On Reconciliation

The most beautiful part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka Confession) is hearing the awesome words:

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you haven't been in months or even years, go! You won't regret it! Make it a regular part of your spiritual life.

Theology and Poetry

I find that it is quite true that mystical theology is best expressed through poetry. Consider the Dark Night of the Soul from St. John of the Cross. Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky agreed with regard to how we ought to treat such sublime mysteries as the Trinity:

Thus the Trinity is the initial mystery, the Holy of Holies of the divine reality, the very life of the hidden God, the living God. Only poetry can evoke it, precisely because it celebrates and does not pretend to explain. All existence and all knowledge are posterior to the Trinity, and find in It their base.

-From "Orthodox Theology: an Introduction", p. 46. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989.

John Allen: 3 myths about the church

Great article from fair-minded Catholic journalist John Allen of the liberal NCR. Three myths to give up for Lent:

1. Purple ecclesiology
"Purple ecclesiology" refers to the notion that the lead actors in the Catholic drama are the clergy, and in fact, the only activity that really counts as "Catholic" at all is that carried out by the church's clerical caste, especially its bishops. You can always spot purple ecclesiology at work when you hear someone say "the church" when what they really mean is "the hierarchy."

... Seeing the church through a purple filter is misleading, even if all we take into view is the visible, institutional dimension of Catholic life. Most Catholic schools, hospitals, social service centers, movements and associations, even chanceries and parish headquarters, are staffed overwhelmingly by laywomen and men. More deeply, however, the church doesn't exist for itself, but to change the world, which means that if its message is to penetrate the various realms of culture -- medicine, law, the academy, politics, the economy and so on -- it's either going to be carried there by laity, or not at all...

2. A church in decline
The popular take on Catholicism these days tends to be that it's a church in crisis. Rocked by sex scandals, bruising political fights and financial shortfalls, it seems to be hemorrhaging members -- a recent Pew Forum study found there are now 22 million ex-Catholics in America, which would be the country's second-largest religious body after what's left of the Catholic church itself -- as well as clustering parishes, closing institutions and struggling to hand on the faith to the next generation.

The overall perception is that this is an era of Catholic entropy -- decline, contraction, things getting smaller.

Seen from global perspective, however, that's just wildly wrong. The last half-century witnessed the greatest period of missionary expansion in the 2,000-year history of Catholicism, fueled by explosive growth in the southern hemisphere. Take sub-Saharan Africa as a case in point: The Catholic population at the dawn of the 20th century was 1.9 million, while by the end of the century it was more than 130 million, representing a staggering growth rate of 6,708 percent. Overall, the global Catholic footprint shot up from 266 million in 1900 to 1.1 billion in 2000, ahead of the overall rate of increase in world population, and is still rising today...

3. Christianity is the oppressor, not the oppressed
Of all the popular misconceptions about Catholicism, and about Christianity in general, this is arguably the most pernicious.

Stoked by historical images of the Crusades and the Inquisition, and even by current perceptions of the wealth and power of church leaders and institutions, it's tough for Western observers to wrap their minds around the fact that in a growing number of global hotspots, Christians today are the defenseless oppressed, not the arrogant oppressors.

Here's the stark reality of our times: In the early 21st century, we are witnessing the rise of a whole new generation of Christian martyrs...

Read the whole thing!

Why is there no peace?

We are not at peace with others
because we are not at peace with ourselves,
and we are not at peace with ourselves
because we are not at peace with God.

-Thomas Merton

Courtesy of Vivificat.

Urban Survival Skills

The Urban Survival Skills that Everyone should know. Courtesy of LifeHacker.

As God Loves...

Pope Paul VI has a message!

Courtesy of Byzantine Dominican.

St. Katharine Drexel vs. KKK

From Rocco. How St. Katharine Drexel beat the KKK.

Although Mother Drexel and the women of her order were dedicated to eliminating racial lines, the people they encountered in their work were not often on their side. One such group of people were the Ku Klux Klan who in 1922 "threatened to tar and feather... at one of Drexel’s schools and bomb his [sic] church" in Beaumont, Texas.

The nuns prayed and days later, a tornado came and destroyed the headquarters of the KKK, killing two of their members.

The Sisters were never threatened again.

There's more! Read the article.

Serenity Now!

Fill my heart with serenity, O Glory of the realms on high, with the serenity of the angels before Your throne. For serenity has no abode or resting place for anger.

Grant me the serenity of a son... Armor me with Your peace, which the anger of the children of anger will not be able to confound.

-Nikolai Velimirović

Coffee...

More reasons from NPR to enjoy a cup now and again... :)

Popes on Film

Did you know that the first pope ever to be filmed and recorded was Pope Leo XIII? I am quickly becoming a fan of Leo, particularly after studying his famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum, in which he teaches so clearly on the rights of the working class and warned of the dangers of unrestricted capitalism and communism. This video was shot in 1896:

On Mockery

With contraception being in the news lately, naturally there is a great deal of mockery of Catholic teaching on artificial contraception and abortion and of those of us who take this teaching very seriously. Yeah, it feels pretty crappy to be the butt of everybody's jokes. There is also a profound ignorance about what the Church actually teaches and why, which is why we must speak up. If we comprise the Body of Christ, we must unite ourselves to Christ as our model, who was senselessly mocked as he was beaten and killed. Let this be our Lenten meditation.

