Without Having Seen

But Can I Be Peter?

2010-04-18T10:12:00.001-04:00

The readings today (Third Sunday of Easter: Acts 5:27-32, 41-44; Ps 30; Rev 5:11-14; Jn 21:1-19) got me thinking on an old topic. A few weeks ago, I asserted that I am Judas. A friend blogger begged to differ. LuceMichael commented:

I dunno Ryan, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. What Judas did was purely evil. Not just sinful, but truly and historically evil. Saying "I am Judas" is akin to reckoning ourselves as the contemporaries of Jesus who condemned Him to death, a view which VII rejects, btw.

More appropriate is a comparison to Peter, or the other apostles who abandoned Jesus in fear and denial. They sinned, turned away from doing the right thing, but in the end, were redeemed and in the case of Peter, who was exhorted by the Lord to "turn back and strengthen" the others, much good came from a flawed man. In fact, the papacy and Magisterium came from him, once he was humbled, contrite and forgiven.

There is always the philosophical and theological conundrum of whether Judas is in Hell. While none of us can say for sure, there is at least a strong likelihood that he *is* in Hell, having sold out the Lord, and taking his own life in despair of mercy.

Judas and Peter make an interesting contrast in their response to the own guilt in the passion. But most of we Christians are NOT Judas; most of us, though we sin carelessly, thoughtlessly, or maliciously and with intent, still do not come to the level of evil that Judas attained. With the grace of God, I will never completely deny Jesus. Through all my sins and faults, I know Him to be my Lord and Savior.

And He is Risen!

My major point was that my sins are the things that necessitate the death of the Messiah. In a way, Judas was less culpable than I, perhaps, because he was more confused about who Jesus is. I, on the other hand, know precisely who Jesus is, and yet sin and sin again. We must be careful here, because the sin that landed Judas in hell, if that is where he is, was not treason against God, nor was it apostasy. Those sins are forgivable (Jn 20:23). St. Peter committed the same sins after all, though in a different way. The sin of Judas was rejection of forgiveness, rejection of the Holy Spirit prompting him to repentence. Judas thought that somebody like himself, someone so enormously important who had done a thing so enormously wrong, could never be forgiven. And, in a sense, he was right. Without repentence, there can be no forgiveness of sins (Mk 3:29; CCC 1864).

But St. Peter repented.

Her point is very well made. Judas killed himself (Mt 27:5-8) but St. Peter repented. In today's gospel reading, our Lord asks St. Peter three times if he loved Him as they strolled along the beach together, perhaps arms-over-shoulders. The threefold act of love that St. Peter makes rehabilitates him after the threefold betrayal. Note well that these acts of love, these acts of contrition, do not undo what Peter has done, but rather, they set him on a new path. So it is with the penances that we perform after our confessions. They actualize our repentence and put us on a new path So how do we get to be like St. Peter, who did so many wonderful things for the Church, even dying for the sake of our blessed Lord?

We repent.

Face it. We are probably not going to stop sinning any time soon - though make no mistake: in grace, it is possible, so strive for heavenly perfection. Strive for sanctity! But, observing our own failure, our own repeat failures, even our own egregious failures, we must not give up. We must not go hang ourselves as Judas did, either literally or metaphorically. Do not say of our holy religion, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (Jn 6:60) and then abandon it as those who could not stand the Eucharistic teaching of our blessed Lord (John 6:66). Examine your conscience and pray for the grace of honesty. So many people are afraid to confront their own sins, so they say, "Oh yeah, well the Church sucks because of X." When we have reached our maximal efforts and failed yet again, perhaps we will then realize on a deep, deep level that it is not our own efforts that save us. Most of us, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, really believe deep down inside believe that we can save ourselves, that we must save ourselves, that we must prove ourselves to God. That is all bosh.

Jesus Christ saves us.

"While we were yet sinners Christ died for us," (Rom 5:8). He loves us even in the midst of sin. And no matter how badly we sin, we have only to turn back, confess our sins to a priest, and receive the gift of a fresh start. We must pray for the courage to face our sins head on, for the grace to be St. Peter.

God's Grace Has Got To Be Enough

2010-04-17T13:07:00.002-04:00

Later today I will be giving a talk to my parish's preconfirmation students. I have thirty five minutes to tell them about the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in our life. Might as well expect me to teach them Spanish in thirty five minutes! On top of that, I am told that the students are eager for anyone to answer questions - on the Virgin, on our holy religion, on life in general. So I am going to fit my talk into fifteen minutes (I know, to expect me to speak on anything for only fifteen minutes presses the boundaries of credibility) and leave fifteen minutes for Q & A, and five minutes of buffer time.

Insurmountable task? Yes. Evangelization of whatever audience always has been. Good. It reminds us that we must rely upon Jesus.

Say a prayer for these poor CCD students, and for their hapless mariologist. Lolol.

Introducing Mercy Fridays

2010-04-16T16:37:00.000-04:00

Starting today, I am going to try to produce material about mercy for Fridays, especially while we're still in Eastertide. I will draw largely from the diary of St. Faustina Kowalska, but not exclusively so. Here's a starter:

O Eternal Love, You command Your Sacred Image to be painted
And reveal to us the inconceivable fount of mercy,
You bless whoever approaches Your rays,
And a soul all black will turn into snow.

O Sweet Jesus, it is here You established the throne of Your mercy
To bring joy and hope to sinful man.
From Your open Heart, as from a pure fount,
Flows comfort to a repentant heart and soul.

May praise and glory for this Image
Never cease to stream from man's soul.
May praise of God's mercy pour from every heart,
Now, and at every hour, forever and ever.

(Divine Mercy in My Soul, #1)

Let's never get tired of commending ourselves to God's mercy. I try to remember - but lately have not been succeeding - when I am angry at somebody, that I stand in constant need of God's mercy, and so does the object of my wrath.

My Apologies

2010-04-15T09:49:00.001-04:00

I had hoped to complete a piece about Mary and the Redemption by this past Saturday, as the final piece during Easter Week on the Resurrection. It clearly didn't happen. Please accept my apologies. I will keep working on it, while posting other material in the meantime.

The Anchoress on the Pope and the Accusations

2010-04-13T10:34:00.002-04:00

One of the most intelligent, least bombastic people writing on the internet these days is the Anchoress, Elizabeth Scalia, who writes for First Things. Read her excerpts and comments on the Holy Father and the latest round of unsubstantiated claims against him.

WSJ Points Out Problems in NYT's Reporting of Fr. Murphy and Cardinal Ratzinger

2010-04-10T20:06:00.003-04:00

Laurie Goodman of the NYT either deliberately or through incompetence bungled her story about how Cardinal Ratzinger supposedly exonerated Fr. Murphy of Wisconsin while he stood before an ecclesiastical criminal tribunal for sexually abusing hundreds of children.

If she had so libeled anybody else, right now, she and the NYT would be getting sued for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Read the WSJ piece here.

The Resurrection: Fridays in Eastertide

2010-04-09T13:15:00.001-04:00

So during this eight-days-in-one that we call the Easter octave, we've been reflecting about what the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, means. We've looked at what the Apostles meant, and that the Church still means the same thing today. We've looked at how the Resurrection manifests Jesus as Lord and God, with power over life and death - and how he plans to share his kingdom with us by giving us a new way of life. We've looked at how that new way of life can begin now, and how it will lead us to an eternity of joy.

So what is the proper response of a Christian? Let's look at Psalm 116, my favorite, for some suggestions.

I love the LORD, because he has heard
         my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
         therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
          the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
          I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
          "O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!"
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
          our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
          when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
          for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
          my eyes from tears,
          my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the LORD
          in the land of the living.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
          "I am greatly afflicted";
I said in my consternation,
          "Men are all a vain hope."
What shall I render to the LORD
          for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
          and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
          is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am thy servant;
          I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
         Thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
          and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people,
          in the courts of the house of the LORD,
          in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

The Psalmist is deeply grateful to the LORD for having saved him from the "snares of death," the "pangs of Sheol," and from anguish and distress. When he was tearfully stumbling, consternated by the abandonment of human consolations, God "dealt bountifully" with him. The Psalmist, as he often does, prefigures Christ with his prayers. The Holy Spirit invites us to make the prayer our own, to pray like Jesus, and so the prayer is an invitation to the imitation of Christ. Jesus was raised up from "the snares of death" by God. What was Jesus' response to being raised from the dead?

He offered the Eucharist (Lk 24:30), a word that means "thanksgiving" in Greek, a ceremony that He made a sacrifice of His flesh and blood (1 Cor 11:23-5; Mt 26:26-8) by His sacrifice on the cross, a sacrifice that draws us into communion with Him, and thence to God, and thence to all the others in communion with God for an eternity of Joy (Jn 6:48-57). The Eucharist is literally our participation in Jesus' sacrifice of thanksgiving. It is how we thank God for what He has done for us. Moreover, it is how God does for us what He has done for Jesus.

(hat tip to Veritas Vos Liberat)

"Whoa... wait a minute," you might be thinking. "The Eucharist is how God saves me," you start, and then continue, "and it is how I thank God for saving me?" Yup. "But, I don't get it. What does that mean? What do I have to do?" Nothing. Just accept it gratefully. Make it our weekly (daily?) act of thanksgiving to God, and we will have received what He would give us. He doesn't want our actions - whatever you and or I can do, He can do better anyway. He doesn't want our charity. He doesn't want our money. He doesn't want our apologetics or evangelization or even our prayers. Doesn't need 'em.

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1

He just wants us.

The rest will follow. So simple. Die to yourself by going to confession. A real deathblow happens there - the ego is given a tough kidney shot, at the very least. Then go to Mass. Pray silently along with the priest. Enter into the prayers. Enter into Christ. Receive Him with an open heart to whatever He wants. Give thanks and praise. And then "do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5).

Friday is the day on which Catholics generally (at least in former times, though we are still asked to) give up meat, in honor of the day on which our Lord gave up His own flesh. May I humbly suggest that, at least during the fifty days of Eastertide, we take up the sacrifice of thanksgiving by going to Mass an extra time, perhaps on Fridays, to sing the praises of God?

The Resurrection: Eyes on Jesus

2010-04-07T15:25:00.000-04:00

Excerpts from the gospel reading for the day is one of the most excellent:

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”

And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”

They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.

But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24:13-35

In his homily, Monsignor made a couple astounding points. "[The disciples'] eyes were prevented from recognizing him," Monsignor conjectured, because they were "downcast." The disciples were not looking for Jesus in those darkest days of human history; they were looking at the ground. They thought that He was done and that they were abandoned. We must not focus so much on ourselves and on our own problems that we miss Jesus even while He is there with us, teaching us, and setting our hearts aflame - if only we will look to Him and listen.

I would like to point out that the disciples actually recognized Jesus for who He is in "the breaking of the bread," the Eucharist. Hearing the Word of God explained to them prepared them to receive the Word of God into their fellowship and into their very bodies. I would also like to point out that the disciples conversed with Jesus, frankly expressing their troubles and their doubts to Him. That honesty is part of sincere faith for those who have troubles and doubts.

If we bring our even our dashed dreams and deepest despair to Jesus, who knows what he might make of them? Keep praying. After you have said your peace, listen in prayer. Speak with other disciples. Read the scriptures. Confess your sins, if needs be. Visit the Eucharist at church, hear Mass, receive communion. Don't give up on Jesus, and try not to be downcast, but fix your eyes on Him and look for Him. He is risen!

(Lastly, here's a link to the Men of Emmaus, a Catholic fellowship for men based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for those of you who might be looking for fellow disciples and who live in the area.)

The Resurrection: Not Just for Jesus

2010-04-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:52

An odd but often unconsidered or even unknown teaching of Holy Church is that not just Jesus, but every human being who has ever lived will be resurrected on the Last Day, at the very End of all things.

We gloss over it in the Nicene creed every week at Mass:

...We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

So what does this mean for us as human beings? It means a few things, right off the top of my head:

Heaven will not be just a spiritual place - but will be a material place as well, because material bodies need a material place to be;
Our bodies, though very material, will be transformed into something very new, something not seen since Jesus ascended into heaven;
St. Paul calls these "spiritual bodies," (1 Cor 15:44) in contrast to "physical bodies," which can be confusing, because a body is physical, but it helps to be aware that physis in Greek does not mean material or corporeal, but rather, natural, so St. Paul almost certainly intended to contrast "spiritual" bodies with merely natural bodies;
Our bodies, then, though material, will not be natural, but supernatural or spiritual, as Jesus Christ's was after His resurrection;
These bodies, far from constraining, will liberate the soul;
We see examples of this liberation in accounts of Jesus' resurrection - how he could eat (Lk 21:41-3) and cook fish (Jn 21:13), and so was definitely material, and yet walk through doors (Jn 20:19), so definitely was not bound by time and space as normal matter is.

Suffice it to say that in the resurrection we shall not be zombies. We shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52). We will be the inhabitants of a new heavens and a new earth (Isa 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pt 3:13) in which heaven has come down to earth and God will make His dwelling, once and for all, among His people (Rev 21:1-5).
More than being pie in the sky, this knowledge, once firmly ingrained in our hearts, should transform how we do everything. Merely passing concerns must yield to more eternal ones, practical questions to questions of our standing before God, lower things to the higher. With this knowledge, we are encouraged to reject sin even if it kills us. What does death matter when it will be followed by a new sort of life, a life that never dies? The Maccabees were inspired because their confidence in God's justice convinced them that He must have some means - even after death - of rewarding those who sacrificed their bodies for His sake (2 Mac 7). Have we, who have heard of a Man actually rising from the dead, who have experienced the power of the resurrection to some extent in our own lives, any excuse for being less brave in the face of life or death?

Easter: Notes on Its Historicity

2010-04-05T13:20:00.000-04:00

In honor of Easter, I am going to be posting a series of articles and excepts about the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, and on its significance for us.
Here's the first, some brief notes about the historicity and materiality of the resurrection, i.e., that Jesus of Nazareth, truly a man like us all in every way but sin, actually returned to life after having become completely dead. I'll start with an excerpt from Veselin Kesich's The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith, an excellent book that I read for class while in seminary. Parts of it are hard, but most are fairly accessible.

The basic agreement among the evangelists in their accounts of what happened on the first Easter morning is more significant than certain discrepancies in those accounts. All four evangelists bear witness to the empty tomb, either stating this explicitly or, like St Mark, clearly implying it. The variations in the accounts actually testify to their authenticity and serve as an important indicator that the story of the empty tomb belongs to the most primitive gospel tradition. It is highly unlikely that the empty tomb stories could be legendary embellishments of a later period in the life of the Church, for if the Church had fabricated them, we should expect the Christian community to have created a harmonious account. The Church did not try to harmonize the accounts, but instead faithfully transmitted the traditions that were received, (Kesich, 71).

The question of whether a dead man could really rise from the dead is not a new one. The Acts of the Apostles describes the rejection of his message of the ressurection of Jesus Christ (Acts 17:32). Later, St. Paul writes his letters, he adamantly defends the resurrection as an actual, material event in 1 Corinithians, implying that the essential doctrine of Christianity was being called into question then as well. In fact, St. Paul asserts that the event was not only material and historical, but publicly witnesses as well. He writes:

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

In the later New Testament writings, the generic terminology of the "exaltation" of Jesus is replaced with the more specific term "resurrection," also alerting to the likelihood that clarification of the authors' intent was felt to be important (Kesich, 81).

A great volume, monstrously long and detailed, is N. T. Wright's book The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3). The book is really stupendous, but I warn you: at 740 pages it is the sort of text that most people will want to take a few pages at a time and just be content to let it take a year or two!

Whether a skeptic, ancient or modern, wants to reject the accounts of the resurrection out of hand as impossible within the framework of their materialist conception, there can be in any event no doubt about what the apostles intended. They believed and taught from the very first day that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

The Empty Tomb and the Power of the Resurrection

2010-04-04T14:19:00.001-04:00

The deacon read this gospel passage at the Vigil last night at St. Matthew's Cathedral:

Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Mag'dalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you." So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

Matthew 28:1-8

Here's my thought. Most of us Christians live in this the morning of the first day. By that I mean this: we Christians understand, mostly, that Jesus is risen from the dead. We even understand that we are (supposed to be) somehow united to him in some way. But we do not really understand what this all means. It makes us happy, kinda; it makes a little afraid, too. We are like the women, or Peter and the Beloved Disciple after them, staring into the empty tomb, confused and dazzled by the sunlight on the dawn of this new day in Christ. Everything is different now. We as individuals haven't all figured that out. Some among us have. Most of us kinda know things are supposed to be different now, but can't quite figure out what it means for our lives. My hunch is that we, as a whole Church, are somewhere along these lines. Among us there are some saints, radically transformed by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in everything they do. There are others, who are bumbling about as if nothing happened, or worse, who have missed the point of God's love and are hanging themselves alongside Judas Iscariot. Mostly, we are in the middle somewhere. We are yearning for a new life that we have begun to live but to which we have not quite given ourselves over yet.
Jesus Christ has triumphed over death! The very worst thing that the powers of this world can do to their victims, their most very potent weapon, has been neutralized.

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

1 Corinthians 15:55

Jesus Christ is the "first fruits" (1 Cor 15:23) of the resurrection. We will be the harvest.
The power of God has been fully unleashed in the resurrection of the Son of God. Now the tide is turned. Sin obstructs and obscures it, but only like a sandcastle obstructs the ocean: for a few minutes, and then the jig is up. Death's last blow will have been struck, and it will itself be dealt a death blow:

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

1 Corinthians 15:51-53

But what does all this mean for us here and now? What does the resurrection of Christ mean in the life of a Christian?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:3-5

It is not only at the End, at the Resurrection of the Dead, that we shall be raised, but even here and now! Here and now if we live in Christ and let Him live in us, we can have His kind of life, a life that bears immense fruit - here and now:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing... By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends... No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.

John 15:1-17

How are we to live in Christ and let Him live in us?

Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world."

They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?"

Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."

John 6:32-58

We need to eat His flesh and drink His blood. But how can we do that ?

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins..."

Matthew 26:26-28

Baptism introduces us into the death and resurrection of Christ so that we can share in His life. The Eucharist brings us into the fullness of His life. It brings His life into us. This mystery is the great source of power of the Christian life. Never underestimate its power. By it, tyrants have been humbled, janitors have been made into great heroes, kingdoms of darkness have been made into harbors of peace, and martyrs have smiled at death. So brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not be afraid or confused by dazzling sunlight of the dawn of this, the First Day of a New Week. Instead, let us put on Christ, live His kind of life, and show the world a sort of love that transforms life, that is "stronger than death," (Song of Songs 8:6).

