Deus Caritas Est

Let Nothing Upset You

2011-07-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

For everyone who complains, rants, yells, screams, cries, worries, wishes, wants, agonizes, anlayzes, deliberates, frets or frowns, I offer Teresa of Avila's wisdom:

"Let nothing upset you,

let nothing startle you.

All things pass;

God does not change.

Patience wins

all it seeks.

Whoever has God

lacks nothing:

God alone is enough"

Truth Will Impose Itself

2010-12-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

Pope John Paul the Great: "The Church imposes nothing; the Church only proposes something, but what we propose, we believe to be the Truth, and the Truth will impose itself on the human heart."

The same can be said of gravity, relativity, quantum theory...yet Truth, THE Truth stands infinitely beyond this in it's imposition and in it's ability to free us to love...

Searching In All the Wrong Places

2010-10-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you.

Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace"

The Case of the Woman with the Twisted Face

2010-09-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

I remember meeting an apoplectic woman driving a rather large tank of a car. We faced off in a dirt lot that served as overflow parking for the parish festival.

I didn't know what to make of the situation. I manuevered my subcompact as far to the right of the aisle as it could be as the lady's Hidenberg barreled toward me. It had materialized from the midst of a dust cloud. She was driving down the middle of the aisle. She was coming fast.

When she spotted ME, obstructing HER way, her face seemed to melt away and reassemble. She had become ferral. Her face twisted and she jerked violently in her seat like she was being defibrillated and having a seizure at the same time. I had no doubt that if she had a machete, she would've halved me like a watermelon. I was somewhat shocked she didn't try roll over my compact like it was a Hotwheel.

At the last second, lurching to the left and nearly sideswiping three parked cars, she stirred up a dust storm and screeched out of the lot into the street. I heard her peel away. Various expletives got tossed out of her open window as she left.

Nearly speechless, I found a parking space, the only one I could find in that lot. Perhaps she had spotted it too only to realize that it was too small for her too big car.

That all happened maybe 5 years ago. But it's what I remembered when I read St. Francis de Sales words:

"Some say it is unreasonable to be courteous and gentle with a reckless person who insults you for no reason at all. I have made a pact with my tongue; not to speak when my heart is disturbed."

I didn't say anything to her. I didn't chase her down. I didn't try to throw a rock at her as she left. But I also don't ever remember making a pact with my tongue. Maybe my man Francis had my back that day.

"I Don't Care What You Think About Me"

2010-08-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

If people really didn't care about what the world thinks of them and only what God does, we'd be living in Eden (before the fall).

Others choose not to make any reference to God but still offer an unsolicited "I don't care what people think about me" completely out of nowhere (my first reaction is "then why did you have to share that with me?")

It's kind of like walking up to someone and saying "I'm not fixated on cigars. If you don't believe me I'll show you my map of all the cigar shops in town that I don't go to."

You've probably come across one of the younger "I don't cares" or been one of them at some point. They sport blue hair, a mullet or a pair of pants several sizes too big or too small. They make a point of trying to convince you that they dress that way for reasons ABC...In the end they want you to think that they don't care what you think.

I'm going to go rest my brain and I frankly don't care what you think about that. Really.

Weakness Is Not An Obstacle

2010-08-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

"How is that heart of yours getting along? Don't worry: the saints – who were perfectly ordinary, normal beings like you and me – also felt those 'natural' inclinations. And if they had not felt them, their 'supernatural' reaction of keeping their heart – soul and body – for God, instead of giving it to creatures, would have had little merit.

That's why, once the way is seen, I think that the heart's weaknesses need be no obstacle for a determined soul, for a soul in love.

– St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, #164

Suffering of Love

2010-08-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

The following is an exercpt from: Suffering of Love: Christ’s Descent into the Hell of Human Hopelessness (Ignatius Press, 2006), by Regis Martin, a theologian and faculty member of the Franciscan University of Steubenville (hat tip to Insight Scoop).

Professor Martin describes the sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe at Auschwitz.

But what exactly did he do, this ministering angel of a man who restores, magically as it were, the faith of children? This Roman Catholic priest who, loving God more than himself, is thus able—and free!—to love everyone in God? In one word, Kolbe substitutes himself for another. At the eleventh hour, he takes the place of a grieving husband and father whom the SS have randomly chosen, along with nine or so others, to die in a bunker deprived of food and water. Protracted starvation: a horrible way to die.

"What does this Polish pig want?" demanded the SS officer, wearing the dreaded death's head insignia of the Gestapo, when the slight figure of Father Kolbe came forward dressed in his prison garb—the very insignia of man's humiliation, beneath which, in Kolbe's case, shines the unseen holiness of Almighty God. "I am a Catholic priest", he replied. "I want to die for that man. I am old; he has a wife and children." Incredulous, the officer nevertheless permits the substitution, providing thereby the sacramental working out of what Charles Williams, citing Saint Paul, was so wont to call the Great Web of Exchange. Kolbe and the others are then led away to die.

A fortnight's agony later, all but four have died and of these only Kolbe remains conscious. Gestapo patience at last having worn thin, an injection of phenol is administered and now Kolbe too is dead. It is August 14, 1941, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, the Woman clothed with the sun and the moon and the stars, who long before had promised young Maximilian the twin crowns of purity and martyrdom for God. This same Woman, who had herself been schooled in suffering and sorrow, indeed whose mute and anguished consent to her Son's immolation on Calvary became the deepest kenosis of faith in all history, to recall the moving text of Pope John Paul II's encyclical.

Nearly forty years later Poland's Pope would visit that bunker and before a vast crowd declare how "victory through faith and love was won by Maximilian Kolbe in this place, which was built for the negation of faith, and to trample radically not only on love but on all signs of human dignity, of humanity: a place built on hatred and contempt for man in the name of a crazed ideology." And quoting 1 John 5:4, he concluded: "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that with faith overcometh the world." So the Pope reminded the world when, in 1979, he went to Auschwitz to speak of Father Kolbe's victory, of its profound source in the love and the faith of God, and of its continuing relevance to the world.

But it must be understood in all its fullness as a victory for all, for both Jew and Christian alike; otherwise the whole expiatory point of Kolbe's substitution is lost. The victory of the one cannot be denied the other, for the act of exchange is for the other. United thus in the same school of suffering, wedded as one by the one Christ, Jew and Christian stand together as joint beneficiaries of the priestly heroism of Kolbe precisely because, behind it, there stands the universal, infinitely efficacious priestly sacrifice of the Son of God, broken on his Cross to become the bread for the world. Spiritually, then, as Pius XI would tirelessly point out to a world about to witness wholesale liquidations of God’s people, spiritually we are all Semites.

Behind Fr. Kolbe, every martyr, every sinner, every saint, stands the lamb once slain, eternal high priest of the new and everlasting covenant. To him be glory foreover.

More info on Kolbe http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-maximilian-kolbe/

Open Rebuke and Hidden Love

2010-08-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 27:5-6

"Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy."

I don’t think my parents ever cited Proverbs 27 but I KNOW they said something similar. As a parent now, I realize what they meant. You can’t shower kisses to cover up wrongful deeds. You can’t “hide your love” to avoid conflict either. Sometimes, love just requires a direct approach. Maybe that’s why kids, parents, siblings, friends and spouses get angry with each other so often, but grow stronger with the conflict (if it's rightly ordered).

I once found that to be rather odd. I now know it to be true, necessary, and logical. People who really care about you risk offense to care. The two other kinds of people are different: enemies offend you out of hate or praise and adulate you toward a malicious end. “Fun-time” friends would rather worry about having fun than about improving your situation. They don’t want to risk suffering faithful wounds by admonishing you for your own good.

It might be a good idea to go out and find yourself a good friend, willing to rebuke you with a love that doesn’t seek to hide in empty, tokens of sentimentality. Obviously, there’s a time for vinegar and a time for honey too. If you’re lucky you’ll find someone capable of dispensing both.

TV Parenting?

2010-07-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

All the world's a stage and one TV in its time plays many parts. It's a distraction, a white noise generator, a frame on the wall above an empty mantle, a last-ditch, on-call, handle-it-all babysitting machine and surrogate parent.

When they're polite, people ask me what's so hard about parenting these days. When they're not paying attention, they just roll their eyes. And when they're disinterested, they pretend parents and kids don't exist. It's like those proverbial pink elephants standing in the middle of the room. "Oh, hasn't it been positively balmy this week? You have what? A kid? What's that? Isn't that another word for a baby lamb?"

I suppose having kids and making sure they live doesn't necessarily separate us from animals. Any idiot can have a kid. Anyone can put said kid in front of a TV, a computer, a Playstation. Anyone can give that kid candy when she cries, give in when she whines, buy when she asks, and settle for "I want" instead of "May I please?"

Being a parent is hard enough. The user manual got torn up, chewed and spit out as soon as Johnny grew teeth. So after that, it was all ad lib. It's just that the ad libs end up being shortcuts.

All I can say is it's hard. It's hard for all of us. Shortcuts aren't the answer. God never took one. He took the road straight through Calvary and never looked back. He said "this is how you do it. THIS is how you lay down your life."

I'm not saying I've succeeded. I've taken shortcuts before. I resolve not to and when I'm true to my calling as a Christian parent, my life gets 100% more complicated and difficult. But that comes with the calling, it's not an option like a pick and choose package on a mini van.

I can only try to say no when TV offers its services as an extended care babysitter. . I can only hope that I remember the difference between "want" and "need." I can only pray that I do what I can and God will take care of the rest.

Priest Prophet and King

2010-07-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, my mind likes to wander away without telling me where it's going. Thankfully, it's only gone for a few seconds (my wife begs to differ). Sometimes I end up in rainbow-land, or in fields full of clover nipping rabbits, or upon the plains once inhabited by Troglodytes and their kin.

Today, it was a more meaningful place: 1st century Palestine where I sat on a hillside listening to a homeless man. Strange that this man and the things he said would one day change the world.

In some circles, he was known as Jesus. Others knew him as the carpenter's son and those closest to him would one day realize that he was the high priest of a "new and everlasting covenant."

They saw him entering into the Holy of Holies. He isn't self-righteous about it. He doesn't snap his toes and say "Shazaam!" (being Jesus, I don't think he would've needed to snap his fingers). He merely entered, paying with blood.

Doing this seals the deal. Jesus, the prophet bridges past, present, and future. He fulfills the Mosaic law and brings old and new together forever. Sounds like a great role to play until you factor in the scorn, the rejection, and the crucifixion.

But Christ is a hero isn't he? He's an eternal king so he would rise in vindication, no longer villified but glorified, right?. This is exactly what happened. But before it happened, our homeless man, the king to whom all heads must bow and every knee must bend wore a crown of thorns. Why not just skip right to the glorious parts? Why enter the house of pain?

This is just a guess, but I think all that suffering stuff he goes through teaches us something of eternal relavance: that love is not about power. It's not swooping in on a chariot, trailing fire, and blowing trumpets so everyone knows you're there to save the day.

Jesus had a more perfect way made so through weakness. And he didn't come to tell us that. That's the pitfall professors warn us about in Englsih 101. Don't tell, show. Don't write about how so and so was sad. Describe so and so's actions in such away that the reader can infer that he's sad.

That's exactly what Jesus did.

CPR for the DCEB

2010-07-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

The DCEB or "Deus Caritas Est" blog requires continuous CPR for a month. I will not give up. I WILL pull out the difibrillators if I need to.

I apologize to all my visitors--regulars and wanderers alike.

My mind continued to stumble, serendipitously into thoughts that might've been worth sharing. Time, unfortunately refused to cooperate. Kids unfortunately don't like to cooperate. Wives, unfortunately...well, I'll just leave it at that while I still have 10 functioning fingers. (whispering conspiratorially: She's looking at me right now...).

Alright. So here's the deal or the ideal, depending on whether life decides to cooperate. I'll post again tomorrow...something with a little meat.

There's just too much fluff and stuff out there in media-land right now. Just think of God as the antidote and this blog, God-willing, will be one of his dispensaries again.

Newborns and Burritos

2009-06-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

Swaddled newborns always remind me of egg rolls or burritos, depending on the baby's size and the quality of the wrapping job. I look at my daughter sleep, armless and legless, with no motion except the quiverings and furrowings of her brow, and I think naturally of what "defenseless" really means.

In the world of cinema, when villains die, cowering and fearful, it's strange how we catch a glimpse of this same infant-like state that's common to the human experience. To some, it's a pitful and just end for a despicable person. To me, it's an emblematic moment that reveals the helplessness of all human life.

It's hard to compare a villain to an infant, but aren't the same critical components present? The soul, the image of God, original sin and original goodness? How then can anyone argue that there's any discontinuity anywhere within the lifespan that would allow us to differentiate between someone with a right to life and someone without that right?

Most of us, no matter how ugly, or evil, at one point had a mother or father look at us in the defenselessness of sleep. It was a look of love; a look that acknowledged and affirmed, a look that was sometimes tinged by the pain that one day we would suffer. As years passed, that mother or father may have forgotten those early intimate moments.

But even after thousands of lifetimes, the Heavenly Father still looks at us the same way. No matter who we are. For our part, we seem to have a knack for breaking that Father's heart. He will, for his part, keep swaddling us and watching us with love.

