Arrival : The Parousian Weblog

Spirituality of Advent: What are you waiting for?

2010-11-30T08:57:00.001-06:00

Throughout scripture we can discern a theology of waiting. In the Old Testament God waits on his people to return to him. In every age He endures our unfaithfulness. Yet our falleness makes waiting on God unbearable at times. Frequent prayer, mass, and adoration easily become inconveniences to daily living. And, though very often we convince ourselves otherwise, what we are communicating through our actions to our God is that He is not worth our time. We'd rather spend our time otherwise. After all we are important people and we have many important things to accomplish that takes precedence over spending time with God. And when we do spend time with God, sometimes its motivated by selfish reasons. How often do we expect God to answer us immediately when we do call out for him? How quickly do we expect him to solve our problems? How frustrated do we become when he seems silent to our sufferings? "Why do we complain about God, Who has more reason to complain about all of us?" (Salvian).

Advent is indicative of the spirituality of the Old Testament. The entire Old Testament is an anticipation and foreshadowing of Christ. We are called to reflect on the experience of waiting on God's faithfulness to redeem our falleness. We must always be prepared for the coming of God. Truly Christ has already come (incarnation), and as he continues to come (Eucharist) he will come again (Final Judgment). As our spiritual ancestors waited for God to fulfill the Old Testament covenental promises, we are called to spiritually reflect on their experience that we may be able to recognize, receive, and respond to God's grace when it is manifested.

Sadly, sometimes we do not really want a God of infinite wisdom, but a divine vending machine whose buttons we can manipulate with our petitions to satisfy our demands. True patience, and thus true hope flows from love. When we love and trust God we realize that His will shall prevail, and that this will be a glorious thing that we should welcome wholeheartedly. We pray, "Lord, not as I will, but as you will." We become much more concerned as to whether our will is conforming to God's. We say, "Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray and guide the desires of my heart." In this way we avoid a relationship of manipulation. By waiting on God we should learn to treat his responses to our prayers (even the silences) as a gift and not with a disposition of entitlement.

Look towards the children who immediately receive everything they want whenever they want from others. They become very selfish and it becomes very difficult for them to receive anything with a spirit of gratitude. Appeasement is a bad parenting practice for it doesn't teach responsibility. Quite literally such spoiled individuals lack the ability to respond properly to gifts which screws up their ability to love. They are never able to properly receive a gift of love and thus they cannot properly give a gift of love. Bottom line is that God is wiser than us and we should conform to his will rather than trying to get him to conform to ours.

At pivotal points throughout scripture and all of history, God’s people are met with silence. A prominent example of this is when Israel, after many centuries of being displaced during the Diaspora and subjected to a series of different rulers yearn for God’s answer to their plea for restoration and the fulfillment of his promises. “Israel is living once more in the darkness of divine absence; God is silent, seemingly forgetful of the promises of Abraham and David, the old lament is heard once more: We no longer have any prophets, God seems to have abandoned his people” (Benedict XVI). During this time God’s people were experiencing the spirituality of advent where their waiting constitutes a prayer of great longing and anticipation. In the silence they wait for God.

We must learn how to put ourselves in God’s time frame rather than expecting him to work on our own. Very often we are not ready for what God wants to accomplish for us and in us. We must wait and prepare our hearts. To use an analogy of St. Augustine that I've heard via Fr. Robert Barron (the video is below), sometimes God delays the answering of prayer in order that the heart of the person may expand and receive what God wants to give. We ask and God makes us promises but often the heart isn’t big enough to receive, but as we faithfully wait the heart grows larger and more receptive so that when God is ready, we might also be ready.

The silence of God in the Old Testament foreshadows his plan of salvation when he enters into the silence of the human condition through the Incarnation.The peaceful silence of the nativity contrasts greatly with the violent silence of Calvary. This silence of Christ culminates on the cross when he silently allows himself to be slaughtered and enters into the silence of the grave, into the silence of death so that he may destroy silence through the Resurrection. May all our spiritual advents be a preparation inviting Christ to enter into the silence of our own lives that we may receive what God wants to give us.

Dorothy Day: Bridging the Gap

2010-11-29T20:50:00.001-06:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of (Servant of God) Dorothy Day. There are few figures in American Catholicism who manage simultaneously to balance radicality with orthodoxy, activity with contemplation, or liberality with poverty -- Dorothy Day was such a figure.That Dorothy spent her life -- even before she was a Catholic -- defending the poor, the worker, the homeless, the disenfranchised is well-known; addressing injustice was her life's work. And yet, haven't these activities, in a certain detached sense, become somewhat trite to us? To say she defended the poor, to say she fought for justice, to say she lived voluntary poverty -- how much of these phrases has become, for most of us, a snazzy phrase we use to gild the grit of the saint's life? To apotheosize a life spent in the real world, full of grime and sin? Not to say her works lose their beauty, but that they begin to mean so little to us being 30-years removed. Certainly Dorothy Day has had many wonderful eulogies -- her work is not, as far as I know, a mystery. But how is she relevant today? In Advent 2010? How can her example bear fruit in our lives, not as a nod to make ourselves feel better, but as a call to conversion?

Perhaps such questions are a bit daunting for this little meditation. With that in mind, I'd like to offer the role Dorothy Day has played in my own conversion. As you, reader, may or may not know, I was confirmed Easter 2007. Upon entering the Church, I was a confused liberal: a vegetarian, pacifist, socialistic, tramping, poor little college student with a new idea every five minutes. I had been confirmed in the Holy Spirit and received our Lord in the Eucharist, and yet the "world was too much" with me -- I could not brook the seething Republican Catholicism with which I was confronted; could not understand why more people hadn't embraced the poverty espoused in Matthew 19:21; couldn't assuage my conscience which told me war was a horrid, heinous defeat for humanity, or that capitalism was a "dirty, rotten system." I was in a difficult spot: I had been entranced by the Beauty, Reason, and Order of the Church, and yet I found much of her milieu to be disheartening. I was as faithful a Catholic as I knew how to be, and still found myself on the fringe. And yet, that is where Dorothy met me: on the fringe.

Dorothy, for me, was an anomalous figure -- a Catholic pacifist and anarchist, who derided capitalism, but was not a communist; an outspoken woman who faithfully adhered to all the creed while vociferously rampaging against the cruelties of her time. When I began to read about her and Peter Maurin (who, I must sheepishly admit, remains more of a hero in my heart than even Dorothy), I was inspired, I was filled with hope, I was vivified. Her Personalist Ethic, Pacifism, Voluntary Poverty and Love of the Poor -- all spoke to my heart that I need not despair; that there was, despite many voices to the contrary, a place for guys like me in the Church. Dorothy and Peter thus became not only my inspiration but my guiding light -- in them, I saw the "bleeding heart" of a liberal, not destroyed by grace, but perfected. Because the heart full of compassion for the lost and indignation for the abused is not to be smothered out -- but the fire needs the fireplace, the wild vine needs tending. The Church thus molded Dorothy, and Dorothy thus molded me.

This perfection of the liberal's heart is what I think Dorothy has most to contribute today. Not as though her contribution to American Pacifism isn't enormous, or that her example of true love and solidarity with the poor isn't astounding; but rather, that Dorothy's gift, as I see it, is to be the saint that stands in the gap between the Church and the liberal. The world is positively brimming with well-intentioned people, crunchy-cons and bleeding heart liberals alike, who have a desire for justice and equality, not merely as it relates to performing works of mercy, but as it relates to the structures of society itself. But they, like their estranged conservative cousins (without whose stability we would be lost, I'd wager), need the guiding hand of the Church, to shape them, prune them, and teach them true justice, true equality free from the errors of modernism. And so for me, and for many other liberals who have found their way into the Holy Catholic Church, Dorothy is a bridge and a friend. She is an image of the machinations of grace upon the liberal heart, showing us that there is indeed, as Peter Maurin said, more "dynamite" within the Church than without.

By her life, Dorothy reflects, in a particular way, for a particular time, the work of Christ throughout history: to bring the outskirts of mankind into the work of his Incarnation; to embody "grace and truth" in a period which needs certain graces and certain truths; an "antidote," as Chesterton phrases it. And thus was Dorothy Day for the 20th century and its liberals: a word of grace and truth to those who, in perhaps the world's darkest hour, desired the light of economic justice, freedom from the brutal obliteration of war, and liberation from the oppression of the State.

May Servant of God Dorothy Day pray for us, liberals and conservatives alike! And may her canonization come quickly!

"Far and Away" and Here Today

2010-11-04T10:13:00.007-05:00

Since we have just had political elections here in the United States, I thought it might be a suitable time to make a post regarding some political topics; however, just to make it interesting I'm putting this discussion within the framework of a work of artistic criticism. Specifically, I'm going to attempt to draw out the themes of Distributism which I see reflected in the 1992 film Far and Away, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. (That being said, this article contains spoilers for the movie, so if you want to see it, you should probably avoid reading on until you do.) I think this approach is useful because it expresses both the fact that artistic expression can passively give birth to a bubbling forth of truths of the human condition in a wide variety of areas and can also, actively, demonstrate how artistic media can be useful as a vehicle for the propagation of the Catholic faith and teachings if you in an appropriate manner.

The film itself opens, finding us in Ireland in the late 19th century with a title card which reads: "The tenant farmers, after generations of oppression and poverty, have begun to rebel against the unfair rents and cruel evictions imposed upon them by their wealthy landlords." And it is this concept the brings us specifically to Joseph Donnelly (Cruise), a young man working on the farm which he shares with his father (who is fatally wounded in the opening scene) and brothers, rented from a landlord who lives far off. Joseph is immediately characterised by the opening action in which he struggles to work his rented fields while his brothers taunt him and, speaking of his "grand ambitions" his brother says to him: “Ambition is it? To break your back on land that isn’t your own?”

With such a thought in mind we can turn our attention to the words of Pope Leo XII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891):

If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life.

In this particular instance, of course, the focus is placed on the second aspect described here, namely that men will work diligently and joyfully on their own property to a greater extent than the land of another. This concept is shown quite clearly in the case of Joseph's brothers, who would rather drink and fight than bother working the land, with specific reference to their lack of ownership.

As the film progresses, the agents of the landlord arrive and burn down the Donnellys' farm due to a failure to pay their rent. As a result, Joseph sets out to exact revenge by murdering the landlord. To make a long story short, it doesn't go according to plan and Joseph ends up a prisoner in the landlord's house awaiting a duel the next morning against the man who burned down his farm. However, in the night, the daughter of the landlord, Shannon (Kidman), enters the room and offers him the prospect of coming with her to America where, she informs him, they give away land for free. Incredulous, Joseph informs her: "I'm of Ireland and I'll stay in Ireland til I die!" This brings us to the third of the statement of Leo XIII, that a man would not abandon his own country if it could give him sufficient support. However, it seems that Joseph violates this principle, desiring to stay in is country despite the fact that he has no property of means of his own. However, the next morning shows the reality of Pope Leo's words, as Joseph ultimately relents and heads to America with Shannon, realising he has nothing left for him in Ireland save for fear of death.

Ultimately, the pair end up in Boston and become affiliated with dangerous criminals who provide them with a place to live and jobs. Ultimately, Joseph begins to engage in boxing matches for them and comes into a number of material luxuries as a result of his success. However, when he loses an important fight (notably as a result of being distracted by inappropriate advances of one of his employers against Shannon, whom he seeks to defend), all this material prosperity is proven to have been an illusion--immediately they are ejected from their boarding house, driven away from employment and shunned by their former patrons.

This is ultimately the untenable situation of the vast majority of wage labourers under the system of capitalism who live their lives at the whim of those wealthy patrons who provide their salaries. This should be regarded as especially relevant to people in the United States, a country in which in 2001 a mere 1% of the population owned 38% of the wealth (if we look at the top 20% we find that they control over 80% of the wealth) and the bottom 40% owned less than 1%--a situation which has only grown more extreme in the intervening years. Furthermore, we have to bear in mind that a significant number of the people in that bottom 40% own literally nothing--their net worth is below zero, in that they owe more than they possess. The situation of individuals in this position is literally no different from that of Joseph and Shannon in the movie. How is this equitable? How is this just? What is the solution?

Well, Far and Away has a solution. And that solution is a wider distribution of productive property. This is envisioned in the idea of the free land grab in the Oklahoma territory--where everyone, the rich and the poor alike, theoretically have an equal chance to attain possession of land. This is particularly emphasised by the fact that we see Shannon's family--the wealthy landlords from Ireland--come to the United States to participate in the same land grab race with Joseph after revolting peasants destroy their manor in Ireland. And what does that bring us to but Pope Leo XIII's last remaining point: if the poor have a chance to gain possession of land, a bridge will be built between the social classes who will grown nearer to each other.

This is exemplified in two ways in the film: first, the relative equality of Shannon's wealthy family and the poor Joseph in their attempt to claim land in the Oklahoma territory where they will be, essentially, neighbors in possession of an equal amount of productive property. And finally, in Shannon's decision to be with Joseph rather than the more wealthy man to whom she was originally paired. The union of these individuals exemplifies the union of classes brought together by the appropriate distribution of land, as emphasised in their jointly driving in the stake which declares their ownership of the land they have chosen together.

Now, I have a couple of other points to make which I think really drive this movie over the top in this respect. The first is when Joseph attempts to defend Shannon against the advances of his corrupt employer during his great boxing match, which ultimately results in the lose of his material prosperity. I greatly enjoyed this scene because it emphasises a point which I think is largely lost in politics and economics today--that is, that they are not natural sciences. Rather, politics and economics are branches of moral science and they should, at their foundation, be regarded as dealing with people and not with objects. Is great material wealth worth the manipulation and exploitation of even a single individual? I think that if we are morally honest with ourselves, we must say no. So, even though winning the boxing match would be enough to secure for Joseph the wealth with which he could attain his dream of property ownership, if the price of attaining that economic vision were to sacrifice of Shannon, a human person, then the price is regarded as simply too steep. Humans are not means to an end, we are ends in ourselves!

The second scene which gave me great delight is the final scene. In a struggle with the other man seeking Shannon's romantic affections, Joseph is thrown to the ground and injures his head on a rock. As Shannon hovers over his body, begging him to live, the camera gives the impression that Joseph's soul is leaving his body and he is dead. However, at a few simple words, Joseph's soul rushes back and he is instantly revived and their dream is ultimately realised as they claim their land together as one. And what are those words which call him back? "I loved you." And this is the essence of the entire political, social and economic vision of the film, in my opinion: without love, not only is the entire process of social reform completely worthless, it is also fruitless. In fact, I limit too much, I think by saying social reform. No form of politics or economics--existing or reformed--is worthy of preservation if it is not founded on this simply fact.

So let us take this message away from this little movie of Ron Howard: let us love one another, not in a vague and sentimental way, but in way which finds its expression in sacrifice and self-gift to one another; where instead of trying to cheat one another and outdo one another, we embrace life of charity for our fellow men; and ultimately let us follow that path of love to the social, economic and political structures that are most congruent with that fundamental truth, like the natural fruit of a great and giving tree. Let us live lives based entirely in love.

The Catholic Creation of Hollywood's Golden Age, or How the Church Saved the Movies, Part Three

2010-10-28T22:17:00.012-05:00

Part One is available here.

Part Two is available here.

The beginning of the American Catholic church's interest in cinema dates back to the beginning of the art form itself. However, the Catholic Church's leadership in America was fractured, divided between different dioceses. There was no national body to speak with a unified voice for the American Church until 1917, with the founding of the National War Council, the first national Catholic body in America. American bishops formed it to respond to the nation's request for chaplains needed for the Great War (World War I) and to preserve the faith and morality of Catholics in the military and those women living near bases. Pretty soon this organization became involved in the movies. This group's first exposure to film involved issues with hygiene films produced by the government for service personnel. After organizing opposition from within the Church, the National War Council was successful in pulling certain films it found objectionable from distribution. Following the war, the group changed its name to the National Catholic Welfare Council in 1919 and then the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) in 1922.

Following its success during World War I in preventing troops and the general public from viewing objectionable content, in 1919, the NCWC formed a specific committee to deal with the growing film industry: the Motion Picture Committee. While still focusing on hygiene films, it worked with film producers behind the scenes to fund pro-Catholic movies like the unsuccessful effort, “American Catholics in War and Reconstruction.” By 1923, led by Charles McMahon, it began issuing monthly lists of positive films in the NCWC Bulletin, believing that the best way to promote quality films was to educate the public about what were the quality films. At the same time emerged a similar program under the leadership of the Motion Picture Bureau of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae, directed by Rita McGoldrick, a graduate of Rosary College in Illinois. While the NCWC could only evaluate 400 films a year, the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA), which was staffed by volunteers who graduated from Catholic high schools and colleges), could review up to 11,000. The volunteers would rate the films either “good,” “very good,” or “excellent.”

While there were attempts by some dioceses to create “black lists” for immoral films, the NCWC and the IFCA, which supported the efforts of William Hays, stated it was not necessary, especially following the establishment of the Catholic-written Motion Picture Code in 1930 (as discussed in the last part of this series). However, while the Motion Picture Code was in effect, it was ineffective, with some commentators stating that the films produced during this period were less moral than the ones produced even prior to the institution of the code. As Father Daniel Lord wrote, “Crime, lust, the triangle situation, seductions, remained the normal plot of films. I could see not the slightest improvement.” Even Protestants felt betrayed by Hays and the moral code for motion pictures. Pete Harrison, editor of Harrison's Reports, wrote, “Hays made promises to the church people that he would allow no dirt in pictures and failed to keep his promises—and failed miserably.”

This era, extending from 1930 to 1934, is commonly referred to as the “pre-code era.” This is a misnomer. The Motion Picture Code was in effect. However, it just was not enforced.

Two film genres were prevalent during this period: the “gangster” and the “vamp” pictures. Films like Little Caesar, Scarface: the Shame of a Nation, and Public Enemy represent the gangster films of this time. Movies like Blonde Woman, My Sin, Tarnished Lady, Hot Stuff, Baby Face, Hot Stuff, She Done Him Wrong, and I'm No Angel fell into the category of “vamp” or “fallen women” films. (the last two starring the always provocative Mae West). Even noted crime expert, Al Capone, lamented the immorality of films during this period, saying “[T]hey are making a lot of kids want to be tough guys, and they don't serve any useful purpose.”

Trailer for the "Pre-Code" picture "Baby Face" starring Barbara Stanwyck

Social scientists also looked into the effects of motion pictures upon children. A group called the “Payne Fund” conducted an investigation into the influence of film upon children, publishing a twelve volume work stating, scientifically (with graphs and such), how the movies were impacting the nation's youth. A summary of the study, called “Our Movie Made Children,” by Henry James Forman, published in 1933, stated that if the industry continued to be unregulated it “is extremely likely to create a haphazard, promiscuous, and undesirable national conscience.”

By 1932, individuals in the Catholic Church such as Father Lord and Martin Quigley were fed up with the non-enforcement of the Code. Father Lord began looking into films produced since the code went into effect and wrote a pamphlet called “The Motion Pictures Betray America.” In it, he wrote, “It is no longer a matter of single scenes being bad, of occasional 'hells' and 'damns,' or girls in scantly costumes,” but “a whole philosophy of evil... depicted with an explicitness that [has] excited the curriosity of children and the emulation of morons and criminals.” After this pamphlet's publication, Hays threatened Lord with a defamation suit, but it came to naught. Lord continued speaking up against the growing sinfulness of film, with this issue coming to a head when Father Lord spoke in front of five thousand young people in Buffalo. As he states in his autobiography:

“...I threw the outline for my speech away.... I reminded them what they were seeing when they went to the theater, and what effect it was bound to have upon adolescents like themselves.

Then I think my tone rose slightly for I was, without preparation, on the verge of a challenge:

'Nobody else seems to be willing to tackle this job,” I said. “How would you like to clean up the movies?'

There was a moment of surprised silence, then somebody cried out, 'Yes!' then the place thundered with applause, and then we worked out our plan.”

The plan was to create a black list of films to be published in Lord's own “The Queen's Work,” a paper that went out to nearly all the Catholic high schools and colleges in the nation in addition to thousands of other Catholic groups. The list would be published every month, with two or three of the worst offenders, demanding protests and boycotts.

“Stay away from the ones we list,' said Lord. “Write indigent letters of protest to the companies responsible. Make it so hot for the offenders that they'll stop in sheer self-defense.”

Martin Quigley did not approve of these new, more aggressive actions by Father Lord. He felt that the Catholics would have more success maintaining a close working relationship with Hollywood, continuing the white lists of approved motion pictures produced by the NCWC and the IFCA. However, some individuals, like Cardinal Mundelein and Bishop Bernard J. Sheil, saw that Lord's work was proving effective. They saw how successful Father Lord was with the nation's youth and decided a national group of Catholics from all age groups (and Protestants and Jews) organized to protect film morality would be even more effective. Thus, the Catholic (soon to be National) Legion of Decency was formed in Fall 1933. As spoken by Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, “Catholics are called by God, the Pope, the bishops, and the priests to a united front and vigorous campaign for the purification of the cinema, which has become a deadly menace to morals.”

The Legion, with the power of the Catholic press and network of organizations, soon became the most feared institution for film producers in America. Variety claimed that fully half of the nation's 20,000,000 Catholics enlisted in the Legion within a few months. Vowing to not attend immoral films (or even the movie houses in general) Hollywood lost a tremendous amount of revenue. As stated in Chicago's “New World,” “Worn out by promises, tricked by pledges, deceived by codes, and dismayed by filth, the Church has finally decided to take action in the one way left for it-- boycott.”

The Legion of Decency raises its sword against the tentacles of the Hollywood octopus in an editorial cartoon from the Chicago's New World, September 28, 1934.

Scientific studies and the Legion of Decency were not the only pressures upon the motion picture industry in 1933. There was also a new presidential administration in Washington, and one without ties to the former Republican cabinet member, William Hays. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was establishing an alphabet soup of new regulatory agencies to deal with the Great Depression. The administration proposed that the entertainment industry should be regulated by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Film industry representatives began negotiating with the Roosevelt administration, but there seemed to be little hope to avoid the federal regulation the industry had feared for over a decade. The President apparently felt that the motion picture industry needed the “eagle eye” of federal regulation. There was talk of codifying into statute the Motion Picture Code, thus having the force of law behind what was formally an agreement between the studios. Hays and the motion picture industry, surrounded by the government, social scientists, and the Church, needed a solution. He decided to work with the Church, hoping that the other sides would be placated if the Catholics settled down.

Hays turned to one man, Joseph Ignatius Breen, to help him make amends with American Catholics. Joseph I. Breen was not only a Catholic, but he was also from Chicago with close ties to the diocese, In 1925, he was the publicity director for the 28^th International Eucharistic Congress. There he worked closely with Quigley and Cardinal Mundelein (as his personal public relations man). In 1929, he attended the meeting with Quigley and Father Dinnen where the Motion Picture Code was first proposed. By 1931, he was working for the MPPDA as Mr. Hays's assistant and Hollywood's ambassador to the Catholic Church. Trusted by both the Catholic Church and by William Hays, he worked at placating both.

On the fifth of February, 1934, Hays appointed Breen to head the Studio Relations Committee, the committee which had the duty to make sure motion pictures conformed with the Code. Still Breen encountered the ineffectiveness of the existing enforcement program when two motion pictures he denied approval of were successful when appealed to an appeals board made up of Hollywood producers. However, as federal pressure kept up and boycotts led by the National Legion of Decency continued, the MPAA finally decided to take action.

Joseph I. Breen

On June 13, 1934, the Board of Directors of the MPAA met in New York and approved the creation of the Production Code Administration. All films would have to approved by this new administration, under the direction of Breen. All films would be required to obtain a “Certificate of Approval,” a kind of imprimatur for motion pictures. Any production company that did not go through the PCA would be fined $25,000.00 which was soon reorganized as the Production Code Administration. The new PCA would have no appeal board made up of fellow producers. A decision made by the PCA could only be appealed to the MPPDA Board of Directors (located in New York, not in Hollywood). In addition, instead of only reviewing films after production had wrapped, there would be review prior to commencement of production, with the PCA flagging anything in proposed scripts violating the code.

Hays gave Breen and Quigley direction to gain the approval of the Catholic bishops (who were to meet on the 21^st of June) of this new system. Hays told them that “the Catholic authorities can have anything they want.” After reviewing the framework for this new administration and making sure Breen would be in charge of enforcement, the bishops issued a letter stating, in part, that they were victorious as “the producer's jury in Hollywood, a part of the original machinery for enforcement of the Production Code... has been abandoned and that additional local authority (Breen) has been assigned to the Code administration.” On July 11, 1934, the PCA and its authority over motion pictures were formally approved by the major production companies.

Production Code Seal

And so, a two-tiered system to regulate the content of the movies was established. A production company would submit a film to the PCA (the Breen Office) and it would be reviewed for compliance with the Code. The film would be reviewed once more by the Breen office after it was completed, where it would receive a Seal of Approval. At the same time, the production companies would submit a copy of the film to the Legion of Decency where it would receive a rating of A(Morally unobjectionable), B (Morally objectionable in part), or C (Condemned by the Legion of Decency). If approved by the Breen Office, a film would normally receive at most a “B.”

The Marx Brothers, in the Pre-Code "Horse Feathers" ask "Where's the seal?"

Pope Pius XI even came out in favor of this system in the Encyclical, Vigilanti Cura . As he wrote:

Although in certain quarters it was predicted that the artistic values of the motion picture would be seriously impaired by the reform insisted upon by the "Legion of Decency," it appears that quite the contrary has happened and that the "Legion of Decency" has given no little impetus to the efforts to advance the cinema on the road to noble artistic significance by directing it towards the production of classic masterpieces as well as of original creations of uncommon worth.

The establishment of this system in 1934 ushered in the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. In the next segment of this series, I will look at specific case studies showing how this Catholic system in regulating the content of motion pictures helped create America's movie classics.

~TNT

“The stage is set for a magnificent piece of worthwhile Catholic action and achievement.”

Joseph I. Breen

Black, Gregory D., Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies, (Cambridge University Press 1994).

Doherty, Thomas, Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration, (Columbia University Press 2007).

Lord, Daniel A., Played By Ear: The Autobiography of Daniel A. Lord, S.J., (Loyola University 1956).

Skinner, James, The Cross and the Cinema: The Legion of Decency and the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, 1933-1970, (Praeger Publishers 1993).

Walsh, Frank, Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry, (Yale University Press 1996).

Listen - lively colors best proclaim her!

2010-10-26T15:01:00.001-05:00

Listen - lively colors best proclaim her!
The deathly darkening of grays and black
do not defy light but exist as lack.
All shadows recede. They cannot tame her!
So sweetly she calls all creation back
that the blind hear visions of radiance
as she paints deaf ears with yellows and blues,
deep greens and purples and countless kind hues,
passionate reds in bright blazing cadence!
In love we exclaim how good her good news:
clement and loving, the source of sweet bliss!
Singing, shining, souls stir still at calm call
to come find her here where truth and love kiss,
to dance and to play where love conquers all!

The Catholic Creation of Hollywood's Golden Age, or How the Church Saved the Movies, Part Two

2010-10-19T21:54:00.029-05:00

Part One is available here.

Part Three is available here.

There is no doubt that identities grow and are strengthened by oppression, and that is what occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in American Catholic communities. Out of these communities came men and women knowledgeable and proud in their faith, especially in the city of Chicago, home of 1,086,209 Catholics by 1936 (the largest diocese in America). Chicago, with the settlement of large numbers of Catholic immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, became known as the City of Catholics. This seat of Catholic strength in America made it an obvious choice to hold the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, from June 20 to 24, 1926, the first Eucharistic Congress in the United States. Fox Film Corporation (run at the time by Winifred “Winnie” Sheehan, an Irish Catholic) filmed this noteworthy event, producing an eight reel, ninety-six minute production entitled, “His Eminence George Cardinal Mundelein Archbishop of Chicago Presents the Pictorial Record of the XXVII International Eucharistic Congress Produced for him by Fox Film Corporation.” All copyright and profits of the production went to the Church. This connection of the Chicago Archdiocese with Hollywood, which began in 1926, to Catholics from the city becoming more familiar with the film industry. Catholic Chicagoans, including Martin J. Quigley, began to leave their mark upon cinema.