Just a side note here: In my opinion, it is incredibly arrogant and stupid for the Obama Administration to provoke such an unnecessary fight. So incredibly stupid. To say nothing of other religious groups, it is a well known fact that the Catholic Church has been at the fore of the fight for quality and affordable health care since well before the United States was formed as a nation. Religious orders of nuns have been supporting hospitals, schools, and charities in America for generations. To see the Church portrayed as an enemy to health care is pretty ignorant and silly, and to risk some dioceses, religious orders, and individuals closing their hospitals, schools, and charities rather than be forced to participate in something unconscionable is disgusting. Furthermore, this being an election year, and in an effort to pick up anything to oppose the president, the Republican party has taken this up as one of their causes célèbres, which needlessly over-politicizes the whole thing, redrawing the issue along political lines. As Cardinal Dolan stated many times, the Church didn't go looking for this fight. It was the Administration that acted first. Stupid.

Back to mockery. Pope Paul VI prophetically pointed out in Humanae Vitae that the Catholic Church would always be a sign of contradiction with the dominant culture. In fact, when it ISN'T the subject of ridicule, you can be sure that something is wrong, as when some churches compromise themselves to the fads of culture. With regard to artificial contraception (for purposes of actual birth control), Pope Paul VI wrote:

It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction." She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.

Since the Church did not make either of these laws, she cannot be their arbiter—only their guardian and interpreter. It could never be right for her to declare lawful what is in fact unlawful, since that, by its very nature, is always opposed to the true good of man.

In preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization. She urges man not to betray his personal responsibilities by putting all his faith in technical expedients. In this way she defends the dignity of husband and wife. This course of action shows that the Church, loyal to the example and teaching of the divine Savior, is sincere and unselfish in her regard for men whom she strives to help even now during this earthly pilgrimage "to share God's life as sons of the living God, the Father of all men."

I actually think that it is paradoxically good for the Church and the culture to be at odds. Firstly, it helps the Church hone its teaching and articulate it in a clearer way. This is necessary in order to engage the culture in any meaningful way at all. We need to be challenged to do this. Secondly, since humanity is fallen (which obviously affects the Church because the Church would not exist without humans), it is only natural that one would expect difficult teachings to be difficult to embrace and live out, especially in a hedonistic, individualistic culture as we have today. As I have gotten older, I have seen more young adults, seeing something definitely wrong in the passing fads of the dominant culture, challenge themselves to embrace the Church's teaching precisely because it is a sign of contradiction and because it is difficult. Certainly, I have seen others go the other route and accommodate themselves to the ever-changing culture. Again, I am not so surprised. It was so from the beginning.

The Best Little .... in Texas

In light of the recent news of the death of Edna Milton Chadwell, which apparently only FoxNews picked up, I offer this relevant YouTube clip of a highly relevant song from the infamous musical, which apparently won an Academy Award!


It's relevant not only to Texas politics but to politics in general.

Even unto shedding their blood...

Why do Cardinals wear red? There is an answer to this question in the address of Pope Benedict XVI given at the recent consistory in Rome for the creation of new cardinals:

In carrying out their particular service in support of the Petrine ministry, the new Cardinals will be called to consider and evaluate the events, the problems and the pastoral criteria which concern the mission of the entire Church. In this delicate task, the life and the death of [Peter] the Prince of the Apostles, who for love of Christ gave himself even unto the ultimate sacrifice, will be an example and a helpful witness of faith for the new Cardinals.

It is with this meaning that the placing of the red biretta is also to be understood. The new Cardinals are entrusted with the service of love: love for God, love for his Church, an absolute and unconditional love for his brothers and sisters, even unto shedding their blood, if necessary, as expressed in the words of placing the biretta and as indicated by the colour of their robes. Furthermore, they are asked to serve the Church with love and vigour, with the transparency and wisdom of teachers, with the energy and strength of shepherds, with the fidelity and courage of martyrs. They are to be eminent servants of the Church that finds in Peter the visible foundation of unity.

No, not every man has the courge to embrace martyrdom; let us see in this witness that every Christian ought to have the courage to embrace martyrdom should it ever come to that. Let us, in particular, pray for Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York who, as current president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, must stand up on behalf of the Catholic Church in America against [and hopefully work with] the Obama Administration in defense of rights of conscience and religious liberty.  Let us also pray for our president and those in the Administration.

St. Theresa Catholic School

For those who are interested, here are a couple of neat promotional videos for our parish school. The school is one of a handful in the country that teach according to a classical education curriculum. The principal, Jonathan Beeson, is a good friend of ours and has done great things with the school. The school represents the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition and the essential complementarity of Faith and Reason.

Science and Humility

From Anthony Esolen at Crisis Magazine, “The Humility of Science and the Arrogance of Scientists“:

Mathematics, and the sciences that employ mathematical tools, bring us to a fine field of truth, and we should be grateful for that truth. Without it we could not live in the comfort that we have wrung from our domination of the natural world. We would be bound in our travels to the legs of horses, or the winds at sea. We could not fly. And yet – to quote that young philosopher Francis Marion Tarwater in Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Buzzards can fly.” A physicist can tell me how a winged object can stay in the air. But he cannot, insofar as he is a physicist alone or even a biologist alone and not also a man like all other men, tell me about the beauty or the nobility of the buzzard, much less about the beauty or nobility of Francis Marion Tarwater.

Hat tip to the Deeps of Time Science blog.