Pope Benedict on The Heavenly Homeland

2009-06-13T10:57:00.001-07:00

"On this day let us revive in ourselves an attraction toward Heaven that calls us to carry on in our earthly pilgrimage. Let us lift in our hearts the desire to always unite ourselves to the family of the saints, of which we already have the grace to be a part.As a celebrated 'spiritual' song says: 'When the saints go marching in, oh how I'd want, Lord, to be in their number!' May this beautiful aspiration burn in all Christians and help them to surpass every difficulty, every fear, every tribulation! Let us place, dear friends, our hand in the maternal one of Mary, Queen of All Saints, and let ourselves be led by her toward our heavenly homeland, in the company of the blessed spirits 'of every nation, people and language.'"

Pope Benedict XVI

(hat tip to www.whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com)

George Tiller and The Politics of Death

2009-06-04T21:23:00.001-07:00

We've straddled the politics of abortion for over 30 years now. Life, death, mother,child...less often, but no less heatedly, the debate turns to the doctor. Someone apparently ended the debate, at least in his own mind. To him it was an easy answer: Kill Dr. George Tiller while he's at church attending Sunday services and everything will be better.

Is everything really better? Tiller's family lost. A man is dead. And someone made himself a murderer. Then the media used their superlative powers of analysis to group isolated killers together with groups such as Priests For Life and the United States Council of Catholic Bishops. The critics say the blame rests partly on pro life groups. Without them, the reasoning goes, people won't consider abortion murder and George Tiller would still be alive.

Amazing logic, isn't it? It's like saying that we shouldn't decry murder because people will go out and start killing gang bangers and serial killers. Or maybe we shouldn't say that cigarettes kill because if we do someone might go and wack the bigwigs of the tobacco industry.

Reality is a little more complicated than media politics. In the real world, murder is wrong. We need to decry it in whatever form, whether it involves the unborn OR the abortionist. If crazed people go out and do something crazy that's very unfortunate. However, that cannot keep the pro-life movement from speaking the truth: abortion is wrong because it's murder and killing George Tiller is wrong because it's murder. That's as simple as it gets.

Obama at Notre Dame? Good Lord...

2009-05-12T22:27:00.001-07:00

Pope Slams Science--The Story Behind the Story

2009-04-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

New "news" is often old hat. How many times, for instance, did Pope Benedict fall off the wall and crash into bits on the cobblestone of media ignorance? The last debacle came with an explosive outcry. All of them are based on the false assumptions that 1) Pope Benedict hates the very idea of sex 2) He is, at best, an idiot and at worse the proponent of a eugenics campaign aimed at killing Africans by depriving them of condoms 3) only condoms can prevent AIDS in Africa and 4) defending a human centered approach (rather than a condom based one) is the only rational, relevant and effective way to reverse the HIV epidemic in Africa.

Oddly, those in the know agree with the out-of-date, head-in-the-sand, ignoramus who lives in Rome. Edward C. Green of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project has argued and continues to argue that AIDS prevention based on condom dissemination not only doesn't work, it works the other way. Studies show, that, in contrast, efforts that promote abstinence and/or monogamy work best. These are exactly the medieval methods the pope and his ignorant henchman have been advocating all along. Lucky or a principled strategy based on a solid understanding of the human person and what it's capable of?

Meanwhile the condom camp struggles because it devalues the people it supposedly serves. The "saftey net" condoms are supposed to provide leads, ironically, to increased risk taking. This, then leads to increased HIV, AIDS and STD infection rates. Seems the media mouth opened too soon?

As I alluded to earlier, the question of why the Church has spearheaded such a successful campaign against AIDS (in Uganda, for instance) is based on it's total understanding of what a person is, can be and should be. As Laura Schlessinger wrote recently, this has to do with the potential that the pope still sees in humanity, even as his media pundits sling mud at the notion that people can control themselves:

"When the Pope suggests that human beings are best off saving their sexual passion for the stability of a covenant of marriage, he is making a statement that the act of sexuality is elevated by the context, and ultimately protects both man and woman from a myriad of hurtful consequences from venereal diseases to unwanted pregnancies (complete with abortions, abandonment, single-parenthood, and homelessness to name a few).

The naysayers all have one thing in common: they refuse to want, believe or accept that human beings can commit to a higher spiritual state of thought and behavior. The Pope believes in us more than that.

I am not Catholic, so this is no knee-jerk defense of my spiritual leader. The truth is that he is simply correct and too many people don't want to hear it, because they want to live lives unfettered by rules. It is sad that they don't realize that this makes them a slave to animal impulse versus a master of human potential."

Everyone Against Abortion, Please Raise Your Hand

2009-03-07T10:08:00.001-08:00

The video speaks for itself...

Mashed Potatoes And Christianity

2009-02-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Circumstances led me to a parish I'd never been to before. It was the first time. If God helps me, there won't be another unless there's a nuclear winter or something of similarly cosmic proportions and I can't get to another Catholic Church within a 500 mile radius. The message of the day seemed to be seared into my synapses long after the mass was done. Seems you can't be Catholic or Christian unless you breathe, bleed, and sweat inclusivity.

I certainly had a response to that. Nay, Christ had an even better one. I was suprised today to find that Michael Novak had my thoughts all summed up. No doubt, he's been a victim of several nuclear winters.

"One of the greatest of recent seductions by that wily devil Screwtape -- perfectly fitted to the times -- is to puff a tiny sugar crystal of Christianity into sweetish airy cotton candy. "IN-clusiveness!" he will insist. "Christianity is about nothing if not IN-clusiveness."

That is how Screwtape sweet-talks you into affirming that some abomination (divorce, abortion, euthanasia, adultery, gay marriage) is, actually, included within the broad reach of Christian love. It would be positively un-Christian to think ill of that "abomination." You should be ashamed you ever thought it was wrong. Are you a bigot or something?

"Strange!" I would have thought, "Christianity is about EX-clusion." On the last day the Judge shall divide the world into sheep and goats, you over on the left, you over on the right. A few of you will be chosen to enter with me into Paradise. The rest will descend, as you have chosen, into everlasting punishment. I have come not to bring peace, but the sword. He who is not with me is against me. God sent His light into the darkness, and the darkness received it not. The gate is narrow, and the way is strait. Only a tiny remnant will be saved. There was much weeping, and tears, and gnashing of teeth.

You can look it up."

Certainly Christ doesn't deny ANYONE the chance to save themselves. That's what gives the Church it's Catholicity. Except...there's a devilish detail you can't forget: Christ calls us to include people, not their sins.

People fond of the inclusivity doctrine like to point out that Jesus associated with prostitutes and sinners. You have to ask though, does he do this because he wanted to start running with the dogs? Or did he associate with the pariahs of his time so he could teach them to stop running around on all fours, see the truth he was bringing and allow it to elevate them to a new level of dignity?

To the woman caught in adultery, Christ doesn't say, "I know you're a sinner, even someone involved in an "alternative" way of life. But I'll include you anyway and make accomodations within the truth to suit your sin." This would be a very strange reading of what Jesus really says. "Go and SIN NO MORE." Seeing the heart, Christ offers mercy but with a qualification. I call it the holiness clause. It a condition on forgiveness that's rooted in the truth about how God saves us. The love is still unconditional, but Christ can't lie to himself or to us and say that we're family when we're not. If sin remains, it will divide.

The Change We Need

2009-02-07T11:12:00.001-08:00

If you believe the "Change" campaign, it would seem that Obama's rise to power marks a new messianic age. The old things have passed away. The new (and therefore necessarily better) has arrived. And that means that as the banks go belly up, Obama will come walking on the water to talk the storms of recession into leaving us all alone. If you don't believe this, ye of little, faith, then you don't understand the power of Change.

For now, you don't have to know what we're changing into or what we're changing or who's doing the changing. That will all reveal itself as it happens. What you need to do is this--be audacious enough to pick up a copy of "The Audacity of Hope." Read it and think about it. Remember, it's not so important what you're hoping for.

And if ever you get hung up on the millions of babies that are dying, don't worry about it. It's a woman's choice. Just like it's a serial killer's choice and a bank robber's choice and a terrorist's choice. You can believe whatever you want to, but it's up to them what they want to do with their God given freedoms. So stop judging them.

When it comes to abortion, think of it as a substitution play. Babies die and you get to hold on to your job. No worries. You never even have to look at the faces of those babies getting shoveled into biohazard bags...unless you take your eyes off of Jesus, I mean, Obama for a second and did a search for "priests for life aborted baby pictures." But be careful cause the audacity of your hope might get temporarily shattered. Just shake it off, take a dose of doublethink and get back with Barack.

Barack and Biden, the Change We Need.

Fight FOCA

2009-01-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

Whoever you are, it's time to stand up for life. Fight the holocaust of our times by joining your prayers and voices in the campaign against FOCA. Remember, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing...

Will The Real Mr. President Please Stand Up?

2009-01-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

People will say many things about George W. Bush. As he exits the presidential stage, many may pelt him with the metaphorical equivalent of a rotten tomato or even a size 10 shoe. You can be assured that I won’t be among the rotten fruit wielding masses since I've always been impressed by Bush's stance on unborn life. Even during his presidential death throes Bush stood up for life, declaring January 18th "National Sanctity of Human Life Day"? I can't take exception to that. Here’s the official text:

All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.

The most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent. My Administration has been committed to building a culture of life by vigorously promoting adoption and parental notification laws, opposing Federal funding for abortions overseas, encouraging teen abstinence, and funding crisis pregnancy programs. In 2002, I was honored to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to children who survive an abortion attempt. I signed legislation in 2003 to ban the cruel practice of partial birth abortion, and that law represents our commitment to building a culture of life in America. Also, I was proud to sign the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which allows authorities to charge a person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb with a separate offense in addition to any charges relating to the mother.

America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science. In our zeal for new treatments and cures, we must never abandon our fundamental morals. We can achieve the great breakthroughs we all seek with reverence for the gift of life.

The sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women. On this day and throughout the year, we aspire to build a society in which every child is welcome in life and protected in law. We also encourage more of our fellow Americans to join our just and noble cause. History tells us that with a cause rooted in our deepest principles and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens, we will prevail.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2009, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third. “

GEORGE W. BUSH

You heard what George Bush had to say about life. Now how about Barak Obama?

Question: Do you believe life begins at conception?
Obama: "You know, I-I-I, uh, th-this is something that I have not, um, I think come to a firm resolution on..."
He continues to stammer on into contradiction and incoherence.

On another occasion, Obama has this to say:
"At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" It was a question of how Mr. Obama's faith would inform his conscience and his policy. The Illinois senator's answer - "Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade"

Above his pay grade? He's adamantly pro-abortion but it's above his pay grade to know when a baby has human rights? Amazing. How can you be an unyielding supporter of something yet not know FOR SURE whether you're violating human rights? That's like emptying a couple rounds into a house but not knowing if there's people inside.

Finally, here's my favorite:
"...look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old," "I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby," Yes, instead he wants to teach them about the values and morals of killing their babies.

I don't think that in light of their records and rhetoric it's hard to figure out which of the two guys below is really holding a baby and who's putting on a show for the camera. Remember that the guy on the left doesn't even know if he's holding a human life.

Spiritual ABCs

2009-01-07T14:27:00.001-08:00

Over the years, I've been pretty suprised by the number of disgruntled "Catholics" who don't go to mass. They carry with them old wounds, infected over the years by misunderstandings so distorted I can't understand how someone would come to believe them.

Maybe the problem is that some Catholics and former Catholics have, at best, a 3rd grade understanding of their faith. They may be 40,50, or even 70 years old but they can't do the spiritual equivalent of their ABCs. They can certainly throw tantrums though.

Some of the reasons people give for leaving the Church turn out to be pretty flimsy: Sr. slapped me too many times or Father so and so turned out to be a drunk. These are reasons to leave the one TRUE Church? How many of us no longer add and subtract because of a bad experience with a math teacher? How many people deny the laws of physics because the physics teacher made fun of his students?

Physics isn't wrong because a physics teacher did something wrong. The same is true about the Catholic faith. IF you've learned what the Catholic Church teaches (most people haven't) and disagree, then at least you've made an informed decision. There's nothing wrong with that. If, like most people, you don't even know the basics, but presume to, or don't presume to and act against it anyway, well...I beg you to reconsider.

A Catholic who blows off the Church without knowing the basics is like a guy entering a spelling bee without knowing his letters. Put more dramatically, what if the same guy had to choose between two doors--one with a bear behind it, one with no bear? The doors are clearly marked as such. Only problem is our guy doesn't know how to read because as a child his reading teacher slapped him and from then on he no longer believed in the value of reading.

When someone has to make a decision to follow or not follow God, the situation is a little more dire. We're no longer talking about reading, we're talking about Truth. And the door doesn't read "bear" it says "hell." I'd say that's enough reason to take up reading again. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a good place to begin.

A Vampire at the Vatican?

2009-01-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

A woman dressed in red made a leaping aerial attack on the pope during Midnight Mass at St. Peter's Basilica. According to authorities, she intended to bite the pope in the neck, when several men tackled her to the ground. The pope and the procession continued as if nothing had happened.

