Articles by Deacon Keith Fournier
The Brotherhood (Sisterhood) of the Belt: Suffering, Struggle and failure in the Christian Life
May 31, 2016 / 00:00 amAt the end of St. John's Gospel, we read of this encounter between the Risen Jesus and Peter: "When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" Simon Peter answered him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." He then said to Simon Peter a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Simon Peter answered him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." Jesus said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.” What follows, in the encounter between Peter and the Lord, has come to mean so much to me. Jesus continued speaking to Peter, "Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, follow me." (John 21:1-19) Another translation says "when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will tie a belt around you and lead you where you do not want to go." It is from this translation that I derive my expression, the brotherhood of the belt. As the years have unfolded in my own life, this encounter between Peter and the Lord has taken on a deeper meaning for me. How do I respond to the inevitable struggle, failure, disappointment and difficulties in life? How do I recover when I have fallen? Let's be honest, we will make wrong choices, we will fall, and we will struggle. The only question is whether we get up and are changed and converted as a result. Whether we will voluntarily join this brotherhood of the belt, this way of discipleship, and allow ourselves to be pulled along by the Lord who alone knows what is best for our lives. John's is the most theological of the four gospels. Probably the last to be written, it reveals the mature reflections of the early Church concerning the deepest meaning of the Incarnation, life, death, resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ the Messiah. In his treatment of this post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, he focuses us on Peter for many reasons. The early Fathers of the Church drew beautiful insights from the three questions asked by the Risen Lord, as well as from Peters three-fold response. They taught that this dialogue represented both the undoing of his former threefold denial and an affirmation of his specific call to leadership over the early Church as it went forth into the Nations to carry forward in time the redemptive mission of Jesus. How beautiful this insight truly is. It reaches down to the depth of the mystery of human freedom. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church so succinctly expresses "Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself" (CCC #1861) Sin is an abuse of freedom, a wrong choice. When we choose against God, we choose against love, and we choose against our own human flourishing. When we make these kinds of wrong choices, we not only negatively affect the world around us, but we change who we become in the process. Peter's denial crippled Peter emotionally and spiritually. He lost his way in life, until he encountered the Risen Christ. We lose our way as well - when we make wrong choices. However, what matters most is what we do afterward. Peter shows us the way into joining what I call the brotherhood of the belt through encountering the Risen Lord and letting him pull us forward. The only path out of Peter's plight was repentance and, then, making a new choice - one that was rooted in faith and trust rather than fear. The Risen Jesus came and stood in front of Him, gazing upon Him in love, showing Him the way of new life. He does the same for each one of us. Our repentance invites us to make new choices of love and fidelity in both word and deed; to begin again. We are invited to exercise our freedom when we are faced with difficulties and struggles. The right choice, made possible by grace, is to choose the way of surrendered love, like the Apostle Peter did. To make the decision to join Peter, and all of the Saints in the brotherhood of the belt, is to choose to follow Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. I am in a season of my life where I no longer want to get out ahead of the Lord. I feel as though the Lord has tied a belt around me and He is pulling me. I have found great freedom in simply letting Him do so. I know that this is right where I should be. It is also becoming where I want to stay, and live, and learn the Way. What changes more often in my life these days are not the circumstances that surround me but the way I view them and the manner in which I respond. In short, I am changing; it is the kind of change that is not easy, but I know must happen. It is the path to true freedom. What once seemed sour now tastes sweet. What once caused fear now invites a deepening call to faith and surrender. Perhaps you are having similar experiences in your own life? If so, take Peter as an example and a source of encouragement. Let go of any attempts to control. Join the brotherhood (or sisterhood) of the belt. Let Jesus pull you along in the way of surrendered love. There is no better way to live. Failure, Opposition, Struggle and Difficulty in the Christian Life are the classroom. In that classroom we learn how to live in the brotherhood of the belt. We live in a world which desperately needs redemption. That world is both within us and around us. It seems that the older I get, struggles, hardship and difficulties seem to be on the increase. When I was a young man, I thought that struggles would lessen as I grew in faith and matured. My studies of the lives of the apostles and the saints through the years finally disabused me of that notion. Now, at 61, I not only know how wrong I was - I believe I had it backwards. There are some Christians, often well intended ones, who insist that the obstacles, struggle and pain we often face in trying to live our lives for the Lord are always opposition from the enemy of our souls, the devil. (cf. Eph. 6:12, 1 Peter 5:8) Don't get me wrong; evil is real and, because we are joined to the Lord through Baptism, we do encounter spiritual attacks as we participate in the spiritual warfare arrayed against His loving plan. There are other Christians whom I refer to as friends of Job (Job 16:2-4). They offer us their advice when we fall on hard times or face struggles and difficulties. Like the "friends" of that great figure in the Old Testament, they all too quickly blame the difficulties and struggles we are going through on us. They may accuse us of not "having faith" or of not doing the right thing. Of course, there are times when our lack of faith, and improper behavior and response, impedes the loving work of God in our lives as our Gospel passage demonstrates. However, discerning that fact can be hard and it should not be presumed. Then, all too often, there are fellow Christians who speak as though they have God figured out, as though He were some kind of puzzle to be solved. They present the Christian faith as though it were a formula to be followed rather than a gift and mystery to be received. They minimize the Christian vocation as a call to some form of "success", accomplished by following a formula, rather than a rugged road to be walked in the footsteps of a Savior whose greatest act of Love was deemed by most who witnessed it to be a complete failure. My experience as I age has confirmed something quite simple but hard to accept until age wears you down a bit, difficulties and struggle are just a part of the mixed human experience. They are rooted in the rupture that was caused by our individual and corporate separation from God. That is a result of sin. However, there is some very good news. When we learn to live our lives in Christ, they can also become the raw material for our continuing transformation. They certainly did so with Peter. They also did so with the great Apostle Paul. He tells the Corinthians in that wonderful passage found in his second letter to the Corinthians: "Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong". (2 Cor. 12:7-10) Let's be honest. Life is often difficult, painful and filled with obstacles. Yes, even when you are praying, being as faithful as you can be, cooperating with grace and really trying to believe in the Lord and all that he teaches through His Church. Pain, failure, opposition, hardship, struggle, disappointment all just seem to be a part of the program. The saints of old, such as St. Paul, grew so accustomed to difficulties they began to boast of them. The question that we should ask ourselves when we face struggle, difficulty, failure, disappointment and the frequent pain of real life is how do we respond to the invitation that they offer to us? Every difficulty, struggle and experience of opposition or pain can become an invitation to exercise our freedom, informed by our faith, to truly believe in and embrace the loving plan of God. To the man or woman who is sincerely committed to following the Lord, embracing these experiences in the surrender of authentic discipleship can pave the path to holiness, form the raw material for continued conversion and equip him/her more fully for the work of the Gospel. It is not the difficulties, struggles and hardships which lessen in life as we age. Rather, they just change their complexion. We change in and through them. They can become the vehicle for some of the greatest growth in our relationship with the Lord. What had been intended for our demise can become the path to our restoration. That is, if we freely choose join Peter in the brotherhood of the belt, and learn the way of real discipleship.
Twilight of Religious Liberty or an Invitation to Christian Collaboration?
May 5, 2016 / 00:00 amIn June of 2015, the United States Supreme Court issued an egregious, unjust opinion in a case styled Obergefell v Hodges. Five lawyers in black robes manufactured out of whole cloth a new “right” for two men or two women to do what they are incapable of doing, marry. They claimed to have found such a “right” in the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution, apparently next to the so called “right” to take the life of children in the womb through procured abortion. In the wake of that act of judicial alchemy, some activists within the homosexual equivalency movement have been enforcing this edict across the Nation by using the police power of the State to persecute Christians. They have also been using it to suppress the free speech, free association and the free exercise of religion of Christians. There is a tsunami of activism hell-bent on compelling faithful Christians to deny their deeply held religious conviction that marriage is solely possible between one man and one woman - because only a man and a woman can achieve the unitive and procreative ends of marriage. The tsunami wave began in the commercial arena, when homosexual equivalency activists strategically used public accommodation arguments against Christians in commerce. In 2015 I wrote concerning a good Christian woman who simply asked to be accommodated when it came to participating in same sex weddings. Months later, along with my friend and fellow lawyer Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, I opined concerning the danger that advisory opinions from State Supreme Courts now have the effect of excluding faithful Christians from serving on the judicial bench. Since writing those articles, the situation has grown even more urgent. Will faithful Christians soon be excluded from certain forms of commercial participation? Will fidelity to the Bible, the Natural Moral Law and the unbroken Christian tradition soon exclude Christians from any government service? With the continuing expansion of the reach of the State into every arena of citizen participation, will Christians soon experience overt exclusion from other forms of public service? Prior to what is called the Edict of Milan, the Christians of the first three centuries in ancient Rome had to avoid participating in certain occupations and refrain from serving in public office. That was because to do so would require that they apostatize, or abandon the faith. Is that approach what lies ahead for us in a Nation which has lost a full understanding of the moral foundations of freedom? It is time to ask the real question - how far will a radical secularist State go in asserting its police power over our practice of the Christian faith? What will we do in response? Are we entering the twilight of Religious Liberty in America? Or, is this an invitation to Christian Collaboration. We must stand together as Christians, across confessional lines, and resist this blatant rejection of the fundamental right to religious freedom. When the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution was enacted there was no Internal Revenue Service. The current structure of corporate law, such as the distinction between a corporation being considered nonprofit or for profit, did not exist. The First Amendment stood for the existence of a Fundamental Right to Religious Freedom for all men and women. It protected them, in living their entire life and not just going to Church on Sundays. The use of the phrase “Free Exercise” was quite apropos. The Christian faith is lived! The First Amendment is meant to protect its exercise whether the believer is engaging in commerce, public service, or simply pursuing liberty and happiness. We cannot be compelled to surrender our deeply held moral and religious beliefs outside of the walls of their chosen church or place of worship by the civil government. With a growing disregard for that protection, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was passed in 1993. It has since been used whenever a legal issue concerning the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights is at issue. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act presumes the primacy of the Free Exercise of Religion as a fundamental Constitutional Right. The First amendment begins with these words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Whether one looks to Western societies which have abandoned the moral foundations of freedom, giving rise to a growing hostility toward faithful Christians and soft persecution - or to the rise of extremist anti-Christian radical Islam accompanied by the shedding of their blood, there is an inescapable conclusion - we are in a struggle and we are living in a new missionary age. Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Letter on the Wisdom of Christianity reminded us all, "Christians are born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph." We are called to spiritual combat in this hour. The struggle we face in a declining western culture involves a clash of worldviews, personal and corporate, and competing definitions of human freedom, human dignity, and human flourishing. It is a contest over the moral foundations of a truly human and just social order. We will continue to insist on the fundamental Right to Life. Every procured abortion is the taking of innocent human life and is always and everywhere intrinsically immoral. Without the right to life there are no other rights and the entire infrastructure of rights is thrown into jeopardy. Human rights are goods of human persons. When there is no human person to exercise them, all the rhetoric extolling them is nothing but empty air and sloganeering. This truth informs our respect for every human life whether that life is found in the first home of the mother’s womb, a wheelchair, a jail cell, a hospital room, a hospice, a senior center, a soup kitchen or on a refugee boat. The Right to Life position is not about an issue at all. Nor are those who hold it “single issue voters”. It is the foundation for every other human right. Human rights are goods of human persons and abortion stops a beating heart! The language used in the political discussion on abortion reveals an Orwellian newspeak. There is no abortion right. Abortions do not have rights, only human persons have rights, and the child in the womb who dies in a procured abortion is suffering not only an unjust death but an egregious human rights abuse. We will continue to insist that true marriage and family have been inscribed by the Divine Architect into the order of the universe and that no Court, legislature or government can change the nature and ends of marriage. Truth does not change, people and cultures do; sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. The Apostle Paul instructed the Christians in Ephesus to “put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:12, 13). He told the Christians in Corinth, “For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4,5). And in his letter to the Christians in Rome he describes in gory detail what happens when people reject God’s plan for family and sexuality (Romans 1). Jesus promised us that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18). The demons have tried for over two millennia, but they have failed. The evil one has set his scopes on the first cell of the Church, the Christian family. Is it any wonder that the enemy of the Lord’s loving plan for the whole human race, the Church, would seek to destroy the Church by attacking its smallest cell, the Christian family? The greatest weapon we have is not our argumentation and apologetics, as vital as they both are. Nor is it the use of the Courts to protect our rights and our vote and political participation to secure them and protect the real common good. Though both are absolutely essential. Rather, it is to recognize that the attack is from the gates of hell and then to wield the spiritual weapons the Lord has given us. It is time to rediscover one another, across Christian confessional lines, and wield those weapons together. While we contend in the public square, we must remember that we do not struggle merely against flesh and blood. The assault on life is diabolical. The assault on marriage is diabolical. But, as Jesus promised, the gates of hell will not prevail against us. (Matt. 16:8) However, a kingdom divided against itself will not stand (Matt. 12:25). The growing soft persecution we are facing as Christians in the West is rooted in the rejection of the truth concerning the dignity of every human life, at every age and stage, the nature and ends of marriage, and the fundamental right to religious freedom. This rejection is throwing us together in joint efforts geared toward slowing the moral collapse of western civilization. However, we cannot stop there. Our task is to do what the early Christians did, proclaim in word and deed the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and transform western culture, indeed the whole modern age, from within. We need one another to do this effectively. We need to face the reality of the divisions among us and find the way to healing. We need to become family again. Family members may disagree, but they are always family. We are thee family of God, yet we live quite a different story. Our response to what seems to be a twilight of religious liberty should be the acceptance of an invitation to Christian collaboration. Image: American flag and Church. Credit: Jim Lopes via www.shutterstock.com.