Women are Beautiful

Ms. Valerie Pokorny from the Archdiocese of San Antonio has written an article for CNN Opinion on why contraception denigrates her as a woman. She's responding to the argument being put out there that opposition to contraception (or moral opposition to paying for it) is somehow demeaning to women's equality and women's rights. While everyone has to make a moral decision about this, this argument does not reflect the view of those of us who have moral opposition to artificial contraception. Ms. Pokorny writes:

I tell [Catholic moms and their middle school or high school daughters] it’s no accident that they are women, that women are equal to men in personal dignity, and that men and women are different by design. Those differences are meant to work together for the benefit of each individual, but also for the benefit of the world around them. I tell them there’s such a thing as the genius of women - and that the world needs them to cherish this in themselves and strive to live it out to the fullest because it is good. The world would be impoverished without it.

This is fundamental and basic natural law. She continues:

The Obama administration’s primary talking point on this issue is that “Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health.”

I agree. 100 percent.

But from there, the defense sounds like slick advertising for the contraceptive industry: To be a healthy woman, you need contraception. All the successful women use it. You can’t live without it.

Should I so easily accept the implication that I need to alter a part of myself that’s working properly in order to be free or fulfilled? I find this premise tremendously offensive. To me, this exerts pressure tantamount to that felt by women who purge after eating to attain or maintain a particular body image. It encourages women to think that their value is somehow intrinsically tied to how sexually available and desirable they are...

My fertility is not a disease. It does not need to be repressed, manipulated, or rejected. It ought to be accepted and respected accordingly, by individuals and by society as a whole.

She expresses an opinion that is truly radical in today's culture. It would seem that more and more women are coming to this realization - even non-Catholics and those who are concerned about the pill's health and environmental side effects. Real Love Inc. also points out why those who argue that contraception is part of "gender equality" are crazy:

Pregnancy is how a woman’s body is supposed to work. It’s the way we’re made. Birth control works against that, by preventing or altering the body’s normal processes. In classifying contraception as “preventative”, the United States government has deemed the healthy functioning of women’s healthy bodies as defective, and in need of government-provided intervention to alter.

So now women’s healthy bodies are deemed defective. But what about men? Apparently their non-impregnable anatomies are fine just as they are, and in that respect represent the standard for which women should strive. CNN made this point when they said that “Liberal groups have pushed for an expansive contraception coverage requirement on grounds of gender equality in health care.”

So now “gender equality” apparently requires that women’s bodies function like men’s bodies.

That's the heart of it. Of course, even the Catholic Church has long recognized that hormonal birth control can be legitimately used when the intention is to treat a hormonal imbalance or condition (though it is rarely pointed out that, in many cases, this merely masks the root cause, and it is not without harmful side effects including its potential abortifacient properties), that is not what we are talking about here.

My wife and I fully embraced Catholic teaching on marriage and contraception. It just made so much sense to us. Yet, even in the conservative suburbs of Texas, we're still treated oddly by others. We are fortunate, though, to live in an area with a large population of Catholics who embrace Natural Family Planning (which is NOT the "rhythm method") and are open to life. Though my wife and I haven't yet been blessed with children, our friends are an inspiration to us; we have no illusions about how difficult it is to raise a family and hold down a career in these tough economic times. But, as Ms. Pokorny concludes in her article, "I’m all for the progress of woman. Let’s just make sure in promoting her progress, we don’t reject something that is inherently part of her in the first place."

The Distributist Thinking of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

As a Distributist myself, I found this article at the Distributist Review about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's prominent criticism of Socialism and Capitalism to be very apropos and well written.  Indeed, distributist thinking, in which economics is subjected to human life (and not the other way around), has completely changed the way I view contemporary politics over the years.  As my wife recently put it, we are essentially caught in a war between two fatally flawed ideologies, seemingly powerless to overcome either of them.  Yet, there is a way out, and it must begin at home and in your local community.  Here is an intro from the article:

Through books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Gulag Archipelago, [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn exposed the cold realities awaiting those willing to stare down the Soviet regime. And he did not fail to deliver. Solzhenitsyn described the human cost of Communism: detentions, murders, lies, and forced labor camps for the innocent and the brave, including the author himself. 

For Europeans and Americans, Solzhenitsyn was a hero. 

But when Solzhenitsyn committed the sin of criticizing the West in front of the 1978 Harvard graduating class, and dismissed Western social and economic policies as false alternatives for the world, those same European and American thinkers once cheering Solzhenitsyn as a champion for freedom consequently berated his scrutiny and ignored Solzhenitsyn’s social, political, and economic analysis, as well as any of his proposed reforms. 

Read the whole article.

Faith, Reason, and Natural Law

Attention Houston area Catholics, Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P., will be visiting us this Thursday at St. Theresa's in Sugar Land, TX, to speak as part of our ongoing Faith and Reason lecture series. I began organizing this lecture series two years ago, and it has been very successful. As you know, Natural Law is a very important, foundational topic pertinent to the question of human reason -- especially relevant today as we debate questions of law, bioethics, marriage, and human life. 

"Faith, Reason, and the Natural Law"
Presented by Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P.

Thursday, January 19th, 7:30pm
St. Theresa Catholic School Library (upstairs)
705 St. Theresa Blvd., Sugar Land, Texas

Fr. Mullady is a well known professor and itinerant preacher of missions and retreats, and he has had several series on EWTN. He received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome and was a professor there for six years. He has taught at several colleges and seminaries around the country and is an academician of the Catholic Academy of Science. The lecture is free and is open to the public.

Please spread the word!

Holy, Holy, Holy

Br. Athanasius Murphy, O.P., of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, reflects on the Sanctus (English: Holy, Holy, Holy) of the mass.

When I was in college I was invited to attend an Armenian divine liturgy. While the whole celebration of the rite in the classical Armenian language was beautiful, there are only three words that I distinctly remember from that liturgy – or rather the same word said three times: “Sorph, Sorph, Sorph!”