(Film of 28th International Eucharistic Congress, courtesy of Chicago History Museum)

Martin Quigley (1890-1964), a graduate of Niagara and Catholic Universities, was the publisher of "Moving Picture World" and "Exhibitor's Harold" (later combined as the the "Motion Picture Harold" in 1931). He was a man of two worlds: the film industry and the Catholic Church, especially the Archdiocese of Chicago. He believed that film and filmmakers should only provide “decent wholesome material.” Such entertainment should be family-friendly and reflect the virtues and values taught by the Catholic Church. These beliefs were recognized in his publications, some of the largest trade rags in the nation. He became familiar with William Hays and others in the industry through his publications and his work producing the film of the 28th International Eucharistic Congress. While Quigley supported morality being reflected in the film industry, he was also an opponent of state censorship to further this goal. By 1929, however, he clearly saw that the local censorship boards were too entrenched to be disbanded. There needed to be another system, not one relying on state censorship, to insure moral cinema.

At the same time, the film industry was having its own troubles. William Hays's "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" system was not working.

(Martin Quigley, Cecil B. DeMille, and Paramount president Barney Balaban, Courtesy of Georgetown University Library)

Senator Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa introduced a bill into Congress in March of 1928 to have the FTC regulate the motion picture industry. There was also a fear that the federal government would ban the practice of “block booking” by which production companies sold a slate of their upcoming attractions, sight unseen, to theaters.

Being involved with the motion picture industry, Martin Quigley knew of the fears of the industry in addition to business woes created by declining profits and film attendance resulting from the Great Depression. The time was ripe, Quigley felt, for him introduce a morals code for the motion picture industry, specifically a Catholic code. Quigley consulted with Father FitzGeorge Dineen, adviser to the Chicago censorship board, who recommended Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J. to help compose this proposed code.

Father Lord grew up with entertainment, and, from an early age, was impressed with movie houses. Throughout his time in the seminary, he followed the new medium, accompanying silent films by playing the piano in the theater with his fellow seminarians. One film left a profound impact upon him. In 1915, he viewed what one can consider the first blockbuster, "The Birth of a Nation" This vile and hate-filled film, based on the novel, The Clansman by Thomas Dixon and directed by D.W. Griffith, is the story of the rise of the first version of the Ku Klux Klan and left such an impact upon its viewers that a second version of the Ku Klux Klan became extremely active in the 1920s.

(Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., 1944, Courtesy of Georgetown University Library)

As Father Lord states in his autobiography, Played By Ear:

"The deep hatred that Dixon had written into 'The Clansman' had been blown high and hot in the film. Griffith, whether he meant to or not, made many persons hate Negros and dread any emancipation given them. And I knew I was in the presence of a medium so powerful that it might change our whole attitude towards life, civilization, and established customs.... No doubt about it, the horrible bigotry of the KKK which sprang at the throat of the Catholic Church and American liberties not a decade later rode to its brief and ugly triumphs largely on a road down which had dashed Griffith's clansman."

In the years that followed, Father Lord got involved in different activities, focusing upon the theater. He became a theologian and playwright, in addition to being a Professor of English and Drama at St. Louis University, However, that changed when he was called upon to be the Catholic adviser on Cecil B. DeMille's "The King of Kings" in 1926. Joined by Jewish and Protestant advisers (both of whom left a few days into filming), Father Lord gave DeMille suggestions to make this movie about the life of the Christ theologically sound. For example, DeMille originally felt that a love story needed to be added into the film to attract a larger audience, namely a love story between Mary Magdalene and Judas. This romantic relationship between the two would culminate in the betrayal of Christ by Judas.

Father Lord suggested that this was not an appropriate manner to relate the life of Christ, and one evening, while watching the dailies with Father Lord, DeMille stated “He is great, isn't He?” DeMille was not speaking of the actor portraying Christ, but of Christ Himself. DeMille cut over 1,500 feet of film from the Mary Magdalene scenes, and the love story aspect of the plot was dropped from the finished film save for a bit in the opening minutes, posted below. Father Lord's Hollywood adventure being over, he returned to teaching at St. Louis University, until he was contacted by Martin Quigley about the creation of a Catholic morals code for cinema.

(Trailer for King of Kings, 1927)

(First Part of King of Kings, 1927 in early color)

Together Quigley and Fathers Dinnen and Lord discussed the drafting of such a code. It was decided to not make it explicitly Catholic, but in a way “that the follower of any religion, or any man of decent feeling and conviction, would read it and instantly agree. It must make morally attractive, and the sense of responsibility of the movies to its public and unmistakable.” Hays, to whom Quigley proposed the idea, was receptive to this solution.

Hays and Quigley carried the idea to the member companies of the MPPDA which received the idea of a more effective morals code by which the industry could self-regulate the movies, and, thus, avoid state censorship with enthusiasm. However, this was not Quigley's only selling point. There was also a desire for the producers to appeal to the Catholic audience. While those who owned the production companies were mainly of Jewish decent and the majority of moviegoers were Protestant, there was a desire by the film industry to specifically appeal to Catholics for several reasons:

They were the single largest single religious group in the United States;
There was a clear hierarchy and institutional structure to the Church; and
The strong loyalty the lay people had to the Church and its teachings.

Quigley and Lord began work on this code, with Lord making sure A.M.D.G. and B.V.M.H. were the first letters placed at the top of the page. As Lord later wrote:

"Here was a chance to tie the Ten Commandments in with the newest and most widespread form of entertainment. Here was an opportunity to read morality into mass recreation. Here was an industry that might be persuaded to avoid the police by a sane and honorable policy."

The Motion Picture Production Code drafted by Quigley and Father Lord began with three general principles:

No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

“Particular Applications,” which was composed of an update of the “Don'ts and Be Carefuls” more carefully arranged by subject, followed this first section. Father Lord added a section entitled “Reasons Supporting the Preamble of the Code,” based upon Scholasticism and Catholic thought, justifying the purpose of upholding the morality of art in general and film in particular. The differences between the limited appeal and reach of other arts compared to film were emphasized. General principles of morality followed with their bearing upon entertainment.

As stated by Joseph I. Breen, future head of the Production Code Administration:

"The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me to be an inspired document that fitted into the then current situation, having to do with motion picture entertainment, like a sharply cut picture puzzle. The code was essentially a moral treatise whose rules and regulations stemmed from the ancient moral law which has been accepted by mankind almost since the dawn of creation. These principles do not arise from timely or geographic considerations. Such principles do not become outmoded."

An additional issue must be addressed about the code. If one explores it, one sees some distinctly un-Catholic parts to it, namely the clause (Particular Applications, II, 6) against miscegenation (sexual relations between the races). This was inserted in the third draft of the code by William Hays himself. Lord and Quigley were very much against this addition. One person familiar with the situation described Quigley as “absolutely infuriated all the time that I knew him with the original Code where it said we could not treat a picture dealing with miscegenation. He thought it was outrageous and un-Christian.” However, Hays included it as a matter of economics. The racial reality of the American South in this period made it necessary to ban this subject matter, at least according to William Hays. Later, in 1942, Hays reconsidered this decision, and Mortimer Adler, Aristotelian and neo-Thomist philosopher, author, and one of the founders of the "Great Books" program (and subsequent Catholic convert), looked into the issue for him. Adler suggested that it be moved from a list of banned subjects to subjects that needed to be carefully dealt with by producers. This was done.

The code was approved by the industry on 31 March 1930, with Hays's name attached, making sure the public, which still looked upon the Catholic Church with distrust, did not know a Catholic priest and layman were the primary authors of this moral code for motion pictures. The Production Code, or what was commonly referred to as the Hays Code, went into effect. Lord and Quigley's role in its creation was not known until 1934.

The problem with this code was that there still was no enforcement mechanism. There was no system to approve scripts prior to filming. This led to the possibility of violations only being discovered after filming was completed, requiring costly reshoots. Second, if a decision regarding the immorality of a film was appealed from the Hays Office, it was appealed to a court made up of fellow producers, which would cost more for their fellow producers. The producers could say they would follow its regulations, but since it was unprofitable for them to do so, they would not. This time period, 1930 to 1934, is what is known by the misnomer, the “Pre-Code era of Hollywood. So-called “gangster” and “vamp” (or “fallen woman”) pictures were extremely popular, glorifying evil and sexual vice. They were also very profitable.

As the age of Republican dominance of the White House came to a close in 1933, the era of the New Deal began. It was not unexpected for a national film regulation board to be included among the alphabet soup of new federal agencies, especially since the industry was not doing the self-regulation it promised in 1930. Father Lord, Martin Quigley, who still had enormous influence through his “Motion Picture Harold,” and the greater Catholic community were also fed up with this lackadaisical enforcement system. Father Lord wrote, “Crime, lust, the triangle situation, seductions, remained the normal plot of the films.... The signatures solemnly affixed by the heads of the companies to the code seemed to bind no one.” Out of these circumstances emerged the Catholic Legion of Decency and the Production Code Administration, the subjects of the next installment of this series.

~TNT

"In my long and pleasant life the films and Hollywood have been just an incident.... But you asked about it, and here is the record. Some time you may want to check it all in my complete files."

Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., from Played By Ear.

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The Catholic Creation of Hollywood's Golden Age, or How the Church Saved the Movies, Part One

2010-10-14T07:12:00.010-05:00

Those with a general understanding of the motion picture industry and its history will already know that Catholics have been extremely influential as directors and actors. A variety of directors like Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo and North by Northwest), John Ford (Stagecoach and The Searchers), Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life and Meet John Doe), Leo McCarey (Duck Soup and The Bells of St. Mary's), Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull and The Departed), and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather and The Conversation) represent the broad range of the Catholic experience in America, representing those Catholics of Irish, Italian, and English ancestry. Their films cover all the great genres of cinema, from horror and Western to romantic comedy and melodrama. Many commentators have explored the Catholic themes in these men's films, with Catholic understandings of family and community, struggle and redemption, and moral liberty and free will painted on celluloid.

Yet Catholic thought reached the American public beyond these men and their movies, especially during the time period known today as the “Golden Age of Hollywood," a period from roughly 1935 to 1960. The Catholic Church nurtured cinema as an art when it was only considered an industry by the American Government. The Catholic Church helped guide the creation of some of the greatest movies ever made, using subtlety instead of directness; symbols rather than graphic imagery. Lastly, the Catholic Church used the motion picture industry to help integrate Catholics into mainstream American society, going from the Papist "other" to the next-door neighbor. Sadly, apart from several (largely negative) works written over the past two decades, the Church's role nurturing the creation of motion picture industry has been largely forgotten. Over the next few weeks, I will make a series of posts exploring these points and related topics so one can gather a greater understanding and appreciation of the Catholic heritage of American film, why the Church's role should be viewed as a positive influence in the creation of this art form, and the power cinema had and continues to have on our society as a whole.

The Catholic Church has always known the power of art. As Pope Pius XI wrote, "The essential purpose of art... is to assist in the perfection of the moral personality, which is man, and for this reason it must itself be moral." Additionally, nos. 2500 and 2501 of the Catechism state, "The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous joy and moral beauty... To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in which he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man."

Typically though, art has become almost an archaic term, especially in talking about movies. The term "art" instantly conjures up thoughts of museums, classrooms, and, in absence of a more appropriate term, Rastafarian relics of the 1960s. Instead, many people today consider film "entertainment," immediately creating a picture of escape and abandonment. This distinction in modern society leads to a lesser understanding of the power of film as an art form, a truth the Church has known since the advent of moving pictures. Even though the Catholic Church considers film as a form of art, the American government has not always been so enlightened.

(Directors, from top left clockwise, Alfred Hitchcock, Leo McCarey, Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, John Ford, and Martin Scorsese)

Beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, local censorship boards sprouted up across America, especially in the mid-west, cutting and splicing scenes from the new "moving pictures" in order to protect public morals and decency on the assumption cinema was not covered by the free speech guarantees of the American Bill of Rights. These boards were typically branches of the local police department, made up of individuals with little to no training in art. There was no philosophical underpinning to the methods of these local boards, leading to differing standards in different communities. Moviegoers in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago could see three different versions of the same film, all of different lengths, depending upon how much the local censorship board objected to in the film. It was a very slow, ineffective, and confusing system.

The film industry fought back. Going all the way to the United States Supreme Court, motion picture producers stated their product was protected as a form of free speech. In this case, Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), the Supreme Court disagreed. As the Court stated in its unanimous decision, "…the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit… not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution [and, thus, the United States Constitution], we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion."

This decision led to more state censorship boards being established and the threat of the Federal government censoring movies for public consumption. The film industry tried to deal with this new reality in creating the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), made up of the nation's largest studios. William Hays, a Presbyterian and Postmaster General under President Warren G. Harding, was placed in charge, with the hope that his contacts in the federal government would help relieve its threats of censorship. To help achieve this goal, several codes of self-regulation, the most famous of which was the "don'ts and be carefuls," a random list of what things were and what things were not allowed in the motion pictures, were agreed to by the major studios.

However, while they were agreed to, there was no enforcement mechanism in the studio system to make sure they were following these regulations. The situation only got more pressing with the advent of talking pictures in the late 1920s. At this point, federal regulatory agencies were proposed to deal with immorality in film, similar to how the FDA regulates the quality of meat. The film industry had to do something, and that is when the Catholics were called in, leading to the salvation of the film industry.

In my next post, I will write of three influential Catholics who shaped the film industry in America for two decades: Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., Joseph I. Breen, and Martin J. Quigley and the creation of the Motion Picture Production Code.

~TNT

Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.
Frank Capra

Part two is available here.

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The Two Paths of Time in T.S. Eliot's "Burnt Norton"

2010-10-13T18:13:00.002-05:00

Eliot's "Burnt Norton" is a work which masterfully handles the problem of time. Many are the avenues through which Eliot leads this query: memory, poetry, art, liturgy, Eucharist. And yet the fundamental question concerns our own response: what are we to do about time? What happens if we do nothing? Does Christianity have anything to offer this problem, and if so, what is it? Eliot, in effect, presents us with two paths, in the style of Matthew 7:13-14: there is a narrow way which leads to life and happiness, and a broad way which leads to destruction and despair. In this article, I would like to address the response of those on the narrow way and those on the broad to the problem of time, the final destination of each, and the means to arrive at that destination.

Before examining each path in particular, we need to understand the problem as Eliot has framed it. The human person finds himself a halfling of sorts, being conscious of time (the cosmic flow of events outside of man, and his own interior sense of it), and so in some way outside it: "to be conscious is not to be in time."** And yet man is bound by the limitations of time, expressed through the memory of the past, the endless flow of the present, and the uncertainty of the future, none of which can be escaped. Time, it seems, is a "ridiculous sad waste," stretching ever forward and back, and yet a queer necessity for us as humans. The quest then for Eliot is not so much to define time as to pinpoint its existential meaning.

And this is the problem those in the world (on the broad path) cannot address. Those in the world find themselves "in a dim light...[in] neither plenitude nor vacancy," which is to say they neither feel the brilliance of eternal (timeless) beauty, nor the joyful fire of hopeful darkness. Time, for those in the world, has no meaning, no end. Rather, it is is the endless stretch, a consuming horizon sprawling ever before them and ever behind them. This endless flow robs the past of meaning, making memory a mere mausoleum, a "bowl of rose leaves" covered in dust. There is neither meaning in the future, the present, or the past, in the same way that a sailor sees little meaning in each wave that bobbles his skiff. The problem of time is solved by decrying the problem absurd.

In what state does this leave the world, then? As "men and bits of paper, whirled about by the cold wind that blows before and after time" with "strained, time-ridden faces/distracted from distraction by distraction." In other words, Time chews men up and spits them out. Without meaning, time causes men to live lives of "quiet despair" in sensual pleasure ("appetency") and distraction, "filled with fancies and empty of meaning," because the truth of nihilism is itself too gruesome to view head-on. While for the Christian, time itself points to the meaning, for those "in the dim light" of the world, time points to nothing but the grave: "time and the bell have buried the day." And the only logical response to this is to give oneself over to appetites and sense pleasure, seeing no hope for the future and no significance in the past. Indeed, St. Paul's words ring true: "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" (1 Cor. 15:32).

The Christian imbues time with hope and significance in Christ and His New Creation, and Eliot being a devout Anglican is quite aware of this. For the Christian, time is teleological: "the end precedes the beginning, and the end and the beginning were always there, before the beginning and after the end." According to Eliot, the Christian sees time, not as a Euclidean line extending infinitely in both directions, but more as an arrow, shot with an intended purpose contained within it from the moment the bow was taut. Time is moving somewhere, it is flowering, it is unfolding: "time past and time present are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.". The echoes of St. Augustine's City of God are unmistakable here: time has an end, and as we shall see, that end is firmly stamped with the mark of the cross.

To what end are we drawn, then, according to Eliot? Simply put, it is "the still point": "At the still point of the turning world...there the dance is, and there is only the dance." In this point, all creation (both new and old), including time, is "made explicit, understood." At this still point, we are freed from the "practical desire," from "action and suffering," from the "enchainment" of the fleshly distractions experienced by those "filled with fancies." And yet, what is this point? And how is it a dance? It is my contention that this point is nothing else -- could be nothing else -- other than the Holy Trinity itself. What other "dance" can we imagine at the center of "the turning world," if not the "formal pattern" of exchange between the Son and the Father, whose infinite self-gift is the meaning and end of it all. Eliot himself points to this at the end of "Burnt Norton," citing Love as the "the cause and end of movement" and end of all desire. The "still point," is the entrance of the soul into love, into eternity. That is our end, much in contrast to that of the world: not death, but "into the silence" of Love.

But we are not there yet. It's well and good that we will arrive in the heart of the Blessed Trinity, the Inner Life of God, but what are we to do now? If the world responds to their philosophy of meaningless time through sensual pleasure, then Christians respond by asceticism: "Descend lower, descend only/Into the world of perpetual solitude...Internal darkness, deprivation/And destitution of all property, dessication of the world of sense,/Evacuation of the world of fancy,/Inoperancy of the world of spirit" (179). Asceticism is often relegated to either the romantic or geriatric categories -- something for pious St. Francis's and old women. And yet, in Eliot's work, the only solution to the problem of time for the Christian is to purify himself of all earthly desires, to act as if time, "woven in the weakness of the changing body," really were leading him into the greatest of all joys, and not merely to decay. Man must be a credible theist, as Fr. Dubay wrote in The Fire Within, preferring nothing to God. The "darkness" of human life, the apparent victory of death, is not cause for despair. Rather, the "darkness [purifies] the soul,/emptying the sensual with deprivation,/cleansing affection from the temporal." We can only conquer time by, in a sense, being liberated from the desires and fancies it engenders, while still in time in the body.

And so, our asceticism, our waiting in darkness, does not free us from time in any gnostic sense. We do not hope for a disembodied existence in a non-spatial realm. Rather Christ, who has brought time into heaven in his ascension, will create a new heavens and a new earth, a new body for each of us and a new perfected time to dwell in. In this sense, it is "only through time [that] time is conquered," by living, in a sense, as a sacrament of perfect time to come. Only by the narrow path of asceticism and darkness can we arrive in time perfected, at the "still point" in the Heart of the Trinity in the New Creation. That is our hope and our liberation: not to be conquered by time and death, but to answer the question of time with the hope of the cross.

R. Carruth

**All quotes, unless otherwise specified, are from Collected Poems by T.S. Eliot.

I is for Incompleteness

2010-10-07T17:03:00.008-05:00

One of the most important results in mathematics and logic in the past century came from Kurt Gödel, an Austrian logician and mathematician. His two incompleteness theorems force a sort of white-knuckled humility upon mathematicians everywhere. However, for the most part, outside of mathematicians, logicians, and philosophers, Gödel’s results remain largely unknown and seem largely irrelevant but the theorems actually have far-reaching impacts for almost any discipline. The two theorems are as follows:

Theorem 1: No consistent algorithm/axiomatization of formal arithmetic is complete.

Theorem 2: For all systems of arithmetic (A), if A is consistent, then there is no proof in A of the consistency of A.

These might seem highly technical and irrelevant, but let’s look at what the theorems actually mean and what some of their consequences are.

To understand either theorem requires some knowledge of terminology:

Arithmetic is one of the mathematical sciences (actually, the mathematical science of the integers)

An algorithm is a system of steps or procedure for solving a problem

An axiomatization is a set of axioms (or self-evident truths) which forms the starting-point for a mathematician desiring to arrive at new conclusions in mathematics

A set of axioms is consistent if and only if none of the axioms are mutually exclusive. That might seem somewhat abstract, but it makes sense. For instance, let’s say one of my axioms was “a certain number exists” and then another of my axioms was “that same number does not exist.” This is an absurdity and this set of axioms would be considered inconsistent.

A set of axioms is complete if and only if that set of axioms can be used to arrive at every truth in its particular science. For instance, a set of arithmetic axioms (or an axiomatization for arithmetic) is complete if it can be used to show every arithmetical truth.

It is desirable that an axiomatization be consistent, because if it is inconsistent, then it will arrive at contradictory conclusions. In other words, an inconsistent axiomatization leads to false conclusions, which is obviously undesirable. It is desirable that an axiomatization be complete so that we can arrive at every true conclusion regarding our particular science (for instance, arithmetic).

Again, this may seem abstract, but I am reaching a point, so please bear with me. Noting all of this information, then, informally we may state Gödel’s incompleteness theorems as follows:

No set of axioms can be proven to be consistent using that set of axioms. Furthermore, even if you could prove that it was consistent, it couldn’t be complete. That is to say, there is no way to show that a set of axioms will never lead to falsehood. However, say you knew you had a consistent set of axioms. That set of axioms cannot possibly arrive at all mathematical truth.

Okay, now to the fun part. Why is all this crazy stuff about mathematical systems of axioms important? The implications of these theorems are huge. Since those theorems are true, it appears to be true that, at least through mathematical methods, not every mathematical truth can be shown to be true. In other words, there are true things that we cannot prove. And if that’s true in mathematics, it’s certainly true in other disciplines as well. This is a strong argument for the existence of objective truth, because it shows that there are truths that are true even though it is impossible for us to prove them – that are true independent of our own minds.

It is also an important conclusion for refuting people who deny the existence of immaterial reality. Why? People who deny immaterial reality deny it on the basis that it can’t be proven using the empirical sciences (with the exception of certain sophists who choose to deny the existence of any reality at all - material or immaterial). But we know there are truths that can’t be proven via deductive reasoning. It is a mathematical fact (which, ironically enough, has been proven). Obviously this, of itself, is not sufficient for showing the existence of immaterial reality, but it is enough to silence those who argue against its existence which might open them up to our own arguments for the existence of immaterial reality.

To conclude, then, Gödel proved his two incompleteness theorems which (together) show that a complete knowledge of mathematical truths is outside the capability of any mathematical system (that is to say there are mathematical propositions that are true that are also unprovable). This has repercussions for our debates with people who believe in the supremacy of mathematics or physics rather than theology and her handmaiden philosophy. As such, even though the theorems themselves might be a little too technical to bring into a discussion, its consequences are (if not essential) highly useful for the Catholic participating in the New Evangelization.

Mariae et Jesu Semper Servus Sum,

Joe

Source: Philosophy of Mathematics: A Contemporary Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures, 2nd Edition, written by James Robert Brown

Not So Mysterious Ways: God's Definitive Revelation in Jesus Christ

2010-10-04T14:24:00.022-05:00

Recently, I was having a discussion with a group of atheists regarding the existence of God--not on the more general level of the God of the philosophers, but rather the God of Christianity in particular. “Why,” they asked, “if the Christian God exists, are there so many non-believers? Surely, if he wished to make it so, he could make his identity as obvious as the existence of the moon, say by a worldwide public revelation of himself, not in a way that coerced the will, but in a way that made his presence clear to everyone?” Essentially: if God wants everyone to be saved and, in his omnipotence, is able to reveal the truth about salvation to everyone, why doesn’t he simply make the truth so obvious that we have a firm ground on which to accept or reject him?

There are several ways to go about responding to an issue like this. The most simple and obvious is, of course, to say “Why, God did make his existence as obvious as the moon—in fact, the moon itself is positive evidence for the existence of God: all the world is a testimony to his reality!” Which is, of course, true, as St. Paul told us (Romans 1:20ff). But this is rather ineffective to the atheist. Furthermore, while true, it doesn’t really strike to the core of the question of Christianity, in particular, nor does it explain the inconsistency in the beliefs (specifically about salvation) amongst those who already believe in God. So, where are we as Christians to turn?

I’ve always maintained that all of Christian theology can be summed up in two words: Trinity and Incarnation. Interestingly, enough, it is on these exact two points that the atheists most fail to comprehend the nature of Christian revelation. So, let us ask, why doesn’t God give a universal revelation of himself and make it obvious to everyone? The answer: Incarnation. St. John of the Cross in his Ascent of Mount Carmel said:

Wherefore he that would now enquire of God, or seek any vision or revelation, would not only be acting foolishly, but would be committing an offence against God, by not setting his eyes altogether upon Christ, and seeking no new thing or aught beside. And God might answer him after this manner, saying: If I have spoken all things to thee in My Word, Which is My Son, and I have no other word, what answer can I now make to thee, or what can I reveal to thee which is greater than this? Set thine eyes on Him alone, for in Him I have spoken and revealed to thee all things, and in Him thou shalt find yet more than that which thou askest and desirest. For thou askest locutions and revelations, which are the part; but if thou set thine eyes upon Him, thou shalt find the whole; for He is My complete locution and answer, and He is all My vision and all My revelation; so that I have spoken to thee, answered thee, declared to thee and revealed to thee, in giving Him to thee as thy brother, companion and master, as ransom and prize.

So, as Christians, we declare that Christ is the definitive revelation of God and all things are contained in him. There is no need or desire for further revelation because everything rests in the sacred heart of Jesus, the Christ. After all, what more could God possibly reveal about himself than the person of himself, in the flesh, walking amongst us, no longer communicating with mere words, riddles or dreams, but speaking to us face to face, as with friends?

But the atheist is still unsatisfied with the response. They don’t think that Christ is the best possible revelation because the Incarnation does not—in their minds—meet the criteria of being the most direct means of conveying the knowledge of God and salvation to the broadest number of people. That God has come among us in the flesh, they argue, is not as obvious as the existence of the moon. But since God is omnipotent, he could reveal himself to more people with more uniformity and therefore lead more people to salvation. Since God is supposed to desire the salvation of all men, must it not be the case that God does not exist? The answer: the Trinity.

The interior life of God can always tell us something about God’s relationship with the world. Particularly since this specific question raised by the atheists addresses the salvation of mankind, we must touch upon what salvation is from this perspective. In the interior life of the Trinity love is most perfectly manifest, for God is Love. The Father gives himself completely and freely to the Son, the Son returns himself completely to the Father and the bond of giving and receiving one another is the Holy Spirit—one God composed of three persons in an eternal dance of absolutely self-giving, interpenetrating Love. What does this tell us about salvation and the fittingness of the Incarnation as its definitive expression? The saints have always affirmed that the meaning and purpose of the Incarnation was that men might partake of divinization or, as it is called in the East, theosis. As St. Athanasius said, “God became man so that man might become god.” That is, God wishes to bestow on mankind his divine nature and welcome mankind into the interior life of the Trinity.

With that in mind, we see how fundamentally fitting it is that God should reveal himself definitively through the Incarnation. God wants mankind to partake of the divine nature; that is the definition of salvation. Then God himself likewise takes on human nature. God wants to reveal himself to mankind? Well then, God should invite mankind to be co-workers in that with him as in all things. And that is the reality. Why does God reveal himself in the Incarnation and then Ascend to Heaven, leaving the propagation of the saving message of the divine life in the hands of the Church (a sacramental body of both divine and human elements)? Because, given the nature and meaning of salvation, it simply would not be fitting for it to happen in any other fashion. God wants man as active co-participants in all his works—from the creation of new life in the conception of children, to the redemption from sin by way of the sacraments through his priestly ministers, and the proclamation of the Gospel and the world-wide realization of his saving message is part of that cooperation, a duty and a responsibility incumbent upon all Christians.

So, in short, why doesn’t God simply make a great, world-wide revelation of himself directly to every individual that makes his presence as obvious as the moon? He simply loves you too much to leave you out of the work.

