us, says: "Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." This name, then, of pascha, which, as I have said, is in Latin called transitus (pass over), is interpreted, as it were, for us by the blessed evangelist, when he says, "Before the feast of pascha, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should pass out of this world to the Father." Here you see we have both pascha and pass-over. Whence, and whither does He pass? Namely, "out of this world to the Father." The hope was thus given to the members in their Head, that they doubtless would yet follow Him who was "passing" before. And what, then, of unbelievers, who stand altogether apart from this Head and His members? Do not they also pass away, seeing that they abide not here always? They also do plainly pass away: but it is one thing to pass from the world, and another to pass away with it; one thing to pass to the Father, another to pass to the enemy. For the Egyptians also passed over [the sea]; but they did not pass through the sea to the kingdom, but in the sea to destruction. "When Jesus knew," then, "that His hour was come that He should pass out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end." In order, doubtless, that they also, through that love of His, might pass from this world where they now were, to their Head who had passed hence before them. For what mean these words, "to the end," but just to Christ? "For Christ is the end of the law," says the apostle, "for righteousness to every one that believes." The end that consummates, not that consumes; the end whereto we attain, not wherein we perish. Exactly thus are we to understand the passage, "Christ our passover is sacrificed." He is our end; into Him do we pass. For I see that these gospel words may also be taken in a kind of human sense, that Christ loved His own even unto death, so that this may be the meaning of "He loved them unto the end." This meaning is human, not divine: for it was not merely up to this point that we were loved by Him, who loves us always and endlessly. God forbid that He, whose death could not end, should have ended His love at death. Even after death that proud and ungodly rich man loved his five brethren; and is Christ to be thought of as loving us only till death? God forbid, beloved. He would have come in vain with a love for us that lasted till death, if that love had ended there. But perhaps the words, "He loved them unto the end," may have to be understood in this way, That He so loved them as to die for them. For this He testified when He said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." We have certainly no objection that "He loved them unto the end" should be so understood, that is, it was His very love that carried Him on to death."

-St. Augustine, Tractate 55 on the Gospel of John