Whether it is the Armenian Sorph, the Greek hagios, or the Latin Sanctus, Christian liturgies around the world have derived their prayer of “Holy, Holy, Holy” from the sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah. In one of his visions, the prophet Isaiah is confronted by the Lord, whom Isaiah sees in a temple, high and lifted up upon a throne (Is 6:3). Above the Lord are six-winged seraphim, or angels, calling to one another and saying:

“Holy, Holy, Holy LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

This angelic prayer can be found as early as the 4th century in the liturgies of Alexandria and Jerusalem, mentioned by Athanasius and Cyril, bishops respectively of those cities.

The translation of the Sanctus will change slightly with the new English translation of the Roman Missal that will come into use on the First Sunday of Advent (November 27th, 2011). Read the whole post.

On the Propers of the Mass

Dom Mark Daniel Kirby of the Vultus Christi blog has a very engaging post about the origin and development of the propers of the mass: those prayers and elements of the mass that change depending on the liturgical feast or season. For example, concerning the Introit:

The purpose of the Introit in the tradition of the Roman Rite is not didactic; it is contemplative. The Introit ushers the soul into the mystery of the day not by explaining it, but by opening the Mass with a word uttered from above. The text of the Introit signifies that, in every celebration, the initiative is divine, not human; it is a word received that quickens the Church-at-Prayer, and awakens a response within her.

Read the whole post.

On Silence and Solitude

Over the last several months, I have been thinking more and more about the simple concept of silence. What's interesting is that Pope Benedict XVI has chosen Silence to be the theme for the 2012 World Communication Day.  Why silence?

In the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, silence is not presented simply as an antidote to the constant and unstoppable flow of information that characterises society today but rather as a factor that is necessary for its integration. Silence, precisely because it favours habits of discernment and reflection, can in fact be seen primarily as a means of welcoming the word. We ought not to think in terms of a dualism, but of the complementary nature of two elements which when they are held in balance serve to enrich the value of communication and which make it a key factor that can serve the new evangelisation.

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI was visiting a Carthusian monastery and had this to say about silence:

Technical progress, markedly in the area of transport and communications, has made human life more comfortable but also more keyed up, at times even frantic. Cities are almost always noisy, silence is rarely to be found in them because there is always a lingering background noise, in some areas even at night. In the recent decades, moreover, the development of the media has spread and extended a phenomenon that had already been outlined in the 1960s: virtuality that risks getting the upper hand over reality. Unbeknown to them, people are increasingly becoming immersed in a virtual dimension because of the audiovisual messages that accompany their life from morning to night.

The youngest, who were already born into this condition, seem to want to fill every empty moment with music and images, as for fear of feeling this very emptiness. This is a trend that has always existed, especially among the young and in the more developed urban contexts but today it has reached a level such as to give rise to talk about anthropological mutation. Some people are no longer capable of remaining for long periods in silence and solitude.

Anthropological mutation? Sounds very serious. I think that last paragraph is key and bears great reflection. Naturally, this isn't to say that leisure is bad, or that listening to music is harmful. On the contrary, what it says is that these things are elevated above and beyond everything else. We are a society that is generally very uncomfortable with silence, and the average attention span is often very short. Further, there appears to be a tendency in our society to equate long periods of silence with a lack of amusement, i.e. boredom, and so we are constantly seeking distractions. If we aren't doing something, watching something, or listening to something, there is a sense that we aren't making good use of our free time. I find this to be true in my own life, for sure. I attempt to devote time to reflection and prayer, but it is quite difficult. My mind is so tempted by so many other things.

What I love about the film, Into Great Silence, is that it gives you a true insight into the daily routine of those for whom silence is a major part of life. Indeed, the film itself is very difficult to watch unless you are truly prepared to enter into it. If you allow yourself to be subdued by the film without falling asleep or becoming distracted by something else, you find that you are given an extraordinary encounter with something almost otherworldly. You are able to take time to really notice the most simple of things, and you are much better able to live in harmony with the changing seasons of the world rather than seek to be distracted from them.

Also related to this, as the pope points out, is the concept of solitude. This is something that transcends personality traits (whether one is an introvert or an extrovert). Consider that even the most introverted of persons struggles to find comfort with solitude in a public place without some distraction, whether it be music, or a book, etc.

Nature and Design

One of many great observations given by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn from his excellent book, "Chance or Purpose: Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith (p.98)"

The never ending debate, as to whether there is something like a "design" in creation, thus goes round in circles, perhaps because nowadays, whenever people talk about "design" and a "designer", they automatically think of a "divine engineer", a kind of omniscient technician, who -- because he must be perfect -- can, equally, only produce perfect machines. Here, in my view, lies the most profound cause of many misunderstandings -- even on the part of the "intelligent design" school in the U.S.A. God is not clockmaker; he is not a constructor of machines, but a Creator of natures. The world is not a mechanical clock, not some vast machine, nor even a mega-computer, but rather, as Jacques Maritain said, "une republique des natures", "a republic of natures."

In order to talk meaningfully about the Creator having a "design", we have to retrieve the concept of "nature", an understanding of which we have largely lost today, and which has been replaced by a technical and mechanistic understanding of living things.

The Renaissance Priest

Great story from the Catholic News Agency on the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.

The Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio has been undergoing a renaissance of its own in the past few years, with enrollment increasing significantly and seven dioceses sending seminarians there for the first time. They are learning how to be what the Josephinum’s rector, Father James Wehner, STD, describes as a priestly, 21st-century version of a Renaissance man.

As Fr. Wehner defines it, “The Renaissance priest is both a man of culture and a man of faith, propagating the mission of the Church in a language, method, and ministry accessible to the people of God.”