The Little Way and the Mercy of God

2010-10-01T08:13:00.000-05:00

You have probably been told before that all the saints are really speaking the same Truth – that is, Jesus Christ – only in different voices. This is the beauty of the Communion of Saints! Every saint speaks only of Christ but chooses to highlight a different aspect of His Truth. For example, I would venture to say that Thérèse points to the mystery of God’s love for us and our reciprocal love for Him, which allows us to become like little children and so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

That is not to say, however, that the message of Thérèse does not "overlap" with the message of other saints. In fact, the more I read the writings of the saints, the more I wonder at how often this sort of "meeting" occurs. Recently, I was impressed deeply by the Diary of St. Faustina, particularly by how much it reminded me of Story of a Soul. Curious to see how much these two saints really echoed one another, I began re-reading Thérèse... and it seems that she was just as fascinated by the Mercy of God as Faustina. Consider the following passages side-by-side:

Faustina: "He Himself descends to me and makes me capable of communing with Him... O inexhaustible spring of Divine Mercy, pour yourself out upon us! Your goodness knows no limits. Confirm, O Lord, the power of Your mercy over the abyss of my misery..."

Thérèse: "... Jesus showered His graces so lavishly on His little flower. He, who cried out in His mortal life: 'I thank thee, Father, that thou has hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to babes,' willed to have His mercy shine out in me. Because I was little and weak He lowered Himself to me..."

Faustina: "I count on nothing in my life but only on Your infinite mercy. It is the guiding thread of my life, O Lord. My soul is filled with God's mercy."

Thérèse: "How merciful is the way God has guided me. Never has He given me the desire for anything which He has not given me, and even His bitter chalice seemed delightful to me."

Faustina: "O Jesus, my heart stops beating when I think of all You are doing for me! I am amazed at You, Lord, that You would stoop so low to my wretched soul! ... God usually chooses the weakest and simplest souls as tools for His greatest works."

Thérèse: "I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors, provided it abandoned itself with total confidence to Your Infinite Mercy."

Reading passages like these, I realized that the "Little Way" was deeper and broader than I ever imagined. It wasn't just about doing little acts of love for Jesus -- it was also about the way I viewed my own sinfulness and my trust (or lack thereof) in the Mercy of God.

Thérèse reminds us that in our spiritual growth, the emphasis must not be placed on our good deeds (nor on our sinfulness) but rather on our confidence in God's Love and Mercy. Our works are a necessary expression of our love for God, but when we fail at them, our immediate reaction must not be one of fear or discouragement but rather one of confidence, which leads us to depend on His Mercy and to simply begin again with our good resolutions.

"What a comfort it is, this way of love! You may stumble on it, you may fail to correspond with grace given, but always love knows how to make the best of everything; whatever offends our Lord is burnt up in the fire of Love, and nothing is left but a humble, absorbing peace deep down in the heart."

Think of how a small child acts when he realizes he has done some wrong -- a child who does not fear his father. At the very moment the child begins to feel guilty for what he's done, he rushes tearfully into the arms of his father to bury his face in his father's chest, confident that the only necessary thing on his part is this utter abandonment, this blind trust in his father's merciful love.

Along the same lines, when we are tempted to dwell on our faults and shortcomings, we ought to toss them immediately into the fire of Love which consumes the Heart of Our Lord.

"When we cast our faults into the devouring fire of Love with total childlike trust, how would they not be consumed, so that nothing is left of them?"

She's right, of course. The Little Way leads us to the Mercy of God, on a path of total childlike trust. Little Flower of Jesus, pray for us!

St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Proper Disposition of the Intellect

2010-10-01T07:40:00.011-05:00

The world is full of false dichotomies, and some people might assume the Parousians played into one of them when we chose St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thérèse of Lisieux as our patron saints, the Dumb Ox being the height of Catholic intellectual life and the Little Flower being cute and small and flowery, stereotyping two doctors of the Church in ways that do no justice to their common sanctity and mental dexterity. St. Thomas Aquinas was renowned for his humility and tender devotion to our Lord. And just as St. Thomas Aquinas had a keen command of small details that led him to the universals, St. Thérèse had an alertness born of humility to see reality as it really is, drawing her to the revelation that all is grace, a revelation that contradicts the nihilism of her age and our own.

Saints are canonized in the Catholic Church according to their saintliness, and from that number a select few are chosen because of their contributions to the doctrine of the Church. Doctors help the Church come to a greater clarity on how we understand the Revelation of Christ. Pope John Paul II declared St. Thérèse a doctor recognizing her insight:

Thérèse of Lisieux did not only grasp and describe the profound truth of Love as the center and heart of the Church, but in her short life she lived it intensely. It is precisely this convergence of doctrine and concrete experience, of truth and life, of teaching and practice, which shines with particular brightness in this saint, and which makes her an attractive model especially for young people and for those who are seeking true meaning for their life. Before the emptiness of so many words, Thérèse offers another solution, the one Word of salvation which, understood and lived in silence, becomes a source of renewed life. She counters a rational culture, so often overcome by practical materialism, with the disarming simplicity of the "little way" which, by returning to the essentials, leads to the secret of all life: the divine Love that surrounds and penetrates every human venture. In a time like ours, so frequently marked by an ephemeral and hedonistic culture, this new Doctor of the Church proves to be remarkably effective in enlightening the mind and heart of those who hunger and thirst for truth and love. An eminent model and guide for Christians today.

St. Thérèse bucks the trend of reducing everything to their molecular composition and sees the love of God, his grace teeming in all human affairs, in all creation, even in the smallest acts. She was tuned into reality as it really is, and this darkness in our understanding is not overcome by faculties unfortunately sectioned off as being the whole intellect.

St. Thérèse lived in the light of truth undetectable by the proud, be they new atheists in their irrationality or ill formed apologists who reduce the mystery of transcendental truth to easily apprehended talking points void of the reality of Christ.

The Little Flower herself said, "It seems to me that humility is truth. I don't know if I'm humble, but I do know that I see the truth in all things."

St. Thérèse's willed humility opened her eyes to the grandeur of God displayed in all things. Humility is a necessary disposition to be receptive to reality as it really is, lest we get caught up in out own irrationality and have the arrogance to insist that our skewered vision of the world is accurate.

In my twenties, even with a degree of catechesis and an intellectual formation rooted in the great books, I became obsessed with the problem of evil. I would try to couch my own personal hurt in "intellectual" arguments against a Christian understanding of theodicy. In truth these "intellectual" arguments were rationalizations that did not even match up to my own experience. I moved far from agnostic doubt into nihilistic despair. Somewhere along the way, my doubts had gotten the best of me, and I had forgotten the reality of the love of God I had known both in previous times of prayer and in a world where I had witnessed love and beauty and goodness in spite of the evil I was dwelling on. After a few years of fighting with God out of my hurt, I realized my reasoning was off, and pride had driven me to cut myself off from graces that kept revealing the love of God if I only had eyes to see them, if only I had eyes like St. Thérèse.

St. Thérèse was hurt, but she did not make herself and her hurts bigger than the God who loved her. She made herself small, remained childlike, and did not lose the sense of wonder long-forgotten by so many who think they have figured the world out. This smallness enabled her to see the love woven into all truth so that she might express the truth of that love in each of her own small acts.

She said, "I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul."

And in recognizing her as a Doctor of the Church, John Paul II knew this line of thinking was not the naivete of an innocent nun, but the sacramental vision necessary to understand the world as it is, a place where the love of God is constantly being revealed. This openness to see grace in all things could only be found in someone small enough to find grace in the smallest things.

Zélie-Marie Guérin

2008-06-05T19:47:00.003-05:00

Today, if a mother were to say, “Four of my children are already well settled in life,” we would imagine them married, possibly with children, living in a nice home with well paying careers. They are set and settled, and their mother is proud for having raised such successful offspring. However, these are not the words of a contemporary mother. Nay, these are the words of the mother of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Zélie-Marie Guérin. She was speaking of the four children God had already called to himself. The quote in full reads, “Four of my children are already well settled in life, and the others will go likewise to that Heavenly Kingdom—enriched with greater merit because the combat will have been more prolonged." This further points to the meaning of the beginning of this quote, that she is speaking of heaven, and her concern for her children is completely directed towards the “Heavenly Kingdom.”

Father T. N. Taylor, the editor of Saint Thérèse’s autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” included this quote in the prologue and added of Zélie, “Her whole ambition as a mother was directed to Heaven.” This is very accurate and very special. Many good parents yearn for their children to be with God forever, but their desire is often clouded over by worldly distractions. They want – and rightly so – for their children to thrive in this world, but which desire is greater – for the child to make excellent grades, attend college and get a worthy career, or to go to the “Heavenly Kingdom”? Zélie’s “whole ambition,” a complete commitment for her children to come into God’s Kingdom was something profoundly different than our preconception that being “settled in life” is a formula achieved on this earth.

Zélie and her husband, Louis Joseph Stanislaus Martin, were dedicated parents both to their children and to God’s will. Father Taylor writes,

“Nay, they themselves were destined to shine as apostles, and we read on one of the first pages of the Portuguese edition of the Autobiography, these significant words of an eminent Jesuit:

"To the Sacred Memory of Louis Joseph Stanislaus Martin and of Zélie Guérin, the blessed parents of Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus, for an example to all Christian parents."

They little dreamed of this future apostolate, nevertheless they made ready their souls day by day to be God's own instruments in God's good time. With most loving resignation they greeted the many crosses which the Lord laid upon them--the Lord whose tender name of Father is truest in the dark hour of trial.”

May we imitate the parents of Soeur Thérèse as we choose to do the will of God for ourselves and for our children and not be diverted by our own muddled will for their worldly “success.” It seems so simple and so obvious, but Zélie struck me with great clarity when she plainly made the truest statement about her four deceased little flowers, "Four of my children are already well settled in life.”

Beauty in the Conversion of Dorothy Day

2008-05-12T13:42:00.006-05:00

Dorothy Day often said “it is by little and by little that we are saved.” Her own conversion to the Catholic faith involved many small realizations that brought her closer and closer to the Church. One of the unique features of Dorothy Day’s writing is her descriptive and concrete approach to things, including her conversion. She starts out with events and experiences. She tells the story of the common working person and the struggle to provide for the family. Her social consciousness of class struggle impelled her to become involved in Marxist and communistic causes. Young Dorothy was a social rebel and formally non-religious except that she saw a beauty in everyday things which drew her to the possibility of Christ and his Church. She would always continue to be a social rebel but came to embrace the Catholic Church and then later, once she was aware of them, the social justice principles of the Church. Her conditioned aversion to religion was embodied in the comment of Marx that called religion the opiate of the masses. The beauty and sacredness of the everyday broke her from this perspective. For the rest of her life she would proclaim indwelling of God in the world as the “sacrament of the present moment.”

Dorothy Day writes of her long conversion in From Union Square to Rome and The Long Loneliness. Her intention was to disclose an honest account of her journey to God and His Church, how God continually blessed her despite her sins and shortcomings. One of the interesting things I find in her conversion is the constant role of beauty opening her up to the prospect of the Gospel. She attributes her love of the poor as one of the redeeming qualities that kept her open to heed the Lord’s voice. “Because I sincerely loved His poor, He taught me to know Him.” She sees her own narrative journey infused with grace. She recognizes her desire for God and how that desire was sometimes wasted on selfish endeavors.

What I cannot do in this bit of writing is describe the role of beauty in Dorothy Day’s conversion any better than she did herself. Her reflection richly describes the movements of her soul corresponding to pivotal points of her life. Where applicable I include her own descriptions of her journey.

Those who are sincere and humble can come to God not merely through positive experiences of beauty, truth, and goodness but also through negative experiences of sin, suffering, and a series of disgust that indicates our limitations while affirming our affinity for God. Dorothy Day is one of those souls who traveled the depths of the suffering before willfully giving her life to God.

While it is often true that horror for one’s sins turns one to God, what I want to bring out in this book is a succession of events that led me to His feet, glimpses of Him that I received through the many years which made me feel the vital need of Him. I will try to trace for you the steps by which I came to accept the faith that I believe was always in my heart...Though I felt the strong, irresistible attraction to good, yet there was also, at times, a deliberate choosing of evil. How far I was led to choose it, it is hard to say. How far professors, companions, and reading influenced my way of life does not matter now. The fact remains that there was much of deliberate choice in it. Most of the time it was “following the devices and desires of my own heart.” Sometimes it was perhaps the Baudelariean idea of choosing “the downward path which leads to salvation.” Sometimes it was of choice, of free will, though perhaps at time I would have denied free will. And so, since it was deliberate, with recognition of its seriousness, it was grievous mortal sin and may the Lord forgive me. It was the arrogance and suffering of youth. It was pathetic, little, and mean in its very excuse for itself. – From Union Square to Rome

Dorothy grew up without a religious affiliation. She wrote, “In the family, the name of God was never mentioned. Mother and Father never went to church, none of us children had been baptized, and to speak of the soul was to speak immodestly, uncovering what might better remain hidden.” But she did have joyful experiences of community in times of disaster and uncertainty. Dorothy recalls a generally happy childhood. Mindful of the varieties of her experiences, Dorothy spent a great deal of time torn between the hopelessness of the human condition and intimations of something infinitely greater that can lift the human spirit. She had genuine compassion for others and felt called to serve others. This desire found momentary fulfillment in the political radicals of her day who sought to better the condition of workers.

When what I read made me particularly class-conscious, I used to turn from the park with all its beauty and peacefulness and walk down to North Avenue and over west through the slum districts, and watch the slatternly women and the unkempt children and ponder over the poverty of the homes as contrasted with the wealth along the shore drive. I wanted even then to play my part. I wanted to write such books that thousands upon thousands of readers would be convinced of the injustice of things as they were. – From Union Square to Rome

In college Dorothy felt utterly alone when separated from the comfort of her family. Reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, she felt compelled to believe in God but also felt alienated from the Christians around her. Reflecting on the conditions of others less fortunate than herself, she learned about Marxism and class struggle. For the most part she was open to religion until she came to see religion as a crutch for the feeble minded.

It seems to me that I was already shedding that faith when a professor whom I much admired made a statement in class—I shall always remember it—that religion was something which had brought great comfort to people throughout the ages, so that we ought not to criticize it. I don’t remember his exact words, but from the way he spoke of religion the class could infer that the strong were the ones who did not need such props. In my youthful arrogance, in my feeling that I was one of the strong, I felt then for the first time that religion was something that I must ruthlessly cut out of my life. I felt it indeed to be an opiate of the people, so I hardened my heart.
– From Union Square to Rome

By twenty-five years of age, Dorothy had a list of political activist’s credentials as she worked with left-wing journals, joined the International Workers of the World that attempted to unite workers to overthrow the employing class, participated in pickets that resulted in jail time, and dabbled with communism. The first time she was imprisoned, Dorothy recalls meditating on Psalm 130 while in solitary confinement which created in her an experience of profound solidarity with those who were oppressed and suffering from their own sin and the sins of others. Her second arrest came during a raid where police were looking for communist radicals as a part of Palmer’s red scare. Dorothy was in the building to help nurse a friend back to health when police barged in, arrested her, and wrongfully accused of her of being a prostitute.

It was as ugly an experience as I ever wish to pass through, and a useful one. I do not think that ever again, no matter of what I am accused, can I suffer more than I did then from shame and regret, and self-contempt. Not only because I had been caught, found out, branded, publicly humiliated, but because of my own consciousness that I deserved it. – The Long Loneliness

Shortly after the incident, she reflected:

I could get away, but what of the others? I could get away, paying no penalty, because of my friends, my background, my education, my privilege. I suffered but was not part of it. I put it from me. It was too much for me. I think that for a long time one is stunned by such experiences. They seem to be quickly forgotten, but they leave a scar that is never healed. – The Long Loneliness

Such experiences of solidarity fueled Dorothy Day’s passion for the poor. The dramatic experience of shame for Dorothy allowed her to realize her own capacity to become lost, even if only temporarily, in despair with resigned acceptance of injustice. However, she was able to leave the circumstances while many others had no clear way out. Dorothy had long since been committed to justice and speaking for the rights for others who cannot speak for themselves. In her college years and shortly thereafter, her idea of injustice reflected a worldview that directly conflicted with the Catholic Church. By way of practice and belief, much separated Dorothy from the Church. She lived a Bohemian lifestyle, wrote passionately about free love, had had two common law marriages and procured an abortion. Of course none of these kept her from continually seeking the truth and her spiritual awakening was just the beginning.

In 1925 the twenty-eight year old Dorothy day found out she was pregnant again. During this time Dorothy enjoyed a certain “dull contentment” in her common law marriage with Foster and her joyful anticipation for a new born child. Her time spent walking up and down the beaches in New York filled her with gratefulness for the beauty of nature. Dorothy began to pray more consciously at this time in a spirit of thanksgiving for her blessings.

I am surprised that I am beginning to pray daily. I began because I had to. I just found myself praying. I can’t get down on my knees, but I can pray while I am walking. If I get down on my knees I think, “Do I really believe? Whom am I praying to?” And a terrible doubt comes over me, and a sense of shame, and I wonder if I am praying because I am lonely, because I am unhappy.

Then I think suddenly, scornfully, “Here you are in a stupor of content. You are biological. Like a cow. Prayer with you is like the opiate of the people.” And over and over again in my mind that phrase is repeated jeeringly, “Religion is the opiate of the people.”

“But,” I reason with myself, “I am praying because I am happy, not because I am unhappy. I did not turn to God in unhappiness, in grief, in despair—to get consolation, to get something from Him.”

And encouraged that I am praying because I want to thank Him, I go on praying. No matter how dull the day, how long the walk seems, if I feel low at the beginning of the walk, the words I have been saying have insinuated themselves into my heart before I have done, so that on the trip back I neither pray nor think but am filled with exultation. – From Union Square to Rome

Her words speak to the reality that the heart has reasons unknown to the mind as Blaise Pascal mentions. Dorothy became discouraged whenever God became merely a thought of her intellect, yet her heart longed for communion. During this time, Dorothy began attending Mass regularly on Sundays, and this put a tension in her relationship with her husband. Foster was greatly skeptical of all religious institutions and notions of the supernatural. As a biologist he loved nature passionately, but as a absolute anarchist, he rebelled against institutional notions of family, government, and religion. Foster opposed economic inequality and escaped through his love of the outdoors. Dorothy believed her love for Foster opened her up to recognize God. The very things that satisfied Foster made Dorothy hungrier for truth. Foster opened Dorothy’s eyes to the mystical quality of creation and this beauty drew Dorothy out of herself and into contact with something greater.

His [Foster’s] ardent love of creation brought me to the Creator of all things. But when I cried out to him, “How can there be no God, when there are all these beautiful things?” he turned from me uneasily and complained that I was never satisfied. We loved each other so strongly that he wanted to remain in the love of the moment; he wanted me to rest in that love. He cried out against my attitude that there would be nothing left of that love without faith…

I could not see that love between man and woman was incompatible with love of God. God is the Creator, and the very fact that we were begetting a child made me have a sense that we were made in the image and likeness of God, co-creators with him. I could not protest with Sasha about “that initial agony of having to live.” Because I was grateful for love, I was grateful for life, and living with Foster made me appreciate it and even reverence it still more. He had introduced me to so much that was beautiful and good that I felt I owed to him too this renewed interest in the spirit of things. —The Long Loneliness

Dorothy struggled with her spiritual identity, but she could not speak to Foster about it. She became more and more convinced of God’s presence. They interpreted the same everyday beauty very differently. Once Tamar Teresa was born, Dorothy Day resolved to have her baptized in the Catholic Church. However, real fear surrounded her relationship with Foster:

A woman does not want to be alone at such a time. Even the most hardened, the most irreverent, is awed by the stupendous fact of creation. Becoming a Catholic would mean facing life alone, and I clung to family life. It was hard to contemplate giving up a mate in order that my child and I could become members of the Church. Foster would have nothing to do with religion or me if I embraced it. – From Union Square to Rome

Dorothy Day traveled to the local residence of the Sisters of Charity to seek baptism for her child. Sister Aloysia assisted Dorothy with the process and encouraged Dorothy to become Catholic as well. Sister Aloysia brought reading materials and instructed her Catechism lessons. Belief in Catholic Doctrine did not come easy to Dorothy. Even after her daughter was received in the Church she still fought with the decision to become Catholic herself. Even more so, she struggled to reconcile the Church with the class of workers. During this time Dorothy was completely oblivious to the Social Doctrine of the Church annunciated in papal encyclicals. Yet one day she became too troubled in her delay to wait any longer that she sought out a priest and joined the mystical body of Christ. Following her conversion Dorothy had quit her job with the Anti-Imperialist League because of its communist affiliation. Her common law marriage was ended with Foster and she embarked in a life long struggle to serve the poor and speak for the everyday worker. Dorothy was troubled that although the Catholic Church did a fair amount of charity work She did not seem to challenge society to change in the way that would reduce social injustices from happening in the first place.

I wanted to be poor, chaste, and obedient. I wanted to die in order to live, to put off the old man and put on Christ. I loved, in other words, and like all women in love, I wanted to be united in my love. Why should not Foster be jealous? Any man who did not participate in this love would, of course, realize my infidelity, my adultery, and so it is termed over and over again in Scripture.

I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said that the Church is the cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from His Cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church…

Not long afterward a priest wanted me to write a story of my conversion, telling how the social teaching of the Church had led me to embrace Catholicism. But I knew nothing of the social teaching of the Church at that time. I have never heard of the encyclicals. I felt that the Church was the Church of the poor, that St. Patrick’s had been built from the pennies of servant girls, that it cared for the emigrant, it established hospitals, orphanages, day nurseries, houses of the Good Shepherd, homes for the ages, but at the same time, I felt that it did not set its face against the social order which made so much charity in the present sense of the word necessary. --The Long Loneliness

Dorothy Day’s life testifies to the grace of God. Soon she became very familiar with the social justice principles of the Church with the help of Peter Maurin and sought to put them into concrete practice in the Catholic Worker movement. Dorothy Day became an active contemplative. Her work for the poor was as constant and rigorous as her religious devotions. She believed in the power of prayer and lived with a simplicity that relied on the providence of God. She taught that to be humble we must be hospitable and open our hearts to the needs of others by being dependent upon God. Her life constitutes a beautiful whole that challenges the social conscience of our time. Reading Dorothy Day will open your eyes to the poor. She invites us to love Christ and perform the Spiritual and Corporeal Works of Mercy. Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day had a sacramental vision that sought to create a “society where it is easier for people to be good.”

It is no use saying that we were born two thousand years too late to give room for Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts. –Room for Christ; December 1945

United Nations and Natural Law

2008-05-03T07:45:00.002-05:00

On April 18, 2008 Benedict XVI addressed the United Nations. In the course of this address, Benedict XVI emphasized the importance of the United Nations, issued a challenge to be open to the discernment of the Church, warned against reductive scientific approaches that ignore the dignity of the person, and called the organizations to continually discern proper ways to safeguard human dignity without succumbing to culturally relativistic standards that ignore universal objective goods of human existence. One of the greatest ways the Catholic faith challenges culture is in her Social Doctrine and we have a religious leader, the Pope, addressing a secular institution on social matters. I think we should listen.

Benedict XVI cited the social reflection of the Church that has been occurring throughout history as an invaluable part of discerning the common good of society. This discernment is needed more than ever in a world of constant technological advancements and social situations that require a continual reflection on natural goods and the dignity of human persons. The theological perspective of Christianity has a privileged position of discernment because of the sacramental perspective of the Church that instructs the people of God about the sacredness of creation, the gift of life, and the will of the Creator.

The United Nations remains a privileged setting in which the Church is committed to contributing her experience "of humanity", developed over the centuries among peoples of every race and culture, and placing it at the disposal of all members of the international community. This experience and activity, directed towards attaining freedom for every believer, seeks also to increase the protection given to the rights of the person. Those rights are grounded and shaped by the transcendent nature of the person, which permits men and women to pursue their journey of faith and their search for God in this world.

Seeking true justice and freedom is always a matter of discernment and distinguishing good from evil through careful consideration of human nature and corresponding human actions. Traditionally this has been called natural law, reflecting on intrinsic goods of human existence and the means of achieving these goods without contradicting the intrinsic dignity of the person. Morality is based around the sacredness of the person and all of creation. This sacredness must be respected and upheld through our actions and it is the responsibility of the Church and society to protect this sacredness. In political language, this honor or respect due to the sacredness of existence has been translated as dignity. This dignity is the starting point of social justice. Because every person has an irreducible transcendental aspect of their being, we can speak of equality, freedom, and the common good.

The Catholic Church and other religion traditions have a responsibility to challenge society to recognize the transcendental nature of the person. Benedict XVI sees the religious dimension as aiding true discernment by creating inter-religious dialogue and preventing individual states from using subjective and culturally relative arguments to rationalize unjust treatment of people. This challenge is two-fold: the United Nations must be open to the fruit of religious dialogue and religions must be able to articulate a vision of faith that seeks a proper view of the human person in accordance with natural reason.

Discernment, then, shows that entrusting exclusively to individual States, with their laws and institutions, the final responsibility to meet the aspirations of persons, communities and entire peoples, can sometimes have consequences that exclude the possibility of a social order respectful of the dignity and rights of the person. On the other hand, a vision of life firmly anchored in the religious dimension can help to achieve this, since recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman favors conversion of heart, which then leads to a commitment to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to promote justice and peace. This also provides the proper context for the inter-religious dialogue that the United Nations is called to support, just as it supports dialogue in other areas of human activity. Dialogue should be recognized as the means by which the various components of society can articulate their point of view and build consensus around the truth concerning particular values or goals. It pertains to the nature of religions, freely practiced, that they can autonomously conduct a dialogue of thought and life. If at this level, too, the religious sphere is kept separate from political action, then great benefits ensue for individuals and communities. On the other hand, the United Nations can count on the results of dialogue between religions, and can draw fruit from the willingness of believers to place their experiences at the service of the common good. Their task is to propose a vision of faith not in terms of intolerance, discrimination and conflict, but in terms of complete respect for truth, coexistence, rights, and reconciliation.

Secular societies and institutions should not ignore the contributions made by religious people and religious insights. Religious freedom is one of the natural goods of humanity that ought to be safe-guarded. Many pivot faith and reason against each other and argue that faith has no place in the public sphere. To the contrary, believers must not suppress this important part of themselves in order to be active citizens that contribute to the common good. As Catholics we are called to have a sacramental vision that enables us to see reality as sacred and to act in charity and humility towards God and others. Science by itself does not bring us to the mystery of the person, rather it is a method of collecting data and discovering the physical nature of the universe. Science can make us aware that many realties cannot be empirically observe. The limits of the scientific method can open us up to transcendental mystery that accompanies the physical universe. To deny the place of religion in the public sphere is to exclude an important perspective of reality and reduce the vision of humanity.

Many faith based initiatives embodied academic institutions, health care agencies, and charitable organizations have positively influenced the public policy and contributed to building up society. As Christians we have a responsibility to contribute to the just ordering of society. Christ makes clear that one cannot love God and hate our neighbors because love is not divided.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke about how religious insight stood at the founding of the United Nations. He recalled that the Dominican Friar Francisco de Vitoria, a precursor to the United Nations, formulated the organizations task of protecting freedom and human dignity while the concept of the sovereign state was still developing. Francisco de Vitoria “described this responsibility as an aspect of natural reason shared by all nations, and the result of an international order whose task it was to regulate relations between peoples.” The reality is that if injustice did not exist the United Nations would not be needed. Because injustices do exist, we have a responsibility to protect the dignity of the human persons.

The founding of the United Nations, as we know, coincided with the profound upheavals that humanity experienced when reference to the meaning of transcendence and natural reason was abandoned, and in consequence, freedom and human dignity were grossly violated. When this happens, it threatens the objective foundations of the values inspiring and governing the international order and it undermines the cogent and inviolable principles formulated and consolidated by the United Nations.

Ideally universal objective goods should coincide with the total common good, however if an organization works for a limited set of these goods this work should be encouraged. A part of evangelization is recognizing what is good in society and encouraging this goodness to continue. On the flip side, an equally important task is to recognize what is evil and unjust while calling for change. Both must be done in a spirit of humility and charity. Pope Benedict commented on the limited set of goods for which the United Nations labor:

Through the United Nations, States have established universal objectives which, even if they do not coincide with the total common good of the human family, undoubtedly represent a fundamental part of that good. The founding principles of the Organization -- the desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the dignity of the person, humanitarian cooperation and assistance -- express the just aspirations of the human spirit, and constitute the ideals which should underpin international relations.

Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those countries in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization. In the context of international relations, it is necessary to recognize the higher role played by rules and structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore to safeguard human freedom.

