Army of Martyrs

My Sister's New Blog

2011-03-16T21:41:00.002-04:00

My sister started a new blog called "Season the Day" with gluten-free recipes and other snack ideas that you might be interested in. I hope you'll stop by and say hello.

Essay Contest on Verbum Domini

2011-01-05T16:18:00.002-05:00

Called to Communion is hosting its second annual essay contest on the topic of Verbum Domini, a recent document from Pope Benedict XVI expounding on the Church's doctrine of sacred Scripture. The winning essay will receive a copy of De Lubac's Medieval Exegesis, Vol I.

The Church Fathers on Transubstantiation

2010-12-13T09:32:00.002-05:00

Check out my latest post on Called to Communion: The Church Fathers on Transubstantiation. This post shows the patristic support not merely for the Real Presence in the Eucharist, but also for the concept that the bread and wine are changed, by Transubstantiation (substantial change), into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pope St. Clement of Rome

2010-11-23T21:15:00.001-05:00

Bryan Cross has a great article on Pope St. Clement of Rome over at Called to Communion.

Pope Benedict did NOT Condone Condom use

2010-11-20T18:25:00.002-05:00

Over at Called to Communion, I've written a brief blog post explaining why the Pope did NOT condone condom use even in certain circumstances. The liberal media is running wild with this story - claiming that the Vatican is now reversing or at least softening its stance on artificial contraception. That is not the case as I explain in the article. This isn't even a case of the pope being taken out of context. His words are being flatly and deliberately misinterpreted.

Why God Matters

2010-09-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Why God Matters is a new book written by a deacon and his daughter. Visit their web site at: www.WhyGodMatters.com and Watch the video book trailer here.

ARCHBALD, PENNSYLVANIA – Tribute Books announces the release of Why God Matters: How to Recognize Him in Daily Life by Deacon Steven Lumbert of Pueblo, Co. and his daughter, Karina Lumbert Fabian of Simi Valley, Ca. They share their stories of how God led them from casual belief to deep devotion, and offer tips and exercises to help you see God's hand - and take it.

Neither Lumbert nor Fabian had dramatic conversions. Rather, God led them into deeper faith through the seemingly minor details of life: pot of rice, a habit of prayer, a frustrating flight home, or a barefooted stranger. This father-daughter team have written a delightful, quick book about finding God in the day-to-day. With thought-provoking quotes, heartwarming stories, Bible verses, passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and simple exercises the reader can fit into his or her daily routine, they help others recognize God's presence.

Book Summary

Many times one sees Roman Catholicism explained using either closely reasoned theology or an appeal to ancient writers of the Church. While both are legitimate approaches, the average reader looking to explore the faith is often left cold. In their collaboration, Why God Matters, Deacon Steven Lumbert and his daughter, Karina Lumbert Fabian, delineate the Catholic Faith as experienced by a pair of average, everyday people like the great majority who make up the 24 percent of Americans who share this religion.

In the stories of this pair, one see both ways people come to Catholicism, by birth ('cradle Catholics') and by conversion. Their descriptions of their separate paths thankfully lack the religiosity of the all too common 'and then a miracle takes place' school of religious experience. Rather than blasts of light, fiery swords, spiritual fistfights, and angelic choirs, theirs is the long religious slog of the everyday. The effort that one must put out each day in the long trek to Heaven.

What is Catholicism really like? One would be hard-put to find a better verbal painting of the faith so many call their own.

Rev. Dr. Michael Root Swims the Tiber

2010-08-24T17:11:00.002-04:00

Rev. Dr. Michael Root, a prominent Lutheran theologian, announced that he will convert to the Catholic Church. Read the story here. H/T Chad Toney.

Bank Accounts & Justification

2010-08-19T10:09:00.000-04:00

Recently a friend reminded me of a common Protestant analogy regarding salvation and merit. The analogy is that sinners have a ‘bank account’ wherewith to ‘pay’ for their eternal salvation. The problem is that man cannot possibly have enough in this account to pay the ‘amount due.’ Faith in Christ is equivalent to having a blank check payable from Christ’s own account of merit. So in that analogy, God does not withdraw the ‘merit’ from the sinner’s account but from Christ’s account.

In referring to this analogy, my friend worded it differently than I’d ever heard. He said that in the Protestant view, Jesus makes a deposit into our “account.” I replied, “a Catholic could agree to that!”

Read the rest at Called to Communion...

Homeschooling my son This Year

2010-08-18T20:43:00.003-04:00

We have officially decided to homeschool Miguel this year. Miguel will be 11 in November. I was fortunate to find this incredible Catholic, classical homeschool education curriculum online. It was recommended to me by my Polish friend and after I fell in love with the curriculum, I noticed that their headquarters was only about 30 minutes away from where I live.