That vision has attracted an increasing number of young men to the Josephinum since Fr. Wehner was appointed rector in 2009 after being pastor of a large church in suburban Pittsburgh and spending six years as rector of the Pittsburgh diocesan seminary.

Enrollment at the Josephinum has increased 53 percent since his arrival, growing from 118 to this year’s total of 185, the seminary’s highest total since the 1970s. Students range in age from 17 to their early 50s. Since the Josephinum is a national seminary, they come from nearly 30 dioceses in the U.S.

Who are these men?

Several, such as first-year student Nathaniel Glenn of Phoenix, had their pick of schools from throughout the nation. They chose the Josephinum because they felt a possible calling to be a priest and believed it was the best place to discern God’s will.

“A lot of my friends said to me, ‘You’re too smart and too talented to be going to a seminary,’” said Glenn, a National Merit Scholarship finalist who turned down nearly $450,000 in scholarship offers from schools such as Texas Tech, Alabama, Arizona, and Arizona State “I told them they had the wrong idea of what a seminary is. It’s somewhere we should be sending our best men. We need smart priests.”

Yes! But what about formation and the true vocation of a priest?

Fr. Wehner said the Josephinum’s mission is defined by three main concepts: Renaissance priesthood as described above, spiritual fatherhood, and the new evangelization as proclaimed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

He explained spiritual fatherhood by saying “priests don’t surrender the natural vocation all men have to provide nuptial, generative, spousal love. Priestly celibacy consecrates the natural order of man to the supernatural love of God. It does not deny the masculinity that is part of a man’s nature, but places it in a special context. This is important in today’s culture, where sexuality is defined in a perverse way.”

Fr. Wehner said that a Renaissance priest, “as the initial new evangelizer, exercises pastoral ministry in culture, with an understanding of what the Church is asking from him and of what the faithful expect from their priest. He can’t be afraid of meeting people wherever they can be found, but has to go beyond the world of the parish and into areas like the marketplace, prisons, or the places where addicts are. The 21st-century priest needs to be man enough to bring the Gospel everywhere people need to hear it.”

Students at all levels of the Josephinum go into the secular world every Thursday afternoon during the school year, teaching at Columbus-area Catholic schools, taking part in activities such as the Special Olympics, and paying visits to the sick in hospitals and nursing homes and to prisoners at the Marion Correctional Institution.

And what about the daily prayer life and spiritual formation?

Besides classroom time, the weekly apostolic works program, and daily meals, the weekday schedule includes practice sessions for those involved in the Josephinum choir and schola or other musical organizations, one-hour weekly formation conferences one night a week with Father Wehner or faculty members speaking in depth on a particular topic, Evening Prayer at 5:45 p.m., and Night Prayer (optional on most evenings but required on some) at 9.

A Holy Hour is offered seven days a week and also is optional most days and required occasionally, In addition, there are ample opportunities to receive the Sacrament of Penance or to meditate in any of the institution’s four chapels, dedicated to St. Turibius, St. Rose of Lima, St. Joseph, and St. Pius X.

The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (the “Latin Mass”) is celebrated twice a month, and there is a weekly Mass in Spanish that’s part of a larger Hispanic formation program. An English-immersion program is offered for international students.

Seminarians also are exposed to a wide range of devotions including Eucharistic processions and weekly recitation of the Rosary, and they can join fraternities such as the Knights of Columbus, which recently began a campus chapter.

Please pray for these men and for vocations.

Faith and the Scientific Imagination

Interesting article by science fiction writer John C. Wright.

Science fiction is not science. Science fiction is the imaginative attempt to investigate (and, yes, to play with) the ideas suggested by the modern, scientific, Darwinian world-view. Science fiction is a game of the imagination: it asks us to extrapolate the wonders of a naturalistic universe. There are no gods and no magic in a science fiction story properly so-called. Adding these elements makes it a fantasy, or, at least, a space opera or some other “soft” form of science fiction. Hard science fiction, the core of the genre, is naturalistic, and based on the Darwinian view of an evolving universe, ruled by chance, but explicable through reason.

... Now, it is no condemnation of science fiction to say it is naturalistic. For that matter, detective stories and Westerns are naturalistic, or, at least, I can think of no whodunit solved through prayer and miracle, and I never read a Western where ghosts were banished by an exorcist armed with bell, book, and candle. What makes science fiction an oddity in naturalistic fiction is this frequent tendency to seek out supernatural themes.

Read the whole article.

Save the Liturgy, Save the World

How we celebrate the liturgy in our parish communities is of utmost importance. With the disintegration of the liturgy comes a disintegration of Catholic identity, and with that, a community that tears itself apart. Fortunately, proper celebration of the liturgy was and is something very close to the pope's heart. From Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), from "Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977":

I am convinced that the crisis in the [Roman] Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to be conceived of "etsi Deus non daretur": in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not He speaks to us and hears us. But when the community of faith, the world-wide unity of the Church and her history, and the mystery of the living Christ are no longer visible in the liturgy, where else, then, is the Church to become visible in her spiritual essence? Then the community is celebrating only itself, an activity that is utterly fruitless. And, because the ecclesial community cannot have its origin from itself but emerges as a unity only from the Lord, through faith, such circumstances will inexorably result in a disintegration into sectarian parties of all kinds - partisan opposition within a Church tearing herself apart. This is why we need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.

Have I been a witness to this? Absolutely, yes. I am utterly humbled that I am now a witness to this liturgical renewal and new Liturgical Movement about which the pope speaks - to see the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council blossom.