After affirming the mission of the United Nations, the Holy Father issued forth many challenges to the continual discernment of the organization. Although technological advancements have improved the quality of physical life, science must be in service to the common good. Many scientific methods and techniques act against the natural order of creation and contradict the sacredness of life, the environment, and attack the identity of the human person and family. Benedict XVI says that the choice should not be between science and ethics but one of adopting a scientific method that works within an ethical framework that upholds the sacredness of creation.

The United Nations must recognize the importance of subsidiarity, but also be willing to take action when a humanitarian crisis arises whether man-made or natural, especially when not taking action would cause real damage. This call to action should be characterized by humility- openness to dialogue. The United Nations should seek ways to harmonize relationships between states and try to prevent any kind of outcome that would result in war or conflict that threatens human life. “What is needed is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation.”

Like John Paul II, Benedict XVI stressed that what we consider human rights must be rooted in natural law, namely the objective goods intrinsic to human existence. Otherwise, the argument for certain “human rights” over other “human rights” merely becomes the competing whims of the powerful. This will to power becomes characterized by people trying to rationalize certain actions motivated by selfish ends. We must be aware of those trying to manipulate certain rights to satisfy trends and selective groups because this runs “the risks of contradicting unity of the human person and thus the indivisibility of rights.” Rather the legality of rights must always be consistent with the ethical and rational dimension upon which the rights are rooted. We must always make a rational consideration of the social interactions between humans and ways to act according to natural goods of human existence. Our understanding of rights must always include the Common Good, which upholds the collective dignity of every person while refraining from directly acting against the good of any individual.

Catholic Underground Podcast Featuring the Parousians!

2008-04-30T22:15:00.004-05:00

We were blessed to have Fr. Chris Decker along with the Catholic Underground crew visited the LSU Parousians for our last meeting of the semester! Please go check it out!

Catholic Underground Special #5

The Offensive Nature of the Gospel of Life for American Catholics

2008-04-22T10:44:00.009-05:00

In his homily at Washington Nationals Stadium, Pope Benedict XVI briefly touched on the inconsistency often displayed by the Church in the United States. While praising signs of renewal, the Holy Father noted,

"At the same time she senses, often painfully, the presence of division and polarization in her midst, as well as the troubling realization that many of the baptized, rather than acting as a spiritual leaven in the world, are inclined to embrace attitudes contrary to the truth of the Gospel."

The Pope's solution to this problem of Catholics who fail to act as a saving sign of contradiction to the world and wind up contradicting their own mission echoes the work of the Parousians.

The challenges confronting us require a comprehensive and sound instruction in the truths of the faith. But they also call for cultivating a mindset, an intellectual “culture”, which is genuinely Catholic, confident in the profound harmony of faith and reason, and prepared to bring the richness of faith’s vision to bear on the urgent issues which affect the future of American society.

In order to be the spiritual leaven we are meant to be in the world, we must move past the polarization and division of secular and materialist ideologies that have infiltrated our ways of thinking by creating a genuinely Catholic intellectual culture.

There are still some dissenters in the Catholic Church who are hard pressed to agree with the Magisterium on anything. Why they have remained Catholic is anybody's guess. Most American dissenters are characterized as cafeteria Catholics, those who generally accept the tenets of the faith, but reject others because they do not line up with some outside divisive ideology, and competing divisive ideologies that do not conform to the fullness of faith are at the root of the disunion and distrust among American Catholics. The Holy Father has always been insistent that Catholicism minus a few troubling teachings plus a few incompatible trendy ideas is not Catholicism. As more than a few commentators noted on the elevation of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy, the cafeteria is closed.

The need to create a genuinely Catholic intellectual culture has been realized before this papacy. The novelist Walker Percy defended a consistent life ethic in his 1981 essay, "A View of Abortion, With Something to Offend Everybody."

Percy begins his essay noting the late twentieth century desensitized response to dying masses before offering his nagging diagnosis to the culture:

True legalized abortion - a million and a half fetuses flushed down the Disposall every year in this country - is yet another banal atrocity in a century where atrocities have become commonplace.

Percy realized this line of argument has already been made and immediately distances himself from the hypocrisy attributed to the pro-life movement.

The statement will probably offend one side in this already superheated debate, so I hasten in the interest of fairness and truth to offend the other side. What else can you do when some of your allies give you as big a pain as your opponents? I notice this about many so-called pro-lifers. They seem pro-life only on this one perfervid and politicized issue. The Reagan administration, for example, professes to be anti-abortion but has just recently decided in the interests of business that it is proper for infant-formula manufacturers to continue their hard sell in the Third World despite thousands of deaths from bottle feeding. And Senator Jesse Helms and the Moral Majority, who profess a reverence for unborn life, don't seem to care much about born life: poor women who don't get abortions have babies and can't feed them.

Percy then goes on with uncommon boldness in speaking the truth about abortion.

What I am writing this for is the egregious doublespeak that the abortionists - "pro-choicers," that is - seem to have hit on in the current rhetorical war.

Percy dismisses the disingenuous argument that opposition to abortion is a religious issue.

But I do submit that religion, philosophy, and private opinion have nothing to do with this issue. I further submit that it is commonplace of modern biology, known to every high-school student and no doubt to you the reader as well, that the life of every individual organism, human or not, begins with the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with the chromosomes of the ovum to form a new DNA complex that henceforth directs the ontogenesis of the organism.

Percy imagines the whole debate as a "Galileo trial in reverse," with the Supreme Court telling a high-school biology teacher that his position on scientific fact is only private belief which he must refrain from teaching, and the teacher submits while murmuring, "But it's still alive!"

Percy closes the essay with a prophetic warning, one that the pro-life movement has not quite fulfilled.

To pro-abortionists: According to opinion polls, it looks as if you may get your way. But you're not going to have it both ways. You're going to be told what you're doing.

We Are the Living Stones

2008-04-20T19:05:00.010-05:00

On April 19, 2008 Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a votive mass for the universal Church at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. In his homily Benedict eloquently weaved together the theological reflection on the mass readings, the congregation, the surrounding art, the architecture and history of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to speak of “the pursuit of holiness, the spread of the Gospel and the building up of the Church in faith, hope and love.” The physical building and spiritual worship of the local community participating in the eternal Divine Liturgy became an analogy of the people of God, the universal Church.

Benedict XVI reminds us that our faith is a continuity of the community that precedes us. We owe a debt of appreciation to those men and women from whose labor we have reaped the fruit. In turn, we have the task to continue the work of faith that has been entrusted to us. At liturgy and in life we are always invited to participate in a reality that transcends time and yet requires our participation as a unique and necessary expression in this time and this space.

"Gathered as we are in this historic cathedral, how can we not think of the countless men and women who have gone before us, who labored for the growth of the Church in the United States, and left us a lasting legacy of faith and good works? In today’s first reading we saw how, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles went forth from the Upper Room to proclaim God’s mighty works to people of every nation and tongue. In this country, the Church’s mission has always involved drawing people “from every nation under heaven” (cf. Acts 2:5) into spiritual unity, and enriching the Body of Christ by the variety of their gifts."

The work of God is always the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes us one in faith and love. We must remember that the strength of the Church lies in our bearing the image of God. The unity and diversity embodied in the very inner-life of the Trinity manifests in the diversity and unity of the faith community. Our individuality and solitude opens us up to God and calls us to make an authentic gift of self to others. The summit of this union occurs during the Divine Liturgy and more particularly during Communion when we eat the very flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God calls us to break out of the dark prison of the self and into the light of Love.

"This is the message of hope we are called to proclaim and embody in a world where self-centeredness, greed, violence, and cynicism so often seem to choke the fragile growth of grace in people’s hearts. Saint Irenaeus, with great insight, understood that the command which Moses enjoined upon the people of Israel: “Choose life!” (Dt 30:19) was the ultimate reason for our obedience to all God’s commandments (cf. Adv. Haer. IV, 16, 2-5). Perhaps we have lost sight of this: in a society where the Church seems legalistic and “institutional” to many people, our most urgent challenge is to communicate the joy born of faith and the experience of God’s love."

Too often people look at God’s commands as a foreign power that comes to negate our freedom and stunt our personal growth. To the contrary, God’s will is life, for God is the source of life, and all life finds its meaning in God. The reason for God’s commands is to set us free from the snares of sin so that we may fully bear the image of God through choosing life and become fully alive. Sin does not represent life but death, not growth but decay. All saints will the same thing: “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As long as we see God’s will as some imposing immutable far-off force trying to control us, we will neglect the truth that God only wants to set us free so we may respond freely to the call to love inscribed in the nature of our being. This love is not passive but combats all that separates us from God, and God’s truth is like a sword that prunes us so that we may flourish.

All physical reality has a spiritual dimension. In his homily Benedict XVI turns to the concrete example of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to reflect on the theological meaning of this house of prayer. This cathedral is a symbol of hope in as much as it symbolizes the Church and God’s presence in the world. Furthermore, the elaborate Gothic style architecture represents a spiritual tradition more ancient than the land of America where this Cathedral resides. The purpose of Church architecture and art is to portray mystical realities and theological truths that occur all around us. Church art at its finest always expresses a sacramental vision that lifts the soul to the contemplation of truth. Because Benedict XVI provides succinct and beautiful reflection, I have included all the text pertaining to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

"I am particularly happy that we have gathered in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Perhaps more than any other church in the United States, this place is known and loved as “a house of prayer for all peoples” (cf. Is 56:7; Mk 11:17). Each day thousands of men, women and children enter its doors and find peace within its walls. Archbishop John Hughes, who – as Cardinal Egan has reminded us – was responsible for building this venerable edifice, wished it to rise in pure Gothic style. He wanted this cathedral to remind the young Church in America of the great spiritual tradition to which it was heir, and to inspire it to bring the best of that heritage to the building up of Christ’s body in this land. I would like to draw your attention to a few aspects of this beautiful structure which I think can serve as a starting point for a reflection on our particular vocations within the unity of the Mystical Body.

The first has to do with the stained glass windows, which flood the interior with mystic light. From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor. Many writers – here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne – have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself. It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit. It follows that we, who live the life of grace within the Church’s communion, are called to draw all people into this mystery of light.

This is no easy task in a world which can tend to look at the Church, like those stained glass windows, “from the outside”: a world which deeply senses a need for spirituality, yet finds it difficult to “enter into” the mystery of the Church. Even for those of us within, the light of faith can be dimmed by routine, and the splendor of the Church obscured by the sins and weaknesses of her members. It can be dimmed too, by the obstacles encountered in a society which sometimes seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality. You, who have devoted your lives to bearing witness to the love of Christ and the building up of his Body, know from your daily contact with the world around us how tempting it is at times to give way to frustration, disappointment and even pessimism about the future. In a word, it is not always easy to see the light of the Spirit all about us, the splendor of the Risen Lord illuminating our lives and instilling renewed hope in his victory over the world (cf. Jn 16:33).

Yet the word of God reminds us that, in faith, we see the heavens opened, and the grace of the Holy Spirit lighting up the Church and bringing sure hope to our world. “O Lord, my God,” the Psalmist sings, “when you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30). These words evoke the first creation, when the Spirit of God hovered over the deep (cf. Gen 1:2). And they look forward to the new creation, at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and established the Church as the first fruits of a redeemed humanity (cf. Jn 20:22-23). These words summon us to ever deeper faith in God’s infinite power to transform every human situation, to create life from death, and to light up even the darkest night. And they make us think of another magnificent phrase of Saint Irenaeus: “where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Adv. Haer. III, 24, 1).

This leads me to a further reflection about the architecture of this church. Like all Gothic cathedrals, it is a highly complex structure, whose exact and harmonious proportions symbolize the unity of God’s creation. Medieval artists often portrayed Christ, the creative Word of God, as a heavenly “geometer”, compass in hand, who orders the cosmos with infinite wisdom and purpose. Does this not bring to mind our need to see all things with the eyes of faith, and thus to grasp them in their truest perspective, in the unity of God’s eternal plan? This requires, as we know, constant conversion, and a commitment to acquiring “a fresh, spiritual way of thinking” (cf. Eph 4:23). It also calls for the cultivation of those virtues which enable each of us to grow in holiness and to bear spiritual fruit within our particular state of life. Is not this ongoing “intellectual” conversion as necessary as “moral” conversion for our own growth in faith, our discernment of the signs of the times, and our personal contribution to the Church’s life and mission?"

This last paragraph speaks of the importance of faith and reason working together. Great cathedrals represent works of art that unite the content of faith to the novelty of human intelligence and ingenuity from the complex processes of designing to constructing. The questions above (italics mine) remind us of the need to integrate reason into the faith perspective because God has ordered the cosmos according to a Divine plan has given us the capacity to know. Rather than being opposed to each other, faith and reason represent mutual perspectives that help form a cohesive and holistic worldview. The combination of faith and reason in the Cathedral and in the Church represents the upward movement of the soul to discover truth and seek God’s will.

"Dear friends, these considerations lead me to a final observation about this great cathedral in which we find ourselves. The unity of a Gothic cathedral, we know, is not the static unity of a classical temple, but a unity born of the dynamic tension of diverse forces which impel the architecture upward, pointing it to heaven. Here too, we can see a symbol of the Church’s unity, which is the unity – as Saint Paul has told us – of a living body composed of many different members, each with its own role and purpose. Here too we see our need to acknowledge and reverence the gifts of each and every member of the body as “manifestations of the Spirit given for the good of all” (1 Cor 12:7). Certainly within the Church’s divinely-willed structure there is a distinction to be made between hierarchical and charismatic gifts (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4). Yet the very variety and richness of the graces bestowed by the Spirit invite us constantly to discern how these gifts are to be rightly ordered in the service of the Church’s mission. You, dear priests, by sacramental ordination have been configured to Christ, the Head of the Body. You, dear deacons, have been ordained for the service of that Body. You, dear men and women religious, both contemplative and apostolic, have devoted your lives to following the divine Master in generous love and complete devotion to his Gospel. All of you, who fill this cathedral today, as well as your retired, elderly and infirm brothers and sisters, who unite their prayers and sacrifices to your labors, are called to be forces of unity within Christ’s Body. By your personal witness, and your fidelity to the ministry or apostolate entrusted to you, you prepare a path for the Spirit. For the Spirit never ceases to pour out his abundant gifts, to awaken new vocations and missions, and to guide the Church, as our Lord promised in this morning’s Gospel, into the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 16:13)."

We must prepare the way of the Lord! As the Cathedral provides a sacred space for God to dwell in the world, we must likewise allow God to work through us. Benedict XVI encourages us to gaze upwards with humility and confidence for we are the living stones of the temple that God is raising up in the world.

At the conclusion of Mass, the Holy Father added the following:

"At this moment I can only thank you for your love of the Church and Our Lord, and for the love which you show to the poor Successor of Saint Peter. I will try to do all that is possible to be a worthy successor of the great Apostle, who also was a man with faults and sins, but remained in the end the rock for the Church. And so I too, with all my spiritual poverty, can be for this time, in virtue of the Lord’s grace, the Successor of Peter.

It is also your prayers and your love which give me the certainty that the Lord will help me in this my ministry. I am therefore deeply grateful for your love and for your prayers. My response now for all that you have given to me during this visit is my blessing, which I impart to you at the conclusion of this beautiful Celebration."

Pope Benedict XVI on the Power of Prayer

2008-04-10T12:53:00.010-05:00

Pope Benedict XVI's first papal visit to the United States is only five days away, and while most of us will not get the chance to see him in person, the Holy Father has asked that we remain close to him in prayer during his visit. If you haven't yet read his address to United States Catholics, I encourage you to do so. (Or you can watch the video here!) I found the following excerpt to be a particularly appropriate reminder to us as students as we press on toward the end of this semester:

"I am especially grateful to all who have been praying for the success of the visit, since prayer is the most important element of all. Dear friends, I say this because I am convinced that without the power of prayer, without that intimate union with the Lord, our human endeavors would achieve very little. Indeed this is what our faith teaches us. It is God who saves us, he saves the world, and all of history. He is the shepherd of his people. I am coming, sent by Jesus Christ, to bring you his word of life."

Too often we forget that our good works are only as effective as the prayer that supports them. With prayer, even the simplest acts of love plant seeds that in time bear great fruit. Without prayer, even the most extravagant good deeds "achieve very little."

God doesn't ask us to save the world - He is the Savior of the world, and we are only His instruments. If we wish to participate in His saving work, then we must remain intimately united to Him in prayer.

Let us especially pray for our Holy Father as he travels next week, and for one another as we continue to study, to seek the Truth, and to bring the "word of life" to our teachers and classmates.

Order through Prayer

2008-03-28T08:19:00.000-05:00

In teaching my students about what it means to be an image of God, a much clearer view of human nature has emerged within my own spiritual vision.

What is natural to man? Is indulgence in worldly affairs natural? Is revelry in sexual adventure that which completes man? Are we naturally bound to the desire for the accumulation of material goods? To know what is natural to man, one must first know man’s nature.

To say that something is natural, one is claiming that that which is deemed natural is in accordance with the nature of the thing being observed. For example, is it natural for a fish to swim? Of course it is. By observing the nature of the fish, the conclusion is easily reached that swimming is natural to the fish, for that is in accordance with its nature. A fish that doesn’t swim quickly dies. A bird that doesn’t fly falls to its death. A man that doesn’t pray is crushed under the weight of the world, for he is not made for the world in both his and its present state.

What, then, is man’s nature? The answer is both simple and profound -- man is an image of God. The image must tell us something of that which it reflects, and if the image is a reflection of the eternal, then to reflect eternity for all eternity is what is natural to it. This is confirmed by St. Gregory of Nyssa in his Catechetical Orations in which he writes:

If humanity is called to life in order to share in the divine nature, it must have been suitably constituted for the purpose…That is why humanity was given life, intelligence, wisdom, and all the qualities worthy of the godhead, so that each one of them should cause it to desire the godhead, so that each one of them should cause it to desire what is akin to it. And since eternity is inherent in the godhead, it was absolutely imperative that our nature should not lack it but should have in itself the principle of immortality. By virtue of this inborn faculty it could always be drawn towards what is superior to it and retain the desire for eternity.

God is all good, and order is good. Therefore, God is Order itself. We see a reflection of the face of God in His creation. The Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement in his book The Roots of Christian Mysticism writes:

Each being manifests the creative word which gives it its identity and attracts it. Each being manifests a dynamic idea, something willed by God. Ultimately each thing is a created name of him who cannot be named.

There is order in creation, for its Creator is Order itself, and Order begets order. Man is an image of God; therefore, he is made in the image of Order. Order is part of man’s nature as an image of God; therefore, disorder is unnatural to man.

In God, all of His attributes are one. Because he is eternal and infinite, He cannot be made of parts, nor does He possess parts. He is one is His essence. This has infinite implications, a few being that His order is His love, His love is His justice, His justice is His love, His love is His order, etc. God is all these good things, and man being an image of God finds in them his natural habitat. It is natural for man to have order both in the world and in his mind, will, and body. It is natural for man to love, to seek justice, etc. It is unnatural for man to do anything else. In saying that it is unnatural to man, although man seems tends towards these, I mean to say that it goes against his nature as an image of God. Yet more often than not, we do that which is unnatural to us and claim that it is simply human nature. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! To do anything but love, seek justice, obey God, etc. is to introduce disorder into our minds, wills, and bodies. Disorder in the human soul is manifested in many and various ways, all of which are hideous to the ordered soul.

Who is the man that embraces disorder? He is the one that is confused, addicted, angry, materialistic, yet all the while convincing himself that he has found happiness and contentment. Of course, the conclusions of a disordered mind will almost always be disordered.

How must a disordered system be overcome? By introducing order into the system. When it comes to the human soul made in the image and likeness of Order, Order must be brought into the disordered soul. By an opening up of the soul to the influence of Order through the indwelling of Order can the human soul begin to banish from it the darkness of disorder. This opening up of the soul is called prayer, which is as natural to man as barking is to a dog, as flying is to a bird, as swimming is to a fish. Yet we are like dogs that do not know how to bark and fish that cannot swim. We are dominated by the world which was created to be dominated by us. How absolutely unnatural!

Prayer is our best bet for happiness as happiness can only be found in order. In fact, order is happiness. The purpose of prayer is to turn outside of ourselves, to empty the image in order to be filled with the reality. It is our nature to empty ourselves to both God and neighbor, that in emptying ourselves we may be filled. Fulfillment in emptiness! Yet another of those wonderful Christian paradoxes.

How can we know that our calling is to turn and open to others? If we were created to turn in on ourselves, then our eyes would be facing the opposite direction. We would be created to look inward. But according to nature that is not so. We look outward. It is in looking outward that we can empty ourselves just as the greatest Man, the God-man, did: “Who though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped; Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave…”

Through prayer, we look outward to the Source of all order and happiness. Through prayer, we empty ourselves of our worldly accretions, placing ourselves under the direct influence of a Perfect Order. As Order begins to reign in our souls, so, too, does love, truth, joy, peace, and all other attributes of God.

We pray in order that the unnatural might be overcome by the natural, that darkness might become light, and that disorder be crushed under the liberating weight of Order.

The Dignity of Women: A look at Mulieris Dignitatem (post 3)

2008-03-25T09:53:00.002-05:00

After examining the original solitude and original unity of man and woman as created in the image of God, both as individuals and collectively, John Paul II describes the nature and consequences of original sin. In order to properly understand the dignity of women, we must first understand how this dignity has been affronted through the fall of humanity. The introduction of sin ruptured the original unity between man and woman. This fall from grace has irrevocable effects on all relationships.

The mystery of sin can only enter the world through humanity because man and woman reveal the image of God. Although destined and called to freely share in the inner life of God, man and woman must still choose God and willfully make a sincere gift of self. God endowed man and woman with the natural goods of reason, free will, and a partner to help them understand their call to communion and the sincere gift of self, yet man still rebelled.

By committing sin man rejects this gift and at the same time wills to become "as God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5), that is to say, deciding what is good and what is evil independently of God, his Creator. The sin of the first parents has its own human "measure": an interior standard of its own in man's free will, and it also has within itself a certain "diabolic" characteristic, which is clearly shown in the Book of Genesis (3:15). Sin brings about a break in the original unity which man enjoyed in the state of original justice: union with God as the source of the unity within his own "I", in the mutual relationship between man and woman ("communio personarum") as well as in regard to the external world, to nature. (MD: 9)

John Paul II makes it clear that independent of the ‘distinction of roles’ that Adam and Eve performed in the narrative recounting original sin; both man and woman are equally responsible for the transgression against God. Man rejects likeness to God by refusing to make a sincere gift of self, and this destroys the communion of persons. This willful disobedience puts a tragic strain on the relationship between God and man that God cannot ignore. God is offended, man and woman are deeply affected, and man’s eternal destination for supernatural happiness has been rejected.

The mystery of sin brings about the experience of suffering. The great offense done to the creator affects all of creation and more particularly this rupture resounds in the physical and spiritual condition of man. The newfound knowledge discovered by man was toil, pain, and death imbedded in the human experience for all generations.

Original Sin also creates a fundamental division between man and woman that threatens their ability to enter into an authentic relationship of love. Scripture describes one of the consequences of sin to the woman: “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). John Paul II states that this dominion over women by men denotes a “loss of the stability of that fundamental equality” that man and woman mutually possessed in unity with one another. This dis-unity diminishes both the dignity of man and woman because the authentic communion of persons depends upon the equality rooted in their dignity (MD: 10).

In a way, this division connotes a type of primordial divorce between the sexes that threatens the sacramental meaning of marriage and this danger exists in every generation.

The matrimonial union requires respect for and a perfecting of the true personal subjectivity of both of them. The woman cannot become the "object" of "domination" and male "possession". But the words of the biblical text directly concern original sin and its lasting consequences in man and woman. Burdened by hereditary sinfulness, they bear within themselves the constant "inclination to sin", the tendency to go against the moral order which corresponds to the rational nature and dignity of man and woman as persons (MD: 10)

The consequence for men is a tendency to objectify women as objects of lust rather than subjects recipient to love. The “inclination to sin” will continuously burden the mutual relationship between man and woman.

It is very important to understand that the dominion of men over women occurred as a consequence of sin, and that John Paul II claims that this dominion over women and tendency to objectify must be overcome through God’s grace. Still, given modern debate of “women’s rights,” another danger arises. In trying to liberate women from the sin of male domination this should not attempt to “liberate” women of their femininity.

Consequently, even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the biblical words "He shall rule over you" (Gen 3:16) must not under any condition lead to the "masculinization" of women. In the name of liberation from male "domination", women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine "originality". There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not "reach fulfilment", but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential richness. It is indeed an enormous richness. (MD: 10)

Women must act in an authentically feminine way as embodied in the openness and humility of Mary, the mother of God. The richness of being woman is intimately connected to her femininity. Modern feminism that tries to trivialize the sexual differences of man and woman attack the natural goodness of sexuality and sexual differentiation. Love does not seek to irradiate sexual difference but to conquer sin.

The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her "fulfilment" as a person, her dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the "image and likeness of God" that is specifically hers. The inheritance of sin suggested by the words of the Bible - "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" - can be conquered only by following this path. The overcoming of this evil inheritance is, generation after generation, the task of every human being, whether woman or man. For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman's personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation. (MD: 10)

Every woman has the task of exploring the meaning of her femininity and her special dignity as a woman. Every woman reflects the image of God in a unique way, and she plays a particular role in the family of God. The meaning of being man and woman cannot be understood apart from the other and apart from the reality of being made in the “image and likeness of God.” Because of the inter-connectedness between the sexes, the dignity of woman must be protected by man and male dominance must be resisted for the sake of both man and woman.

Original sin leaves humanity in a dire predicament. Next week I will discuss the mercy of God on humanity and what has been named the “proto-evangelium” which foretells the prominent role of woman in the redemption of humanity.

The Song of Songs and the Triduum

2008-03-22T13:45:00.000-05:00

Last night, I read the Song of Songs as a meditation the Easter Triduum, and I couldn't believe I'd never placed it in that context before. The beauty and depth of its poetry had never seemed so profound. As the Bride of Christ, the Church, we are asked to enter into the mysteries of Holy Week with a deep and holy intimacy. We receive the gift of Christ's flesh and blood with renewed gratitude on Holy Thursday; we celebrate His passion with broken hearts, "faint with love" on Good Friday; we wait in silence on Holy Saturday for the resurrection that our Bridegroom promised; and then on Easter, we rejoice at the sound of His voice, knowing that He has risen and asked us to rise with Him.

The Song of Songs begins as the Bride asks to be brought to the chambers of her lover, who is both shepherd and king. In a particularly striking image that prefigures the Passion and Resurrection, the Bridegroom calls His Bride "a lily among thorns" (Song 2:2). They share an intimate meal - as we do when we celebrate the Eucharist - which the Bride describes in this way:

I delight to rest in his shadow,
and his fruit is sweet to my mouth.
He brings me into the banquet hall,
and his emblem over me is love.
... His left hand is under my head
and his right arm embraces me. (2:3-4, 6)

Then the Bride has a dream that makes it seem as though her lover has left her:

On my bed at night, I sought him
whom my heart loves -
I sought him but I did not find him.
... Have you seen him whom my heart loves? (3:2-3)

But just after she says this, she finds him and says that she "took hold of him and would not let him go" (3:4). Her desire to hold fast to the Bridegroom recalls the disciples' desire to cling to Christ and their refusal to believe that He was going where they could not follow.

Then the daughters of Jerusalem - the faithful - are urged to gaze upon the King as he comes in a royal procession, surrounded by the "valiant men of Israel" and

In the crown with which his mother has crowned him
on the day of his marriage,
on the day of the joy of his heart. (3:11)

This is Good Friday, the day of Christ's marriage to His Church, when He receives His crown of thorns, the crown shared by His sorrowful mother, and His love for us is consummated on the cross. The day is "good" because it pleased God to redeem us, it was indeed "the day of the joy of his heart."

The Bridegroom praises His Bride and tells her that "until the day breathes cool and the shadows lengthen," he will "go to the mountain of myrrh, / to the hill of incense," presumably to offer a sacrifice for her (4:6), just as Christ went to the hill of Calvary to sacrifice Himself for us.

