BREAD OF LIFE

CHAPTERS AN VERSES IN THE BIBLE

2012-01-30T02:57:00.000-08:00

The books of the Bible vary in length from a single page of modern type to dozens of pages. All but the shortest are divided into chapters, generally a page or two in length.

Each is further divided into verses of a few short lines or sentences. Pasuk (plural pesukim) is the Hebrew term for verse.

The Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. For instance, in Jewish tradition, the ascriptions to many Psalms are regarded as independent verses, making 116 more verses, whereas the established Christian practice is to count and number each Psalm ascription together with the first verse following it. Some chapter divisions also occur in different places, e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:27-41 in Hebrew Bibles is numbered as 1 Chron 6:1-15 in Christian translations.

Chapters
The original manuscripts did not contain the chapter and verse divisions in the numbered form familiar to modern readers. Some portions of the original texts were logically divided into parts following the Hebrew alphabet; for instance, the earliest known copies of the book of Isaiah use Hebrew letters for paragraph divisions. (This was different from the acrostic structure of certain texts following the Hebrew alphabet, such as Psalm 119 and the book of Lamentations.) There are other divisions from various sources which are different from what we use today.

The Old Testament began to be put into sections before the Babylonian Captivity (586 BC) with the five books of Moses being put into a 154-section reading program to be used in a three-year cycle. Later (before 536 BC) the Law was put into 54 sections and 669 sub-divisions for reading.

By the time of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the New Testament had been divided into paragraphs, although the divisions were different from the modern Bible.

An important canon of the New Testament was proclaimed by Pope Damasus I in the Roman synod of 374. Pope Damasus also induced Jerome, a priest from Antioch, to undertake his famous translation of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, the official language of the time. This translation is known as the Vulgate. The Church continued to finance the very expensive process of copying and providing copies of the Bible to local churches and communities from that point up to and beyond the invention of the printing press, which greatly reduced the cost of producing copies of the Scriptures.

Churchmen Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro determined different schemas for systematic division of the Bible in the early 13th century. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based.

Verses
It is presently unknown how early the Hebrew verse divisions were incorporated into the books that comprise the Biblical canon. However, it is beyond dispute that for at least a thousand years the Tanakh has contained an extensive system of multiple levels of section, paragraph, and phrasal divisions that were indicated in Masoretic vocalization and cantillation markings. One of the most frequent of these was a special type of punctuation, the sof passuq, symbol for a full stop or sentence break, resembling the colon mark (:) of English and Latin orthography. With the advent of the printing press and the translation of the Bible into English, Old Testament versifications were made that correspond predominantly with the existing Hebrew full stops, with a few isolated exceptions. A product of meticulous labour and unwearying attention, the Old Testament verse divisions stand today in essentially the same places as they have been passed down since antiquity. Most attribute these to Rabbi Isaac Nathan around 1440.

The first person to divide New Testament chapters into verses was Italian Dominican biblical scholar Santi Pagnini (1470–1541), a system that was never widely adopted.[3] Robert Estienne created an alternate numbering in his 1551 edition of the Greek New Testament.[4] The first English New Testament to use the verse divisions was a 1557 translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524-1579). The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles.

Unlike the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the structure of the Greek language makes it highly susceptible to being broken up into divisions that would be syntactically inappropriate and even contrary to the sense of the passage. Inexact apportionment of the Greek into verses therefore could easily have obscured the intent, relation, emphasis and force of the words themselves, and thus elicited the most strenuous objections of theologians. The retention of Robert Estienne's verse divisions essentially without alteration is a tribute not only to the inherent utility of his contribution to Bible study, but also to his excellent knowledge of the scriptures and grasp of the fine points of the ancient Greek language.

Conclusion
Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro is often given credit for first dividing the Latin Vulgate into chapters, but it is the arrangement of his contemporary and fellow cardinal Stephen Langton who in 1205 created the chapter divisions which are used today. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 1400s. Robert Estienne (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, his verse numbers entering printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1571 (Hebrew Bible).

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided into chapters in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context, in effect turning the Bible into a kind of textual quarry for clerical citations. Nevertheless, the chapter divisions and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study. Nevertheless, the chapters and verses division in the bible should never be held as part of divine inspiration, i.e. as part of the Word of God.

BIBLE VERSIONS AND TRANSLATIONS

2012-01-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

The original texts of the Tanakh were in Hebrew, although some portions were in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version by itself, there are words which are traditionally read differently from written (sometimes one word is written and another is read), because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition, they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.

The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.

Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in AD 382. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and in 1546 at the Council of Trent was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Rite.

Especially since the Protestant Reformation, Bible translations for many languages have been made. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.

HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED?

2012-01-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

How should a Catholic reply to the question, "Have you been saved?"

Answer

This question is answered in our tract Assurance of Salvation? , which suggests the following reply:

As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5-8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9-10, 1 Cor. 3:12-15). Like the apostle Paul, I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11-13).

Jim Blackburn

BAPTISM SAVES YOU

2012-01-15T04:49:00.000-08:00

By: Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Even though I was brought up in a devoutly Evangelical home, I wasn’t baptized until I was 21 years old. We attended an independent Bible church with an essentially Baptist theology, and the irony about this Baptist theology is that it actually de-emphasized baptism. What mattered was being "born again" or "saved," if we had responded to an altar call and "accepted Jesus into our hearts." This personal experience was all that was necessary to assure us of eternal salvation. Baptism and communion (while they were not dispensed with altogether) remained unnecessary symbols of our inner faith.

As a college student, I became an Anglican, and before I could be confirmed, I submitted to baptism. Later I went to teach in a Christian school attached to a Baptist church, and even then the pastor seemed more concerned about the mode of baptism than baptism itself. He insisted that I be re-baptized by total immersion since he didn’t think my Anglican baptism (with water poured over my head) counted.

Travel the Romans Road

I lived in England for 25 years and had little contact with Baptists. Now our family has moved to South Carolina, and recently two Fundamentalist Baptists came around to discuss theology with me. They proceeded to take me along the famous "Romans Road." This is a simple Evangelical process that leads a person to salvation through the most basic Christian truths taken from St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans.

The first verse is Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." After establishing that you are a sinner, in Romans 6:23 St. Paul reminds you that "the wages of sin is death." The second part of that verse gives the promise that "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 5:8 tells us that "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Romans 10:13 says that "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," and Romans 10:9 says that "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved."

My visitors took me through the Romans Road and were a little nonplussed when I agreed with them on every point. I then asked them why they didn’t go any further along the road. They asked what I meant. "St. Paul goes on to say just how this salvation happens," I replied. "He gives us an objective and solid way to know that we really have been made one with Christ. But first, we agree, don’t we, that salvation means we die with Christ so that we may have new life?"

They agreed.

"How does this happen?" I asked.

"You have to accept Jesus. Believe in him in your heart and confess with your lips."

"Yes, we Catholics believe that is necessary, but there is more to it than that. In addition to believing and confessing with our lips, we need to be baptized. At the beginning of Romans 6, St. Paul actually explains how we share in the death and new life of Christ: It is through baptism."

The beginning of Romans 6 says, "Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." This idea that we are made one with Christ through baptism is reiterated by Paul in Colossians 2:12, and in Galatians 3:27 he likens baptism to "being clothed with Christ."

Furthermore, the fuller idea of salvation being a union with Christ fits with much more of the New Testament, which speaks time and again of being in a profound union with the living Lord—rather than simply being saved or justified by a personal belief in Christ.

The sacrament of baptism takes the believer from the simple repentance, belief, and profession of faith into a more mysterious identification with Christ, in which he is the vine, and we are the branches, in which we die with him so that we might rise to new life. Baptism is not simply the addition of a meaningful symbol to the act of faith: It is an action which takes the believer’s whole body, soul, and spirit into a new relationship with God.

Born of Water and the Spirit

The passage in Romans 6 (backed up by Colossians 2) is not the only evidence from the New Testament that baptism is effective and therefore necessary for salvation. The apostles Peter and John confirm St. Paul’s teaching. In Acts 2, when St. Peter is preaching at Pentecost, his hearers ask what they must do to be saved, and he replies, "Repent and be baptized." In 1 Peter 3, Noah’s ark is referred to as a type of baptism, and Peter writes, "In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:20-21).

The most famous New Testament evidence for the efficacy and necessity of baptism is in John’s Gospel. When Nicodemus comes to visit Jesus by night, Jesus says that a person cannot enter the kingdom of God without being born again. Nicodemus asks how a man might enter again into his mother’s womb and Jesus corrects him, saying, "No one can enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:3-5). From the earliest days of the Church this passage has been understood to refer to baptism, and this interpretation is virtually unanimous down through history.

However, many Evangelicals have a peculiar interpretation for this verse. They say that the "water" in the verse does not refer to baptism, but to the amniotic fluid of the mother’s womb. This is the "water" that breaks at the point of physical birth. Therefore they believe when Jesus refers to "water and the Spirit," he is referring to physical birth and spiritual re-birth. This might be a possible interpretation as the previous verse was a discussion of a man entering again into his mother’s womb.

However, one must look at the whole passage in its context. It is universally agreed that John’s Gospel is the most "sacramental" in its approach. The passages of Jesus’ life and teachings are put together in such a way as to connect with, and support, the sacramental life of the early Church. In the verses that immediately follow Jesus’ words that one must be "born again of water and the Spirit," Jesus talks about "men loving darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil" (verse 19) and that whoever "lives by the truth comes to the light" (verse 21). The references to light point to the other main symbol of the baptismal ceremony—the lighted candle. If there is any doubt, the very next story in John chapter 3 shows Jesus immediately going out with his disciples baptizing.

Is It Enough to Believe and Confess?

As soon as you begin to speak about the necessity of baptism, an Evangelical will pull out some favorite verses and favorite arguments. They will go back to Romans 10:9-10, "If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." They will point out that this verse does not say that one must be baptized. The reply is that belief and profession of faith are necessary, but the whole witness of the New Testament shows us that baptism is necessary as well.

Evangelicals may also refer to the story of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. The jailer cries out, "What must I do to be saved?" and Paul and Silas reply, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved—you and your household" (Acts 16:31). It seems there is no demand for baptism. However, actions speak louder than words because verse 33 says that "immediately they were baptized." Baptism therefore seems to be the way one makes the faith commitment. This is just one example from the Acts of the Apostles where faith is accompanied by baptism, and it is assumed that both are necessary. Two other clear accounts are Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, and Peter’s immediate baptism of Cornelius and his household in Acts 10. The pattern in Acts is consistent: preaching, repentance of the hearers, belief in Christ, and immediate baptism. Why would this be the case if the apostles did not believe that baptism was both effective and necessary for salvation?

The Evangelical who does not want to accept the efficacy and necessity of baptism has a few more objections. What about people who do not have the opportunity to be baptized? He will bring up the good thief on the cross. The thief couldn’t be baptized, but Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). This is the perfect opportunity to explain two other.aspects of Catholic belief.

Baptism of Blood, Baptism of Desire

First, you can explain that the Catholic Church does not believe that baptism is magic: Simply having water poured over one’s head with the Trinitarian formula does not mean a person is instantly saved forever. Baptism incorporates the individual into the Body of Christ, and within the whole life of the Church an individual’s baptism must be accompanied by faith. The developing faith of the individual is empowered by the grace of baptism, and nurtured by the whole Church, but if the Christian faith is rejected or never positively affirmed, the baptism is not magically effective.

For difficult cases such as the good thief, it should be explained that the Catholic Church has always taught that there is a "baptism of blood" and a "baptism of desire." The baptism of blood refers to those who were not baptized but were martyred for Christ. They are incorporated, through their own death, into the mystical body of Christ through a mystical sharing in his sacrificial death.

The baptism of desire refers to those individuals with faith in Christ who would be baptized if they had the opportunity and if they truly understood what baptism means. It applies to those who, due to extraordinary circumstances, do not have access to water for baptism. But the New Testament indicates that what we call "baptism of desire" is the case for the Old Testament saints. Noah and his family were "saved through water" in the flood, (2 Pet. 2:5) and the Hebrew children were baptized "into Moses in the cloud and the Red Sea" (1 Cor. 10:2). This suggests that baptism of desire may also extend to those who have pre-Christian faith or to non-Christians who have faith according to the level of their knowledge, but have never heard the Christian gospel.

It may also apply to those who have faith in Christ, but have not been baptized because they truly and sincerely (because of false teaching received in goodwill) do not believe that baptism is necessary. Even in these cases, however, it should be understood that the Church teaches that such individuals "may" be saved, not that they are saved.

Incorporate It

The most difficult thing for an Evangelical to accept in a conversation about the sacraments is that God actually uses physical means and liturgical ceremonies to dispense his grace and administer salvation. The typical Evangelical is heavily conditioned to dismiss all physical components of religion as useless and distracting "man-made traditions."

However, the theory doesn’t stand up in practice. It cannot because we have bodies that are in time and space which need a way to respond physically to spiritual realities. It is not very difficult to demonstrate that they believe physical actions and religious ceremonies can be useful for salvation—otherwise why have evangelistic rallies with emotional music and altar calls? Why encourage people to "put up their hand, get up out of their seat, and come forward?" It’s because they realize that we need physical actions, religious ceremonies, and rituals to help us accept the gift of salvation that is being offered, and they must accept that it is through these physical responses that salvation is accepted, and therefore that the physical responses are effective and necessary.

If they can see that God uses their preaching and their traditions and religious rituals to bring people to salvation, then it is not too much of a leap for them to see that the Catholic rituals are another physical and active way for individuals to accept the gift of salvation. Of course, the sacraments are more than a practical, man-made religious tool. The sacraments are not done by us for God, but by God for us. However, moving a non-Catholic to the point where he accepts that a sacrament is useful is the first step towards accepting that it is necessary, and that is just one step away from the acceptance that they are not just man-made, practical religious devices, but divinely instituted initiatives that incorporate the soul into the mystical Body of Christ.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is an American who has spent most of his life living and working in England. Fr Dwight was brought up in an Evangelical home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from the fundamentalist Bob Jones University with a degree in Speech and English, he went...

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THE GIFT OF FEAR

2012-01-12T03:28:00.000-08:00

DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

To sweeten the harder points of the Gospel might appear more positive and inviting, but such theology is dangerous and negligent.

One day I recognized a police officer who often visited the high school at which I taught for many years. I immediately asked him how a particular student of mine was doing; for I knew that it was very likely that this officer would have had contact with him for years after he'd left our school, which was only a month or two into his first year. And of course, the officer only shook his head in disgust after I mentioned his name; my former student turned out to be the career criminal we all expected him to be.

What struck me about this student was that he seemed to have absolutely no fear of God. His behaviour during Mass was bizarre, to say the least. During the consecration he’d stand up, walk slowly around the chapel observing the pictures on the walls, the books on the shelves, and then as he approached the doors, he’d casually make his way out, only to wander the halls.

It didn’t take long for me to learn how to teach Religion to drug dealers, professional thieves, violent bullies and teenage psychopaths; for what they all had in common was precisely a lack of the fear of God. Young criminals don’t respond to the language of love and compassion. It means nothing to them, it does not move them, and those who employ it are seen as potential targets of manipulation. A very different approach is required if one is to have any chance of success with such people, one more akin to the hair-raising sound of an Evangelical preacher (Cf. Mt 3, 7-10; 11, 20-24).

But it was during these years that I began to realize just what a gift the fear of God really is, even the very rudiments of servile fear. For these kids were already involved in some of the worst crimes, and they were committed to a criminal lifestyle, but they had no fear of divine repercussion.

The gift of fear is, at least initially, a reverent fear of the divine justice. Traditionally, it has been divided into servile fear and filial fear. Servile fear inclines a person to reject sin out of a fear of punishment, whether temporal or eternal. Filial fear, on the other hand, inclines a person to reject sin more out of a fear of offending the beloved, namely God. Indeed, the latter is higher and nobler, but the latter does not displace the former. Filial fear does not supplant servile fear. Rather, the more a person grows in the love of God — and thus filial fear — , the more refined does servile fear become.

The reason is that as we grow in the knowledge of God’s mercy, we grow, simultaneously in the knowledge of our own frailty and proclivity to sin, for His mercy bears upon our sins. And as we grow in an understanding of God’s pure generosity, we begin to appreciate more the seriousness of sin. Joined to an awareness of our own frailty and dependency upon divine grace, we are led to pray for the gift of perseverance within a spirit of hope, which includes a spirit of fear that recognizes what we truly deserve. Indeed, the saint really fears the damage that his sins will do to himself as well as to others.

But it has become rather fashionable to redefine the “fear of God” as an experience of “awe”. The Hebrew word for “fear”, however, is yare, which does not mean awe or wonder, but fear or dread. Awe describes a very different experience than that of fear. This past month I stood before a number of 17th century paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The experience was one of awe and intense wonder, not fear. Fear is an entirely different emotion, one that bears upon an impending evil that is judged to be insurmountable.

...it has become rather fashionable to redefine the “fear of God” as an experience of “awe”. The Hebrew word for “fear”, however, is yare, which does not mean awe or wonder, but fear or dread. Awe describes a very different experience than that of fear.

Moreover, awe is not a starting point or a beginning, but a conclusion, an end, a quality that is acquired after a long period of labor. A person does not begin a course in Art or Music Appreciation with a fully developed sense of awe and wonder, but acquires an appreciation of a particular style of music or period of art after spending much time studying it and its place within history. How much more is awe at the divine majesty a conclusion, an end, a perfection acquired after many years of reflecting on the mystery of God's perfections, such as His omniscience, omnipotence, and His universal providence?

Fear, on the other hand, is a beginning: “The fear (yare) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111, 10; Prv. 1, 7). The object of this fear is precisely the divine anger: “Who knows the fury of your anger or your indignation toward those who should fear (yare) you” (Ps 90, 11). Indeed, the fear of the Lord is a kind of reverence, but such reverence cannot be understood except in light of fear. The more we reverence something, the more we fear losing it. The more a person reverences his salvation, the more he will fear losing it (servile fear), and the more a person reverences God, the more he will fear offending Him (filial fear).

Awe towards God is not the beginning of wisdom, but a sign of wisdom acquired. But fear is the beginning of decisions that are wise and life giving. Four years ago my family doctor noticed that I had low iron. He feared that something might be wrong, and so he sent me for further testing. The doctor he sent me to, however, was much less fearful that low iron was a sign of impending disaster. In fact, he explicitly indicated that my family doctor was “overreacting”. So, instead of scheduling me for a rather uncomfortable colonoscopy, he sent me to be tested for celiac disease, and then sent me off to enjoy my summer holidays, free from fear and full of confidence that all is well with my health and future.

But after the results of the test came back negative, he decided to do the colonoscopy for which I was originally sent. Even while lying on the operating table, ready to be sedated, he reiterated his conviction that what he was about to do was in all probability a waste of time and overly cautious, but necessary to relieve my family doctor of his unfounded fears.

After it was all over, though, this rather cocky physician had the countenance of a man who’d just seen a ghost. He'd found the tumor that was causing the depletion of iron, and two weeks later I was operated on and afterwards treated with chemotherapy. I am only alive because one doctor made room in his life for fear and was led, by that very fear, to make a very wise decision. The other doctor lacked a healthy sense of his own limitations and a corresponding fear before the larger mystery of nature and human pathology. Such confidence might appear to be more positive, but it is dangerous and shows evidence of a lesser reverence for the value of individual human life.

Similarly, to sweeten the harder points of the Gospel might appear more positive and inviting, but such theology is dangerous and negligent, like the medical malpractice of risking the life of a patient for the sake of making him feel better for the moment. As the Lord said to Ezekiel: “If I say to the wicked man, You shall surely die; and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his wicked conduct so that he may live: that wicked man shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death” (Ez 3, 18).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Douglas McManaman. "The Gift of Fear". (June 2006).

Reprinted with permission of Douglas McManaman.

THE AUTHOR

Douglas McManaman is a high school religion teacher with the York Catholic District School Board in Ontario. He is currently teaching at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario and maintains a web site, A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page , in support of his students. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Mr. McManaman is the past President of the Canadian Chapter of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2006 Douglas McManaman

FREE WILL

2012-01-03T03:27:00.000-08:00

A major difference between Catholic and Protestant theology is belief in free will, in which both Luther and Calvin deny. Because of the Protestant creation of the doctrine of "sola fide", or that faith alone is sufficient for salvation, these reformist taught that each person does not cooperate in their own salvation. In essance, Protestant doctrine is that all of our moral choices are predetermined. Salvation is ours to accomplish, it is not something that we have no control over. The doctrine of sola fide directly contradicts many scripture passages and leads many astray.

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Not only is each individual free to choose, he is obliged to choose.

No one experiencing temptation should say, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one. Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. James 1:13-15

This passage cannot make it much more clear. The Protestant position relieves each person of the responsibility of making a choice. But it is obvious that it is not God who tempts us and therefore not God who makes our choices for us.

Because I called and you refused, I extended my hand and no one took notice. Proverbs 1:24

Yes, God calls us but we can refuse. He invites us but does not compel us.

But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? Of course not! Galatians 2:17

The Protestant doctrine begins to look more and more like an easy out for those that do not want to accept responsibility for their own salvation.

Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. Romans 1:20-21

Paul here warns us that the glory of God is evident to all but not everyone chooses to acknowledge it. Notice that all do have the choice. particularly like the line in the above passage they became vain in their reasoning. By what reasoning could the Protestant Reformers been using to invent their doctrine of salvation by faith alone?

FROM FEMINISM TO FAITH

2011-12-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

The year was 1975. I was in college, where the women's movement and other social-justice causes were a big part of campus life. I was on a mission to transform the world.

During the next six years, I worked with the homeless as a Catholic Worker and joined a group called Movement for a New Society. I marched and picketed. I rebelled against authority. Eventually, I joined a women’s group: We spray-painted sexist billboards and practiced “guerilla warfare” against mainstream culture. By the time I was calling myself a feminist, I was sure that my Catholic upbringing had been restrictive and sexist. I began to identify myself as a “recovered Catholic” who had been freed from an institution that was “oppressive to me as a woman.”

Nowadays, this practicing Catholic isn’t really interested in acquiring labels or joining causes. Too often it seems, causes develop a dogma that isn’t Christ-centered, a dogma that keeps us from God. But back then I didn’t see things that way.

The Feminist Creed

I withdrew my faith in God and Church and put total allegiance in “sisterhood.” I believed that men, as controllers of the Church, were keeping women from fulfilling their potential as priests and leaders. The Church’s definitions of sin were outdated. The Church was standing in the way of self-fulfillment.

The rallies, feminist books, and cultural climate led many young women like me to take up a feminist religion. We put our hopes and our “obedience” in the movement, which had a creed of its own. We bowed to the pressures of feminist political correctness—which denied our true feminine nature—and declined any identification as children of God. Still, I viewed myself with Judeo-Christian eyes—it’s just that my vision was through a glass darkly. I filtered my experiences through a distorted lens. Because I wanted to think of myself as a good and prayerful person, the prevalent New-Age ideas came in handy. God is love, everyone proclaimed. So any expression of lust (which we called “love”) was therefore acceptable to God. The rest of the dogma insisted that men needed to be pushed to let go of leadership roles and take up the roles once held by women. Men were to become softer, while women became tougher. Sex was purely for pleasure, and babies were a nuisance.

The results of this creed have been destructive. Women are sex objects more than ever. We feel obliged to join the workforce, meaning that our children are raised by childcare workers rather than in families. The courts, which were established to uphold justice, now uphold political correctness. Men pamper their skin. And no one feels obligated to stop a man battering his wife in the middle of a restaurant.

Prodigal Daughter

In the midst of my tenure in the feminist “sisterhood,” I married the man I had been living with. That lasted five years. Then I married again, and that relationship was quickly on the rocks. My background made it easy to blame them. They weren’t meeting my needs.

I divorced again and married for the third time. But with two kids in the picture, divorce and custody issues became a nightmare. I had left the sisterhood behind when I became a mother, but I was suffering the consequences of my past. In short, I was lost.

I was a prodigal who had squandered all the rich inheritance of my childhood. I had lost my moral compass in those years of rebellion, and I didn’t know how to return home. But my current-and-forever husband became my teacher. He suggested we visit the Catholic Church “for the children’s sake.”

It was the first week of Lent, February 2003. The priest was starting a Soup and Sharing group that would meet to discuss The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. At church I heard the choir sing “Hosea.” The first words of the song are these: Come back to me, with all your heart. Don’t let fear keep us apart.

God was practically shouting at me to come to him. I burst into tears. For so many years I had been roaming and stomping on the riches of faith. It was a wake-up call to realize that when I thought I was freeing myself from shackles, I was actually putting them on.

Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote, “Do not let the delights of this world ensnare us.” I had been ensnared by defining myself and my gender identity in worldly terms. I had been ensnared by the idea that freedom is a goal in itself. I hadn’t realized that freedom from God always turns into slavery. The truth is we are called to be obedient to God in whatever walk of life we choose.

How could I have thought that humans can be totally their own authority? That makes for chaos, violence, and immorality. While feminism was my religion, I was obedient to the creed which promised complete freedom and sameness for all in everything. But those two things are contradictory. Freedom implies choice. Sameness implies control.

The Lessons of Authority

St. Cyprian lived in Africa and began writing sometime after his conversion in the year 246. He commented on the corruption and cultural deterioration that comes from seeking pleasure and political success, a corruption he saw in the crumbling Roman Empire. So he reminded others, “The commands of the gospel are nothing else than God’s lessons, the foundations on which to build up hope . . . They are the rudder for keeping us on the right course.”

To understand fully the commands of the gospel, I knew I needed to study Scripture and listen to Church leaders. Obedience to the Church’s teachings was the first issue I had to embrace when I returned to the faith. What I learned is that I needed guidance and help to be truly Christian again.

Whatever the failings of its leaders, the Church began with Jesus, and it is guided by the Holy Spirit. We owe our allegiance to God and then to his Church, which helps us know him. Through the sacraments of the Church, we receive his grace.

Blessed Are the Meek

Humility was the next step in my return. There was a lot of pride in those many years of wandering. Pride is a deadly sin because it puts all the focus on me. The relationships of prideful people are always
rocky. My marriages failed because of a lack of humility and a failure to put the other person first. The humble person knows that in the grand scheme of a bountiful and majestic world, each of us is pretty small and insignificant. Yet, in his great love, God sees us as important. When I had kids, I started to see the value of humility, sacrifice, and truth. It is overwhelming when the kids are fighting and the furnace decides to break down right then, when there are no groceries and not enough money. My ego is clearly not powerful enough to zap all the problems away.

I am brought to my knees. And the longer I am on my knees, the more I realize how totally undeserving I am. Psalm 33 says, “A king is not saved by his army . . . A vain hope for safety is the horse; despite its power, it cannot save. The Lord looks on those who revere him, on those who hope in his love, to rescue their souls from death.”

For nearly 25 years, I broke God’s Commandments. I had been looking to my ego and the feminist movement to solve all of life’s challenges. But this psalm says there is only one source of hope.

My husband likes to say, “Either God is God or man is God. It can’t be both.” God is the one who sees the big picture of the world and our place in it. When we look for answers in the world, it’s as if we are going in circles, chasing our tails. God is holding out the promise of true joy and peace. But we can’t find those things without him.

A Woman of Prayer

Those who convert—or revert—to Catholicism are often very enthusiastic. And so was I. I offered to help with vacation Bible school. There the woman leading the session told the kids, “I am an undercover nun.” (In fact, she was a secular member of the Discalced Carmelites.)

When I heard her speak, a memory hit me, as if the past suddenly dropped down into the present. My great-aunt was a nun named Sister Innocentia. She had written to me from her cloister several times when I was a young girl because she felt I was called to be a nun. I had also admired the Sisters of Humility who taught at my elementary school and dreamed about being like them. After my reversion I felt called to prayer—the charism of the Carmelites. So I began to study prayer.

In my prodigal stance, I thought God wouldn’t care how we talk to him or if we talk to him at all, since he knows our minds. But St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, and other great students of prayer say otherwise. It is a discipline, and there is much to learn as we reach for God’s hand. Having come home, I cannot see why I wandered off into feminism in the first place. The Catholic Church is the only Christian church that truly honors a woman. The Blessed Virgin Mary is a model of strength, courage and deep faith. But the biggest counter-revolutionary lesson she teaches is that all humans are called
to sacrifice. We are on earth for the purpose of finding our way home by following the example of her Son and imitating her own submissiveness to God’s will.

Mary conceived in a most unusual and pure way through the power of the Holy Spirit. Her example is about trusting God. She was probably afraid, but she said, “Yes.” She offered herself as a servant for God. And such selflessness is what truly transforms the world.

When I started teaching children religion, I had the good fortune to relearn the catechism myself. It says, “God made us to know, love, and serve him in this world, so that we can be happy with him forever in heaven.”

The answer to the meaning of life has always been clearly stated. How is it we sometimes have to go so far afield, only to come back to what we already know?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JyA7rmdpD84/TMxjQXWYPQI/AAAAAAAAAMg/6UWv38Rucmw/S1600-R/Rainbow.jpg

Judith Costello is a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS). She teaches a sacramental class for her parish and has several books in the works. She and her family live on a small farm called Sag ging Acres, with their chickens, goats, equines, canines, and felines. At...

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WHO DIED ON THE CROSS?

2011-12-26T03:14:00.000-08:00

Who died on the cross?

In My Experience, only about 1 in 10 Catholics know the correct answer to this question.

Some of the Answers Given for that Question:
Which is the correct answer?

A1. Jesus Christ died on the cross.
Q1. Yes, but who is Jesus Christ?

A2. The human person of GOD died on the cross.
Q2. Was Jesus Christ a human person?

A3. The human nature of GOD died on the cross.
Q3. Is it the nature of a person that dies?

A4. The Son of GOD died on the Cross.
Q4. Yes, but who is the Son of GOD?

A5. GOD died on the cross.

Q5. You get the gold star.

You are the 1 in 10 who knows the truth.

A1 is technically correct, but there is more to the correct answer.

A2 is wrong because Jesus Christ is not a human person.
Now you may ask, "Well, didn't He have all the characteristics of a human person except for sin?" Almost right, except for one important point. Jesus Christ is a divine person, and if He were a human person, that would make Him 2 persons, each with a nature, one divine, and one human. He is a divine person with a divine and a human nature, one person with 2 natures.

A3 is wrong because persons die on crosses, not natures.

A4 is again technically correct, but we are looking for more here.

A5 is the correct answer because Jesus Christ is a divine person, and persons die on crosses, not natures. While dying in His human nature, Jesus Christ was living in His divine nature. He was both living and dead at the same time, but the person died.
Therefore, GOD died on the Cross.

"But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses." Acts 3:15

"When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Rev 1:17-18

See also, Acts 1:3, Rom 5:6-10,8:34,14:9,15, 1Cor 8:11,15:3,20,
Phil 2:8, Col 1:18, 1Thes 2:15, Heb 2:9, 1Pet 3:18, Rev 1:5,2:8,5:9,5:12,13:8.

Kudos to all who chose Answer #5...

Written 1995 by Bob Stanley

Updated November 17, 2007

QUESTIONS ABOUT IMAGES AND STATUES

2011-12-20T04:53:00.000-08:00

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6 RSV)

Why are Catholic Churches decorated with images and statues in direct violation of the second commandment?

The second commandment is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Protestants, of course, call that the third commandment. But they are wrong in doing so, having taken that part of the first commandment which refers to images as the second of God's commandments. But do those words forbid the making of images? They do not. God was forbidding idolatry, not the making of images. He said, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image of anything in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." God deliberately adds those last words, yet you ignore them. He forbids men to make images in order to adore them. But He does not forbid the making of images. You will find the commandments given in Exodus, XX. But in that same Book, XXV., 18, you will find God ordering the Jews to make images of Angels! Would you accuse God of not knowing the sense of His own law? He says, "Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle." In other words, the Jews were to make images of things in the heaven above. And if your interpretation be true, why do you violate God's law by making images of things in the earth beneath? Why images of kings and politicians in our parks? Why photographs of friends and relatives? On your theory you could not even take a snapshot of a gum tree. You would be making an image of a thing in the earth beneath. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! This is the fruit of your private interpretation of Scripture. No. God does not forbid the making of images; He forbids the making of images in order to adore them.

I have seen more idols in Catholic Churches than sincere Christians.

You have never seen an idol in a Catholic Church. An image is an idol only when it is the object of divine worship. You have seen images in Catholic Churches, but every Catholic knows that divine worship cannot be offered to such images. Would you call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol? As for your not seeing sincere Christians in a Catholic Church, you cannot expect to test the sincerity of a Christian by the color of his tie or the shape of his shoes.

God forbade us to worship plaster statues as Catholics do; yet you send missionaries to convert heathens who do the same thing.

God absolutely forbids us to worship wooden and stone statues, and Catholics are not so foolish as to commit so serious a sin. But Catholics do honor representations of those who are in heaven, just as we all honor our dead soldiers by tributes of respect to the Cenotaph. If I lift my hat to the flag of my country as I pass the memorial to our dead soldiers, am I honoring the cloth or the stone, or what it stands for? If it be lawful in that case, it is certainly lawful to honor the memorials of the dead heroes of Christianity, the Saints. Our missionaries go to heathen tribes to save them from the idolatrous worship of man-made gods.

I have seen Catholics on their knees adoring and praying to statues in their Churches.

You have not. You have seen Catholics kneeling at prayer, and perhaps kneeling before an image of Christ, or of Our Lady. But if you concluded that they were praying to the statues that was not the fault of the Catholics. It was your own fault in so far as you judged them according to your own preconceived ideas. Without bothering to ask for information, you guessed, and guessed wrongly. Before an image of Mary, Catholics may go on their knees and pray to God through the intercession of that Mother of Christ whom the statue represents. But you have no right to accuse them of praying to the statue. Were you to kneel down by your bedside at night for a last prayer, could you be regarded as adoring or praying to your mattress?

But I have seen a Catholic kiss the feet of a statue of Christ.

If I kiss the photograph of my mother, am I honoring a piece of cardboard? Or is it a tribute of love and respect offered to my mother? A Catholic reverences images and statues only in so far as they remind him of God, of Christ, or of Our Lady and the Saints. Where a pagan adores and worships a thing of wood in itself, I kiss the cross not because it is a piece of wood, but because it stands for Christ and for His sufferings on my behalf. And I am sure that Our Lord looks down from heaven and says, "Bless the child; he at least appreciates my love for him." Your mistake is that you try to judge interior dispositions from exterior conduct—a dangerous policy always.

Catholics raise their hats when passing a Church; why not when passing statues in a Catholic shop window?

The Catholic who raises his hat when passing a Catholic Church does so as an act of reverence for the Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. But Christ is not thus present in shops selling Catholic articles of devotion. But of course you missed the point, and took it for granted that Catholic men lift their hats because statues are present in the Church. Then you concluded that they ought to do so when they see statues in a shop window.

If the use of statues is all right, why did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?

You are asking an impossible question. You might as well ask me, "Why has Australia declared war on Afghanistan?" No man could answer that question, because there is no answer to it. He could only reply, "Tell me first, are you under the impression that Australia has declared war on Afghanistan?" And if you replied in the affirmative, he would proceed to correct your notions. Had you but asked me, "Did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?" a reply could have been given at once. She certainly did not do so.

The Protestant Bible gives the second commandment as referring to images. But the Catholic Catechism gives it as referring to taking the name of God in vain, omitting the references to images.

Even the Protestant Bible does not give the second commandment as referring to images, though Protestants are usually taught that those words in the first commandment which refer to images constitute a second commandment.

The Roman Church omits the second commandment, and then breaks up the tenth into two, in order to avoid having only nine.

The reverse is the case. Protestants make the first commandment into two, and then, to escape having eleven, turn the ninth and tenth into one! The first commandment, as given in the Bible, is as follows: "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God, etc." Exodus, XX., 1-6.

You are deceiving us. That is not what Catholics are taught. I have a Catholic Catechism which gives the first commandment as, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me." You cut out the reference to images.

In the first place, if we wished to deceive our people, we would be very foolish to give them the full wording of the commandment in the Douay Version of the Bible, where they could detect the deliberate distortion! In the second place, in the Catechism we give the full substantial sense of the words I have quoted, but in a brief and summarized form which can be easily memorized.

And you deny that you have changed the commandment?

I do. You notice words only, paying little or no attention to the legal substance of those words. To simplify the wording whilst retaining the full sense is certainly not to change the commandment. If you say, "He is under an obligation not to give expression to his thoughts at the present moment," I do not change the substance of what you say if I repeat to some small child, "He must not speak now." The first commandment contains within its involved Hebrew amplification two essential points: that we must acknowledge the true God, and that we must avoid false gods. Those two essential points are put briefly and simply in the Catechism for children who are more at home with short and easy sentences.

The commandments do not require such alteration.

The commandments do not. But the hopeless tangle most Protestants get into where this first commandment is concerned shows clearly that it needs to be stated precisely, without any substantial alteration. It is not a question of words, but it is a question of law, and Catholic children at least know and can clearly state the law.

You are violating the text of Scripture. The reference to images is a separate verse.

The numbering of the verses affords no argument. There was no numerical distinction of verses in the original Scriptures. Nor did God reveal such distinctions. All who are acquainted with the subject know that Scripture was divided into verses by men some centuries after Christ for greater convenience. The method of dividing the commandments, however, is not of very great importance. The complaints of Protestants against the Catholic division are rather like that of some modern daughter who would want to spell her name SMYTH, and who complains that her mother spells it SMITH. But the mother knows best how it should be written, and the mother Church knows best how the commandments should be numbered.

SALVATION BY FAITH ALONE NOT ASSURED

2011-12-16T06:39:00.000-08:00

One of the doctrines by Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, was that salvation could be achieved by faith alone. While of course faith is necessary, it is what you do with that faith that counts. If you believe is it also not true that you follow and obey. To not act in a way dictated by the faith is a clear sign of hypocritical and false faith. Yes, we are saved by faith. But it is not by faith alone.

"Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like." James 1:22-25

It seems pretty clear here that we must do something. It is not just enough to believe, we must act. How can we say we have faith and not live that faith. Remember, even Satan believed that Jesus was the Son of God. We must live out our faith through actions, not just words.

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble." James 2:14-19

How can it be made more clear that we do not achieve eternal life by faith alone? Faith without works IS dead. Luther eventually admitted adding the word "alone" to his essay, but by then the damage was done. Now many millions are following the false teachings, the hollow teachings, the incomplete truth of a man who lived hundreds of years ago. And he admitted the error on his essay. Why do these people continue to attach themselves to churches founded on this man's teachings?

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous 16 will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?' And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.' Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?' He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Matthew 25:31-46

In this scripture, Jesus is explaining the judgment of nations and what is required for salvation. Our very salvation depends upon what we do. Christ did not say it was just enough to believe that the poor should be fed, we must feed them. Christ did not say it was just enough to pray for those that are ill, we must care for them. From this passage it is easy to understand that if we do not act we are in fact neglecting Christ.

"Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation." John 5:28-29

Those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life? One of my favorite parts of confession is as asking for the forgiveness of the sin of failing to take action. So many times we do not do as we should, we do nothing, a sin of omission. Those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life? I suspect just "thinking" or "believing" is not enough.

"There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, 'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you read it?' He said in reply, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' He replied to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.'" Luke 10:25-28

The questions was what must I "do", not what must I "believe". And Jesus answered you must "do", not you must "believe".

"For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified." Romans 2:13

Once again, it is not enough to "hear" the law, one must "observe". In other words, live the law, not just "believe" it.

"By your stubbornness and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness. Yes, affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil, Jew first and then Greek. But there will be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek. There is no partiality with God." Romans 2:5-11

Paul is clear on this point. Our salvation comes through our own deeds and merits, as well as how we "live" our faith. This is not the same as saying that we receive salvation through works alone because we all know there is no salvation without Christ. Yes, you must have faith, but it is a "living" faith.

CATHOLIC ECOLOGY

2011-12-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

"Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society." Benedict XVI. Caritas in Veritate, June 2009.

Cardinal Pell (above) tries to sow doubt on climate action

By: Ellen Teague
Posted: Thursday, October 27, 2011 1:13 am

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, has questioned the cost benefits of financing action to curb climate change, such as funding clean, renewable energy. “The cost of attempts to make global warming go away will be very heavy” he said last night in London; “they may be levied initially on ‘the big polluters’ but they will eventually trickle down to the end-users”.

Speaking at the annual lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a climate sceptic think tank, chaired by former British chancellor Nigel Lawson, he expressed his controversial view that the evidence on human-induced climate change “is insufficient to achieve practical certainty on many of these scientific issues”.

Introducing Cardinal Pell, GWPF Director Dr Benny Peiser complained that the British government “is forcing us to fund very expensive green energy” and welcomed Chancellor George Osborne’s recent hints that he could water down the UK’s ambitious carbon targets. He welcomed Cardinal Pell as a “courageous churchman” who raised “these awkward questions”.

It was only under questioning from the audience in a two-thirds full Westminster Cathedral Hall that Cardinal Pell made clear that he was speaking as an individual and not presenting an official Catholic stance.

When told of a 2007 gathering of all the parishes in the Archdiocese of Manila to discuss climate change mitigation as well as adaptation, he responded that he felt the thousands of people present were “mistaken”.

Members of the Columban Missionary Society and Fr Joe Ryan of Westminster Justice and Peace, challenged the Cardinal for accusing those calling for climate action as being scaremongers. Fr Ryan pointed out that the May 2011 report of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on ‘Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene’ did not deliberately set out to scaremonger when it listed numerous examples of glacial decline around the world, and the evidence linking that decline to human-caused changes in climate and air pollution. The report showed that the way of life of many people in the regions dependent upon glaciers and snow packs for water was under grave threat, It called to immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change. The document is available on the Vatican website.

Commenting on the lecture, Tim Aldred of Progressio said: “it is strange that the Cardinal calls for action only on the basis of evidence, whilst apparently dismissing the evidence-based conclusions of (amongst others) the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and NASA”. Aldred pointed out that “only last week the Berkeley Earth Project, in a major new study, reconfirmed the earlier conclusions that global warming is taking place and that the results are inexplicable without taking man-made CO2 emissions into account”.

He also underlined that organisations such as Progressio help poor communities adapt to extreme weather as well as acting to reduce emissions which are driving the change in climate. “The potential impact of a failure to act on climate change has been highlighted for us by a week in which Progressio partners in El Salvador have been responding to serious flooding, with over 50,000 people in emergency shelters” he said. “Our partners tell us of the importance of preparing for future disasters, and also the need to address the emissions which are leading to an increase in the frequency of such extreme events”.

“There is an overwhelming, and still growing, body of evidence that climate change is happening, that it's very likely to be caused by our carbon emissions, and that we need to be changing direction now in the way we use fossil fuels” responded Paul Bodenham, the Catholic Director of Operation Noah and Chair of Christian Ecology Link. “The vast majority of scientists and academies accept it, and the Pontifical Academy for Sciences accepts it, and we get on with the job, at home and in society at large, of fostering justice, prudence, temperance and love for God's creation”.

Columban Father Sean McDonagh, who has written a book about Climate Change, said he feels Cardinal Pell is out of step with Vatican policy. He points out that a joint communiqué issued by the Holy See and the British Government last September, during the papal visit, clearly indicates the Vatican’s position. The second paragraph stated that, ‘The British Government and the Holy See share a conviction of the urgent need for action to address the challenge of climate change’ and that ‘action is needed at every level from the governmental to the individual if we are to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to set in motion the transition to a global low-carbon economy, and to assist poor and vulnerable countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already inevitable’.

Father McDonagh said he feels it is “very regrettable” that Cardinal Pell is “planting seeds of doubt” about Climate Change just one month before the next round of UN climate negotiations in South Africa. Just last week, in his message for World Food Day, Pope Benedict said that “availability of foods is increasingly conditioned by volatility of prices and sudden climatic changes”.
p://www.thegwpf.org

IS JESUS THE CHRIST A HUMAN PERSON?

2011-12-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

Think before you answer that question.

I asked that question of so many of my friends recently and almost all, save for only one, gave me the wrong answer.
Some even became indignant for my even asking the question. Why they became indignant, I have no clue.
Nevertheless it is an important question about the person of Jesus the Christ.

1. Is Jesus the Christ a human person?

2. Is Jesus the Christ a Divine person?

3. Is He both?

4. Is He neither?

What answer do you have for each of those four simple questions?

In order to come to the correct answers to those four questions, we must first lay some groundwork as to definitions.

Person;
The subject of action. The center of attribution in a rational nature.
Person has a body, a soul, a spirit, and five senses with which to communicate with the outside world.
1Thessalonians 5:23;
"May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept
sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Some Biblical references to the word 'person';
Job 32:21, Ezekiel 44:25, Matthew 22:16, Mark 12:14, 1Corinthians 15:44-47,
Galatians 2:6, 1Thessalonians 5:23, and Hebrews 4:12.

Nature;
That which makes a person or thing be what it is. The essential
characteristics and qualities of a person, or of a thing. What does it do?
What can be done to it? Nature decides what a being can do, but the person
does it. Nature presents the question 'what', while person presents the quesion 'who'.

Various natures mentioned in Scripture;
female-Romans 1:26, the law-Romans 2:14, uncircumcised-Romans 2:27,
tree-Romans 11:24, hair-1Corinthians 11:14, Jewish-Galatians 2:15, not divine-Galatians 4:8,
children of wrath-Ephesians 2:3, divine-2Peter 1:4.

Person possesses a nature. Nature does not possess a person. Nature describes what a person can do, but the person does it. That is a very important point as we shall soon see.
Person poses the question 'who'.
Nature poses the question 'what'.
Persons (who's) die on crosses, not natures (what's). Persons with a nature are born of mothers, not natures only.
Persons are those who can say 'I' because they reflect in some way the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from whom all personhood comes.

Here is a very good publication regarding these subjects, and many more about basic theology;
"Theology and Sanity" by Frank Sheed.

A son takes on the nature of his father.
The son of a cat is a cat.
The son of a man is a man.
The Son of GOD is GOD.
Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit and of His Blessed Mother Mary.
Since Jesus was born of GOD a Divine person, He is GOD, a Divine person.
Jesus did not have a human father so He could not be a human person.
The substance of the body of Jesus was provided from the substance of Blessed Mary.

Mary gave birth to a Divine person and is rightfully called 'Theotokos', the Mother of GOD.
Council of Ephesus 431 A.D.

Here are three verses that should prove to everyone that Jesus was NOT a human person:

Philippians 2:6-8;
(6) "...though he was by nature GOD, did not consider being equal to GOD a thing to be clung to,
(7) but emptied Himself, taking the nature of a slave and being made like unto men.
And appearing in the form of man,
(8) He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross."

Elucidation of Philippians 2:6-8;
1. He was by nature GOD.
2. He took the nature of a slave (man).
3. He was made like unto men. Likened to a human person, but it does not say that He was one.
4. He appeared in the form of man. Again, in the form of a human person but it does not say that He was one.

'Haydock' is considered to be one of the best Bible commentaries ever written.
Let us see what it has to say about the above.

Haydock;
Ver. 6. Who being in the form of God, (that is truly, properly, and essentially God from eternity,
as the ancient Fathers here observed against the Arians) taking the form of a servant,
(i.e. taking upon him our human nature) became truly a man, and as man the servant of God, but remaining always God as before, thought it not robbery, no injury to his eternal Father, to be equal, to be esteemed, and to declare himself equal to God, to be one thing with him:
as on divers occasions he taught the people, as we have observed in the notes on St. John's gospel, (Witham)

The Nestorian Heresy, Jesus was two persons, one divine and one human.

Nestorianism (5th Century);
This heresy about the person of Christ was initiated by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who denied Blessed Mary the title of Theotokos (Greek: "God-bearer" or, less literally, "Mother of God"). Nestorius claimed that she only bore Christ’s human nature in her womb, and proposed the alternative title Christotokos ("Christ-bearer" or "Mother of Christ").

The teachings of Nestorius were opposed by Cyril who argued that Nestorius was actually denying the reality of the incarnation by making Jesus Christ into two different persons, one human, one divine, sharing one body.

The Council of Ephesus 431 A.D. was called to settle the matter.
This council (reinforced by the Council of Chalcedon in 451) clarified orthodox Catholic doctrine, pronouncing that Jesus, true God and true man, has two distinct natures that are inseparably joined in one person and partake of the one divine substance.
Nestorius was removed from office after the Council of Ephesus.

Here are a few more verses, Biblical proof that Jesus is not a human person.

2Corinthians 2:10;
"And to whom you have pardoned any thing, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ."

Did you notice that the verse said 'person' of Christ, singular, and not 'persons'?

1Corinthians 15:45-48;
(45) "Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
(46) But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.
(47) The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
(48) As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven."

Elucidation to 1Corinthians 15:45-48;
1. 'The last Adam' is Jesus Christ. 'A life-giving spirit' cannot be a human person.
2. The second man, Jesus, was not a 'man of dust', as a human person would be.
3. The second man, Jesus, came from Heaven.
4. Since Jesus came from Heaven, He could not be a human person.