I Am Judas

2010-04-01T14:31:00.000-04:00

Today is Holy Thursday, the Feast of the Lord's Supper, the Solemnity of the Betrayal of Judas. If we contemplate sin seriously, it can quickly become overwhelming. Even venial sins - little white lies, sharp words, petty refusals of generosity or gratitude - deserve a terrible punishment because of the majesty of the Creator whose Law they offend. The most terrible crimes, though, can only leave us unfazed if we are truly callous and hardened. The temptation we experience all year long, I propose, is not to this sin or to that, but toward this callous failure to understand the horror of sin. It is rooted perhaps in many foundational failures: carelessly failing to note the glory of God's creation and plan; failure to really take in the dignity of our wife, neighbor, child, coworker; failure to take our own sins as seriously as we take the sins of others. It is upon this last point that I want to reflect more particularly for just a moment.

It is very common for us to coin new terms like stupak, which nowadays means to betray one's convictions in a self-congratulatory way and to abandon those counting on you to help them in a very important cause. It's easy to think of the Nazi leaders as the ultimate evil, and their party members as the ultimate colluders of evil, the ultimate opportunists. It's easy to think of this or that disgraced priest as the ultimate scandal, the most wretched of men. It's easy for us to think of the school board's ridiculous and immoral curriculum as the ultimate lesson in degradation.

What's hard is to remember that my sins are made of the same sort of thing. It's hard to remember that I sit silently while others mock the church or make pro-lifers out to be wackos. It's hard to remember that I buy my food and clothing without a care or a thought toward what "causes" the manufacturers support: gay marriage, abortion, no matter - as long as I get the best ice cream or the best coffee. It is hard to remember that I have neglected my family obligations because other opportunities were more alluring. It's hard for me to remember that many of the movies and songs I put into my head that "don't have that effect on me" all the while corrode my heart and thinking.

This, then, is the hard work of the Christian: to remember that I am Judas.

It isn't as dramatic as it sounds. I am going to set aside the cases of people whom I believe to be possessed outright, like Hitler. Even in the matter of Judas Iscariot, the gospels tell us that the devil entered into him. The gospels also show something more to the present point: Judas did not suddenly, dramatically betray our Lord. His betrayal was the final acheivement in a string of interior desertions. Fulton Sheen does a good job in one of his books illustrating how Judas is the apostle who never quite got it. He got money. That he understood. He got the Romans. Them he understood. But Jesus: Judas never quite understood Him. Many of us think that we "get" Jesus. I, like Judas, do not understand Him nearly as well as I think.
The simple fact is that tonight is Holy Thursday. Tonight, in some way big or small, I will almost certainly betray our blessed Lord with sin - perhaps even between confiteor and communion. That's something like betraying with a kiss, isn't it?

I am Judas.

If You Are Feeling Weighed Down

2010-03-31T13:35:00.000-04:00

If you are Catholic, and trying to do it (i.e., be Catholic) well, and are paying attention, you probably feeling a little down about all the stuff going on right now. I know I am. I don't have anything really articulate to write. The thing feels to me like a very dense storm cloud, fiercer than normal anti-Church nonsense. It's very incongruous with the weather being so fine outside my window. The cross is not ours to bear alone, though. Please do not give up looking to Jesus, looking to heaven for help.

There should be some consolation in this: that our blessed Lord told us that we would be persecuted (Jn 15:20). Now, don't get me wrong. Getting called on sin - that's not persecution, it's a public service that we apparently need. Being gleefully, ferociously stalked by self-appointed "watchdogs" who completely neglect their own house and who bay and howl for the House of God to be torn down to its foundations, head first - that is a little bit closer to what is meant by persecution. At least, it gives us a watered-down taste of what our brothers and sisters in other countries face every day on a much more violent scale. We should allow this animosity provoke us to prayer for our enemies and for our brethren whom they treat worse.
We should also take comfort in this prophecy of St. Peter, the first pope, who himself came against fierce opposition:

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Pt 4:17)

If you find yourself fazed or perturbed, please remember these words of Teresa of Avila:

Let nothing perturb you,
nothing frighten you.
All things pass.
God does not change.
Patience achieves everything.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.

It's going to be OK. Hold fast, pray, enter into the Triduum with your whole heart. Remember Jesus.

The Brouhaha Over The Pope

2010-03-30T14:03:00.000-04:00

I might be the last to have heard about these events, but it has lately come to my attention that the Holy Father is himself being accused of aiding and abetting child molestation, specifically by ordering the abandonment of the church criminal trial of a vicious child molesting priest in Wisconsin. The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein "broke" the story, which in reality turns out to be little more than a well-orchestrated hoax, as Fr. Raymond J. DeSouza shows. In fact, not only do the documents cited by Ms. Goodstein as evidence flatly contradict her assertions, but neither she nor any of the other papers or blogs to carry the story have ever contacted Fr. Thomas Brundage, ecclesiastical judge in the original case that was supposedly thrown out by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. As the Anchoress points out, this sham is just the next in a string of annual hoaxes, fabrications, and exaggerations that by pure happenstance all come at Eastertide.

Sincere, devoted Catholics are more sickened than anyone else by the horrorific revelations of diabolical priestly sin and of the horrendous abdication of episcopal responsibility that have wracked the Church these last ten and twenty years. But that's not what these fabricated accusations are about. Nor are the legitimate stories, for the most part, being so vigorously reported because of a hunger and thirst for justice on the part of the media. This brouhaha is about ideology. That's why other organizations, a number of which are far more deeply saturated in this wickedness, are left unscathed by the media; it's why the media won't hesitate to run journalistic garbage as news. Ideology? Yes. Sexual ideology - specifically, birth control, fornication, homosexuality, women's ordination, and so on.

We must pray for our Holy Father. He has recently asked for prayers that he will not flee from ravening wolves who want only to shipwreck the Church. This opportunity is one we must not miss to band together with each other and Christ, and to walk with this cross on our shoulder, together, to Calvary.

The Communion of Sinners

2010-03-27T15:44:00.000-04:00

So, I've had this thought bouncing around in my head over the last few weeks. Lining up for the confessional, I bumped into an acquaintance of mine. Since I mostly make my confessions at the same time and same place each week, it's actually not that odd for me to bump into people I know in line at the confessional. A smile or a nod passes between the two of us. The smile or nod means a lot. It means, "Hi." It means, "Glad I'm not the only one I know that uses this thing." It means, "Hey, another sinner. That's great!"

Well, clearly it's not great that we are all sinners. What is great, though, is that it's not just one of us. Wouldn't that stink? Literally, one person would be to blame for all the world's mess. It would be easy for the rest of us to feel self-righteous, especially toward that poor slob, but I do not believe that would be a good thing.

Instead, we have the situation of all of us needing Jesus. Our sins may be different in "species and number," and even in gravity, but not in essence. In essence, our sins are all affronts to the will of our Creator and against our own dignity. We are called to live in the communion of saints, the strong bond of those redeemed and sanctified by Christ. For the time being, while we haven't left sin behind entirely yet, we might as well get on with the work of building up a strong bond of those being redeemed and sanctified by Christ. This communion will only grow among us to the extent that we admit what we have in common: that we are all sinners. There's no use pretending, acting like we don't see each other in line for the confessional. Instead, it's probably best to admit to ourselves that we are sinners, and in very specific terms what sort of sinners we are. We should also admit to each other freely, easily in general terms, that we are sinners. We can do so, if in no other way, by making an appearance in our local parish's confessional line. To the extent that we can safely do so with people we trust, it might not hurt to share with each other in more specific terms the ways we sin. In fact, it might heal to know that we are loved, not only by God, but by our brothers and sisters... sins and all. Confessing our sins to our priest and, when prudent, to each other can only build up the communion of sinners until, hopefully, one day we enter perfectly into the communion of saints.

Oh, wait a minute. You weren't in line for the confessional? Oh. I see. Well, I suppose there's one thing more priggish than a person who sins and then tries to act like he's perfect: someone who doesn't even think he sins. You do sin, don't you? Then 'fess up. Join the confessional line, the communion of sinners - so that you can be made worthy to enter into that other communion line.

And The Ayes Have It!

2010-03-25T14:26:00.002-04:00

One lesson that leaps out on the Feast of the Annunciation is obedience to God. Mary's yes to God literally revolutionized the entire world and all of human history. It rerouted us from the downward spiral of sin and slavery onto the upward path of redemption and grace.

But how can a single yes be so powerful?

A clue can be found by delving into what happens to be my favorite beatitude, if beatitudes are the sort of thing that can be ranked. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Mt 5:1) provides deep inside once we understand what is meant by meekness. Meekness is not door-mat-ishness. Meekness is the acceptance of reality. Now, that doesn't sound too hard, but when we consider how much time, energy, money, thought, and emotion are invested into iPods, movies, shopping sprees, expensive vacations, distracting hobbies and enterntainment, and worse, darker things like addictions, we can quickly see that a lot of people prefer to avoid reality. When we look at the power politics in a place like Washington, D.C., the micromanagement in our own office, or the violent behavior that often dominates in places like the Beltway, we can quickly see that a lot of people prefer to control reality. The meek person, far from passively giving in to adverse forces, evaluates reality, understands what is possible to him without sinning against God or his neighbors, and then works within those parameters. The meek person realizes that not only he or she, but also reality, is real too. The meek person realizes that God is God, and that he is not. Reality is real, and lying, cheating, or stealing won't make it go away.

This message can be really hard. Some people feel very deeply that they have been jipped by life, and all of us have some hard knocks, from time to time, that tempt us to lash out against them, against somebody in our life, or against God. The meek person, trusting in God's providence, rolls with the punches.

The virtue of meekness makes me think of a favorite movie of mine, Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven't seen it, you should. Two of the movie's main characters are brothers. One spends his life in tremendous violence, always grasping for a better life. The other sets his heart on love, accepts circumstances as they come without letting them deter him, and refuses either to do wrong or accept discouragement along the way. The characters are not Christians, but they come very close to a perfect illustration of the polar opposition between the one who does whatever it takes to get what he wants, and the one who accepts reality as the framework for living life. If to the latter way of life we add humble trust in God's will and fatherly providence for us, we have the Christian virtue of meekness, the virtue that wins us the whole world.

If we, moved by grace, can be open to God's will and say, "Yes," whatever may come, we will be amazed by what follows. Since we are not immaculately conceived, we'll typically have years or decades of spiritual grime clogging our heart. But even this first yes will begin to move things along, open things up, turn things around. God will begin, perhaps slowly, but certainly surely, to move in our life. He will not suddenly transplant us to a rose garden of a life - that wouldn't be real. But as long as we keep saying, "Yes," to Him, He will keep giving us more and more of the raw stuff that joy is made of - love, peace, service, friendship, virtue, a clean conscience, and a sound relationship with Him. He will give us all the things that we can never seize for ourselves or control like masters.

A great way to say, "Yes," to God, to accept the reality of our own sinfulness and to proclaim the reality of God's amazing justice and mercy, is to go to confession. Especially during these last days of Lent, and especially if you haven't been in a few months or years, consider going.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, understanding, and will.
All that I have and am You have given to me,
And I surrender it now to be governed entirely by Your will.
Your grace and Your love: these are wealth enough for me.
Grant me these, Lord, and that shall be enough for me.
Amen.

The Suscipe Prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola

Beautiful Snippets from the Fifth Sunday of Lent

2010-03-21T18:37:00.000-04:00

From the first reading, Is 43:16-21:

Thus says the LORD,
who opens a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,
a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!

After starting with a reminder of God's powerful, demonstrated by mighty deeds in real history, the prophet tells Israel, and us, that God is going to set us on a new path, in which former sins are transcended. The joy that His plans for us will bring is described in Ps 126:

When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with rejoicing.

Our bondage to sin and its ugly consequences will be broken. St. Paul tells us how much this new life should be worth to us in the Epistle, taken from Phil 3:8-14:

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him...
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

St. Paul continues to encourage us with his own efforts:

...forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

He would like us to share in them, no doubt. Not only that, he wants us to join him in forgetting our spotty pasts except in as much as they humble us and become fertile soil for wisdom. But guilt and shame from our past must fall away. And lastly, Jesus' beautiful, beautiful words to the woman caught in adultery, whom he saved from stoning (Jn 8:1-11):

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

Let's use these last two weeks of Lent to our great advantage. Let's enter into it with our whole hearts, praying fervently for the grace to rise higher in Christ, leaving behind sin and the scars it leaves, to be transfigured with Our Blessed Lord.

The Paper It's Written On

2010-03-21T18:15:00.000-04:00

I wonder whether it has occured to Bart Stupak and his group of pro-life democrats that in the hours after the announcement of the deal they've brokered with the White House, there is a deafening silence from the left, and especially from the abortionist left (if one need distinguish). Granted, it has only been a few hours. NARAL's website makes no mention. The online stories carried by the MSM make no mention. Nobody is mentioning the reaction of the abortionists.

I suspect that's because there isn't any.

They know what Bart Stupak and his (I believe sincere) colleagues have allowed themselves not to know. The abortionists know that the vaunted executive order to clarify how a health-care plan that expressly covers abortion does not in fact do so, if it is ever actually issued, will not be worth the paper it is written on. With the television cameras off, and they will be off, the President will never get around to it; and the calls from Stupak and his group that he do so will not be heard outside of Congress, or perhaps outside of congressmen's offices, perhaps. And if the order is actually, in some imaginary world, issued, it can as easily be rescinded.

If any of the above were false - if an executive order carried more weight than legislation, rather than less - the abortionists wouldn't have fought so tenaciously to keep it out of the law, and they wouldn't be so taciturn about the whole thing suddenly. But wait, I do hear noises, after all: the sound of snickering in sleaves.
I am trying hard not to judge Stupak and his group. The amount of pressure that they have been receiving has been enormous. I think it safe to say that the spiritual combat is not yet over.

Alice von Hildebrand Strikes Again!

2010-03-18T23:58:00.000-04:00

InsideCatholic just reprinted a 2008 article by philosopher Alice von Hildebrand entitled, "When Is Stupidity a Sin?" Here's a quote:

When a Catholic gratefully proclaims that the Church has the fullness of revealed truth, this assertion should be wrapped both in humility and gratitude. This is a key to a successful apostolate: "To be possessed by truth" is a clarion call to live it, reflect it, and thereby draw other hungry souls to its beauty.

Read it!

Priceless Irony

2010-03-17T18:10:00.003-04:00

A UK court made an excellent ruling today. A law in the UK, passed by parliament and authorized by the Queen in 2007, prohibited organizations from discriminating against homosexual couples - that is, any service or good, not strictly religious, could not be denied to a homosexual couple if it would be permitted to a hetersexual couple. A number of dioceses began to spin-off (secularize) their adoption services, etc., so that those agencies could continue doing good work without the Church having to be implicated. A poor solution by any standards, but an understandable one, too.

The statute contained its own demise, though. In a selfish bid for special status, the statute included a provision that exempted organizations whose purpose was to serve persons of one particular sexual orientation (the homosexualists of course meant their orientation). The homosexualist groups wanted this provision included so that they could exclude and refuse to serve heterosexuals. In an almost inconceivably (these days) fair judgment, the justice who heard a relevant case has ruled today that the same provision provides protection to any organization, provided their mission includes service to only one sexual orientation. The wicked statute is thus effectively gutted, its heart pulled out right through its own loophole.

Read all about it.

St. Patrick and the Snakes

2010-03-17T16:17:00.001-04:00

I am rather inclined by nature to prefer natural explanations to supernatural ones, when it comes to understanding natural events or, for that matter, when it comes to analyzing claims of supernatural phenomena. I also understand the difficulties in interpreting historical accounts written by people more or less willing than myself to believe reports they have heard of the supernatural.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe in miracles as a possibility - and not just the "sunshine is a miracle" sort, either. I have made four pilgrimages to Lourdes and while there, I witnessed what seems to me to be the supernatural healing of a paraplegic. I also have had a couple near brushes with death that have given me great confidence in my guardian angel, whose existence I do not take to be figurative, but very, very real. Realer than my own.

All of this is said by way of disclaimer, because I want also to say that I think the account of St. Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland is probably at least somewhat allegorical rather than purely factual in nature.
The Ireland of Patrick's day, the Ireland that enslaved him and the Ireland that the missionary bishop evangelized, was not a nice place. Britain being the edge of Roman civilization, Hibernia (as they called Ireland) was the beginning of the shadows. Beyond that was the dark and brooding North Atlantic, which no man had sailed. The island did not have a government and laws, but had warlords and power. It did not have manorial estates or great cities like those found in the Roman world, but id did have slaves like the Romans had. It did not have elegant priests with elaborate cults to various gods gathered from around the world by explorers and soldiers; no, it had gods of its own, and fearsome priests who conducted deadly and secret rituals. Those fearsome priests fed their fearsome gods with the fearful blood of human victims.

I believe that the snakes in this allegory about St. Patrick represent the evil demons hidden behind the masks provided by the names of those Celtic gods. Wherever those dark gods have been worshiped - Hibernia, Mesoamerica, Phoenicia, and beyond - they have demanded blood, and they have shared a remarkable interest in the blood of virgins and children. The most virginal of virgins (except for the Virgin) and childish of children is, of course, a little baby. No blemish nor spot, on the skin or in the heart - the perfect sacrifice for demons that hate God, that hate goodness, that hate innocence and purity, that hate. I believe they hate babies for this reason, and I believe that they are trying to prevent the final return of Jesus Christ, whom they believe will return as he came the first time: a little child.

St. Patrick, who prayed and fasted, who was unsuccessfully poisoned and burned, who loved his enemies, drove the demons out of Hibernia. I bet the people, living long under those dark shadows, were immediately interested in self-sacrificial love as a, shall we say "viable," alternative to the scheming sacrifice of others that was taught by their own priests. When they saw that immense love in his own person, they were hooked. What is known is that within a few years of his arrival, many average folks and several chieftains in Hibernia had been converted by the ex-slave with the shamrock. He provoked fierce opposition from entrenched religious and political interests in doing so, but by the time he passed to eternal reward, St. Patrick seems to have converted almost the whole darned place. In any event, Hibernia was well on its way to becoming Ireland. Ireland is not the First Daughter of the Church (that is France), nor the Finest Flower of Catholic Culture (I am going to award that title to Italy), nor the Most Ardent Defender of the Faith (let's say Spain, which conquered the Moors). But I will say that Ireland, her recent religious malaise aside, is perhaps of all rocky and cracked places, the country with the most tenacious faith.

St. Patrick did that.

Think of our country. We have immense potential and tremendous accomplishments. We unfortunately have a recent fascination with solving our problems by killing them. Even our littlest little "problems" get killed without quarter or mercy by our modern, scientific, medical and judicial priesthoods. Our country is, I believe, in the feverish and menacing grip of very wicked spirits. They pervert our leaders, enchant our spokespeople, drowse our people, mutilate our laws, and are eroding our nation in so many ways.
St. Patrick might very well be a powerful intercessor for us. Think on that over your drinks tonight.

St. Patrick, please drive away the snakes from our nation. Amen.

Archbishop Chaput Weighs In...