Good Government, Subsidiarity and the Common Good
Mar 10, 2016 / 00:00 amWe are in a presidential election campaign in the United States of America and the political rhetoric has reached a fever pitch. The candidates for the two major political parties have very different views on the proper role of the federal government. One of my concerns is that those who oppose a larger federal government make the mistake of using language which feeds the caricature painted of them by their opponents. The effort is to cast anyone who disagrees with the rhetoric of top down federalized governing as against the poor, and against fairness. It is time for a fresh political discourse and debate concerning the nature and role of government and the common good. So, I write to address an underlying question which has not yet been properly addressed, what is the proper role of government in civil society? I write as a Catholic Christian citizen. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes some observations concerning society with which I begin. However, most other Christians, people of faith and all people of good will recognize that what follows is not simply for Catholics, it has profound insights and important social applications for all concerned citizens: “All men are called to the same end: God himself. There is a certain resemblance between the union of the divine persons and the fraternity that men are to establish among themselves in truth and love. Love of neighbor is inseparable from love for God. "The human person needs to live in society. Society is not for him an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature. Through the exchange with others, mutual service and dialogue with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his vocation. “A society is a group of persons bound together organically by a principle of unity that goes beyond each one of them. As an assembly that is at once visible and spiritual, a society endures through time: it gathers up the past and prepares for the future. By means of society, each man is established as an ‘heir’ and receives certain ‘talents' that enrich his identity and whose fruits he must develop. He rightly owes loyalty to the communities of which he is part and respect to those in authority who have charge of the common good. “Each community is defined by its purpose and consequently obeys specific rules; but "the human person is and ought to be the principle, the subject and the end of all social institutions. Certain societies, such as the family and the state, correspond more directly to the nature of man; they are necessary to him. To promote the participation of the greatest number in the life of a society, the creation of voluntary associations and institutions must be encouraged "on both national and international levels, which relate to economic and social goals, to cultural and recreational activities, to sport, to various professions, and to political affairs. “This ‘socialization’ also expresses the natural tendency for human beings to associate with one another for the sake of attaining objectives that exceed individual capacities. It develops the qualities of the person, especially the sense of initiative and responsibility, and helps guarantee his rights. Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. “God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of government ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence. The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.” (CCC, Article 1, #1878 - 1885) There has been little discussion of the principle of subsidiarity in the national political debate. I suggest that is because many Catholics and other Christians do not even know the term exists, let alone understand the value it has in shaping the political discourse of our times. It also offers the most compelling language with which we can offer the alternative models of governance desperately needed in the face of the ever expanding, federalized, secularist State. The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word for help and affirms that government which is closest to the need is the best resource. Further, whenever any other governing body intervenes it must be to provide help and not usurp the proper governing entity. My experience has been that many Catholics do not even know that there is such a principle within the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. Instead, they borrow rhetoric from the political left or the political right in discussing the role of government. They also, and sadly, fail to offer a Catholic contribution to a much needed discussion of the proper role of government in the national dialogue. If you listen to some on what is called the political right, you will sometimes hear what sounds like anti-government rhetoric, which places the individual at the foundation of an understanding of liberty. This is at odds with the insights summarized in the Catechism. It is also at odds with what the Natural Moral Law reveals. We are, by nature and grace, called into society with one another. Some on the political right will paraphrase the practical wisdom offered by the American founders to imply that government itself is the problem. For example, they quote phrases such as "he who governs best governs least,” the source of which is unclear, and use it to hide what at least appears to be a disdain for government itself. This reveals a lack of understanding of the need for good government. Others on the political left seem to want to federalize everything. The word government is synonymous with the Federal Government. They think that our obligation in solidarity to one another, and especially to the poor in all of their manifestations, always means establishing more federal government programs. They have forgotten the role of mediating institutions and associations in governing and serving the common good. They are also wrong if they question the empathy of anyone who disagrees with them. They too often propose a model of governance which is top down and not bottom up; a model which fails to respect the individual, the primacy of the family, mediating associations, and other forms of participation in the entire enterprise of governing. Knowingly or not, they can end up promoting a form of collectivism. Some of what is proposed on the political left threatens human freedom, squelches initiative, stunts creativity and prevents human flourishing. It can further undermine the role of mediating institutions, the first of which is the family, the smallest governing unit and first vital cell of society. An overly federalized form of government is a disaster waiting to happen morally, politically, socially and economically. The bad fruit is all around us as our own nation moves toward a form of collectivism which is antithetical to authentic human freedom. Catholics, other Christians, other people of faith and good will who reject this collectivist model need to reaffirm that governing is meant to be something good. God governs and invites us all into this effort. We were made to give ourselves in love and service to one another; to form societies and communities of interest and to build mediating associations which participate in governance. Through their proper role, that is how governing occurs and people are empowered to fully participate. Together, we are called to serve the common good while still respecting the role of the individual, promoting human freedom, and ensuring the primacy of the family. Catholic citizens should read, and understand, the social teaching of the Catholic Church. It has been compiled in an excellent resource called Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Along with a well-read Bible and Catechism, this Compendium should be a mainstay for every Catholic Christian. We should be able to explain in our public discourse and political participation that none of us are fully human unless we are in relationship with one another. Further, we should confidently affirm that freedom and human flourishing are not to be found in a notion of the isolated individual as the ground of liberty. We were made for communion. We are one another's neighbors and we are called to stand together, in solidarity. We are responsible for one another and must build societies which further humanize us and enable us to live in peace together. However, such an understanding of solidarity and our obligation to one another does not equate with support for big federalized government. The first society is the family. It is there where we learn socialization and are schooled in the virtues which make good citizenship even possible. Thus the family must always be the guide, polestar and measuring stick for any broader social and governing structure. The family is the first government, the first school, the first church and the first mediating institution. All other government must defer to this first cell of social government and move out - or up - from there, never usurping the primacy of the family. The question really comes down to whether government is “good”, in several senses of the word. Is it Moral? Does it recognize the existence of the higher law, the Natural Moral Law which is a participation in God's Law? Does it affirm that there are self-evident truths which can be known and which we hold together? Does it recognize the fundamental human rights with which we are all endowed and acknowledge that these rights are not given to us by civil government but by God? Does it affirm the nature and dignity of the human person as created in the Image of God? Does the means of governing being offered respect this dignity of every human person, recognize the primacy of true marriage and the family and society founded upon it, respect and promote mediating institutions and serve the true common good? Does it promote genuine human freedom, flourishing, creativity and initiative among citizens? Is the means of governing “good” in the sense of being effective, efficient and just? Does it respect the self-government of each individual human person? Does it defer to the smallest social governing unit of the family? Does it respect the other proper mediating institutions and associations by deferring first to them, providing assistance and help before assigning the task it attempts to accomplish to the centralized or federal government? It is time for Catholic citizens to take the principles set forth in the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church and lead a discussion of good government which serves the common good in the United States of America. Good government recognizes fundamental human rights, the first of which is the right to life, as endowed by the Creator and not manufactured by civil government. In fact, the role of government is to secure and protect those rights and not violate or usurp them. Good government acknowledges the vital and indispensable role of mediating institutions and associations in government, beginning with the family and including churches, charities, associations, and local governing bodies. It defers to and respects their function and does not usurp their primacy. The family and these other mediating institutions and associations, local government and State Government are the best place for government to occur - first. This model of good government acknowledges our obligations in solidarity to one another, and especially to the poor, but always respects and applies the principle of subsidiarity.