Go here for much more regarding the above graphic and acknowledgments.

Did you notice in the above graphic, those two verses in RED, that it was ONE

and the same person of Jesus Christ who spoke both as GOD and as Man?

So, let us review those first two very important questions one last time.

Is Jesus the Christ a human person?

NO!

Holy Scripture has clearly instructed us that He could not be a human person.

Is Jesus the Christ a Divine person?

YES!

Holy Scripture has clearly taught us that He is a Divine person.

THE TRIPLE BIRTH OF CHRIST.

He was born into eternity of a Father without a mother.

He was born into time of a Mother without a father.

He is born into us at Baptism.

Father Dermot Dwyer

(1923-2005)

Written by Bob Stanley

May 12, 2011

Galations 4:16

WHY CATHOLICS PRAY TO MARY

2011-12-02T03:29:00.000-08:00

Many non-Catholics have been trained from childhood to believe that one of the clear proofs of the falsity of Catholicism is to be found in the honor that is paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church, and in the innumerable trusting prayers that are offered to her by Catholics. At the same time it is true that many non-Catholics, when they learn what are the genuine foundations of Catholic devotion to Mary, are drawn by it so irresistibly that ultimately they become Catholics. For the truth is very simple and clear, and is all contained in the following two truths.

1. Mary is the Mother of God (Luke 1:43). Catholics do not believe that God was bound by any compulsion to have a Mother; they believe that He chose to have a Mother and all that this implies. He chose to permit His human body to be formed in her womb (Luke 1:35).

He chose to permit her to bring Him forth as a tiny baby into the world. He chose to let her feed Him at her breast, carry Him in her arms, guard Him from danger, and teach Him as any child would be taught, to walk and speak and pray. He thereby chose to grant Mary a power over Him that only love can bestow (Luke 2:51). Catholics believe that in choosing a mother, the Son of God chose to grant her the power over His will that the love of a good mother always wields over a good son.

2. Mary is a mother to all men. Catholics believe that the Son of God chose to come into the world through a mother in order that that mother might accept as His brothers all the children of the sinful race of man. He set an example as to how she should be honored and loved. He prepared her for this motherhood of all by asking her to suffer every conceivable form of pain (Luke 2:35), thus teaching her sympathy for the sorrows of her children.

Had she been His Mother alone, He would have spared her from pain, because He had the power to do so and because He loved her with an infinite love. He wrought His first public miracle at her request (John 2:1-11), and when He was dying He reminded her that she had been destined from the beginning to be a Mother to all (John 19:27). Catholics therefore believe that Mary will be as eager to help them, in troubles of soul and body, as every natural mother is eager to promote the welfare of her child.

The rosaries that Catholics recite are but the expression of their belief in these two truths (Luke 1:48). They know that if Mary speaks to her divine Son in their behalf, there can be no doubt about their receiving an answer to their prayers.

ADVENT

2011-11-28T04:26:00.000-08:00

by Kathryn Marcellino, OCDS

Yesterday was the beginning of Advent - Advent (from the Latin word adventus or "coming") is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth (nativity) of Jesus at Christmas. It is also the beginning of the Western liturgical year. This year in the United States it also marks the beginning of the use of the new English translation of the Mass. Some of the new translation is really the same as many of us heard as children many years ago and is a more accurate translation of the Bible verses from which the prayers originated and refer to.

During this time the faithful are admonished
• to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord's coming into the world as the incarnate God of love,
• thus to make their souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace, and
• thereby to make themselves ready for His final coming as judge, at death and at the end of the world. (Catholic Encyclopedia 1917)

The theme of readings at Mass during Advent is often to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ while commemorating the First Coming of Christ at Christmas.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about "The Preparations" for Christmas:

522 The coming of God's Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the "First Covenant". He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming.

523 St. John the Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare his way. "Prophet of the Most High", John surpasses all the prophets, of whom he is the last. He inaugurates the Gospel, already from his mother's womb welcomes the coming of Christ, and rejoices in being "the friend of the bridegroom", whom he points out as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". Going before Jesus "in the spirit and power of Elijah", John bears witness to Christ in his preaching, by his Baptism of conversion, and through his martyrdom.

524 When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Advent is a time to prepare for the celebration of Christ's birth and also a time to seek a greater coming of Jesus into our own personal lives, minds, hearts, and souls. Some ways to do this are being faithful to daily prayer, spiritual reading, doing works of charity and penance, and going to confession (the sacrament of reconciliation).

One tradition for Advent is the use an Advent wreath. The wreath is made of fresh plant material with three candles that are purple (symbolizing penance) and one pink candle for the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, which symbolizes joy and marking the half way point of Advent. The light of the candle represents Christ, the Light of the World, who conquers the darkness of evil and shows us the way of righteousness.

Beginning with the first Sunday of Advent, the lighting of a candle can be accompanied by a Bible reading and/or prayers which are often said in a family setting. An additional candle is lit each week so that by the last Sunday before Christmas, all four candles are lit. This is one way for families to remember the true meaning of Christmas and is a reminder that Christmas is a holy time of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Children especially seem to like the lighting of candles; praying together and using an Advent wreath are some ways to remember the real meaning of Christmas. Even though our lives are busy, times like Advent remind us to keep our priorities straight, i.e. putting God first and other things second.

A prayer for the first Sunday of Advent: "Father in heaven, our hearts desire the warmth of your love and our minds are searching for the light of your Word. Increase our longing for Christ our Saviour and give us the strength to grow in love, that the dawn of his coming may find us rejoicing in his presence and welcoming the light of his truth. Through Christ our Lord. Amen."

THE RELIGION THAT WILL DESTROY WESTERN CIVILIZATION

2011-11-24T01:23:00.000-08:00

"The falling of Christendom into Paganism must necessarily produce results shocking to our inherited culture...I cannot but wish---somewhat temerariously--that the new Paganism may develop a little too rapidly, shock a little too violently the dormant conscience of Europe and thereby prepare the counter-attack against it."

Hillaire Belloc, Survivals and New Arrivals.

According to a recent Harris opinion poll only one in three people in England say they are "a believer". In Italy less than two-thirds are believers, and in France it's less than one in three.

A recent ICM poll found that an overwhelming majority of Britons believe that religion does more harm than good. Neither of the above polls account for the percentage of "believers" that are Muslim in Britain and France.

Everywhere we hear the mantra that religion has caused nothing but hatred, violence and bloodshed throughout history. The secularists assert that they can do a better job at keeping peace, justice and order in society than Christianity did.

So how do secularists propose to achieve a better society? What is christianity replaced with?

Christianity is replaced with no less than a man-made, man-centered religion that demands a human rather than a divine faith. This faith has been in the making for centuries. We are now at its culmination. Some may refer to it as the spirit of the anti-christ. After all it is indeed against Christ.

The secularists are not theists since their belief system does not include a diety per se. Although they abhor the notion of dogma they nevertheless rigidly espouse the strict adherence to the fundamentals of their faith.

One of the essential dogmas of secularism is relativism. Relativism tells us that truth is subjective and everyone's truth is different. What may be wrong for you could be right for me and vice versa. Relativism holds that no one religion has a monopoly on the truth. It tells us that there is no such thing as objective truth. It makes the practice of orthodox Christianity impossible. Since Jesus Christ revealed Himself to be the living Truth then the rejection of objective truth is necessarily the rejection of Christ and Christianity.

A second dogma of secular fundamentalism is multicultural tolerance. Converts to this system of belief are convinced of the peace and harmony that can be achieved when one strips himself of any and all preferences for one's own culture. An untempered openness to everything, except of course christianity, is part of the fundamental dogma. A contempt for all things Western and most especially Western history frees one to conclude that Islam is the religion of peace and christianity is the religion of crusaders and the inquisition.

Toleration is to secularists what love is to christians. Truth and toleration do not go hand in hand for the secularists. If someone is engaged in something that might cause harm tolerance requires a "live and let live" approach. After all "I cannot impose my morality on someone else". We must tolerate all things liberal and licentious.

Secularists condone everything that christianity condemned as an abomination. The doers of the abominable have been declared secular saints and martyrs. The stripping of the mind, heart and soul of so called rigid belief systems is supposed to bring about peace, justice and order.

Will our society flourish now that it has rid itself of christian influences? Are we finally on the threshold of utopia?

Would anyone in their right mind answer these questions in the affirmative? Most elements of our society are in a steep and speedy decline.
Our entertainment elevates vice to the status of virtue while mocking marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood, innocence and glorifying all things sexual. Our educational system is a dismally dumbed downed government program that creates an anti-socialized, cookie-cutter, apathetic citizenry.

Families have been destroyed so quickly and efficiently it is no less than diabolically orchestrated. Materialism beckons and fathers become slaves to the tremendous "needs" our society impose on us. Motherhood is lost to the lie that the drudgery of work is more fulfilling than truly impacting the future by rearing one's children. We have defrauded generations of our children by sheer neglect. We have stolen children's innocence and have force fed them lies about what will make them happy. Then our secular society has the gaul to act surprised when school shootings occur and the number one cause of teenage deaths is suicide. Everywhere is the toleration of what is wrong as right--and the intoleration of all that is right as wrong. Despite both parents pursuit of the American dream, we cannot "afford" more children so we make the mortal blunder of contracepting away our future. Meanwhile the West is oblivious to the looming demographic crisis that its love of contraception has created.

Islam does not share the West's love affair with contraception. It is now at the West's doorstep with a punishing zeal and it will not tolerate, nor peaceably coexist, with the West's secular dogma and perversion of right and wrong. The West's very existence is threatened by its own suicidal extinction. A society that makes the family its enemy will make an enemy of its future.

Essentially secularism is a religion that compels no specified behaviors and asks for nothing of its adherents. Even a secular fundamentalist would not suffer, let alone die, for the cause of secularism. After all, the dogma of relativism tells them that their beliefs are no better than anyone else's. Yet marching now into Europe is a religion that believes itself to be superior and its adherents will die for their faith. Herein lies the crux of the matter--without conviction and willingness to fight or die for something, a quiet death will come upon the West. It will tolerate even its own demise.

How can a civilization continue when it fails to see the benefit of reproduction of the human race and attempts to thwart it at every turn? How can a civilization continue when we have all become mini-gods, each with his own divine plan for right living? How can a civilization that accepts everything condemn anything? An ordered peaceful and just society based on secularism is doomed to fail. All around us is destruction. But in this vast destruction lies a tremendous gap or void that offers hope. Hilaire Belloc, prophetically saw this in Survivals and New Arrivals.

"Meanwhile there is a gap: and that gap is our opportunity. ... [It is Catholicism's] "...unique power to answer the great questions, it has always seemed to me the most powerful instrument possessed by the Faith in the spiritual crisis now so close upon us. You cannot perhaps convert despair when despair has been erected into a system, ... but you can check it in its beginnings, when it is no more than the loss of something which the despairing man knows he has enjoyed, and cannot but wish he might recover.

"To the Great Questions which man must ask himself and which so insistently demand an answer (What is man? Whence comes he? Has the universe a purpose? What part does man play in that purpose? What final destinies may be his?) the Catholic Church gives not only a reply... but a fully consistent solution: a sound complete system of philosophy. Moreover Her answer is not only consistent; it is triumphant. She knows fully Her own validity; She can point in actual practice to the effect of happiness produced in society by her philosophy.

"Those great questions will be asked again and again. We are not hearing the last of them; we are at the beginnnings of their second postulation, at the beginnings of a new interest in them.

"The falling of Christendom into Paganism must necessarily produce results shocking to our inherited culture...I cannot but wish---somewhat temerariously--that the new Paganism may develop a little too rapidly, shock a little too violently the dormant conscience of Europe and thereby prepare the counter-attack against it." Hilaire Belloc, Survivals and New Arrivals.

THE WOLVES ARE IN CHARGE--VATICAN CALLS FOR WORLD BANK

2011-11-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

TRADITIONAL CATHOLICISM LAST DAYS

Fr John Hardon S.J.

The enemies of Christ's Church on earth have infiltrated to the highest levels. And now the enemy himself speaks from within. The gates of hell will put up a supreme challenge that will confuse even the elect if that be possible, but hell will not prevail in the end. Just as Christ suffered His Passion so His Church must do the same in these last days. We must not flee his side but instead ride out this tremendous storm in the Arc --which is His Church. We must place the Blood of the lamb on our doorposts by eating the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Finally, we must consecrate ourselves and pray heartily to the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the woman clothed with the sun and who will crush the head of the serpent. As Fr John Hardon, S.J., used to say, "Ordinary Catholics will not survive this age". I hasten to add those who have placed themselves outside the Catholic Church will suffer the worst confusion. Immaculate Heart of Mary pray for your children and the Church.

VATICAN CITY, Oct 24 (Reuters) - - The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a "global public authority" and a "central world bank" to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises.

The document from the Vatican's Justice and Peace department should please the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

"Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority," was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions.

"The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence," it said.

It condemned what it called "the idolatry of the market" as well as a "neo-liberal thinking" that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems.

"In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale," it said, adding that world economics needed an "ethic of solidarity" among rich and poor nations.

"If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid," it said.

It called for the establishment of "a supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" to guide economic policies and decisions.

Such an authority should start with the United Nations as its reference point but later become independent and be endowed with the power to see to it that developed countries were not allowed to wield "excessive power over the weaker countries".

Read More > >

HOW TO CONQUER THE WORLD THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL

2011-11-14T04:20:00.000-08:00

TRADITIONAL CATHOLICISM

John of the Cross wrote the following "Precautions" for the nuns in Beas while he lived at El Calvario (1578-79), after he had escaped from prison in Toledo. Traditional Catholic spirituality, rooted in Scripture, spoke commonly of three spiritual enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. (Emphasis throughout is mine)

THE PRECAUTIONS

The soul must practice the following instructions if it wishes to attain in a short time holy recollection and spiritual silence, nakedness, and poverty of spirit, where one enjoys the peaceful comfort of the Holy Spirit, reaches union with God, is freed of all the obstacles incurred from the creatures of this world, defended against the wiles and deceits of the devil, and liberated from one's own self.

It should be noted, then, that all the harm the soul receives is born of its enemies, mentioned above: the world, the devil, and the flesh. The world is the enemy least difficult to conquer; the devil is the hardest to understand; but the flesh is the most tenacious, and its attacks continue as long as the old self lasts.

To gain complete mastery over any of these three enemies, one must vanquish all three of them; and in the weakening of one, the other two are weakened also. When all three are overpowered, no further war remains for the soul.

Precautions Against the World

To free yourself from the harm the world can do you, you should practice three precautions.

The first precaution against the world

The first is that you should have an equal love for and an equal forgetfulness of all persons, whether relatives or not, and withdraw your heart from relatives as much as from others, and in some ways even more for fear that flesh and blood might be quickened by the natural love that is ever alive among kin, and must always be mortified for the sake of spiritual perfection.

Regard all as strangers, and you will fulfill your duty toward them better than by giving them

Read More > >

SPAIN: MOTHER LOSES CUSTODY OF HER CHILDREN DUE TO HER HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE

2011-11-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, there are warriors left in Europe, and specifically Spain, who do not conform to this age and participate in the corrruption of innocence to appease radical homosexuals. Judge Fernando Ferrin Calamita has ordered a lesbian mother to hand over her two daughters to their father because her homosexual lifestyle would harm them, and in his words, raise the risk that the girls would become lesbians.

"According to Ferrin, being raised by homosexuals would not allow the children the right to the proper environment to which they were entitled.

“It is understood that (a parent’s) drug addiction, child abuse, prostitution, belonging to a satanic sect or heterosexual affair would negatively affect the children and serve as a reason for a change of custody,” he said. “Well, it’s the same with homosexuality.”

"[Ferrin] who heard the case at a court in the eastern region of Murcia, also said the woman could keep custody of the children if she found another male partner.

"In his ruling, Ferrin criticized recent national laws against domestic violence and in favour of gay marriage, as well as legislation liberalising child custody. He claimed that the laws were “a mistake by the parliament controlled by the ruling party” in reference to the governing Socialists."

[Ferrin] in a separate case...faces a probe

Read More > >

PRIMACY IN LOVE

2011-11-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

"Primacy in Love": The Chair Altar of Saint Peter's in Rome | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | From Images of Hope

The Altar of the Chair of Peter

Anyone who, after wandering through the massive nave of Saint Peter's Basilica, at last arrives at the final altar in the apse would probably expect here a triumphal depiction of Saint Peter, around whose tomb the church is built. But nothing of the kind is the case. The figure of the Apostle does not appear among the sculptures of this altar. Instead, we stand before an empty throne that almost seems to float but is supported by the four figures of the great Church teachers of the West and the East. The muted light over the throne emanates from the window surrounded by floating angels, who conduct the rays of light downward.

What is this whole composition trying to express? What does it tell us? It seems to me that a deep analysis of the essence of the Church lies hidden here, is contained here, an analysis of the office of Peter. Let us begin with the window, with its muted colors, which both gathers in to the center and opens outward and upward. It unites the Church with creation as a whole. It signifies through the dove of the Holy Spirit that God is the actual source of all light. But it tells us also something else) the Church herself is in essence, so to speak, a window, a place of contact between the other-worldly mystery of God and our world, the place where the world is permeable to the radiance of his light. The Church is not there for herself, she is not an end, but rather a point of departure beyond herself and us. The more transparent she becomes for the other, from whom she comes and to whom she leads, the more she fulfills her true essence. Through the window of her faith God enters this world and awakens in us the longing for what is greater. The Church is the place of encounter where God meets us and we find God. It is her task to open up a world closing in on itself, to give it the light without which it would be unlivable.

Let us look now at the next level of the altar: the empty cathedra made of gilded bronze, in which a wooden chair from the ninth century is embedded, held for a long time to be the cathedra of the Apostle Peter and for this reason placed in this location. The meaning of this part of the altar is thereby made clear. The teaching chair of Peter says more than a picture could say. It expresses the abiding presence of the Apostle, who as teacher remains present in his successors. The chair of the Apostle is a sign of nobility--it is the throne of truth, which in that hour at Caesarea became his and his successors' charge. The seat of the one who teaches reechoes, so to speak, for our memory the word of the Lord from the room of the Last Supper: "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22:32). But there is also another remembrance connected to the chair of the Apostle: the saying of Ignatius of Antioch, who in the year 110 in his Letter to the Romans called the Church of Rome "the primacy of love".

Primacy in faith must be primacy in love. The two are not to be separated from each other. A faith without love would no longer be the faith of Jesus Christ. The idea of Saint Ignatius was however still more concrete: the word "love" is in the language of the early Church also an expression for the Eucharist. Eucharist originates in the love of Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us. In the Eucharist, he evermore shares himself with us; he places himself in our hands. Through the Eucharist he fulfills evermore his promise that from the Cross he will draw us into his open arms (see Jn 12:32). In Christ's embrace we are led to one another. We are taken into the one Christ, and thereby we now also belong reciprocally together. I can no longer consider anyone a stranger who stands in the same contact with Christ.

These are all, however, in no way remote mystical thoughts. Eucharist is the basic form of the Church. The Church is formed in the eucharistic assembly. And since all assemblies of all places and all times always belong only to the one Christ, it follows that they all form only one single Church. They lay, so to speak, a net of brotherhood across the world and join the near and the far to one another so that through Christ they are all near. Now we usually tend to think that love and order are opposites. Where there is love, order is no longer needed because all has become self-evident. But that is a misunderstanding of love as well as of order. True human order is something different from the bars one places before beasts of prey so that they are restrained.

Order is respect for the other and for one's own, which is then most loved when it is taken in its correct sense. Thus order belongs to the Eucharist, and its order is the actual core of the order of the Church. The empty chair that points to the primacy in love speaks to us accordingly of the harmony between love and order. It points in its deepest aspect to Christ as the true primate, the true presider in love. It points to the fact that the Church has her center in the liturgy. It tells us that the Church can remain one only from communion with the crucified Christ. No organizational efficiency can guarantee her unity. She can be and remain world Church only when her unity is more than that of an organization--when she lives from Christ. Only the eucharistic faith, only the assembly around the present Lord can she keep for the long term. And from here she receives her order. The Church is not ruled by majority decisions but rather through the faith that matures in the encounter with Christ in the liturgy.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Primacy of Jesus, the Primacy of Love

- by John Mallon, Contributing Editor, Inside the Vatican

One of the most poignant misunderstandings about the Catholic Church in our time is the perception that it is primarily a moral system—a bunch of rules. The expression “Catholic guilt” is a commonplace cliché among many Catholics. Rules make little sense without some kind of understanding which provides a motivation to live within those rules.

Far from being a mere moral system or philosophy by a teacher from the past, Catholicism is a relationship with a person—a love affair, a romance, a marriage, a friendship, with the Man, Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Some may say this downplays Christ’s role as Lord, but I disagree—it enhances it. True reverence flows from intimacy. The better we truly know and love someone the more we will reverence them.

Anyone truly in love speaks of their beloved with reverence. Love is a mode of knowing and this knowledge attained through love creates admiration, affection, respect, wonder, and yes, reverence. Christ is the Bridegroom who said, “I do not speak to you as slaves, I call you my friends.”

On the day before he was elected to the Chair of Peter, then-Cardinal Ratzinger in his April 18 homily at the conclave’s opening Mass said these words: “Let us now look at the Gospel, from whose riches I would like to draw only two small observations. The Lord addresses these wonderful words to us: ‘I no longer speak of you as slaves... Instead, I call you friends’ (Jn 15:15).”

He also said, “To our weak minds, to our weak hands, he entrusts his truth—the mystery of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the mystery of God who ‘so loved the world that he gave his only Son’ (Jn 3:16). He made us his friends—and how do we respond?”

And then: “The second element Jesus uses to define friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans ‘idem velle — idem nolle’ [same desires, same dislikes] was also the definition of friendship. “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14).

And, “a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth.”

Suddenly, in the midst of this sublime homily, the future Pope exclaimed, in a manner reminiscent of the sudden exclamations in the Epistles of St. Paul, “Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!”

Another translation of the quote from John 15:14 cited above is commonly, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” We can conclude that keeping the Commandments issues naturally from our love of Jesus. Indeed, what else? A person truly in love actually fears doing something that would hurt the beloved or create distance in the relationship.

To a husband truly in love infidelity is horrific and unthinkable, not because it will get him “in trouble” but because of his love for his wife. This motivation of genuine fear of harming this precious love is referred to as filial fear, whereas the fear of simply “getting in trouble” is called servile fear. In his homily the Holy Father called this filial fear “a mature adult faith.”

The virtue of “fear of the Lord” has been reduced in modern times to mere awe due to the apparent “negative” connotations of the word “fear” in English. But its meaning is much larger and more beautiful.

Who would say a natural healthy dread of hurting someone we love is “negative”? Nevertheless, the late Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper says that servile fear of the Lord is better than no fear of the Lord at all, but filial fear is superior, more mature (see Pieper’s book, On Hope). Children fear running afoul of their parents until they grow up and learn the wisdom of their parents’ discipline of them. Again, a mature adult faith is what we seek.

More than anything, a lover dreads whatever will harm his marriage, be it with a spouse or with the Lord, namely, sin. Magisterial Church teachings come from Christ. A truly mature Catholic husband is informed and knows that contraception, for example, will harm his marriage, first of all by harming his wife physically, in the case of oral contraceptives, and in the case of barrier methods it will harm their love metaphysically by coming between their intimacy and total self-gift.

I once heard a young man say, “Using a condom is like kissing through a screen door!” Though I doubt he said this in defense of Catholic teaching, the analogy is a good one. Love longs for union and for that union to bear fruit. Catholic teaching always supports love in its higher form, not giving in to a terrible pragmatism that often passes for love. If true love were present in a relationship there would be no fornication or adultery because sin always harms love.

For readers of this magazine, much of what is said here is nothing new but it needs to be shouted from the housetops, because we are seeing a backlash to the grievous harm done to the Church in the past 40 years by dissent, which, in an ironic form of legalism, has pushed for a greater laxity in the Church’s moral teachings.

This backlash is taking the form of a new embrace of the opposite error to laxity: rigidity. Both errors are expressions of the aforementioned servile fear of punishment rather than the filial fear which issues from love and intimacy with Jesus. The dissenter attempts to alleviate the servile fear by denying or downplaying the possibility of punishment, while the embrace of rigidity focuses unduly on punishment. The Catholic in love with Jesus knows that sin is its own punishment and any distance from the Lord caused by sin is agony in itself. Thankfully, the Lord always stands ready to forgive at the asking.

