Pelosi contra Gregory of Nyssa

It's interesting how life comes at you from multiple directions sometimes. This weekend in our RCIA class the fiancee of one of the inquirers suggested that he had been taught that the soul exists before the body, quoting Jeremiah 1:5 "before you were formed in the womb I knew you" as a basis for his understanding. Trying to explain God's existence outside of time became a rather interesting experience in explaining something one knows he cannot ever fully understand himself.

Now, and if you know me you won't be surprised, that poor attempt at an answer has been gnawing at me ever since. So tonight I sat down with my Logos and determined to read up on the whole issue. After digging through Origen, Tertullian and Irenaeus I came across the following from St. Gregory of Nyssa, from his On the Making of Man. It's amazing how well it contrasts with Nancy Pelosi's recent attempt at patristic research.

But just as we say that in wheat, or in any other grain, the whole form of the plant is potentially included—the leaves, the stalk, the joints, the grain, the beard—and do not say in our account of its nature that any of these things has pre-existence, or comes into being before the others, but that the power abiding in the seed is manifested in a certain natural order, not by any means that another nature is infused into it—in the same way we suppose the human germ to possess the potentiality of its nature, sown with it at the first start of its existence, and that it is unfolded and manifested by a natural sequence as it proceeds to its perfect state, not employing anything external to itself as a stepping-stone to perfection, but itself advancing its own self in due course to the perfect state; so that it is not true to say either that the soul exists before the body, or that the body exists without the soul, but that there is one beginning of both, which according to the heavenly view was laid as their foundation in the original will of God; according to the other, came into existence on the occasion of generation.

He says it, without surprise, far better than I ever did.

Peter, a rock and a stone

In the Catholic-Protestant apologetics world somewhere early in every apologist's career they're faced with the issue of how to interpret Matthew 16:18 where we find Jesus telling Simon, "[a]nd so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." For Catholics it is one of the proofs Jesus intended Peter to be the visible head of the Church. For Protestants it is either ignored or, quite often, worked around by an appeal to the Greek.

In the Greek the words translated above as "Peter" and "rock" are transliterated as "Petros" and "petra" respectively. The masculine "Petros" means effectively "small stone" or "pebble" while the feminine "petra" means "large stone". Protestant apologists will say this shows that Jesus was not suggesting Peter would be the Rock upon which the Church would be built but rather Jesus Himself. That argument has been answered a plethora of times (a quick search finds at least this, I'm sure you can find more if you want - suffice it to say it's a rather weak argument at best) and is not what I'm aiming to talk about here.

What I want to do instead is to briefly take advantage of the whole "pebble" thing and look at it from a different perspective. The Protestant perspective would suggest the "small stone" interpretation means Peter was too insubstantial to be the "Rock" upon which the Church was built. But let us think for just a minute about what other time a small stone has played a major role in salvation history:

Then, staff in hand, David selected five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pocket of his shepherd's bag. With his sling also ready to hand, he approached the Philistine.
...
David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. (Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone; he struck the Philistine mortally, and did it without a sword.) (1 Sam 17:40,49-50)

David, the great king and patriarch of the line ordained from the beginning of time to lead to the Christ, used a small stone to slay the great enemy of Israel. A small stone, the weapon of a child and a shepherd - not a sword, the weapon of a warrior.

The parallels continue. David hurled the stone and struck the Philistine in the brow - if you will, struck him in his intellectual center, the "nerve center". If you'll allow a slight poetic license, Peter was similarly picked up from Israel and "hurled" to the very nerve center of the Roman Empire, Rome itself. God planted him in the very brow of the great Babylon as he hung upon his own inverted cross, as mortal a wound to Rome as the stone with which David struck Goliath.

So yes, maybe the whole "rock"/"small stone" issue is due to a misunderstanding about order of translations. But maybe it's also providential that this very issue has come to us. If nothing else, it serves to remind us that we too are "hurled" into the center of our modern Babylon and only by doing what we are called to do can God use us as He used Peter. "The blood of Christians is seed." Be planted, that the Church may grow.