St. Thomas Aquinas, a corpulent man nicknamed the dumb ox shows us how to live for Jesus
Jan 28, 2016 / 00:00 amOn January 28th, the Catholic Church commemorates the great Western theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. As I grow older, the sheer magnitude of the gifts the Lord gave to this man become clearer and clearer in their significance for the Church. I also marvel at his return on the Lord's investment, through his cooperation with grace. Finally, I grow in my appreciation of his humanity. In fact, it gives me great hope in my own weakness. During graduate theology studies, I tried to attend Holy Mass daily. The images of Thomas Aquinas in the little chapel in the classroom building brought to the forefront something which I share with him in my lifelong struggle with obesity, his real girth. He was, to be kind, corpulent of body. But, more importantly, he had a huge heart and an extraordinary mind which were given over with passion to the Lord Jesus Christ and the mission of of His holy Church. Thomas Aquinas gives me the hope I need as I try to offer myself more fully to the Lord and His Church in service in these my later years of life. Both by challenging me to dedicate myself fully to theological study, and, more importantly, by inviting me to surrender all I am to Jesus Christ as a son of His Church who is called into the world of this hour. During his studies, Thomas was nicknamed by his peers the Dumb Ox, both because of his size and the fact that he was slow in speech. Yet, his teacher, St Albert, noted of him "We call this man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world." Those words have proven to have been prophetic. The leaders of the Catholic Church are persistently calling all of the faithful to participate in what is called a New Evangelization. That very urging is a clear recognition of the inescapable fact that many Catholic Christians have not made the Christian faith their own. In some cases, they have not encountered the Lord personally, and, in others, they do not understand the Catholic Christian faith and its implications, at least beyond attending the weekly Liturgy. The Church, as mother and teacher of all the Lord's faithful, knows that we have to first reach the people in the pews if we ever hope to re-evangelize the whole world in this age which has forgotten God. The whole Catholic Church needs to be re-evangelized! The teaching of Thomas Aquinas is one of the best resources for the task, preparing those who will help in what is now called the New Evangelization, providing them with good theology. Then, in the continuing mandate to bring the fullness of the Gospel into a culture which has forgotten God, Thomas Aquinas presents us with a model to emulate in our outreach to the Nations. He shows us how to use any system of sincere thought which admits of the existence of God and higher truths, as a framework for presenting the fullness of truth found in Jesus Christ and His Church. His personal life story should inspire each one of us to find - and then to live - our own specific vocation, as missionaries of Jesus Christ. We are all called to regularly encounter Jesus and to live in the heart of the Church for the sake of the world. We are all called to take our place in the continuing mission of the Church to evangelize all the Nations. (Mark 16:15) We should expect that living totally for Jesus and participating in such a missionary task will not be easy. Really living a Christian life is increasingly being met with both covert and overt persecution. But, Jesus never promised easy. It will take saints. God is in the business of making saints. All he asks of us is our willingness to say yes to his invitations - and then our willingness to persevere in our specific vocation as Christians. The Lord gives us the grace. Thomas Aquinas is an example of the pattern of life which we can all live, with appropriate adaptation based upon the specificity of our state in life and vocation. He lived his Christian life in the heart of His Church and offered himself in service to the Lord for His work in the world. That is our task as well. Born of a wealthy family and educated with the finest the Benedictines had to offer, Thomas was seemingly set on a "career path' of sorts with a foregone conclusion. All, including his family, recognized his extraordinary intellectual gifts. So, when this young man with so much promise decided to take up with mendicants, the Latin word means beggars, those Dominicans who lived on the resources of gifts given by others, he was not greeted with the support of his family. In fact, they actually kidnapped their son away from this new band of friars who were so suspect among the established Catholics of their age. After a year of trying to dissuade him, they were no match for the young man's resolve to follow the voice of the Lord and pursue his Christian vocation to the Dominican way of life. He studied in Paris and Cologne under St. Albert the Great, a philosopher of great reputation. The entirety of Europe was caught up in a major time of intellectual ferment and change. The writings of the ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle had been reintroduced to contemporary Western thought by, of all sources, the intellectual community of the Islamic world. Already suspect in most circles - and accused of being "Anti-Christian" - the re-presentation of Aristotle by the Muslim intellectuals made this body of philosophical work even more of a threat to many within the Catholic Church in Thomas' day. As he had done in choosing the way of the Dominicans, when so many thought he was to walk a different road, Thomas rejected the contemporary suspicions surrounding the allegedly contradictory nature of Aristotelian thought and orthodox Christianity. Instead he pursued it with all of his natural and supernatural gifts. He did so because he loved, above all and everyone else, the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He loved him so much that he had a deep and intimate relationship with him. Thomas became such a great theologian, PRECISELY because he prayed. One of the early monks of the Church, Evagrius of Pontus, once wrote, "A theologian is one who prays and one who prays is a theologian." Thomas knew that all truth finds its source - and its fulfillment - in the One who is Truth Incarnate, Jesus the Christ. In this way, he was a pioneer of a New Evangelization of his own second millennium and a model for our efforts to do the same in the Third. He was not afraid. Thomas set about re-presenting the fullness of the Truth which is found within the Catholic faith right within the framework of Aristotelian philosophy. In other words, he used a philosophical framework from his own age to present the eternal truths of the ancient but ever new Catholic faith. That is our task as well as we embark upon what is a new missionary age for the Church! Using his formidable intellect, sincere and profound faith and solid grounding in the Patristic sources, Thomas produced a body of work which is still the theological and philosophical equivalent of the "gold standard" in the West. His 'Summa Theologiae' became the primary theological textbook for seminarians, theologians and ordinands, those preparing for ordination in the Western Church. However, Thomas produced more than theology. His poetry and prose inspired some of the greatest liturgical music and piety in the Latin Rite. His holiness has been - and continues to be - the source of countless religious and lay vocations. Holiness is a fruit of a personal, ongoing, intimate and sustained relationship with the Lord. What is needed in our age are men and women who can, as did Thomas, take the thought of this, the Third Millennium, and use it as the framework for the essential task of building an apologetic for the New Evangelization within the Church. Then, we can fruitfully engage in a great new missionary effort to bring Christian conversion to the contemporary culture. Such men and women, like Thomas, will live their lives in communion with the Lord, because they really pray.They will also love the Church, because they know that it is the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. On this Feast of the Great St. Thomas Aquinas, let us reflect on these words which he wrote - then and make them our own: "Whoever wishes to live perfectly should do nothing but disdain what Christ disdained on the cross and desire what he desired, for the cross exemplifies every virtue. If you seek the example of love: Greater love than this no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends. Such a man was Christ on the cross. And if he gave his life for us, then it should not be difficult to bear whatever hardships arise for his sake." "If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth." "Therefore Christ's patience on the cross was great. In patience let us run for the prize set before us, looking upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, bore his cross and despised the shame." "If you seek an example of humility, look upon the crucified one, for God wished to be judged by Pontius Pilate and to die.If you seek an example of obedience, follow him who became obedient to the Father even unto death. For just as by the disobedience of one man, namely, Adam, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man, many were made righteous." "If you seek an example of despising earthly things, follow him who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Upon the cross he was stripped, mocked, spat upon, struck, crowned with thorns, and given only vinegar and gall to drink". "Do not be attached, therefore, to clothing and riches, because they divided my garments among themselves. Nor to honors, for he experienced harsh words and scourgings. Nor to greatness of rank, for weaving a crown of thorns they placed it on my head. Nor to anything delightful, for in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us! Published on Catholic Online, Permission to republish granted Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com
Why was Jesus baptized? What does that baptism mean for you and me?
Jan 8, 2016 / 00:00 amIn the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church we end the Christmas season this Sunday with the Feast of the Lord's Baptism in the Jordan. Some of the most beautiful readings found in the Office of Readings come on the days between the Feast of the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord. That compilation is a part of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours is also called the Breviary. It is the formal baseline prayer of all Clergy, Bishops, Priests and deacons, as well as those in the religious or consecrated life. However, since the last great Church Council, Vatican II, this official Prayer of the Church is recommended for all Christians. Once someone discovers the Office of Readings in the daily Liturgy of the Hours it becomes the first place, after the Sacred Scripture, to go for inspiration and food for life's journey! These readings touch upon the deeper meaning of both of these feasts by touching the mystery of what actually occurred and what it really means. Here are a few sentences from an ancient homily given by the Bishop of Constantinople, St. Proclus, as an example: "At Christmas we saw a weak baby, giving proof of our weakness. In today's feast, we see a perfect man, hinting at the perfect Son who proceeds from the all-perfect Father. At Christmas the King puts on the royal robe of his body; at Epiphany the very source enfolds, and, as it were, clothes the river. Come then and see new and astounding miracles: the Sun of righteousness washing in the Jordan, fire immersed in water, God sanctified by the ministry of man." The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord marks the beginning of what is called the public ministry of Jesus. He was thirty years old when it happened. He died His redemptive death at Golgotha when He was only thirty three years old. However, He also spent thirty redemptive years of life in what writers have sometimes called His hidden years in Nazareth's school, "growing in wisdom and stature". (Luke 2:52) Those years were not hidden, in the sense of being unimportant. It simply means that we do not find much about them in the Gospel accounts. However, they are rich with meaning, revealing the deeper truths of our faith and the invitation to each one of us who bear the name Christian to live our lives now in a new way, by living them in Jesus Christ. Christianity is not just about being freed from - sin and its consequences, which it certainly is. But it is also about being freed for - a new way of living our real lives beginning right now and stretching into eternity. Jesus, Perfect God and Perfect Man, the Incarnate Word, the Son of God and Son of Mary, gave the same glory to the Father when he was working with wood in the workshop of Nazareth as he would years later when he raised his friend named Lazarus from the dead. From the moment of His conception, the Son of God recapitulated (to borrow a favored word of the great Church father, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons) the entire human experience, He re-created and began humanity anew, by assuming our humanity. During those years, in the hearth of a real, human family, the Son of God sanctified and transformed every aspect of ordinary human life. His redemptive and transforming work began in the first home of the whole human race, His mother's womb. Jesus was a Redeemer in the Womb, beginning His Incarnation as an Embryonic Person, to use the phrase from the Instruction from the Holy See entitled "On the Dignity of every Human Person". From within the Living tabernacle of the Womb of the All Holy Virgin, He began His redemptive mission. This child of Mary's was born and heaven touched earth. We commemorated that Holy Nativity just days ago. Some of our brethren in the Eastern Church commemorated it last week. At the breast of his mother, He elevated the already holy wonder and dignity of the vocation of motherhood. In His sacred humanity he was nurtured, a sign of the beauty of the human experience of love, growth and maturation. He was raised by a human mother and father; and parenting and family life forever took on a deeper meaning in the domestic church of the family. At the bench of Joseph the carpenter; he learned the carpenter's trade and sanctified all human work as a participation in the continuing work of both creation and redemption. The word Epiphany means a manifestation, a making present, a revealing. There is no doubt that even during those so called "hidden" years the plan, purpose and redemptive implications of the entire saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were being manifested and revealed. They reveal how the ordinary becomes extraordinary when lived in communion with the Father. The Baptism of the Lord is also called the Theophany, in Eastern Christian churches, Catholic and Orthodox. It is the manifestation of the fullness of God. Our Gospel at the Liturgy recounts the wondrous revealing of the Holy Trinity. As the Incarnate Word of the Father was immersed in the Waters, the voice of the Father is heard and the Holy Spirit descends. (Luke 3) The Trinity is revealed. The Theophany has inspired extraordinary reflection in the Christian Tradition. Here is another excerpt from an early homily preached on the celebration of this day, explaining its spiritual meaning: "Therefore the Lord Jesus came to baptism, and willed to have his body washed with water. Perhaps someone will say: "He who is holy, why did he wish to be baptized?" Pay attention therefore! Christ is baptized, not that he may be sanctified in the waters, but that he himself may sanctify the waters, and by his own purification may purify those streams which he touches". For the consecration of Christ is the greater consecration of another element. For when the Savior is washed, then already for our baptism all water is cleansed and the fount purified, that the grace of the laver may be administered to the peoples that come after. Christ therefore takes the lead in baptism, so that Christian peoples may follow after him with confidence. (St. Maximus of Turin, 423 AD) During our celebration of the Epiphany, we reflected on the wise men from the East who followed the light to the fullness of Divinity who humbled Himself to share in our humanity - and was born in a manger. This Sunday, the church points to this Manifestation of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, in the river of Jordan. This is an Epiphany in the waters. This is the event where the full plan of God for His Church and the entire creation was manifested or revealed. The Baptism of Jesus manifests the life of the Holy Trinity to the whole world and opens the door, through Jesus Christ, into a communion, a participation in the life of the Trinity, through Baptism into His Body, the Church. The waters of the Jordan are sanctified by the Son and all water is sanctified. Just as the Spirit hovered over the waters of the original creation, the Spirit hovers over the waters where the Son is immersed by John. This deeper significance is the reason of the Baptism of Jesus and its baptismal connection for us is why, in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, the clergy often lead the faithful to rivers and entire rivers are blessed on this day! One of the first elements of creation - water - created by the Father through the Word - is now re-created through the Incarnate Word, and becomes the matter of the Sacrament of New Life for all men and women. The Word Incarnate stands in the waters of the earth which was created through Him, and begins the re-creation of everything. Into these waters, through which the people of Israel were once delivered, the entire human race is now invited to follow Jesus. What was once the means of God's judgment and purification at the time of Noah, now fills the Baptismal fount where men and women are delivered from sin and made new! The Church is given new waters for her saving and sanctifying mission. The Trinity, the Communion of Divine persons in perfect unity, is revealed today. In the great liturgical prayer of the East, the Church proclaims: "When Thou, O Lord was baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest... O Christ our God who has appeared and enlightened the world, Glory to Thee." In his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus is not sanctified for He is without sin. Rather, we are now empowered to become what the tradition calls "sons (and daughters) in the Son" through our own Baptism. The Theophany, or Baptism of the Lord, also reminds us that all of creation will be redeemed! As Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, creation itself groans for that full redemption (Romans 8:28). This belief in the full redemption of creation, of a new heaven and a new earth, is integral to the Christian faith. Christians are NOT anti-matter. We profess in our ancient creed that we will await the resurrection of our bodies and our life in a world to come. The Feast of the Theophany, the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, celebrates the full salvation and sanctification of matter as well. The Greek word for Baptism means to be immersed. Before it is all over, the entire world will be immersed in God and transformed. It will be freed from the effects of sin and made new! That is why in the Eastern Christian churches, Orthodox and Catholic, priests in areas close to bodies of water lead a procession to them and bless them. All waters have become holy now because the Son has been immersed in them. They are used for the new birth which comes about in Baptism. Descending into the waters of the Jordan, Jesus, who now shares our humanity, makes that living water flow with healing mercy to provide the grace we need to be made new. His Divine Life is now mediated through the Sacraments of the Church, which is His Body, beginning with Baptism. The Word descends and begins the re-creation of the universe. This is an ongoing work which will only be complete when He returns. The public mission and ministry of Jesus began at the waters of Jordan. However, it continues through His Church, of which we become members through our Baptism into Him. When we entered those baptismal waters, we were baptized into His Death. When we came out, we entered into His Resurrection. We appropriate and grow in that reality by living our lives now in His Church, of which we are made members. The Christian vocation, no matter what our state in life, job, or specific response to God's call, is for us to reveal the Love of the Trinity to the entire human race. We are a people on mission, called to bring all men and women to the Waters of Baptism in order to encounter the Lord. There they will be freed from sin and experience New Life in Christ. There, they will be incorporated into the Body of Christ, which is His Church. There, joined in Him and with one another, we are called and empowered to participate in His ongoing redemptive mission until He returns to make all things new. We are invited on this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord to grasp ever more deeply the deeper meaning of being a Christian and to choose to live our lives in the Lord, by living in the heart of the Church for the sake of the world. This column originally posted on Catholic Online. Posted with permission from the author.