Then the Bride has another dream, more heartbreaking than the first, because in this dream, she is not reunited with her lover. "I was sleeping," she says, "but my heart kept vigil" (5:2). She hears her lover knocking at the door, but she does not rise immediately to open it. She is afraid. She has taken off her garment - the veil of the temple has been torn - and her feet have been washed - as the Lord washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper - and she hesitates, but the sound of her lover's voice makes her heart tremble (5:4), so she rises. With fingers "dripping choice myrrh" (5:5) - an image which recalls the anointing at Bethany in Matthew 26, as well as the spices used to anoint Christ's body for burial - she goes to open the door, but she opens it to darkness and silence:

My lover had departed, gone.
I sought him but I did not find him;
I called to him but he did not answer me. (5:6)

When the Bride goes looking for the Bridegroom, she is "struck" and "wounded" by the watchmen of the city (5:7), but she praises her lover, even in his absence. She knows he will return. Then her joy is restored when she meets him in the garden and sees the lilies and the vines in bloom, and they retire together to their marriage bed (7:12-13). Again she is able to say, "His left hand is under my head, and his right arm embraces me" (8:3).

So too, we share in Christ's suffering as we celebrate His Passion, but we praise Him even in His seeming absence. We know what he has promised: "you are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you" (John 16:22).

We know He will return to us, and so on this Holy Saturday, as the Bride of Our Lord, "we wait in joyful hope," keeping vigil in our hearts and listening for His voice. We wait in silence, knowing that in the morning we will hear Him say:

"Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone." (Song 2:10-11)

An Acceptable Sacrifice

2008-03-21T08:03:00.002-05:00

We celebrate today the greatest sacrifice ever made, a sacrifice that dwarfs our feeble attempts at imitation. With this in mind, we must come to an understanding of what it means to offer an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. In other words, are our sacrifices offered in union with and in the same spirit with which the Christ offered His, or are they offered in the same spirit as Cain’s?

Genesis 4:1-16 recounts a story that reveals the destructive nature of the darkness hid within our hearts. Two brothers offer sacrifices to God. One is accepted while the other is not. But why? A close reading reveals a possible reason for the denial of Cain’s sacrifice:

“The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?’” (Genesis 4:6-7)

Cain’s immediate response to God’s rejection of his sacrifice was not one of humility as one might expect of a person in such a position. It was anger. Rather than seeking out the proper way to please God, Cain digs his heels deeper into pride and presumably rationalization of his unacceptable sacrifice. God’s questioning is meant not only to provide an invitation for self-examination, but also for Cain to understand what it is God is actually seeking from him. God is not so much concerned with the sacrifice per se evidenced by the fact that sacrifice is not once mentioned when God speaks to Cain. He is concerned with the very heart of Cain, for the heart is what determines the acceptability of one’s sacrifice, not the other way around. The words, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” indicate something deeper than the mere rejection of a sacrifice, for God is speaking not of the acceptance of sacrifice, but about the acceptance of Cain himself. In other words, the sacrifice serves its purpose when the heart is pure. A heart polluted by envy and anger is a heart that pollutes. Cain’s sacrifice was polluted by his self-love and vanity, thus making it unacceptable in God’s eyes. Mother Teresa taught us that God calls us to do small things with great love as it is the great love that determines the greatness of the act. Cain, unfortunately, allows his vanity and self-love to devolve further into unjustified anger.

The instruction from God to Cain to do well went unappreciated and unheeded. Though God called out to Cain, pointing him in the direction of perfection, Cain sought his own way and offered an even more abominable sacrifice, the life of his own brother.

We’ve all got a bit of Cain in us. Some more than others, but we’ve all got it. I’m not speaking of fratricide. I’m speaking of the profound lack of insight that characterizes our relationships with the Almighty. We lack insight as to what God truly wants of us, and we tend towards a false belief in the sufficiency of offering Him our own works apart from our very selves, when in reality, all He really wants from us is a pure and humble heart in submission to His will expressed through physical sacrifices.

The Psalmist makes the above thought clear when he writes: “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire; but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’”

The Psalmist reveals to us that God’s desire is man himself, not his bull, ram, or cereal offering. The offering is to be an expression of the man, taking on value by virtue of the purity of his heart and delight in God’s will.

In stark contrast to Cain’s offering is the offering of Christ Who offered His purity and His entire being which He made completely and absolutely in union with God’s will.

“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:7-9)

St. Paul teaches us that the suffering of Christ was characterized by godly fear, supplication, and obedience. Because of this, he was made perfect, and thus, He Himself was made an acceptable sacrifice to the Father. As a sort of correction of Cain’s abominable sacrifice that led to his brother’s death, Christ offers His own life to save the lives of His bothers.

During this Triduum and throughout the Easter season, let us continue to examine the acceptability of our own sacrifices, discerning if we have offered ourselves to Him or a pathetic substitute.

Overcoming the Obscurity of Saint Patrick

2008-03-16T20:59:00.003-05:00

People obsess over the color green on Saint Patrick’s day, while Saint Patrick spent a great deal of time obsessing over God. I wonder how I can keep from making another obscure holiday out of another obscure saint. This year, I decided to start by making the saint less obscure. While this may not be possible for someone like Saint Valentine, this certainly is possible for Saint Patrick. Beyond the legend and folk lore that surrounds Saint Patrick, I have access to his writings, and his words speak volumes about his relationship to God and his view of divine grace.

There exists only a small collection of Saint Patrick’s writing. The smallness of his works may be appropriate to the simplicity and humility of the man. Yet great strength shines through his reliance on God. Patrick confessed himself as a simple countryman, unlearned, and least among the faithful. Both his Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus begin with “I, Patrick, a sinner” emphasizing his unworthiness and God’s constant grace and faithfulness.

Patrick acknowledges his faults of the past, but does not think his imperfections are enough to prevent him from doing God’s work. Rather he finds them as reason to rely on grace and exalt God’s name. In his writings, Patrick ardently celebrates his salvation, the Gospel message, and his mission. For these reasons, he journeyed as a missionary to Ireland; to serve God and the Irish people in the land he was once enslaved.

Speculation surrounds Patrick’s exact place of origin but many people speculate Britain. His Confessio reveals that during a raid, the sixteen-year-old Patrick was captured and sent as a slave to Ireland. Patrick viewed his capture as a symbolic exile representing his spiritual isolation from God at that time. Before his capture, Patrick admits to not living a very religious or good life.

In exile, Patrick accredits God with protecting him and consoling him as a father does his son. God made Patrick knowledgeable of his unbelief during his captivity, and gave Patrick the grace to respond in prayer. His conversion occurred during this time.

But after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time. (Confessio: 16)

Working as a shepherd, Patrick gained a steadfast faith that would provide him with the courage and patience to know that God will provide. After six years in enslavement and prompted by the Lord, Patrick endured a dangerous escape completely trusting in God’s providence. He traveled two-hundred miles to discover a boat leaving port the day of his arrival.

During his six years in Ireland, Patrick learned the language, culture, and people. Patrick desired the conversion of the Irish people. Once free, Patrick sought out training to become a missionary. He was convinced that God wanted him return to Ireland after a vision in which Patrick heard the voices of the Irish calling for him. However, it would be a great number of years before he could return as a missionary with the support of the Church. During this time, Patrick never gave up hope.

And many gifts were offered to me with weeping and tears, and I offended them [the donors], and also went against the wishes of a good number of my elders; but guided by God, I neither agreed with them nor deferred to them, not by my own grace but by God who is victorious in me and withstands them all, so that I might come to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and endure insults from unbelievers; that I might hear scandal of my travels, and endure many persecutions to the extent of prison; and so that I might give up my free birthright for the advantage of others, and if I should be worthy, I am ready [to give] even my life without hesitation; and most willingly for His name. And I choose to devote it to him even unto death, if God grant it to me. (Confessio: 37)

After thirty-nine years of pilgrimage and formation, Patrick eventually returned to Ireland as a bishop. He challenged the religion of the druids and engaged them in spiritual discussion trying to proclaim the Gospel. On such an occasion of challenge, Patrick is reported to have been describing the mysteries of the divine Trinity and using a shamrock as a natural example of three in one when the queen converted. Whether or not this happened, Christian Ireland was born in his lifetime. Other issues Patrick had to combat were human sacrifice and enslavement, both of which became obsolete by the time of his death. Patrick, who preached that nothing is impossible for the Lord, demonstrates this reality in his mission. Ireland became a Christian nation without physical force.

So, how is it that in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge of God but, always, until now, cherished idols and unclean things, they are lately become a people of the Lord, and are called children of God; the sons of the Irish [Scotti] and the daughters of the chieftains are to be seen as monks and virgins of Christ. (Confessio, 41).

With the absolute dedication of Patrick to God, much of Ireland became converted. He never rushed or forced the will if God but patiently waited as he actively sought ways to fulfill his destiny. Providence is present in the life, works, and writings of Patrick. He always heeded that divine grace is always present and guiding him at every moment. He lived in the constant presence of God. He showed the mercy God granted to him to the people he served. He appealed to the Irish’s desire for truth through humility and love. Furthermore, the fruits of his labor continued long after his death. The disciples of Patrick helped re-evangelize a ravished Europe torn apart spiritually through Arianism and physically through countless invasions that lead to the fall of the Roman Empire.

In honor of Saint Patrick, we should remember the missionary zeal we must have in proclaiming the Gospel. Though humble, Saint Patrick never sacrificed truth or love. Rather, he courageously sacrificed himself in service to God and to the Irish, his adopted family. He came to love the land of his captivity, and its inhabitants.

The following is a prayer from the Lorica of Saint Patrick:

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe in the Trinity in Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity,
I believe in the Trinity in Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

He Has Finished the Race

2008-03-14T14:37:00.006-05:00

In our catholicity, when one part of the Body of Christ suffers, the whole body suffers. We mourn with those who mourn.

Zenit, The New York Times and the BBC are covering the death of Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul in Iraq. His body was recovered two weeks after he was abduction by Muslim extremists. Three of his aides were killed in the kidnapping. It is unclear whether or not the 65-year-old archbishop was murdered or died of natural causes.

We stand with the Holy Father and the Archbishop's flock in mourning his death and praying for peace in Iraq and the safety of Iraq's Christian community.

During the Holy Week in front of us, as we contemplate the passion of our Lord, may we remember that the crosses we may be expected to bear in our Christian witnesses can go far beyond the things we give up for Lent and the moderate trials of affluent Western living. Those crosses could include maintaining our testimony in the face of those who violently oppose our faith and are willing to kill for our silence. While opposing secularist efforts to remove any reference to faith from the public square (e.g., the war on Christmas) can be good, and internal acts of offering our little sufferings up to the Lord is even better in our pursuit of holiness, our lives belong to Christ, and He may ask everything of us.

May we give God gratitude for the relative ease in which we live. May we be provoked to find ways to offer ourselves more fully to Christ and our brothers and sisters, that we may suffer with them as Christ suffered for us. May we be instruments of peace.

Fasting in a McWorld

2008-03-14T07:13:00.002-05:00

Given that we live in a McDonald’s culture, fasting may seem at odds with the quick and indulgent gratification complex that characterizes the moral landscape of our society. This is exactly why fasting is probably more relevant now than at any other moment in time. The privilege of being Catholic has provided us with a season set aside for specifically this purpose. If we are going to overcome the self-indulgent McWorld in which we live, we must be imitators of Christ our Light even in His example of fasting.

While fasting and abstaining during Lent is a given to most Catholics, these same Catholics have little to no idea as to why we fast, which nearly defeats the purpose. For many, it is simply a cultural practice devoid of any spiritual motivation.

Olivier Clement writes in The Roots of Christian Mysticism of the nature and purpose of fasting and other forms of ascesis:

"[Its purpose] is to transform the vital energy that has gone astray and been ‘blocked’ in idolatrous ‘passions’. Praxis gives birth to the virtues, which love will then synthesize.

To move from the blessings of this life, which are fundamentally good, to a radical demand to go beyond them, we must first have become aware of a higher perfection, and have received a pledge of God’s ‘sweetness’ (even if later he has to withdraw it and ask us to go through the desert places)."

Diadochus, a fifth century bishop of Photike, writes in much the same language:

"But voluntarily to abstain from what is agreeable and abundant is a sign of great discernment and higher knowledge. We do not readily despise the delights of this life if we do not taste with complete satisfaction the sweetness of God.”

The motivation for fasting must be a recognition of the higher things of God, those things that sustain our humanity in ways that mere food does not. The hunger felt during fasting is a physical expression of the desire to be filled with God’s Word, for to be filled with the blessings of the material world is to leave no room for the greater blessings of the spiritual. Christ assures us that our human nature demands much more than the nature of animals when He teaches, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every Word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” This line of thought is in harmony with Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body in which we learn that the body serves to express the soul. If in our souls we desire detachment from the things of the world in order to attach ourselves to God, then we must express this through the body. Fasting serves as such an expression. On the other hand, to fast without true spiritual motivation is to express a spiritual desire that does not exist. It serves as a lie, and is, therefore, an unacceptable sacrifice.

"We do not know how we are to pray."

2008-03-13T12:55:00.004-05:00

"We do not know how we are to pray, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings." - Romans 8:26

Many of the readings in the Office of Readings for the Lenten season offer beautiful reflections on prayer. This Lent, I have returned several times to one reading in particular: a homily by St. John Chrysostom, in the office for the Friday after Ash Wednesday. "As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit, when it is intent on God, is illumined by his infinite light," St. John says. Prayer, he explains, is "the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man."

Beautiful thoughts, to be sure - but St. John is quick to clarify what he means by "prayer," and the challenge he presents is directed not towards people who don't ever pray, but rather towards those of us who pray often, who like to think that we know how to pray. He says:

"I do not mean the prayer of outward observance, but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed times or periods but continuous throughout the day and night... I speak of prayer, not words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God's grace."

Prayer, St. John reminds us, is not a practice; it is a way of life. Prayer is not merely part of our daily schedule; it should be part of all that we do. Prayer is not - as we like to think it is - an act within our power; it is made possibly for us only by God's grace. Prayer is not our gift to God; it is His gift to us. How many of us can say that our prayer springs from a "love too deep for words," or that we do not feel the need to use words when we pray?

St. John goes on to quote St. Paul, who says in Romans 8:26: "We do not know how we are to pray, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings." If we want to be honest with ourselves and with God, we must admit as St. Paul does that we do not know how to pray. We cannot venture such a claim. Too often we forget that even the desire to pray is not our doing. Even the desire to pray is the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

We would do well to keep this truth in mind as we enter into our Lenten observances more deeply and prepare to celebrate the Easter Triduum.

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

The Dignity of Women: A look at Mulieris Dignitatem (post 2)

2008-03-13T10:19:00.010-05:00

In last week's post, I looked at some of the reasons Pope John Paul II offered for writing Mulieris Dignitatem. The foundation of Christianity and salvation history intimately depends on the participation of women. This role is exemplified in the unfallen femininity of Mary who achieves perfect union with God. In order to bring this discussion into a broader context, John Paul II directs his attention to the creation narrative to understand the beginning of man.

One of the things that may be difficult for some people to discern is when John Paul II uses the term "man" to refer to both man and woman and when "man" only refers to man and not woman. I hope that it will suffice to point out that man, at least in the English translation, is used both ways in Mulieris Dignitatem. Although I find the usage of man reasonably obvious, I have heard many people complain about the opposite.

Any attempt to comprehend and construct a Christian anthropological understanding of man must flow from understanding man as made "in the image and likeness of God." John Paul II claims that man—both man and woman, is collectively the culmination of creation. In reference to the first creation account in Genesis, John Paul states:

This concise passage contains the fundamental anthropological truths: man is the highpoint of the whole order of creation in the visible world; the human race, which takes its origin from the calling into existence of man and woman, crowns the whole work of creation, both man and woman are human beings to an equal degree, both are created in God's image. (MD: 6)

Accordingly, this "image of God" translates into a quality common to all humans that constitutes a major way humans differ from animals: rationality. As rational beings, humans have the conscious ability to know, choose, and intend to follow the will of God or, as we soon discover, to rebel against God. "Every individual is made in the image of God, insofar as he or she is a rational and free creature capable of knowing God and loving him." (MD: 7) While reason is definitely a likeness to God, another significant and primary way humans reflect this reality consists of the original unity between man and woman.

The second creation account of man found in Genesis uses metaphorical language to express human likeness to God in terms of the communion between man and woman. Man, in his original solitude, recognized more differences than similarities between himself and the animals because he was of a different essence. In his Theology of the Body, John Paul II explains that original solitude refers to the experience of man as such because the experience of original solitude is substantially prior to the masculinity and femininity of the original unity (TOB; 8:1). We must realize that experience of original solitude is universal to all humanity, prior to masculinity and femininity, and yet prefigures this sexual duality. Furthermore, this experience of solitude translates into every human's experience as a unique autonomous individual. In contrast to the original solitude, we learn that it is not good for man to "be alone." Already God reveals something of his own inner-mystery. Man ought not to be alone because God is not alone, but a communion of persons.

In the description found in Gen 2:1 8-25, the woman is created by God "from the rib" of the man and is placed at his side as another "I", as the companion of the man, who is alone in the surrounding world of living creatures and who finds in none of them a "helper" suitable for himself. Called into existence in this way, the woman is immediately recognized by the man as "flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones" (cf. Gen 2:23) and for this very reason she is called "woman". In biblical language this name indicates her essential identity with regard to man - 'is-'issah - something which unfortunately modern languages in general are unable to express: "She shall be called woman ('issah) because she was taken out of man ('is)": Gen 2:23. (MD: 6)

Only when both man and woman are present to each other can they transcend the original solitude, and this is called the original unity. Man is able to understand himself in an essential way of which he was not capable before the presence of woman. Likewise, the woman can only understand herself in the presence of man. Thus, both the man and woman become mutual helpers of each other. For between man and woman there is more similarity than difference. Man expresses this truth in his confession to the woman: "flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone." While man found more difference than similarity among the different plants and animals, only in the face of woman does he find someone of the same essence and dignity. Through the experience of the other, man and woman come to understand their own human nature.

From the previous passages, we can deduce that man became the "image of God" not only through his own humanity and rationality, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form from the very beginning. The sexual designation of the body and spirit only make sense if the opposite sex exits. Man and woman exist mutually for each other. The presence of the other allows man and woman to recognize their call to communion and love, and this communion of love mirrors the divine mystery of love that originates in relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Human love and family finds its source in God. Man ought to love because God is love.

To say that man is created in the image and likeness of God means that man is called to exist "for" others, to become a gift. (MD: 7)

The experience of being either man or woman, masculine or feminine, exists as "two reciprocally completely ways of 'being a body' and at the same time of being human" and "two complementary ways of being conscious of the meaning of the body" (TOB; 10: 1). This duality calls us to an interpersonal communion with the other. The original unity becomes the basis for all community and the economy of the gift. The good of the individual is united to the good of every other individual. From the beginning this call is manifested within marriage, but as the whole of human history unfolds, other ways to express this communion open up on the horizon of salvation history. The summary of this truth is that man and woman cannot find themselves fully except through a sincere gift of self.

In my next post, I will focus on the rupture in the relationship between man, woman, and God. With the introduction of sin and the original dis-unity, John Paul II points to the tendency of male dominance and the reduction of women as objects of lust rather than mutual helpers that has consistently plagued humanity in every generation. Contrary to the original unity, sin always threatens to distort the proper relationship between man and woman.

Vocations of Man and Woman by St. Edith Stein, Part One

2008-03-11T13:29:00.001-05:00

St. Edith Stein wrote often about the natures of men and women, including their vocations. This is a rather controversial topic today, but might be less so if more people understood what a vocation actually is and why men and women have separate ones. I will therefore write a bit about that in this first part of a short series on the topic.

In her essay, Vocations of Man and Woman, St. Stein begins by clarifying what a vocation actually is. She states that it is not simply “gainful employment,” as many people view it today, but that the word vocation entails a call from someone. She says that the calling comes through a person’s ability and education, or their human nature and place in life. These are, as St. Stein writes, the work of God—and, therefore, it is God who calls us to a vocation specific to our gifts and abilities.

Next, St. Stein wades through the reasons why men and women have different vocations (the controversy begins!). First, it is clear that men and women, though equally God’s children, are DIFFERENT, and that this difference is immediately shown in the first creation story in Genesis. Though they are different, however, they are initially given the same vocation when they are “created in the image of God” and told to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it, and be masters over the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, and all the creatures which move upon the earth.” Therefore, the threefold vocation of men and women at the time of their creation was to: a) be the image of God, b) bring forth prosperity and c) be masters of the earth.
The second creation account includes more detail about the creation of man. In this story, Adam has been made steward of paradise, but has no suitable companion. St. Stein writes that the Hebrew used to describe Adam’s lack of a partner is very difficult to translate, and that the phrase “a helper as if vis-à-vis to him” would be the closest English equivalent. This describes someone complementary to Adam, but not identical. Noticing this lack of companionship, the Lord, in His INFINITE wisdom, created woman. So both sexes have been created, and are described as “helpmates” and “companions,” and it is written that man will cling to woman and both will be one flesh. Therefore, we should think of the first human pair as “the most intimate community of love.” They were in perfect harmony and loved each other chastely. Before the fall, there is no indication of a sovereign relationship between the two; however, pre-eminence is suggested in that man was created first.

St. Stein then explores why it would not have been good for man to have been alone. She uses the Trinity as an analogy, writing, “God created man in His own image. But God is three in one; and just as the Son issues from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son, so, too, the woman emanated from man and posterity from them both. And moreover, God is love. But there must be at least two persons for love to exist” (60).

After the Fall, however, the dynamic between man and woman was changed irrevocably. My next post will go into St. Stein’s writings on this in more detail.

Education and Play - Seeking the Proper Order (Part II)

2008-03-07T07:01:00.002-06:00

In Part I of this topic, I wrote of the transcendent nature of play as that which is an expression of our nature as images of God. Developing this idea a bit further, speaking of the proper place of play within academia should be taken up.

Part I ended with the conclusion that play exists as a sort of signpost, and it is merely that. It reminds us of our ultimate end at which point we will exist in a state of timelessness, order, and perfect unity and justice. It also reveals our own sort of impatience. We want that higher existence now, not later. We even train our bodies to become better athletes and musicians in order to perfect performance with the hope that greater performance results in greater play. Greater play means greater anticipation and clarity of that world that we are seeking to imitate even if done so unknowingly. Play is our creative expression as images of God and is, thus, a gift from God that should reveal to us our true nature. But it is still just a signpost. It cannot and should not be the final destination.

As heaven is that final destination about which I write, then it is incumbent upon us to put every tool and gift God has given us to reaching that destination. This is not to say that we can somehow earn our salvation, rather it is an acknowledgement that God has placed us upon this earth to reach greater heights of holiness and love before He calls us to judgment. The most obvious gifts God has given us to reach greater knowledge of love of Him are our intellects and wills. Without them, we can neither know Him nor love Him, and this knowledge and love is expressed through the body. This reveals to us the role of education as that which forms the intellect to accept not only the truths of God’s creation which we call the sciences, but also that which the sciences were created to reveal – the wisdom and beauty of God Himself. Because the intellect informs the will, a well-formed intellect should lead to well-informed decisions, and thus a greater display of proper character. This is where play, especially the form seen in sports, is insufficient.

Is it, then, wrongheaded to believe that sports should play no role within academic institutions? I believe that it is. Because of the unifying effect of sports, it plays a role that cannot be filled by education alone, but it must be acknowledged that the role of sports within academia is only that of unification and, therefore, representation of the entire student body. Sports and other forms of play within schools are at the service of the greater good of education and the entire student body, not the other way around. They are meant to enhance education by fostering unity. Sports must be seen as the handmaiden of the gentle master that is education. This is the proper order that exists between play and education, and to stray from this is to inject within this system a principle of chaos. One begins to see the tail wagging the dog. Sports begins to demand service from education and sets itself up as an entity independent of the greater student body, seeking recognition beyond its calling. Rather than being a force for unity, it establishes itself as a source of divisiveness and even belligerence towards that which it must serve. This naturally becomes the mindset of those engaged in such play, and a culture which sees sports as the greatest good to the detriment of education is now at work. But the divisiveness doesn’t end there. If this is what the athletic world then begins to offer, then it must necessarily turn on itself, eating its own children. If its children are fed the same bitter food, then the children become divisive amongst each other, separating themselves from the good of team unity, seeking personal aggrandizement and grossly high pay for something that by its nature should neither demand nor deserve such things. This should also raise questions about the forms of play on which a school focuses. As mentioned before, there are forms of play such as music that seem to better reflect our human natures and that to which God has called us. Is it, therefore, intellectually consistent to uplift the lower forms of play while degrading the higher forms?

It is for the benefit of both academics and sports that the proper order be sought and eagerly embraced. To do otherwise would be to destroy both.

Praying with the Church: The Liturgy of the Hours

2008-03-06T13:07:00.011-06:00

From www.liturgy.co.nz/ofthehours/resources.html

"O God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit..."

The Liturgy of the Hours - also called the Divine Office, the Canonical Hours, or the Breviary - like so many Catholic practices, is drawn from Jewish tradition. In the Psalms, we find references to the practice of praying at different hours of the day and night: "In the morning my prayer comes before you" (Ps 88:13); "May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice" (Ps 141:2); "At night His song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life" (Ps 42:8); "Evening, morning, and noon I cry out..." (Ps 55:17). The Psalms, the most ancient prayers of the Church, remain a central element of the Liturgy of the Hours to this day.

Traditionally, the Divine Office consisted of eight fixed "hours" of prayer: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. It was composed in the fifth century, and it development was more or less completed by the end of the sixth. The Church has of course made changes and additions to the Office over time, but its character remains largely unchanged. It is one of the most treasured prayers of the Church, and each day it gives hundreds of thousands of the faithful the opportunity to pray together in one voice.

Perhaps the reform of the Divine Office best known to us is the revision promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970 with his Apostolic Constitution Laudis Canticum. In this document, the Holy Father explains the reasons behind the reform, which were twofold: first, to encourage its use by more of the faithful, and second, to give the canonical hours a more logical relationship to the chronological hours to which they are assigned:

"The office has been drawn up and arranged in such a way that not only clergy but also religious and indeed laity may participate in it, since it is the prayer of the whole people of God. People of different callings and circumstances, with their individual needs, were kept in mind and a variety of ways of celebrating the office has been provided, by means of which the prayer can be adapted to suit the way of life and vocation of different groups dedicated to the liturgy of the hours.

"Since the liturgy of the hours is the means of sanctifying the day, the order of this prayer was revised so that in the circumstances of contemporary life the canonical hours could be more easily related to the chronological hours of the day."

Today, the Liturgy of the Hours consists of the recitation of the following prayers: the Office of Readings (formerly Matins), Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer - which consists of one or all of Midmorning, Midday, and Midafternoon Prayer (Terce, Sext, and None), Evening Prayer (Vespers), and Night Prayer (Compline). The "major hours" are the Office of Readings, Morning and Evening prayer. The recitation of Prime was eliminated by the Second Vatican Council, and in Laudis Canticum Pope Paul VI attributes this change to the aforementioned aim of making the canonical hours correspond more closely to the times at which they are prayed.

The great beauty of the Office lies in the unity that it makes tangible. As Pope Paul IV wrote so beautifully:

"Everyone shares in this prayer, which is proper to the one Body as it offers prayers that give expression to the voice of Christ's beloved Bride, to the hopes and desires of the whole Christian people, to supplications and petitions for the needs of all humanity.

"This prayer takes its unity from the heart of Christ, for our Redeemer desired 'that the life he had entered upon in his mortal body with supplications and with his sacrifice should continue without interruption through the ages in his Mystical Body, which is the Church.' Because of this, the prayer of the Church is at the same time 'the very prayer that Christ himself, together with his Body, addresses to the Father.' As we celebrate the office, therefore, we must recognize our own voices echoing in Christ, his voice echoing in us."

If you're interested in praying the Liturgy of the Hours, you can find guides to praying it online, or use the guide provided with your breviary, should you choose to purchase one. The four-volume set is expensive ($145), but it contains all the canonical hours, while the single volume, Christian Prayer ($36), contains only Morning and Evening Prayer for the year. My four-volume set was a gift from two friends of mine, and now I can't imagine living without it!

If you don't have money for a breviary, or you're still waiting for yours to come in the mail (or if you've misplaced your breviary, as I often do), you can find the Hours for each day online (free!) at Universalis.

"May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen."

The Influence of the Late William F. Buckley, Jr.