It has a great catechism course if you're looking to expand education for your children. So far, we're pleased with the results and Miguel is loving it. It is harder than public school, but well worth it. William Michael, the founder, wrote this article called "Wise and Simple" on raising and educating our children properly. I really enjoyed the read and think you will as well.

Evangelical Shares his Conversion Story

2010-08-05T19:24:00.003-04:00

Jeremy Heuslein shares his journey from evangelicalism, to emergent church, to the Catholic Church. H/T Russ Rentler

Aristotle on Individuals Grasping the Truth

2010-08-03T00:28:00.002-04:00

Aristotle said essentially the same thing I attempted to express in my previous post:

While no one person can grasp truth adequately, we cannot all fail in the attempt. Each thinker makes some statement about nature, and as an individual contributes little or nothing to the inquiry. But the combination of all the conjectures results in something big. It is only fair to be grateful not only to those whose views we can share, but also to those who have gone pretty far wrong in their guesses. They too have contributed something: by their preliminary work they have helped to form our scientific way of thinking.

(Metaphysics Alpha Minor, ch. I: 993b 1-4 as quoted by Randall, John, Aristotle, p. 53)

Of Mice, Men, and Hindus

2010-07-28T19:48:00.001-04:00

Suppose you didn’t know what a human was and that you had to approximate your idea of man by your knowledge of lesser beings. We could start with a chimpanzee because it is the smartest animal. But that wouldn’t be enough, so we would need to supplement our knowledge with attributes of other creatures. Yes man is smart like the chimpanzee, (much smarter in fact), but he is also industrious like the ant. He is artistic like the bowerbird, a resourceful hunter like the lion, and social like the wolf.

Now the way we learn about God, through creation, is something like this. Because he was made in God’s image, man is the closest thing we know. But as knowledge of the chimpanzee falls short of knowing man, so knowledge of man falls far short of knowing God. The difference in the latter example is of course infinite and not strictly comparable. By knowing a chimpanzee you are much closer to knowing man than you are to knowing God by knowing a man.

To learn what God is like, we use a synthesis of all knowledge. Though man is the smartest and closest to God, knowing him alone is not nearly enough. God is the source and perfection of all goodness that exists in every creature. When we observe the efficient industry of the ant, we know that God is infinitely efficient and industrious. When we see the tender care of a mother with child, we know that God is infinitely tender and caring. “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” The ferocity of a lion is only a shadow of God’s wrath.

This is also true of theology, I believe. I am a Thomist because I believe that Thomism is the best of the theological schools. But even though St. Thomas was a master at synthesis, knowing Thomism is not enough to approximate the truth. After all, foreknowing the result of St. Thomas’s vision, God judged it more profitable to mankind that St. Thomas should call his writings “straw” than that he should finish his masterpiece.

Knowing Thomism is to knowing truth what knowing man is to knowing God. Just as the best reflection of God’s perfection must be used as the exemplar for knowing God, so the best doctor of the Church should be used as an exemplar for knowing true theology. If you think that man is the only creature that should be used to learn about God, then you fail to appreciate certain attributes. Likewise, if Thomism is the only theology you study, you miss out on important aspects.

Non-Western theology is certainly part of that necessary synthesis. Pope John Paul II declared that the Church must breathe with her “two lungs,” that is, with the Western and Eastern traditions.

Though man is by far the closest to God, a gorilla is stronger and better represents God’s strength in that limited way. A dog expresses loyalty better than a man, and certain other animals excel in sensory powers beyond man’s capability. The sun better represents God’s life giving light, and the oak tree better represents His steadfastness. Likewise, in spite of their theological mistakes, non-Catholics do emphasize certain truths that lack such emphasis in Catholicism. Even other faiths have some things to teach us. We do not deny that man is uniquely created in God’s image by noting that the lamb best reflects a particular attribute of God. Likewise, we do not deny that the fullness of God’s revelation uniquely subsists in the Catholic Church by noting that other faiths better reflect certain attributes of God’s truth.

Catholicity is bigger than both Latin Christianity, and Eastern Orthodoxy. When Catholicism swallowed paganism whole, she spit out the erroneous seeds and perfected the truth that was already present in classical philosophy. When and if Catholicism were to swallow the Eastern religions like Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, Catholicism would be the better for it. The Eastern mystic religions have truths that Catholicism has not yet perfected.