What is the Church?

Paragraph 760 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church." God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "convocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church.

And the Church is the primary means through which Christ gives us, by grace, the supreme gift of Himself, making us partakers of His own Divine Life. The Catechism here references the The Shepherd of Hermas (Vision 2, Ch. 4), a document of the early church written sometime in the 1st or 2nd century:

Now a revelation was given to me, my brethren, while I slept, by a young man of comely appearance, who said to me, "Who do you think that old woman is from whom you received the book?" And I said, "The Sibyl." "You are in a mistake," says he; "it is not the Sibyl." "Who is it then?" say I. And he said, "It is the Church." And I said to him, "Why then is she an old woman?" "Because," said he, "she was created first of all. On this account is she old. And for her sake was the world made."

Blessed Jacinta Marto

I believe that the Fatima message is reflected in microcosm by the life of little Jacinta Marto. Jacinta, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000, was Lúcia's cousin and the sister of Francisco Marto. She was only seven years old when the Fatima events took place in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. I say that the Fatima message is reflected by her in microcosm, because, even as a playful and affectionate young girl, her life was deeply transformed by God's call to repentance and reparation as delivered by Mary, the great Mother of God who shows us her Son. Little Jacinta died at the age of nine, just a few days before her 10th birthday, a victim of the Spanish Flu Pandemic.

According to those who knew her throughout these events, including Lúcia, both Jacinta and her brother Francisco had developed a keen sense of propriety with regard to prayer. She loved to play and dance, yet Jacinta also knew when it was time to be serious. She understood, as all of the children did, the importance of serious prayer and the call to holiness, and she impressed this upon everyone around her. She willingly embraced sacrifices and mortifications for the sake of others. There is a story that is told about the time when the little Jacinta was imprisoned by the local officials along with her brother, Francisco, and their cousin, Lúcia. The three children were placed in a common cell along with other criminals. Lúcia tells the story of what happened:

[The prisoners] asked if we knew how to dance. We said we knew the "fandango" and the "vira". Jacinta's partner was a poor thief who, finding her so tiny, picked her up and went on dancing with her in his arms! We only hope that our Lady has had pity on his soul and converted him.

And what happened later:

Jacinta took off a medal that she was wearing around her neck, and asked a prisoner to hang it up for her on a nail in the wall. Kneeling before this medal, we began to pray. The prisoners prayed with us, that is, if they knew how to pray, but at least they were down on their knees... While we were saying the Rosary in prison, [Francisco] noticed that one of the prisoners was on his knees with his cap still on his head. Francisco went up to him and said, "If you wish to pray, you should take your cap off." Right away, the poor man handed it to him and he went over and put it on the bench on top of his own.

Jacinta was often moved to tears when the Passion was retold and also loved to contemplate the Crucifixion. She was keenly aware that something had changed inside of her. She is recorded to have said:

I love Our Lord so much! At times, I seem to have a fire in my heart, but it does not burn me.

And before her death, she explained:

I wish I could put into everybody the fire that I have here in my heart which makes me love the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary so much!

Jacinta knew that she would eventually die alone in the hospital. Dr. Enrico Lisboa, a Lisbon physician, submitted the following deposition following her death:

On the evening of that 20th of February, at about 6 o'clock, Jacinta said that she felt worse and wished to receive the sacraments. The parish priest (Dr. Pereira dos Reis) was called and he heard her confession about 8 o'clock that night. I was told that Jacinta had insisted that the Blessed Sacrament be brought to her as Viaticum but that Dr. Reis had not concurred because she seemed fairly well. He promised to bring her Holy Communion in the morning. Jacinta again asked for Viaticum saying that she would shortly die and, indeed, she died that night, peacefully, but without having received Holy Communion.

I think we would do well to meditate on the brief life of little Jacinta Marto and fervently seek her prayerful intercession. She is a particularly special model for young children to look to. She understood more about the deep mysteries of the Faith before age ten than most people do before age 50. Echoing the Lord in Matthew's Gospel, all I can say is, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes."

Dappled Things: counter, original, spare, strange

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

-- "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Irenaeus: The Eucharist Establishes Our Opinion

The witness of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century) in his epic work "Against Heresies" is one of my favorite texts of the Early Church. I have blogged many times on the subject of Irenaeus, and every time I study his work, I am always surprised with what I find. His writing provides a very unique perspective into the life of the Church in the 2nd century.

Man is created body and soul, a complete union of flesh and spirit. "Against Heresies" was composed largely to treat the question of the Gnostics who posed a duality and denied the inherent goodness of the flesh: the flesh, which is evil, could never be brought to partake in eternal life. However, Irenaeus points out their inconsistency by pointing them toward the Eucharist. Just as God can transform created things (bread and wine) into his own Body and Blood for our nourishment, so too can God transform our bodies when we receive that nourishment, giving it a divine character and a share in divine life. The Eucharist is proof of this, and the Resurrection is its culmination.

Central to this is the understanding that when the Church offers the Eucharist, it offers a true Sacrifice, something it received from the apostles who received it from Christ. Like Melchizedek, we offer bread and wine, the first-fruits of created things, and God transforms them into the Body and Blood of Christ who was offered once for sin and who was resurrected, the first-fruits of the New Creation, in which we are made partakers. In that way, we participate in and proclaim the One Sacrifice of Christ and also His Resurrection from the dead. From Ch. 17 of Book IV of "Against Heresies":

Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of His own, created things (not as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither unfruitful nor ungrateful), He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, This is My body. And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world...