2010-03-15T18:47:00.000-04:00

Archbishop Chaput of Denver wrote a column in his diocesan newspaper yesterday clarifying the position of the U.S. Bishops with respect to the current Obamacare baby-killing governmental power grab:

The Church in America opposes it, unambiguously and for several reasons. Read all about it.

Better Late than Never

2010-03-15T08:51:00.003-04:00

The following is a shorter version of yesterday's Laetare Sunday homily: Authentic Christian Joy

We celebrate Laetare Sunday as a day of rejoicing in the midst of Lent. The Church gives us this oasis in the midst of our Lenten journey to remind us to keep our eyes focused on the goal of Easter. Our goal is the joy of the Resurrection. Authentic Christian joy is counter cultural; it goes against what the loudest segments of our culture tell us we should be searching for. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a great illustration of the difference between authentic Christian joy and the cheap substitute that our culture often feeds us.

The Prodigal Son is searching for happiness and joy. He just doesn't know how to go about finding it. He makes three major mistakes that eventually lead him to the pig pen. The first one is that he separates himself from the family in search of freedom. Freedom is great, he just has the wrong idea of it. He sees it as a getting rid of restrictions so he can do what he wants. Freedom for the Prodigal Son means setting himself up as his own moral authority. What he doesn't understand is that freedom separated from objective truth leads to slavery. He'll get there eventually.

The second major problem with his search for joy is that he is greedy and possessive. "Give me my share of the inheritance," he demands. In the Prodigal Son's mind, the more he has, the happier he'll be. Does that message sound familiar?

His third major problem is that his ultimate goal is pleasure. Pleasures are great, and our culture offers us an innumerable amount of them, but if we set them up as the thing to be sought after, we'll be miserable. First of all, pleasure is fleeting, and secondly, it tends to consume us and our energies. Sure enough, the Prodigal Son's search for pleasures absolutely consumes him and all his possessions. Welcome to the pig sty.

What happens next is a work of pure grace. The words of the Gospel are powerful: "he came to his senses." This is where is journey toward true joy begins. The same is true for each one of us. We find joy when we see reality as it really is. C.S. Lewis said our challenge throughout life is to see what's really real. The Prodigal Son's about to find out what's really real.

Whereas freedom meant separating himself from the family and becoming his own moral authority, the Prodigal Son now finds that true freedom is in the family and living by the rules of the household. But it's more than that. True freedom consists in surrendering himself to the Father: "Treat me as one of your hired hands." St. Paul makes this point explicitly when he said, "Be slaves of Jesus Christ." The paradox is that when we give ourselves completely to God, we become freer than we could ever imagine.

Whereas he thought possessions would make him happy, now he finds that the love of the Father makes him truly happy. When he lived his life of dissipation, people loved him because of what he had; now as he returns to the Father with absolutely nothing, he realizes he's loved for who he is. When we understand this point, we'll be able to be truly detached from possessions, whether we have many or few. The only thing that really matters is the love of the Father.

Whereas he thought that the goal of life was pleasure and that pleasure meant joy, now he understands that the joy of reincorporation into the love of the Father demolishes that notion. He is swallowed up in the love of that Father--the cloak, the ring, the fatted calf, the party with all the household (come on big brother!). Our true joy consists in relishing in that same love of God for us in the midst of the community that is the Church.

Just as the final joyous state of the Prodigal Son is dependent upon his reconciliation with the Father, so our joy is as well. The Church offers us the chance to receive sacramental reconciliation, especially in this season of Lent. I think you'll find that your joy is associated with how seriously you take this offer.

Dear Young People II

2010-03-13T04:12:00.001-05:00

Dear young people, do not be content with anything less than the highest ideals! Do not let yourselves be dispirited by those who are disillusioned with life and have grown deaf to the deepest and most authentic desires of the heart. The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living. Refuse to sell your dreams cheaply. Watch out for the dangerous ways that lead to passing joys and satisfaction. Deepen your relationship with God through prayer. Prayer spreads Divine energy. It makes us live in a new way and gives rise to a revolutionary evangelical style.

State Nullification is Back

2010-03-11T04:52:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are unaware, there is a constitutional law concept called "state nullification." What it is, in a nutshell, is the theory that a state has the right, as the source of authority and the basic unit of governance in the United States, to void a federal law within its boundaries. Nullification was a big deal before the Civil War, especially in the 1830s. The question was settled by the Civil War. The federal government's in charge. That's it.

Until now.

Different theories of nullification have existed from the beginning. The most plausible one says basically, "Hey, we've got this Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So therefore, if a power is not delegated to the federal government, but reserved to the respective states, then if the federal government tries to use that power, a state should have override within its boundaries, because the power is reserved to the state."

Now, with the healthcare reform effort becoming more and more divisive and partisan, and more and more expensive (remember when it was supposed to be budget neutral?), states are fighting back to protect their citizens from this economic trainwreck-in-the-making as best they can. Read this New York Times article to see how Virginia is leading the way.

So why is this appearing on a blog dedicated to the spiritual life? Well, simply, because I believe that we are being lied to. We are (were) being told it will cost nothing, when in reality it will add to the mounting debt that is literally going to enslave our children and grandchildren to foreigners who do not live near them or care about them. We are being told it will not damage the private sector, but "rein it in." In reality, it will destroy the insurance industry that has served most of us reasonably well for decades, leaving only government programs to help us - DMV-style and at massive expense. Further government involvement in private life will further replace family and community bonds of charity, and seemingly absolve those who neglect the need of their family and neighbors. Lastly, and perhaps most deviously, I believe that the American people is being deliberated manipulated emotionally to make this government expansion possible - they are playing to our real hard feelings about people we've known who've needed treatment and - many times for reasons not actually related to lack of coverage - been unable to get it. They are offering us a health-panacea. For materialists, who believe there is nothing beyond this life, health is the highest good, and a panacea is the key to happiness. They are essentially promising, in so many words, heaven - or a piece of it - on earth. They are doing so without reference to Christ, our only real hope of real salvation. The government is proposing itself as a provider, as a caretaker, as a father. It is setting itself up increasingly over and against Christ. That's not good.

We need to pray very hard for our country. We Christians need to lead the way in depoliticizing this issue so that we can look for creative ways to extend our society's immense resources to those who go without basic needs met - ways that will not further empower a massive, inefficient, power-hungry government bureaucracy - ways that will actually address the real problems of real people.

What's Going On With This Blog?!

2010-03-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the erratic and infrequent posts of late. I am pretty excited about the cause of my recent unreliability in posting.

Without Having Seen is moving to a new home and a new platform.

My reasons are multiple, and I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that I believe the reading experience will be comparable or superior. At the same time that I am finalizing the blog's code at the new site, I am also recruiting some more writers to add to the base of perspectives offered on this blog. All these things - plus more stuff at home - have got me busy enough that my blogging has had to take a back seat for a bit.

Please do keep checking in, though. When the new site is ready, this one will announce the new home and automatically redirect the eager reader there. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

Lars and the Real Girl

2010-03-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

Lars and the Real Girl is an independent film staring Ryan Gosling. The movie's central character, Lars, is a man that everyone in his small Minnesota town has decided is just different. Reclusive and antisocial, but still perfectly civil, Lars goes to work, goes back home, and goes to church, all the time minimizing social contact, and certainly physical contact with other people. He lives next door to his brother and sister-in-law and even tries to minimize contact with them. His brother, and presumably much of the town, thinks that he just likes to be by himself.

That is, until Lars orders a girlfriend in a box: a more expensive cousin to the inflatable kind. When Lars introduces his girlfriend to his brother and sister-in-law, they think he's lost it. In reality, Lars is just beginning to thaw a little, break out of the long winter of his soul. As the movie continues and the various personalities unfold, Lars' history and personality begin to unfold as well. Gosling does an excellent job of offering peeks into his character's heart and mind. The other members of the community each decide how they are going to respond to Lars' very real delusion about his not-nearly-so-real girlfriend. The plot thickens as a (real) coworker of Lars makes more obvious her feelings for the oblivious introvert. Hilarity and poignancy intermingle and flow back and forth throughout this movie. The simple plot and the somewhat more complex, yet still comprehensible characters show in very natural, concrete, un-preachy terms how mercy leads to healing.

I highly, highly, highly recommend this movie. I bought it used and can safely say it is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and easily the best $5 I've spent in a full year. Click the picture to find it on Amazon.com.

An Interesting Marriage Proposal...

2010-03-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

Msgr. Charlie Pope, of our own Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has an interesting proposal concerning marriage. No, he's not getting hitched - he's already happily married to Mother Church. So what's his big idea? It boils down to this: if the world is going to redefine marriage to suit the homosexualist agenda, then the Church should come up with a new name for what used to be called marriage.

Happily, he has an idea for a new term, or rather, an old term. HOLY Matrimony.
.
Click here to read the rest of his marriage proposal.

I Think He Means It

2010-03-04T11:03:00.000-05:00

Bart Stupak (D-MI) has been saying all along that he and his ten pro-Democrat colleagues will not collaborate with the expansion of Federal funding for abortion. Nor will they vote for any bill that draws Americans into further material collaboration with that monstrous evil.

Coincidentally, Bart Stupak is a former state trooper, and he kinda looks like it, doesn't he? I mention that, because even though he has also practiced law, state troopers don't strike me as the sorta cats that are given to b.s. and clowning around. You hear him talk, and that kinda comes through. When he says that he and his little caucus aren't going to let abortion expand on their watch, I think he means it.

Keep praying, Christians.

St. Agnes of Bohemia

2010-03-02T11:14:00.001-05:00

This life of St. Agnes of Bohemia, whose memorial is today, is taken from AmericanCatholic.org:

Agnes was the daughter of Queen Constance and King Ottokar I of Bohemia. At the age of three, she was betrothed to the Duke of Silesia, who died three years later. As she grew up, she decided she wanted to enter the religious life.

After declining marriages to King Henry VII of Germany and Henry III of England, Agnes was faced with a proposal from Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. She appealed to Pope Gregory IX for help. The pope was persuasive; Frederick magnanimously said that he could not be offended if Agnes preferred the King of Heaven to him.

After Agnes built a hospital for the poor and a residence for the friars, she financed the construction of a Poor Clare monastery in Prague. In 1236, she and seven other noblewomen entered this monastery. Saint Clare sent five sisters from San Damiano to join them, and wrote Agnes four letters advising her on the beauty of her vocation and her duties as abbess.

Agnes became known for prayer, obedience and mortification. Papal pressure forced her to accept her election as abbess; nevertheless, the title she preferred was "senior sister." Her position did not prevent her from cooking for the other sisters and mending the clothes of lepers. The sisters found her kind but very strict regarding the observance of poverty; she declined her royal brother’s offer to set up an endowment for the monastery.

Devotion to Agnes arose soon after her death on March 6, 1282. She was canonized in 1989.
Agnes was the daughter of Queen Constance and King Ottokar I of Bohemia. At the age of three, she was betrothed to the Duke of Silesia, who died three years later. As she grew up, she decided she wanted to enter the religious life.

After declining marriages to King Henry VII of Germany and Henry III of England, Agnes was faced with a proposal from Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. She appealed to Pope Gregory IX for help. The pope was persuasive; Frederick magnanimously said that he could not be offended if Agnes preferred the King of Heaven to him.

After Agnes built a hospital for the poor and a residence for the friars, she financed the construction of a Poor Clare monastery in Prague. In 1236, she and seven other noblewomen entered this monastery. Saint Clare sent five sisters from San Damiano to join them, and wrote Agnes four letters advising her on the beauty of her vocation and her duties as abbess.

Agnes became known for prayer, obedience and mortification. Papal pressure forced her to accept her election as abbess; nevertheless, the title she preferred was "senior sister." Her position did not prevent her from cooking for the other sisters and mending the clothes of lepers. The sisters found her kind but very strict regarding the observance of poverty; she declined her royal brother’s offer to set up an endowment for the monastery.

Devotion to Agnes arose soon after her death on March 6, 1282. She was canonized in 1989.

Did you catch that? Seven hundred and seven years (707!) from the time she died until Holy Father John Paul II canonized her. Talk about patience! St. Agnes of Bohemia strikes me as a great saint for Lent. She spent much of her life in the secular world doing good for Jesus. She entered a convent that she founded, did not seek prominent position or honors, was a gentle servant, but uncompromising in her devotion to Jesus. This Lent, let's continue to burrow into the interior monastery that God wants us to build in our heart. Let's deepen our devotion to prayer, detachment, and service to the poor.

St. Agnes, Poor Princess of Bohemia, pray for us.

Dies Irae

2010-03-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla: teste David cum Sibylla.	The day of wrath, that day Will dissolve the world in ashes As foretold by David and the sibyl!
Quantus tremor est futurus, quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus!	How much tremor there will be, when the judge will come, investigating everything strictly!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulcra regionum, coget omnes ante thronum.	The trumpet, scattering a wondrous sound through the sepulchres of the regions, will summon all before the throne.
Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura, judicanti responsura.	Death and nature will marvel, when creation arises, to respond to the Judge.
Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus judicetur.	The written book will be brought forth, in which all is contained, from which the world shall be judged.
Judex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit: nil inultum remanebit.	When therefore the judge will sit, whatever hides will appear: nothing will remain unpunished.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, cum vix justus sit securus?	What am I, miserable, then to say? Which patron to ask, when [even] the just may [only] hardly be sure?
Rex tremendae majestatis, qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me fons pietatis.	King of tremendous majesty, who freely savest those that have to be saved, save me, source of mercy.
Recordare, Jesu pie, quod sum causa tuae viae: ne me perdas illa die.	Remember, merciful Jesus, that I am the cause of thy way: lest thou lose me in that day.
Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: redemisti Crucem passus: tantus labor non sit cassus.	Seeking me, thou sat tired: thou redeemed [me] having suffered the Cross: let not so much hardship be lost.
Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis ante diem rationis.	Just judge of revenge, give the gift of remission before the day of reckoning.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus: culpa rubet vultus meus: supplicanti parce, Deus.	I sigh, like the guilty one: my face reddens in guilt: Spare the supplicating one, God.
Qui Mariam absolvisti, et latronem exaudisti, mihi quoque spem dedisti.	Thou who absolved Mary, and heardest the robber, gavest hope to me, too.
Preces meae non sunt dignae: sed tu bonus fac benigne, ne perenni cremer igne.	My prayers are not worthy: however, thou, Good [Lord], do good, lest I am burned up by eternal fire.
Inter oves locum praesta, et ab haedis me sequestra, statuens in parte dextra.	Grant me a place among the sheep, and take me out from among the goats, setting me on the right side.
Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis: voca me cum benedictis.	Once the cursed have been rebuked, sentenced to rancorous flames: Call thou me with the blessed.
Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis: gere curam mei finis.	I meekly and humbly pray, [my] heart is as crushed as the ashes: perform the healing of mine end.
Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus.	Tearful will be that day, on which from the ashes arises the guilty man who is to be judged.
Huic ergo parce, Deus: pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen.	Spare him therefore, God. Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Amen.

Patrick Madrid on the Quakes

2010-02-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

On his blog, Patrick Madrid writes:

First, the devastating quake in Haiti 45 days ago, and now this one in Chile. My guess is that more of these disasters will strike more frequently. I hope not, but that's a hunch. Sooner or later, one of these BIG quakes will strike within the U.S. — Los Angeles? St. Louis? Chicago? San Francisco? New York? It's just a matter of time, the scientists have been telling us.

Two things we should do:

1) Always be ready to meet the Lord by staying close to him in prayer and the sacraments, especially frequent confession. This is a no-brainer, but it's amazing how many people, including Catholics, never give the four last things any thought: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell;

and

2) If you haven't already, start making practical preparations in your own home so that, if find yourself in a quake-stricken area, you and your family can fare better and be in a position to help those around you. Lay in a supply (even if just a small one) of extra water, foods that will keep without refrigeration, medicines like Ibuprofen, a hand-crank radio (no batteries needed), etc. Make a plan with your family, especially your kids, so that they will know where to meet up. You know, those kinds of basic preparations.

We should pray to God that these disasters spur us to greater charity, and to deepen our Lenten devotion, in a sense: to remember that we will die, and that we know neither the day nor the hour.

Der Spiegel Reports on Christian Martyrdom

2010-02-28T10:05:00.006-05:00

Spiegel Online reports that the Religion of Peace has actually been busy martyring Christians for some time now, wherever it can get its hands on them. Check it out here.

War Movies and Lent

2010-02-27T19:30:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about some of my favorite war movies, and about what distinguishes the best of their genre from the worst. Characteristics started coming to mind, and it occured to me:

Lent.

All the war movies that I can think of are trying to do something rather than just be senseless violence. The good ones succeed, and the bad ones fail. The bad ones are just senseless violence.

Lent is very much the same way. In Lent, we are challenged by the Church to do violence to the worst in our nature, and so to free the best in our nature to pursue God more wholeheartedly. We deny the part of ourself that craves creature comforts and luxuries so that we can go wherever God leads. In a "bad" Lent, we either fail to do so entirely, or more commonly perhaps, we do so but with crooked motivations. Bad Lenten motivations are things like self-help, and even to make God happy with us, to prove ourselves to ourselves or to God. In such personalities, the self has unwittingly become god. This self-deification is palpable if we are honest with ourselves. When we think, "This fast will make God happy with me," we often mean, "...make me happy with myself." We do not need to earn God's love. If we feel like we have to prove ourselves to Him, it is likely because we have not yet proven ourselves to ourselves.

But that's not what Lent is about.

Lent is about learning to detach from unnecessary distractions, spend more time in prayer, and serve the poor - that is, Lent is a time to focus more on the things of God than we might normally. We are to focus on God. That's all.

Now, here's where the war movie analogy breaks down a bit. But bear with me. Wars aren't supposed to be for their own sake, and the violence in war movies isn't supposed to be gratuitous. And in the good war movies, the violence isn't gratuitous at all, and nor are the heroes pointless. Instead, in good war movies, the violence shows the peril of the heroes, and the movie shows their heroism: the selflessness, commitment, discipline, love of companions, honor, bravery, defense of innocence. All these virtues are needed in heaps to live the Christian life, and Lent is the perfect time to dig in deeper, to train harder.

Don't worry, you can have chocolate again on Easter.

In the meantime, if you find yourself inspired by movies as I often do, you might consider these movies for a Lenten diet. They start as war movies, and progress to the more explicitly religious. For best results, combine with spiritual exercises and service to the poor. These are not my take on "the best movies of all time." They are just suggestions of some movies to inject in your viewing diet, to give yourself a little Lenten food for thought, if you have not already given up movies or television for Lent.

Black Hawk Down

This excellent movie really is one of my all time favorites. It makes palpable all the virtues I listed above. The backdrop conflict makes the virtues all the more poignant. In a WWII movie, the virtues of individual characters can get lost in the the overarching justice of the Allied cause or the wickedness of the Axis cause. In the context of the shattered idealism of the US's brief Somali engagement, the virtues of these characters shines very brightly.