The solution to the ideological Left/Right split that currently haunts the Church (and the rest of the world) is Jesus Christ. Following Christ in the Church is not a “middle of the road” path by any means, but Christ is the center of everything, and it is He to whom we should flee, front and center before the Tabernacle, not falling out the windows on the left or the right side of the Church.

Morality falls into place in the embrace of the true Bridegroom who is always embracing His Body, the Church. Knowing Jesus Christ in an intimate relationship of friendship and love is the answer to the opposite errors of excessive moral laxity and excessive moral rigidity. In Christ we are at home.

Isaiah spoke to this in his prophetic utterance: “The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst. No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher, while from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or to the left.” (Is. 30:20-21)

John Mallon is a Contributing Editor to Inside the Vatican magazine. He also has regular columns on the website Catholic.Org. An archive of Mr. Mallon's work also appears here: http://www.petersvoice.com/mallon/index.html. You can reach Mr. Mallon at johnmallon@insidethevatican.com.

THE NEW ROMAN MISSAL

2011-11-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

Scripture and the Mass (The New Roman Missal)

– from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

[Are you ready for the upcoming changes? Beginning with Advent a new English translation of the Roman Missal will be used in the United States. Below the U.S. Bishops Conference explains some of these changes.]

It is clear that Sacred Scripture has a revered and important place in the Eucharistic Liturgy. Every Mass includes a Liturgy of the Word. The main elements of the liturgy of the Word are biblical readings and the singing of the psalm. The Liturgy of the Word reaches its high point in the proclamation of the Gospel.

However, the use of Scripture in the Mass does not end when the Liturgy of the Word has finished. In fact, the words of Scripture flow throughout the prayers of the Mass. One of the goals of the new translation of the Missal was to make clearer the links between the prayers of the Mass and the text of Scripture. Some of the most noticeable changes reflect the words of the Bible more clearly. Let's take a look at some of these changes.

A BIBLICAL GREETING:

At several points in the Mass, the priest or deacon and the people engage in the following dialogue:

Priest or Deacon: The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit. (The Order of the Mass, 2)

The first words come from a greeting of Boaz, the great-grandfather of King David: "Boaz...said to the harvesters, 'The Lord be with you!' and they replied, 'The Lord bless you!'" (Ru 2:4). The people's response reflects the language of St. Paul. In Galatians, he says, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you spirit, brothers. Amen" (Gal. 6:18); the Second Letter to Timothy closes with a similar wish: "The Lord be with your spirit" (2 Tim 4:22). The Letter to the Philippians ends with "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" (Phil 4:23).

The new language, though a bit unfamiliar to our ears, more directly reflects the biblical understanding that, through Baptism, the Spirit of God dwells in us and unites us as one Body in Christ.

WELCOMING THE LORD:

Immediately before coming forward to receive the Lord in Holy Communion, we welcome the Lord:

Lord, I am not worthy
that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed. (The Order of Mass, 132)

This prayer quotes the words of the centurion who asked Jesus to cure his servant. He would not presume to ask Jesus to come to his home. He trusted in the authority of Jesus' healing word, saying: "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed" (Mt 8:8; see Lk 7:6-7). This new phrasing reminds us that, in receiving Holy Communion, we are to emulate the centurion's humility and faith.

FOR THE MANY:

One of the most notable changes will come in the words that the priest speaks in consecrating the wine as the Blood of Christ:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
for this is the chalice of my Blood,
the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins. (The Order of Mass, 90)

The newly translated text more closely reflects the scriptural accounts of the Last Supper: "Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of the many for the forgiveness of sins'" (Mt 26:27-28). Much attention has focused on a single change in this text: from "for all" to "for many." This change is unique to the English language. Other languages, including Spanish, French, and German, have already been using language that more closely reflects Jesus' words at the Last Supper.

This new text does not mean that God's love is limited or that only some may be saved. Rather, it reflects the fact that human beings may choose to accept the grace of salvation and live their lives in the light of this grace.

DEEPER UNDERSTANDING:

If we recognize the biblical references that underlie the liturgical texts, we will have a fuller understanding of their meaning. For example, Eucharistic Prayer I includes the following passage:

Be pleased to look upon these offerings
with a serene and kindly countenance,
and to accept them,
as you were pleased to accept
the gifts of your servant Abel, the just,
the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith,
and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek,
a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim. (The Order of Mass, 93)

If we do not know who Abel (Gn 4:4) and Melchizedek (Gn 14:18-20) are and if we do not understand the importance of Abraham's sacrifice (Gn 15:7-21; 22:1-14), we will not fully appreciate the concept of sacrifice and how our celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice ties us to our ancestors in the faith, from the very beginning.

THE WORD OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE AND THE EUCHARIST:

Translating the liturgical texts with a close eye to their correspondence with the texts of Scripture can help us to develop a greater appreciation of the close links between the prayers of the Mass and Sacred Scripture. These close links can help draw us more deeply into the theological meaning of the texts.

For example, before the Communion Rite, the priest breaks the Host and shows it to the people, saying:
Behold the Lamb of God,
behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.
(The Order of Mass, 132)

The first part of this prayer echoes the words of John the Baptist, heralding the coming of the Christ: "The next day he [John] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world'" (Jn 1:29). In the same way, we who are united in the Body of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism and strengthened in the Eucharist are called to point others to Jesus through our words and actions.

The second part of this prayer reflects the words of the Book of Revelation: "Then the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb'" (Rev 19:9). In this prayer, we are not rejoicing that we may receive the Eucharist. Instead, we rejoice for those who have been found worthy to share in the heavenly Liturgy, the supper of the Lamb, and we pray that one day, we may join them in the everlasting life of the Kingdom of God.

CONCLUSION:

By delving more deeply into the scriptural background of the Mass, we come to know more closely Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, whose Paschal Mystery we celebrate.

REFERENCES:
Excerpts from the English translation of the Roman Missal ©2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy, Inc. (ICEL). All rights reserved

Scripture texts used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, Copyright ©1991, 1986, 1970 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC 20017 and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2010, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. Gratis permission is hereby granted to reproduce these materials for nonprofit educational use, when accompanied by the following acknowledgment: "Copyright © 2010 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C. Used with permission. All rights reserved."

IMPROVING YOUR PRAYER

2011-10-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Posted by Carmelite Sisters

Ask a Carmelite Sister...

Question: Dear Sister, My prayer experiences don’t seem good enough or holy enough, long enough or intense enough. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can pray better?

Answer: Dear Friend, Yes, I do have a few suggestions. That's easy...

First of all, I suggest not using the expression “prayer experiences” at all. Hit the delete button on that one. A lot of people tend to speak about their prayer experiences. To me, it’s not the best choice of words. I believe that to use the expression “prayer experience” lessens, or taints my prayer. Prayer isn’t just “an experience.” It is so much more.

I actually went to the dictionary to check out the word “experience” in order to respond to this question and was amazed to see the long list of definitions:
1.involvement in something over time.
2.knowledge or skill that is acquired.
3.the sum total of somebody’s experiences
4.something that happens to somebody
5.knowledge from observation.
6.to have personal knowledge of something
7.to feel something.

All these definitions are right and good – in their proper place, but not for a description or explanation of prayer. Why?

To Carmelites, prayer is relationship. It is time spent with Someone you love. It is that coming to know Another in a deeper way – to pray is to speak and then to listen; to communicate on a more personal and profound level and to grow in understanding, respect and appreciation of the other. St. Teresa of Avila puts it this way. “Prayer is nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart-to-heart conversation with Him, Who we know loves us” (Life, viii).

Not good enough or holy enough? Not long enough or intense enough? It is one way of looking at it, but it makes me think of asking you a question. What does love look like? Does it not have a thousand faces? The face of love can sit quietly in sorrow, sympathy and compassion. Or it can radiate with joy and laughter and grimace in steadfast, faithful determination. When someone truly falls in love, I don’t think there should be, or are, such questions. They minimize and actually detract from the power of loving. To be with, to share with, to companion the One you love is love. Love is more than an experience. Well, love is love.

This same concept can be applied to prayer. God and I, as impossible as it seems and as unworthy as I see myself, can be in relationship – just as any person to another. It is mind-boggling to think about. It is actually THE relationship for which I was created. The Baltimore Catechism put it this way.

Q. Why did God make you?

A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

That is a very personal answer, it seems to me. It summarizes the reason for our existence. I am reminded of a phrase in our profession of vows when we make our perpetual profession to God. The entire formula of vows is very beautiful, but the expression that comes to mind right now is the following – “in intimacy with God through prayer.” Yes, that’s it. That says it.

There is a four volume book set, Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD. It is a Carmelite classic on prayer. The original was one thick book and has now been broken down into the four volume set. Note the name. It is the same concept; however Father Gabriel doesn’t say Divine Relationship or Divine Friendship. No, his classic goes straight to the core, the height, the goal, which is intimacy. Just to meditate on this thought is a very fruitful meditation.

So, now to come more directly to your question, you don’t need to feel holy, or good, or any feeling. A dad doesn’t feel good getting up before dawn to get ready to go to work. A mom doesn’t feel good about taking care of her children when she herself is ill and would rather be in bed. A nun doesn’t feel so great, either, getting up before dawn to pray. But, ah! This is love. We do this out of our love, for the one we love, and ah! … that also is prayer.

I think we could sum up St. John of the Cross by saying that it is our WILL which chooses, what we see, what we hear, what we do. Our will is at work when we pray. We can will to pray when we don’t feel like it, just as in the examples above of the dad or mom or nun. We’ve heard the expression “suit up and show up.” We can use it, also, for prayer. And if we “suit up and show up” on a daily basis, on both good days and bad days, I would add, that, then, would be a powerful prayer, indeed – the prayer of a friend, who comes to be with God not looking for any gain or consolation, but is content to be with God.

Then, I wouldn’t be surprised if some day, during prayer, you would open your eyes and look at your watch and say, “My God, where did the time go? Can it be that I have been with You so long; it seemed but a few moments.” I can hear St. Teresa of Avila saying, “You are His friend now, His close friend, and He is taking you deeper into Himself in the intimacy with God through prayer. When that happens, the time passes oh so quickly.”

Until next time,

Sister Laus Gloriae, O.C.D.

WHY DO (SOME) PROTESTANTS HATE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?

2011-10-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Calvin's image is enshrined in one of these giant statues of the Reformation Wall--an odd bit of inconsistency for the iconoclast

Posted on July 5 , 2011 by Devin Rose

A few days ago I visited a Protestant blog that posts various apologetics entries arguing for (Reformed) Protestantism. I punched in a comment or two, and it wasn’t long before I was blasted by the owner and rudely insulted as “not being able to understand English.”

Another commenter at that site, who I have known for his anti-Catholic virulence, also began making comments toward me, the same guy who told my friend David–a recent Catholic convert from Reformed Protestantism - that Jesus would condemn David to hell at his judgment .

Where does this disdain come from?

Catholics believe that Protestants are Christians. We believe they can be saved, have the Holy Spirit and His gifts, and are brothers and sisters in Christ, albeit separated due to the divisions between us.

But many Protestants do not think likewise about Catholics. My friend Brent Stubbs made a blog post recently discussing three forms that anti-Catholicism takes . (Here I’m speaking of the genetic variant, though I’ll nuance it a bit.)

Focusing on Reformed Protestantism specifically–this is John Calvin’s brain-child–there is among Calvinists a strong disdain for the Catholic Church, and some adherents to this flavor of Protestantism believe all practicing Catholics are going to hell. There are three main causes for this belief:

1.They believe the Church of Rome teaches gravely evil and false things
2.Further, their beliefs entail that Romanists are predestined to damnation, and
3.They have a visceral revulsion for the Church–her saints, her relics, her liturgy, her earthiness.

To their credit, they have this hatred for the Catholic Church (or “Romanism,” as you will hear) because they believe it is leading people away from Jesus and the Gospel. And good for them! If I believed that some church or denomination was doing that, I would oppose it too–perhaps not using their same vitriol and methods – but I would not want people to follow those beliefs.

The vitriol stems largely from the second point: Under Reformed Protestantism, God has predestined the elect to salvation and the reprobate to damnation. Being a faithful Catholic therefore means, practically by definition, that you are a reprobate. And here’s the kicker: if you are one of the reprobate, many of the passages from the Gospel on forgiving your brother and helping him do not apply (at least as they interpret them). Once you cross the Tiber, you are anathema and damned.

The third point is subjective and its degree varies with every person. Realize that Calvin’s version of Protestantism led to the desecration of Catholic churches, the smashing of beautiful statues, and the whitewashing of ancient, sacred paintings and images. Given this legacy, is it any wonder that many Calvinists today have a gut reaction against the Catholic Church, with her incense and bells and stained glass and statuary? (Recall discussing three forms that anti-Catholicism takes – ”it’s the smell!”)

The Consequences of Their Beliefs

Unsurprisingly then, when a Catholic is engaging in dialogue with (this kind of) Reformed Protestant, there is no parity in the discussion. One side thinks the other is a Christian who is doing his best to follow Jesus, and the other side thinks he is talking to a wicked and damned creature.

A blindness thus arises that clouds their hearts and minds, making it incredibly difficult for them to see the Catholic Church for what she truly is, and even to objectively weigh the arguments for and against her. This is not all Protestants, but many. It becomes a case where the disdain and revulsion takes on a life of its own, and no acts of love or courage or faithfulness on the part of Catholics can overcome it. Only God can. Consider Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables where Inspector Javert cannot believe that Jean Valjean–whom he classes as one of the reprobate–could possibly have repented and become a good man:

Even when proof of heroic virtue is shown, it cannot be accepted as coming from God. It must be evil masquerading as good, because Romanism is a false religion.

The Remedy

Only God can move hearts. We must pray for our Protestant brothers and sisters, and thankfully, most do not hate the Catholic Church (or Catholics). More and more, Protestants are able to access accurate information on the Church and judge for themselves whether she is the anti-Christ that they were taught growing up. But there is still a sizable contingent of Protestants whose disgust with the Church seems implacable. They need our prayers and, if possible, our reasoned, charitable dialogue.

Let us continue to pray that Christ will unite us in the fullness of the truth!

CELIBATE LIFE TODAY

2011-10-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

by Mary Sharon Moore, M.T.S.

I have a heart for lay celibates in the Church. For the most part, their vocational state in life is uncelebrated and overlooked. Christian community lacks a convincing way of speaking of the power of this vocational lifestyle. A lot of potential, sadly, goes to waste, and many just drift away.

Yet with so many lay celibates in the Church today we have to wonder: What is God up to? In the 1920s Dorothy Day had a heart for lay celibates, and directed their passion for justice and availability for apostolic works into Catholic Worker houses which still bear good fruit today.

Among the celibate men and women I’ve met, I think of John, an accountant who quietly gives financial support to religious institutions. I think of Mollie, working tirelessly in social services in foreign posts. And Guy who works with high-tech companies and is active in parish ministries on the weekends. I think of Dorothy, in her 80s and immersed in projects to help new mothers, homeless families, and the homebound. And Tim, working a day job to pay the bills, and coming alive in teaching and guiding catechumens. And Paul who sits with the dying. And I think of Celina, divorced five times and weeping at the discovery that she never was called to married life, and now lives with all her heart for God and the consolation of others.

One priest said of his celibate life: “We do not get married for the same reason other people do get married. It’s all about relationship. The celibate life is a way of belonging.”

Celibate men and women today have enormous capacity to touch their world in healing and life-giving ways, and an unusual availability to God’s purposes. All are anointed, or are just now awakening to their anointing.

Bringing it home
1. Who do I know who is celibate and deeply engaged in doing good in this world?
2. How does their dedication touch or help to shape my life?

Hold this thought
I am coming to value the unique calling of the celibate state in life.

PARADISE AND HELL

2011-10-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

c. 1510 (170 Kb); Left and right panels of a triptych: oil on wood, Each panel 135 x 45 cm (53 1/4 x 17 3/4 in); Prado, Madrid

Bosch, Hieronymus

The greatest Netherlandish artist of the period are not found among the adherents of the New Style but among those who, like Grunewald in Germany, refused to be drawn into the modern movement from the South. In the Dutch town of Hertogenbosch there lived such a painter, who was called Hieronymous Bosch. Very little is known about him. We do not know how old he was when he died in 1516, but he must have been active for a considerable time since he became an independent master in 1486.

Like Grunewald, Bosch showed that the traditions and achievements of painting which had been developed to represent reality most convincingly could be turned round, as it were, to give us an equally plausible picture of things no human eye had seen. He became famous for his terrifying representations of the powers of evil. Perhaps it is no accident that the gloomy King Philip II of Spain, later in the century, had a special predilection for this artist, who was so much concerned with man's wickedness. The picture shows two wings from one of Bosch's triptychs he bought and which is therefore still in Spain. On the left we watch evil invading the world.

The creation of Eve is followed by the temptation of Adam and both are driven out of Paradise, while high above in the sky we see the fall of the rebellious angels, who are hurled from heaven as a swarm of repulsive insects. On the other wing we are shown a vision of hell. There we see horror piled upon horror, fires and torments and all manner of fearful demons, half animal, half human or half machine, who plague and punish the poor sinful souls for all eternity. For the first and perhaps for the only time, an artist had succeeded in giving concrete and tangible shape to the fears that had haunted the minds of man in the Middle Ages.

It was an achievement which was perhaps only possible at this very moment, when the old ideas were still vigorous and yet the modern spirit had provided the artist with methods of representing what he saw. Perhaps Hieronymus Bosch could have written on one of his paintings of hell what Jan van Eyck wrote on his peaceful scene of the Arnolfinis' betrothal: 'I was there'.

A NOVENA TO OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP

2011-10-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

In this novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help (also known as Our Mother of Perpetual Help from this icon pictured above) we pay tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary in asking for her assistance. This picture of the Blessed Mother with her Divine Son above has helped her provide strength, comfort and even miracles to the faithful for centuries!

Oh Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke your powerful name, the protection of the living and the salvation of the dying. Purest Mary, let your name henceforth be ever on my lips. Delay not, Blessed Lady, to rescue me whenever I call on you. In my temptations, in my needs, I will never cease to call on you, ever repeating your sacred name, Mary, Mary. What a consolation, what sweetness, what confidence fills my soul when I utter your sacred name or even only think of you! I thank the Lord for having given you so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name. But I will not be content with merely uttering your name. Let my love for you prompt me ever to hail you Mother of Perpetual Help. Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for me and grant me the favor I confidently ask of you.
(Then say three Hail Marys).

First placed in the Church of San Matteo in Rome in 1499, the picture was thought to be lost at one point after Napoleon’s armies sacked that church in 1798. Fortunately, however, it was in the care of the Augustinian fathers until Pope Pius IX ordered that the icon be given to the Redemptorist order at the Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome in 1866 for public viewing once again. Since then it has been copied and venerated in churches and homes all over the world.

Note in this picture how Jesus, while safely cradled in his mother’s arms, looks anxiously at St. Gabriel the Archangel, who holds the cross and nails for His Crucifixion. (St. Michael the Archangel, at left, holds the lance, spear, and the vessel of vinegar and gall for our Lord's Passion as well.) The Blessed Mother looks at us solemnly, perhaps as if in contemplation of her beloved Son’s future Passion and death for our salvation!

Remember that when we pray this novena to our Lady of Perpetual Help, that we are not choosing to worship her over her Divine Son. She is "our Mother on the order of grace,” according to a Vatican II document, and all the graces Mary gives us come directly from our Lord. She is always ready to intercede with Him on our behalf, but never for anything contrary to His wishes.

As long as we approach her as we do Him, with sincerely humble and contrite hearts, we can count on her aid and guidance. Mary’s last spoken words in the Gospels concerned her Son when she said at the wedding feast at Cana “Do whatever he tells You” (John 2:5). If we persevere in our intentions to do Christ’s will for us, we are doing hers as well.

THE EUCHARIST LITURGY

2011-10-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

by Patrick Madrid

14. The Eucharistic Liturgy

The Catholic term ”Liturgy" derives from the Greek word leitourgia, which means "a public duty" or "a public action?" This meaning took on a religious connotation in regard to the public ministrations of the Old Testament priests in the Temple (cf. Exodus 38:27, 39:12; Joel 1:9, 2:17; where the term leitourgeo is used in the Greek, Septuagint, version). The ancient Tradition of the Liturgy has been taught and believed by Christians since the days of Christ. Latin Rite Catholics are accustomed to referring to it as the "Mass," while Eastern Catholics call it the "Divine Liturgy." Both refer to the same doctrine.

Since the night Christ was betrayed, the Catholic Church has been celebrating the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This is part of Sacred Tradition, a revealed doctrine of the Faith that came from Christ himself and was preached and taught by the Apostles and their successors from the earliest days of the Church. About the year 56, St. Paul wrote about this Tradition and of how important it was to the life of the Church:

"I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you "

For the first few centuries, the Eucharistic Liturgy was not a formally codified ritual as we know it today, though it was universally celebrated in the East and West with its essential elements and according to the particular meaning the Catholic Church has always understood it to contain: the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross, re-presented in time and space.

The Catechism explains the Church’s meaning when it refers to the Church’s Tradition of the Eucharistic Liturgy, defining it to mean:

An action of thanksgiving to God (CCC 1328);
The Lord’s Supper (CCC 1329; cf. 1 Corinthians 11:20; Revelation 19:9);
The Breaking of Bread (CCC 1329; cf. Matthew 14:19,15:36,26:26; Mark 8:6, 19.);
The Eucharistic assembly (CCC 1329; cf. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34);
The memorial of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection (CCC 1330);
A Holy Sacrifice (CCC 1330; cf. Hebrews 13:15; cf. 1 Peter 2:5; Psalm116:13, 17; Malachi 1:11);
The Holy and Divine Liturgy;
Holy Communion (CCC 1331; cf. 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17);
Holy Mass (CCC 1332).

From these explanatory sections from the Catechism, we can see the essential elements of the Tradition of the Eucharistic Liturgy. This has been an ever-present, ubiquitous Tradition in the Church since the time of Christ and the Apostles. What makes this Tradition so powerful when a Catholic dialogues with Protestants is that it is undeniable that the early Christians did not gather for a "Sunday service," as Protestants typically understand the term. Rather, the early Christians gathered together to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice, complete with the essential prayers and gestures we use today in the Catholic Church (as well as in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches).

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

2011-10-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

To be saved, you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31). However, that's not all. Sacred Scripture clearly shows other things you must also do to be saved:

You must endure to the end. Matthew 10:22, Matthew 24:13, Mark 13:13.

You must accept the Cross (suffering). Matthew 10:38, Matthew 16:24-25, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, Luke 14:27.

You must be baptized with water. Mark 16:16, Titus 3:5, I Peter 3:20-21.

You must be a member in God's true church. Acts 2:47.

You must confess your sins. James 5:16, I John 1:9.

You must keep the Commandments of God. Matthew 5:19-20, Matthew 7:21.

You must heed the words of St. Peter, the first Pope. Acts 11:13-14, Acts 15:7.

You must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. John 6:51-58, I Corinthians 10:16, I Corinthians 11:23-29.

Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. CCC 1996, John 1:12-18, John 17:3, Romans 8:14-17, 2 Peter 1:3-4.

The only Church that meets all the requirements of Salvation is the Holy Catholic Church.

THE CATECHISM ON THE END TIMES

2011-10-05T04:07:00.000-07:00

I. HE WILL COME AGAIN IN GLORY

Christ already reigns through the Church . . .

668 "Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." Christ's Ascension into heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority. Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion," for the Father "has put all things under his feet." Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all creation are "set forth" and transcendently fulfilled.

669 As Lord, Christ is also head of the Church, which is his Body. Taken up to heaven and glorified after he had thus fully accomplished his mission, Christ dwells on earth in his Church. The redemption is the source of the authority that Christ, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, exercises over the Church. "The kingdom of Christ [is] already present in mystery," "on earth, the seed and the beginning of the kingdom."

670 Since the Ascension God's plan has entered into its fulfillment. We are already at "the last hour." "Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect." Christ's kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the Church.

... until all things are subjected to him.

671 Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the king's return to earth. This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ's Passover. Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God." That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ's return by saying to him: Marana tha! "Our Lord, come!"

Before his Ascension Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love, and peace. According to the Lord, the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but also a time still marked by "distress" and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church [563] and ushers in the struggles of the last days. It is a time of waiting and watching.

The glorious advent of Christ, the hope of Israel

673 Since the Ascension Christ's coming in glory has been imminent, even though "it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority." This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are "delayed."

674 The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel," for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles," will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," in which "God may be all in all."

The Church's ultimate trial

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.

II. TO JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

678 Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgment of the Last Day in his preaching. Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light. Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God's grace as nothing be condemned. Our attitude about our neighbor will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love. On the last day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."

