Category Archives: Neat Things I Didn’t Author

Since we are talking about the Inquisition…

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…here’s an excerpt from David Currie’s book, “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic” :

It is well known that, during the Crusades, some Jews and Jewish communities were attacked by Christian soldiers. What is not so well known is that the Catholic bishops tried to stop these attacks. They preached and pleaded. It was a sin to do what those Christian soldiers did. Sometimes the bishops were able to stop the attacks; sometimes they were not. It was not the first time or the last time that the Church was ignored even though she was morally right. There was anti-Semitism, but it was not rooted in theology. The anti-Semitism was founded on historic, economic, and societal issues. Theology was used occasionally as an excuse.

The whole concept underlying the Spanish Inquisition is difficult for twentieth-century Americans to understand. Misinformation has not helped. It can be understood only in the context of a bitter eight-hundred-year war between Christians and Muslims. The temporary lulls during this long war were call the “cold war”. Spain was the entire Western front in the defense of Christian Europe. Militant Islam was on the march, and many times Islam was victorious. When victorious, Muslims could be brutal with the Christians. One of the major goals of the Spanish Inquisition was to prevent non-Christians from participating in government office. The government of predominantly Christian Spain was trying to assure the loyalty of its governmental workers before they might sorely need that loyalty under Muslim attack.

What is important for the present discussion, however, is often overlooked. The Spanish Inquisition did not apply to Jews. No non-Christian who publicly admitted his unbelief was supposed to be interrogated. That public act would disqualify him for government service, so that he could not harm the Christian government if it was attacked. The Inquisition’s purpose was to root out religious imposters in powerful positions. But because Catholic leaders, like the rest of us, can sin, the purposes and methods of the Inquisition were sometimes abused and misguided. The theology of Spanish Catholicism, however, was certainly not innately anti-Semitic (Currie 192-3).

Theology of Little House on the Prairie

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Evaluate this statement:  “God hates a coward.”

Background:  A friend of mine came to me with a question regarding a statement made in one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when Almanzo was debating about whether to risk ten miles each way in forty-below to bring Laura back to her parents’ for the weekend. He’s looking at the thermometer and hedging. Cap Garland walks by, sees him, says “God hates a coward,” and walks on to where he’s going. Almanzo later says, “I just figured he was right.”

The question was whether the statement is in line with [orthodox Catholic] Church teaching.  I would like to know what your take is on whether or not this is in line with Church teaching, and also to explore what might be meant by the statement, and its implications for how we need to live out our lives in adherence to the Truth as revealed by God.

My first response was to say that God doesn’t ever hate. Then, I made a reference to Revelation 3:16, “So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” I was viewing the cowardice as a form of “sitting on the fence.” I also indicated that it would be important, perhaps, to define what is meant by “coward.”

The response from my friend was:

Well, the validity of the statement WOULD have to hinge on what is meant by “hate” and what is meant by “coward”. But in Genesis God says “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” – presumably He doesn’t literally mean that He hates Esau. What does He mean by it, then?

So putting aside whether it would actually have been cowardly for [the character in the book] to have not gone – which is very debatable – let’s assume that an action IS actually cowardly. Does God hate that action? And if so, running on the assumption that God still loves the coward himself but hates his cowardly actions, if those cowardly actions are frequent and consistent, couldn’t we say “God hates a coward”?

I mean, God still doesn’t hate the PERSON. It might be more precise to say “God hates cowardice.” But could it be accurate to say “God hates a coward”, if one understands that it is not a direct literal statement of God’s feelings toward the person being called a coward?

In a quick, sketchy way, I replied:

Coward: lacking courage; very fearful or timid.
Courage: to act in accordance with one’s beliefs

I think this speaks to the core of what God calls us to: integrity.

It is one thing to say, I am afraid of going out into the snow because there are very real dangers in so doing.
It’s another thing to waffle.

You have to have faith in God.
You aren’t supposed to worry.

On these definitions, to be a coward is to not act in accordance with your beliefs.
And God certainly hates this.
Better to be ignorant and thus inadvertantly sin, than to know the truth and deliberately sin. One of the 3 main conditions for mortal sin, right? Knowing that it was wrong.

I think what the character in the book was getting at was that A needed to decide whether he was going to go or not. He either a) thought it was too dangerous or b) thought it was feasible. But his fear and indecision left his sitting on the fence and this was what he should not be doing. He should either decide that it was more prudent to stay at home and tell Laura no, or he should make preparations to go (taking into account preparations for inclement weather and adversity) and trust that God will get them there safely.