Solidarity Begins in the Womb: Jesus the Redeemer was an Embryonic Person
Dec 22, 2015 / 00:00 amThe beloved disciple John begins His Gospel calling us to reflect on this extraordinary truth: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1-4) Then, in the 14th verse we read, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. WOW! Soon, the whole world will pause to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. The Feast is properly referred to as the Nativity of the Lord. Sometimes, even well intended Bishops, priests, deacons and other ministers charged with preaching, mistakenly refer to this Feast as the Feast of the Incarnation. However, from the moment Mary said "Yes", the Incarnation began. This is a vitally important truth to remember. Often the word Nativity and the word Incarnation are used interchangeably. Certainly, the Nativity is a part of the great mystery of the Incarnation. However, the Incarnation began with the conception of Jesus and continues until the time of completion of His loving redemptive plan for the entire created order. From the very moment Jesus became Incarnate, His saving mission of redeeming and re-creating began. The Incarnation is the very heart of the Mystery of the Christian Faith. The God who made the whole universe and created man out of the dust of the earth, took on our humanity. He lived in the first home of every human person, His mother's womb. There was a Redeemer in the womb of Mary! The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of the Father, was an embryonic human person, a fetus, a child in the womb. Of course, that Person, from the moment of conception, as the Ancient Christian Creeds affirm, was - and is - True God and True Man. In the light of this mystery every human pregnancy, every womb, every child in the womb, was forever elevated beyond the dignity he or she already possessed. Also, the extreme evil of every procured abortion is made even more obvious and profane. This Redeemer in the womb, Jesus, began His saving work "in utero" and He identifies with every child in the womb. Jesus was an embryonic person and is forever identified with all embryonic persons. On September 8, 2008, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Vatican Congregation responsible for the protection of Doctrine, the he Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, released a passionate defense of the dignity of every single human life from the moment of conception until natural death. Especially in light of the growing misuse of what are sometimes called “reproductive technologies” which actually result in the destruction of human life, it is time to review this wonderful teaching. As is the custom with such magisterial documents, the title of this instruction was taken from the first line, "The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death". The document continues, "This fundamental principle expresses a great ‘yes’ to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research, which has an ever greater importance in today's world." At the release of the document the Press was filled with reports on the importance of the instruction. Some accurately described the content and properly affirmed its significance. Others were based on mistaken caricatures of the Catholic Church and not on the substance of what the teaching document actually presented. Still others demonstrated that the writers did not read the document or, if they did, did not like what it had to say and actually chose to mislead the public by errant reporting which simply passed on anti-Catholic propaganda pretending to be news. Finally, some were based on old tired assertions of the Catholic Church as being "out of touch" or "anti-technology" or "anti-sexuality" or any number of other absolutely untrue and groundless assertions now regularly leveled against the Catholic Church by the proponents of a movement calling itself progressive while it is, in fact, regressive. The Instruction continued the clear and consistent defense of the dignity of every human life, respect for the goods and ends of marriage and the insistence on having authentic moral criteria with which to evaluate alleged advances in medical science as presented by the Catholic Church through her teaching office. The Catholic Church is not against science. Rather, she simply insists that good science must always respect the first goods; life, marriage and the common good of our life together. All Catholic Christians should read this well written teaching document. It is a doctrinal statement of the ordinary magisterium (teaching office) of the catholic Church and therefore must be given the full assent of our intellect and will. This is of particular importance given the number of Catholics in significant positions of authority in the Obama Administration. Finally, the document was written not only for Catholics, other Christians or even just people of faith. It was addressed to "all who seek the truth". It presents the truth by drawing upon the "light both of reason and faith and seeks to set forth an integral vision of man and his vocation". The document does not discourage progress in biomedicine. In fact it encourages it within an ethical framework, one which accepts that science must always be placed at the service of the human person, the family and the common good. Any use of the so called "new technologies" must always respect that the human body is never an "it" - but an "I" - some-one who must never be treated as an object: "The body of a human being, from the very first stages of its existence, can never be reduced merely to a group of cells. The embryonic human body develops progressively according to a well-defined program with its proper finality, as is apparent in the birth of every baby." The insistence upon using this framework for evaluating biomedicine finds support in the history of other true advances in Medical Science. The ethical criterion is revealed in the Natural Law; the fundamental right to life and the dignity of human persons. This right is knowable by and binding upon all men and women and is not simply a "religious" construct. Footnote 7 within the document cited Pope emeritus Benedict XVI's presentation to the United Nations in April of 2008 which summarized this point well: "Human rights, in particular the right to life of every human being, are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights" It is in light of this fundamental moral criterion that the instruction discusses human sexuality and marital love, procreation and infertility treatments and the "manipulation of the embryo or the human Genetic Patrimony". The section concerning gene therapy and the therapeutic use of stem cells, distinguishing both the types of cells and the techniques used to obtain them, contains one of the best explanations of the complex technologies which I have ever read. The Catholic Church encourages the use of adult stem cells and stem cells which can be derived from non-lethal uses such as fetal cord blood. These technologies do not take human embryonic lives and have also been the subject of amazing scientific progress. I am deeply grateful for the Catholic Church, Defender and Champion of Life. No matter how many efforts there are to dismiss Catholic teaching in this fundamental area of ethics, the opponents of the truth which she defends will not prevail because her teaching is true, it is never right to take innocent human life. I will conclude with some words from the Instruction: "Just as a century ago it was the working classes which were oppressed in their fundamental rights, and the Church courageously came to their defense by proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the worker as person, so now, when another category of persons is being oppressed in the fundamental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound to speak out with the same courage on behalf of those who have no voice. Hers is always the evangelical cry in defense of the world's poor, those who are threatened and despised and whose human rights are violated". "In virtue of the Church's doctrinal and pastoral mission, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has felt obliged to reiterate both the dignity and the fundamental and inalienable rights of every human being, including those in the initial stages of their existence, and to state explicitly the need for protection and respect which this dignity requires of everyone. "The fulfillment of this duty implies courageous opposition to all those practices which result in grave and unjust discrimination against unborn human beings, who have the dignity of a person, created like others in the image of God. Behind every ‘no’ in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great ‘yes' to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence." "The Christian faithful will commit themselves to the energetic promotion of a new culture of life by receiving the contents of this Instruction with the religious assent of their spirit, knowing that God always gives the grace necessary to observe his commandments and that, in every human being, above all in the least among us, one meets Christ himself (cf. Mt 25:40). In addition, all persons of good will, in particular physicians and researchers open to dialogue and desirous of knowing what is true, will understand and agree with these principles and judgments, which seek to safeguard the vulnerable condition of human beings in the first stages of life and to promote a more human civilization." Soon, we will commemorate the Nativity of the Lord. Let us remember the profound truth revealed in the Mystery which we celebrate, there was a Redeemer in the Womb. The Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, became one of us, at every stage of our life. In fact, Jesus was an embryonic person, to use the salient phrase taken from this Church teaching, and is forever identified with all embryonic persons. Solidarity begins in the womb. Jesus shows us the way. He is identifies with every child in every womb. The Child Jesus in the womb reminds us that every child in the womb is our neighbor. As we celebrate His Birth, let us rededicate ourselves to ending the horror of every procured abortion.
What Time is it? The Feast of Christ the King and our Approach to Marking Time
Nov 21, 2015 / 00:00 amPublished on Catholic Online. Permission to republish given by the author. This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of our liturgical year. Yet, for many Catholics who commemorate the Feast, it is just one more somewhat esoteric celebration which we go through every year at this time. This mistake is at least right on one count, it really is all about time. The It is one of many opportunities the Liturgical Church year offers to each one of us consider this creature which is called time, receive it as a gift and begin to really live differently. The Christian is invited into an eternal perspective, beginning in the here and now. We can actually begin to receive time - and its passing - as a gift from God. This can actually be one of the many things which make us counter-cultural in an age which is obsessed with fighting the passage of time. As the current age rushes toward self-idolatry and falls into nihilism, the number of things which make us counter-cultural is increasing. The West has abandoned its foundations in Christendom and is wandering aimlessly, like Cain, East of Eden in a new land of Nod. (Genesis 4:16) Our choice to actually live the Christian year, in a compelling, evangelistic and inviting way, can become a profoundly important form of missionary activity in an age deluded by the barrenness of secularism. A robust, evangelically alive and symbolically rich practice of living liturgically can invite our neighbors to examine their lives and be drawn to Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. As the emptiness of a life without God fails to fulfill the longing in their own hearts, we are invited to live a missionary witness. Catholic Christians are invited to mark time by the great events of the Christian faith in a Liturgical calendar. However, like so much that is contained within the treasury of the Catholic Church; the practice must be understood in order to be fully received as a gift and actually begin to inform the pattern of live, daily lives. First, we must jump into the treasure chest, find the jewels, receive them, and put them on! In other words, lets really live the Catholic lifestyle. Otherwise, these practices can become meaningless and seem to some to be empty show or the vestige of a bygone era. They are neither! They proclaim the very meaning of life. Jesus Christ is King and we are the seeds of His Kingdom scattered in the garden of a world which is waiting to be born anew. The Church is an expert in humanity, according to the insightful words of the Fathers of the last great Council of the Church, Vatican II. She walks the way of the person. The Church, as a mother and a teacher, invites us to live the rhythm of the liturgical year in order to help us walk into a deeper encounter with the Lord and bring the whole world with us into the new world of the Church. That is because the Church is meant to become the home of the whole human race. That deeper encounter, that continual invitation - along with all the graces truly needed to live it - is what lies at the heart of Catholic Christian faith. The Christian Faith is not Some-Thing but Some- One. The Church really IS the Mystical Body of the Risen Christ. That Body is inseparably joined to the Head. Jesus Christ is alive, he has been raised, and he continues His redemptive mission now through the Church, of which we are members. As we choose to actually live our lives liturgically, not to just go through the motions, we can move through life in the flow of the liturgical calendar. We can experience the deeper mystery and meaning of life, now made New in Jesus Christ, the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (John 14:6, 7) Jesus Christ is King. Jesus Christ is Lord of All. Jesus Christ is meant to become the Lord of our whole lives, and inform the very pattern of how we really live them. The early Christians, before they were even called Christians, were referred to as the Way. (Acts 9:2, Acts 11:26) That was because they lived a very different way of life. A Way of Life which drew men and women to the One whose name they were soon privileged to bear, Jesus the Christ. One way this can occur in our lives as Catholic Christians is to move from seeing the Church year as just some kind of "Catholic custom" to seeing it as an invitation to enter into the mysteries of our faith in a manner which informs our daily life. For example, we do not really go to Church; we live in the Church and go into the world, to bring the world, through the waters of new birth, into the Church as a new home, a new family. There they will find the grace needed to begin a whole new way of living. Christians believe in a linear timeline in history. There is a beginning and an end, a fulfillment, which is, in fact, a new beginning. Time is heading somewhere. We reject the sad concept - even present in some other religious traditions - that time is a tyrant entrapping us into an endless cycle which must be broken. Rather, the Catholic Church proclaims that time is a precious commodity. In the insightful and allegorical words of St Jose Maria Escriva, the "Time is our treasure, the "money" with which to buy eternity." (Furrow #882) Time truly matters. What we do with it truly matters. That is as true of the history of the world as it is our own personal histories. As that wonderful Saint reminded us, "A true Christian is always ready to appear before God. Because, if he is fighting to live as a man of Christ, he is ready at every moment to fulfill his duty." (Furrow, 875) One of the searching questions we should ask ourselves at this time very year, in a blunt examination of conscience, is what are we doing with time? Do we choose to mark our passage of time by the great events of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Alpha and Omega - Beginning and End This final Sunday of the church Year, the Feast of Christ the King, is the day when we are invited to commemorate His sovereignty over all men, women and children. Jesus Christ has come. Jesus Christ is coming. Jesus Christ will come again. Jesus Christ is Lord of All. No sooner than we have celebrated the last Sunday of the Year, the feast of Christ the King, we will celebrate the First Sunday of Advent, and begin the time of preparation for the great Feast of the Nativity of Our Savior. We are moving forward and toward His loving return. The Church, to use the beautiful imagery of the early Christian fathers, was birthed from the wounded side of the Savior on the