679 Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He "acquired" this right by his cross. The Father has given "all judgment to the Son." Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself. By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one's works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.

COMMUNION IN HAND

2011-10-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Question: I know the practice is optional, but where did Communion in the hand come from? Don’t you think it encourages disrespect?

Answer: Communion in the hand was the norm for most of the first millennium. Because of the dangers of misuse and the growing concern for reverence, the practice of giving the Host on the tongue was introduced about the ninth century.

The present practice of giving communion in the hand dates from 1969, when Pope Paul VI opened the way for episcopal conferences who wished to reintroduce the practice. Permission was granted to the U.S. bishops in 1977.

In my opinion, there is nothing intrinsically more reverent about reception on the tongue or less reverent about receiving in the hand. Reverence or irreverence are generally determined by other factors: the spiritual attitude of the recipient, the demeanor of the one giving communion, the adequacy of eucharistic understanding, and the manner in which the eucharistic elements are treated both within and outside Mass.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth century offered a powerful catechesis on the mode of receiving communion in the hand that is still applicable today: "When you approach, do not go stretching out your open hands or having your fingers spread out, but make the left hand into a throne for the right which shall receive the King, and then cup your open hand and the Body of Christ, reciting the ‘Amen.’ Then sanctify with all care your eyes by touching the Sacred Body, and receive it.

But be careful that no particles fall, for what you lose would be to you as if you had lost some of your members. Tell me, if anybody had given you gold dust, would you not hold fast to it with all care, and watch lest some of it fall and be lost to you? Must you not then be even more careful with that which is more precious than gold and diamonds, so that no particles are lost?"

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PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

2011-09-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Morning Offering

by Gary Zimak

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, St. Paul instructs us to “Pray without ceasing”. Many people struggle with the meaning of his words, eventually dismissing them as nothing more than a figure of speech. After all, how can anyone pray constantly? If we followed his advice it would be impossible to work at the office, do housework, go to school, tend to the needs of our family, or just about anything else. We would have to spend all of our time in prayer. This couldn’t possibly be Paul’s intent, could it?

Let me begin by saying that it is possible to follow St. Paul’s directions and still perform your daily work, provided that you know one well kept “secret”. While not actually a secret, the technique that I’m about to discuss is unknown to many Catholics. It is a practice that has been around for years and provides a way for you to pray constantly while going about all of your normal duties. With this method, your work actually becomes a prayer! Even more incredible is that you can also turn all of your joys and sufferings into prayers as well. I know it sounds hard to believe, but all of this can be accomplished by adding one simple step to your morning routine – the recitation of the Morning Offering. This traditional Catholic prayer has several variations, but the most common version reads as follows:

O Jesus,
through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer You my prayers, works,
joys and sufferings
of this day for all the intentions
of Your Sacred Heart,
in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
throughout the world,
in thanksgiving for your favors,
in reparation for my sins,
for the intentions of all my relatives and friends,
and in particular
for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen.

Let’s take a closer look at this prayer and see why it’s so powerful. The first thing to observe is that we are making our offering through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Why is this important? If you recall, Jesus performed His first miracle (changing water into wine) at the request of the Blessed Mother (Jn 2:1-11). While attending a wedding at Cana with Jesus, Mary noticed that the supply of wine had run out. If not corrected, this situation would have greatly embarrassed the bride and groom. Realizing that something needed to be done, Mary brought it to the attention of her Son who remedied the problem by turning water into wine. With this same loving concern, Mary will also present our Morning Offering to Jesus. Knowing the heart of her Son better than anyone else, she will first remove any impurities or selfishness from our prayer and personally deliver it to Jesus.

In addition to our prayers and works, we can also offer up all of our joys and sorrows. Everything that we do or feel throughout the day is offered as a prayer. We then take this offering and ask Jesus to use it for His intentions. Not only are we offering up our entire day, but we say to Christ, “take this offering and apply it where You see fit”. Since Jesus’ intentions involve the salvation of all mankind, this selfless act will bear great fruit not only in our own lives, but in the lives of countless others. By making this presentation to Christ, we are essentially joining our lives to His mission. When the sacrifice of Jesus to His Father is made present in each of the Holy Masses around the world, we are now hanging on the cross with Him. Everything that we do and experience becomes part of the offering of Christ. There can be no more powerful sacrifice and, by virtue of this simple prayer, we are a part of it.

We also offer our works in thanksgiving for our many blessings, in reparation for any of our sins, for the intentions of all of our relatives and friends and for the intentions of the pope. It is really incredible that something that takes no more than one or two minutes can have so much power. Initially, you may forget that you offered up all of your works, but as time goes on, you will become more aware of this as you perform your duties. Because of this, you will have an even greater desire to perform your work to the best of your ability. When presented as an offering to God, no task can remain unimportant. Everything from scrubbing the floor to studying for an exam becomes meaningful, as it is a form of prayer.

How important is it that we offer our entire day to God? According to St. John Vianney, “All that we do without offering it to God is wasted.” Pope John Paul II observed that the Morning Offering is “of fundamental importance in the life of each and every one of the faithful.” Endorsements like that help us to see the importance of this prayer, especially when one considers its simplicity. If we truly believe that each new day is a gift from God, it follows that we would want to show our gratitude by making the most of that gift. By starting our day with the Morning Offering, we are turning each moment of our lives into a prayer.

The Morning Offering provides a great foundation for building a solid prayer life. We can supplement our offering by speaking to Jesus throughout the day, reaffirming our desire to offer up all daily activities. When problems arise or we are faced with a mundane task, a quick “I offer this to you, Lord” helps us to focus on the prayerful nature of the activity. On the other hand, saying “Thank you, Jesus” for a pleasant experience is a great way to express our appreciation for the many joys that we are granted. Such comments also allow our friendship with Christ to grow. As time goes on, you will find yourself becoming more aware of Our Lord’s presence in your daily activities.

Why not try the Morning Offering and see what a difference it makes in your life? An investment of a few minutes will pay infinite dividends. It won’t take long before tasks that previously seemed meaningless become much more tolerable and fulfilling. There is no better way to start your day than by offering all of your daily activities to Christ and turning them into one powerful prayer. By doing so, you are fulfilling the instruction of St. Paul to “pray without ceasing” as you go about your daily duties.

Gary Zimak is the founder of Following The Truth Ministries , a lay apostolate created to assist Catholics in learning more about their Faith. He is a regular guest on EWTN’s “Son Rise Morning Show” and appears frequently on numerous national and local Catholic radio programs. In addition to writing for Catholic Exchange, Mr. Zimak speaks at various parishes and posts frequently on his blog, Facebook and Twitter. He is a member of Catholics United For The Faith and the Knights of Columbus and resides in New Jersey with his wife Eileen and twin daughters, Mary & Elizabeth. They are actively involved in Sacred Heart Parish in Riverton, NJ.

THE CONSECRATION (SEAL) PRATER

2011-09-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

THE SIN OF GOSSIP

2011-09-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken….” A Reflection on the Sin of Gossip

By: Msgr. Charles Pope.

One of the more under-rated categories of sin are the sins of speech. There are many ways we sin, but perhaps the most common way is by speech. Too easily, almost without thought, do we engage in gossip, idle chatter, lies, exaggerations, harsh attacks, uncharitable observations and remarks. With our tongue we can spread hatred, incite fear and maliciousness, spread misinformation, cause temptation, discourage, teach error, and ruin reputations. We can surely cause great harm with a gift capable of such good!

And not only do we sin by commission but also by omission. For frequently we are silent when we should speak. We do not correct when we should. In our age the triumph of evil and bad behavior has been assisted by our silence as a Christian people. Prophets are to speak God’s word but too often we fulfill Isaiah 56:10 which says, Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep.

Well did James say: Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect! (James 3:2) And too easily do we dismiss sins of speech as of little account. While it may be true that not every sin of speech is serious or mortal, it is possible to inflict great harm with speech and thus have the matter become very serious, even mortal. Jesus warns, But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken (Matt 12:36)

With this in mind, it may be of value to focus in on one aspect of the sins of speech commonly called “gossip.” (I was privileged to be on Catholic Answers Live last night and speak with Patrick Coffin and listeners on this very topic. You can listen to the hour-long broadcast here: Catholic Answers Podcast)

In defining gossip in a general way, the term can merely apply to talk of a personal or trivial nature. But the sin of gossip is more specifically considered to be idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It usually involves uncharitable or inappropriate conversation about others, not present and has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted. St Thomas includes it in his treatise on justice (II, IIae 72-76) in the Summa since, by it, we unjustly harm the reputation of others, through either lies or truths shared inappropriately. The Catechism of the Catholic Church includes gossip under its treatment of the 8th Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

As he most often does, St. Thomas well distinguishes a number of different forms of gossip (injustice in speech) and we can look at them one by one.

1. Reviling – dishonoring a person, usually to their face, and often in the hearing of others. It is done openly, audibly and is usually rooted in anger and personal disrespect. It may include name-calling, caricature, profanity and even cursing (which will also be treated later). For the most part, we do not consider reviling to be a form of gossip per se, (since gossip is usually conducted apart from the offended person and reviling to their face). But reviling is a sin of speech that ought to be mentioned here, since it is annexed to the general dishonor and harming of the reputation of others that is at the heart of gossip. Reviling as such is intended to cause personal embarrassment or dishonor.

2. Backbiting – Generally we call this today, “talking behind someone’s back.” Backbiting is the secret and quiet injuring of a person’s good name to others. Here the key point is that the injured person is not present either to defend or clarify what is said. There are two forms of backbiting that St Thomas distinguishes:

A. Calumny – which is telling lies about someone behind their back. The written form of this is called slander.
B. Detraction – which is passing on harmful truths about others. What is said is true, but is not necessary information to be shared, and the information has the effect of diminishing a person’s reputation or harming their good name before others. For example, it may be true that Joe has a drinking problem, but it is not necessary information to share.

There may be times when it is important to share certain truths about others because it is necessary information but such information should be shared only by those who need to know it for a just cause. Further, the information must be certainly true and not merely hearsay. Finally, only the necessary information should be shared, avoiding a full rendering of everything you ever wanted to know about Joe.

3. Tale-Bearing – also called tale whispering – This may sound like backbiting, but St Thomas makes a distinction here. Whereas a backbiter seeks to harm the reputation of another absent person, the tale bearer seeks to stir up trouble and arouse people to action against a person. Perhaps he seeks to have others end professional, business, or personal relationships with the one gossiped about. Perhaps his goal is to incite angry responses toward him, or even violence. Perhaps too, some legal action is the desired outcome. But the tale-bearer seeks to incite some action against the one he gossips about, hence it goes further than the harming of reputation, to include the harming of relationships, finances, legal standing, and so forth.

4. Derision – is making fun of a person, perhaps of their mannerisms, perhaps of a physical trait, or personal quality. While some of this can be light-hearted, it often strays into hurtful and humiliating actions or words that diminish someone else’s standing or honor within the community.

5. Cursing – a spoken wish or command that another person be afflicted with some evil or harm. This may or may not be spoken to their face. Here too we see a dishonoring of a person in the presence of others. The usual goal is to incite from others, anger and dishonor towards the injured person. The cursing of a person is considered in the realm of gossip, whereas the cursing of irrational things is considered merely vain or futile speech, though not wholly sin-free.

How serious these sins of speech (forms of gossip) are will depend on a number of factors including the degree of harm caused to a person’s reputation, who and how many overhear, and circumstances of place, time and language used. Lack of intent to harm may lessen the culpability of the sinner, but not the fact of sinfulness of the act. However, to dishonor a person, especially with the intent of harming their reputation or necessary standing before others, can easily become a very serious sin.

One of the most precious things a person has is their reputation, for, on it rests their capacity to interrelate with others and engage in just about every other form of human interaction. It is a very serious thing, therefore, to harm the reputation of another. And while this harm may sometimes be mild, we ought not easily dismiss the possibility that, what we think to be a small matter, might actually cause greater harm that we imagine. St James says of the gossiping tongue: Consider how a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell (James 3:11).

It remains true that we sometimes must have necessary conversations about others who are not present. Perhaps we are seeking advice about how to handle a delicate situation. Perhaps we need encouragement in dealing with a difficult person, or need to do legitimate fact-checking. Perhaps, especially in professional settings, we are asked to make and give evaluations of colleagues, employees, or situations. However, in cases like these we need to limit the scope our conversations to what is necessary and include only those who certainly ought to be included.

In seeking personal advice or encouragement we also ought to speak only with others who are trustworthy and can reasonably be of help. Where possible we should exclude unnecessary details, even the name of the person being discussed, (if feasible). Discretion is the key word in these necessary conversations.

It may also be important to balance the avoidance of gossip with a reminder that extreme secrecy may also be unhelpful in a community. There are times when egregious situations must be directly addressed. In cases like these we ought to follow the norms set forth by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church; and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Hence, discretion must also give way to some transparency in given circumstances, and communities may need to address some matters publicly and clearly.

But as a consistent rule, we ought to be very careful about sins of speech. Too easily and carelessly we risk ruining the reputation and standing of others by our gossip. Idle chatter about others can bring great harm and draw many others into sin. Scripture says, Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. (Psalm 141:3). Indeed, Help Lord! keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth! Put your word in my heart, so that when I do speak, it’s really you.

Painting above by Agostino Carracci

WHOEVER EATS THIS BREAD WILL DRAW LIFE FROM ME

2011-09-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Body and Blood of Christ: Deut 8 2-3 & 14-16; 1 Cor 10:16-17; Jn 6: 51-58

By Bishop David McGough on Friday, 24 June 2011

Hunger is life’s most primitive instinct. Without food we die. To be hungry is to long for life, to search for life. Moses understood the hunger at the heart of man. During the 40 years wandering in the wilderness hunger had tested the inmost heart of God’s people. Some had allowed their hunger to bring them to the point of rebellion, preferring to turn away from God rather than perish on the journey. Those who trusted in God had been fed by manna, bread from heaven. They had come to realise that man does not live on bread alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

No less than the children of Israel in the wilderness, we are driven by a multiplicity of hungers. We long to be loved and understood. We long to be forgiven and healed. We long to succeed. With Moses we must discern the meaning of our hunger, allowing our many hungers to bring us into the presence of God.

Jesus felt compassion for the hunger of the multitude. The multiplication of the loaves and fishes, however, was much more than an act of compassion. Here Jesus revealed himself as the only satisfaction for the hunger that drives our humanity.

“I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”

Throughout this long discourse Jesus contrasted himself with the superficial satisfactions of a sinful world. A commercial world tempts us with the allure of instant satisfaction. Our wardrobes are full of must-buy items that have failed to satisfy. Our consciences are troubled by actions that once seemed so attractive. Jesus confronted our self-indulgent appetites. “Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of man is offering to you.”

Jesus presented himself as real Bread, as real flesh, a life totally given for the life of the world.

Beyond the many superficialities of our lives we long for a life giving communion. We long for the self-giving that enables us to find ourselves in another. Through the gift of himself, on the Cross and as the Bread of Life, Christ has satisfied this hunger. The eternal life that he promised to those who eat his flesh and drink his blood begins now. Already he feeds our hunger, bringing us to life in a gift that enables us to give ourselves.

Jesus himself was fully alive in his relationship with the Father. In this sense he hungered for the Father and used this hunger to reveal himself as the Bread of Life.

“As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats this bread will draw life from me. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.”

Ultimately we are fed by the relationships that sustain our lives, that give meaning and dignity to what we are. In giving himself, Jesus became the Bread of life.

St Paul understood the far-reaching consequences of this truth. Because we are one in the Body and Blood of the Lord, we are one with each other. Christ gave himself to become the food that feeds the soul. We can do no less than give ourselves to the Lord and each other.

“Though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.”

BREAD OF LIFE: THE SIX TRUTHS ABOUT THE EUCHARIST

2011-09-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

By Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily June 26 for the feast of Corpus Christi.

When I was in high school a non-Catholic girl once asked me, "Where exactly do you get the blood for Mass?" Obviously she didn't know much about the Catholic faith or that the blood in question is the blood of Jesus, but at least she knew it was blood. You'd be amazed at how many otherwise good Catholics refer to our eucharistic ministers as wine ministers rather than as ministers of the Precious Blood. What you and I receive at Communion retains the appearance and taste of bread and wine, but that's no longer what it is.

By means of the words of consecration, Jesus changes them into his very own body and blood, soul and divinity. And by receiving Jesus really present in this transformed food, you and I are transformed as well into the body of Christ, his blood now flowing in our veins, we become -- in a certain sense -- Christ living and active in our world today.

In_today's_Gospel taken from the much longer Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, Jesus_proclaims_six truths about the Eucharist, 1) which he is: I am the living bread come_down_from heaven, 2) which is his real body and blood: The bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world, 3) which we eat and drink: My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink, 4) which unites us with Jesus: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him, 5) which thereby gives us life: The one who feeds on me has life because of me, and 6) since Jesus is divine, the life Jesus gives us is eternal: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.

Thus in the Eucharist we eat and drink Jesus' real body and blood, which unites us with him and gives us eternal life. But every gift looks for a response and even though what we can give God in return is very small, he still expects us to reciprocate, to do for others as he has done for us. And the kind of response God expects is summarized in the two names by which this sacrament is known: Eucharist and Communion.

Eucharist is the Greek word for "thanksgiving" and it refers to the fact that out of gratitude for Jesus' total gift of himself to us, the Eucharist now obligates us to reciprocate by giving ourselves totally to him in return. So when we offer Jesus' body and blood to God the Father in the Mass, we offer our own body and blood too, united to that of Jesus, meaning that we for whom Jesus sacrificed his whole self are now obligated -- out of gratitude -- to sacrifice our whole self in return.

The other word, Communion, describes the effect produced in the community of believers through our reception of Jesus' body and blood, especially when all of us do gratefully reciprocate Jesus' total gift of himself to us, namely Communion with Jesus and each other and all believers everywhere and in every age. That's your commitment and that's God's promise which you ratify when you sing the "Great Amen" at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and reaffirm when you say "Amen, I agree, I relieve" just before receiving -- gratefully -- the Eucharist, Jesus' real body and blood, in Communion with all your other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Audio from Bishop Taylor's homilies are regularly posted in English and Spanish on the diocesan website. Listen to them at www.dolr.org/audio/index.php.

SODOMY AND CONTRACEPTION CONDEMNED

2011-09-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Quite early in salvation history some important lessons had to be taught. Many are familiar with the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen 19. The cities were destroyed by God as an everlasting testament to the evils they contained, particularly sodomy , which was a significant deviation from God’s plan for life. In the Onan account (Gen 38), which is not too well known or understood, another important lesson about procreation had to be taught. Onan was one of three sons of Judah.

The first son did evil in the sight of God and was killed. We are not given the reason. Under the Levirate law at the time, Onan was asked to marry his bother’s widow, Tamar, in order to procreate offspring in his brother’s name. Onan married her but when he had intercourse, he went through the motions, then spilled his seed on the ground. In medical terminology, this is called “coitus interruptus”.

More commonly, it is called “withdrawal” and is a form of contraception. Onan did this because he did not want to have children under his dead brother’s name. God killed him. It is clear that God killed him because he defrauded the marriage of its procreative purpose.

Tamar later went on to have illicit sex with Judah, her father-in-law. Tamar bore twins. Despite their sins, neither she, Judah, nor the twins were killed. Only Onan was killed as an everlasting testament to the evil of defrauding the marriage of its procreative purpose. Onan was not killed because he did not want to marry Tamar. The punishment for not marrying Tamar ( see Deut 25 ) was not death. If he chose not to marry Tamar, she could remove his sandal and spit in his face publicly, thereby humiliating him. This is much less than the death penalty.

Onan was killed because his action of contraception had far reaching effects and consequences. His action attacked God’s plan for life. Children were supposed to be born who were not born. We see from this account that contraception thwarts God’s plan for life and that God repudiates contraception. God essentially says 'The plan for life and creation is my plan.'

SCIENCE AND CHRIST

2011-09-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

"LET ME EXPLAIN THE problem science has with Jesus Christ." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand. "You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"
"Yes, sir."
"So you believe in God?"
"Absolutely."
"Is God good?"
"Sure! God's good."
"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"
"Yes."
"Are you good or evil?"
"The Bible says I'm evil."
The professor grins knowingly. "Ah! THE BIBLE!" He considers for a moment. "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help them? Would you try?"
"Yes sir, I would."
"So you're good...!"
"I wouldn't say that."
"Why not say that? You would help a sick and maimed person if you could... in fact most of us would if we could... God doesn't."
No answer.
"He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"
No answer.
The elderly man is sympathetic. "No, you can't, can you?" He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones. "Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"
"Er... Yes."
"Is Satan good?"
"No."
"Where does Satan come from?"
The student falters. "From... God..."
"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he?" The elderly man runs his bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking, student audience. "I think we're going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen." He turns back to the Christian. "Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?"
"Yes, sir."
"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? Did God make everything?"
"Yes."
"Who created evil?"
No answer.
"Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All the terrible things - do they exist in this world?"
The student squirms on his feet. "Yes."
"Who created them?"
No answer.
The professor suddenly shouts at his student. "WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!" The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the Christian's face. In a still small voice: "God created all evil, didn't He, son?"
No answer. The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther. The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues, "How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?" The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world. "All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn't it, young man?"
No answer.
"Don't you see it all over the place? Huh?" Pause. "Don't you?" The professor leans into the student's face again and whispers, "Is God good?"
No answer.
"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"
The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor. I do."
The old man shakes his head sadly. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen your Jesus?"
"No, sir. I've never seen Him."
"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"
"No, sir. I have not."
"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus...in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?"
No answer.
"Answer me, please."
"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."
"You're AFRAID... you haven't?"
"No, sir."
"Yet you still believe in him?"
"Yes..."
"That takes FAITH!" The professor smiles sagely at the underling. "According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?"
The student doesn't answer.
"Sit down, please." The Christian sits...Defeated.
Another Christian raises his hand. "Professor, may I address the class?"
The professor turns and smiles. "Ah, another Christian in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering."
The Christian looks around the room. "Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you. Is there such thing as heat?"
"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."
"Is there such a thing as cold?"
"Yes, son, there's cold too."
"No, sir, there isn't."
The professor's grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold.
The second Christian continues. "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than the minus 458 degrees - You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just, the absence of it."
Silence. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom. "Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"
"That's a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn't darkness? What are you getting at...?"
"So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"
"Yes..."
"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you...give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?"
Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him. This will indeed be a good semester. "Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?"
"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error...."
The professor goes toxic. "Flawed...? How dare you...!"
"Sir, may I explain what I mean?" The class is all ears.
"Explain... oh, explain..." The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability itself. He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.
"You are working on the premise of duality," the Christian explains. "That for example there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. To view death, as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it." The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbor who has been reading it. "Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?"
"Of course there is, now look..."
"Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?" The Christian pauses. "Isn't evil the absence of good?"
The professor's face has turned an alarming color. He is so angry he is temporarily speechless. The Christian continues. "If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil. What is that work, God is accomplishing? The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil."
The professor bridles. "As a philosophical scientist, I don't view this matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation because God is not observable."
"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian replies. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"
"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."
"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"
The professor makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student a silent, stony stare. "Professor. Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?"
"I'll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion. Now, have you quite finished?" the professor hisses.
"So you don't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous?"
"I believe in what is - that's science!"
"Ah! SCIENCE!" the student's face spits into a grin. "Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science too is a premise which is flawed..."
"SCIENCE IS FLAWED?" the professor splutters.
The class is in uproar. The Christian remains standing until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?" The professor wisely keeps silent. The Christian looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out in laughter. The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain... felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?" No one appears to have done so. The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says the professor has no brain."

The class is in chaos. The Christian sits... Because that is what a chair is for.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

May we walk with Christ each and every day!

THE ROOTS OF FAMILY TREE HEALING

2011-09-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

Robert T. Sears

by Robert T. Sears, S.J

Family tree healing has come through my interest in psychotherapy and theology. Beginning the study of theology in Frankfurt/Main, I became aware of a personal depression that blocked my feelings and made me anxious about life. I studied psychoanalysis to find the root of the depression, but the more I learned, the more depressed I became. Knowledge, I learned, did not heal. It simply made one more aware of the problem. An article by a fellow Jesuit referred me to Isaiah 43:18ff "Remember not the events of the past..., see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers...for my chosen people to drink."

What touched me about that passage was that our creator is now at work, in the very heart of the earth. Healing depends not on what went before (my analysis of beginnings) but on God who makes all things new. My inner dying was actually part of a process grounded in God, a dying to the old as an opening to new life. It was not by understanding causes that I would be healed, but by surrendering my whole depression into the hands of God. God's creativity is infinite and eternal, an eternal Now!