At this point, our YA Fiction theological question was sent to our chosen whipping boy AKA Fr. Ignatius, whom I always assume is delighted to have the privilege of answering all of my random questions. While waiting for a response from Fr. Ignatius, I sent another e-mail to him, further detailing some of my thoughts on the issue:

“Does God hate a coward?”
Seems kind of a narrow question, really. You could also ask, “Does God hate a procrastinator, or a nail-biter or someone who talks/e-mails too much (GASP!)” Each is maybe an aspect of a person, or even an aspect of a person at a specific moment, but does not constitute the whole of the person or even really speak to his or her relationship with God. In and of themselves, the actions could be bad or neutral. I think it speaks more to the fact that we have imperfections than our status with God.

My official answer: no. 🙂

Up next, our treatise on why marshmallow fluff is not in heaven. LOL! j/k

So, here we are left still with the initial statement. Please respond with your thoughts. 🙂

Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael: Archangels

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From the Liturgy of the Hours, text courtesy of Universalis

Reading: A sermon of Pope St. Gregory the Great

The word “angel” denotes a function rather than a nature

You should be aware that the word “angel” denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message. Moreover, those who deliver messages of lesser importance are called angels; and those who proclaim messages of supreme importance are called archangels. And so it was that not merely an angel but the archangel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary. It was only fitting that the highest angel should come to announce the greatest of all messages.
Some angels are given proper names to denote the service they are empowered to perform. In that holy city, where perfect knowledge flows from the vision of almighty God, those who have no names may easily be known. But personal names are assigned to some, not because they could not be known without them, but rather to denote their ministry when they came among us. Thus, Michael means “Who is like God”; Gabriel is “The Strength of God”; and Raphael is “God’s Remedy.”
Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power. So also our ancient foe desired in his pride to be like God, saying: I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven; I will be like the Most High. He will be allowed to remain in power until the end of the world when he will be destroyed in the final punishment. Then, he will fight with the archangel Michael, as we are told by John: A battle was fought with Michael the archangel.
So too Gabriel, who is called God’s strength, was sent to Mary. He came to announce the One who appeared as a humble man to quell the cosmic powers. Thus God’s strength announced the coming of the Lord of the heavenly powers, mighty in battle. Raphael means, as I have said, God’s remedy, for when he touched Tobit’s eyes in order to cure him, he banished the darkness of his blindness. Thus, since he is to heal, he is rightly called God’s remedy.

How to Pray for Priests

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From Opus Sanctorum Angelorum — Crusade for Priests

The answer is not a particular prayer or even a particular form of prayer, but rather, “pray frequently for priests and offer a variety of your good works for their sanctification”. Here are some suggestions that may help make your prayers more effective.

1. ‘Adopt’ or pray for a particular priest or bishop that you find especially troubling, rather than one you like. This requires a greater sacrifice and therefore will school us in the selfless love of Christ and be more meritorious and efficacious. Our charity is like a chain, as strong as its weakest link. By working on our ‘weak links’ of charity we ourselves will grow and contribute more to the building up of Christ’s Body, the Church.

2. Pray especially for newly ordained priests. They are like young plants in the garden: tender and in need of special care. Their immersion into the apostolate, their lack of experience, isolation and, at times, disillusionment are especially painful at the beginning of the ministry. A recently published study reported that an estimated 10-15 percent of American priests leave the priesthood within five years of their ordination.

3. Offer up a portion of your sufferings for priests, be they sickness, hardship, sleepless nights, an upcoming operation or other discomforts.

4. Pray for the souls of priests in purgatory, asking them to intercede for their fellow priests on earth. It would be good to gain at least one plenary indulgence a week for them. In general, prayers for the poor souls, who cannot help themselves, are a great work of mercy, to which is attached a great work of mercy: when they get to heaven through our prayers, they never forget to pray for us poor sinners. To their gratitude we can recommend and direct their prayers for priests.

5. Offer up at least one rosary a day for priests. When possible, pray the rosary in a Church before the Blessed Sacrament and with others.