Again, this does not deny the unique truth of Catholicism. Christ founded the Church just as He created Adam. But towards His perfect end, He saw fit to create lesser creatures, each having a limited measure of truth. Some of these creatures, e.g. sewer rats, do not appear to exemplify much of anything helpful towards apprehending God’s nature. Likewise, there are plenty of shameful cults, heresies, and religions that have little or nothing to teach us. Yet all things are within God’s providence. The lion was not an accident, and neither was Hinduism.

Allow me to summarize. St. Thomas said that the human intellect cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly. And while the Catholic Church is God’s fullest, most visible, and most direct divine revelation, en route to understanding God lies understanding the field mouse.

Neither St. Thomas, nor any writer, nor man’s best effort at synthesizing the whole of theology will suffice for man’s knowledge of the full truth. But short of prophetic knowledge, this synthesis of man’s best work, each facet given its proper weight according to prudence and wisdom, is the pinnacle of man’s natural attempt to know the fullness of truth. Likewise, man’s best attempt at knowing God contains a rational synthesis of all that exists.

Greater and Lesser Lights

2010-07-26T23:15:00.000-04:00

As a rule, the presence of a greater light will cause lesser lights to dim. As the old hymn goes, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.... and the things of this world will grow strangely dim.” St. Thomas writes, “The greater light dims the lesser light of another luminous body;” and “at the presence of the sun the light of the stars is put out.” (Summa 3.5.4)

But in the real world, we observe that sometimes a greater light is dimmed by a lesser light. Many of the stars are actually greater lights than the sun. And when the sun’s light is not present, the stars may be dimmed by an even lesser light. A man living in a city cannot see the stars in the night sky; a thousand voluminous bodies are dimmed by a few street lights.

From the perspective of the individual, a greater light dims a lesser light when all things are equal. But if, from the man’s perspective, the greater light is already weakened by some obstacle, e.g. the distance from him to the stars, then the lesser light may dim the greater light, not absolutely, but according to his perspective.

This is an analogy to worldly attachment. Heavenly things represent the greater light and earthly things represent the lesser. Just as a man living in the city fails to see the majestic star-scape on account of being surrounded by street lights, so the worldly man cannot see the more noble things such as wisdom and virtue on account of being surrounded by temporal pleasures. He has drawn near to the lesser light and in doing so, away from the greater light. From a man’s perspective, the beauty of higher things fades behind lesser beauty because of his distance from the higher things.

The further we go from God, the lesser of a light it will take to distract us. If you want to have an idea of how far away from God you are, consider how small are the things that distract you from Him.

How pitiful of a state we are in! There is no other light except God. The trivial things that distract us from Him are only distant reflections of His own light!

My Brother is Going to Serve in the Philippines

2010-07-16T10:19:00.003-04:00

My brother, Steve, and his wife Katy, are on a plane to the Philippines as I write this post. They will be landing in Manila shortly. This is their second visit to Manila and they have decided that God is calling them to work with my charity, the Philippine Aid Society by fighting the extreme poverty in the Philippines.

Of course, they will be taking a big step down as far as living conditions in their move from suburban America to the urban Metro-Manila. This is a sacrifice that they have decided to make in order to serve the less fortunate.

Steve, assisted by Katy, will take on the role of "Program Coordinator" for the duration of their five month stay in the Philippines. For the first two months, they will operate a soup kitchen. From there, we have not yet decided the next plan of action. Our hope is to purchase a suitable facility for a more permanent structure where we can provide food and shelter for the neediest Filipinos. We will need financial resources to do this and will begin looking into grant opportunities in the near future.

We can use your help. If you have a blog, just posting a link to our website would be helpful. If you could consider a donation, even a small amount of money goes a long way in the Philippines. We're also on Goodsearch where you can earn money for our charity (or any charity you select) by searching the internet just as you would on Google. Superdonate is a free program that sells your unused computer power to research organizations and donates the money to a charity of your choice (and we're one of the options!) Also, check us out on Facebook.

Above all, please say a prayer for our small charity if you think about it. Thanks!

First Century Christian Worship

2010-06-29T22:29:00.001-04:00

I wrote a blog post and recorded a 27 minute lecture on the topic of Christian Worship in the First Century over at CTC.

Understanding the Angelic World

2010-06-28T12:08:00.002-04:00

We (men) are animals, like the brutes, but we have a rational form, like the angels. Yet we are not angels trapped inside animal flesh, nor are we "spiritualized brutes."

We can understand the animal world, though not exhaustively. But how can we understand the angelic world? When most of us consider the angelic world, the resulting vision is a mish-mash of spiritualized non-sense. We have fond thoughts towards the angels, (they're cool right?) but we really don't have a grasp on what the angelic world is like.