If you look at the close-up, slow-mo, you can actually see the red blur of a woman in mid-air. The man in black (Undercover Swiss guard?) literally catches her as she hurls herself like a canonball toward the Holy Father.

The police confirmed that the woman had been receiving psychiatric care. Purportedly, her attack had been motivated by the pope's recent statements regarding marriage and homosexuals.

After watching the video, I'm a bit surprised at the yoda-like calm with which Benedict handled the attack. While Bush managed the flying shoe incident quite well, I think a flying woman would have been more difficult to dodge.

I wonder what WOULD have happened had the woman actually reached the pope. Rumor has it he carries a pair of blessed white nunchuks under his sleeves.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your HOLIday. Receive into your heart this day the greatest gift the world has every known: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Wacky Verse Slinging from "News"week

2008-12-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

I don't think I need to comment any further on Newsweek's "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage." Mollie Hemmingway does a good enough job demolishing it.

2008-12-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

Indiana Planned Parenthood Covers Up Sexual Abuse of 13-year Old - video powered by Metacafe

The Choices We Make

2008-11-26T22:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a great, short, free movie that's available online in it's entirety. I found it lacking in some respects but the message couldn't be more clear. A powerful expose and an example of the kind of broad thinking that uses history as a key for understanding the present. To view, click HERE.

The Land of the Free?

2008-11-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

Alright, here I am again. As the dust of the election has settled heavily upon us, there's a number of moral and poliitical challenges we have to face. Not least of these is the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). It's federal. It's legislation and the President-elect thinks it's necessary. If you want more details on what it is, you can go HERE but suffice it to say that FOCA isn't about Freedom or Choice. It's an act that would be signed in the blood of the unborn and defenseless of this nation.

As I've said before, we are LIVING in Holocaust times. You don't have to read history. You don't have to watch documentaries. Human beings are dying right now. They're no longer burning in the furnaces of the 3rd Reich. They're being torn apart in the warmth of their mother's wombs.

Maybe like me you've wondered what it would be like to look out at the skyline and see the tell-tale smoke rising from the furnaces of Aushwitz and Treblinka. But look closer. Blink not. Think not with the minds of people who are part of the problem. That's when you'll see the pieces and parts of children strewn across this nation. These are children who aren't lying in cradles but in dumpsters and trashbags. If you don't believe me, see for yourself.

Think about it and ask yourself: how can we as a nation base ourselves on "rule by the people" when we can't even recognize a person when we see one? Don't clasp your hands behind your back. Pray and act now.

Go to http://www.nchla.org/actiondisplay.asp?ID=263 for more info.

Crisis

2008-11-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

I've been barred from the internet following a move and some ISP difficulties. They say I'll be back online next week, but we'll have to see. For now, I'm using borrowed internet but when I go back home today, I'll be back in the online silent zone again. In the meantime, I won't be able to post.

This is a bit of a crisis, but it's not what I was referring to in my post title. What I'm really troubled by is the fact that Obama is president elect, that he's adamantly pro-choice and that Catholics helped to make this happen. From the stats I've seen, only slightly over 50% of all Catholics voted for McCain. Among non-mass going "Catholics", the majority actually voted the other way. This, my friends, is a crisis of catechesis and it has turned into a crisis of national conscience.

We need to pray that what comes out of this does not further the holocaust of another 50 million unborn babies. We're still in the woods on those other issues too. Economic crisis, foriegn policy, terror activities--which of these will Obama know how to handle, and handle well? Perhaps, by some miracle of grace he'll be able to navigate the policy and life issues with God's will in mind and God's love in his heart. This will be my prayer, anyway.

Countdown...

2008-10-24T13:34:00.001-07:00

Here it comes. Nov 4th: time to separate the men from the morons and the women from the wimps. Please make sure to vote and vote with your beliefs in hand. Remember that it's all about conscience. Don't leave home and don't enter that booth without it.

And if you think there's too many issues for your conscience to sort through, all I have to say is this: there's nothing more important than life. Watch this. Vote Nov. 4th and remember that the fate of this nation is in our hands.

The Beginning of Sin

2008-10-15T10:25:00.001-07:00

How many times have you heard money is the "root of all evil." But doesn't evil start from within? After all money is just an object to which we've assigned value. The money itself is morally neutral. But what comes from within us--that's a different story.

Whether you call it pride, selfishness, self-centerdness, the root cause is our fondness for saying--"I'm more important, my thoughts more real, my dignity more precious, my success more noteworthy than (fill in the blank)."

Wait a minute. Can this be true of everyone? It's impossible that even two people are the MOST important let alone 7 billion. And really, did we do anything or did God give us everything? Check what St. Gertrude has to say about this:

"Pride being the beginning of sin, humility destroys it in its root, cuts off in their very source the evils it has produced, and atones directly for the offence it has committed against God. Thus humility is the especial characteristic of the reparation of which Jesus shows us the example in the Eucharist. There, even more than in His Incarnation. He has humbled, annihilated, stripped Himself, not only of His Divine, but even of His human form, and presents to our senses only an appearance without reality.

Eucharistic soul, behold your model! "

Will the Real Shepherd Please Stand Up?

2008-10-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

If there was a bumper sticker that read "I love Archbishop Chaput" I would consider buying it. I say "consider" only because I don't really like the idea of putting an extremely sticky piece of paper on my bumper, especially because it may get dirty, ugly and never come off. Otherwise, I would definitely get a Chaput sticker.

In case you don't know who Archbishop Chaput is, he's what I consider to be a voice of hope speaking from within the heart of the Church. When wolves like Nancy Pelosi bring scandal to the flock, Archbishop Chaput brings out his shepherd's staff and gives them a good beating. Charitably, of course...

According to a recent interview with the Hoover Institute at Stanford U., Chaput says very plainly that he merely saw the Pelosi abortion scandal as a teachable moment. He doesn't rant. He doesn't foam at the mouth. He's just representin'. He's just staying with the basics of the faith, and if it seems like other "Catholics" don't agree it's not because Chaput is extreme, but because the others aren't even basic.

When asked if there's an undercurrent of anger at times present in what he says, Chaput says that there's a little initially. He goes on to quote St Augustine. To paraphase: Hope has two beautiful daughters. One is anger, the other is courage. You have anger at something that's not right. You also need the courage to do something about it. Both of these come from God.

The Heartbeat of a Nation

2008-10-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Before you vote this November, I encourage you to listen to this 30 second radio commercial. It's literally a life or death issue. Just click and be patient as the audio file loads. While you're waiting, I want you to ask yourself the following question: When (not if) I vote this coming November, will I worry about the state of the economy? (You should). Will I consider the healthcare crisis? (You're bound to need it sooner or later). And most importantly, will I think about how my vote will affect the dignity of human life? (You can't be a bystander on this one). Just think. Without the right to life, maybe I wouldn't be alive to write this and maybe you wouldn't be alive to read it).

Thank God for life. Vote for life.

The Right Kind of Feminists...

2008-10-03T16:40:00.001-07:00

Motherhood has always been a choice. Love it or leave it, the choice is between the mother and the child. Even among those who choose to give birth, the choice remains: do I eat more, sleep more and breathe more, or do I make sure my child gets all of the above before I worry about myself? A good mother makes a daily choice in favor of her children. That's the fact that all well reared and well nurtured children know. Extended to the abortion issue, the choice is no different, with the exception that the choice involves an UNBORN CHILD. When a woman becomes pregnant she's not GOING TO BE a mother, she already IS one.

Here's a piece by Joshua Mercer that further explores the unborn and life issue from a feminist and celebrity point of view:

"Supermodels have spoken out recently against the use of animal fur, actors in favor of government funding for arts, rock stars against nuclear proliferation — and so on.

Now a small, but growing, number of celebrities have begun to step forward to proclaim their opposition to both abortion and the death penalty."

Click HERE to continue reading:

Gianna Jessen Saline Abortion Survivor

2008-09-22T11:00:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered if one of the over 48 million American children aborted since 1973 might have found the cure for cancer? Maybe it's a more mundane thought, but I've always wondered what those children would look like? What kind of personalities would they have? If they were allowed to speak, what would they say?
This video put something of an end to that speculation...

Still and Small

2008-09-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Even Christ seemed to have trouble praying when he wasn't quiet and alone. That's telling, isn't it? No wonder we have so much trouble finding God ANYWHERE in our lives even though he's EVERYWHERE. I mean, just imagine if Elijah was rocking out with his new IPOD. Would he have heard the "still small voice"?* Could he have discerned God's presence?

I'm not ragging on IPODs (just as long as they haven't become a permanent part of your anatomy and physiology.). I'm just saying. If we clutter our minds with whatever, how can we discern a God who likes to work in subtle and silent ways? For me the ridiculous running commentary I hear in my head is enough to block out what God's saying. If, once in a while, I shut up...a holy whisper, a still small voice, God has been speaking all along.

If you have a moment, find your silence. Listen. If you get a chance, put in a word for me too. We all need it...this habit of silence. It's the requirement for cleaning house within ourselves and for changing the world. Why? Because if our own things aren't in order, we can't order anything else outside of us. The clutter within just keeps spilling out into the world.

*1 Kings 19 11-12
[11] And he said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;
[12] and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

If It Walks like a Catholic...

2008-09-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

What do Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden have in common? Answer: Foot in mouth politics. First up,Pelosi. She recently stepped up to her pulpit and claimed that her views on abortion are consistent with those of the Catholic Church. It turns out the Church hasn't always considered abortion to be an intrinsically evil act. Hmm...If this is really what the Church teaches why have the bishops torn off their zuchettos and folded up the sleeves of their cassocks in denunciation of what she said?

Strangely, Pelosi doesn't recant. Instead, she pontificates with renewed zeal. (Maybe that's just the way political rhetoric has to come off: absurdly self-assured) Her "research" (and misinterpretation of Church history) has led her to defy and deny, and then she takes it upon herself to pontificate, freely and often. Maybe Pelosi has taken her post as Speaker of the House to mean that she can speak about anything.

Biden is our second heavy hitter. Unfortunately, he decides to take a good whack at his own foot with a clumbsy piece of logic that contradicts itself within the next sentence over. Biden stated (in the same show Pelosi appeared in) that he assumes the pro-life stance as a matter of faith, but will graciously refrain from "imposing" his "pro-life" views on the people of America. While this sounds really noble in the pandering, political sense of the Cuomo doctrine, I find it to be about as attractive and logical as a yeast infection. I wonder if Biden would likewise say that he believes in his own right to life but wouldn't want to impose this view on a group of people who wanted to murder him.

I mean c'mon. When was the last time you saw two politicians rise up to say that Stephen Hawking was wrong about black holes? Or that Tiger Woods could use some pointers on how to swing his club? Maybe Stephen King needs Pelosi and Biden's help to write his next work of horror. Seriously.

So here's the bottom line on Pelosi and Biden. They walk like Catholics. They talk like Catholics. They look like Catholics. But don't be fooled. They're really politicians who pretend to be theologians.

Catholic Vote 2008

2008-09-15T10:55:00.001-07:00

This November, one of the most critical and momentous decisions of our time is coming to a voting booth near you.

Creative Liturgy

2008-08-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

After experiencing "creative" liturgy this morning I just thought I'd offer a quick reflection. I would boil it down this way: if people try to imbue relevance into liturgy where they think it's lacking or bring clowns to mass as a sideshow they betray a myopic view of the Church's liturgy.

We don't own the liturgy. We can't claim credit for the grace it effects, nor is our job to make it relevant. The question has always been whether what we do is relevant to the liturgy. Strange how things get reversed.

How this happened I can't completely explain. Perhaps it started with an insatiable need to express creativity. Of course, this is not a bad thing, in and of itself, but creativity can lead to bad, nay, ugly results when misapplied. Creativity applies when presenting truth, not in determining it.

So this means that I take the truths of the Church as they are (the revelation of Jesus Christ). I don't pretend to create them ANEW. I don't play with creative interpretations that eschew what Christ made clear. Creativity has its place in how I decide to present truths--new angles, analogies, connections--but what I create is a novel presentation, not a novel truth.

There ARE times when novel presetation does go awry. For example, when valuing fidelity to the Church's highest prayer, the holy mass. If a priest decides to embellish or go extemporaneous during the Eucharistic prayer, he's taking ownership for something that doesn't belong to him. The Eucharistic prayer belongs to the Church. If changes need to be made, the Church at large will decide, not Fr. X at parish Y. Deviating from this is an affront to the Catholicity (universality) of the Church. We are Catholic precisely because we believe and do the same basic things the same basic way.

I invite you to pray with me that the few priests who get too creative will learn to use creativity in its proper context. In the meantime , let's pray for patience.

From Banality to Beauty

2008-07-15T20:41:00.001-07:00

As an antidote to "Music and Lyrics" (ML) I recently watched an Indie romance/drama called "Bella." The unlikely cook/protagonist struck me as a man who sought to anger the gods of the me-culture, not by any device of his own, nor even by clear intention, but by caring more about what he did to others than what they did to him. What's winning about the movie is that he did all this without sacrificing style. He was a saint in a pair of Converse , a "heart-throb" with a heart.

