Category Archives: New Evangelization

August, Cross, New Evangelization, Order of Preachers, Theology

Aug 8 – Study as Asceticism, or “The Wood of the Desk is the Wood of the Cross!”

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-by Br. Joseph Paul Albin, OP (Central Province)

“As Dominicans we have a number of aphorisms that come up again and again. If you’ve hung out with us you’ve heard, “contemplate and share the fruits of your contemplation,” “if you’ve met one Dominican you’ve met one Dominican,” and “never deny, seldom affirm, and always distinguish.” One that I haven’t heard as often but is of principal importance in my life as a student is, “the wood of the desk is the wood of the Cross.”

In our lives as Dominicans we hear again and again of the four pillars: prayer, study, community, and preaching. Study is one of the most important aspects of our lives. We are called to study. Our study is not self-serving; we don’t chase titles, adding lists of letters to the end of our names. Instead our study is intimately linked to our mission, the salvation of souls. Study enriches our prayer, our community life, and our preaching. Through our study we cultivate a desire for truth, and we bring that desire for truth to others. Our Constitutions state this clearly, “Study enables the brothers to ponder in their hearts the manifold wisdom of God, and equips them for the doctrinal service of the Church and of all people. They ought to be all the more committed to study because in the Order’s tradition they are called to stimulate people’s desire to know the truth.” Our study ends up being one of our great gifts to the Lord in service to His people and His Church.”

Love,
Matthew

Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

Christian Joy is NOT for wimps!!!!

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-Life is tough.  Nuns are tougher. 🙂

I meet LOTS of Catholics.  Not surprised?  I talk to EVERYBODY!!!  I hang with my Latin chanting, really conservative peeps Sunday AM and my really flaming liberal, love children PM.  Kelly is amazed I can do this.  It’s natural for me.  It’s who i am.  I find sincere Catholics always in both.  Always.  I LOVE to hang with thoughtful, intelligent, sincere Catholics and non-Catholics.  Surprise.

I want to start an inter-parish exchange program on Sunday mornings including breakfast.  Four of you this Sunday.  Four of you others next.  We attend Mass at each other’s parish.  You know you belong to the same Church, don’t you?  🙂

The extreme fringes of either I really have no passion for.  The ones that REALLY scare me are the joyless ones.  Those who seem consumed by compliance, obedience, adherence, ritual, form, but the one thing that distinguishes them from other, healthier Catholics, is they are joyless.  I mean, really, what is the point?  Really?  Really?  Really.

Yet You desired faithfulness even in the womb;
You taught me wisdom in that secret place…
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to You.
Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare Your praise.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
You, God, will not despise.

-Ps 51:6, 8, 10-13, 15-17

“The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.” -Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 1.

“This is the joy which we experience daily, amid the little things of life, as a response to the loving invitation of God our Father…” –Ibid, 4.

“There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter…Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is… But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lam 3:17, 21-23, 26). “– Ibid, 6.

Caritas Christi urget nos!!! -2 Cor 5:14

“Sadness ought to be banished from Catholic souls.” -Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati 

“The very word “gospel,” “eu-angelion,” shows that Christianity is “glad tidings” and that its whole tenor must be indisputably that of joy.” -Han Urs von Balthasar, opening sentence of “Joy and the Cross”

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “No man can live without joy.” and, “Joy is the noblest human act.”

Christian Joy means getting TOUGH!!!

“Joy is not for wimps…True joy – the kind that doesn’t evaporate in the face of opposition and obstacles – must be anchored in the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ. The saints learned this secret, and we must learn it, too. It’s not easy, of course. Like weeds, obstacles to cultivating true joy spring up all around us: struggles at home, problems with finances, illness, failed relationships, difficulties in the workplace, and, most alarming, confusion, division, and dissent within the Church itself…

For a Catholic, joy in the midst of adversity is not merely a
possibility or a suggestion, but an obligation…

The foundation of abiding joy is the realization that God is our
loving Father, Who allows all the trials and circumstances in our
lives to work together for our good, what we commonly call divine
providence (cf. Rom. 8:28). Every difficulty we encounter is
provided as an opportunity for us to demonstrate our trust and
reliance upon our Father. If we truly have confidence in His
loving care for us, why would we allow ourselves to become
discouraged by the troubles that surround us?

Don’t feel like you’re a particularly joyful person? You can do something about it. Like building a muscle through repeated weight lifting, joy is strengthened by practicing natural virtues. God’s gift of grace builds on nature, so by developing virtue, the treasure of divine life (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4) flourishes within our hearts. But this takes consistent effort. It means we must work to acquire fortitude, so that we don’t give up when things become difficult; temperance, so that we don’t give in to excesses in pursuing the pleasures of this world; justice, so we may prioritize and fulfill our daily obligations; and prudence, so that we may be truly wise and always able to evaluate our earthly circumstances in light of eternity. Without these natural virtues, our joy may be stolen from us…

Developing our joy in Christ is a lifelong process, and distractions will inevitably arise that will divert our attention away from Christ and toward the difficulties of our daily lives. These distractions are all the more painful and challenging when they are encountered close to home within our own families and within the Church itself…

Each of us could compose a long laundry list of all the challenges, frustrations, and temptations to anger we encounter in our families and within the Church: Dissent from Church teaching, liturgical abuses, and division (to name a few examples) exist, but to become consumed by these problems would be to go directly against Sacred Scripture, which calls us to let our mind dwell on good and wholesome things (cf. Phil. 4:8). This doesn’t mean we ignore or deny that these difficulties exist, but neither should we become preoccupied with them.

We see the problems, yes, but our focus must be on the solutions.
And even if there is no apparent earthly solution, we should
maintain a sense of hope and thanksgiving for the eternal life
that awaits us.

Besides being an essential characteristic of the faithful
Christian, joy is also a powerful element in leading others to
Christ and His Church. It’s been said that the greatest obstacle
to Catholicism is often Catholics. When we come across to non-
Catholics as pessimistic, suspicious, and incessant complainers
about problems in the Church, we aren’t going to be very effective
in evangelizing them. In fact, the more we Catholics appear morose
and cranky, the less seriously the world will take us and the
Gospel of Christ. We even run the risk of making the Church and
its teachings appear ludicrous to non-Catholics when all they see
is carping, name-calling, and rivalries among us.

Christ came to give abundant life (cf. John 10:10). When we live
that abundant life, we become walking, breathing advertisements
for the truth and power of Christ’s Gospel.

St. Augustine once remarked that “our hearts are restless until
they rest in Thee.” This truth is the key to reaching people with
the message of Christ and His Church. People are already seeking
Him, even if they don’t realize it. Each person we encounter is
seeking true happiness, but without Christ he is destined to seek
it in places and in ways that will never satisfy what he really
craves – a deep, abiding joy that comes only from Christ.

That’s why it’s essential that we manifest this joy to those
around us! If the people we seek to evangelize see us as angry,
pessimistic, and unduly aggravated by problems within and without
the Church, why should they want to become Catholic? No. We must
show those around us that, because of Christ, we are joyful,
undaunted, and hopeful, in spite of the problems and obstacles
that may surround us.

St. Lawrence the Martyr, while in the process of being grilled to
death on a gridiron, is reported to have looked up at his
executioners and said, “Excuse me, I believe I’m done on this
side. You can turn me over now.” That’s a sense of humor the world
doesn’t understand. It flows from the joy of knowing and loving
Christ. A similar sense of humor is necessary in ordinary life…

Joy in Christ leads naturally to evangelization. And we should
remember that authentic evangelization doesn’t mean imposing our
views on others. It means offering in a charitable way what they
are already seeking: the fullness of Truth. God has placed within
each of us the desire for truth…

For Catholics who don’t cultivate joy and charity, discussions
with non-Catholics or poorly formed Catholics often become mere
debates, futile and frustrating for both parties. But for the
joyful Catholic, these encounters are opportunities for grace –
not attempts to win arguments, but inviting the other person to
the fullness of communion with Christ in His Church.

We will, of course, encounter obstacles, difficulties, and
rejection, but we can accept these as opportunities to deepen our
trust in and reliance upon Christ and prove our faithfulness…Our job as Catholics is to serve as lights in the darkness.

Momentary setbacks and even spectacular earthly failures won’t rob us of our joy, because we haven’t placed our joy in the things of
this world. Our joy and hope are grounded in Christ and in the
life to come.