6. Fast with prudence and the approval of a priest or spiritual director for the sanctification and conversion of priests, especially for those in the state of mortal sin and in the grip of the devil. For as Christ Himself has told us, there are some kinds of demons that can only be driven out by prayer and fasting (see Mk 9:29). And Pope John Paul II has stated that the “first and most effective weapons against the forces of evil are prayer and fasting.” (Evangelium Vitae, 100.2).

7. If you say the Liturgy of the Hours, offer it up in reparation for all the priests who have stopped praying their Office. If you do not know how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, consider learning how to do so; it is the official prayer of Christ our High Priest in and with the Church.

8. Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily — or at least every Friday — at 3:00 PM. the Hour of Mercy, asking our Lord to be merciful to His priests. The Lord revealed to St. Faustina that great graces are attached to praying at this time. “At three O’clock, implore My Mercy, especially for sinners, and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourself in My Passion, particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony. This is the hour of great mercy for the whole world. In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion.” (Diary, 1320). It is therefore helpful and efficacious to pray also at this time the short but powerful ejaculation, “O blood and water which poured forth from the Heart of the Savior as a fount of love and mercy, I trust in Thee.”

9. Make the Stations of the Cross, at least, once a week for priests. Try to do this at the three O’clock hour, if at all possible. For Christ told St. Faustina, “My daughter, try your best to make the Stations of the Cross in this hour, provided that your duties permit it; and if you are not able to make the Stations of the Cross, then at least step into the chapel for a moment and adore, in the Blessed Sacrament, My Heart, which is full of mercy; and should you be unable to step into the chapel, immerse yourself in prayer where you happen to be, if only for a very brief instant.” (Diary, 1572).

10. Visit a sick person in a hospital or in a nursing home in reparation for priests who have failed to console the sick and offer them the consolation of the sacraments.

11. Make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament at least once a week for priests. If you are already doing this, try to make another one, or spend another half-hour before the Blessed Sacrament, or at least try to make an extra visit to a church or chapel.

12. Make at least one communion of reparation each week to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to repair the irreverence of priests and in expiation for the sacrilegious masses offered by priests in the state of mortal sin.

These are just a few of the prayers and sacrifices that can be offered up for priests. There are many others. But what needs to be stressed at the present moment is the critical necessity for all of us to do something extra not only for the sanctification of priests but also something extra in reparation for the sins of those priests who have failed the Lord.

Pope John Paul wrote a letter to all the bishops of the United States when a similar but less severe priest scandal rocked the Church in America. At the end of his letter the Pope warned bishops, in words that now seem prophetic, “Yes, dear brothers, America needs much prayer — lest it lose its soul.” Let us, then, redouble our prayers and sacrifices for priests, so that America may grow in holiness and so come to fulfill its mission to be a witness to the gospel of Christ in the modern world.

Our Lord promises: “He who receives you receives Me, … and whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” (Mt. 10;40-42) May the reward of the Lord be the grace that you might always have a priest who gives you daily Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and at the end of this life eternal happiness.

Lord, please give me the grace to progress on my journey towards holiness, so that I may be a more efficacious intercessor for our priests. Amen.

The Catholic Church: A 5 Star Hotel on the Way Home

Grad School/Seminary, Neat Things I Didn't Author

From Doing Theology, by Jared Wicks, SJ:

[Origen’s interpretation of the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:30-35.]

The man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho is humankind expelled from paradise, who is beset by evil spirits who strip him of heavenly grace and inflict dire wounds on him. But the Samaritan who came down was Christ the Son of Man, who brought with himself numerous medicines. In the inn of the church the fallen creature will be restored to health until his kindly benefactor returns.

I posit that while Origen imagines the inn to be the Church, the innkeepers (the ones who nurse the fallen creature to health and cares for him) are our priests. They are the ones who lead us from the brink of death back to life. As I would imagine the innkeeper in the tale would tell the beaten man of his kind benefactor, our priests tell us of our savior, Jesus Christ.

Certainly, to be an innkeeper in charge of a seriously ill man cannot be a fun task all the time. And certainly, it cannot always be a fun task to shepherd us wayward sheep. However, comfort can be taken by our priests, knowing that the Samaritan will return and reward them/pay them back for all the good they did in taking care of the ill man during his absence.

Just my two cents. 🙂

New Toy Coming Today!!!

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The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

I am very excited to get my new book! 🙂 Which, of course, just proves how much of a Catholidork I am. 🙂

The Five Paths of Repentance

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From the Office of Readings for today:

St. John Chrysostom on the Temptations of the Devil (from Universalis)

Shall I list the paths of repentance? There are certainly many of them, many and various, and all of them lead to heaven.

