Category Archives: Sacraments

Sacraments

mint, dill, cumin, gnats…

“Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to heaven.” -Bl. John Henry Newman

Mt 23:23-24

-from the New St Thomas Institute blog:

May 29, 2015 at 10:07 pm #12091
dominicanshield
Caleb Payne
Member
“I need some help. 1st, I’m tired of being scandalized. 2nd, I’m not sure I completely understand why there is an apparent disconnect between Catholic belief and Catholic practice, especially in the liturgy. Maybe I’m missing something, someone help.

I’ll make the story short. Three teens from our parish driving on the highway, freak accident, two dead, one in hospital. Tragic, very tragic. Two were in my confirmation class. One was just baptized, confirmed, and received into the Church after a year of RCIA. Funeral Mass. Huge, never seen the church so packed. Many high school students. Liturgy begins. It is apparent that most there do not know what to do, so priest gives brief directions (i.e. kneel, stand, etc.). Liturgy of the Eucharist. Communion. I begin to notice that many people are going up. Many are standing in front of the Eucharistic ministers grabbing the hosts, nibbling on them, spitting them out, shrugging their shoulders…they clearly have no clue what they are doing. I also notice that some large groups do not go forward, even after the ushers pass them, so then the ushers go up to them and prompt them to please go forward to receive Communion. To make a long story short the majority of the people went up for Communion, but it was clear that the majority of people there were not Catholic. I was very saddened by this. The teen we celebrated waited one year until she was Baptized, Confirmed and received her first Communion, and yet here the message was any one can go forward. To top it off, my daughter, who was altar serving, says to my wife that she could tell many clearly did not know what they were doing and even related one incident in which someone asked the deacon, “what am I supposed to do with this?” and He just replied, “Eat it.”

So very concerned, I approached our priest this morning after Mass. I acknowledged how tragic the deaths were, and then I asked him this question, “could we possibly say during the next funeral Mass (which was this afternoon for the second teen who had died and was just as big), ‘now those who are Catholic may come forward for Holy Communion’?” He of course understood what I referring to, but said that he does not feel anything should be said. He said he has heard both extremes, priests clearly saying anyone is welcome…which he acknowledged is wrong, and other priests saying things like I suggested but which he felt was too harsh. He said he didn’t want to write off my concern and said he would think about it, maybe possibly another avenue, but he was clear he would not say anything. So, long story short the same thing happened this afternoon. Pretty much anyone and everyone came forward for Communion (and there was maybe 800-1000 people there, half high school kids).

And the silence is killing me. The silence. And people are starving for Truth. But they are like clouds without rain.

And there have been omissions from the order of the Mass, portions which are supposed to be there are not sometimes. Maybe I don’t completely understand the rubrics. Omissions. In the liturgy, in the homilies. I mean a Gospel is read, and the main point of it is completely glossed over, or completely omitted in the homily.

Please pray.

Now my question: This is an issue that cannot be solved over night and a lot of people are probably going to have different opinions on how to go about it. But in a situation where it is clearly obvious that there is a significant portion of Mass attendees who are not Catholic, whose responsibility is it make sure they are informed on what they should or should not do? The priest? The deacon? The Eucharist ministers? The ushers? What should be done?”

May 29, 2015 at 10:38 pm #12092

fosterscott
Foster Scott
Member
“Ultimate responsibility in the parish falls on the parish priest. You should write to your bishop to let him know what’s going on. First recount the facts and only the facts. Then let him know why it bothers you that the priest denies people the information they need to know whether they are in a state of grace to take communion.

The Church is an army. The priests are its officers, and the laity must respect the office of the priests, just as Jesus told the people to respect the office of the Pharisees in his own day. Unfortunately, only a priest can directly solve the problem, but you can help by denying the Parish your money and tithing elsewhere, and by informing the Bishop. You also might consider attending a different Parish.”

May 30, 2015 at 12:16 am #12093
mattmp
Matthew M
Member
“Peace, Caleb. Peace. Let God be God. Refrain, as a healthy, holy mortification from straining anything less than a camel. Mt 23:24.”

May 30, 2015 at 9:35 am #12095
johnk
John K
Member
“Mathew I appreciate what you are saying, but I believe this is a huge camel. It shows great disrespect to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. I don’t think God will hold those young people accountable, because they partook in ignorance, but I think the priest is endangering his own soul by treating the Eucharist in such a shoddy fashion. I would definitely go to the bishop. It’s not something to do out of anger but out of charity both for the priest and those partaking who shouldn’t be.”

May 30, 2015 at 10:08 am #12096
mattmp
Matthew M
Member
“John K, I appreciate what you are saying. I have learned the wisdom of beginning everything in life with, “YOU are God, and I am not!” It puts everything into perspective and right proportion, I have found, and informs me, I trust through the Holy Spirit, how much I should react and to what degree. I think the example presented is a time for welcome, compassion, and mercy, dear God hopefully not for a scene which leaves a bitter taste in the mouths, literally, of those so said ingnorati. I would let Jesus worry about who is worthy to receive and who receives worthily Himself. I, for my part, place my efforts at listening to Him ever more intently. “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.” 1 Sam 3:10.

I would caution, gently, about rushing to conclusion on the priest’s intention, motivation, or thought process with regards to this event, before sentencing. Even priests, in the real world, have to choose greater and lesser priorities. I doubt it ruins Jesus’ day. He’s God. Let God be God. Peace, blessings, and prayers, always.”

May 30, 2015 at 10:57 am #12097
johnk
John K
Member
“Mathew where are Mark and Luke?

I am not sentencing anyone. Nor do I think that explaining Holy Communion is meant only for Catholics needs to be done in a harsh or unkind manner.