St. Alphonsus Liguori once said, “Those who pray are saved, those
who don’t are not.” If we constantly converse with Christ through
prayer, we need fear nothing. Think about the joy of the early
martyrs. In one account of early Roman persecution, a Catholic
suffered days of torture as the soldiers tried to make him deny
Christ. The ordeal ended in frustration for his tormentors. An
exasperated guard cried, “There is nothing we will be able to do
to destroy this man unless we can get him to sin!” You and I must
develop the same spirit of perseverance under pressure.” -by Curtis A. Martin, “You’d Better Not Pout.”

In His Joy,
Love,
Matthew

Basil the Great, Doctors of the Church, Fathers of the Church, Gregory Nazianzus, January, New Evangelization, Saints

Jan 2 – Sts Basil & Gregory, An Appeal to Protestants

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Talk about FAITH!!!!!  RCIA participants have INFINITELY MORE FAITH, holiness, and humility than I EVER could dream to have.  Do you realize what those who convert to Catholicism sacrifice???  Go through???  May we always be a Church worthy of such living saints!!!!  They humble me by their witness, constantly.  I tremble before the strength & the power & the witness of such FAITH!!!!  I doubt, sincerely, I would ever have the courage to consider their courage and the price they have paid.  Deo Gratias!!!


-by A. David Anders, PhD

“A reflection on the importance of friendship in ecumenical dialogue in honor of the feast day of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory Nazianzus, two early Church Fathers with a deep and life-long friendship.

St. Gregory Nazianzus and St. Basil of Caesarea

The Catholic Church on 2 January celebrates the feast day of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory Nazianzus, two fourth century Church Fathers known for their deep theological reflections and devoted adherence to Orthodoxy as bishops in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, is considered an early important influence in the development of monasticism, the liturgy, and the doctrine of the Trinity. St. Gregory Nazianzus, called “The Theologian” by the Orthodox Church, was the Bishop of Constantinople, and is known for his strong opposition to the Arian heresy, and his “prodigious” scholarly output, in the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. 1 The two men’s lives crossed several times, including while studying in Caesarea in Cappadocia (also present-day Turkey), and later in Athens. They enjoyed an intimate life-long friendship, so much so that Gregory wrote of Basil,

“Then not only did I feel full veneration for my great Basil because of the seriousness of his morals and the maturity and wisdom of his speeches, but he induced others who did not yet know him to be like him… The same eagerness for knowledge motivated us…. This was our competition: not who was first but who allowed the other to be first. It seemed as if we had one soul in two bodies.“2

Their mutual love of Christ, and mutual passion for seeking the truth, provided them the substance of this profoundly important friendship. In 371, Basil even urged Gregory to work with him, side-by-side, as Bishop of Sasima, a position the contemplative Gregory was disinclined to take. Reflecting not only on the theological significance of their lives but also their mutual relationship is an occasion to consider how friendship and the pursuit of truth can be connected, sometimes in mutual harmony, other times with deep and difficult disagreement and division. It is in light of Basil and Gregory that I wish to share a story from my own life that exemplifies how friendship and the pursuit of truth can present great challenges to a friendship, but ultimately can be an occasion for sanctification and deeper relational intimacy, as, ideally, it should.3

Five years ago I spent three cold, long, hard months in Afghanistan for work. A little over a month after arriving, several of my co-workers were killed in a terrorist attack. Also unnerving were the Taliban fighters who had snuck into Kabul to launch frequent rocket attacks towards the downtown area where most Westerners lived and worked, several landing within 100 meters of my living quarters. Compounding the ever-present uncertainty of when the next 107mm would strike, the Taliban stormed a nearby building and engaged in a day-long firefight with Afghan police while we waited it out in a bunker; stray bullets from the battle even hit buildings on my compound. To add insult to injury, in my personal life, my long-distance relationship with a girlfriend of the time was falling apart.

In the midst of all this, I clung hard to my Reformed faith, listening to the sermons of my PCA pastor back in the States. I found time for the White Horse Inn podcast while I did laundry on Saturdays. I even gave out old copies of Modern Reformation to military chaplains and evangelical coworkers. I suppose in a way I thought my peculiar form of Christianity was being tested in the refiner’s fire. Sure, Reformed theology sounded Biblically and intellectually compelling, but would it hold up in the foxhole? I was anxious to prove that it did.

One day during that interminably long winter I called my best friend, Barrett Turner, a student in his last year at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. We joked and caught up on the latest news. Then, his mood turned a bit serious, as if he knew that what he was going to tell me would probably hurt or upset me. He said that he and his wife, after long and prayerful reflection, had decided to enter the Catholic Church at the upcoming Easter vigil. ”Just great”, I thought, ”with all the other crap in my life, now this!” Not that this was a total shock; we had been engaged in a lengthy theological back-and-forth on many of his frustrations and dilemmas with the Reformed faith and subsequent interest in Catholicism. Some of these conversations had even involved the pastors at my PCA church, whom I consulted with a variety of my friend’s questions and concerns.

All the same, to hear that my worst fears had come to fruition was deeply painful and discouraging. This was my best friend. We had both explored and ultimately accepted Reformed Christianity while in college. We had lived together, studied together, sought to evangelize together. We had dressed up as ninjas and raided a Christian girls’ sorority party together, pilfering a number of their desserts (I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle on our way out the door; but it was worth it). I was the best man at his wedding, where the presiding minister was our favorite PCA pastor. We had both gone off to seminary after college, he to Covenant and I to Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Yet his studies had been for a prospective career as a pastor or professor, mine were part-time with the objective of deepening my own theological knowledge and keeping my options open for possible later ministry or service in the PCA. Now this man that I had admired so much had seemingly gone of the theological deep-end, which, I was concerned, might have grave implications for his soul and those of his wife and son.

I confess there was a lot of rationalizations and psychologizing in the weeks and months that followed as I tried to make sense of my friend’s decision. Why didn’t he consult me before deciding to swim the Tiber? Isn’t our friendship worth that much?, I thought. I know he said he was doing this for sincere theological, philosophical, and historical reasons, but I figured there must be some other explanation. I mean, he was wrong, wasn’t he? All of my explanations were less than charitable and quite stupid (I’m not afraid to say “stupid,” since they were my own). It’s probably because he went to Covenant instead of a better, more intellectually serious and faithfully-Reformed seminary, like Westminster, I thought. He needed better theological training and answers to his questions, and he didn’t get them. Or maybe he was under the undue influence of his wife Beth, who I had always suspected was a little too sympathetic to Catholicism. She always used to talk about that “Female Saints” class she took at UVA. (Holla!!!  Wahoo-wa!!!!) Why should I care what St. Teresa of such-and-such thinks about God? Isn’t the Bible enough? They probably didn’t even understand Catholicism, anyway. I grew up Catholic and had left the Church as a child with my parents. I had grown up spending hours and hours hearing and talking about the problems with Catholicism, especially given much of my extended family was still Catholic. My friends don’t know the first thing about being Catholic, I remember thinking; they didn’t grow up in it like I did. They don’t really understand.

In retrospect I see how deeply prideful and unsympathetic these thoughts were. So often my desire was not so much to see God glorified, but to prove myself right. Presupposing not that I needed to humbly listen and learn, but that I already had the answers. Looking so hard for the supposed “thorn” in the Catholic converts’ eye, yet so oblivious to my own. Yet couldn’t anyone have said the same thing about me and my Protestantism, that I had become an evangelical or Reformed not for motives of truth and God’s glory, but for any number of deep-seated psychological or emotional needs? In truth, Christ calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, a calling that requires us to exemplify a love that is eager not so much to prove ourselves right, or win an argument, but that seeks to presuppose the best, rather than the worst motives in others. We, like Christ, must be long-suffering with others, (Ed. as I pray they will be, and obviously NEED, to have long-suffering patience with me!  🙂 ) especially with those we are keen to unfairly caricature. Alas, like St. Paul, I needed the film removed from my self-righteous eyes, a process that would take time and require the work of the Holy Spirit, and the patient, prayerful companionship of those who loved me.