Must read

NLM has a full translation of the Osservatore Romano interview with Msgr. Guido Marini, the Pope's Master of Ceremonies. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing - it's densely packed with insights into from where the Pope is coming and to where he is going. As a minor history buff his accent on historical continuity as a proper hermeneutic and as a theological and liturgical key is both critical and intriguing. God has blessed us with this Pope, indeed.

In The Presence of Our Lord

This fine book by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, and James Monti is well summed-up by Fr. Groeschel in his introduction to his section of the book, speaking of the great mysteries of the Faith:

Your head should now be reeling with the thought of all of these mysteries. If it is not, go back and read the last paragraphs over again slowly because you missed what was being said. You can never sufficiently deal with the mystery of the Eucharist or the particular subject of this book, the devotion to the presence of Christ in this sacrament, unless you have a vibrant sense of mystery and have an awesome awareness of the incredible reality of this sacrament.

The last sentence is absolutely true - if you are not at least the tiniest bit open to the possibility that the Eucharist is Jesus Himself and therefore worthy of praise and adoration this book is not for you. If, however, there is even the slightest opening this may be the book that cracks it open for you. In it you will find a mix of history and theology, fact and lore. Very Catholic, that.

The book is comprised of two sections, one by each of the authors. In Fr. Groeschel's section there were times I could almost hear his old Brooklyn voice narrating the words - he clearly was clearly putting his whole self into his writing. Given the structure of the book it should not be surprising there was some amount of overlap in parts. While repeated information can be a source of frustration, and I'll admit there were places where it was more noticeable than others, this overlap was more than offset because each author was coming at the information from different directions; Fr. Groeschel more theological, psychological and to some extent sociological, Monti more historical. The two complement each other well. I am quite glad to have read this book, and I'd be willing to bet just about anyoen else would be as well.

Two courses

First, Rich Leonardi tells us about both a beginner's and an advanced course in Latin provided by the U.K.'s National Archives. I simply must find a way to improve my sketchy-at-best Latin skills. After all, it is little use telling people of the value of Latin if I haven't remotely mastered it myself.

Second, Rorate Caeli lets us all know there is a course being offered on St. Thomas Aquinas. Ite ad Thomam has more details - it looks to be an interactive online course. I can manage to pull out both of these at nearly the same time, as well as another super-secret project I'm just getting started. Sure I can!

Russell Shaw on clericalism

Russell Shaw has an excellent article at Inside Catholic on clericalism in the Church. The reason it's good is that it doesn't take just one side or the other but explores it and, as one could expect, finds that the truth is "in the middle". One of my favorite quotes is this:

Not only that, one-dimensional emphasis in official Church circles on "lay ministry" is at the expense of time and energy that might better have been spent forming people for lay apostolate. Lately, the U.S. bishops' conference has concentrated on setting norms for training people preparing to work for the Church as lay ecclesial ministers. Considering the important role these people often have in liturgy, catechesis, and other areas of Church life, their training certainly merits attention. But not at the cost of ignoring the formation of lay people for apostolate in the world. Yet that's exactly what happens -- and has been happening for a long time.

You see, that's just the point - there is so much focus on the ad intra role of the laity they have no time or energy for what is, in reality, supposed to be their, if you will, "real" job. Yes, there is a very valid role for the laity working inside the Church. However, when people view having "done their duty" as having served as a lector or EMHC on Sunday you know something is desperately out of balance. And yes, I know people who think those extraordinary liturgical roles necessarily take precedence over non-liturgical apostolic work. I still, however, fail to understand how being an EMHC on Sunday and making Communion take two minutes less time can possibly be more valuable than proper spiritual formation of one's self or one's family or even evangelic work. It's interesting that there is such an intersection between bad liturgical theology and bad ecclesiology, don't you think?