If you're itching to see a movie that has a cover and a spine, try Bella. It's themes are old but not tired. It has none of the banality of the do me now, and reflect on it later crap that Hollywood likes to package as a love story. Bella is about life. It's about authenticity. It's about wearing your heart on your sleeve no matter how dirty that sleeve becomes. (For more information check out the the official Bella website hyperlinked below)

http://www.bellamoviesite.com/

Music and Lyrics

2008-06-24T21:08:00.001-07:00

Gratuities usually mean good things for the gas-starved and gaunt among us. You can’t count on it though, like when it comes to Hollywood and its gratuities of sex and, if you’re watching a teen horror flick, that old bed buddy “gore.” Feed too much from that cornucopia and your soul will suffer soon enough from an endless succession of dry heaves.

This very thing happened to me a few nights ago when I got sucked into the cinematic bucket ‘o slime called “Music and Lyrics.” A biliary aftertaste lingers still, so I‘m trying to lay out my thoughts with great effort (Be forewarned, I'm divulging some critical plot elements in the next sentence over.) It would seem that only an action of grace can free my memory of the central scene in which the character of Drew Barrymore (plant caretaker/miracle lyricist) explains to Hugh Grant/Alex Fletcher, a trite parallel between the meaning of music and romance. With her lip twisting lisp, the Drew character observes with classic buffoonery that music and melody are like that first attraction and the sex that (curiously)must flow from it. The lyrics, like the real meat of the relationship, comes afterward.

Wow. An incredible romantic crescendo...to have sex first and form a relationship later. The movie’s one philosophic moment and it leaves us with this shipwreck of a revelation. What scares me more is that without sifting through the flotsam of this statement for a real splinter of truth, someone might take this movie’s message for something deep. Why don’t we just skewer people onto a sample platter and let strangers have a taste before they choose to buy?

It reminds me of those 3rd grade reading comprehension questions that ask you to order the three statements in the order in which they should happen. Just for fun, here’s the Drew Barrymore version: 1. Attraction 2. Sex 3. Love /relationship Here’s God’s version: 1. Attraction 2. Love /relationship 3. (Sex) Hey, and if you say the order doesn’t matter then you’re missing something fundamental about men and women.

Sex is an affirmation. Love is the thing affirmed. We can’t in the end say (truthfully, genuinely, with integrity) that we affirm something that doesn’t exist. Hollywood calls this insincere act “romantic comedy.” I call it “lying with your loins.”

What is Truth?

2008-06-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

"What is truth?" Such was the famous query Pontius Pilate directed to Jesus shortly before the crucifixion. Centuries later, Benedict the XVI basically says, "put away the question Pilate, because I know what you're trying to say and I'd advise you not to go there."

The Pilatian followup would have fitted nicely with the relativism of today. "Yeah, Okay. So I'll just come out and say it. There is no such thing as truth. And if there is, then I'm the one who decides what it will be. You'll make yours. I'll make mine. Unfortunately for Jesus, the truth he made for himself got him lynched and pinned to a pole."

Then there's Benedict's refutation. "Okay buddy. Let me lay it out for you. You're right, there's no such thing as truth in your mind. It's not a product of your thinking, not something that you give meaning to. It's very simply something you receive or reject--nothing else can be done with it."

I imagine Pilate would mumble something about that being hard to take, echoing the dissident disciples in John 6:60. Enter Jesus: "well then it's your choice: freedom through truth or slavery to the lie that you can create truth." We all know that Jesus was as good as anything he said. The truth of his love is the proof of that and again, the choice remains whether we accept it or reject it.

The 50 Million Dollar Question

2008-06-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

What event(s) will we bemoan most 50 years from now? I'll keep the Holocaust and slavery off the list of possibilities only because most people find these things lamentable NOW. But in 50 years, will we find something equally or even more atrocious and appalling? I have some ideas but if you have any I'd like to hear them.
Sadly, it shouldn't be too hard to think of a few.

The Time 100

2008-05-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

According to Time magazine, their A-list of influential people includes "the hundred men and women whose power, talent and moral example are transforming the world."

Hmm...I suppose the same person doesn't have to have all three qualities. How else might we explain the inclusion of Hillary Clinton? How about Miley Cyrus, Brad Pitt, and Chris Rock?

Ok. I admit they do wield power (in the worldly sense)...maybe they even have talent (in the cheap theatrical sense) but moral example?! Might as well present James Bond with an award for chastity.

Of course, Time's say has about as much credibility as a wolf at a Little Red Riding Hood convention. But there's no denying the "transforming" effect of this annual poll--especially for the greener sprouts among us who form opinions based on what Time, Oprah or Cosmo say or don't say. By the way, Oprah also made the list. Go figure.

Pope Benedict was interestingly absent. His talent is beyond question. His moral example indisputable. Somehow he didn't register on Time's power-meter, I guess. I'm a little baffled, though. Leader of a billion people, private audience with the United Nations, part of a 2,000 year old unbroken succession, but not powerful, nor prominent enough? Someone should send the pope a memo that he needs a dirty joke, a maudlin talk show, or a teeny-bopper concert or two to register on Time's radar.

I could go on. I really could. But I'll just say this: If, God forbid, Time's A-list really does "transform the world," I'm moving to Mars.

Extremely Graphic

2008-05-06T08:18:00.001-07:00

This is extremely GRAPHIC but revelatory in a way that only a video can be...Watch, pray, and act.

You're Infinitely Lovable

2008-05-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

These days it seems I have nothing worse to do than to ponder proverbs like "Corruptio Optimi Pessima" (The corruption of the best is the worse). Today's tabloids don't leave any room for speculation about whether this is true. If you've been spared I would like to find out what planet you live on.

Then I'd want to move there. Anything to avoid the daily vomit of sludge and smut streaming live from podcasts, flowing through the airways, parading across the printed page, and spewing forth from the mouths of our own children.

It's the children I think that bring into bold relief what it means that the corruption of the best is the worse.I'm reminded of the Matt 7:6 injunction to not "throw your pearls before swine." There's also Matt 13:46 which takes up the pearl image again, describing the man who sells everything to seek a "pearl of great price" , the Kingdom of heaven as it were.

But I think it's also interesting to reverse the metaphor, describing the pearls as people, children especially. The role switch makes God the actor. He then becomes "the man" who "sells everything"(the glory of heaven) to search out the treasure of humanity buried so deeply in sin. God comes to save the best in us. Fr. Joseph Fessio described this reinterpretation during a homily a few years ago.

Though it takes some liberties, hermenuetically speaking, the metaphor resonates with the Church's teaching. Life is not about humanity's quest for God. It's really about God's quest for humanity.

To God, we ARE pearls of great price. Great enough for ransom and redemption. Great enough for death and new life. As C.S. Lewis once wrote: "You've never talked to a mere mortal." Everyone you've ever met carries the indelible marks of their Maker, a dignity big enough to continue to the other side of the grave.

Perhaps only when we do reach that "other side" will we really see the brilliance of the pearls that were made to be. Brilliant not because we're smart, not because we're sexy, slim, pretty, powerful or rich--all things that count for nothing in the kingdom--but because God who is Love itself, has loved us with everything that he is... ALL of God for EVERY ONE of us.

Pope Benedict Explains the Purpose of Higher Education

2008-04-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

The beat of the university's heart is like the ticking of a clock in a universe without time. Debates would ring out. Theories and facts would rise to favor. Injustices would be justified. Religious intolerance would be tolerated. And Science would offer the best salvation attainable this side of the twilight zone. Truth, I'm afraid has been sent on an involuntary sabbatical.

For 13 years, I tasted sludge of "tolerance" that's oozed forth from higher education. At best, it's been an unstable mix of freedom anchored by the sea of whim, it's waves crashing into the mind's shore.

I might say that it's Providence that as I ready to leave the hallowed halls of secularism, Pope Benedict has arrived in the U.S. to address the state of Catholic education. He expressed my feelings in a way I haven't been able to articulate all these years. It was a catharsis 13 years in the making. Go HERE to see what I mean.

Sheepherder Lands at U.S. Airforce Base

2008-04-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Just moments ago, the Holy Father, Benedict XVI descended from his papal jet (dubbed the Shepherd One), to approach the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base. In the background, exuberant cheering, the booms of a 21 gun salute, and the frenzy of a security detail perhaps unseen in recent U.S. history. As the pope disembarked, he was greeted by a decidedly beaming George W. Bush and an equally ebullient First Lady and daughter.

Stay tuned to watch the successor of Peter carry on the mission of his predecessors, bringing light to the moral darkness of our culture. His theme for this visit: "Christ Our Hope." For ongoing coverage you can go to EWTN.COM. Under "Television" click on "live TV" streaming via internet 24 hrs. a day or via satellite through your local provider.

Nature and the Nature of Sacraments

2008-04-09T07:52:00.001-07:00

Catholics believe that sacraments "effect what they signify." Imagine if everthing you draw comes to life. If you drew a million bucks, the drawing would become exactly that. Banana split, dulce de leche, Ferrari, girl or guy of your dreams...you draw it, you got it.

In a way, sacraments are like that. They make something that's "out there", something invisible, unattainable, and untouchable as real as anything you can imagine. Water, oil, a priest, all of these come to stand for AND make real what they signify.

So why all the trouble? Why rituals and representations instead of good old-fahsioned grace straight from God to me? Again, it's not that God needs nature to communicate his love. It's that people need nature in order to understand God. Why would the author of nature NOT work through nature? Why would he not use water, wine, spit, dirt, bread, fish, flesh, blood and his very body to enact miracles of grace?

This is exactly how salvation itself came to be. Jesus became flesh and made real the promise of life. Through a PHYSICAL act of death and resurrection, he "effected" or made real what had, up to that point, been a mere concept. (If you have any doubt about how sensory this was, watch "Passion of the Christ")

Jesus is the ultimate reality of what sacrament means--"The Word made flesh" representing and fulfilling the Word of scripture. But it doesn't stop there. He continues to become flesh in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Experience it and you will see, smell, taste and touch what a sacrament is all about.

The Bar

2008-03-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

The scene: time warp to 6th grade. The menu: 90 million permutations of the "old man's poison." The fun: profanity and sexual innuendo. The vibe: live piano crooning that would throw Chopin into a fit of nausea. The question: why was I there?

That I can't answer. I don't drink. Parlor music makes me sick. And the combo of cussing and crude sex talk reminds me of the elementary boy's bathroom. The moral of this story: never accept an invitation to a shady, low-brow cavern even if your entire class of soon to be "doctor" friends will be there to celebrate the end of the anatomy class from hell.

The remedy: Divine Mercy Sunday. Only God's grace can cleanse my soul's palate after last night's entree of neandarthal "fun."

Why I'm In Favor of Banning Certain Books

2008-03-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

Spread the word...we need to kill this book using any means necessary (well, almost any means).

A Call For Prayer

2008-03-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you well-armed with rosaries and/or good intentions please offer a prayer for my father-in-law. He awaits open-heart bypass surgery in the next day or so. Unfortunatley, he already underwent a quadruple bypass years ago and may not do as well this time around.

I'm praying that God will let him pass through this trial with a stronger heart and deeper faith. Then I'm gonna have to pull out my whip and give him some motivation to exercise and eat right.

Until then, please say a prayer for him and for the family. Thanks.

Why Your Purse Isn't as Fat as It Should Be

2008-02-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

The Primacy of Love

2008-02-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

St. Augustine:"Love God and do what you will." I intend to do this throughout Lent, at Easter, after Easter and indefnitely beyond. No doubt, it sounds too simple, but I think that's exactly what it should be. The economy of God's grace makes everything reducible to love, with love for God as the main river and all other genuine loves as tributaries that flow from it.

That being said, loving God is easy as a concept but difficult to make into the reality of daily habit. With so many competing attachments, perhaps our only hope is to ask God himself to help us pick them off one by one. I suppose there's no better time to start than now.

"The grace of Divine love is that grace which contains in itself every grace" (St. Francis de Salles)

Life Matters

2008-02-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

When the Terri Shiavo case hit mainstream news, the media seemed to redefine the issue as an invidiual's wishes vs. what her parents wanted. According to Terri's husband, Terri would've wanted to starve and dehydrate to death rather than live as a "vegetable." Her parents thought otherwise. In the end, the courts ruled in favor of the husband, Terri died, and the issue of life got swept away with the fading waves of media coverage.

The main issue, that of God's Lordship over life and death did not make it to the fore...neither did the issue of whether or not it should be permissable for anyone to will in advance or in the moment to die by starvation/dehydration. Unfortunately, THE ISSUE will have to be revisited, perhaps with similarly tragic consequences. Let's pray that this will not be the case.

Click HERE for the latest on the battle for life.

Darkening

2008-01-31T19:25:00.000-08:00

St. John of the Cross left many impressive insights in his writings and by his example of mystical living. One idea that's struck me recently is the notion of "darkening." It would seem that those who propose to follow the Light of the World in Jesus Christ would shun all forms of darkening but John of the Cross explains how following God's light requires that we embrace a certain kind of darkness.