I came home to Virginia, and not too long after, got word from my friend that he would be moving to Virginia with his family to pursue a graduate degree at Catholic University. I confess I had mixed emotions – it would be good to see them more often, but now there was this great obstacle to our friendship. Maybe this will be my opportunity to straighten him and his wife out, I thought. They arrived that summer and immediately started developing friendships with people in the Catholic community in Washington, D.C., but they certainly didn’t ignore me. I’d see them for meals, and Barrett and I spent time together bike riding, grabbing a beer, and the like. It was a bit unnerving though, having to spend all this time around Catholics just to be with my friend and his family. Even little things really bothered me. Once at their house Beth told some anecdote that involved her going to confession. Oh brother, I thought. Can’t they just tone down the Catholic stuff while I’m here? Don’t even get me started on how praying before meals now involved crossing themselves at the dinner table.  (Mara was a little Orthodox there for a while at the beginning, still have to watch for that, but I think we have proper Latin rite established now.  Deo Gratias.  🙂 )

I suppose what surprised me was how deeply my friend and his wife still loved me and valued our friendship. They knew something now stood between us, but they tried so hard to make me welcome in their lives. I was also surprised at how they seemed to be growing in holiness and virtue. I thought that since they were embracing a false faith with dangerous beliefs that they’d start regressing, especially with all the less emphasis on the Bible and Jesus (so I thought). The opposite seemed true, the more I spent time with them. It wasn’t long before we started having the theological conversations. I asked for the explanations behind why all of this had happened, the extended version. I started pressing with questions, particularly those as a Reformed Christian that had been most compelling to me in contemplating the problems with Catholicism. Hasn’t the Church modified it’s supposed inerrant teaching, especially with the changing moods and cultures of the times? Doesn’t all this emphasis on the saints and Mary detract from the glory of God? What about all the corruption, the immorality, the wickedness done in the name of the Catholic Church? Aren’t so many of the Catholic Church’s teachings not founded on the Bible? And so on.

Yet my friends asked the same questions when they were contemplating Catholicism, and their answers, though not always immediately compelling, were at least reasonable and worthy of further reflection. They countered with questions of their own, going after some of the most fundamental tenets of Reformed Christianity, and even general Protestant principles: the premise of the “Bible alone” or sola scriptura, the formulation and contents of the Biblical canon, Luther’s call for “faith alone” or sola fide. Was the “Bible alone” even a Biblical idea? (2 Tim 3:16, calls it good.  It is.  Luther insisted on the ALONE in each of his principles.  ALONE is unscriptural.  Read Romans correctly, in context, it was written to a JEWISH community, for whom the Law was all.  Of course, Paul would write what he wrote to a JEWISH community.  Were they Gentiles, would he have written similarly?  Not happenin’.  🙂 )On what authority do we even accept the contents of the Biblical canon as truly from God?  (“I would not believed in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so.”-St Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, “Against the letter of Mani, 5,6,” 397 A.D.)  Was “faith alone,” and Luther’s rejection of what he styled a “salvation by works” truly faithful to Jesus and the Apostle Paul? I had heard criticisms of these beliefs before, but never so sophisticatedly presented or deeply troubling for my evangelical faith. I realized I was a bit in over my head. My friend had graduated with the highest honors at seminary, and had a strong command of Greek, Hebrew, Biblical exegesis, and Christian history. I was starting to feel, much to my annoyance, like a bit of a theological novice. Wasn’t I the one in college who knew more than him about history and religion?

But more than all this, I still deeply valued my friendship with both of them. At that time, we had been friends for almost ten years, and had been through a lot together. I loved them. If they had made a terrible decision by becoming Catholic, it was a duty, an obligation of our friendship, that I urge them to get out before they did real damage to their lives or souls. As Proverbs 18:24 observers, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (ESV). Through our conversations, I realized I really hadn’t taken the time to listen, to understand, to appreciate my friends’ perspectives. I needed to start thinking at a much more sophisticated level, praying with a deeper earnestness and urgency. I had pridefully thought myself an expert on Protestantism and Catholicism. I wasn’t sure now I was proficient in either. It was time to eat some humble pie, hit the books, and consult all my mentors in the Reformed faith. Like St. Gregory’s observation of St. Basil, Barrett and his wife Beth’s pursuit of wisdom and truth proved infectious. Thus proceeded a Summer and Fall of intense reading, praying, reflecting, and conversing, both with Protestants and Catholics. I don’t need to re-tell all the details, many of which can be found here. Needless to say, the Protestant position was becoming less and less compelling, and more and more problematic as I studied the centuries-old debates.

Friendship was what initiated this opportunity for a deeper and more honest examination of Truth. Once I was able to stop the polemics, the psychologizing, the uncharitable and prideful ways of thinking and communicating that had so often defined my interactions with Catholics, I was able to start listening to my friends. Indeed, this is what is required of all of us if we want to get to the Truth, which is so often communicated not just through books and articles, but in personal and intimate interactions between people who care about one another. Indeed Truth, according to our Christian faith, is much more than an abstract concept; it is a person, Jesus Christ, who is Truth incarnate (John 14:6). As John writes in his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, ESV).

Theological, historical, and logical arguments are all important, and in many ways drive and provoke the necessary reflections and conversations for ecumenical dialogue. But just as important is a willingness to see our interlocutors not solely as “sparring partners,” but as real people, (Ed. SINCERE!!!) with real convictions, and real stories that need to be heard and appreciated. This is equally true of Protestants and Catholics. Yet if we believe those people whom we deeply love and care about have made decisions that will endanger their lives, their futures, and possibly their souls, we have an obligation to reach out, in love, and mutually pursue Truth together. Furthermore, it is often through friendship that the most difficult and painful truths are often communicated – things we do not want to hear, that challenge us, that complicate what we thought to be simple and straightforward, that frustrate our plans or intentions. (Ed. It is the people who LOVE US that will make the effort, take the risk of truth, the least of which is theological, the most of which is about our unchallenged, damaging behaviors/habits.)  Yet when (Ed. dangerous, dangerous) truth is involved, wouldn’t we rather hear it than not, especially from those whom we know truly love us and have our interests at heart, who are willing to risk even friendship to communicate hard truths? As Christ himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:13, ESV).

TurnerChalk
The Turner and Chalk families at Turner boy #4’s baptism, officiated by Fr. Matthew Zuberbueler (center back)

I hope that this feast day commemorating a wonderful deep friendship in Christian history – that of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory Nazianzus — would be an occasion for renewed attempts at understanding and contemplating, at a truly thoughtful and charitable level, why so many of us have turned to the Catholic Church. We of course, in turn, will need to try our best to listen to and appreciate our Protestant brothers and sisters, who have many questions, as well as many sincere and valuable insights and beliefs of their own. May God spur a renewed desire for ecumenical dialogue amongst friends, and may we pursue the Truth, as it leads to God, no matter what sacrifices it requires, all for the glory of God.

St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who exemplified true Christian friendship in your mutual love of Christ and pursuit of truth, pray for us!

  1. Pope Benedict XVI, The Fathers, (Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, Indiana) p. 73-90.
  2. St. Basil, Orationes 43: 16, 20; SC 384: 154-156, 164.
  3. This is not to suggest that any of my friendships bear more than a very weak and vague resemblance to Basil and Gregory’s in either depth of relational intimacy or theological or spiritual sophistication!”

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, New Evangelization, The Inquisition

“Fire & Sword: Crusade & Inquisition” -Matthew Arnold

https://soul-candy.info/2014/10/matthew-arnold-new-age-agnostic-to-catholic-apologist/

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from:
http://saintjoe.net/fire-and-sword-crusade-inquisition/

“There is probably no institution in the history of man more unjustly maligned than the Catholic Church-and no more powerful rhetorical device than the distortion of the facts regarding the Crusades, Inquisitions and the Protestant Reformation. Opponents of the Church demand to know, “How can the Catholic Church be the true Church when she tortured and killed Jews, Muslims and even other Christians in the Inquisition?” “How can a truly Christian Church be responsible for bloody religious wars, when Christ said, ‘Turn the other cheek’?” “How can this Church, with the blood of millions on her hands dare to condemn ‘a woman’s right to choose’?”

Myths and Misconceptions
In the fascinating new three CD series, Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation, Catholic convert and EWTN Radio personality Matt Arnold pits the common accusations about these historical events against the findings of modern scholarship and what he uncovers will amaze you! In this informative presentation, he reveals that those who have a stake in keeping the myths and misconceptions alive are actively obscuring the best scholarship from both religious and secular historians.

Fire and Sword begins with an introduction to many virtually unknown facts about the Middle Ages, and exposes the common misconceptions about the period. Through the works of many leading medieval scholars Matt demonstrates that, “If we judge the past by its fruits, we’ll soon discover that the Middle Ages weren’t so dark (and Catholics not so barbaric!) as so-called history suggests.”