The Times and Mortal Sin

I was going to blog on the brain-dead article in the Times regarding the Church's recent statements on bioethics and the environment. But then I saw that Mark Shea beat me to it:

To begin with is the whole "rules based" approach of the author, which is fundamentally tone deaf to the fact that the faith is about relationship, not breaking rules. Off on that wrong footing, the author then makes it sound like the Vatican has added new "mortal sins" to some traditional list in order to keep up with Euro-trendiness. As is often the case, Dante somehow becomes an extension of the Magisterium (and the author even concludes with a list of official looking hellish punishments for the traditional seven deadlies, all derived from the Inferno).

Since he said pretty much everything I was going to, I'll just leave you to read his post rather than repeating it here.

Sex and porn

Well that should make for some interesting hits in the search engines. Sorry folks, this is a Catholic blog, so no raunchy pictures here just a pointer to a great post by Marcel at Aggie Catholic. It's a nice summation of JPII's Theology of the Body framed in a style that we're seeing more and more from the Church these days - talk not about a "negative" theology but rather of the beauty and wonder of God's creation and our duty to use that creation appropriately. I think his third point nails it:

3 - Sex is about real love. Real love is living for what is best for the other, regardless of the cost to myself. Think about it - what is more powerful than having sex? The greatest power we have is to create and the greatest of all created things is a human being. When a child is created in a mother's womb, it is because two people have the opportunity to procreate. That is, to create with God. Sex is the most powerful thing humans can participate in.

Catholics do not hate sex, we do not despise the body. We want only for the body to be respected for what it is - an integral part of the whole of man and woman created in God's image. Smut is not beauty, it is the disrespect of beauty - God is Beauty itself, and we derive our beauty from our proximity to Him in word deed and likeness.

Deo gratias

I have something to confess. Something that until now I've always kept hidden to the side, tucked away so people won't either think less of me or scoff at my concern. It's pretty bad, so be sure you're ready for it. Okay, here goes. In the past eighteen months I've made it to Confession precisely ... zero times. Why you ask? That's a good question.

I have often told myself that it's because none of the churches anywhere near my home have confession times anything other than early Saturday afternoon and, well, that just doesn't work because I have family commitments at that time every week. Call and make an appointment? Yeah, but I just can't get in to face-to-face confession and unless you are very, very lucky and the priest starts behind the screen a scheduled confession will usually become face-to-face by chance if not design. If only those were the only reasons this wouldn't be much worth a blog post. See, there's more.

More? Sure. Good? Hah, not exactly. Am I a heretic, a Protestant who doesn't believe in individual confession? No, but at least that objection would hold some substantive weight. Are the priests in my area incapable of performing the Sacrament due to a defect in form? Nope, and some of them I'm told are wonderful confessors too. Are the albino Opus Dei monks spying on the confessionals in the Diocese? Okay, maybe that's not too realistic. Unless they are. But no, that's not why either.

Why then? It's simple really. To use one of my catch words, it's stupid, but simple. Remember, of course, that I'm a convert and not a cradle Catholic. So when I went through RCIA lo those many years ago our talk about Confession consisted of showing us the confessional and a brief talk about the Gospel examples of Jesus' forgiving of sins and his commissioning of the Apostles to do the same and Peter's receiving the keys, then a generally vague discussion of the form - effectively "you go in, make the sign of the cross, tell the priest your sins, you make an act of contrition and he gives you absolution". Perfectly simple, innocuous and enough to move on to the other Sacrament of healing. But since this was the time when rote memorization of prayers was verboten ....

I never learned a proper Act of Contrition. I saw it once in a while after that, but never really learned it. Until today. You see, dear old St. Patrick's in Nashua with good Fr. Kelly as pastor has sustained a brilliant idea from the Church's past that has by-and-large been shoved to the wayside in favor of task forces and board meetings. The idea is as obvious as it is simple which is perhaps why it is overlooked. Father simply makes sure he (or I imagine another priest if he is unavoidably detained) is in the confessional at least fifteen minutes before every Mass, including the noon-time weekday Masses. In the case of St. Patricks this is doubly good because they are just off of Main Street which means there is ample opportunity for foot traffic and for people to assist at Mass and/or go to confession during their lunch hour. It's simple - provide a needed service when people can get to it, and they will come.