He boils it down elegantly to three steps (not necessarily sequential). First, by darkening the intellect, we're able to empty the mind of it's pretentions and follow then the path of faith. Second, when darkening the memory, we leave the past where it is in order to find a future of hope. Third, once we're able to darken the will, accepting only God's will, we achieve the reality of Divine love.

These darkenings are a simple yet difficult proposition. I can't stop marveling at the beauty of what he taught and how Biblical it is in it's connecting of the doctrine of self-denial (Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me...e.g. Matthew 16:24) and that of the theological virtues (So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.1 Corinthians 13:13).

They Don't Do Politics Like They Used To

2008-01-18T17:46:00.000-08:00

Recently, I stumbled upon this jewel from the presidential past: "The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related." (Ronald Reagan). This statement is apt enough, especially in light of recent disavowals from political types who say faith has nothing to do with their political decisions.

As Reagan's statement begins to imply, morality and life itself (in private and public) are inseperable. All of God's domain is one of moral relevance. Wherever we are, wherever we go, there's no escaping creation. And whenever we find ourselves in that created order, we also find ourselves in the presence of God, a presence that by its very nature, implies morality. Insofar as one's religion relates to moral choices, religion can't be separated from anything we do, any more than the rules of chess can be separated from chess decisions.

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from you presence? If I ascend to heaven you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me..." (Psalm 139: 7-10).

Island Life

2008-01-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

Of the things I listed in my Nov. 9th post, I've been able to accomplish 1, 3, and 9. As for 6 (stopping my complaints to God about flying roaches), I haven't managed that, and must add to the the mix, the horror of seeing a gecko in a house in Kona. I admit, though some would think such admissions threaten the virility of manhood, that I'm more squeamish than my wife about such things. Roaches, house geckos, Hawaiian "Cane" spiders, and other creatures that creep and crawl don't go well with my constitution. I guess that's why God made me a pretty fast runner.

So as you might have guessed, I've been away somewhere for a while. And as you are very astute, you'll have deduced that that somewhere was in Hawaii. Our fist few nights, we stayed at a veritable plantation in Kiliua Kona with views of the Pacific and greeen peaks North of the city. Then we took an inter-island flight to Honolulu and hopped in a car to the very botanical suburbs of Wahiawa, which is located in central Oahu.

We saw the shield volcanoes and related lava-carved tunnels in Kona, about 20 miles South of Hilo, attended a wedding in Oahu's north shore, trekked the rain-soaked trails that led 1.5 miles up to Manoa Falls, and visited two world famous sister beaches, Kailua and Lanikai.(You can see the view from Lanikai in the picture I took). It's hard to describe the forests, hills and beaches , filtered through hazy sunlight, and varying amounts of rain (ranging from a feathery drizzle to a shower of fists) in just one post. But this will have to do for now.

Merry Tossmas

2007-12-14T15:14:00.001-08:00

The commercial hackers get up like proverbial early birds to get their worms...I mean, shoppers each year. It seems we're blasted by earlier campaigns for holiday shopping, but foggier notions of what holiday we're shopping for...

Click HERE:

Golden Compass Or Cheap Metal?

2007-12-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

From the Denver Catholic Register, Archbishop Chaput writes:

"When the first Harry Potter movie arrived in theaters several years ago, many Catholic families had divided views about the film. Some enjoyed it as an innocent and intriguing fantasy. Others avoided it because of its emphasis on magic. But the screen adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book, “The Golden Compass,” which opened in Denver on Dec. 7, will likely produce far more agreement. No matter how one looks at it, “The Golden Compass” is a bad film. There’s just no nicer way to say it. "

I saw it at an 8:30 evening showing on Dec. 8. The theater was largely deserted. That may be a trend. While “The Golden Compass,” released by New Line Cinema, ranked No. 1 in box office revenues on its opening weekend, it took in only a modest $26.1 million. The three “Ring Trilogy” movies grossed between $47 and $72 million on their respective opening weekends, and “The Chronicles of Narnia” had opening revenues of more than $65 million. In fact, secular critics have been less than kind to the movie, and for good reason. It’s long, complicated, and despite a very gifted supporting cast and wonderful special effects, the story is finally lifeless. Much of the movie takes place in the polar north, and the iciness of the setting is a perfect metaphor for the chilly, sterile spirit at the heart of the story. Anyone expecting a playful children’s fantasy would do well to look elsewhere. There is nothing remotely “playful” about this movie.

As many readers will already know, Philip Pullman is an atheist, and “The Golden Compass” — the first book in his trilogy “His Dark Materials” — is a calculated counter-story to Christian-based fantasies like “The Lord of the Rings” and “Narnia.” “The Golden Compass” takes place in a parallel world similar to earth, but dominated by a sinister quasi-religious authority known as the Magisterium. This powerful elite seeks to “protect” people — for their own good — by shielding them from scientific knowledge, represented by the movie’s mysterious cosmic dust and a truth-telling piece of technology called an “alethiometer” (or golden compass). More specifically, the Magisterium abducts young children and literally kills their souls, thereby extinguishing the spirit of free thought and inquiry.

The aggressively anti-religious, anti-Christian undercurrent in “The Golden Compass” is unmistakable and at times undisguised. The wicked Mrs. Coulter alludes approvingly to a fictional version of the doctrine of Original Sin. When a warrior Ice Bear — one of the heroes of the story — breaks into the local Magisterium headquarters to take back the armor stolen from him, the exterior walls of the evil building are covered with Eastern Christian icons. And for Catholics in our own world, of course, “Magisterium” refers to the teaching authority of the Church — hardly a literary coincidence. The idea that any Christian film critics could overlook or downplay these negative elements, as some have seemed to do, is simply baffling.

Strangest of all — and in striking contrast to the Harry Potter and Narnia stories — is the absence of joy or any real laughter in the movie. The talented child actress who plays the film’s leading role is hobbled by a character that is uniformly unpleasant, rebellious, belligerent and humorless; the kind of young person described by one of my parent friends as needing a “long time-out.”

Obviously, parents are the primary teachers of their children. They need to use their own best judgment about whether a film is suitable for their families. But I’ll certainly be encouraging my own friends to put their Christmas cash to better use. In fact, maybe the most cynical and insulting thing about “The Golden Compass” is that its makers would offer this cold, angry, anti-religious fable as “holiday fare” in the midst of a season built around the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s certainly worth a letter to the people at New Line Cinema. With two more books in the Pullman trilogy as possible sequels, it might be helpful if they heard from all of us."

Emmanuel

2007-12-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

Advent alerts us to possibilities beyond the every day. Usually, we're too lulled by the steady sussurations of quiet breathing, the constant, consistent, numbing motions of modern me-seeking, too anesthetized to engage Divine realities.

Then Advent comes. It disrupts us. Stirs us. Awakens us. Perhaps like me, you've found that you've been caught mid-stream, stoking the fires of self-seeking, feeding the fires that consume but never refine or purify.

Advent's fire and its scintillating light are nothing like this. They point to the light of Christmas morning and to the dawn of the Son of God. It leaves no doubt, that given human flesh, the Lord of life can, has, and continues to redeem what the darkness had left for dead.

A Turkey and a Toddler

2007-11-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

I’m sure God meant for us to eat most of that deep fried bird, and apparently my daughter (who just turned 3) agrees. Over dinner, she came out of left field with: “When I was a grandma, I used to eat turkey butt.” After the water I was drinking came out my nose and the heaves of laughter subsided, I manage to decipher the toddlerian logic. Apparently, the ½ pint was listening when we offered her grandpa a piece of crispy, deep fried, turkey butt over Thanksgiving dinner a few days before. Then, having summoned the memory of the fowl’s rear end and taking into account the fact that she’s a girl and thus a “grandma,” her thought took shape with marvelous, matter of fact.

We’re hoping this fowl memory won’t make its way into her next prayer before meals.

Free Love (and Sex)

2007-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

One day, when the sexual revolution reaches back to kick itself in the butt, our true liberation will finally begin. We'll realize that freedom and happiness are contained in the body since it is a temple of God's spirit and an icon of his Trinitarian life.

When we see clearly, we'll revolt against the lies of lust and hollow exploitation that have been the fruits of "free love." John Paul II has anticipated the counter-revolution since even before his pontificate began. Over many years, he delivered what has become known as the "Theology of the Body" which George Weigel has referred to as a "theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences some time in the third millenium"

That this "bomb" hasn't already exploded into mainstream Catholic circles, let alone secular ones, is one of the most lamentable facts of recent world history. The theology of the body is an interpretive key. Its subject is love. Its scope is life and its meaning is tied up in God, the sexes, sex, salvation, sanctification, and the hope of heaven.

If you haven't heard about, talked about, preached about it...now is the time to get started. God is waiting for some revolutionaries. Check out the Theology of the Body.

John Corapi: Not Your Typical Love Story

2007-11-14T15:07:00.000-08:00

He started out as a small fry in a small town. Later he'd become a high school football star, a Green Baret, then, a millionaire mogul in Sin City. He finally wound up as a cocaine-sniffing, Ferrari-driving Hollywood big shot who sold houses to Hollywood's hottest stars.

From there came the decresendo to homeless and hopeless in the streets of L.A. The only direction left was up, and that's the direction he went. From the streets he was beckoned back to the home of his birth by the words of a Marian prayer that his mother sent by way of a card.

A one-way ticket home, a lengthy confession, and a miracle or two later, John Corapi finally found his calling. He entered a seminary, earned four degrees in scripture and theology, graduated at the top of his class and was ordained by Pope John Paul II. Mother Teresa sat just a few feet away.

Today, Fr. Corapi has discovered his true love. He travels extensively, teaching and preaching. He is a man wedded to the Church, a man of purpose, and a man burning with the knowledge that "the Truth is not a something, it's a somebody, and his name is Jesus Christ."

What Next?

2007-11-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of things I hope to accomplish soon:

1. Find a car that can take me from A to B (even better if it will take me all the way to Z)

2. Defeat my daughter in a nose flare but do-not-laugh contest

3. Nod at 100% of what my wife says though I only understand 50% of it (this would be a 20% improvement in both the nodding and comprehension departments)

4. Vanquish the forces of darkness (with help)

5. Learn the chords to the Fridayat3 album

6. Stop complaining to God about why he created flying roaches and long lines at the DMV

7. Figure out a cure for getting lost (repeatedly)

8. Celebrate Thanksgiving without noticing how many Christmas displays have been enticing people to spend since Halloween

9. Deep fry a turkey (after defrosting it but before eating it)

10.Figure out why God gave me a pinkie that refuses to play the guitar like its four neighbors do

All Hallows Eve

2007-11-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Nov. 1 and Nov 2 mark the feasts of what I call the forgotten ones. Kids are too hungover from red # 7, whey and milk chocolate. Adults just don't care. But why should we care? Halloween's over, isn't it? Now it's time for Thanksgiving, oops, I mean "Turkey Day." The PC police might cite me for saying Thanksgiving because I'd be implying that there's someone to thank. Like, for instance, God.

Anyway, Nov. 1, of course is All Saints day. The business world "networks" and so does the Church. Only difference is the Church networks with dead people. (no, it's not the psychic friends network or the high school seance club). It's the extended network of heavenly helpers--people who died in Christ and so live forever with him. I like to think some of them are my personal friends. And who wouldn't want to have friends in high places?

As for Nov 2 (All souls day) we again affirm life after death. Only, the Church focuses instead on prayers for them, rather than from them. What's the difference? Well, the saints are sanctified, the souls are not (as best we can tell). Therefore, to forget them is to forefeit the power of grace that we can allow to work through our membership in the Body of Christ.

Now, Halloween and Hollywood would like you to forget these two important days. Ever notice what kids wear on Oct 31st? How many saints and real heros do you see at your door? (By the way...basketball players, power rangers and princesses don't count.). How often have movies depicted holiness as something we should strive for? Sometimes, it happens, but too often, heroes go for guts, glory, shooting guns, vengeance or something more glamorous.

When I see those movies, I just ask myself the question: what's easier, shooting your worse enemy or putting the gun down and walking away? Hollywood thinks the power and glory is in the former. The saints (and the baby Jesus) seem to insist on the latter. What say you?

Gratitude

2007-10-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

I once came across a woman who was disappointed that her son became a pharmacist and not a doctor. True story. She felt let down because her other three children were MDs.

It seemed amazing to me for a few reasons (aside from the fact that pharmacy is about as important and respectable as medicine). I remember thinking about all the things the guy could've done (dropping out of high school, joining a gang, becoming a tax collector--j/k). There were so many reasons for the mom to be happy and so few to be sad.

Many of my recent experiences with parents show that there are many challenging and trying realities that are much worse than the failure to take the Hippocratic oath. Then again these unfortunate things can sometimes be great blessings.

This was the case for me when a 6 year old girl who has a missing corpus callosum, autism, hearing and visual impairments, heart defects and mental retardation looked at me with obvious mirth in her eyes and said "Goodbye, I'll see you tomorrow." It was a wonder to hear an appropriate statement like that from her...especially since she had never spoken a year ago.

Those are the kind of things that make pharmacy and medical degrees seem so irrelevant.