Three Kings

If you can forgive the very brief, fully clothed, yet graphic sexual scene at the very start, the movie is an amazing story of conversion in the face of suffering. Through a barely perceptible process, opportunistic treasure-hunters become willing to lay down their careers and even their lives to help those in need.

Schindler's List

Not exactly a typical war movie, but being set in wartime counts for something. It is an amazing story of conversion, and closely based on real events. In his contact with suffering people, the eponymous protagonist comes to a powerful change of heart as their humanity and his progressively triumph over every merely material concern.

Glory

This story is one of discipline, fraternity, and courage - three chief virtues that make possible living like Jesus in times during which Christians are frowned upon. It is based on historical fact, which makes it all the more appealing.

Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

Also set during war rather than properly speaking about war, this simple, true story has as its major theme the commitment to truth about human nature regardless of personal consequences. It tells the true story, based on actual interrogation and trial transcripts, of Sophie Scholl and other members of the White Rose resistance movement in Munich during the Second World War. Sophie's simple, heartfelt prayers are particularly beautiful.

A Man for All Seasons

This movie is not at all a war movie. There is no war in it. Except the most important warfare, which is constant, total, and absolute - spiritual warfare. The equivalent of Chief Justice in Henry VIII's England, Sir Thomas More refuses to capitulate and betray the Church and the law of God. The wily soul navigates any number of dangers and temptations, and ultimately the temptation to lose his soul in order to save his life.

The Passion of the Christ

Watch the Commander-in-Chief of our ragtag brotherhood as he sets the objective and rules of engagement for our Great Battle.

The Terrible Reality of Beauty

2010-02-23T14:40:00.002-05:00

Barber's "Adagio for Strings, #11" is a beautiful piece. It is deeply gripping, stirring, and evocative. The theme first played at the very start magnifies with intensity at each repetition throughout the piece.

This YouTube video shows a performance of the adagio interspliced with images from the BBC and ABC News. The performance was four days after September 11, and the images are taken from that and subsequent days.

I include this video because it makes an important point in a very tactile way. Ever since the Fall, human history has been the history of exile from the true life God intended for us, our quest to regain it, and ultimately, God's restoration of that life to us when we could not attain it for ourselves. Human history - and each of our lives - is a canvas painted in shades of tragedy and hope, so it is no coincidence that the two themes speak to us so powerfully as individuals and in groups.

Lent is a time during which we are asked by the Church to re-engage these themes in a more profound way: we examine our conscience, we clarify our own limitedness, we touch the wound, prod it, remind ourselves that sin and death are real and at work in our lives.

Suffering, pain, and tragedy aren't all bad though, as the modern world supposes. They are the natural consequence of sin, and aren't to be avoided. They are also the context in which is set all heroism worthy of the name. Sports "heroes" aren't typically heroic at all, but athletic, and we do a great disserve to ourselves and our children who admire them so if we confuse heroism and athleticism. Athleticism is admirable, and even noble, but it has nothing on heroism, and really, fundamentally, is worthless except as a training ground for heroism.

Heroism might be best described, in my thinking, as entering into the lion's den. A heroic man or woman feels fear and pain, sins and dies - but does not let these little tragedies interfere with hope. The hope in question varies from context to context. It may be hope that "it will all work out for the best," or hope that a life might be saved, or that a person might be brought to know the love of Christ. Fundamentally, all these hopes are tied into the object of our highest hope - the hope of eternal life in blessed, joyful union with God. It is this hope that instills true meaning in the lesser hopes, and it is all these hopes that make our hearts soar in the midst of tragedy. Hope fuels heroism. Who is left unmoved remembering Lenny Skutnik,* who swam into the frozen waters of the Potomac to save a stewardess trapped freezing to death in the wreckage of a Florida Airlines Flight 90?

Or more recently, the firefighters who went into the burning towers on September 11?

The terrible reality is that sorrow and beauty are often intermingled - maybe even, to some extent, necessarily intermingled in this age we live in, the Age of the Cross. A project, like that of the Enlightenment, to uproot the one will inevitably uproot the other with it. It is much better, perhaps, to simply train for the one and create the other. So while we continue to wait in joyful hope for the Resurrection, it is important to touch bases from time to time with suffering, sin, and death. In the Church, we call the forty days allotted for this purpose, "Lent."

*(For those of you who don't know about Lenny Skutnik, you can see the story on YouTube, of course, by clicking here. In brief, when rescue efforts failed to save Priscilla Tirado from the Potomac, he dove into the freezing waters and pulled her out, at immense risk to himself and without guarantees for her.)

Is Lenten Sacrifice just a Catholic New Year's Resolution?

2010-02-21T20:23:00.003-05:00

It’s likely that in the past couple weeks, you’ve heard this question one too many times: “So, what are you doing for Lent?” Or how about this one: “What are you giving up for Lent?” We associate Lent with giving something up—maybe candy, foul language, the TV or computer—or doing something extra—I’ll be nicer to my brother, give money to the poor, or pray more. These things are what we call sacrifices. Lent is a time of sacrifice more than any other season of our Church year. We see in today’s gospel that Jesus goes out into the desert, where it’s hot, there aren’t many comforts, there’s little water, and he doesn’t eat for 40 days. In other words, Jesus himself made great sacrifices during his 40 days in the desert. For us, who desire to be like Christ, to follow in his footsteps, sacrifice will be part of our Lenten journey.

Sacrifice comes from Latin, and means “made holy/sacred.” In essence, a sacrifice is a gift given by us to God. You may have never thought that your sacrifice of giving up chocolate is a gift for God, but it is either a gift for God or it isn’t much use at all. St. Augustine says that whatever good act we do—he uses the example of showing mercy to another—if it is not done for God’s sake, is not a sacrifice. This should make us think. Is the reason why I’m making the sacrifice I am making this Lent a gift for God or is it principally for my own sake? For instance, am I giving up some sort of food so I can get in better shape or because I know that denying myself that food is difficult and I do it for the love of God? Our Lenten sacrifices are no mere New Year’s Resolutions, which have the final goal of self-improvement; rather, they are gifts given to God manifesting and increasing our love for him.

Why do we have to sacrifice at all, though? Where did this idea of giving something up or doing something extra as gift to God come from? First of all, God created us and we are his creatures. The fundamental relationship of us belonging to God and receiving everything from him demands that we sacrifice. As an analogy, we don’t give Mom a gift on Mother’s Day because she’s been particularly good to us this year or because she prepared some pretty good meals. We give her a gift because of that relationship of mother and child, of having received life from her.

There is an additional reason we sacrifice to God evidenced in today’s first reading. After the Jews entered the Promised Land, Moses instructed them to offer the first fruits of their harvest every year in sacrifice to God. The reason they were to do so is given in the reading: God chose Abraham and made his descendents into the great nation of Israel. When they were in slavery in Egypt, God saw their oppression, freed them from their slavery, and brought them through the desert to the Promised Land. In other words, they were to sacrifice to God because of his freely given love for Israel and his powerful actions in saving them. To continue with our analogy, we have an additional reason to give our mothers a gift on Mother’s Day. Not only because of that fundamental relationship of mother and child, but because she loves us. She showed us that love through waking up in the middle of the night when we were crying, feeding us, teaching us to read, and in so many other ways. In a similar way, the Israelites had more incentive to offer gifts to God, because he showed his great love for them through saving them.

As Catholics, we have an even greater reason to sacrifice, to give gifts, to God. And this reason far surpasses any analogy we could make to the love of the mother for her child. As Christians we know that God became one of us. The One who created us became one of us. We see in today’s gospel that he even allowed himself to go through temptation and suffering, all for our sake. Finally, he suffered and died at our hands, he being more innocent and good than all of us put together. My brothers and sisters, Christ’s life was a sacrifice to God. As God he couldn’t give gifts to himself, but as a man, he could give gifts to his Father on our behalf. And the gift he gave, more valuable than anything else, was his own life out of love for us. This is the supreme reason we have for sacrificing as Christians. God didn’t just create us and love us—as if those weren’t reason enough—but in the ridiculousness of his love, he became one of us. This is why we sacrifice to God, especially during Lent: not to perfect ourselves so we can have the glory, but out of love for him.

We now understand why we make sacrifices, but what is it exactly that God wants us to sacrifice? Does God want an extra Our Father prayed or does he like us giving up some food better? The answer is that God finds any sacrifice of ours pleasing, provided what lies behind it is a spirit of interior sacrifice. We can go through a whole Lent and never fail to break our Lenten resolution, but if we aren’t changed, if our hearts aren’t converted, if we don’t have a spirit of inner sacrifice, than it wasn’t a successful Lent. More than anything we give up or do extra, God wants ourselves. That’s the only gift that will satisfy him. The Old Testament describes God as a jealous god. That doesn’t mean he’s envious of our new bike or fancy car; jealousy in Biblical language means that God desires us, and he will do everything possible—except violate our freedom—to win us to himself. Just as Jesus’ whole life was a sacrifice to the Father, a gift to the Father, so our whole lives should be a gift. My brothers and sisters, it’s good for us to make these exterior sacrifices during Lent, but they should always coincide with an interior spirit of sacrifice; that is, a desire to give ourselves to God. In one of the Eucharistic Prayers at Mass, the priest prays “make us an everlasting gift to you.” It’s one of the most beautiful prayers of the whole Mass and should be a motivating factor for us this Lent and throughout our lives really.

Usually, I open with a story, but today I close with one. The example of this person illustrates in a way much better than I can explain what true sacrifice is. (Plus, this story has to do with the Olympics, so I thought it’d be appropriate.)
In 1998, Kirstin Holum competed as a speed skater for the U.S. at the Winter Olympics. She was only 17 years old, but she finished sixth in the grueling 3,000 meter competition. Long distance speed skating is a sport, like marathon running, that requires aerobic endurance that only comes with age and training. In other words, this 17-year-old was predicted to one day be a star in the sport. These Olympic Games were supposed to be the time for her to shine—at 29 years old, she would just have been entering the prime of her career. Instead, after the ’98 Olympics she hung up her skates and followed a stronger calling, one from God. Now known as Sister Catherine, she joined a Franciscan order, and has never looked back. Kirstin walked away from would-be fame, maybe a gold medal, accolades, and honors to give her life to God as sister. Her exterior sacrifice of turning down fame was only a sign of her interior sacrifice of desiring to give her life to God. “Make us an everlasting gift to you.”

Office of Readings: Friday after Ash Wednesday

2010-02-19T13:27:00.000-05:00

The highest good is prayer and conversation with God, because it means that we are in God’s company and in union with him. When light enters our bodily eyes our eyesight is sharpened; when a soul is intent on God, God’s inextinguishable light shines into it and makes it bright and clear. I am talking, of course, of prayer that comes from the heart and not from routine: not the prayer that is assigned to particular days or particular moments in time, but the prayer that happens continuously by day and by night.

Indeed the soul should not only turn to God at times of explicit prayer. Whatever we are engaged in, whether it is care for the poor, or some other duty, or some act of generosity, we should remember God and long for God. The love of God will be as salt is to food, making our actions into a perfect dish to set before the Lord of all things. Then it is right that we should receive the fruits of our labours, overflowing onto us through all eternity, if we have been offering them to him throughout our lives.
Prayer is the light of the soul, true knowledge of God, a mediator between God and men. Prayer lifts the soul into the heavens where it hugs God in an indescribable embrace. The soul seeks the milk of God like a baby crying for the breast. It fulfils its own vows and receives in exchange gifts better than anything that can be seen or imagined.

Prayer is a go-between linking us to God. It gives joy to the soul and calms its emotions. I warn you, though: do not imagine that prayer is simply words. Prayer is the desire for God, an indescribable devotion, not given by man but brought about by God’s grace. As St Paul says: For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf in a way that could never be put into words.
If God gives to someone the gift of such prayer, it is a gift of imperishable riches, a heavenly food that satisfies the spirit. Whoever tastes that food catches fire and his soul burns for ever with desire for the Lord.

To begin on this path, start by adorning your house with modesty and humility. Make it shine brightly with the light of justice. Decorate it with the gold leaf of good works, with the jewels of faithfulness and greatness of heart. Finally, to make the house perfect, raise a gable above it all, a gable of prayer. Thus you will have prepared a pure and sparkling house for the Lord. Receive the Lord into this royal and splendid dwelling — in other words: receive, by his grace, his image into the temple of your soul.

A Homily by Psuedo-Chrysostom

The Pope on Ash Wednesday

2010-02-19T13:19:00.002-05:00

DC vs. the Church

2010-02-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., announced on Tuesday that it had to close its adoption program
within the District of Columbia. The decision to do so was made as the only feasible alternative to compliance with an unjust law promulgated by the DC City Council several months back. The law prohibits discrimination against "married" gay couples in numerous matters, including adoption. The fact that so many people cannot see the difference between holy matrimony and homosexual unions shows the depravity into which our culture has descended.

The Church in DC has very manfully despised the opinion of the world on this matter, and very maternally cared more for the authentic welfare of her children than for the esteem of reprobates.

It's time to get praying, very, very hard.

Meditation for Lent

2010-02-18T08:00:00.002-05:00

In translation (courtesy of Catholic.org):

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.
Crying, we raise our eyes to Thee, Sovereign King,
Redeemer of all.
Listen, Christ, to the pleas of the supplicant sinners.

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.
Thou art at the Right Hand of God the Father,
the Keystone,
the Way of salvation and Gate of Heaven,
cleanse the stains of our sins.

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.
O God, we beseech Thy majesty to hear our groans;
to forgive our sins.

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.
We confess to Thee our consented sins;
we declare our hidden sins with contrite heart;
in Thy mercy, O Redeemer, forgive them.

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.
Thou wert captured, being innocent;
brought about without resistance,
condemned by impious men with false witnesses.
O Christ keep safe those whom Thou hast redeemed.

Hearken, O Lord,
and have mercy,
for we have sinned against Thee.

Ashes for a Sinner

2010-02-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

At Mass today, Msgr. Rossi made a really striking point. He said that we do not wear ashes on our to proclaim to the world that we are pious, or even to be proud of being Catholic, and certainly not for cultural reasons. We wear ashes on our foreheads to proclaim that we are sinners in need of mercy.

If those who meet us are challenged to repentence by our ashes, so be it. But it is crucial that we be challenged to repentence.

Wall Street in Ashes (Lent for Everyone)

2010-02-17T12:17:00.001-05:00

Today is Ash Wednesday. Don't forget to go get your ashes!

Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal about Lent and how the lenten principle of disciplined self-sacrifice can be very useful even for unreligious people and for non-Christians. You would think that such insight wouldn't be rocket science or even newsworthy, but there it is. I am grateful all the same that a major media outlet sees the sensibility in sensible living. And I am grateful to Erin Johnson for pointing the article out to me.

The article makes the point that little sacrifices, like a cup of latte, can add up to a lot of savings. These little things that add up can be the key to getting out of debt and building up substantial savings. The article doesn't go a step further: that we might give some of the fruit of that savings to the poor, thereby fulfilling another precept of Lent: almsgiving.

Don't forget, during Lent we are called by the Church to deepen our Christian living in three chief areas: prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor. Each of our Lenten disciplines should be something that is difficult, a challenge for us, but also something that is doable. It does no good to "blow it" three times a week. Our disciplines should also be things that are good in themselves and also things that we are allowed to give do. So that means no prayer routines that interfere with our real duties, and no giving up fornication for Lent, either - don't wait for Lent to give that up! And no giving up homework, either! It's an added bonus if our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving can all interrelate to each other somehow, and a double bonus if we retain them to some extent after Lent.

For example, one might
Prayer: Spend 10 minutes with a daily devotional;
Fast: Abstain from morning latte on the way to work, thereby saving $3 and 10 minutes for prayer;
Give to the Poor: $3/day saved from the morning latte, paid upfront early in Lent if possible, to make sure.

Doesn't sound too dramatic, does it? Nope. But what a change a little prayer can make in your day, and how many prayers can be answered by your leftover change!

To help you out, Busted Halo has come up with a Lent Calendar, kindova twist on an Advent Calendar, to help you "get your ash in gear." American Catholic also has some good resources up, and Catholic.org has a nice article and some good resources, too. Now seems a good time to re-embed Fr. Tim Naples' video on confession.

Lent is the time for penitence, which we Catholics know entails confession. Let's make this one a good one. But let's remember why we do it. Yesterday at the National Shrine, Msgr. Kevin Irwin preached about the need to do Lent for Jesus, and not as a score-card of holiness or as a self-help program to lose weight or save money. Those all miss the point. We are to learn humility - and that can happen in failure, too, so we shouldn't be discouraged if we accidentally eat that chocolate we gave up. We should just let it remind us how desperately we need God - if giving up chocolate is hard, how hard is resisting the devil's wiles and living in grace til the end of our days!?

Latin in DC

2010-02-16T15:05:00.000-05:00

The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, DC, has announced that it will host the celebration of a Pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin) of the Roman liturgy. The Mass will be celebrated by Dario Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, President Emeritus of the papal commission for the Tridentine liturgy and those who celebrate it. The event will be the first time that the Tridentine Mass has been celebrated at the high altar of the National Shrine in some 40 years. The Mass will be offered on Saturday, April 24, at 1 p.m. in honor of the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father's enthronement upon the Chair of Peter.

So what does it all mean? The story hasn't gotten the mainstream media's attention like the Holy Father's general indult for the Tridentine Mass, or like that received by the Holy Father's establishment of a new way for Anglicans to return to the Catholic Church en masse.

This sort of thing is what I predicted in 2006 when the indult was given for any Roman Rite priest to celebrate the Tridentine (Old Latin) Mass. There will be no bum-rush of Tridentine Masses. The desire for revolution or reform in the Church is much smaller than it was in the 1960s, or at least directed by much wiser heads. Instead of throwing everything out that's come since the 1969-71 Mass of Paul VI, what we are going to see is a gradual reintroduction of the Tridentine Mass. It will appear in the big, beautiful churches, and the more conservative-minded or traditional dioceses and parishes, and it will appear sporadically, for special occasions. It will become more common until at last it stands alongside the vernacular use of the Paul VI Mass, which is all anybody under 40 or 45 years old has ever known, really. The Tridentine will be the Mass of the more traditionally minded. The Paul VI will be more of a "people's Mass," and used for catechetical purposes, as an introduction to liturgy, and for common worship among Catholics of varying liturgical backgrounds. The Mass of Paul VI will, by its analogy to the Tridentine Mass, help those who attend the Tridentine Mass to understand and appreciate it better. The Tridentine Mass, by its analogy to the Mass of Paul VI, will help those who attend Paul VI's Mass to understand it better. At least, those are the desires of the Holy Father as he articulated them in The Spirit of the Liturgy, published in 2000.