So, knowing that I'd be in Nashua today I studied up and memorized the simple Act of Contrition and then stuffed a copy of it in my breviary to study again. Let's just say that I'm a case example of why rote memorization of prayers is sometimes a good thing - without that base, any Act of Contrition I'd contrived on my own would have stuttered and blathered to the point it would have been more embarrassing than many people find Confession itself. So I memorized and repeated it to myself. I muttered it all the way to the church to make sure I didn't forget. Then I walked in ... and almost didn't see the confessionals. They are done, as pazdziernik puts it, "in the box" at the back of the church. I finally find them after I'm sure spooking some of the elderly ladies while stumbling around like the village drunk only to see its occupied. A glance at my watch and a voice tells me I'll never get in before Mass starts. But lo! the person exits and I swiftly swoop in a little less like the village drunk than before.

Was it quick? Was it painless? No, and no. And thanks be to God for that. You see, Fr. Kelly was truly paying attention to my confession and asking me questions to make sure he understood what I was saying. Did I feel like he was prying? Absolutely not, what I felt like was he was actually trying to help me out and that's when I got the distinct understanding that I wasn't doing this alone. God was there, making sure I did it right, holding my hand as it were and guiding me forward. "Is that all you recall, to the best of your ability?" "Yes, Father, it is." Penance is assigned. Forgiveness - Absolution!

If I could have reached through the confessional to give him a big ol' man-hug I'd have done it. I was only microseconds away from bursting into "Gloria in excelsis deo!" when I remembered that not everyone there would have been edified by my singing. So I just knelt down, performed my penance, assisted at Mass and received our Lord in Communion with the lily-whitest soul I've had in a long, long time. It was, in a word, euphoric.

If I may be so bold, this tells me two things. Pastors: make confessions available before every Mass, no matter the scheduling conflicts it causes or whether anyone shows up right away. If they don't come, use St. John Vianney as your model and pray harder, but don't ever abandon the confessional. Laity: I can't say this strenuously enough - go to confession! Regularly! Tell your Pastor you need greater availability of the Sacrament of Confession and go. Confessionals have a certain gravity to them - the more they're around, the more they're used, and the more people seeing them used the more new people will use them.

Yeah, I'm giddy. And I'm going back too, soon. Wouldn't you? As I said in the title, Deo gratias!

Tags: Catholic, Sacraments, Confession, Theology

Sometimes you just can't help yourself

When you're as gifted as our good Pope is, sometimes you just can't help but make a (and often many) insightful theological point. CNA has it (my emphasis):

Vatican City, Oct 11, 2007 / 09:10 am (CNA).- Today Pope Benedict XVI received the letters of credence of South Korea’s new ambassador to the Holy See. The Holy Father took the opportunity to praise the witness of the many Korean martyrs by saying, "Their sacrifice reminds us that no cost is too great for persevering in fidelity to the truth.”

Benedict XVI spoke to the Korean diplomat in English, telling him that, “Regrettably, in our contemporary pluralist world some people question or even deny the importance of truth. Yet objective truth remains the only sure basis for social cohesion. Truth is not dependent upon consensus but precedes it and makes it possible, generating authentic human solidarity.”

The pontiff noted that in the midst of this societal uncertainty about the truth, the bold witness of those Koreans who laid down their lives for the truth has brought “remarkable growth of the Catholic Church in Korea.”

"Their sacrifice," he added, "reminds us that no cost is too great for persevering in fidelity to the truth.

"The Church - always mindful of the truth's power to unite people, and ever attentive to mankind's irrepressible desire for peaceful coexistence - eagerly strives to strengthen concord and social harmony both in ecclesial life and civic life, proclaiming the truth about the human person as known by natural reason and fully manifested through divine revelation."

To put it bluntly, it's time to stop living on credit. As we do so often in our "non-church" lives (the fact that so many live as if such a thing even exists is a whole other topic) we often believe we can just pull a Wimpy and constantly say we'll pay next Tuesday. This is perhaps the single greatest danger of the teaching of Purgatory, that it allows some to form the idea that "I don't have to be perfect, I just have to manage to get in to Purgatory then it's all up from there". It's the most insidious form of a lie - one formed around a kernel of truth. Certainly you don't have to be perfect - no one is perfect but God - but that does not provide the built-in excuse to stop trying.