Liking and Loving

2007-10-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Some people say “I love it” when they mean “I really like it.” It’s really fascinating to me how things like this come about in the English language. We’ve adopted so many foreign phrases, invented so many strange colloquialisms, and broke so many “rules” of conjugation and pluralization--how do we follow it all?

But how love lost some of its color and got applied to animals, plants, cars and coffee is what I really would like to know. As harmless as it might seem, applying a uniquely human term to inanimate objects and animals may have some repercussions.

On the one hand ennobling a Hershey’s bar by saying how much we love it does no harm to anyone. Of course, it’s often the symptom on one’s addiction to the cult of self-gratification. On the other hand, stretching the meaning of love (selfless sacrifice) and applying it to things that we just like (a lot) might lead to problems.

By using “love” as a synonym for like, could we be heading toward treating people like Hershey’s bars, ice cream, fast cars, and whatever else we have a use for or find pleasure in? Could a cheapening of a word make its original meaning less valuable? I imagine this might go beyond a concept—especially in a society in which people and relationships are like fashions.

I think the problem may be that sometimes language shapes our attitudes and behaviors in ways we don’t understand. Perhaps it’s best we save our most precious and endearing terms for the most precious and important things. Then we don’t have to worry about distinguishing “I love my dog” from “I love my God”

Poor Clares Keep It Real

2007-10-08T20:48:00.000-07:00

Last post, I mentioned the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," an ersatz group of "sisters" (actually Catholic bashing gay men).

Today I thought I'd throw in a word for the real deal. Driven by a love for Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament, these sisters spend their time and dimes in endless adoration. Here is the link to their blog: Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration.

Perpetual Indulgence Meets Miller Brewing Company

2007-10-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

Miller Brewing Company recently received a buffeting in the form of a national boycott. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a think-tank and watchdog organization orchestrated said boycott after Miller decided to offer its corporate nod and wink to San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair.

If you don’t know about this edifying menagerie, the Folsom Fair features nearly nude gay men wearing spiked collars, leather thongs, and other family friendly fashions. While they parade, they make a point of fondling, groping and kissing each other in full view of families and children. In case you mistake it for Disney on Ice, they make sure to put an ice-sculpture of a penis on display. They wouldn't want to mislead anyone.

Not to be confused for a live and let live event, the Folsom Street Fair also showcases a less than subtle anti-Christian (and specifically anti-Catholic) agenda. The “Sisters” of Perpetual Indulgence figure prominently. (If you're wondering, they're men wearing clown-like makeup and skimpy habits)

Miller’s sponsorship angered the Catholic League and many Christian groups. Many took particular exception to the nude, sadomasochistic mockery of the Last Supper, which featured prominently displayed sex toys. Why a bigwig corporation like Miller would pull its name through the sewers and gutters of Folsom street is beyond me. I mean does beer have anything to do with irresponsible, uninhibited behavior? Perhaps we can all ponder the question while sipping a Miller Lite? Or perhaps not…

Fasting as a School of Love

2007-09-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

“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” — Romans 12:1

My non-Catholic friend once spoke for the baffled and bewildered (Christian, Catholic and not): she had asked me to explain the purpose of fasting. The question was not only reasonable but relevant. Without knowing it, she had brought to the fore the contrast between Christ and a society whose gastronomic tendencies belie the fact that it’s cravings for entertainment have been built on the bones of anorexic ideals.

The historian Robert Taft once wrote that “Today among contemporary religious one hears more of gourmet cooking than of fasting — a striking counter symbol to anyone even superficially acquainted with the spiritual literature at the origins of religious life.” I might add that among contemporary religious one also hears more of feelings than of sacrifice. Yet this is no surprise. Relational feelings, the “high”, the “honeymoon”, these are things that have rightfully earned their place as the bed-buddies of reckless eating—they’ve both taken board in the mansion of ego.

In the case of food, the indiscretion seems somehow slightly more excusable. We eat to “feel.” Therefore, food is nothing but an idol of feeling. The fruits of its idolatry are felt as the dopaminergic experience we call “savory” or “incredibly edible” Yet when the great fortress of love finds as its foundations those first feelings that twitch and tickle the heart, turning it toward quixotic notions that even the irrational is possible, a different idolatry has taken hold. Here then, not only is there worship of the self for pleasure’s sake, but “love” that’s not what it claims to be. The cross of sacrifice, the self-giving that’s quintessential to the Christian spirit, gets turned on its head (but not for the martyr’s baptism of blood, itself an icon of self-giving, but for a reorientation to the universe in which one’s self is the sun and center.

Abstract as these realities may seem, the results tend to reveal themselves concretely enough. The nightmare and crisis that defines marriages today depends on whether couples can balance their relationship on the head of a pin called “loving feelings.” Once they no longer feel such infatuated longings, “the flame is out,” and the curtain closes on an often short-lived theater of marital misery. Like the two month old milk that inspires indigestion, or the ragged CD that fails to quicken pulses to its beat, spouses who no longer spark the addictive feelings and force of romantic appeal get chucked with whatever else no longer serves our purposes.

Love that’s based on feelings is good enough for merry-weather and crumpets, but it crumbles quickly when subjected to the crucible of life. Struggle, pain, starved affections, misunderstanding, misgivings—such things can be the companions of authentic love. These all provide impetus for one to exercise a will independent of feelings. This is love: to decide to honor a spouse who is poor, or sick, or worse, and all of this, even into the dark night that is absent of sense, soul and feeling.

This was what Christ crystallized with the totality of his being. Ascending the hill of Calvary, he puttered on by the fire of unquenchable love, not by the smoke and fumes of some lower passion. There was nothing to gain for him but what he gained for us. This insistence of his will, bereft of good feelings, was a totally and purely love-inspired act.

Since Jesus leaves us with the injunction to “love one another as I have loved you” loving as he did must therefore lie within the realm of grace. Yet this is only made real by the effort of conscious and constant choices. To do this is daily and difficult. It defies our natural inclinations and it requires the discipline of practice, which is what I believe fasting affords.

Here again is Taft as quoted by Adam DeVille: penance is "not a turning in on self, not a concentration on self-discipline as some sort of spiritual athletics, but an openness to new life, and through it openness to others, the end to which it is all supposed to lead." This openness is operative in and definitive of the love to which Christ calls us. So as fasting invokes our willingness to turn away from ourselves, it also prepares us to learn how to will our way into virtue’s light by enacting God’s love working within us.

Sister of the Slums

2007-09-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

In the wake of "revelations" concerning Mother Teresa, Dinesh D'Souza writes: "She was a 'true believer' of the fanatical type. In his latest book God Is Not Great, Hitchens is at it again, depicting believing Christians like Mother Teresa as sharing the dangerous certitudes of the Islamic terrorists. Not only are all believers extremists, in Hitchens' caustic analysis, they are also poseurs who claim to know what cannot be known."

Read the rest here

"The Price of Mediocrity"

2007-09-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

During a homily at Thomas Aquinas College, Fr. George Rutler addressed "The Price of Mediocrity." He argued that mediocrity sometimes manifests itself as a self-centeredness.

"An old maxim holds that when you are all tied up in yourself, you become a very small package, very small. Such smallness is called mere existence. Denial of the self does not deny our existence. (There are some oriental religions that actually do that, and some forms of modern philosophy, too.) Self-denial means knowing we are all things with Christ and nothing without Him. Self-denial turns existence into life. St. Paul says, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Pope John Paul II says, "Become what you are." That is a paradox. But paradoxes exist because there is a heaven as well as an earth."

Catholic Education

2007-08-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

What has Catholic education offered YOU? For me, the answer is "not much." As part of the entire generation or three deprived of the depth, breadth and beauty of the Catholic faith, so often absent in so-called Catholic schools, I can't say much in favor of a private Catholic education.

Few, if any schools I've come across really teach what they're charged with teaching--the CATHOLIC faith. I'm not saying that there are no schools that accomplish this, only that among Catholic schools this is ironically counter-cultural.

My hope was rekindled a few years ago when I discovered Ss. Peter and Paul in Wilmington CA, a truly Catholic school that's part of a truly Catholic parish. Years ago, Father Peter Irving made this a reality by renovating buildings and renewing hearts.

Today, the beautiful and historical church includes a perpetual adoration chapel, a large, authoritative Catholic bookstore, and a "staff" of Norbertine fathers.

The school is fortunate enough to have it's own Norbertine chaplain who makes regular visits to classrooms and offers on-campus confession to the K-8 students and staff three times a week. The priests also offer school-wide masses every Friday and holy day, with rosaries, May crownings and other devotions filling the time from one mass to the next.

Ss. Peter and Paul offers an excellent curriculum and caring, faithful teachers who know what they're doing. Sometimes it makes me wish I was a Catholic school kid again...that is, at a real Catholic school. If you're tired of the rest and Wilmington CA isn't too far away, check out Ss. Peter and Paul Elementary and Jr. High.

Praying, Veruca Salt Style

2007-08-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hollywood and the hooligans of our day have taught me many lessons on the meaning of the word "entitlement." The former just expects it, the latter likes to steal and terrorize for it. I can't fail to point a finger at myself too. I find the irritation bug bothering me in traffic, in lines, in the drudgery of unpaid labor--all because of an unspoken, and unrighteous belief that I deserve free flowing freeways, short-lines or ample compensation. This is quintessentially American, I suppose. A sense of entitlement, elevated to the level of vice by constant, tireless efforts of the will.

Large and uncontained, entitlement follows me also into prayer. I find myself asking "Why do you not answer me, O Lord?" Of course, what I should be asking is whether my prayer is pleasing to God, not whether his answer is pleasing to me. Who's the Creator and who is the creature anyway?

As for the answer about unanswered prayers, this Sunday's reading offers an important insight into how God works for our benefit by giving us what we need even when it's not what we want. Is that not what a loving Father does? If Veruca Salt's father (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) had done likewise she might not have been judged a "bad nut" and thrown into 3 weeks-worth of backed up garbage.

Heb 12:5-7, 11-13 "Brothers and sisters, You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him;for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;he scourges every son he acknowledges.”Endure your trials as “discipline”;God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?At the time,all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet,that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed."

AmericanPapist: Not Your Average Catholic!: The Golden Compass is pointing towards anti-Catholicism

2007-08-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

New Movie: "The Golden Compass" is pointing towards anti-Catholicism

The Cold War on God

2007-08-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

If you’ve walked into a large book store and looked eye level plus or minus 10 inches, you’ve noticed an atheist’s armament ranging from Dawkin’s “The God Delusion” to Christopher Hitchens' “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” It would seem that the latest self-proclaimed atheist bigwigs—Hitchens (see pic on left), Dawkins, Dennett and others—aside from coming up with bland titles, have declared a cold war in books against believers of all ilks, but particularly those of the Christian persuasion.

Strangely, this revolution in atheist thought seems rather tired, trite and overwrought with errors in fact and logic—though they would claim to have a monopoly on both. Tom Piatak takes a look at some of these errors in Hitchens' book, which has risen to prominence, in spite of it's mixture of shoddy scholarship and biased rhetoric.

God In The Streets of New York City

2007-08-14T20:51:00.001-07:00

A powerful look at what the real presence means...for more, see: http://www.catholic.com/library/Real_Presence.asp

Fishers of Men

2007-08-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

The media field day on "bad priests" continues unabated. In the process the good gets lumped with the bad. The problem is not the priesthood but the fact that some men don't live up to the call.

Marriage of True Minds

2007-08-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

Marriage lives, but barely. In some places, it continues only as the fossils of a past era in which people wrote love letters with a pen and the interval between one letter and the next was the impetus for forlorn hearts to continue their seemingly senseless beating. Back then, there was some magic and mystery; there was dancing, maybe even love. And perhaps, also, there was a sense of waiting which put the drama of love within the context of time. How else could eternity be possible?

Maybe things weren’t quite that good.. But it’s hard to imagine that marriage ever teetered so near to the edge of boredom and grief as it does today.. Even from the first moments, the math doesn’t work out right for modern
marriage—1 man + 1 woman doesn’t equal 2 happy newlyweds anymore…(I once unabashedly used the line: “In the mathematics of love, 1 + 1 = 1.” Not that I don’t believe it’s true, but today I’d flagellate myself with a wet al dente noodle if I ever I said that again.)

Really, the math works out to some sort of debt or to the strange pragmatic thought that 20 Gs might work better toward a new family wagon, then the 300 lb. jewel-encrusted, Victorian dress she basted in for 3 hours. The problem may also lie in "someone’s" insistence that bride and groom must book the palatial hall where Elvis first tripped in his blue suede shoes. Maybe the groom would even demand to wear said shoes.

Another math problem newlyweds have to solve is the fraction ½ . That’s the proportion of couples who regret spending thousands getting hitched, and then spend more money trying to get a divorce. In the end, maybe the problem is talking too much (re: the wedding) and loving too little (re: the person who will grow old before your eyes); or perhaps we mistake the honeymoon for love or the flickering of the infatuated heart for the permanence of two wills that must will but one thing…Fulton Sheen has more to say on this:

“Love that is held together only by the flesh is as fragile as the flesh, but love which is held together by a spiritual oneness and based on a love of a common destiny, is truly "until death do us part." What makes a true mutual inherence is not the sharing of the same sensations of pleasure. Rather the "sister-soul" and "brother-soul" are formed in the daily communion with the same joys, sorrows, efforts, and sacrifices… It is not enough just to share the same words and the same enjoyments; one must also share the same silences. "Mary treasured up all these sayings, and reflected on them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) Those who do not yet love one another deeply have need of words; those who deeply love, thrive on silences.”