Our attempt to understand the angelic world is something like a cow trying to understand the human world. A cow has frequent interactions with humans. The cow "sees" us... but not really. He sees an oddly shaped cow that makes strange noises I guess. He cannot comprehend our world. I think it must be something like that with the angels. We "see" them (that is, we see their effects) but we comprehend the angelic world about as well as a cow comprehends the human world.

A dog might live in New York City, surrounded by all the complexities of millions of rational beings doing things that are far too grand for the canine to grasp. But the height of his intellectual ambition is to find something to chew. Despite such proximity to the human world, he has no comprehension of what's happening all around him.

We are surrounded by an angelic world that is more complex that we can comprehend. And despite our proximity to such grandeur, the height of our intellectual ambition is to acquire the next thing that will bring us temporal pleasure.

Imagine if a dog was miraculously given the capacity to understand the human world. Imagine his reaction. I think if we were given the capacity to understand the angelic world - it would be something like that.

Short Video on Ecclesiology

2010-06-22T08:12:00.001-04:00

This is a short video I made to demonstrate the inherent circularity of Protestant ecclesiology.

Two Reformed Announce Conversion on the Same Day

2010-06-19T23:33:00.004-04:00

The Tiber is getting crowded: Christopher Lake announced his decision to revert to the Catholic Church after years as a Reformed Baptist here.

David Meyer wrote a letter to his PCA church explaining why he was converting to the Catholic Church here.

Special Bonus: Here's another convert's website that I stumbled upon from the comments on David's site. Visit Aquinas, etc.

Irenaeus Against Heresies on Librivox

2010-06-18T19:21:00.001-04:00

Irenaeus Against Heresies - Free audio book. Sweet.

Why are there Prohibitions Against Covetousness?

2010-06-07T22:45:00.001-04:00

Catholics, following St. Augustine, differentiate between coveting a neighbor’s wife and between coveting a neighbor’s goods. Protestants follow Judaism and Origen in combining both types of covetousness into the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet.” Now the species of a sin is defined by its object (Summa 2a.72.1) just as an action takes its species from its end (Summa 2a.72.3.r2). What does it mean for an action to “take its species from its end”? It means that one act differs specifically from another in respect to the end (goal) of the action. In the same way, one sin is specifically different from another if it has a different end. Consider this example. The species of an act whereby a doctor desires to heal a man in surgery and accidentally severs a vital artery is distinct from the species of an act whereby a man desires to kill a man and does so by severing a vital artery. These two acts differ specifically because they had different ends although the same thing happened in both acts.

Like all sins, the species of covetousness takes its act from its object, but not all objects are the same. Desiring a man’s material possessions is a distinct sin from desiring his wife because the object differsin kind. Consent to the former leads to theft, but consent to the latter leads to the greater, and specifically distinct, sin of adultery. Therefore, Sts. Augustine and Aquinas are correct in apprehending that there are two specifically distinct sins of covetousness forbidden in the Decalogue.

St. Thomas Aquinas raises an interesting objection as to whether there should be prohibitions against covetousness:

Further, murder is a more grievous sin than adultery or theft. But there is no precept forbidding the desire of murder. Therefore neither was it fitting to have precepts forbidding the desire of theft and of adultery. (Summa 2b.122.6.o4)

To which he replies:

Murder in itself is an object not of concupiscence but of horror, since it has not in itself the aspect of good. On the other hand, adultery has the aspect of a certain kind of good, i.e. of something pleasurable, and theft has an aspect of good, i.e. of something useful: and good of its very nature has the aspect of something concupiscible. Hence the concupiscence of theft and adultery had to be forbidden by special precepts, but not the concupiscence of murder. (Summa 2b.122.6.r4)

All men desire good, and every deliberate act is an act towards acquiring some good (real or perceived). Man’s pursuit of a particular good is moved by the concupiscible appetite. The object of concupiscence is a pleasurable good. Protestants generally believe that concupiscence is simply our proclivity to sin. But St. Thomas argues that there are different types of concupiscence. Some concupiscences are natural (called irrational) and some are unnatural (called rational). The natural concupiscences are called irrational because they are common to animals and men, but the unnatural concupiscences are called rational because they are proper only to rational beings. (Summa 2a.30)

Natural concupiscence leads a man (or an animal) to seek things because they are suitable to one’s nature (like food and drink). These things, because they are suitable to nature, are pleasurable. Thus, natural concupiscence does not lead to sin. The unnatural concupiscence is what leads a man to seek a thing because he apprehends it “as good and suitable, and consequently takes pleasure in it.” (Ibid., article 3)

It is an unnatural concupiscence which leads a man to covet either another man’s material objects or another man’s wife. He perceives (by coveting) that he will have pleasure in theft or in adultery. But neither of these are suitable to his nature (as are food or drink for example). So they are not driven by natural concupiscence. Therefore the sins of theft and adultery arise from unnatural concupiscence. In the case of covetousness, a man seeks the pleasure of a good rather than a good suitable to nature which is pleasurable for that reason.