The only difference between this issue and its comparison to moving from credit card to credit card is that, at the end, we don't get to just declare bankruptcy and start over again or pass our debt on to others. What we earn here stays with us forever. Just as in investing, you have to spend a little capital to gain any. So what do you want, the nick-nack bought on credit or the treasure chest paid for over a life time? Choose now, but "choose wisely".

Tags: Catholic, Pope, Benedict, Theology

What to do with your past

On the flight in to California I continued working my way through Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. I'm all but done - I imagine I'll finish it off long before I hit my layover in Chicago tomorrow. Somewhere over the Rocky Mountains I came across a concept that has simply made me stop and think.

Merton is making contrasts here, as he's working his way around time time of his beginning experiences at the monastery, between those who stay in the monastery and those who left. Among many other observations, Merton noted that those who were the happiest, the most saintly, took past sins differently than the others. Those less-developed in the spiritual life, he suggested, looked at their past sins solely as evidence of their failings - in other words, they reflected the sin again by looking in on themselves. The saintly types, however, thought of past sins more in the remembrance of God's grace and mercy which came after those sins had been confessed. That is, they looked at the greater movement of the Spirit rather than their failings.

I think sometimes, particularly in our self-therapeutic culture, we likewise tend to think of our past sins only in the context of what we did wrong, neglecting to pay attention to the mercy meted out to us by the God whose mercy is far greater than any sin we can commit. We need to differentiate between ignoring our sins because we are so certain of God's mercy and ignoring God's mercy because we are so focused on the horror of our sins.

Tags: Catholic, Books, Theology, Mercy

Missals instead of Missalettes

Dale got me thinking, which is both dangerous (ask my wife) and too rare for my own good. Back in the days when I was still bound and determined to wear the collar (hmmm...I don't think I've ever blogged about that...something for another time) my then-Pastor mentioned how he hated using missalettes. Not for the reason Dale mentions in the link above but for a more pastoral-theological reason. It's something that has stayed with me all these years.

He asked me, "don't you think it sends a very bad message to people that we take this book which contains the Word of God and just toss it in the trash every couple of months?" (Aside: priests like to toss these little quizzes to aspiring wanna-be-someday seminarians - it makes you think of all the problems you'll face if you're ever ordained some day that you wouldn't even consider from the pews. It's no wonder to me he has two seminarians from his parish.) Think about it - what does it say to your average under-catechized person in the pews when we routinely take what should be considered holy items and toss them in the trash bin? Unfortunately the standard missalette is a use-once item - once the calendar rolls past the end of the missalette, it's not of any effective use for its intended purpose and they way they are laid out I'd be hard-pressed to find another good use for them.

So let's do a little math here to see if we can make this make sense. Let's assume we talk about an "average" church which seats around 500 people and provides one missal/missalette for every two people (that's the pattern I've seen the most) - that means we have to provide 250 pieces for the church.

Looking at Aquinas and More's Missal line, they have a daily Missal for $70, which gives full readings for every day not just the Sundays that your usual missalette does or a Sunday missal for $20 which would be equivalent to what we have now without the need to rotate them. Assuming they're crooks (which they're not - the owner is a fantastic Catholic from what I can tell) and don't give the parish a single penny discount even on an order of 250, that comes to a bill of $17,500 for the daily missals or $5,000 for the Sunday Missals. Again, these almost never need to be replaced short of damage since they contain the full cycle of readings.

Checking OCP's site, they suggest a price of $3.90 per missalette per year for "Today's Missal" (seasonal) and $3.10 for "Breaking Bread" (annual). That works out to $975 and $775 per year, respectively. That places a break-even in terms of price for functional equivalents at roughly five years, six if one prints sheet music and includes that cost in the missal cost.