If God creates new now, then, we ought to be able to verify our theology by what concrete effects faith in God produces. In a seminar on Teilhard de Chardin, I studied the history of theology to discover a link between science and theology. That study made it clear that theology always changes with the introduction of new ways of thinking. We find theologies based in Plato and Aristotle and more recently on Schelling, Hegel and Heidegger. What we didn't have was a theology rooted in psychological/social categories which was the thought-frame of our day. Psychodrama was the therapy of most interest at that time in Europe.

It dealt with groups and thus could connect with a theology centered in the Mystical Body. Moreno, the founder of Psychodrama, had a God-experience himself and designed his psychodramatic methods in light of how God would create and bring healing to groups. We are made in the image of God our creator and we are healed by releasing human creativity through freeing our interaction with one another. Experiencing psychodrama, I saw a way to see God's creativity in human interaction expanding to what Moreno called "global psychotherapy."

What was still missing, however, was the right theological link. The theologies I knew (Rahner, Lonergan, Aquinas) were focused on consciousness. But therapy works in the unconscious. What was needed was interpersonal interaction (as in psychodrama), with attention to unconscious dynamics. I found that in the theology of Heribert Muehlen, a German Catholic theologian who had spent most of his scholarly life studying the theology of the Holy Spirit as We in God -- the bond of unity between the first and second persons of the Trinity. Since the Spirit works interpersonally and in the depths of our persons (our "a priori I" as he put it), the Spirit grounds our unconscious as well as our consciousness. My dissertation linked Muehlen’s theology of the Holy Spirit to psychotherapy, using Freud, Jung and Moreno as representative therapists.

Yet theory alone was not my goal. As I was studying therapy and theology, I was also counseling and praying for healing and deliverance. I wanted to see "what difference" God made in healing, and I found by experience that God’s presence made a great deal of difference. God is a powerful help when through analysis we learn what to ask for, and even sometimes when we don't 1. Through involvement in the charismatic renewal from my Fordham days, healing prayer was added to my interpersonal point of view.

I began teaching at the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago in 1972, and there I was introduced to the healing of family systems by Dr. David Augsburger of Bethany School of Theology. In a team taught course, he introduced me to the work of Murray Bowen and family systems therapy. Bowen had begun inviting the family of his clients to Menninger's Clinic in Kansas. The clients would act out when the parents fought.

He began to see the client's mental illness as an effort to assuage a dysfunctional relation between the parents, and when he worked with the parents alone, the client would often be healed. I was intrigued. Here was an area of therapy that could give me controlled data to correlate with my interpersonal view of the Holy Spirit 2 . I began to pray not only for the individual, but for his or her family--and gradually for his or her ancestors. The whole extended human family needed healing, reaching all the way back to Adam and Eve.

This extended view led me to see the importance of the resurrection of Jesus, and ultimately to pray for healing the earth. In working on Mary's assumption in light of Jesus' resurrection, I came to see that through the resurrection Jesus was made "Lord," that is, he sits at the right hand of God and shares God’s rule. Since God transcends our notion of past and future in an eternal NOW, the resurrection must be bringing Jesus in his humanity into the eternal NOW of God!

That is why Scripture could call Jesus the "new Adam" and speak of his preaching to the souls who were dead (see 1 Pt 3:19-22; 4:6) and their being saved. He could heal even the dead by the power of God to raise Christ from the dead. I experienced families getting free as we prayed for their wounded ancestors in the power of Jesus' resurrection.

This prayer for ancestors in the power of Jesus' resurrection brought me to pray for institutions and even the earth and to see the power of the resurrection to bring healing to the earth. Institutions like the church and particular cultures and societies are also influenced by their histories, as is the earth itself which has been wounded by human sin. Family tree healing grew to include the whole human family and the earth itself that is our home.

The importance of prayer for healing in human systems is still not widely known. My hope is that by initiating this website, I can contribute to a better understanding of this essential dimension of healing and provide links to further resources. God has to break into our history with a “new family.” My books on Mary, Opening to God, and on John’s Gospel, Into the Heart of God, give theological underpinnings for the “New Eve” and “New Adam” that ground that new family.

My articles on “Healing and Family Spiritual/Emotional Systems” and “Trinitarian Love and Male-Female Community,” present a fundamental, developmental point of view to direct this healing. My article on “Resurrection Spirituality and Healing the Earth” expands that perspective to include the earth and clarifies the universal importance of Jesus’ resurrection. Other articles are included to clarify various aspects of this approach, and other articles will be added as the site grows.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: A COMMENTARY & MEDITATION

2011-09-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

"When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her."

Scripture: Luke 7:11-17
11 Soon afterward he went to a city called Na'in, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." 14 And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." 15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!" 17 And this report concerning him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

Meditation: How do you respond when you meet misfortune? In a number of places the gospel records that Jesus was "moved to the depths of his heart." Our English word "compassion" is a weak translation of the Hebrew word for "sympathy". Why was Jesus so moved on this occasion? Jesus not only grieved the untimely death of a youth, but he showed the depth of his concern for a woman who lost not only a husband, but an only child as well. The scriptures make clear that God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone (see Ezekiel 33:11); he desires life, not death. Jesus not only had compassion, he also had power -- the ability to restore life and make whole again.

Jesus, however, incurred grave risk by approaching the bier, since contact with a dead body made one ritually impure. His touch not only restored life but brought freedom and wholeness to soul as well as body. This miracle took place near the spot where the prophet Elisha raised another mother's son (see 2 Kings 4:18-37). Jesus claimed as his own one whom death had seized as its prey. By his word of power he restored life for a lad marked for death. Jesus is Lord not only of the living but of the dead as well. Jesus triumphed over the grave and he promises that because he lives, we also shall live in him (John 14:19). Do you trust in the Lord's power to give life and hope in the face of misfortune and despair?

"Lord, your presence brings life and restores us to wholeness of mind, body, and spirit. Speak your word to me and give me renewed hope, strength and courage to follow you in all things and to eagerly serve others with a glad and generous heart."

by Don Schwager

FROM THE CROSS WITHIN TIME, AND YET FROM ALL ETERNITY

2011-09-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Posted on 28 June 2011 by Ron Conte

From the Cross within Time, and yet from all Eternity, Christ saves. Christ’s saving work reached its apex, at a certain point in Time, with His sacrifice on the Cross. And yet the redeeming sacrifice of Christ on the Cross “participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times.” (CCC, n. 1085). From Heaven, the blessed constantly view Christ suffering and dying for our salvation on the Cross. The Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is ever present tense to the Blessed in Heaven. Grace continually pours forth from Christ on the Cross to the Blessed in Heaven. Grace continually pours forth from Christ on the Cross to all of God’s children throughout Time and Place.

From the Cross within Time, and yet from all Eternity, Christ dispenses grace. God’s merciful grace, flowing from Christ on the Cross, is not limited or obstructed by Time. For God is Eternity, just as God is Love, is Mercy, is Justice, is Truth. The Most Blessed Trinity pours out immeasurable merciful grace through Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary upon all of Creation, throughout all Time and Place, and beyond Time and Place, from timelessness Eternity.

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SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION

2011-09-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

The sacrament of confirmation completes the sacrament of baptism. If baptism is the sacrament of re-birth to a new and supernatural life, confir- mation is the sacrament of maturity and coming of age. The real confession of Christ consist in this 'that the whole man submits himself to Truth, in the judgment of his understanding, in the submission of his will and in the consecration of his whole power of love . . . To do this, poor-spirited man is only able when he has been confirmed by God's grace'

This confirmation in the power of the Holy Spirit leading to a firm profession of faith has always been the particular effect which Catholic tradition has ascribed to the sacrament. It is effect which complements and completes that of baptism.

THE CHURCH TEACHES:
Confirmation is a true sacrament instituted by Christ and different from baptism. It is administered by laying-on of hands and anointing with chrism accompanied by prayer. The chrism is blessed by the bishop and the bishop administers the sacrament. All baptized persons can and should be confirmed. The effect of the sacrament of confirmation is to give strength in faith and for the confession of faith and to impress an indelible character.

The Seven Sacraments
I.Baptism
II.Penance/Reconciliation
III.Eucharist
IV.Confirmation
V.Matrimony
VI.Holy Orders
VII.Extremunction or Anointing
of the Sick

MAY LOVE TRIUMPH!

2011-08-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Reign of the Eucharistic Heart: The Triumph of Love
Mother Adela, SCTJM
Foundress
For private use only - ©

The Eucharist is a Gift of Love of the Sacred Heart

The Eucharist is the outstanding gift of love of the Sacred Heart. We can not understand the Eucharist unless we understand the love of the Heart of Jesus. In the Gospel of St. John chapter 13, we read: "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the extreme" (Jn 13:1). To the extreme means not sparing anything to manifest its love.

Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary: “Behold, this heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing even to exhausting and consuming itself in order to testify to them its love."

The Sacred Heart of Jesus has loved us to the extreme of giving himself totally and freely for our salvation. He has spared nothing up to the point of giving his body, his blood and his heart on the Cross, and he continues to give them to us in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a gift of his self oblation and of his sacrificial love for men.

In the institution of the Eucharist in the Last Supper, Jesus said to the apostles and to us until the end of time: “This is my body, this is my blood of the new covenant given up for you” (Mt 26). The Eucharist is a gift of the love and generosity of his Sacred Heart. He not only gave up his life, but he gave it up freely because the sign of authentic love is that the sacrifice is offered freely. “I lay down my life, no one takes it from me, but I lay it down freely” (John 10,18). And not only freely but intensely, to the extreme. As Jesus said to St. Margaret: “my divine heart is so inflamed with love for men that being unable any longer to contain within itself the flames of its burning charity, it must spread them abroad and manifest itself to them in order to enrich them with the precious treasures of my Heart”.

When we contemplate the Eucharist, we contemplate the Heart that has been pierced out of love, the Heart that constantly renews his immolation, his self oblation, his sacrifice. We contemplate, therefore, this ever oblative love of the Heart of Christ. We contemplate the Heart of Christ that has loved us to the extreme of the Cross and of the Eucharist.

Is not the Eucharist the constant reminder of the generosity and self oblation of the Heart of Christ? Self oblation and generosity are the fruit of his love to the extreme. The self oblation of His Heart reveals to us that love is the victory over evil. He conquers the hardness of the human heart, not by force, but by offering the testimony of the power of his love. Is not the Eucharist the living sign of this sacrificial love? He gives himself to us, to us who have rejected him and despised him.

He taught us to live the way of love, the only way that conquers evil:

• He gave us the testament of love and instituted the sacrament of love the night he was going to be betrayed, denied and imprisoned by us.
• He took upon himself our sins, bearing our infirmities; by his wounds we were healed. His sufferings brought us eternal happiness.
• He gives us his blood to quench our thirst even when we go after the puddles of sterile waters "My blood is drink of eternal life” (John 6:55).
• He gives us his body to fill our hunger even when we want to satisfy ourselves with temporal food. "I am the bread of life whoever come to me shall not hunger” (John 6:35).
• He stays with us until the end of times, to accompany us, even when we abandon him. “Our loving Redeemer, on the last night of his life, knowing that the time had arrived on which he should die for the love of men, had not the heart to leave us alone in this valley of tears; but in order that he might not be separated from us even by death, he would leave us himself on the Sacrament of the Altar understanding that He could give us nothing further to prove to us his love." St. Alphonsos de Liguori.
• Out of rejection we pierced His Heart, and from it, gushed forth blood and water, the great sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.
• From his opened side, he gave life to the Church and left the Eucharist to be the living heart of the Church, to sustain her, nurture her and strengthen her in her mission of being a sign of love in the world. The Blessed Sacrament is the living heart of each of our churches. (Pope Paul VI)
• To actualize the power of his redemption to all generations he commanded the apostles and their successors to perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross, making it possible for all men in every generation to be at the foot of the Cross receiving the power of salvation.
• He remains in all the tabernacles, like he said to St. Therese of Lesieux, as “ the prisoner of love." A prisoner so we can receive his freedom. He is there, he has chosen to stay vulnerable even to men, simply to be able to offer his love to the human heart. To St. Faustina he said, from the Blessed Sacrament: “Love has brought me here and love keeps me here.”

That is love!! The Eucharistic Heart is the model of love described by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is not quick tempered, it does not rejoice in wrong but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails.”

St. Francis de Sales tells us about the Eucharist: “There is no more loving or tender aspect in which to gaze upon the Saviour than this act, in which He, so to say, annihilates Himself, and gives Himself to us as food, in order to fill our souls, and to unite Himself more closely to the heart and flesh of His faithful ones.”

We can see how in the Cross and in the Eucharist, love has triumphed, because love triumphs when evil is conquered with goodness, when self giving is the response to hardness of heart, as St. Paul teaches us in Romans 12:21. “Resist evil and conquer it with good." To the disciples, Jesus did not promise immunity from evil, but he promised victory over it: “ I have told you all this so that in me you may find peace. In the world you will have trouble. But courage! The victory is mine, I have conquered the world” (John 16:33). How did he conquer the world? By loving to the extreme of the Cross and of the Eucharist. Loving to the extreme of forgetting himself.

Pope Leo XIII told us: “Call to mind the supreme act of love by which our Redeemer, pouring forth all the riches of His Heart, instituted the adorable Sacrament of the Eucharist in order to remain with us until the end of time. And certainly the Eucharist, which He has given us from the great love of his Heart, it is His Heart, the love of his Heart."

The Eucharist Heart is the Living Sign of the Kingdom of Love

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was in the heart. He came into the world to establish his kingdom, as the angel said to the Blessed Mother in the Annunciation: “His kingdom will have no end." What kind of kingdom is that which never ceases? It must be a kingdom that takes place in the soul of men, where nothing external can remove it. “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or the sword ? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us” (Rom 8:34).

When we study the Gospels, it becomes clear that Jesus aimed at nothing less than a deep transformation of the human heart because he came to establish a new covenant. This new covenant was prophesied and explained in Ezekiel 36: “I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I shall remove from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh instead." While men were expecting an earthly kingdom with worldly powers, Jesus told us that his kingdom was not from this world. It is not of this world because it is not produced by the actions of the world, but instead it is established in the heart of men by the love of God that has been poured into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 5). Therefore, the kingdom of God is a kingdom of love, love that is capable of transforming the innermost actions of the human heart, to the point of removing the hardness, the coldness, the selfishness, the self preservation, the stones of our hearts and making them flesh. This means being sensible, noble, generous, docile, sacrificial and completely open to the love of God and of our neighbor. And this is why this Kingdom can only be extended in time by the living presence of the Heart of Christ in the Eucharist because it is His love that is present with the power to transform the human heart and the world. “I am the life of the world."

The Eucharistic Heart is the Furnace of Love in Which our Hearts are to be Consumed for the Life of the World

“ I have come to bring fire upon the earth and how I wish it will be already kindled” (Lk 12, 49). What is the fire that Jesus has come to give to the world? The fire of his infinite love and mercy; the fire of the holy Spirit that transforms our hearts into the image of his Heart. That is why in the Old Testament he identified his loving presence with fire as he did to Moses in Exodus 3:2: “the bush was set ablaze but did not burn out.” It will never be extinguished because his love is infinite and eternal.

To Saint Margaret Mary the Sacred Heart always appeared when she was adoring the Blessed Sacrament and revealed himself in flames: “the divine heart was revealed to me as in a throne of flames brighter than the sun and transparent like crystal, and resembled an open furnace. His open heart was the living source of these flames.”

Because fire consumes all that it touches, so it must consume our sins, our coldness, indifference and selfishness, all those attitudes which keep us from responding to the call to love as Jesus has loved us. We must enter into the fire of the love of the Heart of Jesus and let ourselves be purified of all that is contrary to love. This will cause pain, because selfishness is so rooted in our hearts, but it is the only way that we can become one with Christ. We must allow ourselves to be purified, to become like the incense used in front of the alter that does not give its sweet fragrance until it is burnt.

The fire of love of the Heart of Jesus will always be the remedy to our coldness and selfishness. St. Mathew tells us in his Gospel, chapter 24, that in the passing of time love in most men will grow cold. Jesus told St. Margaret that the revelation of his heart was the last effort of his love in these last times to warm a world that has grown cold. To St. Faustina, the Merciful Heart told her that he was offering to a cold world a last refuge, the mercy of his heart. I believe that in our time the hearts of men have grown cold, selfishness is ruling, and violence is becoming a common way of life. Men have forgotten the meaning of love. That is why the Lord is offering his sacred, merciful and Eucharistic Heart to our generation. He wants to change our hearts so a new civilization can begin, a civilization in which loves triumphs over evil.

Our Lord gave the mystical grace of introducing into their hearts the fire of His Sacred Heart to many saints. Saints such as St. Margaret Mary, St. Faustina, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, and many others received an exchange of hearts. These saints are a symbol of what the Eucharistic Heart desires to do in each one of us when we approach him. He wants to give us his heart, his sentiments, his desires, his internal movements, his love.

To St. Margaret Mary, in the first apparition, the Sacred Heart asked her to give him her heart. She gave it to him and he placed it in the flames of his heart. She saw her heart as a little atom which was being consumed in this great furnace. When it was returned to her, she felt an intense of love that, since that day, was never exhausted and wanted to give itself to others in abundance.

The Lord took the heart of St. Faustina and introduced it into the flames of his merciful heart. Then he said to her, “my daughter, I have taken you into the depth of my merciful heart to reflect in your own heart my mercy; only then can you proclaim it to the world. May you enkindle the world with it.”

Once when St. Catherine of Siena was in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus appeared to her with his heart inflamed. At that moment he took her heart and introduced it into his side. Then Jesus said to her, “Look my daughter, I have taken your heart to give you a new one, inflamed with my love, so that you may always experience my intense love for souls."

For St. Maximilian Kolbe, receiving the Heart of Christ in the Eucharist meant to have our hearts consumed by his love and be purified of all that opposes love. “Love by essence must transform us. It must consume us and through us enkindle the fire in the world. It must destroy and make disappear the evil that is in it. This is the fire of which the Lord has said I have come to bring fire upon the earth” (St. Maximilian).

In the Eucharist we contemplate the act of self oblation of the Heart of Christ; he is consumed out of love for us and that is the reason of his offering. The Eucharist must form in us a heart that is capable of offering oneself as a living sacrifice, offered for the life of the world, just as He is offered. The living Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist wants to form an army of Eucharistic hearts, living sacrifices, living hosts where the love of the Heart of Jesus reigns.

Romans 12: “Think of God's mercy, my brothers, and worship him, I beg you, by offering yourselves as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to the Lord."

The Lord explained to Venerable Conchita Armida, a great Mexican mystic of the 1920́s and foundress of several religious communities, “ I have need of an army of holy souls transformed into myself, who, exhale virtues and attract souls with the good aroma of the Eucharistic Christ. Becoming living hosts which will offer themselves in complete union with the oblation of Christ to the Father for the good of the world and the Church." Conchita, prophesied a second Pentecost so much needed in the world: “This Pentecost will be an interior one bringing a powerful transformation of the heart of men into the heart of the Eucharistic Christ." According to Mother Auxilia de la Cruz, also a Mexican foundress of the Oblates of the BS, and friend of Conchita, the Holy Spirit was to bring in our times the fire of divine love, the fire that transforms us into living hosts, which means persons that are willing to be like Christ in the Eucharist, consecrated to God, broken and given. Willing to embrace sufferings and sacrifices for love of others.

I think these revelations explain to us the reason why in the last 150 years we have seen an increase of victim souls, with a clear Eucharistic calling of offering themselves for the good of the Church and the world, for sinners, for priests and consecrated souls, for families, for peace. These victim souls have been called to be such living sacrifices and living hosts that many of them lived only on the Eucharist, manifesting with this miracle the perfect communion of their lives with the Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ. We can bring to mind the example of the stigmatist Theresa Newman, who offered herself primarily for priests, who lived 40 years with no other food than the Eucharist. Venerable Alexandrina Da Costa, a young woman from Portugal who was called to suffer as a victim soul for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart, lived on the Eucharist for the last 13 years of her life. Venerable Ann Catherine Emmerick, great mystic and victim soul who offered herself for the Church, lived the last 12 years of her life only on the Eucharist.

Saint Faustina, a great apostle of the Mercy of the Heart of God, considered a special aspect of her life to be transformed into a living host. “Transform me in yourself, oh Jesus, that I may be a living sacrifice. I desire to atone at each moment for poor sinners," she prayed (908). For her, this experience of being a living host could only come from her communion with the Holy Eucharist. This communion with the Eucharistic heart is what causes our hearts to become inflamed and transformed with love. It is in this communion that our hearts become one with his and produce in us the capacity to love to the extreme. “It is not possible to have a union of love more profound and more total: he in me and I in him. The one in the other, what more could we want?“ (St. Gemma Galgani).

The Blessed Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love: It signifies love, It produces love" (St Thomas Aquinas).

Bishop Fulton Sheen, was once asked who inspired him the most in his life? Bishop Sheen responded that it was a little Chinese girl of eleven years of age. He explained when the Communists took over China, they imprisoned a priest in his own rectory near the Church. After they locked him up in his own house, the priest saw the Communists entering into the Church breaking the tabernacle. They took the ciborium and threw it on the floor with all of the consecrated Hosts falling out. The priest knew there were thirty-two hosts. When the Communists left, they didn't notice a small girl praying in the back of the Church who saw everything that had happened. That night the little girl sneaked back in even though there was a guard. She went inside the Church and made a holy hour of prayer and reparation, an act of love to make up for the act of hatred. After her holy hour she went toward the hosts on the floor, knelt down, bent over and with her tongue, consumed one host. Since it was not permissible to touch the Host with their hands,
the little girl continued to come back each night to make her holy hour and consume the consecrated hosts that were on the floor with her tongue. On the thirty-second night, after she had consumed the last and thirty-second host, she accidentally made a noise and woke up the guard who was sleeping. He ran after her, caught her, and beat her to death with his rifle. This act of heroic martyrdom was witnessed by the priest as he watched this great testimony of love for the sacrament of love. The Eucharistic heart, sign of his sacrificial love for men, inspires love in return. As the Holy Father tells us in his Apostolic Letter Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist, “Together with this infinite and free gift [of God’s sacrificial love],…of which the Eucharist is the indelible sign, there also springs up within us a lively response of love. We not only contemplate love; we ourselves begin to love. Thanks to the Eucharist, the love that springs up within us from the Eucharist develops in us, becomes deeper and grows stronger" (JPII, 1980).

The Eucharistic Heart Forms Great Witnesses of Love

“Try, then to imitate God, as children that he loves, and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our place as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1).

The Holy Father, JPII, in his apostolic letter at the conclusion of the Jubilee year, Novo Millennio Ineunte, told us that the greatest evangelization of the Church at the beginning of this century will be realized if we become witnesses to love. He asserts that the Church of the third millennium, needs to become a great sign of love to the world. “Love is truly the 'heart' of the Church, as was well understood by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whom I proclaimed a Doctor of the Church precisely because she is an expert in the scientia amoris: 'I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was aflame with Love. I understood that Love alone stirred the members of the Church to act... I understood that Love embraces all vocations, that Love was everything.'"

I want to speak today of a great witness to love in our troubled times, someone that never forgot to love even when his surroundings were of hatred.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Very well known as the Saint of the Immaculate and totally consecrated to Our Lady, St. Maximilian Kolbe had in the center of his spirituality what it is so central to the love of the Immaculate herself - the love of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. It is this love that should be central to the spirituality of every disciple of Christ. Consecration to the Immaculate has no other goal but to bring us to share the love of Jesus who died on the Cross for love and out of love, a mystery that it is prolonged for us in the Eucharist.

This love is essentially an identification with the intentions of the Heart of Christ - loving, giving, sacrificing himself “for the life of the world." “Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). It is the testimony of those who lived with St. Maximilian that it was a moving experience to observe him while celebrating the Mass; He lived the Mass! He was absorbed in the sacred character of the Mass, uniting himself intimately with Christ in the mystery of our redemption! He united all his personal sufferings to Christ. For him the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass was the fulfillment of his vocation and of his life. When he founded the City of the Immaculate, from which a great Marian and evangelistic apostolate would flourish, he made the Mass and the Adoration of the Eucharistic Heart the center and most important activity of the City. “The Heart of Niepokalanow is the Eucharist,” he would often say. Besides all the community times of Eucharistic prayers, He would go to be with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament (probably 10 to 15 times at day) “to know more each day the love and mercy of the Eucharistic Heart."