St. Thomas explains that, while murder is a greater evil than adultery or theft, murder itself is not an object of concupiscence. No one can desire the “pleasurable good” of murder because murder is not a pleasurable good. Now adultery is not a good and neither is theft. But in both cases, there is “an aspect of a certain kind of good.” The aspects he refers to are sex and acquisition of material goods respectively. Both of these are aspects of a certain kind of good but killing a man does not have such an aspect of good.

The significance of the prohibitions against covetousness is the condemnation of unnatural concupiscence. This principle is foundational for many other precepts and doctrines; some of which have been abandoned by most non-Catholic traditions. It is a divine precept that underlies the prohibition of covetousness: you shall not seek mutable goods merely for the sake of pleasure. Rather, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;” (Lk 10:27) and “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt 6:33)

This post originally appeared at Called to Communion.

St. Augustine on Discovering Truth

2010-06-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

We make judgments about corporeal objects because they are below us, and we say not only that they are or are not this way, but also that they ought to be this way or ought not to be… We make these judgments according to the inner rules of truth which we perceive in common. But no one makes judgments about the rules themselves. When a man says that the eternal is more powerful than the temporal, and that seven plus three are ten, he does not say that it ought to be so; he knows it is this way, and does not correct it as an examiner would, but he rejoices as if he has made a discovery. (St. Augustine On Free Choice of the Will, 2.12)

This is something similar to the discovery of the Catholic Church as opposed to the judgments one makes, as a Protestant, of any given Protestant community. A Catholic cannot judge even a local Church as if it were something below him in nature. The local Church is the particular as the Catholic Church is the universal in the same way that a man is particular and mankind is universal. The local Church is catholic (‘of the whole’) and is therefore above the Catholic man.

Now I’ve never met a Protestant who would say “First Presbyterian Church is below me,” but then we don’t usually go around saying “this block of wood is below me.” It is our actions and our judgments that show that we believe the block to be below us. We judge that the block is square…fair enough. But then we judge that it ought to be shaped like a car, and we carve it until it conforms to our judgment. Likewise, by judging what the “Church” ought to be [in conformity with one's personal interpretation of the Scriptures] the Protestant shows that he places the Church below him as if it were a natural thing.

In contrast, the Catholic apprehends the Church as supernatural and therefore above him. We do not only say that we believe the Church is above us, we demonstrate this by rejoicing in the discovery of the Church just as one rejoices in discovering any truth. The mathematician rejoices at discovering mathematical rules, not at conforming them to his own judgment. He knows he can’t do such a thing because the rules of math are above him. Likewise, the theologian knows that God’s truth is above him, and he rejoices when he discovers the Church which is “the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Tim 3:15)

Later in the same work St. Augustine says, “In accordance with the truth, we make judgments about our minds, yet we cannot make judgments about the truth.” Likewise, the Catholic judges his mind according to the Church. He does not seek to find a Church that conforms with his judgment, neither does he try to conform the Church to his judgment. He seeks to conform his judgment to the Church just as he seeks to conform his mind to the truth.

This was originally posted at Called to Communion.

Studies in Reformation History Led Dr. Anders to the Catholic Church

2010-06-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Dr. Anders, who earned a doctorate in Reformation history, shares how John Calvin made him a Catholic over at Called to Communion. Interesting story! Dr. Anders has appeared on the Journey Home show with Marcus Grodi and is scheduled to appear on EWTN live June 23rd, 7:00 pm Central.

Podcast on Holy Orders

2010-06-02T08:33:00.002-04:00

If my article on Holy Orders and the Sacrificial Priesthood was too long to read, here's the Reader's Digest version via podcast. Tom Riello interviewed me on the topic of Holy Orders for Called to Communion's latest podcast.

Another Convert

2010-05-22T23:46:00.001-04:00

Check out Steven Nelson's blog "Sh'Muel"

Steven is a Jewish/Protestant convert to the Catholic faith.

Holy Orders and the Priesthood

2010-05-14T09:13:00.003-04:00

Over the last few months, I've been researching, writing, and editing a lead article at Called to Communion titled, Holy Orders and the Sacrificial Priesthood. This is the first of a one-two punch on the priesthood and apostolic succession. It's long but I hope you'll take the time to give it a read and let me know what you think. It's divided into seven sections with hyper-links. This way you don't have to read it all in one sitting.