Holy War
In the presentation on the Crusades, you’ll discover the true motives and methods of the Christian Crusaders and the nature of their struggle with Islam. Following the example of the best current scholarship, modern medievalists going directly to primary sources for their research. They’ve discovered that Protestant and secular bias has rejected out-of-hand, the well-documented motives of the Crusaders in favor of a projection of their own anti-Catholicism. Surprisingly, the supply of written records from the Middle Ages is both large and largely ignored. Even many Catholics will be surprised by what they contain!

Catholic Kryptonite
In Fire and Sword, Matt Arnold describes the Inquisition as “Catholic Kryptonite” because many times, just when a Catholic apologist begins to make headway on issues like the papacy or the Real Presence, the specter of the Inquisition is invoked to destroy his credibility. This series will offer you the crucial facts to put this topic in its rightful perspective and even show how the process of Catholic inquisition was often more just and lenient than other contemporary forms of justice.

Finally, CD three takes a revealing look at the dark side of the Protestant Reformation. Far from an indulgence in “comparative atrocities,” this presentation uncovers undeniable facts of history, often in the words of the reformers themselves, to expose the real motives behind the 16th century movement to abandon centuries of Christian Tradition.

Powerful Reminder
You’ll have your eyes opened to new perspectives and, perhaps most importantly, you’ll more readily understand why certain forces (even within the Catholic Church herself) are so fervently dedicated to keeping the old myths alive. Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation explodes the many myths surrounding these crucial episodes in Salvation History and will positively empower you to better defend the Church that Christ established.

Questions Answered:
What was the real motive behind the Crusades?
Did Catholic Inquisitors really kill millions of innocent people?
Why did the Reformation happen?
Was the medieval Church corrupt?
Are the Crusades responsible for modern Muslim resentment of the West?
Why should the Middle Ages rightly be called the “Age of Faith?”
What does modern scholarship say about the Crusades and Inquisitions?
Why did some reformers consider reason an enemy of faith?

Love,
Matthew

Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

Matthew Arnold: New Age Agnostic to Catholic Apologist

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Matthew Arnold is a convert to Catholicism, and one of the nation’s most talented Catholic apologists. Through his apostolate Pro Multis Media he promotes the teaching of the Faith through public speaking and communications media. Yet he was once an agnostic who dabbled in the New Age movement.

Arnold, born 1960, grew up in a nominally Christian family in Southern California. But, he joked, “About the most Bible reading I heard was by Linus on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.”

After graduating high school, Arnold worked as a musician, playing bass in a Top-40s band. He developed an interest in performing magic tricks, and graduated from the Chavez School of Magic. He worked as a magician in Hollywood, performing at restaurants, children’s shows, and private parties. He combined his talents as a musician, magician, and comedian to do warm-up acts before live audiences gathered to watch the filming of television sitcoms.

Some fundamentalist friends had turned him off to Christianity, but, Arnold recalled, “I still had a ‘God-shaped’ hole inside of me that I tried to fill up with the rock n’ roll party lifestyle.”

Having no religious formation, Arnold became involved in the New Age, including astrology and tarot cards.  Through a friend he was introduced to “channeling,” which would ultimately lead him out of the New Age altogether.

A young woman he knew claimed to be channeling (that is, serving as the voice for) a group of spirits who said they wanted to speak to Arnold. He agreed, and the spirits mostly offered him advice on his career. They were usually re-assuring, but at times the channeler could be verbally abusive. She could also be difficult to wake up from her trance.

To this day, Arnold is uncertain whether the experience was legitimate or an elaborate hoax. He reflected, “The whole thing was rather bizarre, but I had no formation or standard by which to judge. So, I was ready to believe it.”

Arnold experienced some physical manifestations that suggested the spirits’ authenticity. For example, one time he was knocked off his feet by an unknown force. Another time, he was sleeping and awoke to experience the feeling that someone was sitting on his chest. He was alone, but he thought he saw a face looking at him. He said the Lord’s Prayer, turned on all the lights in the house, and waited for morning. He also found a Bible and began reading it.

His New Age friend called Arnold the next day and informed him that the spirits had sent him an invitation the previous evening to return to their channeling group. He responded, “Tell them I got the message, and no, I don’t want to come back.”

Arnold met and married his wife, Betty, who had also been involved in the entertainment industry in Hollywood. She was Catholic, and Arnold, a voracious reader, undertook a careful study of her Faith. He credits the prayers of his wife and the intercession of the Blessed Mother for his conversion, as well as the instruction of a local priest.

In 1996, during the Easter Vigil, Arnold entered the Church. He was still working in Hollywood, making good money, and enjoying a successful career. However, fired up with the zeal of a convert, he decided that because of widespread immorality in Hollywood, he had to quit.

His final night, he was doing the warm-up show for a taping of the hit sitcom Friends. The episode featured Courteney Cox and guest star Tom Selleck, playing girlfriend and boyfriend, in bed together. Arnold’s job was to get the studio audience revved up for the taping, but, he recalled, “I was being a cheerleader for mortal sin.”

He quit, and never looked back.

Arnold began working in Catholic apologetics, using his media talents to create and produce Catholic audio tapes and DVDs, and soon was hosting Catholic radio and television programs. In 2006, he formed Pro Multis Media. Recent projects have included producing an abridged audio version of The Soul of the Apostolate for Lighthouse Catholic Media and recording the official audio version of Pope Benedict’sJesus of Nazareth for Ignatius Press.

Arnold has a special devotion to, and has placed his apostolate under the protection of, Our Lady of Good Success, an apparition which occurred in Ecuador in 1594. Although the appearance occurred centuries ago, he believes Our Lady’s message relevant for today. “What struck me was that the Blessed Mother said the problems in the Church would reach a critical point after the mid-point of the 20th century,” Arnold said. “It was then that we had the upheaval of the 1960s—the sexual revolution, immoral fashions, vocations crisis, and decline of marriage.”

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

The Glory of the Crusades

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I am a fan of Steve Weidenkopf.  I own and have on my iPhone his Epic:  A Journey Through Church History.  It is interesting, fascinating, and worthwhile.  He gives the best, and frankly only, explanation of the  Inquisition (The Holy Office) in a positive light and reasoning I have ever heard.  He is informed, factual, balanced.  Who could ask for anything more from any author on any topic, or even just citizen?

Keep in mind the Ottomans constantly threatened Europe, which is where we get the narrative of Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula, from, Happy Halloween!!!  And, the Moors occupied Spain for 700 years, 711 -1492 AD.  Servant of God Queen Isabella the Catholic, whose cause for beatification is pending, would not meet with Columbus to “give him her jewels” for his attempt at a voyage until the Moors had been driven from Spain once and for all in the Reconquista.

I have just ordered his latest work The Glory of the Crusades.  The ebook becomes available this month.  I found it interesting, informative, educational, and enlightening.

It does seem history repeats itself?  Regardless of the reason?  The USA had bombed seven Muslim countries recently.  “Eight and I get a free falafel!” -Stephen Colbert.  Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/understanding-the-crusades

“We have returned to the Levant, we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades—but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades.”
-Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937

“In our age the Crusades are described as barbaric, wasteful, shameful, and even sinful. Rarely are they called glorious. This is because the modern world embraces a false narrative about the Crusades. This false story, however much discredited by authentic modern scholarship, remains entrenched in the minds of the masses.

Yet it was not always so. During the Crusading movement these military events were mostly seen in a positive light throughout Christendom, with popes and saints exhorting Catholic warriors to engage in them. Warriors who participated in these armed pilgrimages did so for a multitude of reasons but primarily for the sake of their own salvation. The Crusades emerged from a feudal society that stressed personal relationships founded on honor, loyalty, and service to one’s vassal. Crusading knights invoked those virtues as they fought for Christ and the Church to recover ancient Christian territory stolen by Muslim conquerors.

The Crusades also emerged from an age in which faith permeated all aspects of society. This does not mean medieval Europe was heaven on earth or that Christendom was some idyllic utopia. But it was nonetheless an era in which people made radical life decisions because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. Accordingly, the Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for them, clerics (and saints) preached them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality.

Sadly, though, too many Catholics today seem more inclined to apologize for the Crusades rather than to embrace their glory.

Perhaps this is because the meaning of glory is not properly understood. The Old Testament can help provide us a proper understanding of glory. After Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses’ special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent where Moses spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness.

Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for “glory” used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means “heavy in weight.” To recognize the glory of something, therefore, means to acknowledge its importance or “weight.” Moses wanted the Lord’s glory to shine for the people in order that they would recognize the important act of their deliverance from bondage. To recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them, but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

Perhaps by reclaiming the true Catholic narrative of the Crusades we may be emboldened to honor our Lord by proudly bearing the cross against modern enemies that threaten his Church no less than did the followers of Mohammed a millennium ago.”

Love, glory, & victory,
Matthew

Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

Scripture & Tradition

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“Christ the Good Shepherd”, mosaic from the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, ~425 AD

In Catholicism, there are two fonts of revelation, in contrast to Protestantism, I generalize, which only has one, Scripture.  

Tradition is one of those, imho, words which doesn’t carry either the full or the correct meaning, imho, through translation to the 21st century American ear.

It is not “we have always done it this way”, rather it is the living and lived experience of living the faith of two millennia of the Church.   A living tradition.  Wisdom.  One informs the other.  A unity of living faith, with two doors by which to understand that faith.

What does Scripture say regarding this?  What does the experience of the lived and living faith say about this, in light of Scripture?  What is the truth we can distill from this contemplation, and from prayer for the grace to understand the Lord’s will for us, now, in this moment?  In this instance?  What is the Lord saying to his Church, now, in the living moment?

What has worked?  What hasn’t?  What did God mean by what he said?  Where can we recognize truth in our lived experience of the faith both in the initial ancient times up until now?  How does our lived experience of the faith now reflect and hold in relation to our ancestral understanding?

It is VERY important to organize, categorize, comprehend, and relate in one’s Catholic mind to the importance and seriousness of different Catholic teachings.  Not everything is doctrine or dogma, certainly not everything is personal opinion.  One must distinguish and understand between these ends of the spectrum if one even hopes to live a happy and contented Catholic life.  Otherwise, only fear, frustration, and confusion result from the ignorance.

Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation “Dei Verbum/Word of God”, Solemnly Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, November 18, 1965

“9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. -cf. Council of Trent, session IV”

https://thesowerreview.org/bishops-page-keeping-truth

-by Bishop Phillip Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth, UK

“When I was a student in Rome, Thursday was our day-off and we’d often go out of the city to explore different places nearby. I’ll never forget going into a magnificent, mediaeval church with an eye-catching mosaic high-up over the altar. It depicted  Christ the Good Shepherd, preaching to his disciples; all sat at his feet eagerly  listening. But when you got a bit closer, something about the mosaic seemed odd. Why was it that Christ’s rob were not white but dirty-brown? Why were his listeners laughing, some drinking, everyone clearly having a good time? One was fox dressed up as a bishop.

It was only when you stood underneath the mosaic that the dreadful truth slowly dawned on you. This was not Christ at all! It was the False Prophet, Lucifer, the so-called Light-Bearer, the one who looks like Christ, but is anything other. Beware of false prophets who come disguised as sheep but underneath are ravening wolves.

We inhabit a noisy, busy, celebrity culture with many experts competing for our attention. Yet in the Gospel Jesus urges us to be critical, discerning, to sift truth from falsehood, to be sensible people, building our homes not on sand but on the rock of truth.

Where can we find Truth?

We rightly ask: What is true? How can we be sure we have the Truth? Where can we go to find it? We believe Jesus Christ is the Truth. He is God the Son Incarnate, Humanity’s Teacher. He reveals the Truth about God and about life. But how can we be sure even that it is really Him, it really is his Word, it really is what He teaches?

St. Paul gives us two criteria. All Scripture is inspired by God, he says. To know Christ’s teaching, we can turn to the Word of God in the Bible. Yet, as we know, the Bible can mean different things to different people. So Paul adds another criterion: Keep to what you have been taught. In other words, we have to read the Bible but within the Tradition, or we will end up with a subjective opinion not the Truth Christ intended.

But then there’s more. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, adds a third element: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form [the Bible] or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone.” So to know the Truth, we must consult the Bible and Tradition as interpreted by the Church’s authority. This triad of Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium gives us the rock or theological ground on which as Catholics we can build our home.

The Year of Faith

The Church has asked us to keep a Year of Faith, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism. The Catholic Church is now 20 centuries old. But in her history, she has never before passed through a busy, affluent, secular culture like ours today. We now know what happens when she does: Mass attendance declines; families break up; parishes are clustered; faith for many becomes a hobby, something to dip in-and-out-of.

It’s not the brand that’s faulty here; after all, Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life! It’s the culture we live in, which needs baptising. Let’s not be naive about this. A key reason for attrition is a crude lack of awareness of the corrosive nature of contemporary culture, along with a sad neglect of our Catholic distinctiveness, of the beauty of our Christian faith, and of what the Church can offer. This is why the Year of faith is a grace-filled opportunity. It’s not easy to be a disciple today, to be a Catholic, let alone, to be a Catholic teacher or a Catholic priest. This is because we inhabit a challenging cultural context.

A Spiritual homing-device

Let me give you an image, one I’m sure you’ve heard before. A few years ago, I was on holiday in Scotland and saw an amazing sight: thousands of wild salmon in a river, swimming upstream, racing ahead, jumping in the air to get past the rocks and over the boulders. Salmon, I am told, lay their eggs upstream, and once hatched, the new salmon swim down to the sea on a huge journey to the feeding-grounds off Greenland. They then have two months to get back to the river they were born in, to lay their own eggs and after to die. How on earth they know where their home-river is a mystery, but that’s why you see the amazing sight of fish swimming upstream, jumping in the air, racing ahead against the current.

It made me think of two things. That we are a bit like salmon. Deep down in every human heart is a spiritual homing-device. We are made for God and made for heaven. Our home is in him, and our hearts are restless until we find him. But secondly, to find Him, to find Him in our busy, affluent, secular culture, we must swim upstream against the current. To find God, to develop a friendship with him, to live the life of Christ, to reach heaven our home, we have to be countercultural, to be different, to create space and time, to make the effort, even to suffer.

Keep to what you have been taught and know to be true. As Catholic educators in a secular culture, let us ask God for the grace to persevere and to remain faithful. We ask Him, too, to bless the adults and the children in the different places where we serve.

Like Christ our Master, the Church will not be popular. We are countercultural people. We are swimming against the current. But let’s remember: it is not the product that is defective but the ability of people in today’s culture to receive it. This is why we need enormous creativity if we are to find new ways of spreading the Faith, effectively engaging with the new generations of 21st century. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit that he will shower upon us his many gifts. Thus rooted in the Heart of Jesus, may we all be well equipped to face the exciting challenges ahead.”

AMEN!!!!!!!!

Love,
Matthew

New Evangelization

1 Cor 9:16

-by Br Alan Piper, OP

“The days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past.”

So spoke Princeton Professor Robert P. George during his address at last week’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. The thesis is especially remarkable coming from George—one of America’s foremost defenders of marriage and the family, and a thinker noted for his hopefulness about the power of reason to prevail in the public square.

George is not talking about restrictions on worship. The cultural clime is not about to make it more difficult to get to Mass (at least, not directly). What he means is that the whole Gospel—in particular, the Christian teaching on marriage and the family—is no longer acceptable in public. “The Gospel of Life,” once considered tolerably retrograde, is now considered bigoted, even hateful.

The signs of a shift are numerous. Think of the lawsuits filed by Christian institutions, notably the Little Sisters of the Poor, in response to the mandates of the Affordable Care Act. Think of Mozilla’s former CEO or the two television hosts at HGTV—all three of whom apparently lost their jobs only because of previous opposition to same-sex marriage. It has recently been reported that the U.N.’s Committee Against Torture is currently trying to frame the Church’s teaching on abortion as a human rights abuse. The suggestion is that Christian sanctions against abortion are forms of torture. And one hears more and more about individuals being pressured to suppress their Christian opinions, under pain of financial and professional setback.

George is warning that Christians are increasingly liable to encounter dilemmas where previously there were none. Those who espouse the Gospel are thereby more likely to jeopardize their professional ambitions, risk familial discord, and lose friends. It is George’s suggestion that they ought to be ready to accept these losses. Otherwise, Christians are at risk of finding themselves ashamed of the Gospel.

Not that George reduces the Gospel to the Church’s teaching on sexuality. The doctrines of the Triune God, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the rest of the articles of the Creeds—these doctrines are absolutely central to the Gospel, but it does not therefore follow that the Church’s sexual doctrine is an unnecessary accretion. The claim of the Church is that “the Gospel of Life” is entailed in the revelation of God in Christ. It is this part of the “seamless garment” that has become intolerable to the mandarins of our society.