This Eucharistic formation in love and self oblation would be the force behind this Marian priest in the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz. He would follow the same advice he cried out to the brothers when all of them were taken to the Camp: “Do not forget love." That is the same cry of the Eucharistic Heart to all of us: Do not forget love! Do not forget me who loves you and has given up my life for you!

Because he was a priest, he was constantly beaten and left to die. Prisoners at Auschwitz were slowly and systematically starved, and when food was brought, everyone struggled to get his place and be sure of a portion. Father Maximilian, however, stood aside in spite of the ravages of starvation, and frequently there would be none left for him. At other times he shared his small portion of soup or bread with others. A prisoner recalled that he and several others often crawled across the floor at night to be near the bed of Father Kolbe, to make their confessions and ask for consolation. Father Kolbe pleaded with his fellow prisoners to forgive their persecutors and to overcome evil with good, hatred with love. A Protestant Doctor who treated the patients in Block Twelve testified that Father Kolbe waited until all the others had been treated before asking for help. He constantly sacrificed himself for the others.

“Pray that my love be without limits,” he wrote in a letter to his mother. Yes, that is precisely the love that he contemplated on the Cross and in the Eucharist. This is the prayer that the Lord always answers because it is the desire of his Heart that we become like him, that we have the same sentiments of His Heart. He offered his first Mass for the conversion of hardened hearts. The second one for the grace of martyrdom, and the third for the grace to love to the point of becoming a victim. (All these prayers were answered, and all were inspired by the lives of St. Theresa of Lisieux and St. Gemma Galgani.)

One day, and many of you may know the story, when 10 men had been chosen to die in the starvation bunkers as a punishment for the escape of some prisoners, one of them began to cry when his name was called out: "please, I have a wife and children." St. Maximilian, accustomed to contemplate and live the sacrificial love of the Eucharistic Heart, took a step forward and said: "I want to take his place." The Nazi commander asked, "Who are you?", and he replied, "I am a catholic priest." A priest, another Christ, united in his suffering for the good of others. Yes, a priest to give my life, my body, my blood, as Jesus gave it for us on the Cross and gives it to us in the Eucharist.

He was the last one to die in the bunker helping the other men to find the power the love of Jesus and Mary.

This act of love manifested in a city of hatred, as was Auschwitz, transformed it according to testimonies of those who survived the Camp. They saw the reality of love: it is never overcome by hatred, light is not overcome by darkness when the reign of the Eucharistic heart is in the heart of men. Maximilian, when he was a child, had a vision of the Blessed Mother. She was offering to him two crowns: one white and one red. He chose both. Purity and self sacrifice. He lived them both until the end. He lived in two cities: one of the Immaculate, where love and purity reign and one of horror and hatred, Auschwitz. In both cities, he lived the reign of the Sacred Heart because it was in his heart. In both cities he wore the two crowns of the triumph of the Eucharistic Heart, the triumph of love - of love over hate, good over evil, light over darkness. That is the real triumph, when our hearts, moved by the power of the Eucharistic heart, enter into its fire of purification and live by supernatural love.

He lived the Mass said all who saw him celebrating it. In the last period of his life, in the concentration camp when he no longer celebrated Holy Mass in the sacramental sense, he celebrated to the very end with his life and with his death, with his total identification with the Eucharist, offering himself as a living sacrifice.

S. Maximilian was so full of love, which he learned and received by contemplating the oblation and sacrificial love of the Eucharistic Heart, that he became the first "martyr of love." With this title, which had never been used before, he was canonized by Pope John Paul II. The Holy Father also called him: “a prophet of the new civilization of love." It is impossible said the Pope, not to read in his life and sacrifice a powerful testimony of the Church in the modern world, and at the same time, a great sign for our times. St. Maximilian, a great Marian saint, consecrated totally to the Immaculate, was lead by the Blessed Mother to the consuming fire of love of the Eucharistic Heart to the point of becoming a living sacrifice, a living host, a witness to love.

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart Fosters the Reign of Love of the Eucharistic Heart in Our Hearts

St. Maximilian: "This truth must be inscribed in the hearts of all mankind, those who are living now and in those who will live until the end of all times. The Immaculate must be introduced to the hearts of men, and so enable Her to raise the throne of her Son in them, and draw all mankind to the knowledge of Him and inflame them with love for the Most Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus."

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart is the sure way to communion with the Eucharistic Heart, since her heart is the one who knows the secret for the most intimate union with the Heart of Jesus. She will always lead us to a greater love and communion with Her Son. She directs us to adore him, contemplate him, and she has been entrusted with the mission to reproduce in us the features of the Heart of Jesus. She will always lead us to the Son. In Fatima, on October 13th 1917, humanity was granted a great gift: the miracle of the sun. That day, announced by our Lady, the Lord manifested a miracle for everyone to see. Heavy rain covered the area, and the pilgrims had to walk through puddles of mud and in a cloudy and foggy atmosphere. It had rained the whole night and in that cold and dark day the Lord manifested his presence and his power. Suddenly, after the Blessed Mother pointed upward, the sun became visible to all and took the form of a host. It began to spin and pulsate towards the crowd; it seem like if it was coming down with its intense fire to burn the earth. It approached the earth, and those assembled there were frightened and did not understand what was happening. They feared the fire that was approaching, but as it came towards them, everything became dry, and the day was transformed from darkness into light, from coldness into warmth. This miracle of the sun was a sign of what the Eucharistic Heart wants to do in our present generation.

“We must conquer the world and win each individual soul, now, and in the future, to the end of time for the Immaculate, and by her for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Through the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Mother, we are being led to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, the burning furnace of love, for our hearts to be transformed in living hosts, living witness to love and of self oblation. Let us bring to our civilization the power that conquers evil: Do not forget love!

BEWARE THE UNTEACHABLE

2011-08-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

Daniel Goldhagen

One of the reasons that participation on a message board like Steve Ray's can be very frustrating is that some of the participants are simply unteachable. An anti-Catholic fundamentalist Protestant may spout some slanderous error about Catholic faith, or practice, or history. He is then corrected. And corrected. And corrected. He may go on to some other topic. And another. And yet another. Eventually, though, he will make his way back to the issue on which he had been repeatedly corrected, as if the episode had never occurred at all.

The Weekly Standard published the other day a review of an upcoming book by Daniel Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair. The reviewer spends some time pointing out the numerous factual errors in the book. And he notes that Goldhagen has already been corrected about most of them, to no avail:

.... Goldhagen took a first swipe at this material in an unbearably long essay in the New Republic earlier this year, and Ronald Rychlak (author of "Hitler, the War and the Pope") wrote an almost equally long indictment of Goldhagen's allegations in the June/July issue of First Things. As near as I can tell, the only one of the errors Rychlak pointed out that Goldhagen has corrected is his identification of the Danish king as Christian II instead of Christian X. As I say, no one is going to have trouble finding Goldhagen's mistakes. And that's exactly the problem. By writing such an error-filled, anti-Catholic diatribe as "A Moral Reckoning," Goldhagen makes what used to be the extreme of public discourse look like middle ground -- the middle ground that, on any historical question, most of diffident, well-mannered America wants to inhabit.

(Thanks Dale.)

METANOIA

2011-08-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Metanoia, a Greek word meaning a change of mind. A radical revision and transformation of our whole mental process. That change of mind is something whereby God takes centre place in our consciousness, in our awareness, and in our minds.

Metanoia means a new mind. About what? About whom we are. ...If tonight you're hearing with your heart, it's time for metanoia. It's time for a new mind about you and about life.

Metanoia is the idea of the need for conversion. And this is then recognizing that we don't know, truthfully don't know, God and truthfully don't feel ourselves as God intends us to.

We really need metanoia, which is allowing the grace of God to enter into our lives and teach us how to see ourselves and how to come to the true self. When the authors wrote in Greek about what Jesus really said, they all agree that he preached metanoia. ...One idea is conversion or transformation. Change of heart and, literally, change of mind. "The kingdom of God is at hand," he says, meaning it's at arm's length. But in order for you to grasp it, you have to be able to undergo something like this: a conversion and transformation and change of heart and mind.

Metanoia is a new-minded way of looking at life.

OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP

2011-08-23T23:34:00.000-07:00

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help measures around 17" × 21" inches and 25 inches (50 centimeters) high. It is in the Byzantine style, painted on hard nut wood with a gold leaf background. The image depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary wearing a dress of dark red, representing the Passion of Jesus with a blue mantle representing her perpetual virginity and cloaked veil which represents her pure modesty.

On the left side is the Saint Archangel Michael, carrying the lance and sponge of the crucifixion of Jesus. On the right is the Saint Archangel Gabriel carrying a 3-bar cross used by Popes at the time and nails. Her divine Child is frightened, whereas the Blessed Virgin looks at the pathetic scene with calm, resigned sorrow.

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help had long been venerated on the Isle of Crete. The inhabitants of that island, fleeing a Turkish invasion, took it with them to Rome. By the invocation of Mary under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the ship transporting Her holy image was saved from a terrible storm.

On March 27, 1499, the portrait of the Virgin of Perpetual Help was carried in triumph through the streets of Rome. Preceded by the clergy and followed by the people, it was placed over the main altar of St. Matthew’s church, near St. Mary Major. Thanks to the care of the Augustinian friars, the holy image became the object of a very popular devotion which God rewarded for several centuries with many miracles.

During the disturbances of the French Revolution (1789-1793), the French troops occupying Rome destroyed St. Matthew’s church. One of the friars serving in that sanctuary had the time to secretly remove the miraculous Madonna. He hid it so well that for sixty years, no one knew what had become of the famous painting.

God permitted a concourse of providential circumstances which led to rediscovery of the venerated image. In 1865, in order to return the holy picture to the same spot it had been prayed to before, Pius IX gave orders to have it taken to the Esquiline Hill, in St. Alphonsus Liguori’s church, built on the site of old St. Matthew’s. On April 26, 1866, the Redemptorists solemnly enthroned Our Lady of Perpetual Help in their chapel.

From that time on, thanks to the zeal of the sons of Saint Alphonsus and the countless miracles obtained in their pious sanctuary, devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help has had an extraordinary development. To acknowledge and perpetuate the remembrances of these precious favors, the Vatican Chapter crowned the holy image in great pomp on June 23, 1867.

In 1876, Pope Pius IX erected an Archconfraternity in St. Alphonsus’ church under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Today the Blessed Virgin is invoked by this name throughout the Western Church.

Source: Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l’année, Mame: Tours, 1950, pp. 463-464 – Brothers of Christian Schools, 1932 ed., p. 483

ON THE PHYSICAL DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST

2011-08-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

Therefore, the water probably represented serous pleural and pericardial fluid, (5-7,11) and would have preceded the flow of blood and been smaller in volume than the blood. Perhaps in the setting of hypovolemia and impending acute heart failure, pleural and pericardial effusions may have developed and would have added to the volume of apparent water. (5,11) The blood, in contrast, may have originated from the right atrium or the right ventricle or perhaps from a hemopericardium. (5,7,11)

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QUICK QUESTIONS

2011-08-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

QUESTION: One of the things that sets Catholics apart from other denominations is Communion. Since the followers of Christ were Jews and consuming blood was an abomination, why would they believe they were ingesting the actual blood of Christ and bring condemnation upon themselves? Also, wouldn’t the wafer, if it became the literal body of Christ, be an abomination to Catholics since cannibalism is a sin? Jesus was offered as a sacrifice for sin once upon the cross, and there is no more need of a sacrifice. Communion has been understood as being symbolic, or else it would have never been accepted by the disciples. The blood shed on the cross is the last time the blood of Christ flowed. His body was last on earth the day he ascended into heaven. To say the juice and wafer becomes the literal blood and body of Christ is saying he is sacrificed anew, which is an impossibility.

ANSWER: First of all, up to the 16th century virtually all Christians believed that the bread and wine truly becomes the body and blood of Christ. That’s a long time. The largest and oldest Christian Church still does—as do the Orthodox churches. So there has to be something credible about it.

It is true that for the Jews, consuming blood was an abomination. Scripture tells us that many of the disciples of Jesus could not accept this and from that point on did not follow him (Jn 6:66), but not all of them. “Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God’” (Jn 6:67-69). These disciples did accept what he said—not because they understood, but because they believed in him.

If Jesus were merely speaking symbolically, he could easily have called the other disciples back and explained that he wasn’t speaking literally. He did not. Jesus, we believe, is God. It boggles the mind that God loves his creatures so much that he became one of them, and then allowed them to torture him and put him to death for their benefit. The moment in which he died covers every person who lived on this earth before Good Friday and everyone who was to live after it. It transcends time.

The Church and everything about it is incarnational because Jesus became incarnate. He used water and spittle and bread and wine and his own body and blood to minister to those who needed him. Since Jesus is God, if he said that the bread and wine becomes his body and blood, then those who acknowledge his divinity should have no difficulty believing it to be true because, like the Twelve, they believe in him. It is certainly no more extraordinary than his Incarnation!

Since the moment of his death transcends time, to celebrate it in time is not to create another Passion and death; it is to worship him in that very Passion here and now in the concrete manner of his devising. See: www.catholic.com/library/Sacrifice_of_the_Mass.asp.

SALVATION THROUGH FAITH AND GOOD WORKS

2011-08-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

by Helen Keeler and Susan Grimbly

The Church has seesawed between an emphasis on faith — that you achieve salvation through private worship of the Lord — and stress on good works. Clearly, it takes a combination of both things to be a good Catholic and to live life as Christ wished us to do. But how can we achieve this balance.

What Is Salvation?

Salvation means overcoming sin and the basic flaws of the human condition and returning to the ultimate, longed-for state of spirituality. The example we have of salvation is Christ's Resurrection, in which he was transformed into a new mode of existence. That transformation is what we are all striving to achieve.

While there is a strong judgmental quality to this idea — that the wicked will be punished — we must also remember that it is tempered by Jesus' compassion. So we trip and fall, ask forgiveness, and soldier on again.

It is every Catholic's individual responsibility to work out his or her salvation, and the framework of the Church provides plenty of help for every Catholic to reach that goal. As the bishops proclaimed at Vatican II, the values that we cherish on earth, “human dignity, brotherly communion, and freedom,” are of “vital concern to the kingdom of God.”

A Full Catholic Life

To be a Catholic, it is not enough to observe the outward signs of worship, such as going to Mass and confession and having sacramentals around your house. That falls short of achieving the state of inner worship that is critical to becoming one with the Lord. It is not enough to only do good works. No matter how generous you are with your time, you must still observe the obligations of worship that membership in the Church requires.

It is the Catholic's responsibility to permeate society, strengthened in purpose by faith, and to try to be a force for good. As the Catholic Catechism attests, “If a bad apple affects the good ones, cannot we as Christians and Catholics reverse the procedure and be the good ones that affect the bad?” We want to help those systems of justice whose aim is to save humanity from its sometimes misguided cultural and temporal interests.

HOW TO EXPLAIN PURGATORY TO PROTESTANTS

2011-08-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

by James Akin

Suppose a friend or co-worker comes to you and says:

"The Catholic Church has this massive doctrine of purgatory, invented in the middle ages. The Church used to even sell indulgences to shorten your time in purgatory by a fixed number of days. This doctrine is based on books that don't belong in the Bible. There is no place or region in the afterlife for the saved except heaven. There is no pain in the afterlife, and the minute we die we go to heaven, as Paul says, 'To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ,' praying for people in purgatory makes no sense. Worst of all, it infringes on the sufficiency of Christ's work. It is completely unbiblical. No Protestant could believe it."

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THE 10 FACTS ABOUT MARY

2011-08-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

by Jenny Schroedel and Reverend John Schroedel

1. Dante said that Mary's face is the one that most closely resembles the face of Christ.

2. Apparitions of Mary have been reported in every era in history and every country in the world.

3. The early church fathers compared Eve to Mary. As Eve was the mother of humanity who fell into sin, Mary was the mother of a new humanity.

4. The Christian representation of Mary helped early converts from paganism connect with the Church.

5. Mary is regarded as a helper for those who grieve and to those who are in need of comfort. Grieving parents have taken comfort in her because she lost her own child in a tragic way.

6. Despite the widely secular nature of the twenty-first century, pilgrimages to Marian sites seem to be increasing in frequency.

7. Many of the earliest churches devoted to Mary were built on old pagan holy sites.

8. Despite Mary's significant place in the lives of the Christian faithful for centuries, she is mentioned less in the Bible than in the Koran.

9. Many scholars think that Mary may have only been thirteen or fourteen years old when she gave birth to Christ.

10. Mary has garnered the praise of writers such as Dante, Jack Kerouac, Flannery O'Conner, and Sue Monk Kidd.

I LOVE JESUS SO MUCH

2011-08-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

I SHOULD NEVER HAVE ANY CAUSE OR REASON TO BE ASHAMED TO LOVE JESUS.

Is not the time coming, and the day hastening, when covetous men shall be ashamed of loving the world, and voluptuous men ashamed of loving their pleasures, and ambitious men ashamed of loving their honors?

For is it not a horrid shame, that a rational creature should be such a sot as to love sin which is most loathsome, and not to love Jesus who is most lovely? to love deformity, and not beauty?

Oh shame, shame! It is a shame that sin should have such esteem, and Jesus such great contempt put upon him. But shame shall before long confound these now shameless wretches, when they shall cry out, "We are ashamed that we loved profits, and not Jesus- houses, lands, lusts, and not Jesus.

This is the confusion of our faces, and shame covers us-- that we should be so foolish, and so blind, that we had not sense, nor reason, to distinguish between sin, which is the greatest and most odious evil, and Jesus who is the greatest and most lovely good." But the time will never come, the day will never be, that a gracious soul shall be ashamed of his sincere love to Jesus Christ.

NO HOPE BUT GOD

2011-08-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

In his book Through the Valley of the Kwai, Scottish officer Ernest Gordon wrote of his years as a prisoner of war during World War II. The 6′ 2″ man suffered from malaria, diphtheria, typhoid, beriberi, dysentery, and jungle ulcers, and the hard labor and scarcity of food quickly plunged his weight to less than 100 pounds.

The squalor of the prison hospital prompted a desperate Ernest to request to be moved to a cleaner place—the morgue. Lying in the dirt of the death house, he waited to die. But every day, a fellow prisoner came to wash his wounds and to encourage him to eat part of his own rations. As the quiet and unassuming Dusty Miller nursed Ernest back to health, he talked with the agnostic Scotsman of his own strong faith in God and showed him that—even in the midst of suffering—there is hope.

The hope we read about in Scripture is not a vague, wishy-washy optimism. Instead, biblical hope is a strong and confident expectation that what God has promised in His Word He will accomplish. Tribulation is often the catalyst that produces perseverance, character, and finally, hope (Rom. 5:3-4).

Seventy years ago, in a brutal POW camp, Ernest Gordon learned this truth himself and said, “Faith thrives when there is no hope but God” (see Rom. 8:24-25).

Faith looks beyond this transient life
With hope for all eternity—
Not with some vague and wistful hope,
But with firm trust and certainty. —D. De Haan

by Cindy Hess Kasper from Our Daily Bread

I REMAIN A PRISONER IN THIS TABERNACLE

2011-08-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

“Our work continues. I remain a prisoner in this tabernacle. I wait for every soul who is absent from Me. My children must understand that I am drawing souls to Myself. I can no longer stand by and watch so many souls lost for eternity. In days past there would be a small number of souls who chose to remain parted from Me for eternity.

This caused Me suffering, it is true. In these times, though. My presence in the world and dominion over this world is treated so casually that many souls choosing darkness are led to believe this is almost a meaningless decision. They do not understand the impact. Indeed, some of My children are casual about their eternity because they believe they will have several attempts at life in this world [Ed. note: reincarnation].

I tell you today, children, this is a Godless notion created and perpetuated by the evil one who would like to downplay the importance of what you do with this time. There is only one life allotted to each soul. There can be no question about that. Do not believe that you will come back to earth again for another chance. It is this life you are living that will determine your eternity. So, My children, now that We all understand the importance of this day, and this series of days allotted to you, let Us make a decision on how you will spend the remainder of your time. I would like you to help Me.

I know exactly how many days are left before you appear before Me in the next life. I have special work that needs to be done. Indeed, I have special work for each one of these days remaining to you. If you will say “yes” to Me, I can rest more easily, knowing those tasks will be completed and souls, the certain number attached to your work, will be saved. Additionally, I will have the joy, the happiness of knowing that My immeasurable love for you is returned.

My child, come to Me and do My work. You will find no greater joy on this earth. Ask My true followers. They know the ecstasy of feeling My smile in their soul. I want that for you. Let Me assure you that, in most cases, My work for you involves you remaining in your current role. I simply want you to be at peace. I want you to know you are loved. I want to be with you as you struggle and I want to keep you safe.

You will experience your days differently when you unite them to Me. What formerly caused distress for you will be barely a ripple against the great peace I am offering. I can take even the smallest, humblest acts of love and obedience and use them to rescue a soul. So instead of merely surviving your time here, you will be using your days, already and always finite, to rescue souls who are living without Me and, in some cases, living against Me. We must have hope for every soul, My dear one. Rest in My tremendous grace during this time as I continue to reveal My great secrets to you.”

THE EUCHARIST: YOUR GREATEST GIFT

2011-08-03T04:18:00.000-07:00

Dr. Miravalle describes how the Eucharist is our greatest gift and how Our Lady is related to it. He describes the Eucharist as the greatest self-giving that even God can give and makes possible the greatest intimacy that we can have here on earth.

EATING CHRIST'S FLESH AND DRINKING HIS BLOOD PART 1

2011-07-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

A Study by Dr. Andrew M. Fountain

John 6:51-58: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." 52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" 53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 "For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 "This is the bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."

You might think that this is a rather odd subject to write about. I agree that it is a very strange image, but it is an image Christ gave. He spoke most unapologetically, even though most of the people to whom He was speaking clearly did not understand Him and found it somewhat offensive. Today we would think it bizarre if someone spoke to us about eating their flesh and drinking their blood. What does it mean? How are we to understand it?

The passage might make us think of the Lord’s Supper, the Breaking of Bread, but there is only an indirect connection. When we Break Bread, we remember Christ by eating the bread and drinking the wine which symbolizes His body and His blood. But there is no reference in this passage to the bread or the wine. There is a kind of connection with the Lord’s Supper because they are both pointing to the same event, Christ’s death, but Jesus is not referring here to the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. He is talking about something else, even though the picture is similar.

1. The Meaning of the Image
The first question we have to ask is what does Jesus actually mean here by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Obviously, he is not talking about cannibalism, about physically eating somebody’s flesh and actually drinking their blood. Clearly that idea is not here at all, so what is it He is referring to? Why does He use this picture?

Light from the Old Testament
The word blood is used frequently in the Bible to mean violent death. For example, 2 Sam 3:28 "Afterward, when David heard it, he said, "My kingdom and I are guiltless before the LORD forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner." and Psalm 30:9: "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? will the dust praise You?" There are many places where we read of someone having a man's blood on their head. It means they are guilty of the death of that man. When the Bible refers to blood being poured out or being spilt, or blood anytime outside of the body, it is usually a graphic metaphor for violent death.

We have two very interesting Old Testament references which help us to understand what Jesus is talking about. The first is in Psalm 27:2 where David is talking about the wicked who are coming against him. "When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell." We have to ask ourselves, does David literally mean that these are cannibalistic enemies or is he using picture language? He is talking here about the wicked who want to profit from his death. They want to kill David because they want to obtain some kind of benefit from his death. This example from the Old Testament gives us an insight into what Jesus means by eating his flesh—it means to benefit from His death on the cross.

Interestingly enough, there is an occasion in David’s life where he also uses the image of drinking blood. When he was on the run from Saul he gathered a group of mighty men around him. At one point he was fighting the Philistines who had taken the town of Bethlehem and he remarked how much he would love a drink from the well of Bethlehem. Three of his mighty men heard this and took him seriously. They fought their way through the Philistine line, got water from Bethlehem and brought it back to David. In 1 Chronicles 11:19 David says, "Far be it from me, O my God, that I should do this! Shall I drink the blood of these men who have put their lives in jeopardy? For at the risk of their lives they brought it." He says that to drink this water would be like drinking the blood of these men, not literally their blood, but it would be like profiting from their near death, since they risked their lives for him. You could say, enjoying the benefits which came at the expense of their lives.

That phrase really sums up what Jesus is talking about here. When He refers to eating His flesh and drinking His blood, He is talking about enjoying the benefits which come from His death.

Our Food and Drink
Perhaps the most powerful image that these words have is simply that of the food and drink that sustains our lives. Food is something we all need moment by moment to sustain us. We cannot go long without a drink because liquid is vital for our bodies. Jesus is teaching us that we need to depend on Him utterly, moment by moment, in order to survive.