An Interesting Article about Vampires and Moral Relativism

2010-02-16T11:21:00.000-05:00

Defanged: about how a culture unable to say, "Evil," when it sees evil is a culture that cannot defend itself, from a blog I just encountered for the first time called Hey Miller. The article basically argues that the media, what Peter Kreeft calls informal educators in his book How to Win the Culture Wars, have for some time been teaching us moral relativism. In his blog, Miller shows how a number of very successful novels, plays, and movies have been conducting a sly campaign to teach us that right isn't right and that wrong isn't wrong. They have been doing so by sleight of hand, substituting the psychological complexity of persons for the morality of their acts.

Thanks for the link, Eric. (For those of you who have never read it, the Daily Eudemon is a genuinely intelligent blog with a variety of topics routinely covered.)

Living in Love

2010-02-14T10:27:00.001-05:00

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret; but when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians, ch 5

What a terrible and potent thing is love! How unsustainable is love between mortals. It perishes with our lives unless it is sustained by the same thing, the only thing, that can preserve our lives unto eternity: divine love. Therefore, "let love be genuine," (Rm 12:9) modeled upon, shored up by, and infused with the love of God.

Casseroles and Community

2010-02-13T00:47:00.001-05:00

Read this really excellent blog post written over on Luce's corner. It's about a good, old-fashioned way to cooperate with grace.

The beatitudes and the works of mercy spelled out by our Lord in Mt 25, as well as those detailed in the subsequent tradition of the Church, are very much personal responsibilities... every bit as much as the Ten Commandments are. The Law is not superseded by the Beatitudes, but transcended by them. The Law provides a foundation, a bare minimum for civility and peace, within which the Beatitudes and the works of mercy can operate and transform hearts to resemble more closely the Sacred Heart that wrought them.

Mary, As Ever...

2010-02-11T11:32:00.001-05:00

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the great patroness of this little blog, and my great protectress. I have been to Lourdes four times, and each time hoping to retrieve the bit of my heart that I had left there before. But oh, how hard it is to drag my heart back! Instead, each time, I have found more of my heart missing - no, not missing - but back in Lourdes, at rest by its healing fountains.

The image in the background of this blog is from a picture I taken at the grotto of Lourdes, either by myself or Deacon Dave - I can't remember which of us took it. If anyone wants to make a pilgrimage there, contact me, and I will happily help you make arrangements for room and board in the guesthouses of a very convenient, pleasant, and economical convent there.

The clip above is from "The Song of Bernadette," based on Franz Werfel's book by the same title. He wrote it after visiting Lourdes during his flight flight from the Nazis, moved as he was by the hospitality shown him by the religious communities that have numerous houses there. The movie is one of my very favorites, and still touches me deeply each time I watch it. For those who don't know what happened at Lourdes, read this.

Really, Really Cool Timelapse Photography of the Blizzard

2010-02-10T15:42:00.001-05:00

Thank you, Deacon Greg.

Vivaldi's "Winter" from "The Four Seasons"

2010-02-09T21:46:00.001-05:00

Anyone who knows how my tentative affection for winter and snow has received a setback by recent events will appreciate my tongue in cheek presentation of the title piece below. Still, the music is beautiful and the accompanying performance is very interesting... impressive, really.

Vivaldi composed this set of four string concertos in 1723. You can also check out "Spring," "Summer," and "Autumn," with accompanying sand art in like manner. Sand art, coincidentally, seems to be big in Eastern Europe. There are a bunch of YouTube posts. A very good one that I have seen, that is really very moving, is embedded below. It tells a beautiful story by means of images that each surpass even a thousand words. The rhythm and grace with which Kseniya Simonova, a Ukrainian, performs her sand art adds an entire dimension to her work.

The same piece can be found in smaller segments with a somewhat better sound quality, but I wanted to provide the whole performance as a single piece to give a better feel. The same performer also has a sand art performance that tells the story of the Ukraine before, during, and after the calamities of World War II and Stalin. I do not know enough about the culture and sufferings of that people during the middle of the twentieth century to understand exactly what many of the images mean to them as they watch it, but watching it myself, I was moved, and further moved by how moved the audience was by Simonova's work.

Proverbs That Might Be True, pt. 6

2010-02-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

St. Jerome

Over THIS?

2010-02-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

Pro-Abortion America (NOW, NARAL, etc.) have fought like a bunch of linebackers to keep Tim Tebow's extremist advertisements off the air. Check 'em out; but brace yourself, they'll make even the most resolute pro-lifer grimace.

Lol. Now that you've watched the entirely innocuous ads with Tim Tebow and his mom, are you as perplexed as I am about why the abortionists would try to keep these off the air? Their whoopin' and hollerin' has caused more of a fuss than these ads could ever have done by themselves. It's awesome, really. Normally, we traditionally-minded Christians are the ones who drive up the ratings of our enemy's propaganda. We get all worked up about a nasty movie or play and make all sorts of otherwise unaware bystanders suddenly become very interested. This time, the shoe is on the other foot.

Now, of course the ads aren't exactly innocuous. In fact, even though they say so little, they are deadly poison to the abortion industry. The have two attractive people, who clearly love each other immensely, and one of whom is famous - now even outside of his professional reputation. (In fact, opposition to the ad has probably turned Tim Tebow, at least for now, into a household name.) So why are these ads poison to those people? Because the ads undermine the mentality that makes abortion possible. For decades and decades, America has slowly been buying the lie that most of us know from our own experience isn't true: babies are a burden and it's better not to have them if there's a real chance that its not gonna work out just right. These advertisements remind us of what we all know: not only that nothing in life is guaranteed, but that somehow, with a bit of grit, optimism, friendship, and faith - heck, with just a little of any of hose things - life has a way of turning out OK, unless by OK we mean two kids and a dog and a white picket fence and two nice cars with annual vacations overseas. In that case, our odds narrow somewhat. But if we can roll with the punches just a little, we don't typically have to resort to murder to get things to work out passably. Sometimes, oftentimes, if we have eyes to see, things will turn out far better than we could have planned (not dreamed, but planned) ourselves anyway.

Actually, scratch my metaphor about poison. These ads are ingenious little bits of warm sunlight casting in among fungus that had been hidden in shadows. Just like fungus avoids sunlight, the abortionists avoid truth:

Life is worth living.

Through the Looking Glass

2010-02-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

Talk about truth. Turns out we've had prophets warn us for centuries about word-twisters.

While We Are Snowbound

2010-02-07T09:25:00.001-05:00

We in the Washington, D.C. area might use this opportunity of being stuck in the house to remember those who are stuck in the big house: prisoners. Whether prisoners of war, criminal prisoners, or the falsely imprisoned. We might pray that they, as well as ourselves, use their time of restricted movement to spiritual profit.

In Case You're Not Getting As Much Snow as We Are...

2010-02-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

And you can make your own snowflake by clicking here.

An Unlikely Alliance to Overthrow the West: More Signs of the Times

2010-02-03T14:11:00.000-05:00

CNSNews.com has two pieces that struck me.

The first piece reports on comments made by Harry Knox, who serves on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In the National Prayer Hour during which the accompanying video is recorded, Knox calls evil (in this case, the distribution of contraception) good, and good (Pope Benedict XVI) evil (for opposing the distribution of those sinful little population control devices) (Isaiah 5:20). Notably, this event is the American Prayer Hour, not intended to call upon God Almight for his help with some issue or another, but to affirm on their own "inclusive values" and to call on Uganda to stop being mean by doing things like outlawing sodomy. The Pope's reason - aside from the religious - for disapproving of the use of contraception to fight the spread of HIV is that is just doesn't work. Even though Pope Benedict XVI has, on this issue, the backing of findings of

researchers at notoriously flim-flam, conservative institutions like Harvard, Knox reasserts his claim that the Pope and the Church are hurting poor people in the name of Jesus. Knox, unlike the Church, cares very much for (heterosexual and juvenile) HIV patients in Africa and Asia. He does all sorts of things to help them, like run orphanages for HIV-infected children, has cooperated with all sorts of federal programs to prevent the spread of AIDS at home and abroad, has been conducting vigorous propaganda campaigns in Africa against risky behavior, and provide about 25% of the world's AIDS patients with their primary care.

Oh, wait. My mistake. It's the Catholic Church that does those things for AIDS patients.

The second piece reports on a Dutch legislator being prosecuted for "discrimination and incitement to hatred" for claiming that the Koran has been linked to extremist violence. I know what you're thinking: what an outlandish claim. I know. Aside from the backwardness of prohibiting free speech, the Dutch prosecutor doesn't seem to think that the actual truth of the statements made should be relevant to their prosecution. The whole bit makes me think of the final book in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, in which some treacherous Narnians sell their people out to a foreign, despotic people from southern deserts, in the hope of personal gain. The Dutch legislator being prosecuted has asked to call for his defense Mohammed Bouyeri, a "Dutchman" of Moroccan extraction convicted of shooting and stabbing to death Theo Van Gogh for making a documentary that claimed unpleasant things about Islam. Bouyeri stuck a note to van Gogh's chest using the knife with which he murdered the filmmaker. In the note, he also threatened to murder Dutch legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a nationalized Somali woman who uses her new Dutch nationality and legislative voice to campaign against the abuse of women in peaceful Islamic countries like Iran and her native Somalia. Surprisingly, the Dutch prosecutor and judges in the case is nervous about calling Bouyeri to the stand.

I am concluding that the powers that be hate Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, and the West they built up so much that any enemy of His will suffice as an ally. It does not matter to them what lies they tell or whom they invite to come be their new caliph. This whole democracy thing is passe, anyway, right? Time to progress to something better.

A Few Words Packed With Meaning

2010-02-02T13:02:00.000-05:00

Mark Shea just posted this stirring exposition of the Hail Mary. It is reasonably brief, and loaded with beautiful reflection based on sound exegesis. Enjoy!

That's a LOT

2010-02-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

That's how much money the President wants to spend in his budget proposal more than the federal government will be "earning" in tax revenues. That's right. That's his proposed additional debt. And it doesn't appear to count the various emergency appropriations that will be sought midyear for this or that. After all, one never knows when more rich bankers or unions will need bailing out of their own suicidal greed.

I did some quick math, and that deficit is $5333 per resident in the U.S., give or take. Since most residents aren't taxpayers (too young, too old, not gainfully employed), it is considerably more per taxpayer. There were 99,880,223 taxpayers in the US in 2005, which is close enough to now, meaning that the president is asking us each to borrow approximately $16000 more. Again.

So much for reducing the deficit. Does this strike anybody else as insane and immoral? Who will have the courage to tell these lunatics that enough is enough?!

Willing to Ask

2010-02-01T09:46:00.000-05:00

More from Jean Lafrance's Give Me a Living Word:

You are willing to ask, but you want to have alternative solutions in case your supplication does not "work". That is precisely why your supplication does not have this desperate power which overturns mountains and casts them into the sea. You withhold an alternative solution and you do not yield yourself totally to this prayer of petition.

I would add to Fr. Lafrance's words that we often also lack, in addition to abandonment to God's solution to our problem, abandonment to God's plan, which might include our problem. Of course, both deficits are merely instances of the same attitude that says, "Do my will," rather than, "Father, not my will, but yours," (Lk 22:42).

The Truth Hurts

2010-01-31T22:29:00.001-05:00

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We’ve all heard the refrain, and we all know deep down inside that it’s false. Words have an incredible power in our lives. They have the ability to change us for the better or the worse. When you think of the positive impact of words, you might think of Lincoln at Gettysburg, Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, or Neil Armstrong as he descended to the surface of the moon. These words fill us with pride or spur is on to good actions. Words can also move us to profoundly evil emotions and actions. The genocide in Rwanda which killed up to 1,000,000 people was in part brought about by government propaganda that repeatedly accused the oppressed Tutsis of being roaches, of subhuman dignity. Because words are so important and powerful, telling the truth is as equally important and powerful an action. Today’s readings highlight the importance and necessity of proclaiming the truth.

In the first reading we encounter the prophet Jeremiah, who is one of the more colorful Old Testament figures. God choses him to be a prophet, to proclaim the truth to Israel. Jeremiah wants none of it. He knows he’ll be persecuted for it, and he’s not up to the task. Basically, he’s like any one of us: “God, don’t choose me, I can’t do; I’m not the one for the job.” But in a very powerful passage, Jeremiah recounts, “The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘behold I have put my words in your mouth.’” From then on, no matter how much Jeremiah wants to keep silent and not speak the truth, he’s almost forced to do so. At one point Jeremiah complains, “The Word of the Lord has brought me nothing but shame, criticism, and ridicule. If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.’” The prophet Jeremiah, regardless of consequences, was compelled to speak the truth.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is in the same boat. He comes to his hometown of Nazareth, where he preaches in the synagogue, The Gospel tells us, “all spoke highly of him and all were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But Christ knew that the people’s hearts weren’t in the right place. They were looking for signs and wonders, but didn’t want to go through the hard and necessary process of repentance. So Jesus reads their hearts—he’s God, so he can do that—and tells them the truth. Now imagine how much that must have hurt him, on a human level, to do so. He had been enjoying nothing but fame and adoration up to that point. In addition, these were the people he grew up with and knew intimately. These supposed friends and neighbors go from speaking highly of him to trying to kill him in a paroxysm of fury. Jesus, like Jeremiah, is driven to tell the truth, no matter what the personal consequences. Telling the truth has huge implications.

At our baptism, each of us was baptized into Christ. That means we take on Christ’s role (and Jeremiah’s, who prefigured Christ) of prophet. That doesn’t mean we go around reading palms or telling people that the world’s going to end in 2012. No, in the biblical sense a prophet is simply one who preaches the truth, consequences be as they may. We are witnessing a great example of someone living out his baptismal call to be a prophet with the great college quarterback, Tim Tebow. During the Super Bowl next Sunday, he will appear in a commercial that defends the sacredness and dignity of life from the moment of conception. The commercial, because it implicitly shows the evil nature of abortion, is being protested by many groups. Tim Tebow is in a real sense, a prophet; one who can say with Jeremiah, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” If God lives in us through grace, my brothers and sisters, shouldn’t he also speak through us?

Parents have a unique and privileged role in standing up for truth. The Church teaches that parents, and not teachers or other authorities, are the primary educators of their children. It falls squarely on the shoulders of moms and dads to pass along the truths of the faith and important values to their children in the midst of a very confusing culture. This is no easy task in our society, but it is nonetheless necessary. Parents, you have a special advantage in educating your children, though, precisely because you love them more than anyone else.

It is this all-important love that St. Paul extols in the second reading. St. Paul was no shrinking violet when it came to proclaiming the truth. He wrote, “Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel!” But he also realized that preaching the truth was fruitless without love. In today’s second reading he says, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, but do not have love, I am nothing.” The mistake that we make so often is teaching, admonishing, or correcting without love. A person is converted, or comes to the truth, not through our brilliant arguments or flawless reasoning, but through the love that accompanies our profession of the faith. Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

All of us have areas of our life where we don’t live the truth fully. We should examine our relationships with our spouse, our parents, or our friends to see where lies, sometimes so hidden but dangerous, are rooted. It would also be beneficial to examine how well we have lived our baptismal calling to be prophets-to stand up for the truth, regardless of the consequences. So often, I think we will find, we are more than comfortable just going with the flow. But, my brothers and sisters, Christ is constantly calling us to more. He calls us to live in the splendor of his truth and in the deep impenetrable bond of his love. Christ said to his disciples and he says to us, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

What Does It Mean to Be a Spiritual Child?

2010-01-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

Today, as on most Saturdays, my mother and I pick up my baby sister Keelin, about whom I've written before, and take her for a car ride. Keelin looks forward to these rides, and on the odd occasion when they cannot happen, she is disquieted. She does not understand. She wants her car ride. And it is worse if, for some reason, either of us has to go by her group home on such an occasion for some business. Today I had to drop off some articles for her. I took some pains to avoid having her see me, because the weather is very inclement, and in such situations the briefer one's time on the road, the better. I spoke with her aide quietly, never going into the house. As I took my leave, I saw Keelin in the background, standing on her tippy toes and craning her neck to see over the aide from a distance. I do not know if she identified me with my hood on, by I know that she knows the time of the week and whom she expects to arrive for her. What she probably does not understand is what snow and low visibility have to do with her car ride.

It is also so between us and God. We know what we want and are expecting, and we know them to be good things: successful career; family happiness; freedom of movement; good health; a rhythm of diversion, leisure, and fruitful labor; and so on. What we do not understand are the reasons for which God withholds these things from us, or at least permits them to be withheld.

It is at these times when we can internally rebel against God, even if we continue to go through all the motions of a religious commitment to Him; or we can pray for the grace to accept that our Father knows what we need and is giving it to us, even when it feels like a very bitter pill to swallow.

This is faith: knowing that God has a plan for our good, even when we cannot see it.

Thank You, St. Thomas Aquinas...

2010-01-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

...for some of the most beautiful verse in the Western tradition.

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.	I devoutly adore you, O hidden God, Truly hidden beneath these appearances. My whole heart submits to you, And in contemplating you, it surrenders completely.
Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; Nil hoc verbo veritátis verius.	Sight, touch, taste are all deceived about you, But hearing suffices firmly to believe. I believe all that the Son of God has spoken; There is nothing truer than this word of truth.
In cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et Humanitas, Ambo tamen credens atque confitens, Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.	On the cross only the divinity was hidden, But here the humanity is also hidden. I believe and confess both, And ask for what the repentant thief asked.
Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor: Deum tamen meum te confiteor. Fac me tibi semper magis credere, In te spem habere, te diligere.	I do not see the wounds as Thomas did, But I confess that you are my God. Make me believe more and more in you, Hope in you, and love you.
O memoriale mortis Domini! Panis vivus, vitam præstans homini! Præsta meæ menti de te vívere, Et te illi semper dulce sapere.	O memorial of the Lord's death! Living bread that gives life to man, Grant my soul to live on you, And always to savor your sweetness.
Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine, Me immundum munda tuo sanguine: Cujus una stilla salvum facere Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.	Lord Jesus, Good Pelican, wash me clean with your blood, One drop of which can free the entire world of all its sins.
Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro, fiat illud quod tam sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie, Visu sim beátus tuæ gloriæ. Amen	Jesus, whom now I see veiled, I ask you to fulfill what I so desire: That on seeing you face to face, I may be happy in the seeing of your glory. Amen

Happy feast day, Domicans!

John Donne's Holy Sonnet V

2010-01-28T10:03:00.001-05:00

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite;
But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and, O, both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new land can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drown'd no more.
But O, it must be burnt; alas! the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

2010-01-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

A recent article by Mark Shea at InsideCatholic.com got me to look up Rudyard Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." The poem refers to the blank notebooks used by schoolboys of Kipling's day, each page of which had a pre-printed proverb on the head of each page, for the boy's edification. Here is the poem:

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The presupposition of the poem is that there are principles built into the nature of the universe. They are summarized by the what Aldous Huxley, among others, has called the Perennial Philosophy, and what Peter Kreeft writes are loosely summarized by the teachings of Taoism, Confucianism, Stoicism, Platonic philosophy, and monotheistic religion. This description doesn't imply moral relativism; rather it shows that something of morality really is innate. (Christianity, coincidentally, isn't about this or any other morality, not really; but it does take good, solid morality for granted.) These principles are what we would call moral common sense. The poem makes the point that we ignore these principles, capitulated tidily by the Proverbs of the Bible and on the upper margins of old fashioned stationary for boys, at our own risk.