The solution that George proposes is for Christians to think of the present time as Good Friday: Will we stand with Jesus, or will we flee? The point is not that we should cultivate a martyrdom complex—no more than the Blessed Mother did at the foot of the cross. The point, I take it, is that Christians should recall why they got into Christianity in the first place. Are comfort and social acceptance all we really want from the absolute goodness of God in Christ? “Billy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” “I want to be comfortable!” “What do you want to be, Sally?” “Socially acceptable!”

It would also be a mistake to interpret George’s remarks as an invitation to bunker down and hole up. In the keynote address, Sean Cardinal O’Malley emphasized the centrifugal force of the Church. The Cardinal called for the Church to move from “maintenance” mode to “missionary” mode, propelled by the joy of the Resurrection. Ultimately, the focus of the Cardinal’s speech is the same as that of George’s more somber words. What’s the point of taking up one’s cross, anyway? It is Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. This is the Gospel—woe to us if we do not preach the Gospel!

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“St Peter Preaching in the Presence of St Mark”, Fra Angelico, 1433, oil on panel, 39 x 56 cm, Museo di San Marco, Florence

Love,
Matthew

New Evangelization

The Days of Socially Acceptable Christianity Are Over!

-by Robert P. George, delivered at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, 5/13/14, Wash DC

http://www.princeton.edu/admission/whatsdistinctive/facultyprofiles/george/

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Robert P. George, McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, delivers the “lay guest speaker” address at the 10th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., May 13, 2014.

Ashamed of the Gospel?

“The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. It is no longer easy to be a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an authentic witness to the truths of the Gospel. A price is demanded and must be paid. There are costs of discipleship-heavy costs, costs that are burdensome and painful to bear.

Of course, one can still safely identify oneself as a “Catholic,” and even be seen going to Mass. That is because the guardians of those norms of cultural orthodoxy that we have come to call “political correctness” do not assume that identifying as “Catholic” or going to Mass necessarily means that one actually believes what the Church teaches on issues such as marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life.

And if one in fact does not believe what the Church teaches, or, for now at least, even if one does believe those teachings but is prepared to be completely silent about them, one is safe-one can still be a comfortable Catholic. In other words, a tame Catholic, a Catholic who is ashamed of the Gospel-or who is willing to act publicly as if he or she were ashamed-is still socially acceptable. But a Catholic who makes it clear that he or she is not ashamed is in for a rough go-he or she must be prepared to take risks and make sacrifices. “If,” Jesus said, “anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.” We American Catholics, having become comfortable, had forgotten, or ignored, that timeless Gospel truth. There will be no ignoring it now.

The question we face

The question each of us today must face is this: Am I ashamed of the Gospel?  And that question opens others: Am I prepared to pay the price that will be demanded if I refuse to be ashamed, if, in other words, I am prepared to give public witness to the massive politically incorrect truths of the Gospel, truths that the mandarins of an elite culture shaped by the dogmas of expressive individualism and me-generation liberalism do not wish to hear spoken? Or, put more simply, am I willing, or am I, in the end, unwilling, to take up my cross and follow Christ?

Powerful forces and currents in our society press us to be ashamed of the Gospel-ashamed of the good, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. These forces insist that the Church’s teachings are out of date, retrograde, insensitive, uncompassionate, illiberal, bigoted-even hateful. These currents bring pressure on all of us-and on young Catholics in particular-to yield to this insistence. They threaten us with consequences if we refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil good. They command us to conform our thinking to their orthodoxy, or else say nothing at all.

Do you believe, as I believe, that every member of the human family, irrespective of age or size or stage of development or condition of dependency, is the bearer of inherent dignity and an equal right to life? Do you hold that the precious child in the womb, as a creature made in the very image and likeness of God, deserves respect and protection? Then, powerful people and institutions say, you are a misogynist-a hater of women, someone who poses a threat to people’s privacy, an enemy of women’s “reproductive freedom.” You ought to be ashamed!

Do you believe, as I believe, that the core social function of marriage is to unite a man and woman as husband and wife to be mother and father to children born of their union? Do you hold, as I hold, that the norms that shape marriage as a truly conjugal partnership are grounded in its procreative nature-its singular aptness for the project of child-rearing? Do you understand marriage as the uniquely comprehensive type of bond-comprehensive in that it unites spouses in a bodily way and not merely at the level of hearts and minds-that is oriented to and would naturally be fulfilled by their conceiving and rearing children together? Then these same forces say you are a homophobe, a bigot, someone who doesn’t believe in equality. You even represent a threat to people’s safety. You ought to be ashamed!

But, of course, what you believe, if you believe these things, is a crucial part of the Gospel. You believe the truth-in its fullness-about the dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage and sexual morality as proclaimed by the Church-our only secure source of understanding the Gospel message. So when you are invited to distance yourself from these teachings or go silent about them, when you are threatened with opprobrium or the loss of professional opportunities or social standing if you do not, you are being pressured to be ashamed of the Gospel-which means to give up faith in the Lordship of Christ and hope in the triumph of goodness, righteousness, and love in and through Him.

Heavy costs

To be a witness to the Gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the Gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship-heavy costs.

There was a time, not long ago, when things were quite different….Biblical and natural law beliefs about morality were culturally normative; they were not challenges to cultural norms. But those days are gone. What was once normative is now regarded as heretical-the moral and cultural equivalent of treason. And so, here we are.

You see, for us, as for our faithful Evangelical friends, it is now Good Friday. The memory of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem has faded. Yes, he had been greeted-and not long ago-by throngs of people waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David.” He rode into the Jerusalem of Europe and the Jerusalem of the Americas and was proclaimed Lord and King. But all that is now in the past. Friday has come. The love affair with Jesus and his Gospel and his Church is over. Elite sectors of the cultures of Europe and North America no longer welcome his message. “Away with him,” they shout. “Give us Barabbas!”

The days of comfortable Catholicism are past

So for us there is no avoiding the question: Am I ashamed of the Gospel? Am I unwilling to stand with Christ by proclaiming His truths? Oh, things were easy on Palm Sunday. Standing with Jesus and His truths was the in thing to do. Everybody was shouting “Hosanna.” But now it’s Friday, and the days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. Jesus is before Pilate. The crowds are shouting “crucify him.” The Lord is being led to Calvary. Jesus is being nailed to the cross.

And where are we? Where are you and I? Are we afraid to be known as his disciples? Are we ashamed of the Gospel?

Will we muster the strength, the courage, the faith to be like Mary the Mother of Jesus, and like John, the apostle whom Jesus loved, and stand faithfully at the foot of the cross? Or will we, like all the other disciples, flee in terror? Fearing to place in jeopardy the wealth we have piled up, the businesses we have built, the professional and social standing we have earned, the security and tranquility we enjoy, the opportunities for worldly advancement we cherish, the connections we have cultivated, the relationships we treasure, will we silently acquiesce to the destruction of innocent human lives or the demolition of marriage? Will we seek to “fit in,” to be accepted, to live comfortably in the new Babylon? If so, our silence will speak. Its words will be the words of Peter, warming himself by the fire: “Jesus the Nazorean? I tell you, I do not know the man.”

Perhaps I should make explicit what you have no doubt perceived as implicit in my remarks. The saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ includes, integrally, the teachings of His church on the profound and inherent dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage as a conjugal bond-a one-flesh union. The question of faith and fidelity that is put to us today is not in the form it was put to Peter-“surely you are you this man’s disciple”-it is, rather, do you stand for the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage as the union of husband and wife? These teachings are not the whole Gospel-Christianity requires much more than their affirmation. But they are integral to the Gospel-they are not optional or dispensable. To be an authentic witness to the Gospel is to proclaim these truths among the rest. The Gospel is, as St. John Paul the Great said, a Gospel of Life. And it is a Gospel of family life, too. And it is these integral dimensions of the Gospel that powerful cultural forces and currents today demand that we deny or suppress.

History is not our judge

These forces tell us that our defeat in the causes of marriage and human life are inevitable. They warn us that we are on the “wrong side of history.” They insist that we will be judged by future generations the way we today judge those who championed racial injustice in the Jim Crow South. But history does not have sides. It is an impersonal and contingent sequence of events, events that are determined in decisive ways by human deliberation, judgment, choice, and action. The future of marriage and of countless human lives can and will be determined by our judgments and choices-our willingness or unwillingness to bear faithful witness, our acts of courage or cowardice. Nor is history, or future generations, a judge invested with god-like powers to decide, much less dictate, who was right and who was wrong. The idea of a “judgment of history” is secularism’s vain, meaningless, hopeless, and pathetic attempt to devise a substitute for what the great Abrahamic traditions of faith know is the final judgment of Almighty God. History is not God. God is God. History is not our judge. God is our judge.