I don't know. Perhaps someone can explain to me why a five-year break-even is too much to ask for in trade for proper theological perspective. Or am I just being a nit-picking twit? You tell me.

Tags: Catholic, Theology

Clarifying Lumen Gentium

Not that I thought Lumen Gentium was all that confusing when I read it back before I was even a Catholic, but apparently I was just lucky or something. However, given the propensity of some of the innovative bent to, well, innovate, I'm not surprised that clarification of the term "subsistit in" or "subsists in" was needed. It's not stating anything new or earth-shattering, but yet we have places like Fox News already saying "Pope Benedict XVI says Orthodox churches are defective and other Christian denominations are not true churches" so apparently nothing is out of reach of their ability to deform. The full document can be found here.

Tags: Catholic, Theology, Orthodox, Vatican II

What do you know?

Or, perhaps, who do you know, and how? Fr. Daren Zehnle posted a fantastic homily for Trinity Sunday and within you'll find this nugget:

If we do not know him whom we love we run the risk of loving a false notion or impression of God, a shadow of God, as it were; we run the risk of loving a god made in our own image. Far too many people today love God as they imagine him to be rather than as he truly is because they do not truly know him, because they do not seek his face (cf. Psalm 105:4).

These are they who love a god who does not care what we do but simply accepts us as we are. These love a mistaken notion of God whom they say wants nothing more of us than that we be good people; that it doesn’t matter what we think, believe, wear, listen to, speak or buy. These also are they who believe God to be somehow distant and lonely, aloof from the cares of the world, the Creator of all who has since distanced himself from his creation.

He sounds positively Ratzingerian. Which is also to say, he's dead right on the mark. The Church, and indeed the world, needs more homilies like this. That sound you hear is God calling us back to the faith delivered to us by the Fathers, often at the cost of their blood and built upon His Body and His Blood. Go. Read. Be edified. Then ... do something about it!

Tags: Catholic, Benedict, Homilies

Is that how you use this thingy?

Whew, it feels like forever since I've had a chance to sit down and blog. Okay, it's been over a week - no wonder I was starting to twitch... Anyway, over at RCP a couple of days ago there was an exquisite post examining the hermeneutic of continuity (the hermeneutic itself, not the blog). At times educational, insightful and inspirational, it deserves your attention even if it is on the long side. I'll start with the conclusion and let you re-start at the beginning.

I ask you: What paths do we have before us on which we can choose to move forward? We can dismiss his plan as naïve and ineffective, making snide remarks behind his back. We can distrust him, essentially labeling him as a deceiver who is using this idea of harmonizing Vatican II with the rest of Tradition as a means of leading the flock astray. Or we can follow his lead as our spiritual father, putting our trust in him and putting into action his hermeneutic.

Tags: Catholic, Benedict, Pope, Theology, Vatican II

Making the case for stained glass

I know there are some out there who dislike stained glass windows in churches. Even after hearing the "but they make the church so dark" explanation it still makes absolutely no sense to me. But hey, I have quite the capacity to be obtuse, so I've generally left it alone as an effort to be nice. Until today.

Through some as-yet unverified miracle my kids and I were able to leave early enough this morning to make it to Mass before school. I've always wanted to do this more with them, but school starts very early and Mass therefore even earlier so it's just never happened. For almost the entire time nothing out of the ordinary happened (it strikes me now just how ... obtuse ... that sounds) - until Mass was over and we were gathering our things. My daughter looked up at one of the stained glass windows in the church and asked, "Daddy, what is that picture about?" Needless to say, I panicked until I recognized it as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. So I explained told them the story of the Good Samaritan, explained its meaning to them as best I could to kids their ages and then told them that all the windows in this church are made like that, to tell a story that we can and need to learn from.

Far from making the church dark, that window opened a ray of light on the minds of both of my children and provided me a teaching moment I may never have otherwise had. In that one moment, two childrens' minds were expanded and I was challenged both to display my faith and to make it understandable to others. To be blunt, show me how to do that with a clear pane of glass. If you think stained glass makes the church too dark, ask my kids about the Good Samaritan. If you think it's too dark maybe it's because you've been staring at the pane too long and not taking in what is going on all around it. Our churches can and should, indeed must, speak to us - there is far too much to revelation to leave it just to words.