2008-03-05T17:30:00.012-06:00

I wish I were a full member of the John Paul II Generation, but the circumstances of my upbringing don't allow it. Sure, I came into the Church in 1999 with incredible devotion and unquestioned fidelity to the late Holy Father, but in my formative years, my admiration for John Paul was not geared towards the man himself but for his stands against abortion and communism. I grew up as as an anti-Catholic fundamentalist in Denham Springs, Louisiana, a town on the Protestant side of the border between Cajun Catholic country and the Bible Belt. As some of you familiar with the region may know, our crosses carried no corpus but were often draped in Old Glory, and there was no separation in our perception between the Gospel of Christ and the politics of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, and not John Paul II or even Billy Graham, was the ultimate hero of my childhood with considerable promotion by my parents.

My father's world view was not merely shaped by his conservative cultural environment but through spending his spare time at the State Library and watching the pundits go at one another. While watching "The Firing Line" on PBS at my daddy's knee, I came to respect William F. Buckley. My father convinced me before I could fairly decide for myself that Buckley was the smartest man alive, and after a decade of firmly coming to my own conclusions that differed with my father, I am convinced his opinion of Buckley was correct. Indeed, it was in part due to my father exposing me to the intellectuals of the conservative movement like Buckley that I came to a begrudging respect for Catholics.

Buckley died last week at the age of 82. Many young people, even young educated people, have little idea of who he is, although they probably laughed at Robin Williams' Genie doing his best WFB impersonation in the Disney film Aladdin. The average College Republican drawn in by the frat party atmosphere combined with the combative nature of campaigning may not have even noticed the news of his passing, but he was mourned by the movement conservatives whose doctrine dripped from the pages of The National Review, the magazine founded by Buckley in 1955 which promised in its first issue to stand "athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no other is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

As news of Buckley's death became public, modern conservative icon Rush Limbaugh offered a lengthy and moving tribute. Limbaugh reminisced of the man considered by many to be the Father of American Conservatism (although Russell Kirk may have greater claim) and perhaps the last great public intellectual given society's preference for sound bites rather than informed debate:

My desire to learn actually came from outside the classroom. It came from my father, perhaps the most brilliant man I ever knew intimately, and my grandfather, of course, and many members of my family, and tossed into the mix was Mr. Buckley, who had a newspaper column. I remember at age 12 or 13 it was published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, which was the morning paper in St. Louis at the time that was conservative for the most part. No longer publishes, of course. But I remember at age 13, 14, all the way up through high school just being mesmerized. It was the things that Buckley wrote in those columns that literally created my desire to learn. Of course, listening to my father just rant on about a number of things constantly regarding politics, cultural things, we were a very active family in that regard, and, you know, the old image of families sitting around the dinner table and talking about stuff was true at our house. For me it was a listening experience, and, of course, peppered with questions and so forth. The single greatest motivation I had to learn to read, write, speak the English language the best I could, to expand my vocabulary, came from Bill Buckley.

And although I have never mastered the frequent use of multisyllabic wit designed to send the opposition into stupor, and while I have never said anything as witty and as true as, "I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University," Buckley was an early role model in my attempts to educate myself. Limbaugh mourned a man whom he came to know personally as a second father, and last week, still feeling the weight of the death of my own parents in the last two months, I felt a sense of loss for a man I never met but for whom I shared an admiration from afar with my father.

And just as much as I have come to disagree with my father over the years since my conversion to Catholicism, I have found myself breaking from the strange fusion of ideologies in the American conservative movement. I found reasons to disagree with Buckley, frequently based on materialist and individualist ideals that seemed to clash with my new found allegiance to John Paul the Great and Catholic Social Teaching. Indeed, the conservative Buckley often referred to himself as a libertarian, and the contradiction begged the question: What exactly is the conservative movement trying to conserve?

Buckley was a practicing Catholic who frequented the Latin Mass and challenged the secularist stranglehold some on the left attempted to place on the academy and public life. Rod Dreher, a former employee of Buckley's, gave testimony to Buckley's graciousness and generosity. But Buckley was also a public dissenter to the Church's ban on contraception and frequently at odds with her teachings on social justice.

As news of Buckley's death spread, Vox Nova, a group blog presenting Catholic social commentary, found heated combox debates over Buckley's legacy as a Catholic intellectual. Much of that debate centered on Buckley's dissent to Mater et Magistra, an encyclical on social justice by Pope John XXIII. One combox poster critical of Buckley referenced an address on Mater et Magistra by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver which characterizes the divide between Catholicism and contemporary political allegiances:

. . . if we say we’re Catholic, we need to act like it. When Catholic Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia publicly disputes Church teaching on the death penalty, the message he sends is not all that different from Frances Kissling disputing what the Church teaches about abortion. I don’t mean that abortion and the death penalty are identical issues. They’re not, and they don’t have equivalent moral gravity. But the impulse to pick and choose what we’re going to accept is exactly the same kind of “cafeteria Catholicism” in both cases.

Very often we treat the Church the same way we treat our flesh and blood mothers. We want the mommy part, but we don’t want the teacher part. We want her around to feed us, encourage us and comfort us when things are going badly. But we don’t want her advice, especially when it interferes with our plans. When Pope John XXIII’s encyclical first came out, the conservative author William Buckley, who didn’t like the Pope’s economics, wrote a famous column called, “Mater si, Magistra no!” – mother yes, teacher no. That led Louise and Mark Zwick to characterize him in the Houston Catholic Worker as “the inventor of cafeteria Catholicism and the pro-choice stance (at least in economics), who accepted encyclicals he agreed with and rejected others.” I think they’re right.

Archbishop Chaput, a man whose loyalty to the Magisterium is without question, credits the Father of American conservatism with inventing cafeteria Catholicism. And while I agree with him and all those rightly pointing out that it is not only those on the left trying to recreate the Catholic faith according to philosophies designed to promote their own vices, I cannot help but feel some need to show loyalty to Buckley my teacher, some loyalty that reaches beyond the silencing wisdom that says the man is recently dead and we should be praying for his soul instead of arguing his legacy.

William F. Buckley, Jr. rose to national prominence with the 1951 publishing of God and Man at Yale, which criticized the professors of his alma mater for attempting to indoctrinate the students with anti-religious sentiment. Buckley was the first president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the founder of Young Americans for Freedom, two organizations that offered dissent to the leftist orthodoxy of the academy. While his fusionist movement brought religious traditionalists, libertarians, and national security hawks under the faulty banner of conservatism, debate and distrust of the ivory tower prophets of progress kept the United States from falling into the complete cultural disarray of Europe. And I am certain that the intellectual prowess of the Catholic leaders of Buckley's influenced many towards the sacraments if not to complete doctrinal fidelity.

It is fair to point out the spots of darkness in Buckley's public discourse, especially when he clashes with the Church, but it ought be done with the humility that recognizes that we never know where it is that we might be completely blind to our own faults. Likewise, we are apt to miss such brilliant light coming from broken people if we are only searching out their darkness.

In our mission to redeem intellectual life, we are trying to sow seeds with unfailing loyalty to the Magisterium in ground that has been broken by the movement conservatives of Buckley's era. Their struggle made our "heterodoxy" towards political correctness an easier burden to bear. In spite of some significant differences which cannot continually be swept under the rug lest we lose our Catholic identity while measuring up to conservative orthodoxy, we owe Buckley and the movement he led more than prayers for their soul.

We owe gratitude.

Vote Parousian

2008-03-04T18:59:00.004-06:00

My Friends,

Cory Bordelon from the UL Parousians has informed me that "Arrival: The Parousian Weblog" was nominated for the Catholic Blog Awards in the following categories:
# Best Apologetic Blog
# Best Group Blog
# Best New Catholic Blog
# Best Overall Catholic Blog
# Best Political/Social Commentary Catholic Blog
# Best Written Catholic Blog
# Most Informative & Insightful Catholic Blog
# Smartest Catholic Blog

This is an incredible honor. Thanks to everyone involved in the nominating process. There are many worthy blogs nominated, including quite a few that inspire us. In sincerity, I am not sure our content is in the same league as certain blogs receiving nominations in the same categories.

Because we are just a small group of friends who have the ambition of bringing together Catholic scholars and students in an effort to redeem intellectual life, we are asking our readers to vote for us.

In the long run, it is our hope to have a journal of the revival of Catholic intellectual life, a scholarship and fellowship program, national and regional conferences, a speakers' program, chapters near and far networking likeminded Catholic thinkers. Thus far, we have students meeting in homes, giving presentations and leading group discussions, contributing to this blog on occasion, making pilgrimages to local points of Catholic interest, and giving reasoned witness to the faith in the classroom. The first chapter at LSU has been able to lend itself out to help establish groups at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Florida. The Parousians have done this on student budgets with all of the routine pressures of college life. What we hope to do is well beyond our means, but so was everything else we have already done. The Catholic Blog Awards are not the fairy dust covered answer to our every wish upon a star, but in a small but significant way, the nominations are helping us establish recognition and credibility beyond our little corners of the world in Louisiana and Florida.

These awards will be chosen by anybody willing to register and vote here.

Remember, the Parousian blog is the candidate of change and hope and experience, able to do the job from day one. Our blog never voted to raise your taxes. And we love babies. Please vote for us.

All kidding aside, if you think our content is worthy, please vote for us. But if you are aware of more worthy content, please consider voting for us still based on our potential. These awards do not mean too much in the real world, but perhaps our little effort here on Arrival may leak outside of cyberspace and actually have effect in bringing the New Evangelization into ivory towers across the lands if certain students, professors, or charitable givers follow a link when the awards are announced.

And as you can tell, we are more concerned with finding people to share in our mission than actually winning an award. Regardless of if you vote for us or not for these awards, there are other ways you can vote Parousian. If you know anybody who might be interested in standing with us in our mission, please send them a link to our blog and ask them to contact us by e-mailing parousians@gmail.com . That's a vote of confidence in both the Parousians and the person you e-mail.

Likewise, no matter if you can give us a vote of confidence or not, we are asking all of you to stuff heaven's ballot box by remembering to write in "Parousians" among your prayer requests. That election operates under the rules of Chesterton's democracy of the dead. The Parousians yield to our forebearers and honor their traditions. We are all Catholics here, and every member of the Communion of Saints is welcome to vote in this one. The Parousians are partial to St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Therese, and Pope John Paul the Great, but all of you willing to ask for the intercession of St. Jude on our behalf have our blessings.

Again, thanks to the Catholic Blog Awards for honoring our blog with nominations and providing yearly recognition to hard working Catholic bloggers everywhere.

Education and Play - Seeking the Proper Order (Part I)

2008-03-03T06:58:00.003-06:00

Peter Kreeft has written of those ways in which Heaven haunts earth. Such things as the effect of timelessness experienced when engrossed in a beautiful piece of music are things that reveal to us the other-worldly nature of many of our worldly experiences. They serve as reminders that we are not purely natural but also supernatural, that is, not only corporeal but also spiritual.

Another interesting phenomenon of human experience is that of play. In fact, it is such an important element in the human experience, Pope Benedict saw fit to mention it in relation to liturgy in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy. He makes the point that play is much like liturgy in that it is characterized by its own set of laws and time independent of the laws and time of the world in which play is done. It becomes an independent world within a world.

It is safe to say that this sort of organized play is a particularly and peculiarly human activity. But why is this so? What is it about being human that drives us toward forsaking the world in which we are bound for a game-world even if only for a few hours? As Christians, we believe that we are images of God, a God who creates out of nothing, is bound by nothing, and has brought order to chaos. Is it any wonder that the image reflects that of which it is an image? Let us entertain the example of our beloved football game. Time begins and stops, implying an existence not bound by time’s onward march. A set of rules peculiar to that game is enforced. To stray from those rules is to invite punishment; it contains within itself its own sense of justice. It mimics a battle against good and evil in its physical aggression between opposing teams which has proven to be something of which the human mind and imagination never seem to tire. There is also the coach, the one who establishes and demands order and unity among those whom he directs. It is a sort of universe within a universe with all the necessary elements present. Not only does it become this sort of universe to those engaged in the actual play, but also to those entering into it as spectators. In the opening paragraph, I mentioned the medium of music and the role that it plays in lifting us out of time and space. What may be less obvious is that it functions in much the same way as a typical game of football. The fundamental elements that constitute them as play are nearly identical in both. In music, specifically orchestral or choral performances, there is the presence of a unifying principle, that of the musical piece itself. Within the piece, time begins, accelerates, decelerates, and stops. There are certain rules set down within the piece in order to play it effectively such as dynamics and key. To stray from this is to produce bad music, noise instead of beauty; thus there are consequences for not following the rules. The dynamics produce the effect of tension and release, elements present in a life that is not stagnant, that is, a full life. There is also the conductor upon whom are all the eyes of the musicians looking to him for guidance and following his every movement. He is the one who ultimately determines the movements of all the musicians, but they must exercise free will to follow him. One would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of the spiritual life.

Even more profound about musical play is its presence in all cultures of the world. Music has proven itself to not only be present within all cultures, but to even be a defining expression of that culture, and music also serves as a reflection of a culture’s height. A culture that embraces high standards of education typically embraces high standards of musicianship. There is an irrefutable connection between education and music within cultures. Conversely, cultures that embrace low forms of music tend to be lacking on the educational side of things. In this, we can see that some forms of play even inform and nourish our ideas about education, something that is not readily apparent as an effect of sports. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be true in that a greater emphasis on sports leads to a general de-emphasis on education. The conclusion that can be drawn is that in some way, music reflects and nourishes the entire human intellectual person in ways that sports cannot. The reason for this is the greater connection between music and human nature than between sports and human nature. As human nature includes intellect, will, and body, there are some things that appeal to all three to greater degrees than others. Music uplifts all three due to its inherent requirements of a trained intellect, a focused will, and a body trained to perform. While sports certainly requires fitness of the body, strong intellects have not proven to be key elements within athletics.

In my next post on this subject I will look at the proper relationship between the academic institution and the sports that it sponsors.

The Dignity of Women: A look at Mulieris Dignitatem (post 1)

2008-03-02T20:23:00.003-06:00

Pope John Paul II delivered Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) at St. Peter's in Rome on August 15, 1988, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, during the Marian year. On January 31, 2008, the Vatican Congress celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem in hopes to encourage an authentic promotion of femininity. On February 7th to the 9th, this commemoration was followed by a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Counsel for the Laity entitled "Woman and Man, the 'Humanum' in its Entirety" which culminated with a Papal address from Pope Benedict XVI.

Because of the importance of this document, I would like to take the opportunity of exploring some themes, insights, and relevant text of this letter. If nothing more, I hope to give an adequate summary. John Paul II has done much to try to fight the reduction of femininity that exists in modern feminism circles in hopes to create a new feminism that is rooted in the divine plan and dignity of womanhood.

Given the domination and objectification of women that tends to be perpetuated throughout the ages since the fall of man, there is always a need in the church to emphasize the dignity of women and the particular challenges that culturally arise in every generation. The Church must continually reflects on the nature of human dignity and develops Her social consciousness. Much of what John Paul II says in Mulieris Dignitatem has been stated elsewhere, yet the beauty of this document stands on its own. In fact, the organization Women Affirming Life has a collection of links to all of Pope John Paul II's writings on The Feminine Genius.

Appropriately, Mulieris Dignitatem begins by quoting from the Closing Message of the Second Vatican Council:

The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling. (MD: 1)

In light of the ongoing battle to advocate for the role of females within society, the Church must reveal the nature of true femininity and aid women in living out their vocations and professions in an authentically feminine manner. However, given modern notions of femininity and attacks on the family, the true meaning of womanhood is often vague and obscure in the minds of modern men. John Paul II has championed the need to develop an adequate anthropology and theological foundation for understanding the role of the sexes within the order of divine love. He makes clear the need to explore the place of women in the Church and society in this quote from Pope Paul VI:

Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, since its very beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects…; it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear. (MD: 1)

The very foundation of Christianity and its present holiness depends on the involvement of woman. Thus, a discussion on the dignity of women cannot be separated from the role women play in God's plan of salvation and ultimately Mary, the Mother of both Jesus Christ and the Church, because she holds a special place of honor for all humanity. More so than any other human person, man or woman, she acts as the perfect model of faith and vessel of God's grace. The Marian dimension of the Church encompasses relationship of God with the entire human family.

The mystery of salvation cannot be understood or fulfilled without human participation, and Mary stands at the center of this mystery with her fiat. Mary discovers the meaning of her femininity in her fiat by which she abandoned herself to the will of God, making a sincere gift of self. The discovery of her authentic femininity is united to her awareness of God's grace and generosity. She recognizes herself as a creature and handmaiden of the lord.

Mary attains a union with God that exceeds all the expectations of the human spirit. It even exceeds the expectations of all Israel, in particular the daughters of this Chosen People, who, on the basis of the promise, could hope that one of their number would one day become the mother of the Messiah. (MD: 3)

It is right to emphasize Mary as an example for all women because she acts in an un-fallen femininity that reveals the true nature of womanhood and sets an example for all humanity. Her humility and openness exemplifies the true motherhood and blessedness by which God exalts her. Similar to Eve, Mary was conceived full of grace. Unlike Eve, Mary was obedient to God and said yes where Eye said no. In Mary, we see how blessed women can really be!

Therefore the "fullness of grace" that was granted to the Virgin of Nazareth, with a view to the fact that she would become "Theotókos", also signifies the fullness of the perfection of" what is characteristic of woman", of "what is feminine". Here we find ourselves, in a sense, at the culminating point, the archetype, of the personal dignity of women…The dignity of every human being and the vocation corresponding to that dignity find their definitive measure in union with God. Mary, the woman of the Bible, is the most complete expression of this dignity and vocation. For no human being, male or female, created in the image and likeness of God, can in any way attain fulfillment apart from this image and likeness. (MD: 5)

God has honored Mary, a woman, by entrusting Himself completely to her. Mary receives God completely so that God through the incarnation could give his life for the salvation of all humanity. In this way, Mary has given her life to God. Because of her openness, Mary has become mother and the fruit of her womb, Jesus Christ, brings the Church into existence. The motherhood of Mary stands at the center of salvation history.

John Paul II points out that women represent the archetype of union with God. With total surrender and a willful yes, the Church as a whole takes on a feminine nature. Beyond mere symbolism, Mary is able to fulfill a union not possible by men—the union between mother and son. The reality is not that all humans become masculine in their relationship with God, but that all people must become feminine in their relationship with God. This is why the Church is appropriately referred to in the feminine and Christ is considered the bridegroom and we the bride. Our earthly understanding of this divine reality finds its roots in human love and the designation of human marriage. All feminine and masculine qualities find their perfection in God. This is why "man" — male and female — made in the image and likeness of God can find femininity or masculinity as two different ways in which the human person is created in the image of God.

Lessons Learned from the Finding of Jesus in the Temple

2008-02-26T13:14:00.002-06:00

Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he
was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After
the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed
behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their
company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their
relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem
to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting
among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who
heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw
him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us
like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." "Why were
you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's
house?" But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Luke 2:41

This is a story so familiar to all of us that we may be inclined to pass it over without deriving much meaning from it. As I came across it yesterday, however, I began to think about it differently.

First of all, imagine what the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were feeling when they realized Jesus was not where they thought he was. Of course, any parent would feel terrified, frantic, worried, etc., but this was Jesus. Imagine being responsible for losing God’s only son—“I send Him to you for a few decades and you LOSE Him? After TWELVE years?!”—the prospect must have been rather upsetting, to say the least. So, naturally, the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph scrambled about Jerusalem searching for their child. Equally naturally, they found Him in the last place they looked, the Temple—which should have been the first place they had thought to search.

Analogies to our own lives can be drawn from this story. Do we search for Jesus when we feel we’ve been separated from Him? And do we search in the right places—the confessional, Mass, the Eucharist, prayer, etc.? Questions about this search should be very important to us as people of faith, as Christians, and especially as Catholics.

One of my favorite lesser-known teachings of the Church is about the path to salvation. The Catholic Church teaches that even non-Catholics can travel along this path as long as they are actively seeking truth; for by this ACTIVE search, they are participating in the universality of Catholicism. I assume most people feel comforted by this. I know I do, to a certain extent, for it gives me hope for those who do not ascribe to the Catholic (or even Christian) faith. At the same time, however, I find the implications of this teaching very frightening for those of us who already claim to be Catholics. According to this, we are not participating in the Catholic Church unless we are actively seeking truth. Therefore, unless we are growing in our faith, we are not being truly Catholic—and not working towards our salvation.

This is a serious issue, and it should be at the center of our lives. It is only by better understanding our faith and how to implement it in our everyday actions that we can become the people the Lord created us to be. Let us hope that we pursue this with the zeal of our Virgin Mother and St. Joseph!

The Purpose of Education

2008-02-25T19:15:00.001-06:00

Education is one of the intrinsic goods of human existence. At the very core of our being is a desire to know, not just a few things, but all things. Evidence of this desire can be seen in the expressions of knowledge from the sciences to the arts--to enter into debate with this precept is to already prove its presence. This quest for truth engages all dimensions of the person: mental, physical, and spiritual. Therefore, education must be oriented towards the holistic formation of the person. Who we are and who we become is affected by what we know.

As a young man St. Augustine seems to have identified a certain benefit of philosophy, at this time he admits that he did not read and learn merely to sharpen his style but to receive substance and content. He viewed this new perspective on the purpose of education as a turning point in his spiritual life by which this emphasis changed his feelings, prayer, values, priorities, and reset his gaze toward the “immortality of wisdom.” Augustine learned to enjoy truth for its own sake rather than for some pragmatic and utilitarian end. Education should primarily be about seeking this “immortality of wisdom.”

Education always instructs the individual how to view the world. This usually occurs informally within the household and more formally within an institution of learning. The type of importance that society places on education has obvious affects on children. People spend countless hours creating methods and styles to teach. A certain seriousness and urgency for education has become a humanitarian cause, but often the fundamental question as to the aim of this instruction is neglected.

The educational task should not be a mere transferring of information, but should directly and indirectly teach individuals in the art of living a good life. Virtues like self control, discipline, seeking the common good, and most important of all, humility, are inherent to the educational process. If they are not in some form present, even in most secular institution, then education is impossible. Every student must stand in a relationship of receiving from without the self from another or they cannot learn. Every instructor must be open to understand who their student is or they cannot effectively teach. Education is much more about interaction within a community, dialogue, and reciprocity than gaining intellectual means to succeed. However, the latter goal is usually overemphasized in modern society. These virtues have roots in the Socratic education which involved knowing the truth about fair, just, and good things in order to help order the society towards the common good and ideal state. The implication is that a person will be rich with happiness because he has a good and prudent life and will be able to impart this knowledge through leadership and example. This, in turn, will help structure society by preventing turmoil and encouraging peace.

The Enlightenment movement of the rise of rationalism has created a problem in the academy whereby people are taught a compendium of knowledge so that they know a little bit of everything, but they should be educated in such a way that they can educate themselves in whatever they will need to function in society. Education has become too enamored with a philosophy of doing rather than a philosophy of being. Curriculum should not exalt technical knowledge over other forms of knowledge. The arts and humanities are possibly more important the sciences. While sciences may help us in understanding physical aspects of the world in which we live and even physical aspects of the self, the arts and humanities help us tap into the mysteries of human nature.

Education must place balanced values on both practical and speculative experiences so that the individual may be well integrated and able to communicate their knowledge. One of the growing difficulties with education today is that we have more fields of knowledge that individuals must develop. To confuse things more, society tends to value only those individuals who can advance in these fields and produce more technical methods than others produce. Those that are incapable of competing in these technological driven fields fall through the cracks all the time. The worth of a person should not be determined by function, yet this theory of utility permeates throughout educational institutions. The end of education is not knowledge of how things work but to enable the person to achieve wisdom about what they should do.

While being wealthy and famous is not inherently wrong, there is a problem when social approval becomes the dictum of the good life and we institutionally stress the importance of education only as useful in procuring wealth and fame. Education should not be primarily viewed as a means of wealth, social superiority, and power over others. Too long education has been used to divide. Education viewed properly can unite by helping build community in as much as it fosters a student’s ability to think, create, and communicate within a spirit of humility. A burden of responsibility always accompanies truth. The truth we know requires us to respond accordingly and education is a gift that better enables us to serve others.

Justice, Obedience, and Choosing a State of Life as Seen in St. Thomas Aquinas - Conclusion

2008-02-23T13:09:00.000-06:00

Furthermore, freedom of choice in the areas of virginity and marriage is important because of the ordering of these states in life. Aquinas clearly states that virginity in itself is a greater state of life because, “. . . a Divine good takes precedence of a human good, and because the good of the soul is preferable to the good of the body, and again because the good of the contemplative life is better than that of the active life” (ST II-II, Q. 152 A. 4). Because virginity makes one more available for contemplation and the Divine good, it is a higher state in life. However, St. Thomas explains that the virtue with which either virginity or marriage is lived out is dependent upon the person and his or her habits (ST II-II, Q. 152 A. 4). Therefore it is possible for a married person to be more virtuous than a virgin, regardless of the fact that the virgin’s state of life is more conducive to the Divine. The choice of perpetual virginity or marriage must be one that is specific to the person making the decision. One person may habituate virtue more readily in the state of perpetual virginity while another may do so more easily in a state of marriage, despite the fact that virginity is intrinsically more excellent than marriage.

St. Thomas’ recognition of the value of choice is prophetic in the sense that it points toward the common notion today that the freedom to choose a state in life is among the greatest of freedoms rooted in human dignity. The equality of persons predicates this freedom. Aquinas’s discussions of justice and obedience recognize the necessity of a hierarchical ordering of the human race without negating the primacy of choice.

Justice, Obedience, and Choosing a State of Life as Seen in St. Thomas Aquinas Part III

2008-02-22T09:00:00.000-06:00

According to Aquinas, prudence involves “. . . the knowledge of what to seek and what to avoid . . . [it is] concerned with ‘things done,’ that is, with things that have their being in the doer himself. . .” (ST I-II, Q. 47 A. 1, Q. 57 A. 4). Because justice is always between people, and prudence is involved in the doer himself, justice must involve prudence. Therefore, a superior is incapable of issuing a just order without using prudence. In the specific situation of choosing virginity or marriage, a superior disallows for true justice to be present if he forces anyone into either state of life. People entering the religious life or marriage must freely choose it.

The free choice of one’s state in life contributes to the common good as exemplified in Aquinas’s understanding of the liberal and just man. Aquinas says that “. . . the liberal man gives of his own, yet he does so in so far as he takes into consideration the good of his own virtue, while the just man gives to another what is his, through consideration of the common good” (ST II-II, Q. 58 A. 12). It is good to give to others for the sake of being virtuous, but it is better to give to others for the sake of the common good. Both marriage and virginity are choices that involve the common good. Marriage allows for the continuation of the human race, and virginity allows for greater time spent in contemplation and service to others, for, “. . . the end which renders virginity praiseworthy is that one may have leisure for Divine things” (ST II-II, Q. 152 A. 5). Because both of these states of life involve a permanent disposal of one’s body for some form of common good, it is in the interest of justice that no form of superior be allowed to choose perpetual virginity or marriage for someone else. While marriage and virginity are goods in themselves, Aquinas recognizes that they are brought to fulfillment when freely chosen.

Suffering – Antithesis to the Contraceptive Mentality: Part II

2008-02-22T07:02:00.003-06:00

In my first post on this topic, I focused on the suffering-selfishness dichotomy and its effects on marriage and beauty. In this second part, I shift to a discussion of the purgative effects of suffering and why there cannot exist for long a “both…and” relationship between suffering and selfishness.

For the one caring for the suffering loved one and for the one suffering, there exists a dynamic of necessary self-forgetfulness and self-giving. If I had continued to focus only on the way Beth’s condition was affecting me, I never would have been able to enter into service to her, nor would I have been able to appreciate the beauty that she was radiating to everyone in her conformity to the image of Christ. I never would have seen it had I continued to stare at myself. Every minute spent feeding her and wiping her mouth as she spit it back out was one minute not focused on me or my own hunger. Every minute spent bathing her and dressing her became minutes not focused on my own selfish desires. This is what it means to be truly human, because if God as Trinity is a unity of persons totally, freely, and fruitfully opening up to each other, then we as images of this must do the same in order to actualize our full potential. For most people, the experience of suffering is probably the most effective means of reaching this actualization because suffering and caring for the suffering demands such a dynamic as mentioned above.