Cross at Calvary's hill. We are now being recreated in and through Him, as we cooperate with grace. We have been espoused to Him forever. He is the bridegroom and we are the bride. He will return for us in the great culmination of all time and establish the eternal kingdom. Our Catholic liturgical year follows a rhythmic cycle which points us toward beginnings and ends. In doing so, it emphasizes important truths that can only be grasped through faith. This Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, is the last Sunday in the Church year. Our Catholic faith and its Liturgical practices proclaim to a world hungry for meaning that Jesus Christ is the "Alpha", (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) and the "Omega" (the last letter), the beginning and the end. He is the Giver, the Governor and the fulfillment of all time. In Him the whole world is being made new and every end becomes a beginning, for those with the greatest treasure, living faith. When we consciously choose to enter into the Liturgical seasons of our Church, when they become granular and real, they offer a way to receive time as a continual gift and change the way we actually live our daily lives. Our choice to celebrate them helps us to grow in the life of grace as we say "yes" to their invitations. They invite us to walk in a new way of life which becomes infused with supernatural meaning; to enter into the mystery of living in the Church as the New World and thereby become leaven for an age which has lost its soul. Human beings have always marked time by significant events. The real question is not whether we will mark time, but how we will mark time? What events and what messages are we proclaiming in our calendaring? What are we saying with our lives in this increasingly barren age which needs the witness of God's loving plan? For the Christian, time is not meant to be a tyrant, ruling over us. Nor is the passing of time to be experienced as an enemy, somehow stealing our youth and opportunity. Rather, time is meant to become a companion, a friend and a teacher, instructing us; offering us a series of invitations to allow the Lord to truly become our King by reigning in our daily lives. Our conscious awareness of time makes it a path along which the redemptive loving plan of a timeless God is revealed and received. In Christ, time is now given back to us as a gift. It offers us a field of choice and a path to holiness and human flourishing. As we view time with this lens of faith, we discover that life is a pilgrimage to Life. The Lord invites us, beginning now, to participate in His loving plan through His Son Jesus to recreate the entire cosmos. Time becomes the road along which this loving plan of redemption proceeds. Those Baptized into Jesus Christ continue His redemptive mission until he returns to establish His Reign. We do this by living in His Body, the Church, and drawing the whole world into the New World beginning now. The Church is, in one of the early father's favorite descriptions, that "New World". This new family of the Church was then sent on mission, when, after the Resurrection, Jesus breathed His Spirit into them at Pentecost. In our celebration of a Church Year, we not only remember the great events of the Life, ministry and Mission of the Lord, we also celebrate the life and death of our family members, the Saints, who have gone on before us, in the worlds of the Liturgy, "marked with the sign of redemption" as we pray in the Liturgy. They are models and companions for the journey of life and are our great intercessors; that "great cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1) whom the author of the letter to the Hebrews extols. This is the heart of understanding the "communion of saints". As St. Paul reminded the Roman Christians, not even death separates us any longer. (Romans 8:38, 39) They will welcome us into eternity. However, from that eternal now, living in the Communion of love, they now help us along the daily path of time through both their example and their prayer. As we progress through liturgical time we are invited to enter into the great events of faith. So, on this last week of the year, through our readings and liturgical prayer, we are invited to reflect on the "last things"- death, judgment, heaven and hell. We do so in order to change, to be converted; to enter more fully into the Divine plan. The Western Church year ends. On the Feast of Christ the King we celebrate the full and final triumph and return of the One through whom the entire universe was created - and in whom it is being "recreated" - and by whom it will be completely reconstituted and handed back to the Father at the "end" of all time. That end will mark the beginning of a timeless new heaven and a new earth when "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death." (Revelations 21:4). As we move from one Church year to the next, we also move along in the timeline of the human life allotted to each one of us. We age. The certainty of our own death is meant to illuminate our life and the certainty of the end of all time is meant to illuminate its purpose and culmination in Christ. For both to be experienced by faith we must truly believe in Jesus Christ, the beginning and the end. When we do, death can become, as we move closer to it, a second birth. Francis of Assisi prayed these words in his most popular prayer "it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." He referred to death as a "sister" implying that he had a relationship with it. So too did all the great heroes our Church, the saints. So can we - that is if we choose to walk the way of living faith, immersed in the life of grace. With a few exceptions, Christians celebrate the death of Saints because death is not an end but the beginning of an eternal life with God. In the final book of the Bible we read: "Here is what sustains the holy ones who keep God's commandments and their faith in Jesus. I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," said the Spirit, "let them find rest from their labors, for their works accompany them." "Then I looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, "Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth's harvest is fully ripe. So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested." (Revelations 14: 12-15) As the Apostle John recorded in that Revelation he received on the Island of Patmos, our "use" of time is meant to bear good fruit. We are called to bear a harvest which will accompany us into eternity. It will - if we have an intimate relationship with the One who both gives and governs time. Time is the opportunity for the Christian to bear that "fruit that remains" to which Jesus referred: "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another. We are the ones who decide whether we use time for the bearing of good fruit or allow it to become a tyrant who frightens us as we fruitlessly try to resist his inevitable claim on our perceived youth. This act of choosing rightly, daily, helps us to develop a disposition; a way of living that involves the proper exercise of our human freedom aided by, and responding to, grace. When time is perceived as a gift from God and welcomed as an opportunity for bearing the fruits of love and holiness, we learn to receive it in love and perceive it as a field of choice and an environment for holiness. We choose to fill our lives with love and pour ourselves out for the God of love. When we live this kind of life, Jesus can find a home within us from which He can continue His redemptive mission, in time. The ancients were fond of a Latin phrase "Carpe Diem", which literally means "Seize the day." For we who are living in communion in Christ Jesus, that phrase can take on a whole new meaning. We always journey toward the "Day of the Lord", when He will return as King. We should seize that day as the reference point for all things on this last week of the year and the Feast of Christ the King. We can live our lives as though His day is the milestone and marker for all that we do, revealing the path along which we become new, beginning now - because it is. Almost two thousand years ago the ancient Greek writer, Seneca, wrote: "It is not that we have so little time, but that we have wasted so much of it" St. Paul wrote to Greek Christians, centuries later in Ephesus: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men (and women) but as wise making the most of the time." (Ephesians 5: 15ff). As we consider the timeline of God's unfolding plan, the redemption of the whole cosmos, the God who gives and governs time, invites us to re-dedicate ourselves to living differently on this great Feast. We are to live as though time really does matter. We are invited by grace to give ourselves away for others; to imitate the One who gave Himself for the entire human race. We are invited to pour ourselves out as Jesus did for us. If we live life this way, when we face Him on that final day, we will do so with our arms full of gifts borne in time. These gifts will have paved the way for eternity. I suggest that it is no coincidence that the Feast of Christ the King and the last week of the year pass through the secular Feast of Thanksgiving. There is no separation for the believer between the secular and the Sacred. In the great event of the Incarnation and the fullness of the Paschal Mystery, all is made new. Secular Feasts such as the American Thanksgiving actually proceed from a Jewish and Christian memory in our ancestors. They knew, as do we, that we are a people who have received immense gifts from Some One - Jesus Christ - and it is truly human to stop and give Thanks! We do not bring God into time; He is the Creator of time. In the mystery of the Incarnation, the Eternal Word through whom the universe was created entered into time to re-create it from within! We are invited by grace to come to acknowledge this mystery and then receive his creature time as a gift, a good, to be given back to Him through living our lives in Christ for the sake of the world. Thanksgiving is a great Feast made even fuller in meaning for the believing and practicing Christian, when we examine the word itself. The word "Eucharist" in our lexicon as Catholics, means Thanksgiving. Now we are called to walk through this last week of the year and reflect on the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Then, we will walk along the way of faith into this new Liturgical season, Advent. Throughout the weeks of Advent, we are invited to prepare ourselves -and the world of our own time- for the comings of the Lord, including His final coming as Christ the King. On the last week of the Church Year, we are invited to remember that every end is a beginning - because in Christ the King, Thanksgiving and Advent can actually become a way of life. Jesus Christ is Lord. Living in Him we can move from Christ the King to Thanksgiving to Advent.
The Right to Life is NOT single issue politics. Life is a lens through which we view every issue
Oct 15, 2015 / 00:00 amAs we enter into the presidential campaign season in the United States of America, politically charged rhetoric is being used to confuse and confound Catholic Christian voters. Nowhere is this clearer than in the efforts to call voters concerned about the Right to Life “single issue voters”. Sadly, some Catholic politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, are leading the charge. Congresswoman Pelosi rejects the teaching of the Catholic Church and the Natural Moral Law concerning the fundamental Right to Life. She has been repeatedly corrected by bishops. Yet, she persists in a flagrant disregard for the teaching of the Catholic Church. She also intentionally misleads people concerning the clear teaching of the Catholic Church. Her infidelity to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church is harming collaboration with other Christians. I have been involved in building principled alliances with Christians of other communities for decades. I can attest to the confusion among many of our Christian friends. They have respect for the Catholic Church, often because of its unchangeable teaching concerning the Right to Life. So, they simply do not understand how Nancy Pelosi and some other Catholic politicians can hold some of their political positions on matters concerning the protection of human life and still claim to be faithful Catholics. It is imperative that Catholic Christians think and act properly concerning this foundational truth; all human persons are created in the Image of God. Because of that they have an inherent dignity - at every age and stage of their lives. This truth is what informs our respect for every human life whether that life is found in the first home of the womb, a wheelchair, a jail cell, a hospital room, a hospice, a senior center, a soup kitchen or on a refugee boat. The Right to Life position is not about an issue at all. Nor are those who hold it “single issue voters”. The Pro-Life position is a worldview, a lens through which we should view every political, cultural, social and economic issue. It should inform every aspect of our participation in society, especially the exercise of our citizenship. As we approach this election season, it must also inform the way we vote. The Right to Life is the foundation for every human right. The language often used in the political discussion surrounding legal abortion reveals an Orwellian newspeak which is polluting our public discourse. Phrases such as "abortion rights” should never be used and must be completely rejected. Abortions do not have rights, only human persons have rights. Every procured abortion is the taking of innocent human life and is always and everywhere intrinsically immoral. Without the right to life there are no other rights and the infrastructure of rights is thrown into jeopardy. Human rights are goods of human persons. When there is no human person to exercise them, all the rhetoric extolling them is nothing but empty air and sloganeering. We must stand in solidarity with those who have no voice. In the Joy of the Gospel Pope Francis wrote that, “Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care, with particular love and concern, are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church's effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. “Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. “Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual. “Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question. I want to be completely honest in this regard. This is not something subject to alleged reforms or 'modernizations'. It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life." (Par. 213, 214) The Pro-Life position is a solidarity position. The child in the womb is our neighbor. It is always and everywhere wrong to take the life of an innocent neighbor. When there is no recognition of a preeminent right to life, there quickly follows an erosion of the infrastructure of all human rights. Human rights do not exist in a vacuum; they are goods of the human person. Our failure to recognize that our first neighbors in the womb have a right to be born and live a full life in our community undermines our claim to be a compassionate society. All the talk about compassion for the poor rings hollow when we fail to hear the cry of the ones whom Teresa of Calcutta rightly called the “poorest of the poor”. We are responsible for one another. We are our brother and sister’s keeper. Created in the Image of God, men and women are called into relationship and are, by both grace and nature, social beings. We will never find the fullness of human freedom and flourishing outside of relationships, with God and with one another. The child in the womb is our first neighbor. Medical science confirms what our conscience long told us. We now routinely operate upon him or her in the womb. We send 3D and 4D ultrasound photos of him or her as they grow in that first home of the whole human race. These children are members of our human family. It is always and everywhere wrong to kill an innocent neighbor. The fundamental human right to life also helps to inform much in our criminal justice system. For example, in our criminal law, we prosecute someone who intentionally takes the life of a woman with child in a vehicular homicide for two criminal offenses. The irony is immediately obvious. Legalized abortion on demand is an open rejection of the entire ethic of being our brothers (and sisters) keeper and its implications. There can be no enduring lasting solidarity upon which to build a secure future in a culture that kills its own children and calls it a right. No politician or political candidate who advocates for legalized abortion, or for euthanasia, passive or active, should ever receive the support of Catholic Christians.