The Secret (According to Augustine)

2007-07-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Pontifical Household, says the following about realizing intentions for good: “Once he discovered this secret, St. Augustine, who until then had struggled in vain to be chaste, changed his methods; rather than struggling with his body he began to struggle with God. He said: "O God, you command me to be chaste; well then, give me what you command and command me what you will!" In other words, intentions minus grace never got Augustine anywhere, but with grace, he got everywhere and he got there fast.

Spirituality vs. Religion

2007-07-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

I've often heard the phrase, "I'm spiritual but I'm not religious." After much thought, I've come to the conclusion that this is entirely possible, and is as logical as: "I like the kitchen but I can't take the heat" or "I love the game, but I don't want to play by the rules." This is how Archbishop Chaput weighs in on "spirituality"...

"You know, there’s a reason why "spirituality" is so popular in the United States today and religion is so criticized. Private spirituality can be quite satisfying. But it can also become a designer experience. In fact, the word spirituality can mean just about anything a person wants it to mean. It’s private, it’s personal, and, ultimately, it doesn’t place any more demands on the individual than what he or she wants.

Religion is a very different creature. The word religion comes from the Latin word religare—to bind. Religious believers bind themselves to a set of beliefs. They submit themselves to a community of faith with shared convictions and hopes. A community of believers has a common history. It also has a shared purpose and future that are much bigger than any political authority. And that has implications. Individuals pose no threat to any state. They can be lied to, bullied, arrested, or killed. But communities of faith do pose a threat. Religious witness does have power, and communities of faith are much harder to silence or kill."

Notable Quotes

2007-07-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Here are some interesting thoughts I've come across in the past few weeks:

From a homily on "doing it yourself": Don't you find it interesting that when you walk into a bookstore, the self-help section is bigger than the relgion and spirituality section?

Cathechism of the Catholic Church: "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for..."

Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC: "God's love was like a Divine 2 x 4 to the face."

Joseph Ratzinger: "People need to get straight in their minds that times of crisis for celibacy are times of crisis for marriage..."

St. John of the Cross: "In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone."

On Choices

2007-07-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today marks my official return from an unofficial hiatus. Without much ado, I want to get straight to a matter that’s been on my mind—it’s been rattling the cages and pulling at the cobwebs so I won’t delay in letting it out.

The subject today is semantics and the context is popular usage. I guess that could be the preface to anything, but this isn't anything. It's a pressing issue, both legal and moral, and it sits on the fence between life and death. At first glance, you wouldn’t think so because the problem hides behind the liberty-fattened term “pro-choice.”

“Choice” sounds liberating, a pat on the back for self-determination. But, while “pro-choice” implies some kind of decision between at least two options, it doesn’t seem to identify the options in question.

The second, I imagine, stronger point is this: if the poster child of your movement is pro-choice (which in terms of meaning turns out to be an orphan concept), it implies that the opposing movement should be called “anti-choice.” But the “pro-life” (aka“anti-abortion”) movement is not anti-choice at all. Those who take a “pro-life” stance encourage a particular choice in favor of unborn life, but this doesn’t take away the freedom to choose otherwise. In other words, choice is not unique to the “pro-choice” movement and the term itself is therefore useless.

That is, unless it’s interpreted in legal terms. In this sense, the legal options would be allowing the woman to choose (to abort or not) vs. “not allowing” her to choose. But the problem is that the law cannot regulate the will. Women can still choose in favor of abortion whether the law allows them to or not. If the sleeping giant of conscience awakes someday and the Supreme Court decides to make abortion illegal, women will still be able to choose. The law will not necessarily change their minds or their actions. If laws could do this then we wouldn’t have a problem with underage drinking, illegal drugs, or drunk driving.

Alright then, if “pro-choice” is not the most appropriate word for what the movement entails then what is? Either it would need to be more specific “pro-legal choice” (to abort) or “pro death.” Many would object to the latter—isn’t that too macabre? I suppose it depends on whether you think shredding a human being to pieces is macabre.

Those who support “pro-choice” could also declare: “I’m not pro-death. In fact, I would choose in favor of life, but I think it’s up to the woman to decide on a case-by-case basis.” Is that any different than saying: “I wouldn’t commit murder but if someone else decides to do it, that’s okay”? We’ll have to follow that up with “And if that someone decides to kill me, well, that’s okay too.”

Greetings From the Twilight Zone

2007-06-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

You might have come to the conclusion that I've been swallowed by the inexorable gravity of very large, very black hole. Actually, the reason I seem to have fallen off the face of the blogosphere is that I'm deep into the bowels of academic life. Feels a lot like a black hole though.

Once I figure out how to suprass the speed of light, you'll find me on the other side of this event horizon and back in blogging form.

Ss. Peter and Paul
Pray for us!

Spider Venom and Manhood

2007-06-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

MSNBC reports that spider venom can make you more of a man. Entitled, “Deadly spider’s venom may yield super virility,” the online article features a researcher who champions the use of black widow venom as a contraceptive.

“The venom of the Latrodectus mactans, a variety of black widow found only in the south of Chile, has spermicidal properties not found in black widows in other regions of the world, Chilean Dr. Fernando Romero said.” “Initial studies focused on taking extracts from the venom to treat erectile dysfunction, but they soon discovered it had a molecule that also made it an effective contraceptive.”

It’s very strange that a substance that actually decreases your fertility supposedly leads to “super virility.” I seem to be unaware of the standards by which MSNBC measures manhood. No offense to the men out there who have trouble with fertility, but deliberately making yourself shoot blanks doesn’t seem to qualify as a manly thing to do. It used to be that the word "sire" (to bring children into being) was associated with the kings among men. It seems this might no longer be the case.

Here's the link to the full story.

Gift to the Magi

2007-05-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

A poemI wrote in high school...can't believe it's been 12 years.

He was as old as the bones
of the weary universe
and he came to break their hearts
of ageless stone
he hung above the house of bread
a star that shook the cold
from hearts of shepherds
their lantern flames long dead

He was young as a yearling lamb
led in the pastures of headless men
contently, quietly
he stretched out his hands
to hang above the place of skulls
a star in the horizon
of zealots astray,
a light in the eyes
of the faithful brave

"A Truly Military Tactic"

2007-05-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

"That supernatural mode of conduct is a truly military tactic. You carry on the war — the daily struggles of your interior — far from the main walls of your fortress. And the enemy meets you there: in your small mortifications, your customary prayer, your methodical work, your plan of life: and with difficulty will he come close to the easily-scaled battlements of your castle. And if he does come, he comes exhausted." (St. Josemaria Escriva)

I think this quote distills the spiritual life as well as any. Are not sacrifice, prayer, work, and purpose the building blocks of love? If we have any of these in any measure, the battle will remain in the battlefield. If not, it will take place within the castle and will be waged against an enemy as fresh and energetic as the sunrise.Hand-to-hand against an ageless demon--the prospects for victory are pyrrhic at best.

Two Roads

2007-05-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Two roads lead to eternity: the narrow and the wide, the one that leads to heaven and the one that leads to a very hot place. Most people know this and don’t make a big picture decision to spend the rest of eternity as human BBQ. The sane among us don’t wake up and say that we want to live a hedonistic life and end up in hell before it freezes over. We know better than to play dice in a game with eternal outcomes.

Yet, unfortunately, it's not about our overall thinking about heaven and hell. It's about the little decisions that we make along the way; the little decisions that don’t seem to matter. Bit by bit we can forget our otherworldliness as we sacrifice our souls to the god of pleasure. The journey is a little mistier. What lies ahead is less clear. Soon we seem to hit nothing but dead ends as we make our way to the gutters of human possibility.

Thankfully, God is in the details. But being human, we don’t always know what those details are. We know where we want to go, but how do we find our way? Thomas called Didymus asked the same question in John 14 verse 5: “Master we do not know where you are going; how will we know the way? Jesus fielded that question with one of the most absolute statements on truth ever presented: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6).

Notice that Jesus does not just show us the way or even guide us on it. He IS the Way. Only a humble God could reduce himself to a road. But there’s more. Jesus declares in verse 21 of the same chapter: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” The path to the Father’s will, and thus to the truth and to life, passes through the heart of Jesus, a heart that forever beats and bleeds for his bride, the Church.

Communion Kids

2007-04-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, my wife’s students will receive Holy Communion for the first time. Most of them are only seven or eight, some still have trouble tying their shoes, and most have the self-control of moths at a fluorescent light convention. Yet their command of the faith rivals, and at times surpasses that of their parents..

As with all good things, they started with the basics. The First Communion curriculum spanned the acts of faith, hope, and love, a unit on John chapter 6, the sacraments, and topics like sin, heaven, hell, virtue and vice. Between tantrums, loud sighs, and their many mutterings, these kids received real catechesis. They were taught to learn the virtues and, more importantly, to live them.

This is what’s so endearing about them. Yes they know plenty (most of them can stump their parents). Yet more impressive is the wonder and awe and burgeoning sense of what it means to love the Lord. Unlike adults, these kids lead a rather simple life. They know that Jesus is everything. And they know that when they receive him, they won’t need anything else.

The Tyrannical Twos

2007-04-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that Clare, my 2 year old, often out wits me and there’s nothing I can do about it. Usually it happens in the car, when she decides to “pick a fight.” She’ll take off her sock and throw it at me. Then she’ll whine… “my feet are cold. I want my sock.” I fumble for her sock and push the limits of shoulder motion to give it to her. After saying “I don’t want it anymore” she throws it back. I swerve a little as the balled up sock smacks me in the head.

When that’s over she’ll insist that whether I’m stopped at a light, blazing the trails, or stopping and going on the freeway, I must take the sippy cup. “can you put it in your holder?” I ask. “No. I can’t. Take it. I don’t want it.” As if the universe depends on me taking the pink piece of plastic, and at that very moment! Of course, what I do with it afterwards doesn’t matter. She’s already asking for CDs that I don’t have and wouldn’t be able to play with my short-circuited cassette player. Did I mention she was the one who shorted it by putting a coin where the cigarette lighter should have been?

Anyhow, since I’m not the world’s best negotiator, and she’s not the most forgiving hostage taker, I try to preempt her when I can. Usually I’ll sing or ask her questions. Sometimes I ask her to sing, count or tell me about her day. When she’s really responsive I might teach her a phrase like “I’m a tai chi master!” or “What does Einstien say?” To which she responds “E equals mc squared!”

One day my wife comes home with that look of amazement and amusement I’ve come to expect She usually looks like that when she’s gonna tell me about Clare. “Do you know what Clare said?” I just blinked as my wife continued. “When we were getting out of the car, she got that fake flower toy of hers. She just looked at it, like she was pondering it. And then she said, ‘To be or no to be. That isa the question.” I laughed in disbelief. Then I said that I had taught her the phrase but the whole flower thing. That was just freaky. I still don’t know why she said it and I haven’t wasted much time trying to figure it out. Before I know it, another sock will smack me in the head. Or she’ll write on me again, or try to braid my hair, or get me into one of her choke holds…

The Theology of Descent

2007-04-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.”

This quote describes what I call the theology of descent by which we form God according to our own likeness and thus force his holy ways to accomodate to our sinful ones. This is not worship. St. Thomas observes that it's also not prayer. And for good reason. This kind of "prayer" would give rise to statements like “my kingdom come, my will be done.” Similar ideas seem to undergird the related and decidedly de-Catholoicized "theology of dissent."

Narnia's Song

2007-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Toward the end of the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Narnian chronicles, Polly questions Aslan about the future—will it hold a reality like that of the witch’s cruel and lightless kingdom? Alluding to the witch’s dying world,

Aslan answers her:
“Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning.” (In other words, “You better be careful or your world will end up like hers.” Still hopeful and perhaps unbelieving, Polly replies,)
“Yes, Aslan” “But we’re not quite as bad as that world, are we, Aslan?”
(Polly is waiting for sugar but the great lion gives her the vinegar of truth, )“Not yet, Daughter of Eve,” “Not yet, But you are growing more like it.”

At this point, a thoughtful reader might pause and think. “Was Lewis borrowing Aslan’s voice to warn us about our own world?” If he did, (and I do think this is the case), then Lewis was right. And if he didn’t, it was no matter because the lion knew what he was saying anyway.

Applied to us, the Lion’s words unveil the truth just as well as for Polly’s world. Like hers, our world isn’t dead, YET, though it seems we’re on our way. We have maps, provisions and wide, not narrow, roads that will carry us as surely to death as if we had engineered them that way. Oblivious, or perhaps not, we keep time with the drums of progress. “New is better, old is bad. We’re gonna die anyway, so why die sad?”

Yet as we look to the grass on the other side we keep moving but end up nowhere. Outside, we march, but within, we remain in the same desert of meaning. We push the frontiers of science, technology, and the headless god of progress, only to neglect the frontiers of soul. Given this, the poets and prophets have paused to wonder: “What are we making progress toward?”