Picking this up into the next chapter, Irenaeus turns toward the Gnostics (Ch. 18):

.... But how can [these Gnostics] be consistent with themselves, [when they say] that the bread over which thanks have been given is the body of their Lord, and the cup His blood, if they do not call Himself the Son of the Creator of the world, that is, His Word, through whom the wood fructifies, and the fountains gush forth, and the earth gives first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

Then, again, how can [the Gnostics] say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.

Bingo. Why are the Gnostics wrong? Because the Eucharist confirms their inconsistency and their incoherency. Let them therefore either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the Eucharist. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, pray for us!

Second Grade Chant Schola

Here is a really short video featuring the Second Grade Chant Schola at St. Theresa Catholic School in Sugar Land, TX (my parish school). Latin isn't so hard... for kids these days :)

Catholic Studies at Aquinas College

I would like to call your attention to the very excellent Catholic Studies program at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The program was developed by Dr. John Pinheiro, professor of history, who also just so happens to have been one of my high school religion teachers (15 years ago now). The Catholic Studies program looks quote solid and truly fun, from the looks of it, with classes and colloquia exploring a variety of topics (including "Mathematics and Theology" and also the thought of J.R.R. Tolkien). The program also has a Facebook page. Dr. Pinheiro blogs at History for Smarties. Check it out!

The New Roman Missal and Restoration of Metaphor

On April 25th at the Midwest Theological Forum in Valparaiso, Indiana, Bishop James Conley (Denver) delivered a speech concerning on the forthcoming New Translation of the Roman Missal, which will be launched officially on the First Sunday of Advent of this year. Bishop Conley has much to say concerning the importance of the new translation in restoring themes and metaphors that were obscured or eliminated in the translation currently in place. He makes several good points:

There is a banal, pedestrian quality to much of the language in our current liturgy. The weakness in the language gets in the way and prevents us from experiencing the sublime spiritual and doctrinal ideas woven into the fabric of the liturgy.
The translators had well-meaning pastoral intentions. They wanted to make the liturgy intelligible and relevant to modern Catholics. To that end, they employed a translation principle they called “dynamic equivalence.”

In practice, this led them to produce an English translation that in many places is essentially a didactic paraphrase of the Latin. In the process, the language of our Eucharistic worship — so rich in scriptural allusion, poetic metaphor and rhythmic repetition — came to be flattened out and dumbed down.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra, Australia has observed that our current translation “consistently bleaches out metaphor, which does scant justice to the highly metaphoric discourse” of the liturgy.

This describes the problem well.

Archbishop Coleridge, by the way, is a translator by training. He headed the committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) that produced the new translation we will begin using in Advent. He has pointed out serious theological difficulties with our current translations, including problems related to ecclesiology and the theology of grace.

The key point here is that the words we pray matter. What we pray makes a difference in what we believe. Our prayer has implications for how we grasp the saving truths that are communicated to us through the liturgy.

For instance, our current translation almost always favors abstract nouns to translate physical metaphors for God. If the Latin prayer refers to the “face” of God, “face” will be translated in abstract conceptual terms, such as “presence.” References to God’s “right hand” will be translated as God’s “power.” This word choice has deep theological implications. The point of the Son of God becoming flesh is that God now has a human face — the face of Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Whoever sees him sees the Father. Yet if in our worship we speak of God only in abstract terms, then effectively we are undermining our faith in the Incarnation.

Indeed. I fully expect that the new translation will produce very interesting results. My hope is that parish priests and administrators will use the opportunity to teach about the beautiful theology unlocked by the new translation rather than let people fall into confusion and alienation.

So what is the real problem with the current translation? Essentially it is less mystical and far too didactic. Bishop Conley continues:

I think the root problem with the translations we have now is that the translators seriously misunderstood the nature of the divine liturgy. Our current translations treat the liturgy basically as a tool for doing catechesis. That’s why our prayers so often sound utilitarian and didactic; often they have a kind of lowest-common-denominator type of feel. That’s because the translators were trying to make the “message” of the Mass accessible to the widest possible audience. But Christ did not give us the liturgy to be a message-delivery system. Of course, we pray what we believe, and what we pray shapes what we believe. Lex orandi, lex credendi. But the liturgy is not meant to “teach” in the same way that a catechism teaches, or even in the same way that a homily teaches.

Precisely. What then is the purpose of liturgy?

On this point, the words of the great liturgical pioneer, Father Romano Guardini, are worth hearing again: The liturgy wishes to teach, but not by means of an artificial system of aim-conscious educational influences. It simply creates an entire spiritual world in which the soul can live according to the requirements of its nature. …. The liturgy creates a universe brimming with fruitful spiritual life, and allows the soul to wander about in it at will and to develop itself there. …. The liturgy has no purpose, or at least, it cannot be considered from the standpoint of purpose. It is not a means which is adapted to attain a certain end — it is an end in itself. This is the authentic spirit of the liturgy.

As Guardini says, the liturgy aims to create a new world for believers to dwell in. A sanctified world where the dividing lines between the human and the divine are erased. Guardini’s vision is beautiful: “The liturgy creates a universe brimming with fruitful spiritual life.”

This is why the words we use are important, and why the new translation is an essential step in authentic liturgical reform.

The new translation of the Mass restores this sense of the liturgy as transcendent and transformative. It restores the sacramentality to our liturgical language. The new translation reflects the reality that our worship here joins in the worship of heaven. The new edition of the Missal seeks to restore the ancient sense of our participation in the cosmic liturgy.