John Maynard Keynes vs. F. A. Hayek

2010-01-27T09:00:00.014-05:00

The little video below is perhaps the best summary that I have ever encountered of Keynesian economics and Hayek's economic theories.

Keynes' economic theories are dominated by the overarching theme that regulation and stimulation of the economy by a central authority (i.e., government) are the chief driving economic factor and, when fine-tuned, can become the chief means of steady growth. Any number of mechanisms are to be deployed to achieve this end: stimulus, detachment of money from an actual standard coupled with printing more money and adjusting interest rates, etc. Borrowed money can be used to stimulate growth to such a degree that growth outstrips the interest rates and can then be used to repay the loans painlessly. Sound familiar?

Hayek advocated government restricting its role to policing the market to ensure the rule of law and a market genuinely free - including of unreasonable governmental intervention. He emphasized the role of savings and prudent investment as the chief source of authentic, long term prosperity. He did not believe that debt could be made into a source of genuine wealth. Sound unpleasant?

By why is this little reflection appearing on a blog devoted to presenting the Gospel? Well, simply put, because how we live our life has spiritual implications, and our religious faith should affect how we live our life.

The rich rules over the poor,

and the borrower is the slave of the lender, (Prov 22:7).

Will we be a nation of free men, relying on our own wits and upon Divine Providence, or will we be a nation of slaves dependent upon foreign masters for a bit of dried bread, all that's left over from the sweat of our brow?

Thanks again, Anchoress.

Haiti - United in Prayer

2010-01-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Luce.

How Religious Communities Heal Hearts

2010-01-26T00:10:00.002-05:00

Anchoress, thanks for this video from the Boston Globe.

It got me thinking. That's always dangerous. A beautiful couplet of books, The Man on the Donkey, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, by H. F. M. Prescott, show a similar dynamic. The pair of books unfold and draw together the lives of disparate historical and fictional characters living in the time of Henry VIII. In them, a battered and abused girl is sent to a convent so that she will no longer burden her older sister by existing. Previously, the convent had been portrayed as worldly and petty in its aspirations: life was filled, apparently, with bickering over rugs and boasting over which sister had the most gold pins to hold her veil upon her head. As the abused girls moves into the convent, the reader begins to see another side. In this world vastly kinder than the one into which she was born, the girl begins to blossom as a person, having encountered simple, untangled and unmanipulative love for the first time. I myself was startled by the ease with which the author, without ever re-representing or changing the personality of the convent, shows it first from one perspective, and then from another: worldly than it ought to be, but a haven of sanctity compared to the world.

During my time in seminary I saw something of the same dynamic. Many of the men, myself included, thought the place very much more worldly than it ought to be. Yet visitors were always and uniformly amazed by its quiet warmth, friendliness, hospitality, and the ease with which a heart lapses into prayer in that place. We did not live in a place of lollipops and sunshine, and there weren't love-bombs, either... which is probably a good thing. But there was a place where genuine love could gradually, organically grow and bring about real healing and a real kind of new life in the men that arrived there. I saw it happen. I recall one man who was very poorly socialized, a bore and boor, and very quickly found himself nearly isolated in that house of 150 Christian men because of it. I suspect it was not the first time people had a hard time saying, "Well, that's just So-and-so. You know how he is," because for most people, even good people, at some point, enough is enough.

But I also think of a friend of mine, a man who lived across the hall from me - well liked and popular because intelligent, athletic, easy-going, responsible, and kind. This man told me that he was not going to just watch So-and-so crumble and fall away. He couldn't bring himself to think, "Good riddance." I also know that the petty unkindness and gossip against the unpleasant man became so bad that a very popular, well-respected, and high-ranking faculty member addressed So-and-so's class in his absence. He told them that the faculty were aware of So-and-so's problems and issues. There was no need to keep pointing them out to the faculty or to each other. It was best just to be a friend to So-and-so, and to pray for him. At first, I thought it unprofessional or even reckless of the faculty member to address the class so openly about what would probably be considered their classmate's personnel matter. At least, that's what it would be considered in the world. But there, in that house of God, it was a personal matter - and personal matters sometimes require far more delicacy than personnel matters, and sometimes far less.

Lastly, I think about how I watched, saw with my own eyes, the growth of So-and-so. An irritating mannerism fell away. A new friend was made. Someone invited So-and-so to join in. Another perplexing behavior was moderated. So-and-so made another friend. People stopped saying things harshly about So-and-so behind his back. More people were willing to invite him to more things. It became clear that he wasn't so stupid as people thought at first, even if a bit more uncouth than they liked. People went from defending him on principle to defending him on the basis of his actual strengths. It turned out he was athletic enough that, his abrasive characteristics diminishing, people didn't mind - no, actually wanted him on their team. He started to enjoy his studies. More prayers were offered up for So-and-so, doubtless, than anyone on earth will ever know. For that matter, So-and-so went from being known for the amount of time he spent in front of the community television to being a man noted for the discipline of his prayer. A man who looked like he wouldn't last the first year because he was so aggravating has since progressed well on the way to being a good and holy priest, certainly of great use to the People of God. In that seminary, that house where seedlings are transplanted like stalks of rice, that man came alive in a new way.

So it is with the Church as a whole. In the rock tumbler of our shared life in the Spirit, we are first to grind down sharp edges, then polish natural virtues, and at last glow like gems of holiness. It is not a romantic thing, but a gritty thing. Well, it is romantic in the sense of being adventurous, but not in the sense of being smooth or suave. Temptations do not flee the life of holiness, but flock to it like moths. We in the Church are called to live in a way different than that found in the world outside.

For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, (Romans 12:4-21).

We will not always do it very well, but our company should be a place where people will encounter the healing touch of Christ made present in His people, in His priests, in His word and sacraments. It might not happen all at once, and it certainly will not happen without bumps and bruises along the way... but the more we rely on Jesus to make it happen, the more surely we will see progress before our very eyes - the more we will see souls open and blossom in a way the world can barely conceive, let alone imitate.

For that matter, a Christian family is supposed to be very much the same sort of thing as a Christian church.

The Roar of the Unborn Babies

2010-01-25T15:53:00.003-05:00

On Friday, January 22, over 200,000 people showed up to participate in the annual March for Life, the largest annual demonstration in the nation's capital.

As usual, the Democratic Administration and Congress turned a completely blind eye, as if the couldn't see the crazy traffic patterns and endless streams of people. I mean, it was a small group on the edge of the city, out of sight. So it's not surprising that the Prez couldn't see them.

Oh, wait. I forgot. It was 200,000 people who marched, and they marched down the central street of the nation's capital - Constitution Avenue. And they did it in broad daylight.

But they were kooky nuts, the kind you just have to ignore. You know: lots of taxpaying, middle-class, family-values types. And so monotonously homogenous. I mean, groups like Presbyterians for Life, Lesbians for Life, Democrats for Life, Jews for Life... not to mention women who have had abortions... no diversity there. Just lots of white, mean, conservative Catholic men. No news here, people. Move along. Lol.

Well, for decades Congress, the Courts, and Democratic Administrations have ignored the personhood of unborn children, democratic process, the growing consensus of the American people, and even basic principles of morality and constitutional law. Now, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) has admitted that the Senate's version of healthcare "reform" cannot pass in the House, and Rep. Pence (R-In.) has attributed it to the bill's abortion language. Though the Democratic Party has ignored an increasing amount of its own constituency and all manner of other voices and concerns, the little babies have them now, right where they want them. The Democratic Party leadership is like the monkey with its hand caught in the cookie jar - they can't get their precious healthcare obamination because they won't stop clutching onto their government-funded abortions.

In a surprise twist of fate, the little children have saved from economic catastrophe an America that cannot bring itself to save them because of our love of economic comfort.

Let's pray that we learn to return the favor.

i am a little church(no great cathedral)

2010-01-21T12:27:00.001-05:00

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

Another beautiful piece of postmodern poetry by the late e. e. cummings.

Haiti and God's Providence

2010-01-20T17:30:00.001-05:00

There's been a lot of nonsense lately about Haiti - everything from remarks about it being divine retribution, to attempted pleasantries about it all being for the best.

Something I've been focusing a lot on lately, for personal reasons and because of more public affairs, is the authentic meaning of joy and hope.

St. Therese of Lisieux asked in a letter how it was that Jesus, without ever being deprived of the joy of the beatific vision, could yet experience such utter emptiness and abandonment on the cross. She answered herself that she did not know, but only knew that it was possible because she herself was experiencing it during her own painfully fatal conflict with tuberculosis. Joy, for a Christian, isn't mere happiness any more than love is mere warm feelings toward another. Joy is the knowledge of the presence of God's Kingdom, the knowledge of His will at work - even when it is hidden-and-not-yet-present.

The cheapness of religious cant isn't that it's false to say that God's Providence includes even the catastrophic suffering of innocents. If God's Providence doesn't include suffering and death, then it's worthless. It isn't false to say, "God has a plan, and this, eventually will be drawn into the good." But also isn't the point, and it is cheap to say to someone who is in the throes of suffering, unless you are darn sure they are prepared to hear it.

The cheapness of religious cant is that it subsumes one reality - that of pain, suffering, and death - into another one: the victory of God. It tries to make the sorrow "go away," and not for a commitment to truth or to the person suffering, but simply out fear of the discomfort of facing the truth of the person suffering.

When we are suffering, it is good to remind ourselves of God's Providence, and that He is as displeased with the pain we are experiencing as we are, and to ask ourselves, and Him, honestly, what role this might play in His plan for our lives. When others are suffering, it is probably better just to listen presently at whatever length, help them practically in ways they might need or request, let them ask their own questions in their own time, and let our presence in persona Christi serve as an unspoken answer.

What Happened Yesterday Going to Mass

2010-01-19T07:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I got a minor reminder of something of what Deacon Dave preached about, and posted yesterday at this blog.

I drove to St. XYZ parish for its 12:10 p.m. Mass. It was convenient to where I was working yesterday. I got there, and a note on the door politely stated that the 7:00 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. Masses of the day would not be said. I presume it was because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is a federal holiday and so federal workers, who populate my area plentifully, as well as students and teachers, had the day off. "Priests apparently, too," I remarked to myself as I went into the church to pray for a bit, since I was there anyway. There were twenty or thirty people inside, apparently also unforewarned about the cancellation - and apparently workers on their lunch break, as usual. I became irritated. Irritation turned to anger, resentment. I tried hard to pray. The best I could muster was to growl at God about workshy bureaucrats and priests. None of this reflects well on me, I am afraid.

But then a moment of grace intervened. I didn't detect it at first. It simply arose as a quiet thought, "Well, I might have gotten my butt out of bed for the early Mass at my own parish, or even the morning Mass, and still been to work on time - or close enough to it." Since I was there anyway, I tried to remember the words to a prayer of spiritual communion. I couldn't, so instead I just prayed, "Jesus, just yesterday you came to me in love. Please extend into today the union you gave me yesterday. Help me to love like you. I want to trust that whatever happens, it is your will. Help me to trust you. Amen." As I walked outside after praying a couple decades of the rosary, another thought came to me. "The priest might actually be very industrious. I don't know. He might very well need today off from his usual duties." The sun was warm on my face during our little Spring Break in January. I was grateful for having slept well on my soft bed in my warm house the night before, and for having a bit of work for the time being. Resentment and anger faded away.

Taking responsibility for one's own actions, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and gratitude are good people-person skills. They are also good attitudes. They are also something of the natural virtue upon which supernatural sanctity is built.

I went back to the office where I was working and was able to make a valuable contribution to the firm. That's something to take a bit of pride in, something to sleep well on. I joined my dad and his wife for dinner and we had a pleasant time. My evening tutoring session went well. The day has ended nicely. The bitter poison of anger, that might have slowly and imperceptibly tainted the rest of my day, was drawn out by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by a determination to pray, which was given to me by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by deciding to make use of the sacraments if I could, which was given to me by an action of grace...

So yesterday I saw the co-mingling of grace and my own efforts - and saw a bit of water turned into wine. Let's look for little reminders of grace, and in our actions, try to be for other people little reminders of grace.

Cana and God's All-Powerful Word

2010-01-18T18:45:00.002-05:00

The good news is that I was on a five day silent retreat this past week and so I have had plenty of time to meditate and pray on today’s readings. The bad news is that I wasn’t allowed to talk for five days (so maybe I’ll make up for that now). During this silent retreat, I of course had no connection to the outside world; no internet, no cell phone or newspaper. When I met with my spiritual director on Tuesday, he told me that there had been a huge earthquake in Haiti and that thousands upon thousands had died and everything was in ruins. I was completely taken aback, and I have to admit that my first thoughts were along the lines of, “God, couldn’t you have prevented this?” I’m sure all of us had similar thoughts go through our heads. In times like these, we’re tempted to think of God’s powerlessness. We’re tempted to think he doesn’t care or can’t help us. This is Satan’s temptation, to have us think that God is powerless against evil.

It may not be because of what happened in Haiti. It may because of financial ruin, the death of a loved one, seeing a loved one suffer, or a sin we can’t seem to conquer. For many different reasons, I’m sure that all of us have had the temptation at one time or another to think that God doesn’t care, that he isn’t here with us in our suffering, or that he’s powerless against evil. Because it’s so easy to fall into that temptation, it’s such a great thing that we have the Mass. At Mass we profess our faith together: “We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty.” We proclaim God’s mighty works in Scripture, the living Word of God. It is at Mass that we are brought back truly and spiritually to the crucifixion: the moment when it seemed evil had triumphed, but in reality God had won his most powerful, decisive, everlasting, and glorious victory. With all of this in mind, the message of today’s readings is God’s Word is all-powerful.

Imagine sitting in a ramshackle church in Haiti right now; you may have lost family, friends, or all your possessions. Now imagine how you would hear this line from the first reading that could have easily gone in one of our ears and out the other: “No more shall men call you forsaken or your land desolate.” Just think how resonating those words are for Haitians who may have dug their way into church this morning, who truly feel forsaken and whose land is clearly desolate. The prophet Isaiah wrote these words as the Israelites were in exile in Babylon. The Israelites had been torn from their land, the promised land which Yahweh had given them. In their time of great suffering, what does God promise them? He says, “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet.” God will speak, and simply by speaking they will be saved. Later the reading says, “You shall be called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the Lord.” For the Israelites, God’s Word was all-powerful. Just by his speaking, their fortunes would change. They would go from being called “forsaken” to being called “my delight.” Their land would go from being called “desolate” to being called “espoused.” In the midst of great suffering for the Israelites, Isaiah declares that just by God’s almighty word, Israel would gain freedom and be restored to its land. If you’ve ever gone to the sacrament of reconciliation, burdened and broken by sin and heard those words of the priest, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” you know as the Israelites did that God’s word is all powerful. The ruins of our soul are restored to beauty.

The Gospel also testifies to the fact that God’s word is all-powerful. We might be tempted to think that Christ changing water into wine was a simple act of kindness to an embarrassed groom. Certainly, it was a kind act, but it was more than that. It was a powerful act. Notice that one of the last lines of the Gospel reads, “Thus did he reveal his glory.” I don’t associate glory simply with kind gestures, but with powerful, miraculous actions.

Notice how Jesus performs the miracle of changing ordinary water into the best of all wines. He simply commands, “Fill the jars with water.” He does it through the power of his word. It takes nothing more; no praying over the water or blessing it; he doesn’t need to touch the water or do anything else. By those simple words a great miracle takes place. This reminds us of a later miracle when Jesus offers to go to the centurion’s house to heal his servant. The centurion responds with incredible faith and humility. He knows the Lord doesn’t have to come to his house to heal his servant. He has no need of praying over his servant, touching him or even seeing him to heal him, so the centurion says, “Lord, only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We take the centurion’s line and apply it to ourselves before every Holy Communion: “Lord only say the word (your all-powerful word), and I shall be healed.”

Jesus changing the water into wine through his simple instruction also reminds us of what will take place later in this Mass. The priest, who during the consecration is really acting in the person of Christ, will say those sacred words, “This is my body,” then, “This is the cup of my blood.” Just by repeating Jesus’ words, the greatest miracle in heaven and on earth takes place: the bread and wine become Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. Instead of water being turned into wine, wine is turned into Jesus. Rather than prolonging a marriage reception, Jesus allows us to participate in the heavenly wedding feast of God. Instead of supplying wine which will provide drink for a couple hours or days, we receive the food and drink that provides our nourishment for eternal life. This all happens through God’s word. God’s word is truly all-powerful.

We are tempted to think because of certain sufferings of our own or of others, that God is powerless against evil. Nothing is further from the truth. This same God who created the world through his word, who changed water into wine through his word, and who changes bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood through that same word, will change our mourning into dancing, our suffering into joy.

Babies and Distributism

2010-01-17T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a little taste of G. K. Chesterton, whose writing style is somewhat ironic because as he writes, the reader has the constant sensation that he is being led somewhere and only the author knows. He is a master of paradoxical conclusions designed to blow his ideological opponents out of the water.

I hope it is not a secret arrogance to say that I do not think I am exceptionally arrogant; or if I were, my religion would prevent me from being proud of my pride. Nevertheless, for those of such a philosophy, there is a very terrible temptation to intellectual pride, in the welter of wordy and worthless philosophies that surround us today. Yet there are not many things that move me to anything like a personal contempt. I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification. I do not feel any contempt for a Bolshevist, who is a man driven to the same negative simplification by a revolt against very positive wrongs. But there is one type of person for whom I feel what I can only call contempt. And that is the popular propagandist of what he or she absurdly describes as Birth-Control.

I despise Birth-Control first because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly word. It is also an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would at first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth. It only makes sure that there shall never be any birth to control. It cannot for instance, determine sex, or even make any selection in the style of the pseudo-science of Eugenics. Normal people can only act so as to produce birth; and these people can only act so as to prevent birth. But these people know perfectly well as I do that the very word Birth-Prevention would strike a chill into the public, the instant it was blazoned on headlines, or proclaimed on platforms, or scattered in advertisements like any other quack medicine. They dare not call it by its name, because its name is very bad advertising. Therefore they use a conventional and unmeaning word, which may make the quack medicine sound more innocuous.