Tags: Catholic, Theology, Art, Architecture

TotB at Dom's

Dom has posted, some live-blogging reflections on this past weekend's Theology of the Body seminar with Christopher West held at the Marian Community Center in Medway, Mass. I wish I could have made it down there but, of course, other commitments intervened. I've been reading, on and off as I try to keep up with all my other reading, the new translation of Theology of the Body, edited by Michael Waldstein; I was heartened to find Dom's notes from the seminar largely match my own personal take on what I've read thus far. As for what he suggests in his wrapup (that the Boston Archdiocese may be the center of a renewal of interest in all things ToTB-related), I only hope he's right. And that he remembers his neighbors up here to his north.

Dom's writeups are here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Wrapup

Tags: Catholic, Theology, John Paul II, Books, Theology of the Body

Cleaning your dirt

Fr. Daren Zehnle's new blog, A Beggar for Love, has already been quite a source of inspiration with its collection of quotes from il Papa. For those who struggle with confession or fail to see its utility, his words here are invaluable.

Even if, as I said, it is not necessary to go to confession before each Communion, it is very helpful to confess with a certain regularity. It is true: Our sins are always the same, but we clean our homes, our rooms, at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same; in order to live in cleanliness, in order to start again. Otherwise, the dirt might not be seen but it builds up. Something similar can be said about the soul, for me myself; If I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end I am pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must always work hard to improve, that I must make progress. And this cleansing of the soul which Jesus gives us in the sacrament of confession helps us to make our consciences more alert, more open, and hence, it also helps us to mature spiritually and as human persons.

How eloquent - even if it seems the same dirt comes back again and perhaps even the same dirt we never cease to clean it when it is physical dirt - how much more must we do so with our spiritual dirt!

Tags: Catholic, Benedict, Theology, Confession, Sacraments

More on Abp. Burke and a reality check

Ed Peters has a (per his norm) well-thought-out response to the Archbishop Burke - Sheryl Crow - Cardinal Glennon Hospital for Children debacle. In part, he echoes what I said on this yesterday, although I somehow doubt I served as any source of inspiration.

But you know, I've seen this happen before: Catholic movers and shakers, flush with their own funds or with easy access to others', too often measure success in philanthropic undertakings in terms of media splash, dollars donated, and the number of glitteratti chatting around banquet tables, while they completely forget the fundamental religious, and even the human, values that make their efforts worthwhile in the first place. This time, even the clear words of a very thoughtful archbishop could not pierce the commotion which the organizers of this event confused for progress.

To coin a phrase, no kidding. For more prime examples of this we need only look at people like John Kerry or Ted Kennedy or organizations like San Francisco Catholic Charities. It is a frequent problem people walk into - they get so busy doing what they are doing they forget why they are doing it and to what end it is intended.

This brings me to the "reality check" portion of this post. This past weekend at our RCIA session (and it is fun to see them now "fully Catholic" and starting to really stretch their wings) we talked about the "now what do you do about it" aspect of entering the Church. The one point I tried to make to them, which even had our Pastor, who had dropped in for a surprise visit, nodding his head (at least I hope that was nodding) was this: what ever you do, which ever act you choose, remember always to do it as a Catholic. First things first, be a Catholic. Do what you do not for praise or glory or pay raise or even "to be a nice guy" but for God and through God. Certainly it's a hard saying, but God didn't call us to an easy chair existence. Did they get it? I don't know - the facial reactions were somewhere between "huh?" and "that's going to be hard". The important point for them is that they heard it and even if it doesn't sink in now it will always be rattling around in their brains until such a time as it finds a home.