The Moral Life and Human Choice
Sep 29, 2015 / 00:00 amMany people are looking for the path to happiness and freedom. It is a natural and supernatural longing. However, we live in an age which espouses a notion of freedom of choice as a power to do whatever one desires without reference to any evaluative or objective norm outside of a self-constructed individualistic compass. This view is evident in every behavior that treats the human person as some-thing to be used rather than some-one, a gift to be received. It does not free us, fulfill us or make us happy. Catholic moral teaching offers a unique insight that has enormous potential to engage a culture which is deluded by just such a pursuit of self-fulfillment - but enslaved by making the kinds of choices which lead to emptiness, division and despair. It affirms that the very act of choosing and places the person in a relationship with the object, or the subject, chosen. That which is chosen not only changes the world around the chooser, but changes the person who makes the choice. In simple words, we become what we choose. As reiterated by St. John Paul in his seventh encyclical letter entitled On Social Concerns, the Church's social doctrine “belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology”. Saint Gregory of Nyssa provided an insight concerning our choices in an ancient homily quoted approvingly by John Paul II in his masterful encyclical letter on the Moral Life, Veritatis Splendor which means in English, The Splendor of Truth and is cited in the section on the Moral Life in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “All things are subject to change and to becoming never remain constant, but continually pass from one state to another, for better or for worse. Now human life is always subject to change; it needs to be born ever anew. But here birth does not come about by a foreign intervention, as is the case with bodily beings; it is the result of free choice. Thus we are, in a certain sense, our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions." What we choose determines who we become. Choosing what is good changes the chooser, empowering him or her to proceed along the pathways of virtue and develop the habitus - or habits - which promote Christian character. The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses human choice, action and freedom: The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin". (Cf. Rom 6:17) (CCC#1733) Saint John Paul's Letter on the Moral Life, The Splendor of Truth, responded to the continuing call of the Second Vatican Council to re-root Catholic moral teaching within the Bible, which is the "soul of theology". (Dei Verbum #24) In its first chapter, it provides an exegesis of the scriptures based on the Lord's encounter with the rich young man within which it expounds a moral theology of choice. It was not the man's possessions that made him choose to say no to the Lord's invitation. It was his disordered relationship to them that impeded his freedom. They possessed him. He went away sad because he made the wrong choice. From this encounter the letter develops its teaching on choice and authentic human freedom, explaining the proper development and formation of conscience in relationship to objective truth. It issues a strong reaffirmation of the Natural Moral Law. Two years after The Splendor of Truth, John Paul released another encyclical letter entitled Evangelium Vitae, The Gospel of Life, which continued his work of laying a firm foundation for a proper understanding of choice and the Moral Life. In that letter he responded to the myriad of threats against the dignity of human life caused by the redefinition of the word freedom with a prophetic urgency. He warned of what he called a "counterfeit notion of freedom". He positioned this counterfeit as the root cause of what he labeled the culture of death. Under that phrase he coalesced all the current social evils; from abortion (which is always and everywhere intrinsically evil); to modern slaveries, (including pornography and drug addiction); to disdain for the poor and a cheapening of all life as well as the foreboding momentum toward a misguided use of new medical technologies; to active and passive euthanasia and the return of eugenics. Finally, in considering the moral life and human choice we should note the clear moral character of the teaching compiled within the Catechism of the Catholic Church released on the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, October 11, 1992. Part Three of the Catechism, a section devoted specifically to a discussion of moral theology is entitled Life in Christ. The section treats the vocation of man to beatitude. It articulates a clear moral theology of choice by considering the morality of human acts, the role of the passions, the proper formation of the conscience and the cultivation of the virtues accompanied by the rejection of sin. In its explanation of the morality of human acts, the Catechism offers a sobering insight concerning a wrong exercise of freedom: "Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself." It properly insists that authentic Human Freedom cannot be realized in decisions made against God and against what is good because it is "patterned on God's freedom." Patterned on God's freedom, man's freedom is not negated by his obedience to the divine law; indeed, only through this obedience does it abide in the truth and conform to human dignity. This is clearly stated by the Council: ‘Human dignity requires man to act through conscious and free choice, as motivated and prompted personally from within, and not through blind internal impulse or merely external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when he frees himself from all subservience to his feelings, and in a free choice of the good, pursues his own end by effectively and assiduously marshaling the appropriate means. (VS #42) The New Testament is filled with examples of the connection between what we choose and who we become. Two will suffice. We become adulterers when we look at a woman with lust (Mt. 5:28); what comes out of our heart (The heart is the biblical center where freedom is exercised, human choices are made and character is formed through choice) is what makes us unclean (Mk 7:14-23). In short, freedom has consequences. The capacity to make choices is constitutive of our being human persons and reflects an aspect of the Imago Dei, the Image of God, present within us. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council wrote in their document on the Mission of the Church: Authentic freedom is an outstanding manifestation of the divine image within man. (GS #17) Thus, it can be said that freedom should be exercised within a moral constitution. Socially, that means it must be exercised in reference to the truth concerning the human person, the family, and our obligations in solidarity to one another and to the real common good. That is why the fullness of authentic human freedom is ultimately found only in a relationship with the God who is its source and who alone can set us free. St. John 8:32 records these words of Jesus concerning this connection between freedom and truth, "Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him, 'If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" When we choose the truth which He reveals we find the fullness of freedom. In The Splendor of Truth, St. John Paul II warned of what he called the "death of true freedom". (#40) This concern is also addressed repeatedly in The Gospel of Life where he writes of freedom's "essential link with truth" and "inherently relational dimension." (#19) In his later encyclical letter Faith and Reason, Fides et ratio, he wrote: It is not just that freedom is part of the act of faith: it is absolutely required. Indeed, it is faith that allows individuals to give consummate expression to their own freedom. Put differently, freedom is not realized in decisions made against God. For how could it be an exercise of true freedom to refuse to be open to the very reality which enables our self-realization? Men and women can accomplish no more important act in their lives than the act of faith; it is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth and chooses to live in that truth. (#13) All of this invites us all to pause and reflect upon our own lives, and our own choices. What are we choosing and who are we becoming? How do we exercise our human freedom? Basil the Great was a monk, theologian, Bishop of the fourth century, and a friend of Gregory of Nyssa. He wrote a detailed Rule for Monks which contains another helpful insight into what we choose and who we become with which I will conclude: Basil the Great: The ability to love is within each of us Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same - perhaps even more so - with our love for God: it does not come by another's teaching. As soon as the living creature (that is, man) comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing within it the ability and the need to love. When the school of God's law admits this power of reason, it cultivates it diligently, skillfully nurtures it, and with God's help brings it to perfection. For this reason, as by God's gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit. First, let me say that we have already received from God the ability to fulfill all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. When we use this ability in a right and fitting way, we lead a life of virtue and holiness. But if we misuse it, we fall into sin. This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good; a use contrary to God's commands. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God's command. Since this is so, we can say the same about love. Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. The proof of this is not to be sought outside ourselves, but each one can learn this from himself and in himself. It is natural for us to want things that are good and pleasing to the eye, even though at first different things seem beautiful and good to different people. In the same way, we love what is related to us or near to us, though we have not been taught to do so, and we spontaneously feel well disposed to our benefactors. What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and wonderful than God's majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.
Our Missionary Pope Named Francis and Political Piracy
Sep 24, 2015 / 00:00 amThe word pirate calls to mind images from movies or books which often romanticized them. However, they were plunderers who robbed ships at sea for nefarious purposes. I suggest that an historic event is being plundered by some political pirates, the first address given by a Pope to a joint session of congress in the history of the United States. The address was the last in a series of addresses and sermons given by this missionary pope in Washington, D.C. The real message could easily be lost if one listens to what I am calling the pirates - or some of the pundits who do their bidding. As Francis continues his apostolic mission, I recommend the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and Catholic News Agency (CNA) to those who want an accurate presentation. Washington, D.C. is captivated by partisan political “gotcha games” which are all too often played by those on both the political “left” and the political “right”. Coverage of this Pope from Argentina needs a context. He has never been to the United States and his visit here was not for political purposes. He is the Bishop of Rome. In the eyes of faithful Catholic Christians, he is the successor of the Apostle Peter. The Church is a ship he is entrusted to serve, with Jesus Christ at the helm. The Catechism of the Catholic Church with reference to St. Augustine, explains, “To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood.” (CCC #845) In his message to the Catholic Bishops of the United States given on Wednesday, Francis referred to “the apostolic mission which has brought me to your country.” The message reminded me of St. Augustine’s addresses to his brother Bishops which we recently read in the Office of Readings for the Liturgy of the Hours. It was a clear presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, replete with beautiful insights from the sacred scripture, pastoral encouragement and sobering cautions. Any Christian leader, of any Christian tradition faithful to the Gospel, would find it inspiring as an explanation of the call of Christian leadership. That was the proper forum for such a message. The homily given at Catholic University at the first canonization of a saint in the United States, Fr. Junipero Serra, was stolen by some pirates who then used it as a platform for a contrived narrative of racial insensitivity toward Native Americans. In fact, now St. Serra, was a friend of the Native Americans and a tremendous hero to many precisely because of his conformity to Jesus Christ and bold willingness to preach the liberating Gospel message to all men and women. In that powerful message, Francis called all Christians to engage in a new missionary age noting: “A Christian finds joy in mission: Go out to people of every nation! A Christian experiences joy in following a command: Go forth and proclaim the good news!” A Christian finds ever new joy in answering a call: Go forth and anoint! So let us go out, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ.” However, it is the message given to the joint session of Congress which is suffering the most at the hands of those who wish to use this Pope for their own political ends. Francis is not at ease in speaking English, so his halting delivery further detracted from the content. The speech in its entirety can be read here. Using four Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, as a “lens” or “way of seeing or interpreting” reality, he spoke to politicians. He challenged them to understand their role in serving the real common good. It was an expansive address. Francis called them to recognize the dignity of every human life at every stage of life; the threats to the fundamental relationships within the family; the obligations of solidarity as properly discharged through the principle of subsidiarity; environmental stewardship and the necessity of pursuing authentic peace. As someone who has dedicated my entire adult life to ending the intrinsic evil of legalized abortion on demand, I would have hoped for more, especially on the heels of the extraordinary expose of the utter barbarism and evil of Planned Parenthood in selling baby body parts. In the hierarchy of values, the immediacy and urgency of this evil cries out! However, the political pirates seized on the fact that Francis shared his sincere opposition to capital punishment. They immediately spun it as “left leaning”. There is nothing new in this opposition. However, it is important to note that the contemporary approach to opposing the death penalty is predicated upon a different moral ground than opposition to abortion. In other times in his story, and in other circumstances, the Catholic Church did not oppose the death penalty. It was supported as within the purview of the jurisdiction of State. Arguably, with the rise of the evils of extremist jihadism in some nations, one could hypothetically foresee its use as once again necessitated in some places to protect the common good. However, procured abortion is intrinsically evil, always and everywhere wrong, because it is the taking of innocent defenseless life. The contemporary approach of opposing the death penalty emphasizes it is no longer necessary and bloodless means of punishment are readily available. In fact, the Catechism was amended to emphasize that the use of "capital punishment" adds to the growth of what St. John Paul II labeled the "Culture of Death." The Catechism emphasizes, "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person" (CCC, n. 2267). Some of the disappointed responses to the messages Francis gave in Washington, D.C. are understandable concerns being raised by sincere men and women who wish he was much clearer in opposing the evil of abortion, defending marriage and the family, and respecting the contributions of a market economy. However, I am suggesting that some of the opposition is a form of political piracy. It is coming from some within both the political left and right. Francis is neither left nor right - he is Catholic. The social teaching of the Catholic Church must be viewed as a whole. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church compiles it in one place. The dignity of every human life is not simply a political issue but the lens through which every political, economic, international and social issue is to be viewed. Every single person has human dignity precisely because they are created in the Image of God, whether they are still in the womb, a wheelchair, a soup kitchen, a hospice, or a prison cell. The reason we care about the poor, in all of their manifestations, is because of that human dignity. Pope Francis told his brother Bishops in his Wednesday address, “I appreciate the unfailing commitment of the Church in America to the cause of life and that of the family, which is the primary reason for my present visit.” After New York City, he will travel to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families. Stay tuned, there is more controversy to come and there will be other pirates seeking to plunder his messages on marriage and the family. The truth about marriage as solely possible between one man and one woman, intended for life, and open to the gift of children is affirmed by the Catholic Church as objectively true. No-one can redefine this objective truth. It is revealed by the Natural moral law and serves the real common good. Pope Francis will stand up for this truth and against the growing assault on marriage and the family. If you think his messages have been controversial so far, I sense there is much more ahead.