One day we will give an account of all we have done and failed to do. Let no one suppose that we will make this accounting to some impersonal sequence of events possessing no more power to judge than a golden calf or a carved and painted totem pole. It is before God-the God of truth, the Lord of history-that we will stand. And as we tremble in His presence it will be no use for any of us to claim that we did everything in our power to put ourselves on “the right side of history.”

One thing alone will matter: Was I a faithful witness to the Gospel? Did I do everything in my power to place myself on the side of truth? The One whose only begotten Son tells us that He, and He alone, is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” will want to know from each of us whether we sought the truth with a pure and sincere heart, whether we sought to live by the truth authentically and with integrity, and-let me say this with maximum clarity-whether we stood up for the truth, speaking it out loud and in public, bearing the costs of discipleship that are inevitably imposed on faithful witnesses to truth by cultures that turn away from God and his law. Or were we ashamed of the Gospel?

The Gospel is true. The whole Gospel is true. Its teachings about life and marriage are true-even its hardest sayings, such as Christ’s clear teaching about the indissolubility of what God has united and about the adulterous nature of any sexual relation outside that bond.

“I do not know the man”

If we deny truths of the Gospel, we really are like Peter, avowing that “I do not know the man.” If we go silent about them, we really are like the other apostles, fleeing in fear. But when we proclaim the truths of the Gospel, we really do stand at the foot of the cross with Mary the Mother of Jesus and John the disciple whom Jesus loved. We show by our faithfulness that we are notashamed of the Gospel. We prove that we are truly Jesus’s disciples, willing to take up his cross and follow him-even to Calvary.

And we bear witness by our fidelity to the greatest truth of all, namely, that the story does not end at Golgotha. Evil and death do not triumph. Yes, it is Good Friday, but the One who became like us in all things but sin conquers death to redeem us from our transgressions and give us a full share in eternal life-the divine life of the most blessed Trinity. The cross cannot defeat Him. The sepulcher cannot hold Him. His heavenly Father will not abandon Him. The psalm that begins in despair, Eloi, Eloi lama sabachtani, ends in hope and joy. Easter is coming. The crucified Christ will be raised from the dead. The chains of sin will be broken. “Oh death, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy sting?”

I grew up as a Catholic in a Protestant culture. The Protestants of my boyhood were what we today call Evangelicals. In those days, the religious differences between us seemed vast, though today the personal and spiritual bonds we have formed in bearing common witness to marriage and the sanctity of human life have relativized, though, of course, not eliminated, those differences. We now know that Evangelical Protestants are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ-separated from us in certain ways, to be sure, but bound together with us nevertheless in spiritual fellowship. Growing up, I admired the strength of their faith, and their willingness openly to profess it. And I loved their hymns. One of the most familiar ones contains a vital message for us Catholics today. You will recognize the first verse:

On a hill faraway, stood an old rugged cross,

The emblem of suffering and shame;

I love that old cross, where the dearest and best,

For a world of lost sinners was slain.

And the chorus goes:

I will cherish the old rugged cross,

Till my trophies at last I lay down.

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

And exchange it someday for a crown.

Yes, there’s the story. Christ must endure the sufferings of Good Friday to fulfill His salvific mission. But Easter is coming. And we, who cherish His cross, and are willing to bear His suffering and shame, will share in His glorious resurrection. We who cling to that old rugged cross will exchange it someday for a crown.

And then comes the next verse, and how perfectly it captures the attitude we must adopt, the stance we must take, the witness we must give, in these times of trial if we are to be true disciples of Jesus:

To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true,

Its shame and reproach gladly bear,

Till he calls me someday, to my home far away,

Where forever his glory I’ll share.

Yes.

And I’ll cherish that old rugged cross,

Till my trophies at last I lay down.

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

And exchange it someday for a crown.

Yes, for us Catholics and all who seek to be faithful, it’s Good Friday. We are no longer acceptable. We can no longer be comfortable. It is for us a time of trial, a time of testing by adversity. But lest we fail the test, as perhaps many will do, let us remember that Easter is coming. Jesus will vanquish sin and death. We will experience fear, just as the apostles did-that is inevitable. Like Jesus himself in Gethsemane, we would prefer not to drink this cup. We would much rather be acceptable Christians, comfortable Catholics. But our trust in Him, our hope in His Resurrection, our faith in the sovereignty of His heavenly Father can conquer fear. By the grace of Almighty God, Easter is indeed coming. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel. Never be ashamed of the Gospel.”

Rom 12:1

Sinner, hypocrite, denier of my Lord that I am, pray for me.

I am always keen for new martyrs, starting w/myself.  “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” (Apologeticus, Chapter 50, 197 AD), Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullian.  Sometime after his conversion to the Christian faith, Tertullian left the Catholic Church in favor of Montanism.

Love,
Matthew

New Evangelization, Order of Preachers

Witnesses to Christ in the World – Most Rev Anthony Fisher, OP, Bishop of Parrammatta, Australia, WYD 2011, Madrid

anthony_fisher

“There is nothing else in the world that could bring together young people from Africa, from the Americas, from Europe, from Asia and from the greatest continent of all, Australia, nothing else.  The Olympics brings them to the same place but at the Olympics, these Aussies and Americans in the sanctuary at the moment would be fighting each other for medals.  Here, we’re all on the same team.  We’re all on Jesus Christ’s team.  Hold on to that thought in the days ahead.  Nothing else can bring the world together like Jesus Christ can bring the world together.

As you just heard, I was coordinator of the last World Youth Day held in Sydney, Australia in 2008.  Thousands of young people say that they encountered God very personally there.  Faith and idealism was deepened.   That it was the best week of their lives so far.  And amidst the massive crowds that had to be gathered and transported and fed and accommodated and toileted and the rest –  and I had to learn about all those things – amidst the complexity of those huge events, there were so many individual personal stories about God and me.  Let me tell you just a few.

Philip, a young atheist from New Zealand was persuaded by his mother to come to World Youth Day.  He told a young nun, “You have this life, this flame about you.  You’re so full of joy and I want that for myself.”  It was the beginning of a profound conversion for him.  Two other sisters told me how they met some young people in the street from communist China.  They were in Sydney for university not for World Youth Day.  They knew practically nothing about Christianity.  But the sisters talked them into coming to the opening mass with them and they gave them a crash catechism course along the way.  By the time of the consecration at the mass, these Chinese young people were crying.  They had got it.

The visiting bishop from Canada – and we see those wonderful maple flags over there – wrote about the number of ordinary Australians that he met on the street, the railway or in pubs.  I don’t know how many pubs that bishop visited.  Canadians do have a name for it.  And he wrote, “For not people of faith, these people I met were filled with wonder and curiosity and joy at how well the young people behaved and their enthusiasm for Jesus Christ.  A few of them said it really raised deep questions for them for they knew they would have to reflect upon once World Youth Day was over.  This is a great working of the Holy Spirit” he said.  It raised deep questions for them.

From very early, young children ask questions.  What is it?  Is it me or not me?  What does it taste like?  How do I manipulate it?  Why Mommy, why Daddy?  Why universe?

At first, babies think they are the universe or that the whole purpose of the universe is to satisfy their wants.  In due course, they discover rivals for the attention of the universe like their brothers and sisters – if they’re lucky enough to have them – and the complexity of negotiating with these rivals.

As they become increasingly reflective, children discover not only that the universe is not them and not even for them, but that the universe doesn’t need them.  They don’t even have to exist.  They come to understand that there was a time when they didn’t exist, that they were brought into existence and constantly sustained by others.  And that their continued existence is rather tenuous.  Eventually, as I said, they learn that the universe too comes and goes, depends each part on other parts for its beginning and its existence.

This is natural science, the study of the what and how of things which we learn at school or by reading or by our own exploring.  But behind those explorations, there’s a deeper awe before the mystery of existence itself.  And those deep questions that even guys in pubs starting asking themselves when they see World Youth Day happening.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing at all?  Does the universe have to exist?  How can that be given its comings and goings, its causes and effects, its wholes and its parts?  Is there something necessary that grounds our unnecessary world?  Is there something unchanging that sustains our changing world?  I know I don’t have to be.  I know you don’t have to be.