An advantage of the deepening of married love through suffering over sex is that suffering practically casts out any possibility of the using of one another for personal gain or pleasure. There is no pleasure in suffering, nor is there any apparent, personal gain. What’s left is the choice to give up or to take advantage of such an opportunity by allowing it to purify the relationship of any selfish motives. In fact, depending upon the type of suffering being endured, the very possibility of sex may be completely nil. This forces a couple to examine their marriage and their love for one another through the lens of sacrifice. Because of what Beth was going through, sex was simply not an option for about nine months, and during that time our love for one another grew exponentially. My complete concern for her and forgetfulness of myself could only be brought about through the suffering that we were enduring. Sex, I believe, had become a stumbling block for me due to selfishness until my motives were purified through the fire of suffering. It wasn’t until I learned to love her through the school of suffering that I realized how selfish I had become in the marriage act, and we weren’t even contracepting! The contraceptive mentality can take over even when one is not contracepting, because the mentality is ultimately a mentality of selfishness. “How much pleasure can I derive without having to recognize the value of the other?” It’s not about a pill or a condom. It’s about the refusal to give of oneself without reserve and without the expectation of pleasure. Suffering is very efficient at excluding any possibility of such a refusal. Eventually, my only concern was Beth, but even that took a while to happen. I had to be reminded by a very close friend of mine that this was not about me, and this is something of which I have to remind myself on a daily basis. When I think about the purifying effects that this suffering had on our marriage, I’m simply amazed. Our love for each other eventually began to transcend the fear of death that had become a dark specter always hovering over us.

Even our understanding of suffering was being purified during this time. While there wasn’t a moment and still isn’t a moment where we hope for a complete healing by God, we moved slowly from a deep fear of suffering and the unknown to the more solid foothold of trust in God’s Fatherhood and His faithfulness to His promises. But it still doesn’t come easily. The only possible way to attain this and hold on to it is through constant prayer -- prayers of submission and prayers of trust. Then and only then can one enter more fully into that dynamic of self-giving and self-forgetfulness with another.

There cannot be a dynamic of self-giving and self-forgetfulness within the context of suffering without there existing a corresponding deepening of the relationship in love. Even St. Paul sees the connection between conjugal unity of husband and wife and suffering. In fact, it seems that he suggests that the love between husband and wife is brought about through an experience of suffering in his letter to the Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior…Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.” Christ is Savior because of His sacrifice, because of His suffering. Christ loved the Church by giving Himself up for her. The bridegroom establishes unity with and life for the bride through suffering. Even as far back as the creation story in Genesis we can see these same elements at work, the elements of self-giving and self-forgetfulness as the means by which a marriage is established and sustained. In order for Adam to be brought into unity with his bride, he first had to open up, literally, in an act of self-giving. He opened up to give of himself in order to bring about new life, both the life of his bride Eve and the life of the marriage itself. But the opening up required self-forgetfulness, implied by the deep sleep into which he fell. He entered into an ecstasy characterized by self-giving, not self-concern and self-absorption. In this is priesthood. The priesthood of the husband is rooted in his call to sacrifice, but sacrifice is not the only aspect of priesthood. Ministering to his bride is as necessary as the sacrificial part of it.

Let us not become lax in praying for the men of today, that they will recognize the great calling that comes with masculinity. It is a calling to service that leads us out of ourselves and into a proper understanding of masculinity. We pray for this in the name of Jesus Christ, through the intercession of Pope John Paul II. Amen.

The Theology of the Body in Shakespearean Comedy

2008-02-21T12:35:00.009-06:00

Jonathan Pryce as Petruchio and Paola Dionisotti as Kate in The Royal Shakespeare Company's 1978 production of The Taming of the Shrew

Whether we realize it or not, the love of “mutual submission” John Paul II writes about is the defining characteristic of the happy ending we expect from Shakespeare’s comedies.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays explore the tension between duty and inclination, and the various conflicts that arise from this tension. In Shakespeare’s comedies – take The Taming of the Shrew, for example – man’s struggle to reconcile duty and inclination is often typified in a conflict related to sex and marriage, which is resolved only when the characters learn to compromise their inclinations for duty’s sake. In Taming, for instance, Petruchio and Kate learn to channel their passions and to relate to one another respectfully as they are obligated to do as husband and wife. In Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (TOB), Pope John Paul II discusses the necessity of this sort of compromise and couches it in terms of his theology about the meaning of creation, sex and marriage.

Shakespeare makes the basic thematic point that while duty and inclination seem to contradict one another, they do not have to remain at odds. John Paul II develops this idea further and argues that if we allow our inclinations to be ordered properly, that is, toward our duty to obey the moral law, we will find the happiness and fulfillment that we seek in God’s plan for sex and marriage.

In the TOB, the Holy Father presents what he terms an “adequate anthropology,” a comprehensive philosophy intended to help man better understand himself in light of his created body, his sexuality, and the mysteries of the Catholic faith. The significance of the sexual act transcends the physical because we are not merely bodies; rather, we are beings with great worth because God created us, body and soul, and His plan for sex and marriage redeems our entire person, bodies included (144). Marriage is sacramental, and therefore more than merely a social convention; it is the visible sign of a spiritual reality, and it is intended both to safeguard the sacredness of sex and to help husband and wife grow in virtue, specifically in love for one another and for God (363).

We noted earlier that conflicts involving sex and marriage often form the basis for the theme of “duty vs. inclination” in Shakespeare’s comedies. More often than not, marriage becomes purely a matter of duty, and sex – or sexual desire – purely a matter of inclination. John Paul II argues that this dichotomy is due, in part, to the ways in which God’s plan for sex and marriage is tarnished and obscured by human sinfulness (256). He uses Sacred Scripture and natural law to support the TOB as he explains that in God’s plan for sex and marriage, man’s desire for sex directs him toward marriage, and the sacrifices married life requires ensure that man’s sexual desire remains properly ordered toward its unitive and procreative ends, and thus toward his eternal happiness.

We can see John Paul II’s ideas at work in the ways audiences typically respond to Shakespeare’s characters. At the beginning of Taming, Petruchio treats marriage as merely a binding social contract, and we cannot help but disagree with him for doing so; nor are we wiling to believe that marriage is merely as Lucentio imagines it to be: a lifetime of infatuation, sunshine and roses. We recognize very early on in the play that both men’s views are erroneous. If, at the play’s end, it seems that Petruchio still regards marriage as “a contract of domination,” we will most likely be unsatisfied with the play’s resolution (473). Shakespeare seems to point out that marriage is not purely a matter of obligation or purely a matter of romance; ideally, it is a combination of both.

The TOB echoes this idea, while of course developing it further: if we wish to be happy, we must submit our inclination to our duty; we must place sex within its intended context, that is, within the sacrament of marriage. At the center of the Holy Father’s reflections on married life are the words of St. Paul in Ephesians (Ephesians 5:21-33), in which Paul calls husbands and wives to “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” The Pope calls this practice “reciprocal submission” expressed in love (473). While Paul is often quoted as simply instructing wives to submit to their husbands, the Pope examines this directive in context and concludes that spouses “are, in fact, ‘subject to one another,’ mutually subordinated to one another” (473).

This ideal of mutual submission plays a central role in the resolution of the sex-and-marriage conflicts in Shakespearean comedy. Depending on how Taming is played, it may seem by the end of the play that Petruchio and Katharina have learned to practice the sort of reciprocal submission necessary for a happy, lasting marriage; or it may seem that only Katharina practices submission, which we find distasteful and unfair, since we know intuitively that Petruchio ought to submit, in some way, to her as well. Whether we realize it or not, the love of “mutual submission” John Paul II writes about is the defining characteristic of the happy ending we expect from Shakespeare’s comedies.

While The Taming of the Shrew is perhaps one of the clearest examples of the TOB at work in Shakespearean comedy, John Paul II’s ideas are certainly applicable to the other comedies as well, perhaps especially to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Justice, Obedience, and Choosing a State of Life as Seen in St. Thomas Aquinas Part II

2008-02-20T17:06:00.001-06:00

St. Thomas says that obedience is “. . . considered by some to be a part of justice . . .” (ST II-II, Q. 104 A. 2). He speaks about justice between a religious and his superior under the form of obedience, as well as the need for obedience in general (ST II-II Q. 104 A. 1). This general obedience entails that subordination of men to each other is necessary for societal operation and function (ST II-II, Q. 104 A. 1). However, Aquinas distinguishes clearly that men are not required to obey their earthly superiors in all situations, because “[i]t is written (Acts 5:29): ‘We ought to obey God rather than men’” (ST II-II, Q. 104 A. 5). Obedience is ultimately assigned to God, because the will of any superior can be contrary to the will of God.

Culpability is an important aspect for having limitations on obedience to superiors. In Aquinas’s discussion on culpability for actions, he says that “. . . the goodness of the will depends on reason, in the same way it depends on the object” (ST I-II, Q. 19 A. 3). Therefore, the ultimate value of an action does not depend on a superior. Man is culpable for his actions on a personal level, and therefore must seek to follow the will of God, whether it be through obedience to an earthly authority or a heavenly one.

Beyond the reasons of human fallibility and personal accountability, Aquinas indicates that there are certain states in life that are never to be imposed upon another. This also limits the type of obedience a person can have to a human superior. On the basis of equality of men, Aquinas says that “. . . servants are not bound to obey their masters, nor children their parents, in the question of contracting marriage or of remaining in the state of virginity or the like” (ST II-II, Q 104 A. 5). This specific declaration about marriage and virginity must be seen through the eyes of proper prudence as it pertains to justice.

Justice, Obedience, and Choosing a State of Life as Seen in St. Thomas Aquinas Part I

2008-02-19T09:04:00.000-06:00

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas offers concepts about the equality of men and the importance of free choice. Throughout his explanations of justice, obedience, and prudence, Aquinas’s conclusions are still held in the Catholic Church about the gift of oneself to a state in life. By comparing the different types of justice present in relationships, the primacy of obedience to God allows for individuals to freely choose their state of life as a contribution to the common good. Aquinas’s recognition of the equality of men and their need to be wholly obedient to God leads to his discussion about the importance of freedom of choice in the specific areas of disposal of one’s body in marriage or perpetual virginity.

In his explanation of justice, Aquinas states that “it is the object of justice to direct human beings in their relations with another. For justice signifies a certain equality, as the very name indicates, since we commonly speak of equal things being exactly right” (ST II-II Q. 57 A. 1). Aquinas recognizes that the equality of men is based on the nature of their creation, and he declares that this equality is essential to justice. However, Aquinas’s view of equality does not include total self-governance (ST 104 Q.1 A. 5). Different types of justice are required for specific relationships. St. Thomas says that justice is between two persons, and the relationship between them determines the areas in which each is entitled to justice. For example, two unrelated men under the same ruler are completely separate, but a son is only separate from his father to a certain degree (ST II-II, Q. 57 A. 4).

Aquinas further details the different forms of justice in relation to wives and their husbands, slaves and their masters, and fathers and their sons. St. Thomas says that a wife belongs to her husband “. . . since she stands related to him as to her own body, as the Apostle declares (Ephesians 5:8)” (ST II-II, Q. 57, A. 4). However, Aquinas recognizes that the relationship of the wife to her husband is more distinct than that of the relationship of slave to master or father to son. He bases this on the Aristotelian conclusion that justice between husband and wife is different from the others because of the relationship of their marriage to the good of the community as a whole (ST II-II Q.57, A. 6). In general, St. Thomas links justice to the community, therefore a particular type of relationship will determine how justice should be carried out. He also describes the more possessive relationship of father and son when he states that “[h]ence a father is not compared to his son as to another simply, and so between them there is not the just simply, but a kind of just, called ‘paternal’” (ST II-II, Q. 57. A. 4). Aquinas applies a similar form of justice to master and slave, because a slave is an instrument of his master, and therefore belongs to him (ST II-II, Q. 57, A. 4). However, St. Thomas reaffirms the equality of all people by emphasizing that although the slave belongs to a master and a son to his father, they are all men and therefore have justice due to each of them. This seems inconsistent with the modern thinker in the idea of equality of persons, which often includes the idea that everyone should have full reign over every aspect of his life. The modern notion seems to deny the difference in which justice is applied to particular types of relationships. According to Aquinas, the different forms of justice would not even be considered if equal persons were not involved. Without neglecting equality, Aquinas directly relates the concept of obedience to justice and its differentiation among relationships.

Drawing the Line in Catholic Belief

2008-02-18T12:10:00.001-06:00

When asserting the conformity of one’s ideas to reality there is always a judgment call. Although the human mind is capable of unlimited ideas, nothing necessitates that these ideas accurately represent reality. Furthermore, ideas in themselves are not very satisfying. Our desire to know is not just to know our own ideas as if reality is merely something that exists in the mind, but we want to know reality as it exists in itself. This has been the cause of much philosophical turmoil and theories. Yet, because of this primordial desire to know, there is always an inseparable question of judgment and truth -- “is it really so?” This question is not always explicit but underlines every philosophical, scientific, and everyday practical attempt to know.

The evidence available via experience always limits the content of understanding. When it comes down to knowing, there are very few things in life of which we can be certain. Rather we exist and operate most in the domain of faith. As G.K. Chesterton states, “It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.” A person is not born with innate knowledge of the inner workings of the cosmos or even the faintest idea about the self. Every person is born into a relationship to a community, and all knowledge is mediated through these relationships. However, despite our limitations, our quest for knowledge is very dynamic. People want to know and believe in what is true. Humans naturally seek the Truth, and even those who would claim otherwise usually construct elaborate systems of argumentation to prove why their theory is true.

Even in the most concrete experience of a historical record, there are many limitations to knowing. Science books provide data, experiments, and theories that most people have not the first hand experience to verify but take it for granted that what is taught is true. History books give an account of past events that many readers must accept on good will that these events actually occurred. Rightfully when contradictory views of science and history occur, people question the validity of sources. This is not an exact science but a humble attempt of trying to piece together an understanding of reality. These examples do not imply that we should distrust these types of sources altogether but be aware that most of our academic instruction on matters of history and science comes through secondary sources. If nothing else, this should teach us this one thing—humility is the beginning of knowledge. All of our historical knowledge is based off witnesses whose testimony we choose to believe or not. Likewise, this same dependence on historical witnesses exists in Christianity.

A certain historic record accompanies Christian belief. As Christians, we must put our faith in God, His revealed scriptures, and the oral tradition passed on through the Church and Her saints. Without the family, without the testimony of witnesses, there would be no Church. God’s relationship to his chosen people centers on a historical genealogy, because God has a history with his people. No single person exists apart from the context of the community and that context is always constituted by the history of humanity--to understand the self is to understand it in relationship to the community. We were not physically there in Bethlehem when the Christ Child was born or Calvary when he was crucified. However, our universal experience of sin and suffering make us present spiritually to this cosmic family event that transcends time and space so that we may physically live out this event historically in our own conversion. For we all have a past that predates our physical birth. We are our parents’ children and just as we are constituted by them genetically and socially, how much more should we be constituted by our Mother Church spiritually. Undoubtedly, historical references to early Christianity exist, but in the end, we must trust that the deposit of faith passes from generation to generation preserved by the constant testimony of the Church.

All this brings me to the essential question I want to ask: where does one decide to stop in their assent to seemingly amazing claims such as those proclaimed by Christianity? The prospect of God becoming man is undoubtedly a scandal to the intellect. God who existed before all things enters creation in the form of dust and limits himself to a physical nature becoming like humans in all things but sin. God dies and suffers the consequences of all the inequities ever committed-- past, presence, and future. Although this story of salvation has its own history, inner logic and beauty, Christianity still requires faith that this knowledge is known not by natural reason alone but divine revelation. To be a part of Christianity requires not only the implicit humility of participating in a system of education but also an explicit act of humility formulated in an act of faith. For Christianity proposes more than a philosophical argument that flows from premises to conclusion, but a cosmic narrative that holds all history together in a battle of love conquering death and God redeeming man. We do not get to customize truths because we are dealing with something larger than we are. For this very same reason, neither are we entitled to understand completely the truths that are revealed because of the great mystery at work. We are a part of the narrative, not its author.

Many people claim Christianity as their religion—slightly more than one-third of the world’s population. I am amazed that this remains to be the case even though skepticism seems to permeate and dominate many academic institutions and the very educational process of most people. Many modern processes of education that will always implicitly require trust from the student has theoretically replaced this trust with skepticism and doubt. The Augustinian formula, “I believe to understand and I understand to believe,” has been replaced with doubt, and this doubt has entered the private domain of people’s religious understanding.

The other day in conversation with friends, the issue of Mary’s perpetual virginity arose. Everyone present in the conversation professed to be Catholic. However, two of these individuals expressed non-belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. I reminded them that they profess this truth in the Creed every Sunday. They accused me of being close-minded and that I shouldn’t accept everything the Church tells me. I was bewildered at the implication because the truth in question was not an issue of Church teaching but of Church dogma. Even though I have labored over many theological questions, my faith in Christ and His Church has not always come easily and my intellectual and spiritual conversion have a long history that is still in the making. But I learned years ago that my faith in Christ and His Church was all or nothing. For this is what Christ requires out of us, faith. It is true that Mary either is or isn’t a perpetual virgin, this is a matter of historical record that either occurred or didn’t. Arguing over it as theory will not change the history and we cannot go back 2000 years and ask Mary. Rather we must trust the deposit of faith entrusted by God to the Church. My issue is why do many assume the Church is lying or ignorant about things like this especially when it is a matter of historical record? I am not promoting absolute unquestioning obedience but practical reason—“I wasn’t there. It either happened, or it didn’t happen. No amount of theory will change that historical record one way or the other. The Church who transmits the deposit of faith says it happened a certain way. Who am I based off of nothing more than a whim of my fancy to deny this?”

Furthermore, given all the other off the wall things Christianity requires you to believe such as the incarnation and transubstantiation, why question something as sane as the possibility of a celibate woman? They exist, believe it or not, today. People can in fact survive without having sex. This really is not a scandal to the intellect like so many other things Christianity professes. I address this because this really seems epidemic among many Catholics. They have no problem believing all the seemingly hard matters of faith but gawk at the things that I would think should be easier to believe. “God became a man, of course, but a human person remaining a virgin? Outrageous!” Why draw the line here? Why not abandon all the things the Church claims to be true? If she is lying about Mary’s Virginity, in my mind it only makes sense that she may not be reliable about other things. If she is not faithful in small things, how can we expect her to be faithful on larger matters of faith?

Surely the limitations of the mind open it up to something greater than itself that it cannot merely reason to as some lower principle. Humility is a proper response. Reality is much too mysterious to understand definitively. We cannot be at all places at all times testing the historical validity of everything we are told. Either Christ rose from the dead or he did not. We can believe he rose, but we cannot go back and watch. As easy as it is to become lost in one’s own abstract speculations about the ultimate principal of all that is, there is something infinitely comforting to know that a truth exists that is not merely a figment or creation of one’s own imagination, although it may be known with the imagination. There is an exclusivity of belief because there is an exclusivity of the will. You cannot truly believe what you don’t live, and you can’t live what you don’t believe, at least in a total sense. You may try but the heart will struggle to follow. A person may claim to believe a certain action is wrong and still perform that action. The problem is somewhere deep down inside the wrong that person does is perceived as a good. This is not merely a problem of the intellect but of the will. What we really believe reveals itself in the way we live. Christianity is an act of the will more than an act of the intellect, but the two are not separated. The process of conforming our mind to the mind of Christ must be willful. In love, knowing and doing meet in perfect union.

Suffering – Antithesis to the Contraceptive Mentality

2008-02-15T07:16:00.003-06:00

In previous posts, I’ve hinted at the discovery of both ecstasy and beauty through suffering. In keeping with this line of thought, I would like to share a few thoughts in two parts on the purgative effect of suffering on the contraceptive mentality. I say “purgative” because of the fact that the authentically Christian experience of suffering and the contraceptive mentality are so antithetical in nature that there cannot be a “both…and” relationship. It must be an “either…or” dichotomy, for the two cannot coexist for long. Many may already be aware that these thoughts are the fruit of experience as I myself had to experience this purgation in dealing with my wife’s illness. In this first part, the nature of the contraceptive mentality will be reviewed along with the utilitarianism it engenders.

Why is the contraceptive mentality a danger to one’s marriage? It becomes like an empty glass to the one who is thirsty. One dying of thirst may hallucinate because of the fact that he’s dying of thirst and believe that he is drinking water from the objectively empty glass in order to slake his thirst, yet it is nothing more than a hallucination. This hallucination will be the death of him, for as long as he continues to believe that he is actually drinking water, he continues to die of thirst. The same goes for the marriage act. To empty the act of that for which it is made will lead to the slow but sure exsanguination of the marriage, and the belief that a husband and wife can safely sexually express their marriage with the goal of excluding unity and new life is nothing more than a hallucination.

Keeping all of this in mind, one should naturally begin to question the place of artificial contraception within marriage. Artificial contraception and the reasons for the use of it reflect a desire to obtain pleasure without the primary goals of unity and new life. In fact, the primary goals are actively battled against, as though they are a hindrance to the expression of the marriage, when in fact, unity and new life are the very reasons for being for the sexual act, a fact made clear from both a biological and natural law standpoint. The use of artificial contraception, therefore, hinges upon selfishness and creates a situation in which unity and new life are impossibilities. Yet the contraceptive mentality directs one to believe that the marriage is safe even though it has been emptied of its vitality.

I would suggest that a contraceptive mentality even causes adverse effects upon our view of suffering and the proper way to deal with it. Because the contraceptive mentality fosters selfishness and feeds the obsession for pleasure at the exclusion of self-giving, suffering becomes a thing to be avoided at all costs, for suffering seems to be the exact opposite of pleasure. Within such a context, suffering cannot be seen as an opportunity to empty oneself for love of another. I clearly remember thinking many times after Beth’s condition began causing extreme problems, “What am I going to do? How am I supposed to deal with this?” What I should have been thinking was, “What can I do for Beth? How are we going to deal with this?” This insight would come after having been through the fire and learning from my mistakes, mainly by having them pointed out by trusted friends. The suffering involved in caring for a suffering loved one is profound, and it demands the denial of one’s own desires and necessitates a “standing outside of oneself”. This concept of “standing outside of oneself” is necessary to understand if we wish to correct our views of sex and suffering which for the most part are formed by cultural viruses like MTV, Sex and the City, Paris Hilton, and other such misfits. Please refer to my other post entitled An Ecstatic Suffering.

There was a point during my wife’s illness at which she was capable of doing nothing other than talking, and even that was labored. To make matters more dreadful, there seemed to be no end in sight except for that end that everyone must undergo at some point. This was a time of spiritual and emotional freefall. It was as though there was nothing to hold on to. The bottom had dropped out and everything was getting worse at an alarming rate. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. I would often ask God why he would allow us to marry and then snatch everything away from us. “How could You bless our union, and then make it impossible to live it out? What purpose could You possibly serve by ruining our marriage and our life together?” This revealed the utilitarian mindset that I had fallen to, which seems to naturally spawn from the contraceptive mentality. In my mind, since we weren’t being “productive”, then we weren’t being successful, and God was the reason for this failure. What I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around was the possibility that maybe, just maybe, what we were actually doing was living out our marriage in exactly the way God wanted us to: true to our vows, self-sacrificial, and totally dependent upon Him. Although I couldn’t see it at the time, we were on the road to success within our marriage by learning how to be submissive to God’s will, by offering up our sufferings to God, and through self-sacrifice.

Stay tuned for the second part which will recount a personal experience of the actual purgative effect that suffering has on this contraceptive mentality.

The Lecture La Sapienza Refused to Hear

2008-01-31T13:40:00.000-06:00

This morning I finally sat down to read the lecture Pope Benedict XVI planned to give at La Sapienza University in Rome, and I was absolutely stunned. As you may know, the university invited the Holy Father to speak on January 17 to celebrate the inauguration of the new academic year, but the Pope canceled his visit after students and faculty - including 67 professors - protested against it. (Angelo Matera wrote a fabulous article about the incident for the National Catholic Register which can be found here: "The Death of Irony.")

Remember Regensburg? The Sapienza protest was hardly different. It certainly lacked the violence generated by the Pope's speech at Regensburg, but it was spawned by the same kind of ignorance. The "academics" at La Sapienza, like the Islamic fundamentalists who spoke out against the Pope in 2006, misquoted the Holy Father, using "his" remarks (which were not, in fact, his) out of context as justification for their protest. Ironically, the lecture the Pope planned to deliver at La Sapienza, like the one he gave at Regensburg, was meant to be a caution against the dangers of relativism.

Radical Islam and Western secularism both call faith and reason mutually exclusive. If we allow either or both of these ideologies to occupy a higher place in than Christian wisdom in the public sphere - and one might argue that they already do - we may as well bid goodbye to Western civilization as we know it. As the Pope said in a homily in 2005:

"Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude [acceptable] to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

In his conclusion to the Sapienza lecture, the Pope elaborated on the dangers that relativism poses to the modern world:

"... [T]he danger of falling into inhumanity is never simply overcome - as we see in the panorama of contemporary history! Today the danger of the Western world - to speak only of this context - is that man, precisely in the consideration of the grandeur of his knowledge and power, might give up before the question of truth. And that means at the same time that reason, in the end, bows to the pressure of interests and the charm of utility, constrained to recognize it as the ultimate criterion."

The Holy Father went on to point out the dangers that relativism poses to the university specifically:

"The danger exists that philosophy, no longer feeling itself capable of its true task, might degenerate into positivism; that theology, with its message addressed to reason, might become confined to the private sphere of a group more or less sizable. If, however, reason - solicitous of its presumed purity - becomes deaf to the great message that comes from the Christian faith and its wisdom, it will wither like a tree whose roots no longer reach the waters that give it life. It will lose courage for the truth and thus it will not become greater but less."

The same thing, the Pope said, will happen to European culture if it continues to become increasingly secular and to "cut itself off from the roots by which it lives" - the roots of Christian wisdom.

Finally, the Holy Father returned to a question he posed at the beginning of his address: "what does the Pope have to do with, or to say to the university?" I can only hope that his answer embarrassed the "academics" at La Sapienza enough to teach them some humility and help them re-discover the path to true wisdom:

"Surely [the Pope] must not attempt to impose the faith on others in an authoritarian way, since it can only be bestowed in freedom. Beyond his office as Shepherd of the Church, and on the basis of the intrinsic nature of this pastoral office, there is his duty to keep the sensitivity to truth alive; to continually invite reason to seek out the true, the good, God, and on this path, to urge it to glimpse the helpful lights that shine forth in the history of the Christian faith, and in this way to perceive Jesus Christ as the Light that illuminates history and helps us to find the way to the future."

You can read the full text of the Holy Father's planned address on Zenit. (Thanks, Angela.) As usual, the Pope is right on target. It's too bad that those who need to hear him the most are also the ones doing all they can to tune him out.

Blaise Pascal: Insight into Faith (Post IV)

2008-01-29T19:05:00.000-06:00

Continued from Insight into Faith (Post III).

Blaise Pascal believed that Christianity alone embodies and offers the holistic solution for the quest of the mind and heart for truth. Pascal’s solution is simple, we must listen to God. Pascal, a brilliant scientist, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, writer and so forth, had a spiritual experience in his thirty first year of life that he recorded and kept in the lining of his jacket.

Memorial

In the year of grace, 1654, On Monday, 23rd of November, Feast of St Clement, Pope and Martyr, and others in the Martyrology, Vigil of St Chrysogonus, Martyr, and others, From about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve,

Fire!

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, (Ex 3:6; Mt 22:32) not of the philosophers and scholars.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy.
Peace. God of Jesus Christ.
“Thy God and my God.” (Jn 20:17)
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.
He is to be found only in the ways taught in the Gospel.
Greatness of the Human Soul.
“Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee.” (Jn 17:25)
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from Him. “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters.” (Jr 2:13) “My God, wilt Thou leave me?” (Mt 27:46)
Let me not be separated from Him eternally. “This is the eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and the one whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ.” (Jn 17:3) Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ

I have separated myself from Him:
I have fled from Him,
denied Him,
crucified Him.
Let me never be separated from Him.
We keep hold of Him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s training on earth.
“I will not forget thy words.” (Ps 119:16) Amen.

Pascal discovered the paradox of man which true religion teaches. Man is both a source of greatness and wretchedness. Even in wretchedness man learns of his greatness. Pascal points out that man can realize that something is missing because he has fallen from a previous nature, the state of grace that one ought to be. Knowledge of privation points out knowledge of one’s true condition. Pascal wittingly indicates that while a person with no eyes is inconsolable “probably no man ever ventured to mourn at not having three eyes” (409). Man seeks what is intrinsic to his nature including knowledge of reality. Since reason cannot know all of reality, the limitation of man becomes more evident and humbles man to receive grace and knowledge as a gift.