Rescuing the real Common Good
Sep 9, 2015 / 00:00 amI waited to write this first column until after Labor Day in the United States of America because people begin to pay attention after Labor Day. If you plug the phrase “common good” into a search engine you quickly discover it has been coopted. C.S. Lewis, in his "Studies in Words" called such a misuse, verbicide. The phrase common good is at the heart of the social teaching of the Catholic Church. However, many Christians do not even know there is such a body of teaching. Sadly, such a lack of knowledge has contributed to what the Second Vatican Council called a "separation between faith and life." This separation was called "one of the greatest errors of our age" in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World issued by the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church. The phrase also became the framework for the Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life: "It is a question of the lay Catholic’s duty to be morally coherent, found within one’s conscience, which is one and indivisible. "There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual life’, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’ life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture.” An Extreme Example I will date myself with a reference to the 1972 film, The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Let me set the stage. The movie opened with a scene from the baptism of an infant. The main character Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, is a godfather to his sister's baby and must answer questions based on the ancient Creed of the Church to confirm the propriety his role as godfather to Connie's baby. The questions are intended to ensure that he will be an example and teacher; one who will help the parents in their mission to raise the child to follow Jesus Christ in the Church. But the director juxtaposes another action happening simultaneously outside of the four walls of the Church building which demonstrates a contrary choice made by Michael Corleone. At the same time as he is participating in the baptism, his henchmen are carrying out a murderous attack on a rival gang at his explicit direction. This scene reveals an extreme example of this separation between faith and life in Michael Corleone. This separation is usually revealed in more subtle ways. For example, “oh, that’s just business” or “that’s just politics”. All too often, people attempt to justify moral incoherence with the excuse that their faith is a "private matter". Christian faith may be profoundly personal, but it is most assuredly not private. It is public. We are called to live out our professed Christian faith in every area - not only in what we call our “private” life but in our public life and our relationship to others. We are, by both nature and grace, social — called into social relationships. That is because we are created in the Image of a Trinitarian God who is One — but not solitary. We are called to build a social environment conducive to authentic human freedom and human flourishing for everyone. That is what is meant by the common good. Just as the human person is an integrated whole and you cannot separate the soul and the body, so, in an analogous way, the social order and the body politic is an integrated whole. There is a moral basis to a truly free society. You cannot separate moral values from our common life together or from any segment of the social order. To be a Christian is to live a new way of life. Christianity is a Way of Life Before they were called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:26) the followers of Jesus were referred to as the Way. Prior to his encounter with the Risen Lord on the Road to Damascus the Apostle Paul writes of having persecuted “this Way” (Acts 22: 3-16). The early Christians knew that living faith is always expressed in a new way of living. An ancient first century manuscript entitled “The Letter to Diognetus” was a defense of the early Christian lifestyle. It is cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its treatment of the duties of citizenship (CCC 2234-2246). This letter expresses an integrated vision of living as a Christian. Here is an excerpt: “For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. …They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign. They marry like all other men and they beget children; but they do not expose them … They share their meals in common, but not their wives. … They are put to death, and yet they are endued with life. …They are in beggary, and yet they make many rich. They are in want of all things, and yet they abound in all things. They are dishonored, and yet they are glorified in their dishonor. They are evil spoken of, and yet they are vindicated. They are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted, and they respect Doing good they are punished as evildoers; being punished they rejoice, as if they were thereby quickened by life.... In a word, what the soul is in a body, the Christians are in the world...." The Soul of this Age We need to become the soul of this age. The Christians in Rome were living in a culture beset by many of the same problems we face when Paul wrote these words “...I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect”. (Romans 12: 1-2) We need a re-formation of how we view Christian citizenship and our participation in the economic order, the political arena and our full participation in society. There has been some poor teaching in the area of moral theology which has exacerbated this confusion. The Catholic Catechism summarizes the duties of civil authorities and of citizens in its section entitled “Life in Christ”. It presents what can be called an integral approach; calling believers to live the Christian life in a morally coherent manner. Faith is a light which is meant to preside over the entirety of our life. This requires a continued and conscious effort to infuse the values informed by faith into the social arena. That means we need to make sure we understand what the Church really teaches. One of the mistakes commonly made concerns the meaning of conscience. Again, the clarity of the Catechism is of great importance concerning moral conscience. People speak as though “conscience” equates with “feelings” or is an aspect of our opinion. We must educate our consciences to ensure they conform to the truth revealed in the Natural Law and expounded upon in Revelation. Not only do our consciences need to be formed, they can become deformed. That mistake is especially evident in the way in which some Catholics and other Christians approach political and economic participation. We are to view the entirety of our lives in a morally coherent manner. “Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings. The education of the conscience is a lifelong task” (CCC 1783,1784) Social Teaching is for all The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church offers principles to all who seek to build a truly human and humane society. The teaching is called social because it speaks to human society and to the formation, role and rightful place of social institutions. Contrary to the relativism of our age, it claims there are unchangeable truths which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason. These truths are revealed in the Natural Law, “present in the heart of each man and established by reason. This law is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties." (CCC 1956) It is here where we find the foundational human rights which must be recognized by the civil or positive law as rightfully belonging to all men and women if a society is to be called truly just. Rights are good of human persons, not ethereal concepts which can be changed at whim by the machinations of social, political, legal or verbal engineers. They are endowed upon us by the Creator, and not bestowed by the civil government, as the American founders expressed so clearly, standing on the shoulders of the giants of the Western Christian and Jewish tradition. The Compendium of Social Doctrine (paragraph 140) explains: The exercise of freedom implies a reference to a natural moral law, of a universal character, that precedes and unites all rights and duties. The natural law "is nothing other than the light of intellect infused within us by God. Thanks to this, we know what must be done and what must be avoided. This light or this law has been given by God to creation. It consists in the participation in his eternal law, which is identified with God himself. This law is called natural because the reason that promulgates it is proper to human nature. It is universal; it extends to all people insofar as it is established by reason. In its principal precepts, the divine and natural law is presented in the Decalogue and indicates the primary and essential norms regulating moral life. Its central focus is the act of aspiring and submitting to God, the source and judge of everything that is good, and also the act of seeing others as equal to oneself. The natural law expresses the dignity of the person and lays the foundations of the person's fundamental duties. Social truths such as the dignity of every human life, the nature and ends of marriage, the moral foundation of freedom and primacy of religious freedom, our obligations in solidarity to one another – all provide a framework for structuring our social life. These are not just “religious” notions. In future columns I will consider contemporary moral, social, economic and political issues in light of the principles of Catholic social teaching in an effort to rescue the real common good and help to enlist faithful citizens in effective social action.
A tribute to Protestant Bishop Tony Palmer, friend of Francis and champion of Christian unity
Jul 21, 2014 / 00:00 amI awakened this morning to the shocking news that Bishop Tony Palmer of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches had gone home to the Lord whom he loved and served with such sincerity. His passing occurred as a result of a tragic motorcycle accident in the United Kingdom on July 20, 2014. May he rest in peace and may his family and friends know the comfort that comes from living faith. I first read the news through the twitter feed of Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia. Rocco linked to the Facebook page of Archbishop Charles Hill, a member of the same communion of churches as the late Bishop Palmer. The Archbishop wrote: “We are in prayer for the family of Bishop Tony Palmer who was in a motorcycle accident this morning in the U.K. after hours of surgery he went home to be with the Lord. He was a good friend and brother in the vineyard. You can read the post – as well as the growing list of heartfelt condolences and tributes to this historic figure here. I then read the coverage on Seasons of Grace, the Patheos blog of Kathy Schiffer. Her treatment was respectful and her blog is always a source of encouragement. Kathy noted, “Bishop Taylor, the presiding prelate at Ambassadors for Christ Ministries of America (AFCMOA) in Atlanta, Palmer was in an accident while riding a motorcycle in the U.K. After hours of surgery, Bishop Palmer died on Sunday, July 20, 2014.”After searching for more information, I read a horrid report on a traditionalist Catholic site which actually seemed to imply that the tragic loss of this sincere and courageous man, this Christian friend of the Pope who worked so hard to heal the divisions in the Body of Christ, was some kind of retribution? I will not dignify the offensive and uncharitable implication with a link because I do not believe it deserves to be read. However, I will quote a sentence to convey the horrid tilt of this reprehensible comment: “Meaning no disrespect to the deceased Palmer, we must point out that this is the umpteenth time that something tragic, something terrible, something frightening has happened in connection with something done, planned, or desired by 'Pope' Francis…”This misguided implication conveyed more than disrespect for the dead. It was despicable and indefensible. The writer should be ashamed. I never personally met Bishop Tony Palmer. However, I look forward to spending an eternity in the full communion of God’s love with him. I appreciated his Christian courage and felt that his efforts were prophetic. He wrote his life - and lived his ministry - with broad brushstrokes, seeking to reveal the fullness of God’s loving plan for the Body of Christ, the healing of the divisions and wounds which separate those of us who share the name Christian. He did so at a critical time in the history of the Church and the world into which she is sent to continue the redemptive mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can all learn from that kind of example, no matter where we stand in the wounded and divided Christian community. We must continue the effort. The late Bishop understood that the prayer of Jesus, recorded in the Gospel of John, “May they Be One” (John 17:21) still echoes in this hour. It is the prayer of Jesus and so it is heard by the Father. We are invited into the response. It requires our sincere commitment to work to heal the divisions in the Body of Christ as a part of the answer. This young, dynamic, charismatic, evangelical Bishop was – and still is – a friend of Pope Francis. He was catapulted into prominence in the broader Christian community when, while meeting with his friend the Pope in January, he was given a recorded message from Francis to deliver to a large group of charismatic, evangelical protestant leaders who gathered in the United States. The video went viral. It moved millions to sincere prayer for the healing of the divisions in the broken Body of Christ and is prompting a renewed commitment to common apostolic action between Christians. It has become controversial in some circles, as the comments from the misguided traditionalist Catholic quoted above demonstrate. The opposition has come from some Catholic, protestant and orthodox Christians. In the video, Pope Francis expressed his sincere Christian affection to the protestant leaders, extending what he called a “spiritual hug” to them. That meeting led to another meeting at the Vatican between Pope Francis and several Evangelical Christian leaders on June 24, 2014. That meeting included my friend, James Robison, and other evangelical and charismatic protestant leaders, including Ken Copeland. That meeting was also historic. Its rippling effects have only begun to be experienced in the broader Christian community. On Monday, July 28, Pope Francis will travel to Caserta, Italy for a visit with another evangelical protestant Christian friend, Rev. Giovanni Traettino of the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation. Bishop Tony Palmer was scheduled to be at that meeting. Francis is dedicated to helping heal the divisions in the broken Body of Christ. He is encouraging courageous efforts at Christian cooperation. He has raised the water level for the whole Catholic Church, by bringing his lived experience in Argentina, along with his unique palate of gifts, to the office of Successor of Peter at a prophetic moment in history.In a teaching on the Church as the Body of Christ given on June 19, 2013, Francis made an extemporaneous comment which revealed what his life work revealed. Throughout his service as priest, spiritual father, Bishop and Cardinal, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has always heard the passionate Prayer of Jesus Christ and made it his own:"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me." (John 17:21) Here are a few of those heartfelt words from his message:"Divisions among us, but also divisions among the communities: Evangelical Christians, orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, but why divided? We must try to bring about unity. Let me tell you something, today, before leaving home, I spent 40 minutes more or less, half an hour, with an evangelical pastor. And we prayed together, seeking unity.""But we Catholics must pray with each other and other Christians. Pray that the Lord gift us unity! Unity