Those same poets and prophets, Lewis among them, nevertheless point to the window in our otherwise dark world. “Not yet” doesn’t mean that ineluctably, the world will end in darkness. In fact, in Polly’s Narnian future, light flooded through the window to illuminate the things within. Our hope is to remember, as the Narnians did in subsequent chapters, that the world began with a song of light and warmth that issued forth from Aslan’s mouth.

Our world too began with a song, one long forgotten in our march for power and pleasure. We've become solitary notes that have dropped off the score, without the inner logic with which we were brought forth. If we were to ask, perhaps in prayer, “We’re not quite as bad as that world are we?” A voice, like that of Aslan’s seems to cry out to us, “Not if you remember that you are part of my symphony.”

Jesus, I trust in You

2007-04-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

God is love. Seems I started this whole blog with something to that effect. If you’ve been going straight to the meat of things, so to speak, (reading the posts but not the title) you might have forgotten what my blog is called. Yes, I know, it’s in Latin but Pope Benedict wouldn't have any trouble with it or with the other 10 languages he speaks. Surely you speak more...but no matter if you don't. The only langauge you need to know is English.

Since today is the day after the feast of Divine Mercy, I’m revisiting (in English) the subject of love again. One could revisit the subject eternally, for God eternal and God is love. This, in turn means, that what pleases him most is to do what his very nature compels him to do. Birds are happy to chirp, children are happy to grow, and God is happy to love. What are humans happiest doing? Well, according to the Shema, and Christ’s quoting of it, we’re happiest when we love God with all our hearts, with all our minds and with all our strength.

This means we’ll try to please God at every turn. And what’s most pleasing to God? To love, forgive, make holy and make whole every one of his children. We need only ask. That’s why Jesus didn’t say, “sit there, turn away or doubt and you shall receive” He said to “ASK.” St. Faustina (and St. Therese) add to this, describing Divine Mercy as an ocean of love, a sea of graces that God seeks to pour forth. God is so compelled to do so that his love “burns within him.”And we can quell the flames by seeking, praying and saying with audacious confidence the words, "Jesus I trust in you."

Lost Tomb Loses Credibility

2007-04-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

The following appeared on the Catholic League Website:

“When "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4, it wasn't exactly met with critical acclaim. Indeed, even before the program aired, leading archeologists and historians were quick to dismiss the documentary's claims as bunk. Below are a selection of criticisms aimed at this latest attempt to debunk the Christian faith. As you can see, the film was met with a good deal of disdain by those in academia.

”Joe Zias, former Curator for Anthropology and Archeology from 1972-1997, Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem: "Simcha [Jacobovici, the director] has no credibility whatsoever…He is pimping off the Bible…He got this guy Cameron, who made 'Titanic' or something like that—what does this guy know about archeology? I am an archeologist, but if I were to write a book about brain surgery, what would you say, 'Who is this guy?' People want signs and wonders. Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession." (Newsweek, 3-5-07)

David Mevorah, curator at the Israel Museum: The chances of the filmmaker's claims being true "are more than remote…They are closer to fantasy." (McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 2-26-07)

"Suggesting that this tomb was the tomb of the family of Jesus is a far-fetched suggestion, and we need to be very careful with that." (New York Times, 3-3-07).

Amos Kloner, professor at Bar-Ilan University and archeologist in charge of the 1980 investigation of the tomb: "The name 'Jesus son of Joseph' has been found on three or four ossuaries. These are common names. There were huge headlines in the 1940's surrounding another ossuary, cited as the first evidence of Christianity. There was another Jesus Tomb. Months later it was dismissed. Give me scientific evidence, and I'll grapple with it. But this is manufactured." (Jerusalem Post, 2-27-07)

"It makes a great story for a TV film. But it's completely impossible. It's nonsense. There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem." (ibid)

"The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any new idea. It is only an attempt to sell." (McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 2-26-07)

William Dever, Archeologist, professor emeritus, University of Arizona: "It looks more like a publicity stunt than any kind of real discovery...They're not scholars. They're not experts. They didn't discover this material. And I'm afraid they already have gone much too far. I don't know a single archeologist in this country or Israel who agrees with their findings." (CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," 2-28-07)

"The Da Vinci Code is fiction. And a lot of this story is fiction as well. I mean, to argue, from DNA evidence, that the Jesus in this tomb is not related to Mary, presumably Mary Magdalene, and therefore, that they are not siblings, so they must be married, does strain one's credulity, doesn't it?" (ibid)

(speaking to the director) "I noticed that many of the experts are quoted out of context. I can assure you that Frank Cross, who was my own teacher and who read the inscriptions for you and confirmed your reading does not agree with you, and I noticed he was carefully edited out just as he finished the reading, very conveniently. Ask him. Ask him." (Discovery Channel's "The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look," 3-4-07)

"I am certainly not trying to defend the Christian tradition. I'm not a believer. As I said to the press, I have no dog in this fight. I'm trying to be a good scholar... One of the problems I have as an archeologist with this whole project is it puts archeology in a rather bad light. It perpetuates the notion among many non-specialists in the public that archeology is a kind of game, a sort of romantic, mysterious treasure hunt in which amateurs can make great discoveries. For me, it represents the worst kind of Biblical archeology, even if it's anti-Biblical, because it seems to me the conclusions are already drawn in the beginning, and that's my real problem. I think the argument goes far beyond any reasonable interpretation." (ibid)

Lawrence Stager, professor of archeology of Israel, Harvard University: "This is exploiting the whole trend that caught on with The Da Vinci Code… One of the problems is there are so many biblically illiterate people around the world that they don't know what is real judicious assessment and what is what some of us in the field call 'fantastic archeology.'" (New York Times, 2-27-07)

Stephen Pfann, textual scholar and paleographer, University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem: "The so-called 'Mariamene' ossuary contained the names and remains of two distinct individuals. The first name on the ossuary, 'MARIAME.' was written in the common Greek documentary script of the period on the occasion of the interment of the bones of this woman. The second and third words 'KAI MARA' were added sometime later by a second scribe, when the bones of the second woman Mara were added to the ossuary....In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary (nor the ambiguous traces of DNA inside) to Mary Magdalene or any other person in Biblical, non-Biblical or church tradition." (www.uhl.ac, "Mary Magdalene is Now Missing," 3-13-07)

Jonathan Reed, professor of religion at the University of La Verne, co-author of Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones: Behind the Text: "It's what I would call 'archeo-porn,' it's very exciting, it's titillating, you want to watch it…but deep down you know it's wrong." (Discovery Channel's "The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look," 3-4-07)

"The thing that I really oppose is the approach to it. That is to say someone is trying to make a chain, and takes a series of links. We've nailed this one now lets move to the next one. We move on to the next one, and at the end, they created a chain. There are so many 'ifs' in that chain, what you need is scientists, archeologists, biblical scholars, to step back, and in dialogue and peer review, evaluate how much weight can that chain bear. And I think at the end of the day when we do that, I think overwhelmingly archeologists, scientists will weigh in and say this can't be supported." (ibid)

Jodi Magness, Professor of Judaism, University of North Carolina: "There are people who somehow would like to have physical validation for biblical figures and events, and this feeds into that. But most of the general public doesn't have the expertise to validate these claims. This pretty outrageous claim is being thrown out in the public arena, and it's set up like a situation where it seems like there's legitimate debate about whether it's true or not, and it's virtually impossible to explain in a one-minute sound bite why this can't be true." (Cox News Service, 3-1-07)

Garrett G. Fagan, classics professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public: "Modern architects of fantastic finds try to provide an air of legitimacy by invoking scientific jargon. They're not scientists but they need to dress themselves in the clothes of science to past muster. Television is not in the business of education, even with the so-called educational channels like Discovery. Ultimately, they're in the business of making money.... By the time the rebuttals come out, the mass media would have moved onto the next sensation, and people will have this vague notion that they have found the tomb of Jesus." (Cox News Service, 3-1-07)

Alan Segal, professor of religion, Barnard College: "The New Testament is very clear on this. Jesus was put in a tomb that didn't belong to him and then he rose and there was nothing left. Why would Jesus' family have a tomb outside of Jerusalem if they were from Nazareth? Why would they have a tomb if they were poor?" (Newsweek, 3-5-07)

Sandra Scham, editor of Near East Archeology: "In the '90s, I believe, they excavated tombs not far from there, in north Talpiot, where they found similar names. And, in those tombs, the bones themselves, they found as many as three or four individuals in one ossuary. So, the idea that, even the inscriptions on the ossuaries really identifies the one individual therein is sort of strange. It's just there are so many anomalies here. They don't have the direct evidence." (CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," 2-28-07)

Ted Koppel, former anchor of ABC's "Nightline" and moderator of the Discovery Channel's panel discussion about the film: "This is drama. This is not journalism." (Discovery Channel's "The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look," 3-4-07)

Ronald Hendel, professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies at the University of California, Berkeley: As reported by the paper The Forward: "These are hucksters and snake-oil salesman who play fast and loose with historical details, said Hendel." (3-2-07)

Ashes Again

2007-04-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago I wrote about the symbolism and significance of “Ash Wednesday.” Today, I came across this news story (Bigoted Teacher)…suffice it to say, anti-Catholicism kicks harder and with more disdain than your average donkey.

The Devil's Bane

2007-04-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Alleluia! Today is a happy day, the happiest in history, and it doesn't revolve around the minions of the Cadbury bunny, nor any other secular outlet, animal or otherwise. Today is Easter. No golden calf or chocolate rabbit can undo it. No wannabe archaeologists or "theologists" named James Cameron can refute it and no grim reaper can sickle through it. Jesus had had enough of death after 33 years of laying low. On Easter, 2000 years ago, it was time for him to show the armies of darkness why at his name every knee must bend.

That was then, and this is not, yet, the power of light is as awesome to behold today as it had been when the veil in the sanctuary split those two centuries ago. I don't know about you but it makes me glad to be counted among the children of light. So pray that we may remain so through the merits of our Lord. His Love will never desire anything else.

Alleluia!

Let all mortal flesh keep silent
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

(Words: Liturgy of St. James, 4th Century (Σιγησάτο παρα σὰρξ βροτεία); translated from Greek to English by
bio("Gerard Moultrie","m/o/u/moultrie_g")
Gerard Moultrie, 1864.
Music: Picardy, French carol melody; harmony from The English Hymnal, 1906, number 318

In case you weren't paying attention

2007-04-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's probably easy in blog-land to focus on the new posts but miss the sidebars, links, archives etc. I usually like to explore what a blogger links to. It's an interesting backdoor approach to sizing someone up by what he reads, recommends and takes the time to add to his HTML.

If you haven't already, explore the links to the right, "Archives" will take you to my previous posts--some of which you might not have read, others of which you scanned but didn't read (suggestions and comments are welcome). Oh, and if you didn't notice, I have another (experimental) blog called A Million Monkeys Typing. About the title: don't ask, I won't tell, and we'll still be on good terms. The same blog is in my link section under "My Movie and Book Reviews"

Speaking of movies, now's probably a good time to revisit the "Passion of the Christ." Holy week is upon us! Stations of the cross, rosaries, fasting, mass and meditation are highly recommended while pompous chocolate bunnies swimming in baskets of fake grass are not.

Links to Try

2007-04-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's time I refer to my wife's two blogs. Both are excellent in their simplicity, spirituality and depth. So check out Words for Life and Life Matters today! (This feels like a commercial.)

I especially like the title of her second blog for it's pun value. "Life matters" (adjective followed by a noun) could mean subjects related to daily life. "Life matters" can also mean (noun followed by a verb) "there is meaning in life."

Sorrowful Mysteries

2007-03-30T21:40:00.001-07:00

My meditations on the Rosary continue with the five sorrowful mysteries:

1. Agony in the garden- At Gethsemane, Jesus offers himself body and soul in perfect obedience to the Father’s will. With full knowledge of everything past, present and future, Jesus accepts what he has the freedom to reject. His “Yes,” wrought in the furnace of love, transforms Gethsemane into the tabernacle of surrender.

2. Scourging at the pillar- Christ once again makes present his precious blood by love made perfect through suffering. He is the Lamb of God, the Eternal priest and the willing victim. Through Christ’s blood, the pretorium changes into a sanctuary, a tabernacle of precious blood.

3. Crowning with thorns-The suffering servant of the new covenant did not claim a crown of glory but of scandal and weakness. Yet in this weakness he has brought infinite glory to his father and salvation to his people. This is the hidden strength, the still quiet voice in the tabernacle of God’s kingship.

4. Jesus carries the cross- With the most ignominious symbol of his cross, Christ labors through fall after fall to bring his ministry to its fruition. As an example of what man can and should do, Christ transforms the via crucis into the tabernacle of strength

5. Jesus dies on the cross-Christ’s flesh unites to the wood of a cross, as his divine and human natures once united in the womb of Mary. From the cross he speaks words of forgiveness and consummation. From it, he speaks the Word that is he. It is this Word, the Eternal Word that makes the cross into the tabernacle of salvation