There is another place in John’s Gospel where Jesus uses an image to demonstrate how the believer is sustained moment by moment from Himself. It is the image of the vine and the branches. A branch, cut away from the vine, is cut away from the sap—that source of nourishment and fluid flowing up—and would die straight away. We must be joined to Christ and constantly feeding from Him and drawing sustenance from Him in order to be sustained.

That is the idea behind this passage, but we must ask how are we to apply it to ourselves?

2. What it Means in Practice
How do we practically feed on Christ’s flesh and drink His blood? I am going to try and build up a picture by comparing Jesus' words in different places here in John 6.

A. This eating and drinking results in everlasting life

6:27 "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you"

6:50-51a "This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever"

6:53 "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you."

6:54 "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

We can also think of the woman of Samaria who was told in John 4:14 that drinking the water that Christ offers would lead to everlasting life.

Eating and drinking > > everlasting life

So we can say very definitely that eating and drinking results in everlasting life. But is there anything else that Jesus says leads to everlasting life? If there are other things, then they will help us understand what it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

B. Believing also leads to everlasting life
3:16 "...that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life"

6:40 "...that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

6:47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life."

There are many other places in the New Testament where similar things are said.

Believing > > everlasting life

So, believing in Christ and eating His flesh and drinking His blood are both things that lead to everlasting life. We can put them together. Whatever He means by eating and drinking, it is the same kind of thing as believing because both of them lead to everlasting life.

C. Coming to Jesus has a similar meaning

6:35 "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." [coming and believing are put in parallel]

5:40 "But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life."

7:37 "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."

Eating and drinking, Believing, Coming > > everlasting life

I am trying to build up a picture here of the images that are used to mean the same thing as eating and drinking. Here, believing and coming are used in a parallel fashion. Their meanings are not identical, but the comparison sheds light on how we should understand each individual image.

D. Obeying/Abiding in the words of Christ
There is one other image, that of obeying Christ’s words and abiding in them.

15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." [This is a very important verse because it explains what it means to abide in Christ]

6:56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him."

Abiding in Christ = keeping His commandments

Abiding in Christ = Eating and drinking

Looking at these references allows us to build up an image of what Jesus is talking about. Here, quite clearly, eating His flesh and drinking His blood is equivalent to abiding in Him, which we learned from chapter 15 is obeying His words.

There are four ideas that are linked together here. We will see in part 2 how these work out in the life of a Christian.

But why does Jesus use such unusual language and powerful images? The hearers needed to have their thinking totally reversed. Have you ever been in a situation where you have fairly settled thoughts and opinions about something that are turned utterly upside down by a new discovery?

I once read a story, recounted by Frank Koch, in Proceedings, (the magazine of the Naval Institute).

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on manoeuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.

Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow."

"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.

Lookout replied, "Steady, captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.

The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: we are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."

Back came a signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."

The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees."

"I'm a seaman second class," came the reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees."

By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees."

Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."

We changed course.

Christ intends us to radically change course in our lives. We will begin part 2 by looking at a verse that seems to me to be the Christ-centred key for opening up our understanding of the passage. This verse, which at first sight appears rather difficult, is John 6:57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me." We will see that in some ways, Christ's relationship with the Father gives us amazing insights into how we should live.

Part 2 >

DIPPING YOUR HAND IN HOLY WATER

2011-07-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

When you come into the church building , what is the first thing you do? Don't you dip your hand into the holy water and make the sign of the cross? Why do you do that? Well, for three reasons:

a. in repentance for your sins;

b. for protection against the Evil One;

c. to remind you of your baptism.

a. Holy water reminds us to be sorry for our sins. When there is the rite of sprinkling in the liturgy, we always sing the Asperges, which means "you will sprinkle or wash". Asperges me hysoppo et mundabor; lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor. These are words from the great penitential psalm, Ps 50: You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed: you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.

b. Holy water is a sacramental which is a protection against the snares of the devil. The old prayer for the blessing of holy water said: "O God, creator of unconquered power, King of invincible empire and victor ever-great: who put down the powers of hostile dominion and conquer the fury of the roaring enemy, who fight powerfully against our wicked foes: trembling we beseech you, O Lord, we implore you and beg you: that you might graciously look upon this creature of water and salt, kindly illumine it, sanctify it with the dew of your loving kindness, so that wherever it is sprinkled, through the invocation of your holy Name, every infestation of the unclean spirit be cast out, and the terror of the poisonous serpent be driven far away. And may the presence of the Holy Spirit deign to be with us always, we who implore your mercy."

c. Holy water reminds us of our baptism: of that great day when we ourselves or our parents or sponsors—renounced Satan, professed faith in Christ, and were baptized into the mystery of the Holy Trinity. At that moment all our sins were forgiven: original and actual, and we became children of God, filii in Filio, heirs of the promise, daring now to call God our Father.

When you dip your hand into the holy water font, remember these things, and like Our Lady, treasure them in your heart.

AT THE FEET OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST

2011-07-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

From the writings of Saint Faustina

O Jesus, Divine Prisoner of Love, when I consider Your love and how You emptied Yourself for me, my senses deaden. You hide Your inconceivable majesty and lower Yourself to miserable me. O king of Glory, though You hide Your beauty, yet the eye of my soul rends the veil. I see the angelic choirs giving You honor without cease, and all the heavenly Powers praising You without cease, and without cease they are saying: Holy, Holy, Holy.

Oh, who will comprehend Your love and Your unfathomable mercy toward us! O Prisoner of Love, I love up my poor heart in this tabernacle that it may adore You without cease night and day. I know of no obstacle in this adoration: and even though I be physically distant, my heart is always with You. Nothing can put a stop to my love for You. No obstacles exist for me...

O Holy Trinity, One and Indivisible God, may You be blessed for this great gift and testament of mercy. Amen.

I adore You, Lord and Creator, hidden in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I adore You for all the works of Your hands, that reveal to me so much wisdom, goodness and mercy, O Lord. You have spread so much beauty over the earth and it tells me about Your beauty, even though these beautiful things are but a faint reflection of You, incomprehensible Beauty. And although You have hidden Yourself and concealed your beauty, my eye, enlightened by faith, reaches You and my souls recognizes its Creator, its Highest Good, and my heart is completely immersed in prayer of adoration.

My Lord and Creator, Your goodness encourages me to converse with You. Your mercy abolishes the chasm which separates the Creator from the creature. To converse with You, O Lord, is the delight of my heart. In You I find everything that my heart could desire. Here Your light illumines my mind, enabling it to know You more and more deeply. Here streams of grace flow down upon my heart. Here my soul draws eternal life. O my Lord and Creator, You alone, beyond all these gifts, give Your own self to me and unite Yourself intimately with Your miserable creature.

O Christ, let my greatest delight be to see You loved and Your praise and glory proclaimed, especially the honor of Your mercy. O Christ, let me glorify Your goodness and mercy to the last moment of my life, with every drop of my blood and every beat of my heart. Would that I be transformed into a hymn of adoration of You. When I find myself on my deathbed, may the last beat of my heart be a loving hymn glorifying Your unfathomable mercy. Amen.

"Do grant, oh my God, that when my lips approach Yours to kiss You, I may taste the gall that was given to You; when my shoulders lean against Yours, make me feel Your scourging; when my flesh is united with Yours, in the Holy Eucharist, make me feel Your passion; when my head comes near Yours, make me feel Your thorns; when my heart is close to Yours, make me feel Your spear."

GAY MARRIAGE IS A SIN

2011-07-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil..." —Psalm 97:10

Any child knows that God created Adam and Eve; NOT, Adam and Steve! The very notion of two homosexuals getting married is repulsive and disgusting. In Romans 1:26 God calls homosexual "love"... vile affections, i.e., morally reprehensible affections.

God's Word condemns homosexuality, which is why Sodomites today are relentlessly trying to corrupt the Bible .Romans 1:25 told us they'd do this, "Who changed the truth of God into a lie..."

Gay marriage is NO marriage at all in the eyes of God. Mark 10:9 plainly states that marriages are made in Heaven... "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

God will not honor a sinful marriage between two lesbians or homosexuals. The entire idea of same-sex-unions (i.e., gay marriage) is foolish, absurd, and most of all, unbiblical. We are a spiritually destitute people in America!

One of the best secular arguments against homosexual marriages is the fact that a child NEEDS both a male and female role image in their developmental stage. For a child to grow up healthy and normal, BOTH male and female parental roles are required. A child who grows up with two lesbian parents, will grow up warped and confused, having been denied the privilege of a NORMAL home. Homosexuality is NOT an alternative lifestyle; but rather, a sinful lifestyle. It's not "a new kind of family" as the TV networks propagate; but is in reality a sinful kind of family.

Homosexuality is a horrible sin, which brought the destruction of God upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Although some people have pointed out to me that God destroyed Sodom for other sins besides homosexuality (Ezekiel 16:49), Jude 1:7 plainly states that God destroyed Sodom for sexual sins, including that of going after "strange flesh" (a clear reference to the unnatural behavior of homosexuality).

Furthermore, Genesis 19:1-9 gives us explicit details about an angry mob of homosexuals in Sodom, who were about to break down Lot's front door and rape the male guests (i.e., the angels). Genesis 19:4 reveals that Sodom was saturated with homosexuals... "But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter." Sodom was known as a city of queers; hence the term, "sodomite." In addition, Romans Chapter one is a solid indictment against the sin of homosexuality. The fact that two homosexuals cannot produce natural children is evidence enough, that something is VERY WRONG AND UNNATURAL with being a homosexual. Homosexuality is a sin, which has led to the CRAZY practice of artificial insemination. Please read, Gay Men and Lesbians Utilizing Infertility Clinics to Have Babies.

Think about how immoral and crazy this is! Two lesbians get married, and then pay a complete stranger, a man, to donate his sperm to artificially inseminate one or both of the women in a medical clinic. So while the two lesbians are having lesbian sex, their babies are the result of artificial insemination by a man they'll probably never even meet. How crazy is that? Then there's the case of two homosexual men living together, who pay a woman to be artificially inseminated with one of their sperm cells, so they can be fathers? Folks, this stuff belongs on The Outer Limits! It just goes to show that when mankind disobeys God's Word, things get crazy.

END | by David J. Stewart

NOT HOLY ENOUGH

2011-07-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama 'not holy enough' for Oz MasterChef contestant

A Christian taking part in Australia’s MasterChef has revealed that she just could not address the Dalai Lama as “Your Holiness”, as she believes that only God is perfectly holy.

MasterChef mum Kate Bracks, 36, from Orange, refused to acknowledge the leader by his formal title when he was the guest star of Sunday’s episode, and only addressed him as “Dalai Lama”.

“My belief is that God is the only one that is perfectly holy,” News.com.au quoted her as saying.

“So in terms of everybody calling him Your Holiness, that was probably the only aspect of the challenge I was uncomfortable with. I just called him Dalai Lama,” she stated.

Dalai Lama’s appearance created an emotion-charged challenge for the other five competitors, who all spoke of his “energy”, “aura” and “amazing spirit”.

Baptist minister Tim Costello and Uniting Church minister Bill Crews, who joined the Dalai Lama for the lunch service, happily called him “Your Holiness”.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

2011-07-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Roman Catholic Church through history approached her faith life with the clarification of language. That is, she translated the essentials of revealed faith into the vocabulary of living language.

To the revealed Word that there is "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" the Church labeled the belief "Trinity."
To the revealed Word that the "Son of God became man" the Church labeled the belief "Incarnation."
To the revealed Word that the "blood of Christ spilled on Calvary saved us" the Church labeled the belief "Redemption."
To the revealed Word that "my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink" the Church labeled the belief "Transubstantiation."
Transubstantiation reflects Roman Catholic faith in the literalness of the words of the Bible.

Jesus (omnipotent God) said: "This is my body; this is my blood." And again Jesus said: "I am the bread of life;" "My flesh is true food; my blood is true drink;" "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood ...;" etc.

Roman Catholics take Jesus at His word: the bread is his body; the wine is his blood.

From the Apostles at the Last Supper until today, the bread and wine of Eucharist looks and feels and tastes like bread and wine in the eating and drinking.

Similar to all of God's Word, faith is essential. Faith in what? In the words of Jesus even though the bread does not look, feel, taste like flesh; even though the wine does not look, feel, taste like blood.

Medieval philosophers and theologians sought simply to label this simple biblical faith: Jesus said that bread is his body and wine is his blood even though it did not appear to change into visible flesh and blood.

Transubstantiation means the substance part of the bread and wine elements changes; but the accidental parts--sight, taste, smell, touch--do not. Catholics believe that since Jesus said it and He is God, he can do it. They believe! "Transubstantiation" merely labels it.

In everyday life, it is not at all uncommon to believe in things man cannot perceive by the senses: wind, electricity, love, peace, etc. All the more when Jesus says it.

O JESUS MY DIVINE SAVIOUR

2011-07-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

O my divine saviour, love is what that drew You down here to this poor earth, into the womb of Your dearest mother. Love is was that laid You down as a Child on the poor straw; love it was that moved you to go to go to Your death for us and die on the cross; and love it was that caused Your Heart to be pierced and opened.

O, when I consider this infinite and boundless Love of Yours then my heart is seized with shame, repentance and sorrow, for it loves You so little, it is cold and hard as stone, it does not burn with the fire of Holy Love.
Whatever comes close to fire is seized by it, warmed and enkindled by it. I am close to You, O JESUS, close to Your Heart that burns with love – and yet my heart remains cold, remains untouched.

O JESUS, what must I do, so that love will seize my heart? What must I do, so that for once the fire of my love will be ignited? I do not want to be counted as those who disdain Your Love, who flee from You, who despise You. I want to love you with a whole and undivided heart. I know indeed that those without love remain in death. But You want me to live. Therefore, send a beam of Your Love from Your most loving Heart to penetrate my heart, and it will, it must be ignited. And yet O JESUS that does not satisfy my desire.

I wish to throw myself into the furnace of love which is Your most Sacred Heart, so I may be utterly engulfed by the fire of love. For Your Heart has been opened so that I may enter. O let me enter and find there the precious treasure of love. For You are rich in love; the fire that burns in Your Heart will not diminish, even though the hearts of all mankind should be ignited from it. But I am poor in love. And yet You have heard the prayers of the poor. O give me love, and I will love and be content. JESUS make me love You and You alone, with all my soul, with all my heart. St Gertrude the Great.

MARTYR OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST

2011-07-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

How a young Chinese girl inspired Archbishop Fulton Sheen (left) to make a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day.

A couple of months before he died, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was interviewed on national television. One of the questions he was asked was this: "You have inspired millions of people all over the world. Who inspired you? Was it a pope?" He responded that it was not a pope, cardinal, another bishop, or even a priest or nun, but rather an eleven-year-old Chinese girl.

He explained that when the communists took over China, they imprisoned a priest in his own rectory near the church. After being locked up in his own house, the priest looked out the window and was horrified to see the communists enter the church. Once inside, they went into the sanctuary, broke open the tabernacle and in a hateful act of desecration, threw down the ciborium scattering the Hosts on the floor. The priest knew exactly how many Hosts had been in the ciborium: thirty-two.

When the communists left they either didn't notice, or didn't pay any attention to a small girl praying in the back of the Church who saw everything. That night she returned, and slipping past the guard at the rectory, entered the Church where she made holy hour perhaps of reparation for the desecration she witnessed of the Blessed Sacrament.

After her holy hour she went into the sanctuary, and kneeling down, she bent over and received Jesus in Holy Communion with her tongue.

Each night, the girl returned to the church to make her holy hour and receive Jesus in Holy Communion on her tongue just as she did the first night.

On the thirty-second night, after having consumed the last Host, she accidentally made a noise that awoke the guard who was asleep at his post by the priest's residence. From his bedroom window, the priest could only watch in horror as the heartrending scene unfolded before his eyes. The girl tried to run away but the guard caught up with her and beat her to death with the butt of his rifle.

When Bishop Sheen heard the story he was so inspired that he promised God he would make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day for the rest of his life. And he was not only faithful to his promise, but he took every opportunity to spread this devotion of the daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

We don't know the name of the eleven-year-old Chinese girl of our story, but her heroic act of going to the church every night at the risk of her life to adore and receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament serves as a powerful testimony against the attitude of so many Catholics today who show nothing but callous indifference toward the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

An excerpt from Treasure In Clay, The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen:
"I resolved also to spend a continuous Holy Hour every day in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament . . . The Holy Hour. Is it difficult? Sometimes it seemed to be hard; it might mean having to forego a special engagement, or rise an hour earlier, but on the whole it has never been a burden, only a joy . . . . The purpose of the Holy Hour is to encourage a deep personal encounter with Christ. The holy and glorious God is constantly inviting us to come to Him, to hold converse with Him, to ask for such things as we need and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him . . . I have found that it takes some time to catch fire in prayer. This has been one of the advantages of the daily hour. It is not so brief as to prevent the soul from collecting itself and shaking off the multitudinous distractions of the world. Sitting before the Presence is like a body exposing itself before the sun to absorb its rays. Silence in the Hour is a tete-a-tete with the Lord. In those moments one does not so much pour out written prayers, but listening takes its place. We do not say:"Listen, Lord, for Thy servant speaks,"but "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."

MIRACLE OF THE EUCHARIST

2011-07-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

Santarem Miracle of the Eucharist

Either in 1225 or 1247, or somewhere in between, there was a woman living in Santarem, who was very unhappy.

She was convinced that her husband did not love her, and was unfaithful to her. She tried all the wiles known to women from the days of Eve, but to no avail.

As a desperate last attempt, she went to a sorceress. The sorceress promised the wife that her husband would return to his loving ways, if the wife would bring her a Consecrated Host.

This presented great fear to the woman.

She knew it was Sacrilege.

She was also convinced that the sorceress was up to no good. The wife didn’t know what to do. She finally gave in.

She went to Mass at the Church of St. Steven, and received Communion, but she did not consume the Host.

Instead, she left the Church immediately, and took the Host out of her mouth, putting it into a kerchief. She then headed for the Sorceress.

Along the way, the Host began to bleed inside the kerchief.

The wife was not aware of it until passersby brought it to her attention, thinking she was bleeding. Panic struck the heart of the woman.

She went home, and put the kerchief and the Host in the bottom of a trunk. She waited all day and night in fear.

When her husband came home late that night, she was sitting in the dark. They went to bed.

We doubt whether she slept very much. The guilt of her sin plagued her. She also didn’t know if the Host had continued to bleed.

Sometime during the night, they were awakened by bright rays of light coming from the trunk, which lit up the entire room.

The wife confessed her sin to her husband.

The two of them spent the rest of the night on their knees in adoration before the Miraculous Host the Santarem Miracle.

The next day, people came to the house, attracted by the light. They witnessed the miracle for themselves.

The Parish priest was told. He came to the house, and heard the story from the woman. He brought the Host back to the Church in solemn procession. Encasing It in a wax container, he placed the Host into the tabernacle.

Another Santarem miracle occurred.

The next time the priest opened the tabernacle door, the wax container had broken into thousands of pieces.

In its place was a crystal container, with the blood of the Host inside.

It has been kept in that church until today.

The Church has been renamed, “THE CHURCH OF THE MIRACLE." The little house where the Santarem miracle occurred was on Via delle Stuoie, in Santarem.

From the time of the miracle until now, every year, on the Second Sunday of April, the incident is re-enacted by local actors. The actual Eucharistic Miracle is processed from the house, which was converted into a Chapel in 1684, to the Church.

The Santarem Miracle of the Eucharist only left the city one time, during the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon’s troops in 1810.

The people of the town were afraid of desecration at the hands of the French, and so it was taken out of the city.

It wound up in the hands of the Bishop of Lisbon, who put It on display for the faithful of Lisbon to venerate. It seemed as if he were going to keep Our Dear Lord Jesus in the church of Pacao permanently.

The citizens of Santarem were outraged, and put up a mass protest. It is possible that the Lord did not want the people of Santarem to take his presence in their midst for granted for even a minute.

The Eucharistic Miracle was sent back to Santarem in great secrecy, to prevent the people of Lisbon from knowing It was leaving their city.

The people of Lisbon were not aware that the Physical Presence of their Savior was gone from their city until the day It was restored to Santarem, on December 2, 1811.

The Santarem Miracle is not normally exposed.

However, pilgrim groups with their own priest can usually behold and venerate the Sacred Blood. The Blood is still in liquid form, these 750 years after the Miracle occurred.

We ask ourselves why the Lord does the things He does? Why was there a miracle in Santarem?

Why has it lasted all these years?

Why does the Lord form clusters the way we’ve described? In order to come up with an answer that is acceptable to us, we have to bring God down to our level. That’s the only way we can understand Him. The same question might be asked, “Why does God continue to love us when we are so unfaithful to Him?”

The only answer I can think of is God, to remain God, must love us, because God is Love. God remains faithful because God is faithful.

The sad part of the relationship is that although He must continue to love us, we don’t have to love Him.

We can turn our back on Him, but He is always there, waiting, arms outstretched, just as when He was on the cross.

When we sin, WE BREAK RELATIONSHP WITH HIM. HE REMAINS UNCHANGED. When we go to Confession, and are reconciled with Him, the change comes about in us, not in Him.

He loves us as intensely as he did before we sinned. Thank God He does.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOLY COMMUNION

2011-07-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

By Fr Munachi E. Ezeogu, cssp
Homily for the Body and Blood of Christ - Based on the Epistle

Genesis 14:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17.

What is the most precious gift that Jesus Christ gave to his church? I do not mean the gift of the Holy Spirit. I have in mind things that we can see and touch. Many people will say, “the Bible.” The Bible is indeed an invaluable gift of God, but Jesus did not write a Bible for the church nor did he commission his disciples to write one. The most precious gift that Jesus gave to his church is that which we celebrate today, the gift of his own body and blood in the form of bread and wine.

The short reading we have today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is very important for Bible historians. This is because the words of Jesus in this passage are the earliest recorded words of Jesus that we have. We know that the words of Jesus are recorded in the gospels and other New Testament books. But Paul’s letters were written some twenty to fifty years before the gospels and theses other New Testaments books were written.

Paul begins by telling the people of Corinth that the tradition of celebrating the Lord’s supper is one that goes back to Jesus Christ himself. “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). Paul did not personally receive this tradition from the Lord, since he was not one of the twelve apostles present at the Last Supper. He received the tradition from those who were Christians before him, after his conversion to the Christian faith. Now he is handing on to the Corinthians the same tradition that he himself received. The only difference is that whereas up till the time of Paul the tradition was passed on by word of mouth, Paul was the first to put it down in writing because he could not be there physically with the Corinthians.

What is the tradition that Paul received and is now passing on? It is this:

that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

The night he was betrayed was the last night that Jesus spent with his disciples before his passion and death. In olden days, people did not write their wills. They spoke their wills, usually as their last words before death. What do these words of 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 tell us when we read them as the last words, the will and testament of Jesus?

First, the will of Jesus does not say a word about what Jesus taught. Its focus is on what Jesus did. He gave his body to his followers as food and his blood as drink. Remember, this was taking place in the context of the Passover meal. So Jesus was presenting himself as their Passover lamb. The Israelites in Egypt had to eat the flesh of the Passover lamb to identify themselves as God’s own people. They marked their doorposts with its blood as a sign to keep away the angel of death. Every Israelite was supposed to participate in this ritual every year to renew their identity as God’s people who enjoy God’s special blessings and protection. Seen in this light, the Eucharist becomes for us the place where we come to renew ourselves as God’s new people in Christ.

Second, the will speaks of a “new covenant.” In the Old Testament the people of God came into being through a covenant. By speaking of a new covenant Jesus is saying that a new people of God has come into being. In the sacrifice that seals the covenant Jesus is both the officiating priest and the lamb of sacrifice. We are just the beneficiaries of a life-giving grace. That is why the name “Eucharist” (“thanksgiving”) is so appropriate. Jesus did it all for us. All we have to do is receive it and give thanks.

Finally, the will of Jesus invites us to the banquet. “Do this in remembrance of me … Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (verses 24-25). Folks, this is the last thing Jesus asked us to do before he died. He asked to keep doing it as often as possible until his return in glory (verse 26). Why then is it that many of us take the Eucharist so lightly? We seem to be so ready to skip attending Mass at the slightest excuse: “I just didn’t feel like going … We were on vacation … I don’t like Pastor John’s preaching, I seem to get more from the TV service.” But no amount of television programming can take the place of holy communion. Let us today ask our Lord Jesus to increase our faith in the sacrament of his body and blood which he gives us in the form of bread and wine.