among ourselves! How will we ever have unity among Christians if we are not capable of having it among us Catholics, in the family, how many families fight and split up? Seek unity, unity builds the Church and comes from Jesus Christ. He sends us the Holy Spirit to build unity!"With this clear and courageous commitment to unity, Francis stepped into the trajectory of his two predecessors, Saint John Paul II and His Holiness Benedict XVI. The sincerity of his quest for healing the divisions between Christians is expressed in word and deed. The comfortable way in which he shares from his heart and prays with evangelical Protestant Christian leaders reveals his naturally supernatural approach to living his Christian faith. It also sets an example for all of us. It should inspire each one of us to reach out to other Christians with the love of Jesus Christ and find ways to work, walk and pray together.I have spent years praying and working with evangelical protestants and orthodox Christians, co- laboring in the trenches of the culture on the great challenges of our neo-pagan, or what I prefer to call pre-Christian, age. I am so very happy to have Pope Francis make it clear that this is part of our task, our call and our mission. For those who followed the selection of Cardinal Bergoglio as Pope, this will come as no surprise. One of his evangelical friends from Argentina, protestant evangelist Luis Palau, has been straightforward and enthusiastic about his friendship and prayer with Francis. In an interview with Christianity Today entitled Why It Matters that Pope Francis Drinks Mate with Evangelicals.Palau revealed where the Pope was headed as he stepped into this trajectory of his predecessors and now responds to the imperative of healing the divisions among Christians.A scholar and leader among evangelical Protestants in the United States, Timothy George, the Dean of Beeson Divinity School, also wrote a piece for the same publication entitled, Our Francis, Too: Why we can enthusiastically join arms with the Catholic leader. George wrote: "Francis succeeds two men of genius in his papal role. John Paul II was the liberator who stared down communism by the force of his courage and prayers. Benedict XVI was the eminent teacher of the Catholic Church in recent history. Francis appears now as the pastor, a shepherd who knows and loves his sheep and wants to lead them in love and humility. The new Franciscan moment is the season of the shepherd. Catholics and evangelicals are the two largest faith communities in the body of Christ. Without forgetting the deep differences that divide us, now as never before we are called to stand and work together for the cause of Christ in a broken world."The Gospel proclaims that in and through Jesus Christ, authentic unity with God - and through Him, in the Spirit, with one another- is the plan of God for the entire human race. The Church is the way to that unity. For the Church to continue the redemptive mission of Jesus effectively, she must be one. It was not the Lord's plan that she be divided. It is His Plan that she be restored to full communion. We are invited to become a part of that plan.Catholic teaching on the nature of the Church is rooted in an ecclesiology of communion. Ecclesiology is the theology of the church. All who are validly Baptized already have a form of communion, albeit incomplete.We are invited to make the prayer of Jesus for full communion and visible unity our own - in the way that we relate to other Christians. We need to show the love so evident in the words and witness of Benedict, St. John Paul and Pope Francis. We should learn and use the language of communion which the Catholic Church clearly encourages. St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical letter on unity (Ut Unum Sint): "It happens for example that, in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, Christians of one confession no longer consider other Christians as enemies or strangers but see them as brothers and sisters. Again, the very expression "separated brethren" tends to be replaced today by expressions which more readily evoke the deep communion linked to the baptismal character which the Spirit fosters in spite of historical and canonical divisions. Today we speak of "other Christians", "others who have received Baptism", and "Christians of other Communities".The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism refers to the Communities to which these Christians belong as "Churches and Ecclesial Communities that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The broadening of vocabulary is indicative of a significant change in attitudes. There is an increased awareness that we all belong to Christ."He also wrote concerning the urgency of building good relationships with other Christians:"Relations between Christians are not aimed merely at mutual knowledge, common prayer and dialog. They presuppose and from now on call for every possible form of practical cooperation at all levels: pastoral, cultural and social, as well as that of witnessing to the Gospel message. Cooperation among all Christians vividly expresses that bond which already unites them, and it sets in clearer relief the features of Christ the Servant"."This cooperation based on our common faith is not only filled with fraternal communion, but is a manifestation of Christ himself. Moreover, ecumenical cooperation is a true school of ecumenism, a dynamic road to unity. Unity of action leads to the full unity of faith: "Through such cooperation, all believers in Christ are able to learn easily how they can understand each other better and esteem each other more, and how the road to the unity of Christians may be made smooth. In the eyes of the world, cooperation among Christians becomes a form of common Christian witness and a means of evangelization which benefits all involved." Bishop Tony Palmer Has Died but his vital work for Christian Unity lives on. Let us all take it up and make it our own.
'Noah': A missed opportunity for Russell Crowe and a mistake by Paramount Pictures
Apr 2, 2014 / 00:00 amThe movie was a terrible disappointment on so many fronts. The only good thing I can say about it is that I hope it spurs enough interest in the real biblical account that it draws people to read the Bible. The worst part of the film was the last part. It had absolutely no basis in the biblical story and undercut the moral ground of the entire account of Noah, the flood and its deeper moral and spiritual significance. The last part of this film was so bizarre that I did not even know what I was watching. It was part Marcionism, sprinkled with a touch of the Manichean heresy, part horror movie and part bad science fiction. Clearly, the promoters and producers had not stayed true to the essence, values and integrity of the story. They wrote an entirely different story. It almost undermined the heart of the moral import of the biblical account as it relates to human freedom, culpability, and Divine mercy.As someone who loves movies, and is a fan of Russell Crowe, I was looking forward to the film "Noah." Of course, as a Christian writer and one who reviews films at times, I had also read of the controversy in Christian circles concerning the film possibly deviating from the biblical story. I assumed that the bulk of that criticism came from some within the broader Christian community who insisted that the five chapters in the Book of Genesis where we find the account (Genesis 5-10) be treated literally, in the sense that they could not be elaborated upon in any way with creative, artistic license. I wrote those concerns off as more than likely proceeding from a mistaken approach to the Biblical text. Then, I read the concerns that the film was pushing some sort of green agenda. I assumed they came from some within the more politically conservative segment of the Christian community. I also wrote that concern off as well. After all, the account of creation does indeed teach a proper understanding of creation as gift and challenge us concerning our stewardship over it as a part of the loving plan of God in creating us in His Image and calling us to participate. So, I also dismissed it as some kind of sour grapes reaction in the tit for tat occasioned by the global warning controversy.I was really looking forward to seeing this film. I was glad that a big budget production, rife with top shelf special effects, was being based on a significant story from the Bible. After all, I believe that we are living in an existential time in history, when many are seeking deeper answers to the human struggle. I know that those answers are found in a relationship with God and that these Biblical Stories point us to Him. I admit, I was especially excited that Russell Crowe, one of my favorite actors, was playing the part of Noah. Noah was a courageous man of faith and integrity whom God especially chose to enter into a special covenant with Him. I could picture him playing this man whose biblical story has become such a rich part of both the Jewish and the Christian tradition.My youngest grandson is named Noah. In the room he stays in when he visits, I have a beautiful icon of Noah and the Ark. I have thoroughly enjoyed telling him the story and planting within him the seeds of faith which it contains. The imagery of the Ark and the flood runs throughout the Christian tradition as a type and sign of the New Covenant in and through Jesus Christ. One of my favorite passages in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, using exquisite quotes from the early Church Fathers, proclaims:To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood. (CCC# 845)As a Deacon, I am an ordinary minister of the Sacrament of Baptism in the Roman Catholic Church. I am always moved by the prayer the priest or deacon prays over the waters of the Font. It includes these words, "The waters of the great flood you made a sign of the waters of baptism, that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness."The words are repeated in the Catholic Catechism in its rich teaching on Baptism in the economy of salvation, which instructs us that the loving plan of God in the Old Testament prepared for and prefigured its fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the Paschal mystery. (CCC #1217-1222) We affirm as Catholic Christians that "The Church has seen in Noah's ark a prefiguring of salvation by Baptism, for by it 'a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.'" In fact, this imagery runs throughout the New Testament. One example is found in the passage in the first letter of Peter cited in the text:God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 2 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. (1 Peter 3:18-20)As one trained in theology, I regularly instruct the Christian faithful and those seeking to come into the Church of the importance of these wonderful biblical characters and accounts in the Old Testament. I remind them of the principle of biblical interpretation that the seeds of the New Testament are present in the Old. The Catechism affirms, "the flood and Noah's Ark prefigured salvation by Baptism." (CCC#1094)After I saw and heard these words from Paramount in the advertising, "The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the book of Genesis", I felt reassured. I also thought that my reading of the controversy was probably accurate. I was wrong.I knew my youngest son was coming into town for the weekend. For many reasons, I wanted to take him to this movie. It was being hailed as "epic" in a few favorable reviews. He loves action movies and special effects. He is in his early twenties and trying to figure life out. I really hoped that the moral underpinning of the film could be used as a seed in his life as he walks through those years which are so difficult for young men.The movie was a terrible disappointment on so many fronts. The only good thing I can say about it is that I hope it spurs enough interest in the real biblical account that it draws people to read the Bible. The worst part of the film was the last part. It was completely fabricated. It had absolutely no basis in the biblical story and undercut the moral ground and message of the entire account of Noah, the flood and its deeper spiritual significance in opening up an understanding of the consequences of wrong human choice and the mercy of God. A recent article by Steven D. Greydanus, written for the National Catholic Register, asked the proper questions as a standard for considering this disappointing film. In addressing the fact that the movie did not follow the Biblical account, Greydanus astutely notes: There are really two questions here: First, what does the film add to the biblical story? Second, what does the film take away from the biblical story?Adding to the story is normal and expected in any biblical adaptation or any adaptation of any literary source material. Virtually all Bible movies add or elaborate upon characters, dialogue, motivations and other elements, either to help clarify the story, to imagine how it could have been or for other artistic reasons.Obviously, not all additions or elaborations are comparable. There is a difference between adding dramatic color to a story and adding so much drama that you're essentially telling a new story. Yet as long as the key events of the original story aren't taken away, the merits or demerits of even substantial additions are largely in the area of taste and personal interest.Taking away from the story is more problematic. A biblical film that takes away significant elements of the source material may weaken or even subvert the story. Any biblical film should preserve the core elements of the story it adapts - not necessarily every detail, but the essential points.The same writer reviewed the film here. I do not share his positive analysis.The producers and promoters assured us "While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide." Well, sadly, they were in error. It was NOT true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story which is the cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide." It was far from it. In particular, the story line which covered the time within the ark - and following the great flood - not only had no basis in the Biblical account, it undermined the biblical account. It presented a Noah who was completely unrecognizable and a demanding deity not at all in keeping with the God of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Jesus. It was riddled with a bizarre notion of the obedience of Noah and completely devoid of the rich understanding of the God of love who selected a family through whom He began creation anew and entered into a covenant with the whole human race.In fact, the last part of this film was so bizarre that I did not even know what I was watching. It was part Marcionism, sprinkled with a touch of the Manichean heresy, part horror movie and part bad science fiction. Clearly, the promoters and producers had not stayed true to the essence, values and integrity of the story. They wrote an entirely different story. And a poor one at that. It almost completely undermined the heart of the moral import of the biblical account as it relates to human freedom, culpability, and Divine mercy. I was stunned and disappointed. I was not sure what I was going to say to my son upon exiting the theater. As it turned out, I did not have to say anything to my son. After we emerged from the theater he looked at me and said "What was that?" He emoted the entire way home, telling me that the last part of the film was "weird" and most certainly did not reflect the truth of who Noah was - or who God is. Faith informed films are getting better and better in quality. They are bringing more and more people to the theater. They are bringing revenue to the producers who make them. The Noah story in the Old Testament of the Bible, the actual Noah story, had plenty of room for creative expansion, great action, great acting, great special effects and taking genuine artistic license. This film was a colossal missed opportunity for Russell Crowe, and a mistake by Paramount Pictures.