To continue the thought for a second... You have doubtless heard sayings like, "do everything for the glory of God" or "see Christ in the people around you"; perhaps if you're of sufficient age and/or have gone through Catholic schooling you have memories of topping every paper with "AMDG" or "JMJ". But what in the world do these things really, really mean?* What does it mean to "do everything for the glory of God"? How can I glorify God flipping burgers or trading stocks or selling houses or slopping the pigs? The problem, you see, is not in the act, it's in the question - it's being asked in the wrong direction, if you will.

Being a rather contrarian person to begin with, and my wife will gladly attest to this, I like to constantly look at things in opposite directions from that of most people. It's a curse, but every once in a while it's a gift. The problem, to me, in these questions is the built-in assumption of the constraining or defining factor. How do I, as a burger flipper or a stock trader give greater glory to God? Do you see the inversion of priorities inherent in that statement? It suggests the concrete factor is the person's station in life and the adjustable factor is his or her Catholic necessity to give glory to God. This world certainly does like to define people by what they do 8-5 every day, but we know better than that. We are defined primarily by what causes us to be and what sustains us in being - that being God Himself - and then, and only then, are we further defined by what we do with what we are given.

So, if rather than, "how do I as a burger flipper or stock trader or house seller or pig slopper..." we say "how do I as a child of God, as a member of His Mystical body the Church..." the inversion is reversed and our polarity is set aright. There is, I will assert, an ontological difference between an act performed as a function of one's occupation or even as a volunteer and that same act performed as a function of being a child of God and a member of His Church. To feed a poor person because that is one's job or because one is fulfilling a role is fundamentally different than to feed that same poor person because you find in them the imago Dei and for love of that same God. As a Catholic, we do not feed a poor person, clothe the naked or visit the sick or imprisoned because they are poor, naked, sick or imprisoned - we do so because they are humans, indeed they are our brother or sister, children of the same Father. We do so because we could not do otherwise and remain true to what we are.

Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote in Catholic Matters, and has further expounded in First Things, a theory that in names "the former defines the latter". In context, it means that when someone considers him or herself to be an "American Catholic" the 'American' defines the limits of the 'Catholic'; it also sets an order of priorities - American first, Catholic following. This is, in fact, somewhat of a contradiction. If Christ's "Kingdom is not of this world" then neither can ours be nor can we define or control how we imitate Him by constraints formed around us in this world. Instead of being an "American Catholic" we must seek to become a "Catholic American", a "Catholic burger flipper", a "Catholic stock trader", a "Catholic house seller", a "Catholic pig slopper". Indeed, a "Catholic charity" rather than a "charity which is Catholic". Allow that former to define that latter and the question of whether it makes sense to invite a pro-abortion, pro-ESCR advocate for the hope of making a few extra dollars becomes obvious. "And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." (Mt 10:28)

*Aside: if you don't know because, like me, you're too young and/or never went to Catholic school: AMDG = "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam", or "For the Greater Glory of God" and JMJ = "Jesus, Mary and Joseph", the Holy Family - they are intended to be reminders of how we are called to do everything for the glory of God and in unity with Him.

Tags: Catholic, Pro-Life, Theology, Abortion, Bishops

Who said it makes sense?

Denise is right - "only prayer seems to make sense right now". It is eerie timing that our RCIA schedule this past weekend had us discussing, of all things, suffering. And now this. I find it harshly ironic that I spent the better part of an hour only 48 hours ago explaining the fact that suffering doesn't have to make sense to us now just because we're suffering now - that some day God's plan will be laid out for us and His loving intention will be clear. Perhaps the only thing that helps now is the reminder that the seemingly worst result of suffering in this world, our bodily death, is actually the beginning of our true end and goal, to come to know and love God in Heaven. As Denise said, all we can do now is pray, for those killed, for those injured, and for those affected in any way. And as Christians, we must also pray for the shooter - I have no idea what could cause someone to perform such acts...

And while on the topic of suffering, also keep in mind those affected by the flooding here in New England. Local residents in towns like Goffstown and New Boston have been the hardest hit in our immediate area, but even in the hillier sections I've seen hoses flushing water out of basements. Some people are stuck and can't even get to their homes. What a week already...

Tags: Catholic, Theology, RCIA, Suffering, Floods