Christian religion points out two truths that man must know to remain balance in his knowledge. “There is a God whom men can know, and…there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him” (555). Knowledge of only one of these truths leads to opposite extremes. Knowledge of God but not of sin leads to the pride of the philosophers while knowledge of sin and wretchedness but not of a redeeming God leads to the despair of the atheists. It is God in his gift of faith that makes both truths known to man. The need for redemption becomes both evident and reasonable. Through faith Jesus Christ can be recognized as “the end of all, and the center to which all tends” (555). The true God is different from limited view of God that philosophy offers because God not only brings the world into motion but also restores His creation that has turned against Him. As a God of love, He fills the hearts of man to make them aware of their condition that they might freely return back to Him. Without the mediator of Jesus Christ, man falls into either atheism or deism. To accept such possibilities is not reason, but grace through which all things become possible and miracles become evidence. To reject such possibilities is not reason, but an emotional problem that fails to dive into the infinite mystery that surrounds all things.

This worldview follows the assumption that the highest act of a human person is not knowledge and reason but faith and love. We are made to know precisely because we are made to love and be loved, not vice versa. While reason is very much a function of the human person it is not humanity’s end in itself but a means to understanding the choices available to the will. Faith is to the will what knowledge is to the intellect. They complement one another rather than replace each other. There is no competition intrinsic to the either faith or reason that would put one in conflict with the other. Rather human minds create the conflict. Even when affirming a judgment of the intellect, this willful act follows a trust in the correlation of an idea and its ability to represent reality regardless of whether this process is something that the judger is consciously aware of. This implicit trust is made explicit in Christianity and its belief of Jesus Christ as the Logos and Word of God. God stands beyond all creation and orders everything accordingly to His will and sees that it is good. Rather than destroying reason, Christianity inherently fosters the scientific and philosophical enterprise, precisely because it believes in the intelligibility of the world ordered by a divine Logos. Even if such world is ultimately shrouded in mystery, we can through the gifts of revelation and reason have positive knowledge about creation and the creator.

“Without the Creator the creature would disappear...But when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible." --Second Vatican Council

Don't know much about incorruptibles?

2008-01-28T15:20:00.000-06:00

This Sunday, January 27, was the memorial of St. Angela Merici, who like many other saints and beati (or "blesseds"), has been declared an "incorruptible." Essentially, this means that though St. Angela died centuries ago, her body has not decayed, nor was it ever embalmed, mummified, or in any other way deliberately preserved. Naturally, the phenomenon of incorruptibility draws a great deal of skepticism from secularists, other Christian denominations, and even certain Catholics, who believe it to either be a ruse perpetuated by the Church or a merely natural phenomenon.

Interestingly, the bodies of incorrupt saints do not undergo rigor mortis; rather, they remain as flexible as if the deceased were only sleeping. Incorrupt bodies are also miraculously free from the odor of decay, and many are reported to give forth the "Odour of Sanctity," an inexplicable sweet or flowery aroma. (This phenomenon has been cited in reference to St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Rita of Cascia, and St. Pio of Pietrelcina, among others.) Sometimes, the body only remains incorrupt for an unusual amount of time (as in the case of St. Francis Xavier), and in other cases, only certain parts of the body do not decay (as in the case of St. Clare of Assisi, whose skeleton remains perfectly preserved, though her flesh turned to dust before her body was exhumed).

The Church used to cite incorruptibility as one of the two miracles required for the canonization of a saint, but this is no longer the case, since some bodies which were at first thought to be "incorruptible" turned out to have been embalmed or preserved by a natural cause, as in the case of Blessed Pope John XXIII (below). When John XXIII's body was exhumed after his beatification in 2000, it appeared to be extremely well-preserved. (I can personally attest to this; I saw his body on display at St. Peter's in 2003.) Church officials, however, have attributed his preservation not to a supernatural cause but to the lack of oxygen in his sealed coffin, so he has not been declared an incorruptible.

The body of Bl. Pope John XXIII at St. Peter's in Rome

St. Bernadette's body, on the other hand, lay in a damp grave for thirty years before it was exhumed and found to be incorrupt. Before being buried again, her body was washed and re-clothed, and this washing process is believed to have been the cause of the discoloration in her face which became apparent the second time her corpse was exhumed in 1919. For this reason, a light wax mask was made to cover her face (below) before her body was put on display to the public. Her body remains intact today, despite the fact that she died in 1879.

St. Bernadette of Lourdes at Nevers, France

Here is a list (which is by no means exhaustive) of incorruptible saints and beati with whom you may be familiar:

St. Agatha of Sicily
St. Angela Merici
Bl. Anne Marie Taigi
St. Bernadette of Lourdes
St. Catherine Laboure' (d. 1876, pictured)
St. Cecilia
St. Charles Borromeo
St. Clare of Assisi
St. Edward the Confessor
St. Ferdinand III (King of Spain)
St. Francis Xavier
St. Francis Xavier "Mother" Cabrini
St. Jean Vianney
St. John Bosco
Bl. Margaret of Castello
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
St. Rita of Cascia
St. Teresa of Avila
St. Vincent de Paul (d. 1660, pictured)

You can find additional information about incorruptibles online, but let me caution you: many of the articles are authored by anti-Catholic skeptics or by people who haven't done their homework and who confuse the names of incorrupt saints with the names of those whose relics are merely popular objects of veneration. (The Wikipedia articles on incorruptibles are prime examples of the latter mistake.)

In closing, let us remember a few important things: first, that supernatural phenomena - instances of incorruptibility, apparitions, miracles and stigmata - are meant to simply encourage and edify the faithful, not to take the place of Sacred Scripture and Tradition as the cornerstones of our faith. In other words, we must take care not to become obsessed with these phenomena. Second, we must keep in mind that none of these phenomena are considered dogma; in other words, no Catholic is obligated to believe in them. So, while some of us might be fascinated by the veneration of incorruptibles and other relics, we need to be sensitive to the fact that some of our brothers and sisters may find the practice strange or even disgusting, and they are in no way obligated to take part in it.

St. Angela Merici, pray for us. All you angels and saints of God, pray for us.

On the Feast of St. Francis de Sales

2008-01-24T13:59:00.001-06:00

"The thoughts of those moved by natural human love are almost completely fastened on the beloved, their hearts are filled with passion for it, and their mouths full of its praises. When it is gone they express their feelings in letters, and can't pass by a tree without carving the name of their beloved in its bark. Thus too, those who love God can never stop thinking about Him, longing for Him, aspiring to Him, and speaking about Him. If they could, they would engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind."

- St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. Francis was born to a noble family in France in 1567. His father was determined that he become a lawyer, so out of obedience, Francis studied law in Padua. After remaining silent for thirteen years about the discernment of his vocation, he told his parents that he wanted to become a priest. As one might expect, his father was utterly opposed to the idea at first, but eventually he gave his consent. Francis was ordained and appointed provost of the Diocese of Geneva, an area highly populated by Calvinists. Francis tried to organize a missionary expedition with the aim of bringing the Calvinists back to the Church, but was only able to recruit one volunteer: one of his cousins, and even he abandoned Francis after several years of seemingly fruitless labor.

Determined to persist in doing God's will, for years Francis continued to endure great hardships as he preached to the Calvinists - often talking to children when their parents would not listen to him - and distributed pamphlets explaining the truths of the Catholic faith. (He authored the first religious tracts!) By the time he completed his expedition, it is said he helped bring 40,000 Calvinists back to the Catholic faith.

At age thirty-five, Francis became Bishop of Geneva, and while he went about his administrative duties, offering spiritual direction remained his top priority. Consequently, he was often overworked, and his health suffered from this. Francis truly wished to, as he put it, "engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind." He drew countless people to the faith by his preaching and was known for being exceedingly patient and gentle; thus he is sometimes called the "Gentleman Saint." He is also known for helping St. Jane de Chantal found her religious order: the Sisters of the Visitation. Francis died in 1622 and was canonized only 43 years later in 1665. He was declared a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1877 by Pope Pius IX. Three religious orders have been named for St. Francis: the Salesians, founded by St. John Bosco, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, founded by Abbé Louis Brisson, and the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, founded by Fr. Peter Mermier.

St. Francis wrote Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God, as well as many tracts on Catholic apologetics and countless personal letters. The vast majority of his writings are addressed to laypeople, in hopes that they would respond to the universal call to holiness and strive to become saints.

You can download St. Francis' Introduction to the Devout Life for free at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us! We also long to see the name of Jesus engraved on every human heart.

"You suffered with them, and now you are theirs."

2008-01-22T16:30:00.000-06:00

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by American author Margaret Craven is a very short novel (just over 150 pages), but don’t let its thin spine fool you – its themes run deep: a community’s experience of suffering and death, the struggle to preserve tradition in the face of progress, the growing generation gap, the fruits of spiritual simplicity, and the essence of the priestly vocation.

Craven’s novella, set in the 1960’s, follows Mark Brian, a young Anglican cleric sent by his bishop to be pastor in Kingcome parish, a remote First Nations (Native American) village in British Columbia. The Bishop has learned that Mark only has a few years left to live, but he chooses not to tell Mark this; instead, the Bishop assigns Mark to the most difficult parish in his bishopric in hopes that the assignment will teach the young priest the true nature of his vocation.

At first, Mark does not feel at home in Kingcome, but gradually, the priest and his people learn to accept one another’s differences, to work together to provide for one another’s needs, and most of all, to live together as the Body of Christ. Throughout the book, Craven makes it abundantly clear that the village lives as one body, and its people suffer and survive as a community. In one particularly beautiful passage, she writes that, as the village prayed together at sunrise after a hard winter, “it seemed to Mark that he felt the burden of winter lift as from a common shoulder, and heard the sigh of gratitude rise from a common heart” (140). It isn’t long before Mark realizes that he and the tribe must work together – not to prosper, but merely to survive.

As Mark observes the life of the community he shepherds, the tribe’s appreciation for simplicity teaches him the importance of voluntary poverty in the priestly vocation. When Mark first arrives in Kingcome village, the old vicarage where he must live is falling down, but he refuses to let a new one be built when he sees the condition of the other dwellings in the village. After Mark has served in Kingcome for some time, the men of the tribe offer to help him build a new house. Mark writes to his bishop to tell him the good news, and the bishop replies: “You suffered with them, and now you are theirs, and nothing will ever be the same again” (87). That, Mark learns, is the heart of missionary life, and of his priesthood: entering into the lives of the people one has been sent to serve, giving oneself over to them, and learning to suffer together, to “bear one another’s burdens” for Christ’s sake (Galatians 6:2).

The greatest burden Mark and his people are asked to bear is death, but even that burden is lightened when death is seen for what it really is: the door to eternal life. The death myth of the people of Kingcome – the myth of “the talking bird, the owl, who calls the name of the man who is going to die” (19) – helps Mark to see death in a new way, and more importantly, to realize that to live his vocation, he must constantly die to himself; he must lose his life in order to find it (Matthew 16:25).

Near the end of the novel, the Bishop comes to visit Kingcome village, and his words to Mark resonated with me in a special way. As a missionary, I've learned that it is always hard to say what one has learned from an encounter with Christ’s poor, but the Bishop seems to get it right:

“Always when I leave the village,” the Bishop said slowly, “I try to define what it means to me, why it sends me back to the world refreshed and confident. Always I fail. It is so simple it is difficult. When I try to put it into words, it come out one of those unctuous, over-pious platitudes at which Bishops are expected to excel…
“[F]or me it has always been easier here, where only the fundamentals count, to learn what every man must learn in this world.”
“And that, my lord?” [Mark asked.]
“Enough of the meaning of life to be ready to die.” (144)

I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a must-read for missionaries, seminarians, and avid Catholic readers alike. Its story may be simple and brief, but its presence will linger long after you've finished the last page.

Blaise Pascal: Insight into Faith (Post III)

2008-01-21T00:57:00.000-06:00

Continued from Insight into Faith (Post II).

Living in France where a favorite pass-time of the French was to gamble, Pascal plays with the idea of statistical gain and risks in his famous wager argument. Appealing to gamblers, Pascal shows how disbelief in God may risk more than any person would want to lose, the possibility for eternal happiness. This argument is not meant to justify belief in God but to show that belief in God is at least reasonable, and may be one of the most reasonable decisions a person will ever make. The point of this argument is to ready the heart for true faith. In other words, Pascal is taking up the banner of John the Baptist in hopes that a person may be prepared for humbling receiving grace. He does not believe that his argument in any way can provide that faith.

Reason alone, as great as it may seem, has limits and lacks the ability to judge definitively whether God exists or not. This is not to say that belief in God is not reasonable nor that an argument cannot be philosophically derived, but God is not merely an idea of the intellect. Any judgment would insinuate a conclusion that goes beyond the evidence available to the mind. Such a fact, regarding the existence of God as an objective and evident judgment, lies beyond and prior to the mind. Ultimately reason may aide the person in finding God, but the heart must first seek Him. Thus, we can neither affirm nor deny the existence of God based on reason alone. However, Pascal insists that every person must wager whether “God is, or He is not” (233). Since reason cannot speak and must remain neutral, the wager becomes a question of happiness rather than knowledge. Accordingly, Pascal sets the stakes on the fact that God is. “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing” (233). Considering the possibility of the existence of God completely as a gamble and ignorant to the case in reality, there exist an equal chance of whether or not God exist, heads or tails. Betting that God exist when he does in fact exist, a person would hypothetically gain eternal happiness. If God does not exist that person has lost nothing. Following the nature of the gamble, the only way a person gains anything is if God does in fact exist. If God does not exist then a person neither gains nor loses in any of the scenarios. Therefore a person can reasonable gamble that God exists if they are remotely interested in the possibility of gaining eternal happiness. Since a person must gamble, belief becomes the most reasonable bet. The person sacrifices a finite chance in which nothing is gained for an infinite chance in which everything is to be gained.

Pascal realizes that belief from such a wager hardly seems like faith at all. In fact, he indicates that belief from a gamble is not true faith; but the wager only purposes to open a person up to the possibility of receiving faith. When struggling with faith, Pascal recommends that such a person live as if they did believe and follow the paths of those who have had similar struggles with atheism in finding their way to faith. By living as a believer a person is more inclined to believe and opens himself up to the supernatural grace of faith. Eventually, such a life may reveal the nothingness this life has to offer in comparison to the infinite happiness to be found in God.

Belief that God exist is not equal to faith in God. Where the mind may think of God, the heart experiences Him. Pascal says, “Knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him” (280). Both reason and the heart represent reality and know truth; only each tells us something different. Pascal says that the heart knows first principles such as “space, time, motion, [and] number” (282), and reason would be absurd to demand reasons for these intuitions of the heart. A person can only wait patiently for grace of faith when realizing the insufficiency of reason.

Next week will be the final post on this series of Blaise Pascal and his insight into faith. I will discuss the paradoxical nature of man’s greatness and wretchedness, the purpose of religion, and the primacy of humility.

The Humility of a Saint: Brother Lawrence

2008-01-15T11:19:00.001-06:00

I have recently been introduced to the writing of Brother Lawrence, the seventeenth-century lay Carmelite brother who penned The Practice of the Presence of God. This little book is chock full of poignant and profound descriptions of Brother Lawrence’s intimate connection and superhuman devotion to the Lord. In fact, it is a very difficult book to pare down, as it already reads like a devotion-a-day calendar (though it might be because I mistakenly bought an abridged version, but passages on the internet from other editions are very similar).

The book is comprised of conversations and letters of Brother Lawrence that were recounted and compiled after his death by his friend Fr. Joseph le Beaufort. The theme unifying each short chapter is that of living every moment in the profound presence of the Lord—that is, constantly being aware of God’s existence within and surrounding oneself. From this awareness springs exclusive trust in the Lord and, therefore, peace of spirit.

This man’s wisdom, humility, and devotion to God are incredibly inspiring—and, quite frankly, incredibly daunting. Here is one who successfully rose above the distractions of the world and instead lived in communion with his Maker. Here is one who completely died to himself and lived solely for love of God. The humility described in this book is in stark and terrifying contrast to the lukewarm and half-hearted faith often deemed acceptable in today’s world. I would like to show a few examples of Brother Lawrence’s wisdom, but would first implore you to read him yourself. I’m afraid these snippets may seem less poignant when removed from the context of the book…nevertheless, here are a few passages:

“To be constantly aware of God’s presence, it is necessary to form the habit of continually talking with Him throughout each day. To think that we must abandon conversation with Him in order to deal with the world is erroneous. Instead, as we nourish our souls by seeing God in His exaltation, we will derive a great joy at being His” (12).

“Brother Lawrence said that he was always guided by love. He was never influenced by any other interest, including whether or not he was saved. He was content doing the smallest chore if he could do it purely for the love of God. He even found himself quite well off, which he attributed to the fact that he sought only God and not His gifts. He believed that God is much greater than any of the simple gifts He gives us. Rather than desiring them from Him, he chose to look beyond the gifts, hoping to learn more about God Himself” (14).

“The dear brother remarked that we must give ourselves totally to God in both temporal and spiritual affairs. Our only happiness should come from doing God’s will, whether it brings us some pain or great pleasure. After all, if we are truly devoted to doing God’s will, pain and pleasure won’t make any difference to us” (12).

“He remarked that thinking often spoils everything and that evil usually begins with our thoughts. In Brother Lawrence’s opinion, we should reject any thoughts that distract us from serving the Lord or that undermine our salvation” (17).

“Our brother remarked that some people go only as far as their regular devotions, stopping there and neglecting love, which is the purpose of those devotions. This could easily be seen in their actions and explained why they possessed so little solid virtue” (21-22).

Again, I highly recommend this book! It is one to be savored and meditated upon as a gauge of our own spiritual growth. It and similar writings can be found here .

Blaise Pascal: Insight into Faith (Post II)

2008-01-14T00:40:00.000-06:00

Continued from Insight into Faith (Post I).

Blaise Pascal identifies a paradox of reality within the nature of humanity. Man stands torn as a medium between the two opposites of infinity and nothingness. After assessing the hopelessness in the ability of man to discern either the infinite or nothingness, Pascal turns to religion and faith as the way to leave the pit of despair. Since man can neither see the beginning, the nothingness from which he came, nor the end, the infinite towards which he is headed, only faith in God can bring comfort. Pascal, critical of Descartes, makes sure not to reduce God to a rational backing of a worldview and shows that we also need faith in God. Besides, God ultimately disappears past man’s ability to conceive or imagine.

Blaise realizes that everything, once reflected upon seriously, leads to its own mystery. All of man’s reason and man himself becomes as nothing in relationship to the infinite reality that surrounds him. Yet when man tries to study himself he dives into an infinite number of smaller and vaster things heading towards nothingness. Although man wants to comprehend everything he is left with understanding nothing.

For Pascal, man, when left to his own accord, is in a very helpless condition. Man seeks happiness in science and many other pleasures only to discover that he cannot become happy with himself or his abilities. Man orients all his activities in hope to become happy in the future but he cannot find contentment in the present. There is an excessive amount of activity without an overall purpose. Many run around in a helpless condition because both senses and reason fail in attaining truth. The senses deceive reason with faulty appearances and vice versa until both become enemies with one another and both are cast into doubt. The mortal condition of man in the dark has no way out of itself through itself.

A different approach must be taken, that of faith. Man must go out of himself and trust in more than his reason. But man must have something beyond himself to allow him to do this. Pascal believes that God places religion into both the mind, by reason, and the heart, by grace, and He does not force it upon either. Since there is not enough evidence to neither confirm nor deny God in the world, the grace of faith becomes a very valuable gift. In the context of this faith, if man thinks as he ought he can find this faith reasonable. Faith in God orders the ideas of man and allows him to be content with himself through his relationship with God. Instead of slipping into the darkness of meaningless, faith allows man to live with the assurance of eternity. The latter becomes a more reasonable way to live while the former creates a state of despair.

Blaise Pascal uses reason to show the reasonability of faith in God. Reason cannot produce faith in God but only open a person to the possibility. Through exploring the nature of both faith and reason, Pascal continues to affirm the limitations of reason and need for faith in a world shrouded with mystery. Pascal realizes the inability of reason to bring man into knowledge of God, and that all proofs for God from the works of nature only help those who already see God in all things. In hopes to open the mind to listen to the reasons of the heart, Pascal offers a wager, a gamble, by which he shows that faith may be the most reasonable way to live one’s life. Pascal also identifies two truths in religion and shows how both are intrinsic to understanding reality. Reason and heart need to work in harmony to receive the grace of true knowledge about one’s own condition and the need of God. Ultimately Pascal shows the Christian Religion as the culmination in which the knowledge of reason and heart find their calling.

In my next post I will take up the Pascal’s famous wager. My hope is to show its complexity within the context that Pascal intended it. I have heard many simplified versions that do not do justice the actual argument. Taken in its context this argument is very beautiful and compelling in its own right. Pascal does not merely try to appeal to reason but to the entire person including one’s desires and hopes as well as reason. This argument was never meant to replace faith but to merely open a person up to its possibility. Pascal sees faith as a divine grace that follows a person’s humility. Often reason blind to its own presuppositions and unjustified metaphysical beliefs against the possibility of God gets in the way of this openness, which is the very reason that Pascal’s argument is so beneficial.

Blaise Pascal: Insight into Faith (Post I)

2008-01-07T12:37:00.000-06:00

This is the beginning of a series of posts on Blaise Pascal. I believe he is often a neglected and misunderstood Christian thinker, and I have experienced people misquote and critique him without actually understanding the perplexity of his thought. In the mid 1600's, Blaise Pascal made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics and science. After a conversion experience he reflected on his faith and eventually started writing his Apology for the Christian Religion, a work never finished. After he died, the notes for this work were collected and named the Pensees or "thoughts". Sadly many people use Pascal’s insights and especially his famous wager out of context. Here I hope to explore and reflect on some of his central ideas, particularly those regarding faith and reason. Quote numbers from Pascal in this series of posts refer to the numbers in which his collection of thoughts was labeled.

Reactionary to the pure rationalism of Descartes, Blaise shows the interplay and reasonability of faith. Pascal claims that reason is utterly insufficient for an absolute argument that proves the existence of God. Some may venture to argue that reason currently can or may be able to one day demonstrate that some higher power or God does exist, but in the end, even with this belief, reason still fails in itself to discern the nature of God as Trinity; this type of insight relies on the gift of revelation and faith. Knowing that a God exists isn’t the same as knowing who that God is and is even further removed from a relationship with such a God. While I agree that philosophy gives much insight into God and there are very convincing arguments that may be made for God's existence, most arguments for God only offer a reasonable hypothesis in which a person is left with a fundamental choice of belief. In other words, the existence of God is not so evident to faculty of reason that one would be forced to believe in God without it being an act of faith rooted in the will.

If God were only an abstract universal like laws governing numbers and mathematics, faith would be quite unnecessary, but because God is an eternal subject we are called to have a relationship with him that translates concretely into our lives in an act of faith. The God of Christianity is not merely an impersonal prime mover that stands at the beginning of a causal sequence that has, through time and space, resulted in our own existence, but God is the One who actively sustains all reality and presently keeps us existing while moving us towards our ultimate end--telos. Such a God that loves us and cares for our own sake wants more than our knowledge of Him but our love which is mediated through a personal relationship, trust, and obedience. Faith is fundamental in belief of God and this faith requires at least as much as an act of the will as an act of the intellect.

To be human, “man’s response to God by faith must be free, and…therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will. The act of faith is of its very nature a free act.” “God calls men to serve him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience, but not coerced…This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ Jesus."
–CCC 160

Furthermore, faith is important in everyday life. It underlies the humility necessary to receive truth. Our minds most earnest attempts cannot discern the full nature of God, but this knowledge must be received as a gift through divine revelation. Our philosophical understanding may support what has been divinely revealed, but it cannot replace it. For these reasons alone it is important that Christianity emphasizes the need for faith and relationship with God. Neither a blind faith apart from reason nor reason divorced from faith is healthy, but faith must be balanced with reason.

If God is the creator and author of all things, than we can reasonably assume the both that books of nature (truth discovered through reason) and revelation (truth revealed through the Church) have the same author, namely God. Therefore, while faith points to that which is prior and beyond reason; neither of these books can contradict each other. As Aquinas pointed out to his contemporaries and the university: truth cannot contradict truth.

As I will explore in my next posts, the beauty of Pascal's thought is that it eloquently points out the limits of man in order to open man up to a relationship to Him who is without limits. The person truly open to all possibilities must then openly consider the possibility that God really exists and is really trying to enter into a relationship if only that person would believe.

Post II.

The Ball and the Cross, or My First Meeting with Chesterton

2008-01-07T11:35:00.001-06:00

"For the world of science and evolution is far more elusive and like a dream than the world of poetry and religion; since in the latter images and ideas remain themselves eternally, while it is the whole idea of evolution that identities melt into each other as they do in a nightmare" (1).

The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton begins with this dichotomy, one that seems to turn the chief argument of most modern skeptics on its head. As people of faith in a secular society, we have become accustomed to acknowledging before those who would oppose us that religion is indeed akin to poetry and other "abstractions," that it is mysterious and therefore confusing, and somehow out-of-reach, like a dream - but as Chesterton points out, such an admission is utterly untrue. The truth of our Catholic faith is more solid and more certain than any "new" science, and any ideology that denies the existence of absolute truth. (One might also note that good poetry, like true religion, cannot be called abstraction - truly good poetry is specific, concrete, intelligible and enduring, like dogma.)

In a witty and entertaining allegory, The Ball and the Cross chronicles the adventures of James Turnbull, the editor of an athiest newspaper, and Evan MacIan, a young Catholic who wishes to fight a duel with Turnbull because he has blasphemed the Blessed Mother. In a hilarious turn of events, the two men become fugitives from the law by mutual agreement, and on the fantastic adventure that ensues, they find time to discuss all manner of subjects: ethics and morality, tradition and progress, and of course, the place of the Church in the modern world.

In his characteristically matter-of-fact tone, Chesterton challenges his readers to hold fast to the unpopular truth that the Catholic faith has always been more stable and more certain than any other ideology, even if its enemies argue that it is too incredible to be believed. As MacIan explains to Turnbull in "The Last Parley":

"The world left to itself grows wilder than any creed. ... That is the only real question - whether the Church is really madder than the world. Let the rationalists run their own race, and let us see where they end. If the world has some healthy balance other than God, let the world find it. Does the world find it? Cut the world loose ... Does the world stand on its own end? Does it stand, or does it stagger? ... We cannot trust the ball to be always a ball; we cannot trust reason to be reasonable. In the end the great terrestrial globe will go quite lop-sided, and only the cross will stand upright." (168)

Though I started quoting him years ago, The Ball and the Cross was the first book of Chesterton's that I read in its entirety, and it's convinced me that old G.K. and I are going to be good friends. I found that the 1995 Dover edition (pictured above) handled nicely - just the right thickness, just the right size font - but the introduction by Martin Gardner was awful. Don't bother with it - if you haven't yet read the novel, it will spoil it for you by dissecting the allegory. And if you have read the novel before you tackle the introduction, you will probably be forced to conclude, as I was, that Gardner doesn't sound as if he knew what Chesterton was getting at, at all. The only bit of his commentary that I appreciated was his inclusion of a short poem which Chesterton wrote in the copy of The Ball and the Cross owned by Father John O'Connor, the model for the author's famous Father Brown. Chesterton was ultimately unsatisfied with The Ball and the Cross, and expressed his sentiments to his friend as follows:

This is a book I do not like,
Take it away to Heckmondwike,
A lurid exile, lost and sad
To punish it for being bad.
You need not take it from the shelf
(I tried to read it once myself:
The speeches jerk, the chapters sprawl,
The story makes no sense at all)
Hide it your Yorkshire moors among
Where no man speaks the English tongue.

While I understand that most great writers aren't satisfied with their work, I don't think the author's criticisms are entirely true. Perhaps the speeches do jerk a bit, but the story is clearly meant to be an allegory, so we can forgive him that. The chapters do sprawl, but it seems that most of Chesterton's chapters do, so that's not really a very valid criticism for this work specifically. And the story doesn't make much sense, but that was perhaps the thing about it that delighted me the most: its whimsical quality. It's refreshing every once in a while to read fiction that's truly imaginative and well-written. While I realize that in the author's opinion this wasn't one of his finer works, I enjoyed it immensely, and if I could be half the writer he was, I would be quite satisfied with my work, indeed.