There was a time when I didn’t exist and a time will come when I’ll be dead.  In the meantime, why this me and this universe?  What am I for?  Is there more for me when this life is over?  Does that something, that someone behind the universe care about me, have a plan for me?  Our deep wonder and awe at the beauty, the complexity, the resilience, the vulnerability of the universe and of ourselves is the beginning of the adventure of science but also of the adventure of religion.

Science helps explain the what and the how of things but not the ultimate why.  Our inner child keeps asking, “But Daddy, why?”  We’re left wondering not just how the world is but that the world is.

As a physicist, Stephen Hawking, once remarked, “What is it that breathes fire into these equations and makes there a world for them to describe?  Wise men and women through the ages have concluded that there are only two possible answers.  Either there is not reason, it just is, the way it is but there’s no ultimate cause, no ultimate sense to make of it all.  Or there is some cause and sustainer of things, of all life and being and meaning.  Some necessary being that gives the world its existence and sustains it without which or whom the world would not exist.

Some things are mysteries.  I don’t mean theological Sudoku puzzles that are hard to solve.  I don’t mean gobblety-gook that no one can understand.  By mysteries I mean things that are so profound yet intelligible that we can explore them and learn about them and come to understand them more and more and more and still never exhaust them.

Take the mystery of evil especially of innocent suffering. Or the sometimes more stunning mystery of good, such as the hard loving that some people do in the face of exhaustion, in gratitude or persecution.  Or the mystery of human life that parents experience when awe struck at the baby that came from them and yet they’re sure can’t just have come from them; or the mystery of a spider’s web or the Milky Way or our own minds or hearts or so much else in the natural world.

It’s not just big or small or intricate or simple but truly wonderful, full of wonders.  All these things we can explore from different perspectives.  Natural science, social science, the arts, the trades but still there is more to know.  God is the first and greatest mystery and before Him we gape uncomprehending, God.

Our minds glimpse but never fully comprehend the mystery of God.  We see and know things God has made and can point to Him as the source of being – creativity, life, knowledge, love.  For this is very partial because for every similarity between the creature and the creator, there are big differences, too.  That’s why the postures of the ancients towards God was to bow or kneel, to cover their eyes.  God is transcendent and He is tremendous.  That is, God is something that makes us tremble with terror and delight.  To have faith in God is not to identify and comprehend yet one more object in the universe.  God is not a thing.  To know God is not to know something like our dad, writ large, or a kryptonite immune Superman or a kind of super computer with Wikipedia on it only more reliable.  No, God is not in or of our universe.

But to believe in God is to believe the whole universe has a source and direction and meaning.  It’s to ask the big questions and to be ready for some unexpected answers.

Now it’s risky saying God is not a creature but the source of creatures.  That God is not a thing, but the reason for things.  That God is the big “B” being behind all beings.  It’s risky saying that because it can make God sound rather remote and hypothetical like a math theorem or an alien got the universe going and then zipped away into hyper-space.

But to believe firmly in God is to believe there is a meaning to the universe, a meaning that includes not only the big bang and the laws of nature but each individual human being and every life, our lives, every day.  It’s to believe that there is a beauty, a wisdom, a guiding hand, a universal law, an ultimate Truth, a Purpose behind the story of everything.  To grasp and hold on to this big idea, to have it planted firmly in our hearts is called faith.

There are three more things about faith that I’d like to say and I’ll say them much more quickly, because it’s hot.  Hot because of the Holy Spirit whose Mass we’ll celebrate later.  Hot because the Holy Spirit is breathing into and out of every one of you, and you’re hot; not just temperature-wise but hot with God.  So, three more quick things about faith.

I’ve said that faith is the ability to grasp and hold on to.  That big idea to have that planted firmly in our hearts; the big idea that there is a Beauty, a Wisdom, a guiding hand, a universal law, an ultimate Truth, a Purpose behind everything including me.  But my three more thoughts are first that the awe at the heart of faith, at the beauty and truth and goodness of things, at the inexhaustible mystery of things, at the impossibility of ever grasping the awesomeness of things is something worth exploring all the way to the grave and beyond.

It’s not just little kids who ask, “Why Mommy, why Daddy?  What’s that?”  We are all at heart explorers.  And at your age, there’s a very special kind of exploring to be done, exploring the big questions of the universe of God and of me, exploring the big question about what I’m for, what I will do with my life.

Secondly, that beauty and truth and goodness that we grasp for all our limitations is something we can come to know something of and know with certainty.  Appreciate with wisdom and live with passion.

And thirdly, that sort of seeking and finding requires commitment.  Be awake to all dangers says Saint Paul.  Stay firm in your faith.  Be brave and strong to everything in love.  That’s brave faith, adult faith.  After saying this, “what can we add” says Paul.  “With God on our side, who can be against us?”  Sadly, some people never grow up spiritually.  They may be very knowledgeable and sophisticated in their particular profession or art or science.  Yet on the level of faith they remain five-year-olds.  They never go on pilgrimage beyond their own little world that they know.  They never read or study or reflect on the big questions as adults.  They leave their faith stunted at the level of Santa Claus, a vague memory or sentiment from their childhood.

And then as young adults, unable to reconcile this new adult knowledge and experience with the childish faith, they either live with a kind of split personality, religious children on Sundays and sophisticated adults every other day or else they throw away their childhood religion and think themselves very sophisticated and grown up because they don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore.  They call themselves, then, agnostic or atheist which sounds more adult.

But that, frankly, is intellectual and spiritual laziness.  “Brothers and sisters,” says Saint Paul, “Don’t be childish in your outlook.  Grow up in Christ.”  If people are going to abandon their Catholic faith as adults they should at least know what or who they are abandoning understood in an adult way.

Tomorrow’s catechesis is going to focus on that question, the Who question.  Faith is all very well but faith in what, in Whom?  Tomorrow we’ll consider what the encounter with Jesus Christ does for our outlook and identity.  To say my Lord and my God is to change everything, deepen everything, find a new joy in everything.

And so on Friday, we’ll consider what it means for who and what we are in the world and for the world.

But let me conclude today’s talk with one last thought.  The world needs you to ask the big questions and not be satisfied with the glib answers.  Secularism with is amnesia about God is pushing faith and mystery to the margins.  Sells you short by saying your questions are meaningless or too hard or to profitable and that you should be satisfied with just accumulating wealth and gadgets or with the physical and emotional roller coaster ride of endless experiences and partners but with no firm faith for commitments, no self sacrifice, no possibility of transcendence.

Secularism sells you short because by God’s grace you really are capable of so much more than this.  You have the power and passion within you to do great things.  That power and passion is faith and humanity in which God and humanity are revealed in all their possibilities.

Secularism sells you short because without reference to God, without relationship with Him, we quickly lose sense with our own dignity and purpose.  But if I can declare that I believe in God who creates and sustains this wonderful world visible and invisible, that I believe in his communication to me through the natural world and my own reason informed by faith and by the scriptures and by the sacraments. That I believe in Jesus Christ is the word for my mind and in the Holy Spirit, who is inspiration for my heart.  If I can say I believe, then my life is built on rock, firm and secure.

If I can say I believe these things, then I must say also we believe.  We, that church that is big enough for all the world.  The only thing big enough for all the world drawn together by Jesus Christ, I believe.  In my diocese, we have a movement called Theology On Tap.  It’s only one of about 80 active youth groups and movements that we have.

A group of us go to a local pub each month to discuss a theological topic, so it’s not just Canadian bishops that can be found in pubs.  We get a good speaker and a good topic and have plenty of discussion.  Five, six, sometimes seven hundred young people join us there at the pub.  They’re ordinary, exuberant, diverse young people.  They come from every cultural background like a mini World Youth Day.

They’re not religious fanatics, just young people with hearts and heads big enough to wonder, believe and commit.  It’s great fun and great support for young people to be surrounded by other young people asking the same big questions as them who believe the things they do, who can encourage and strengthen them.  And with whom they can have a good time.

The church and the world right now needs young people with those sorts of questions and answers.  Firm in faith, firm in the faith not lazy about it or angry about it, not against things so much as for things, not against anyone but for someone in particular, for Jesus Christ.  And because of that, for every other human person from Africa and Asia and the Americas and Europe and Australia.

I believe, we believe, the Church needs you.  Thank you.”

Love,
Matthew