The first path is the path of condemnation of sins. As Isaiah says, Tell your sins, and you will be acquitted. And the Psalmist adds: I said “I will bear witness against myself before the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. So you, too must condemn the sins you have committed. Condemn them, and that condemnation will excuse you in front of the Lord, since whoever condemns the sins he has committed will be slower to commit them next time. Stir up your own conscience to be your accuser – so that when you come before the judgement-seat of the Lord no-one will be rise up to accuse you.

This is the first path of repentance but the second is in no way inferior to it in excellence. It is to forget the harm done to us by our enemies, to master our anger, to forgive the sins of those who are slaves together with us. As much as we do this, so much will our own sins against the Lord be forgiven. So this is the second path to the expiation of our sins. As the Lord says, Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours.

Would you like to know the third path of repentance? It is prayer: fervent prayer, sincere and focused prayer, prayer coming from the depths of the heart.

If you want to know the fourth path, I will tell you it is the giving of alms. It has great power.

And finally, if someone acts with modesty and humility, that path is no less effective as a way to deprive sin of its substance. Look at the publican, who had no good deeds to speak of. In place of good deeds he offered humility, and the huge burden of his sins fell away.

So now I have shown you the five paths of repentance. First, condemnation of sins. Second, forgiving the sins of those near us. Third, prayer. Fourth, almsgiving. Fifth, humility.

So do not be idle, but every day advance along all these paths at once. They are not hard paths to follow. Poverty is no excuse for not setting out on the journey. Even if you are destitute you can do all these things: put aside anger, carry humility in front of you, pray hard, condemn your sins. Poverty is no obstacle – not even to that path of penitence that demands money: that is, almsgiving. Remember the story of the widow’s mite.

Now we have learnt the right way to heal our wounds, let us apply these remedies. Let us regain true health and confidently receive the blessings of Holy Communion. Thus we may come, filled with glory, to the glory of Christ’s kingdom, and receive its eternal joys through the grace, mercy and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sermon on the Mount

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Snippets that I like from “The Lord,” by Romano Guardini.

Some of the uniqueness of the Sermon on the Mount includes:

1. The energy with which it insists upon progression from the outer, specific act of virtue to the inner, all-permeating state of virtue.
2. Its demand that the degree of identification-of-self-with-neighbor be the sole measure for purity of intent.
3. Its definition of love is the essence of man’s new disposition.

In the Sermon on the Mount, God is calling us to a vocation, one which is the “living intention of God, [the] efficacy of His love in the chosen one.”

And isn’t this what it is all about? Not taking the credit for our own goodness as anything of our own doing, but rather recognizing the fact that all goodness comes from God. Our “goodness” or properly ordered acts are rather merely a cooperation with the graces given by God. We are not so much acting of our own volition, but cooperating with His will. We are letting His grace flow through us; we are letting His love be efficacious through us. We are, if you will, merely a conduit for His action. This is not to say we are mere tools. What saves us from this is the fact of our free will. We have the option of being not so much a conduit, but more of a dam — stemming the flow of God’s grace. We can refuse to cooperate with His will, and in so doing thwart the efficacy of His love.

A great analogy of this was given by Deacon John last Sunday: our relationship with God is a lot like a pair of magnets. In the proper order of things, we are aligned so that we natually have an attraction to God and move in His direction, the same way that properly aligned magnets have an attraction for each other and seek to become one, even to the point of joining their electromagnetic fields to make one, stronger, field. When we choose to sin, we are flipping one of the magnets around. God stays in the same orientation, but we have turned away from Him, and in so doing, we have created an obligatory separation. Aligned in this manner, no longer is there one magnetic field, but two. The harder one tries to push the two magnets together, the greater the force which separates them. You cannot join yourself to God if you remain oriented away from Him. Great analogy. Points to Deacon John for appealing to my ET Nuke nerdiness. 🙂

“What the Sermon on the Mount demands is not everything or nothing, but a beginning and continuing, a rising again and plodding on after every fall.”

The Priest Holds the Key to the Treasures of Heaven

Neat Things I Didn't Author, Prayer/Prayer Requests

Hideously stolen from the OLGC bulletin, but I likes it! 🙂

Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the priest that continues the work of redemption on earth…. What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of His goods…. Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest, and they will end by worshipping the beasts there…. The priest is not a priest for himself; he is a priest for you. — St. John Vianney, Curé of Ars, Universal Patron of Priests

Please remember to pray in a particular way for our amazing priests today and throughout the Year of the Priest. May God bless them all!