Conley mentions several examples of this, but I particular favor the one concerning the epiclesis in Eucharistic Prayer II

Currently we pray:

Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The new translation restores the repetitive language and the biblical metaphor found in the Latin text:

Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Restoring the Latin here gives us a much richer prayer. It also stresses that the liturgy is not our work, but the work of God, who sends down his Spirit from heaven. The key word is “dewfall,” rore in the Latin. It is a poetic metaphor that is filled with Scriptural significance. Of course, the allusion here is to how God fed his chosen people with manna that he sent down from heaven with the morning dew. We are also meant to associate this with Christ calling the Eucharist the true manna, the true “bread which comes down from heaven".

Read the whole speech. It definitely seems there is a resistance to the mystical and incomprehensible in today's world, particularly in the West. If you've ever participated at an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic liturgy, you see right away just how different the approach is to the mystical and ineffable. Eastern liturgy captures this very well. In the West, folks expect to be able to see and comprehend everything they experience and have great difficulty embracing mystery... those things that aren't easily grasped or are impossible to comprehend.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us

From the very ancient Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:

Holy God, You dwell among Your saints. You are praised by the Seraphim with the thrice holy hymn and glorified by the Cherubim and worshiped by all the heavenly powers. You have brought all things out of nothing into being. You have created man and woman in Your image and likeness and adorned them with all the gifts of Your grace.

You give wisdom and understanding to the supplicant and do not overlook the sinner but have established repentance as the way of salvation. You have enabled us, Your lowly and unworthy servants, to stand at this hour before the glory of Your holy altar and to offer to You due worship and praise.

Master, accept the thrice holy hymn also from the lips of us sinners and visit us in Your goodness. Forgive our voluntary and involuntary transgressions, sanctify our souls and bodies, and grant that we may worship and serve You in holiness all the days of our lives, by the intercessions of the holy Theotokos and of all the saints who have pleased You throughout the ages.

For You are holy, our God, and to You we give glory, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.

Blessed are You on the throne of glory of Your kingdom, seated upon the Cherubim, now and forever and to the ages of ages!

More True than the Truth?

There are too many who put their faith in their own understanding of things, or who seek with intellectual pride to propose that they have found something more true than the simplest of truths. Some ancient Christian wisdom from early writer St. Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century):

Some people abandon the teachings of the Church and fail to understand how a simple and devout person can have more worth than a philosopher who blasphemes without restraint. Heretics are like that.

Heretics are always wanting to find something more true than the truth. They are always choosing new and unreliable ways. Yet like the blind led by the blind, they will fall into the abyss of ignorance by their own fault.

The Church is like paradise on earth. ‘You may eat freely of the fruit of every tree in the garden,’ says the Spirit of God. In our case he means: Feed on the whole of Scripture, but do not do it with intellectual pride, and do not swallow the opinions of the heretics. They pretend to possess the knowledge of good and evil, but they are impiously elevating their own intelligence above their Creator.

Beware! By devouring the ideas of the heretics we banish ourselves from the paradise of life.

Excerpted from Against Heresies, Book V, Ch. 20

Who do you say that I am?

From an essay written by philosopher Peter Kreeft, courtesy of Ignatius Insight. I can't tell you how many folks I have encountered over the years who, while withdrawing from Christianity and from any profession of Jesus as divine, nevertheless insist that Jesus was still a good man. Yet, these folks don't consider that either Jesus was who He said He was, namely, God, or He was, quite simply, a liar and a fraud - anything but a good man. It's as simple as that. Peter Kreeft gives an analysis:

The doctrine of Christ's divinity is the central Christian doctrine, for it is like a skeleton key that opens all the others. Christians have not independently reasoned out and tested each of the teachings of Christ, received via Bible and Church, but believe them all on his authority. For if Christ is divine, he can be trusted to be infallible In everything he said, even hard things like exalting suffering and poverty, forbidding divorce, giving his Church the authority to teach and forgive sins in his name, warning about hell (very often and very seriously), instituting the scandalous sacrament of eating his flesh-we often forget how many "hard sayings" he taught!

When the first Christian apologists began to give a reason for the faith that was in them to unbelievers, this doctrine of Christ's divinity naturally came under attack, for it was almost as incredible to Gentiles as it was scandalous to Jews. That a man who was born out of a woman's womb and died on a cross, a man who got tired and hungry and angry and agitated and wept at his friend's tomb, that this man who got dirt under his fingernails should be God was, quite simply, the most astonishing, incredible, crazy-sounding idea that had ever entered the mind of man in all human history.

The argument the early apologists used to defend this apparently indefensible doctrine has become a classic one. C. S. Lewis used it often, e.g., in Mere Christianity, the book that convinced Chuck Colson (and thousands of others). I once spent half a book (Between Heaven and Hell) on this one argument alone. It is the most important argument in Christian apologetics, for once .in unbeliever accepts the conclusion of this argument (that Christ is divine), everything else in the Faith follows, not only intellectually (Christ's teachings must all then be true) but also personally (if Christ is God, he is also your total Lord and Savior).

The argument, like all effective arguments, is extremely simple: Christ was either God or a bad man.

Unbelievers almost always say he was a good man, not a bad man; that he was a great moral teacher, a sage, a philosopher, a moralist, and a prophet, not a criminal, not a man who deserved to be crucified. But a good man is the one thing he could not possibly have been according to simple common sense and logic. For he claimed to be God. He said, "Before Abraham was, I Am", thus speaking the word no Jew dares to speak because it is God's own private name, spoken by God himself to Moses at the burning bush. Jesus wanted everyone to believe that he was God. He wanted people to worship him. He claimed to forgive everyone's sins against everyone. (Who can do that but God, the One offended in every sin?)

Read the whole thing.