Second, I despise Birth-Control because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly thing. It is not even a step along the muddy road they call Eugenics; it is a flat refusal to take the first and most obvious step along the road of Eugenics. Once grant that their philosophy is right, and their course of action is obvious; and they dare not take it; they dare not even declare it. If there is no authority in things which Christendom has called moral, because their origins were mystical, then they are clearly free to ignore all the difference between animals and men; and treat men as we treat animals. They need not palter with the stale and timid compromise and convention called Birth-Control. Nobody applies it to the cat. The obvious course for Eugenists is to act towards babies as they act towards kittens. Let all the babies be born; and then let us drown those we do not like. I cannot see any objection to it; except the moral or mystical sort of objection that we advance against Birth-Prevention. And that would be real and even reasonable Eugenics; for we could then select the best, or at least the healthiest, and sacrifice what are called the unfit. By the weak compromise of Birth-Prevention, we are very probably sacrificing the fit and only producing the unfit. The births we prevent may be the births of the best and most beautiful children; those we allow, the weakest or worst. Indeed, it is probable; for the habit discourages the early parentage of young and vigorous people; and lets them put off the experience to later years, mostly from mercenary motives. Until I see a real pioneer and progressive leader coming out with a good, bold, scientific programme for drowning babies, I will not join the movement.

But there is a third reason for my contempt, much deeper and therefore more difficult to express; in which is rooted all my reasons for being anything I am or attempt to be; and above all, for being a Distributist. Perhaps the nearest to a description of it is to say this: that my contempt boils over into bad behaviour when I hear the common suggestion that a birth is avoided because people want to be "free" to go to the cinema or buy a gramophone or a loud-speaker. What makes me want to walk over such people like doormats is that they use the word "free." By every act of that sort they chain themselves to the most servile and mechanical system yet tolerated by men. The cinema is a machine for unrolling certain regular patterns called pictures; expressing the most vulgar millionaires' notion of the taste of the most vulgar millions. The gramophone is a machine for recording such tunes as certain shops and other organisations choose to sell. The wireless is better; but even that is marked by the modern mark of all three; the impotence of the receptive party. The amateur cannot challenge the actor; the householder will find it vain to go and shout into the gramophone; the mob cannot pelt the modern speaker, especially when he is a loud-speaker. It is all a central mechanism giving out to men exactly what their masters think they should have.

Now a child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom. He is a fresh free will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce and which they freely agree to protect. They can feel that any amusement he gives (which is often considerable) really comes from him and from them and from nobody else. He has been born without the intervention of any master or lord. He is a creation and a contribution; he is their own creative contribution to creation. He is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines. When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world. People who prefer the mechanical pleasures, to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved. They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life. They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation, to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation. It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world.

G. K. Chesterton, "Babies and Distributism," from The Well and the Shallows

I hope you enjoyed that little article as much as I have. Little did Chesterton know... or perhaps he did suspect... that before long an age would come in which men would murder babies in the womb, starve them in hospital janitor closets, and openly speak in the classroom of murdering them into their first years of life postpartum.

Proverbs that Might be True, pt. 5

2010-01-17T14:08:00.005-05:00

Barbarism is not a picturesque myth or a half-forgotten memory of a long-passed stage of history, but an ugly underlying reality that may erupt with shattering force whenever the moral authority of a civilization is lost.

Christopher Dawson

(Ok, so it's a bit long for a proverb, I admit...)

Can You Do More?

2010-01-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

Click here to see some more pictures from Haiti. Warning: they are disturbing.

Ask yourself, "Can I give up my Starbucks this morning and maybe tomorrow, too, and give the money to someone who really, really needs it badly?" These people, the ones who weren't crushed to death, are now beginning to face acute dehydration by the tens and hundreds of thousands. Hungry will be turning into a mortal threat in a couple more days, especially for the injured or weak. People are becoming agitated and starting to loot and fight over very limited supplies. Christian America, we've started to help - let's keep it up.

Catholic Relief Services
Food for the Poor

Can Anyone Guess?

2010-01-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

Can anyone guess what is the problem with the views expressed in this interview?

Well, that's a trick question. Problems would better state the matter. In case you don't know, the "Rev." Mary Glasspool has recently been elected by separated "Christians" to be their second gay "bishop". She will serve as an auxiliary in Los Angeles. (The quotation marks are deliberate, and yes, I mean exactly what they imply.)

Her last comments are what are most profoundly disturbing and revealing about what's wrong in the Anglican Communion. On the surface we seem closest to them in theology, and for years, there was a more apparent similarity that has now broken down because of the Episcopalians' acceptance of every sort of sexual aberration.

Here's what's wrong. Mary Glasspool, and many Episcopalians with her, believe that as long as we can all gather for the Eucharist and share communion together, then we are OK. It doesn't matter if we all believe different things - some accepting the Gospel, others implicitly rejecting it and trying to reshape it in their own image; it doesn't matter if some are striving to live Christian lives dependent on grace, overcoming their vices and growing in virtue - while others do whatever the hell they want and call it living in grace rather than law (the Gospel calls this lifestyle lawlessness, e.g., Acts 2:23, 2 Thess 2:8, 2 Thess 2:9, 1 Tim 1:9, 1 Pet 4:3, 2 Pet 2:8, 2 Pet 3:17). According to Mary Glasspool, now a "bishop" of the Episcopalian "Church," none of that matters, as long as we can come together for communion. The Latin word means "strong union," it is exactly what does not exist within the Anglican Communion, and especially within the American branch - the Episcopalian "Church". There is no doctrinal union - union in how they see the world; nor is there moral union - union in how they live their lives. They haven't got any communion at all, really. And their "Eucharist" means about as much.

The Anglican Communion started off with compromise - the Bishops of England deciding to go with Henry VIII's flow. Then, to quell internal dissent about this doctrine or that, they came up with 16 and then 39 points of agreement, written so vaguely that anyone could sign in "good conscience." The Communion has since then seen itself as a "Via Media," a broad, middle way between "Roman" Catholicism and "Reformed" Protestantism. They'd have the best of both worlds, they would. Two contradictory propositions can be held at the same time by a thinker or by a Church, given enough latitude between them so they won't fight. That's their thinking. Implicit in that attitude, as much as in Mary Glasspool's, is that none of it is really that true, or at least, not that important. This is the very serious deadly sin, the dreadful decay, of sloth: seeing a good (truth) and just not caring about it. From the moment one embraces this sin, even if one likes the various Christian doctrines, one doesn't accept them as true and conform one's life to them. Instead, one just likes them. If we treated our knowledge of gravity with such mental laziness, we'd fall very visibly. But we cannot see spiritual truths quite so obviously as material truths, and so it is easier to fake them. But precisely in thinking that contrary spiritual propositions can be held simultaneously as true, they reveal what they believe: spiritual propositions aren't real.

We Catholics have something of this tendency - but it is always about matters of practice and discipline - never about faith and morals. That is, our latitudinarian expansiveness requires celibacy for priests in the West and marriage for priests in the East. It allows colored vestments in the Roman Rite and white ones only in the Byzantine. We can fast from meat on Fridays, or from whatever else is suitable. We can read this spiritual writer or that, it's all of a piece, really. We can depict Christ on the Cross as African, Asian, or Australian. These distinctions are based on prudential judgments and aren't really from God, but by convention. But it's all prudential judgments based on the same faith and morals throughout the Catholic world, and those are real and they are really from God. What we are not free to do is to insist upon celibacy for all priests or to prohibit it. We are not free to say, "Mass on Sunday isn't obligatory." We must not say that because we can depict Christ as whatever sort of man we like, he was no man at all. These things are from God and to reinvent them is to fake them, to lie.

We must do the hard spiritual work of maintaining real spiritual unity, based on real love and real agreement on the real essentials of Christian faith and morals. Far from scoffing the erosion of Christian faith in separated Christian communities, we should take a warning from the direction they take, pray for them, and extend to them a hand, an invitation to rediscover Christ and the Church that He founded. Otherwise, we will have abandoned Christ.

Keep Your Eyes Open

2010-01-12T23:00:00.010-05:00

You may not have heard, but Haiti was struck today by an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale. That's the same as the earthquake that beat San Francisco down in 1986. Only Haiti is poor, very poor, and hasn't got a very stable government, and hasn't got a broad tax base. The quake hit very close to the capital, Port-Au-Prince, so many houses and hospitals designed to withstand storms, but not shaking, have collapsed into piles of rubble. Catholic Relief Services is estimating that thousands will be found only after they are dead.

The people there are going to need some help getting themselves back up on their feet again. Keep a look out for ways to help. I recommend Catholic Relief Services (which has, as far as I know, had nothing like the scandals attached to the CCHD lately) or Food for the Poor. Don't forget to pray for the Haitians, while you are at it.

It's Over - But Really, It's Just Beginning

2010-01-10T23:38:00.079-05:00

Well, folks, it's over. Christmastide, that is. Now we are back in the day-in day-out of ordinary Christian living marked governed by the ordinary ordinances of Ordinary Time. And it's no coincidence that this period begins today with the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. Isn't it baptism that begins all of our lives in the Lord?

Here is the first reading from today's Mass (Is 42:1-4, 6-7):

Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
a bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

So many messages for the Christian life:

"Here is my servant whom I uphold": God upholds us, as a Church and each of us individually. We can rely upon Him. He does that not upon our own meritorious character, but because of our intimate union with His Son: the "chosen one" with whom he is actually "well pleased." In the beginning, all of creation was "very good," (Gen 1:31) but sin damaged all of creation very badly. Now, in Christ, we can be a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) that is again pleasing to God the Father (Heb 13:20-21).

The Christian follows Christ in bringing forth "justice to the nations," but he does not do it with riots, rebellions, crying out, or "shouting... in the street." Instead, the Christian brings uprightness to the nations without breaking even anything as fragile as "a bruised reed." The ways of the world are not the ways of a Christian, who is always on guard to be delicate, delicate with souls, lest he "quench" the "smoldering wick" of someone's embryonic faith. He persists in his pursuit until the very edges of the world, the "coastlands" hear his teaching - because they are eager for it.

The LORD, the great I-AM, calls us "for the victory of justice." He grasps us by the hand as a father takes his little boy, his little girl, and leads them step by step. The distance seems far to us only because we are small, but our Father is very great, and he will grow us, form us into Christian men and women. We will serve as a living covenant, a living sign of the commitment of God to His creatures and of those as of yet unruly creatures to their God. The very way we live our lives - uprightly, doing what is right whatever it cost us, merciful to the weak and the poor - will make us a "light for the nations." Our life in Christ will "open the eyes of the blind" so that they too can come to know His immense love for them. People who are "prisoners" to the "confinement" and "darkness" of sinful ways of life - irresponsible borrowing and spending, excessive eating and drinking, shallow and broken relationships, promiscuity, lies, wrecked families, dependency on glamorous false solutions to life's problems - these people will see Christ in the conduct of our lives, and they will come to follow Him and be saved.

Or not.

The difference could very well be in how effectively we set our egos out of the way and let Him work in us. We will do this setting-aside by taking up our cross daily (Lk 9:23) and following Him, even if it is to a place we would rather not go (Jn 21:18). In this daily voluntary setting-aside of our desires when we cannot legitimately set aside our sufferings, we will know joy. Joy is not ecstasy. Daily ecstasy would be too much to bear for us right now anyway. Joy is knowledge of the of the acting of God, of the providence of God, kingdom of God, in our daily lives. It does not make the suffering go away, but it makes everything fit into a big picture, and makes even our sufferings sufferable. Ordinary Time is the time to practice this daily joy in the midst of daily suffering for the daily sanctification of the world.

Ordinary Time doesn't sound so ho-hum now, does it?

The Highbury Quartet plays Beethoven's String Quartet No. 7 in F Major (for Rasumovsky), Op. 59, No. 1 - 3rd Mvmnt

2010-01-07T23:32:00.005-05:00

I apologize for the quality of the recording, which is slightly off, but you get the point, and you get what you get for free. The recording that I have, that I paid for, is amazing. I've listened to this piece for hours, and it's never gotten old. I don't even really know almost anything about classical music - yet. But with the most beautiful things, you don't need to know much to start getting it.

Beauty is like that.

My roommate and I got to brainstorming today about retro, and we had some interesting thoughts. I'll share more about that tomorrow or the next day.

What the Priest Told Me in Confession Today

2010-01-06T15:52:00.000-05:00

The priest to whom I made my confession today told me the coolest thing:

When you wake up in the morning, that is God saying to you, 'Get up! I've got something important for you to do today!' And you want to get in the habit of asking yourself and asking God throughout the day, 'OK, God, so what's the next thing I do today?'

I believe that he was bearing in mind that, being underemployed right now, I have more free time than normal. Such time is often squandered unintentionally on frivolities, and the long term effect of such leaking is demoralization.

A Good Reminder in the Onion

2010-01-05T16:21:00.002-05:00

Thanks to The American Catholic for displaying that clip from The Onion. The video is really a clever reminder about how silly are many of our affairs, and how soon they will be forgotten, in the grand scheme of things. Let's keep our eyes fixed on the things that we can bring with us into eternity: friends and family, faith, hope, and love.

Psalm 116

2010-01-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

This psalm has been very important in my prayer for several years now. Enjoy!

I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.

Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.

Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!"

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.

The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.

Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;

I walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.

I kept my faith, even when I said,
"I am greatly afflicted";

I said in my consternation,
"Men are all a vain hope."

What shall I render to the LORD
for all his bounty to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD,

I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.

O LORD, I am thy servant;
I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
Thou hast loosed my bonds.

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the LORD.

I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,

in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

How Britain Is Eating Its Young

2010-01-02T10:27:00.005-05:00

I have decided to embed below one of the very best articles I have ever read on modern socio-economic woes, written from a macroscopic perspective. I am embedding it, because if I made it downloadable now that the original magazine has it archived and available only for purchase, I would certainly get my pants sued off - or at least be violating their copyright.

You need the Adobe Reader plugin to view this document.

More Beating of Drums for Death...

2010-01-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

Montana's high court rang in the New Year by ruling that it's OK to murder sick and, presumably, very old people. Oh, wait - that's right, it's to be called mercy killing or assisted suicide or death with dignity or some such nonsense. The court affirmed a lower court's December 6 ruling to the same extent.

Why Montana?

Hmmm... cash-strapped state... aging population... Well, I suppose it doesn't matter why Montana, because the whole country is headed in that direction. It will be a perfect storm - a trifecta of previously unlikely scenarios inevitably colliding:

Economic pressure from our incomprehensible national debt;
Demographic pressure of our aging baby-boomers who are now beginning to retire in earnest;
Foreign pressure from our Chinese debt-masters to impose the same sort of draconian measures that we impose upon our debtor nations.

When these three factors coincide - and they will - we are gonna start gassing 'boomers like you can't believe. Mark my words; this prediction takes no great foresight, only commonsense. We've long since been solving our unborn problems by killing them in the privacy of the womb; now Montana's court, the first such state high court ruling in the land, says that privacy protects the "right to kill granny." They didn't call it that, but will the aged infirm or the sick have much more voice than those in the womb?

Christians, let's resolve in 2010 to pray harder.

A Message from the Pope

2009-12-31T13:53:00.002-05:00

"Dear friends, we have reached the end of this year and stand at the threshold of the New Year. My wish is that the friendship of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, will accompany you each day of this new year. May friendship with Christ be our light and guide, helping us to to be people of peace, of his peace. Happy New Year to all!"

Bishop Allen Vigneron's "10 Rules for Handling Disagreement Like a Christian"

2009-12-31T09:26:00.000-05:00

If you've never encountered these rules, please read them. Memorize any that are not intuitive to you. I recently read a suggestion that Christians brainstorm a set of rules for internet-based discourse, rules like, "Assume the best intention and good faith of those with whom you are corresponding." A noble idea.

Another Gross Copyright Violation...

2009-12-31T01:24:00.001-05:00

I hope to be excused my copyright violations by my intent to promote others to purchase and read the books from which I copy willy-nilly. Here is an awesome passage from Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.'s He Leadeth Me. It's about his time in the prisons, gulags, and Siberian villages of the Soviet Union.

Whatever the trials of the moment, whatever the hardships or sufferings, more important than all these was the knowledge that they had been sent by God and served his divine providence. I could not always fathom the depths of his providence or pretend to understand his wisdom, but I was secure in the knowledge that by abandoning myself to his will I was doing as perfectly as I could his will for me.

Spiritual freedom of this sort, as I knew from bitter experience, is not something that can be attained overnight or ever possessed in its final form. Every new day, every new hour of every day, every new circumstance and situation, every new act is a new opportunity to exercise and grow in this freedom. What is required for growth is an attitude of acceptance and openness to the will of God, rather than some planned approach or calculated method. Even as ascetical (sic) practices such as penances, fasting, or mortifications can can be hindrances rather than helps if they are self-imposed. Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God's will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God. It will provide more than enough virtue to be practiced, suffering to be sustained, pain to be borne; more importantly still, it will make us fit instruments to achieve his designs, not only for our own salvation but for others as well. The service of God must take preference over all else.

There is more, but you'll have to pick up a copy of the book and read it.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the Church

2009-12-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

O humility! O sublimity! Both tabernacle of cedar and sanctuary of God; earthly dwelling and celestial palace; house of clay and royal hall; body of death and temple of light; and at last both object of scorn to the proud and bride of Christ! She is black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, for even if the labor and pain of her long exile may have discolored her, yet heaven's beauty has adorned her.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, In Cant. Sermo 27:14 PL 183:920D

The Slaughter of the Innocents Goes On...

2009-12-28T00:07:00.033-05:00

Today, Monday 28 December 2009, is the feast of the Holy Innocents, those children slaughtered by Herod (Mt 2:16) in his demented plot to destroy the Christ Child, thereby winning the notorious distinction of being the first manifestation of anti-Christ in history. The Church recognizes his little victims as something like martyrs, even donning red on their feast day in honor of their blood. They did not voluntarily give their lives rather than deny Christ, yet their innocence poured out still bears witness to His.

In our times, anti-Christ has been powerfully active in many modern regimes. The Nazis and the Soviets were both explicitly anti-Christian. They were defeated, but we must not lull ourselves into thinking that anti-Christ was, or even that his plan was delayed. The Evil One is crafty beyond our reckoning. I believe that part of his plan was to discredit evil itself - he has done this by psychologizing sins into mere neuroses on the one hand, and by making us think that a plan or idea cannot be evil unless it is proposed by a short man with a funny mustachio and a German accent. We are mistaken if we believe either of those two lies. Sin is sin, and we are all guilty of it. Some sins are small, and others are immense. We must use our meager powers and whatever grace God gives us to resist it all. We cannot compromise with it, and must realize that the Enemy always tries to sell us sin by bundling it with genuine goods, because only a lunatic would pick sin otherwise. So intimacy and pleasure, both good, are used to sell adultery; adventure and profit, both good, are used to convince people to burgle or rob.