Mystic or Unbeliever

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H/T to Steve, who originally sent this to me:

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boat, and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus (Jn 6:24).

A generation ago, Karl Rahner made the statement that there would soon come a time when each of us will either be a mystic or a non-believer.

What’s implied here?

At one level it means that anyone who wants to have faith today will need to be much more inner-directed than in previous generations. Why? Because up until our present generation in the secularized world, by and large, the culture helped carry the faith. We lived in cultures (often immigrant and ethnic subcultures) within which faith and religion were part of the very fabric of life. Faith and church were embedded in the sociology. It took a strong, deviant action not to go to church on Sunday. Today, as we know, the opposite if more true, it takes a strong, inner-anchored act to go to church on Sunday. We live in a moral and ecclesial diaspora and experience a special loneliness that comes with that. We have few outside supports for our faith.

The culture no longer carries the faith and the church. Simply put, we knew how to be believers and church-goers when we were inside communities that helped carry that for us, communities within which most everyone seemed to believe, most everyone went to church, and most everyone had the same set of moral values. Not incidentally, these communities were often immigrant, poor, under-educated, and culturally marginalized. In that type of setting, faith and church work more easily. Why? Because, among other reasons, as Jesus said, it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

To be committed believers today, to have faith truly inform our lives, requires finding an inner anchor beyond the support and security we find in being part of the cognitive majority wherein we have the comfort of knowing that, since everyone else is doing this, it probably makes sense. Many of us now live in situations where to believe in God and church is to find ourselves without the support of the majority and at times without the support even of those closest to us, spouse, family, friends, colleagues. That’s one of the things that Rahner is referring to when he says we will be either mystics or non-believers.

But what is this deep, inner-anchor that is needed to sustain us? What can give us the support we need?

What can help sustain our faith when we feel like unanimity-minus-one is an inner center of strength, meaning, and affectivity that is rooted in something beyond what the world thinks and what the majority are doing on any given day? There has to be a deeper source than outside affirmation to give us meaning, justification, and energy to continue to do what faith asks of us. What is that source?

In the gospel of John, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are a question: “What are you looking for?” Essentially everything that Jesus does and teaches in the rest of Johns gospel gives an answer to that question: We are looking for the way, the truth, the life, living water to quench our thirst, bread from heaven to satiate our hunger. But those answers are partially abstract. At the end of the gospel, all of this is crystallized into one image:

On Easter Sunday morning, Mary Magdala goes out searching for Jesus. She finds him in a garden (the archetypal place where lovers meet) but she doesn’t recognize him. Jesus turns to her and, repeating the question with which the gospel began, asks her: What are you looking for? Mary replies that she is looking for the body of the dead Jesus and could he give her any information as to where that body is. And Jesus simply says: “Mary.” He pronounces her name in love. She falls at his feet.

In essence, that is the whole gospel: What are we ultimately looking for? What is the end of all desire? What drives us out into gardens to search for love? The desire to hear God pronounce our names in love. To hear God, lovingly say: “Mary,” “Jack,” “Jennifer,” “Walter.”

Several years ago, I made a retreat that began with the director telling us: “I’m only going to try to do one thing with you this week, I’m going to try to teach you how to pray so that sometime (perhaps not this week or perhaps not even this year, but sometime) in prayer, you will open yourself up in such a way that you can hear God say to you – I love you! – because unless that happens you will always be dissatisfied and searching for something to give you a completeness you don’t feel. Nothing will ever be quite right. But once you hear God say those words, you wont need to do that restless search anymore.”

He’s right. Hearing God pronounce our names in love is the core of mysticism and it is too the anchor we need when we face misunderstanding from without and depression from within, when we feel precisely like unanimity-minus-one.

Fr. Ron Rolheiser
—–
How true that we have to make the decision whether to follow the crowd and seek out the approval of others, or to follow Jesus and seek out His approval. It is in a sense more difficult to be a disciple in this age where everything is focused on self-gratification, but on the other hand, it can be a good thing in that the people who are attending church and are following Christ are doing it because they truly love Him, and not because of cultural pressure. Jesus wants us to come to Him out of love, not obligation.