Now health care is being used to push abortion. Make no mistake - unless the law specifically forbids the funding of abortion, it will be slipped in as one more entitlement. If the developers of the health care proposals under consideration did not want abortions to be funded directly or with subsidies, they would include prohibitive provisions in their bills. And I can think of no better way - nor can Uncle Sam - to encourage something, other than to pay for it.
Please pray for Bart Stupak (D-MI) and the group he is rousing to resist this atrocity, this holocaust to Moloch. Rumor has it that he and his group are already being brought under tremendous pressure from the highest levels.

Fellow Americans, we are capable of helping each other out without paying to kill each other's babies. America, we can do better than abortion!

Christmas Eve Homily--The Gift is Mine

2009-12-25T14:16:00.002-05:00

It’s often said, “Christmas isn’t about the gifts.” You know what? I never really bought that as a kid and I don’t really buy it now. In a certain sense, Christmas is all about giving and gifts. Specifically, it’s about the Gift: Jesus Christ, God-made-man.

As I begin this homily, I want to address all of the children here. Now, my younger brothers and sisters, you know that Christmas is one of the happiest days of the year. It’s filled with cookies, toys, laughter, fun, hugs and all other sorts of happy things. It’s one of my favorite days of the year and is probably yours as well. But, I have to warn you that sometimes there is sadness and even tears on Christmas. Let me explain what I mean. You come running down the stairs at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, or for those families that are lucky, 7:00 am. Your parents say, “Ok, take it easy, one gift at a time. Let’s go slowly.” But, of course, your deaf to all of this and you immediately start pummeling presents. One after another is torn from its wrapping, and you’re barely done unwrapping one before it’s on to the next. Then, you come across the present you desired so much or at least one that catches you off-guard by how cool it is. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that your little brother or sister sees this present too, takes an interest in it, and comes waddling over. They politely ask, “Can I see it?” “No! It’s mine!” you respond. “But I just want to see it for a second.” As if it weren’t firm enough the first time, you reiterate, “I said it’s mine!” Then, suddenly, at 6:30 am on Christmas, the happiest day of the year, there are an abundance of tears.

I tell this story because that response, “it’s mine,” is actually true. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against sharing at all. But, who gives you a gift if they don’t want it to be yours? There’s something essentially true in the response of the six year old to his four year old sister. The gift is yours to have, to enjoy and to use.

On the subject of gifts, do you know who gave us the greatest gift ever? Mary, our Blessed Mother, gave us the gift which surpasses all gifts, that of Jesus Christ. Without Mary’s consent, God doesn’t become man; without her consent, Jesus is not born. When Mary freely consents to Gabriel’s request at the Annunciation, she allows salvation to come into the world. And who is this gift for? When we look at the manger scene, we a whole host of characters adoring the baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph are of course there. There are the shepherds, who are poor humble Jews. In a couple weeks, the Magi will be there as well, and they were rich powerful Gentiles. We see the animals surrounding the scene and the angels hovering above. In essence, there is a microcosm of all of creation to adore the newborn baby Jesus. Mary gives this gift to all of creation, to all of us. I can give a gift to a family member or even a group of people, but Mary alone is able to give a gift to all of creation. On this blessed night, we thank Mary who holds the savior as her gift to all of creation. People ask us why we love Mary so much. I think a good answer is that in a real sense, she gave us salvation. That’s a pretty good reason to love somebody.

Almost everything we say about Mary, we can say about the Church. For example, we say that Mary is holy. The Church is holy, as well (one of her four marks). Just as Mary is filled from her conception with the Holy Spirit, the Church is always filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary gives us Jesus, but the Church does as well. Through Mary, God gives us salvation, and through the Church, God offers us the same gift. Just as Mary gave us the gift of salvation some two thousand years ago, so the Church gives us that same gift of salvation today. Like the person who opens up their Christmas present and exclaims, “it’s mine,” so we can respond to that same gift of salvation offered us today. That gift is ours to possess, ours to enjoy, and use.

Let me give an illustration of what I’m talking about. The Charismatic Renewal emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit and his tangible, powerful presence in our lives. One of the ways the movement does this is through “praying over” people. The members lay hands on the person they’re praying over, and they call down the Holy Spirit, while uttering a prophetic word or maybe a Scriptural passage which may be relevant to the person. It can be a very powerful experience. A group of people were praying over me once, and one of them, a priest, said to me, “Dave, I think the Lord wants me to tell you something. He wants to let you know that he is yours.” I immediately thought that I must have heard wrong. He meant to say that I am God’s. I can understand that; I’m his because he made me. But the fact that the utterly transcendent God is mine seems too incredible. But that is exactly the case. God is mine. He is mine to possess and to love.

This is the novelty that comes about as a result of the Incarnation. The Jewish people knew that they were God’s and certainly had some idea that God was theirs. But the extent of the imtimacy, the depths of their possession of God, was beyond their (and anybody’s) ability to understand. The first reading reflects the notion that God will become ours in a profound and unimaginable way. “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; And as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” God uses the union of marriage as a symbol of the manner in which he will unite himself with us. Even marriage, through which man and woman become one flesh, is not capable of describing the depths of the mutual possession between God and man: we possess God and he possesses us. In the second reading, St. Paul describes the effect of baptism on the Christian: “He saved us . . . by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Even as the waters of baptism drip off us, and we dry off our heads, the Holy Spirit is poured more deeply into our souls—“richly,” as St. Paul says. The Holy Spirit, God becomes our possession, the gift poured into our hearts, at Baptism. He is ours to possess and we are to be possessed by him.

Like any gift, unless it is used it is so easily lost. Imagine opening a gift at Christmas, thanking the giver, and then setting it aside. Then you forget about it; you never use it or think about it again, or at least very infrequently. It’s likely that we’ll lose the gift. It’s no longer ours. This can happen so often with this priceless gift of salvation that we receive at Baptism. Unless our lives are centered on the sacraments; unless we have a relationship with God through daily prayer; unless we lead lives that are infused with faith, hope, and love, we can so easily lose that gift which we celebrate tonight.

On the positive side, the more we use the gift the more it becomes ours. Imagine opening a gift on Christmas, let’s say a Nintendo Wii. You play it for eight straight days. In the meantime, you don’t eat, drink, sleep or do anything else. Your friends think you’re crazy—and you are a little crazy. A friend comes over after eight days and watches you play a game on Wii. After watching you play, he’ll say, “Man, you own this game.” He’s right, the more we use a gift given to us, the more we own it, the more we enjoy it, the more it becomes ours. The goal of life is, to the extent that it’s humanly possible, to think as God thinks and love as God loves. This is possible, it’s our mission. It’s possible inasmuch as we possess God and let him work through us.

In the end, Christmas is all about gifts. It’s not about the toys, new clothes or gift certificates. It’s about the gift of Jesus Christ given to us through Mary and through the Church. It’s truly mine and truly yours. Let us seek to possess this gift all the more and let the gift possess us in love.

What Child Is This?

2009-12-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

Stones Crying Out

2009-12-23T01:02:00.008-05:00

One of my favorite lines from the Scriptures is found in the Gospel of St. Luke, who recounts an interaction between Jesus and some Pharisees. Jesus processes into Jerusalem fresh from raising Lazarus (Jn 11), both followed and preceded by thousands of excited admirers (Jn 12:17; Mk 11:9), who are cheering "Hosanna," which means something like "God save..." or "Long live...", as in, "Long live the King!" The word hosanna is actually related to the proper name Yeshua, Jesus' name in his mother tongue. Trust me on this one. Now, as people are cheering, "God save the one who comes in the Name of the Lord," a reference to the messiah, the pharisees become perturbed (Mt 21:15; Jn 12:19). The Pharisees ask Jesus to tell the crowds to stop calling him King (Lk 19:39).

Here's what Jesus says to answer them: I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out, (Lk 19:40). That's it. That's one of my favorite lines. Think about it - even the paving stones under their feet are yearn, bursting forth with the news that God has come to his people, that God has returned to holy Jerusalem, that God is going to reclaim his holy people. Even the stones!

This idea doesn't originate with Jesus though, except inasmuch as he is God and everything originates with him. Read the first few verses of Psalm 19:

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;

Yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
    In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and like a strong man runs its course with joy... (Ps 19:1-5).

Jean Corbon, who is said to have shadow-written the fourth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which deals with prayer, wrote a book called The Wellspring of Worship. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand what is the heart of liturgy. By "liturgy" I am not indicating any migration to an Eastern Rite. Still less am I getting hippified and refusing to use the word "Mass," which is the correct English-language word designation for what we Catholics are required to attend on Sundays and other obligatory holy days. Liturgy is a broader term whose translation is often botched as "work of the people." The Greek term, and its Latin loan word, both meant "public work," which is different. Works of the people include things like potluck dinners, spontaneous singalongs, and quilting bees. There are obviously people in the Church who want the Holy Sacrifice to fall into this category and so continue to promote this incorrect translation. A "public work" is different. In ancient Greece or Rome, liturgia would have described such things as arenas like the Colosseum, a new sewer system, or a nice fountain. Modern things like the Washington Monument, Fed-Ex Field, or your local public school serve as modern equivalents. Then as now, the state built such things, and so did very wealthy, private benefactors. They were gifts to the people, and very often built by the people, and in those senses were "public works"; but they most certainly were not the brainstorms of people on the street, or for that matter, people in the pew. So it is with the Mass. The Mass is a gift to the people and not from the people. It originates in Jesus Christ's sacrifice of the cross because we need it, and not because he needs it. And the Mass is one instance of liturgy.

The Church has been entrusted with at least six other liturgies: one for each sacrament. The different liturgical churches within the Catholic Church each have their own liturgy, their own way of carrying out the seven sacraments. Liturgy is a sort of scripted, cyclical ritual given by God in order to orient us toward God. It is liturgy in this sense that Corbon examines in his book. I will attempt to summarize his central thesis in a single sentence: God has created all of creation to share in his joyous, loving glory, which pulsates throughout creation, drawing all creation back toward God; and God has designed creation specifically to bring as many people as possible back to himself. He might say that all creation is a sort of living, breathing, God-worshiping organism. we humans enter into the reorientation of self toward God that is worship by entering into the liturgy that is the universe, particularly the sacramental life of the Church, which Jesus has instituted for that purpose. (OK, I cheated by using a semicolon. It's a big book, with lots of points to make...)

I wish I could paraphrase Corbon better, but I haven't got my copy of his book handy. I gave it away in a moment of blind affection. Ah, well. It's on my Amazon wishlist. Lol. I mention all of this now because I came across the YouTube video below on the Anchoress's blog. If what I wrote above seems kind of abstract, watch the six minute beauty below. Heck, even if you got what I wrote above, which given my penchant for Ryanese strikes me as a bit unlikely, watch the video.

Do you see what I mean now? EVERYTHING: my car wreck a week or so ago that taught me a little obedience to the divine will, the snow that swamped DC this past weekend and made us rest and stay at home, baptisms and transubstantiations, animals in the zoo, sunny days on mountaintop meadows, all of it... it was all created by God because he loves us and wants to teach us to love Him in return. As we learn to enter into it, to discern his will, act charitably and as good stewards, respond with gratitude, we do in fact draw closer to him. Everything is meant to build this reality into us, and especially the sacraments are meant to do so in a way that nothing else can. Jesus, the Gracious God Made Flesh, became flesh precisely so that grace can operate in fleshly things. He would not have heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, separated forever. In his nativity, God becomes a native of planet earth so that we can become strangers and exiles here, with a new citizenship in heaven.

It's just amazing what he did that day two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. Creation is still reeling with the ripples of God diving into his own creation, to change us from the inside, to teach us to praise his Father in every circumstance.

Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD. Hosanna!

Dear Young People

2009-12-21T22:51:00.004-05:00

Here is an excerpt from a simple speech of the late Holy Father, John Paul II of venerable memory. I love this one:

Dear young people, many false teachers point out dangerous ways that lead to fleeting joys and satisfactions. Today expressions of our culture are mired in superficiality... Refuse to sell your dreams too cheaply! Dream, but in freedom! Plan, but in truth!

The Lord is also asking you: "Will you also go away?" Answer with the Apostle Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68). God alone is the infinite horizon of your life. The more you know him, the more you will find out that only he is love and an inexhaustible source of joy.

But to enter and remain in contact with God it is indispensable to establish a deep relationship with him in prayer. When it is genuine, prayer spreads divine energy in every context and at every moment of life. It makes us live in a new way. Is it not prayer that made Francis a new man and Clare a source of light?

I love that speech to the second international meeting of "Young People to Assisi". You can read the whole, brief thing by clicking here. The quotation from St. John's gospel is among my favorite. It's a great one for prayer when I am tired of following Jesus sometimes, or feel like giving him an ultimatum to do things my way. "Jesus, you better... or else I'll walk!" So many times the words of Peter have drifted back into my heart and mind at those points. "Fine. I guess I'm still yours, thick or thin."

At this time of the year, we do especially well to reinvest ourselves in Jesus, who is the source and summit of authentic human happiness, and to ask him with renewed fervor to reinvest Himself in us. Come, Lord Jesus!

Once in Royal David's City

2009-12-21T09:36:00.000-05:00

This carol is one of my favorites. I think it dates to the mid-Victorian period, so it's relatively modern. It has been used to start the Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, every year for almost a century now. It's not hard to hear why.

The War in the House

2009-12-20T19:05:00.000-05:00

Leaders among pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives include Bart Stupak, Tim Holden, Kathy Dahlkemper, James Oberstar, Dan Boren, Gene Taylor, and Jim Marshall. Of these, only one (Dan Boren) is non-Catholic. We've all heard about how many of the leaders of the pro-abortion lobby in the House describe themselves as "Catholic."

This is huge. It means, as far as I can tell, that what we are witnessing unfolding is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans over abortion or abortion-funding. We are witnessing a battle among Catholics, with the United States House of Representatives as the battlefield, and government-funded abortion as the current strategic target. This is huge. It may be apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word.

The Greek word apocalypsis means "unveiling" and is translated into Latin as revelatio, from which we get the word "revelation." The Book of Revelation, by prophesying about events at the end of the time, ought to expose us to ourselves. It ought to make us stop and think, "Say, what side am I on? Have I really given it over to Christ? Or do I just want to feel good about myself by calling myself a Christian?" We are seeing such a revelatory conflict now in our legislature. It is to some degree a microcosm of America, where the same conflict as a whole is underway. It is easy to call oneself Catholic and to play that card whenever convenient, as a sort of credential about having roots or deeper values or something. It is a lot more difficult to actually sink roots and stand for something, like, say Jesus Christ. It might sound revolutionary, I know, or radical, or even revolting, but that's what I thought "Catholic" meant.

Now we are seeing in our legislature and in our society as a whole who has actually believed that, and who has only used that popular belief to their own personal gain.

Again, no need to worry. This stuff is all over the gospels and epistles. Jesus himself told us that these things would happen so that when they did, our faith in Him would be deepened rather than shaken. Let's keep praying, doing what we can, and trusting in Him.

Will Stupak Strike Again?

2009-12-20T18:41:00.000-05:00

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) has said that he finds the Senate's "pro-life" amendment to be unacceptable. Some people are hoping he'll lead a sally of House Democrats to kill Obamacare when the reconciliation committee is done building its Frankenstein from the House and Senate bills.

I am not too worried about Obamacare passing - at least, not worried enough to go on a crusade about it. I think it will be a catastrophic mistake, but merely a economic-political one, that is, a merely this-worldly mistake. It will be a secular mistake rammed down the throats of Americans by a secularist minority. That's bad, but it's also nothing new. Entitlements are created, entitlements can be eliminated or privatized - look at welfare reform.

It's abortion that's the problem. Funding abortion, subsidizing abortion, paying for other things so that people have leftover money to buy abortions - it's all just one big encouragement, especially for the poor and vulnerable - to murder their babies and to lose their souls. Lost lives are never reclaimed, and alas, too many lost souls go unredeemed. We Christians cannot sit by idly and chatter aimlessly about such things.

I do not hope that Stupak will kill Obamacare, though that would be nice because our country is teetering on the edge of economic ruin - and I don't mean the recession - I mean the colossal debt we've racked up. I DO hope that Stupak will be willing and able to kill Obamacare, and will do so, rather than let it finance the slaughter of innocents.

We need to pray for Rep. Stupak, a fellow Catholic who is faithful to the teachings of the Church, and also for those Democrats especially that are aligned with him. He will certainly come under intense pressure from the unscrupulous faux Catholics that run the House.

Does THIS Bother Anyone?

2009-12-19T22:03:00.004-05:00

Do you know what this number is?

Don't look to see what this link is about before you click it. Just trust me and click here and watch it for four or five minutes. We need to pray very, very hard for our country. We Christians need to lead the way in learning to live a life of disciple and self-sacrifice if we are going to get ourselves out of this mess in a morally legitimate way.

Give Me, Good Lord... a Prayer of St. Thomas More

2009-12-19T11:54:00.001-05:00

Glorious God, give me grace to amend my life, and to have an eye to my end without begrudging death, which to those who die in you, good Lord, is the gate of a wealthy life. And give me, good Lord, a humble, lowly, quiet, peaceable, patient, charitable, kind, tender and pitiful mind, in all my works and all my words and all my thoughts, to have a taste of your holy, blessed Spirit.

Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent charity, a love of you incomparably above the love of myself. Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with you, not to avoid the calamities of this world, nor so much to attain the joys of heaven, as simply for love of you. And give me, good Lord, your love and favor, which my love of you, however great it might be, could not deserve were it not for your great goodness.

These things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me your grace to labor for. Amen.

St. Thomas More, 1535 - a week before his martyrdom

S. O. S.

2009-12-19T08:06:00.003-05:00

HEEEEEEEELP! We have easily TEN inches of snow on the ground and IT'S STILL SNOWING!

Invictus

2009-12-18T22:52:00.000-05:00

I just got back from seeing "Invictus" with a friend at the movie theater. I can truly say that this movie is one of the more inspiring true-story movies I have seen. It is the story of how Nelson Mandela decides to promote the South African national rugby team, the Springbokke, as a means of advancing racial reconciliation in his country. He openly supported the almost all-white team, and gained the support of the team's sympathetic captain. Moreover, he encouraged and protected white South Africans' sense of their culture's place in the new regime. The team's white captain in turn encouraged the team to get on board. When the team began visiting poor black enclaves to give rugby camps, the team became more sympathetic to the situation of South Africa's black population, and South Africa's black population found themselves getting excited about the team. The movie does an excellent job of showing how Nelson's gambit of generous forgiveness pays off by bringing hostile factions together in a way that nobody could have expected. South Africa is today a testimony to how cycles of violence can be derailed by the intervention of grace and forgiveness.

Babies

2009-12-18T08:06:00.001-05:00

I know lots of people who are having babies. Babies are beautiful. Now there is a documentary called "Babies," coming out, and it looks pretty... well, beautiful.

Here's the website. It seems to be about the first year in the life of four babies from different places around the globe. The people responsible have a few weird movies, but this one looks good. Thanks, Anchoress!