I am not attempting to play God. I am simply going by what has been taught by sacred scripture, the tradition of the Church and by the magisterium. I am also pointing out that this is no light matter. The Blessed Eucharist is the holiest thing in the world. St. Paul warns about receiving the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, going so far as to say they eat and drink damnation to themselves.

As I said above, I don’t believe God is going to condemn people who partake unknowingly. However it is clearly a major responsibility of a priest to try to prevent people from receiving unworthily. For example, if there were a person who was excommunicated for teaching heresy and refusing to submit to the Church’s teaching, a priest who saw him approach to receive the Eucharist, would be obligated to refuse him.

The Eucharist is holy. There’s clear Church teaching on who can and cannot receive. This is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Son of God. It is to be treated with the utmost respect and administered properly, not just given to people who don’t even realize what it is.”

May 30, 2015 at 12:46 pm #12099
fosterscott
Foster Scott
Member
“Is there anything in canon law governing what the priest should say and do in this scenario?”

May 30, 2015 at 2:26 pm #12100
mary
Mary
Member
“This happens all too often, and the priest, by saying nothing, brings condemnation on those who receive unworthily. If they truly don’t know any better, than THEY are not at fault.

But that priest….may God have mercy on him, not only for his disrespect for our Eucharistic Lord, but also for allowing others to receive unworthily, and just as badly, scandalizing the Faithful by this public act.

I hope you persist in raising this issue. It will bring you a lot of grief from the Church of Nice folks, but you are in the right here.

May God have mercy on us all for the abominations done against Him.”

May 30, 2015 at 2:49 pm #12101
johnk
John K
Member
“Here’s an article discussing canon law. It is focused on whether socalled pro-choice politicians should be admitted to communion:

https://www.ewtn.com/library/CANONLAW/burkcompol.htm”

May 30, 2015 at 2:59 pm #12103

mattmp
Matthew M
Member
“Foster, very fair question. I think you might find this article helpful. I think it is balanced, and I have a profound respect for Catholic Answers: http://www.catholic.com/blog/michelle-arnold/non-catholics-in-the-communion-line
I would also recommend an examen of conscience, in a healthy, holy, and joyful way to guard against the grave sin of scrupulosity. I have written about it here on my blog: https://soul-candy.info/2015/02/scrupulosity/. Above all, avoid Catholics who too, too much resemble scribes and Pharisees with their mint, their dill, their cumin, and their gnats. His peace and grace.”

FOR THE LAST TIME, CATHOLICS!!!!, and sadly yet, I so know how much it won’t be, IT IS NOT A PRIZE OR A WEAPON!!!!  It IS medicine for the sick of heart and soul.  Mk 2:17

Mt 9:13

A New Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change,
which is pretty much everyone,
since I’m clearly not you, God.
At least not the last time I checked.

And while you’re at it, God,
please give me the courage
to change what I need to change about myself,
which is frankly a lot, since, once again,
I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.
It’s better for me to focus on changing myself
than to worry about changing other people,
who, as you’ll no doubt remember me saying,
I can’t change anyway.

Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up
whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter
than everyone else in the room,
that no one knows what they’re talking about except me,
or that I alone have all the answers.

Basically, God,
grant me the wisdom
to remember that I’m
not You.

Amen.
-Rev. James Martin, SJ

I am always concerned when Catholics start sounding pharisaical. While not throwing pearls before swine is appropriate, the Eucharist is neither a prize nor a weapon, nor ever should be. It is medicine, for the sick of heart and soul.

I am trying to recall the Gospel story where the sinner approaches Jesus and He says, “Get behind Me!!! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!!!” Oh, yeah. Now, I remember. It wasn’t the prostitutes, the tax collectors, or the pagans He said this to. It was the first Pope, the first Bishops, the religious leaders. Yeah, that’s right. Now, I remember. The self-righteous, those are they who are unworthy to receive Him. Yep. Perfect.

Love,
Matthew

Family Life, Marriage, Sacraments

Sacrament = Catholic Marriage

till_death

There are different types of “unions”, apparently, to varying permanence, apparently, with different meanings, apparently.

-by Marc Barnes

“The indissolubility of marriage is not natural. I could not agree more with Dan Savage when, in the great American tradition of offering unsolicited advice, he told heterosexuals that this till-death-do-us-apart stuff is an impossible expectation. Indissolubility, by his view, cannot be a norm. Perpetuity can only be a preference. If we could “acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted,” instead of mindlessly pumping a deflated, Disney-born mystique of forever-and-ever, we’d be closer to an honest and natural marriage contract.

“Inseparability,” which makes Savage grimace so, does not belong to marriage considered as a civil institution — state-permitted divorce and remarriage assure us of the fact. “Inseparability” does not even belong to marriage as a natural institution. Aquinas argues that “‘offspring’ and ‘fidelity’ pertain to matrimony as directed to an office of human nature” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 49, a. 3) but not indissolubility, and this seems to hold — if a man divorces his wife, remarries, and begins a new family, nothing in the order of nature could argue that he is still husband to his first wife.

The bizarre promise of “forever” made by two beings who have no assurance of “forever” could only have been instituted by an equally bizarre faith. It was neither nature, nor the State, nor even the Old Law of the Jewish people that so radically defined marriage. Typically, it was Jesus. He argued that soluble marriage was a human tradition, “traditional marriage” at its finest, and that under His New Law the following divine ordinance applied: “What God has joined let no man tear asunder” (Mark 10:9).

Augustine follows this up, arguing for the inherently sacramental, God-given character of indissolubility: “In the sacrament it is provided that the marriage bond should not be broken, and that a husband and wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring.” And Aquinas again:

“Inseparability, which is denoted by “sacrament,” regards the very sacrament considered in itself, since from the very fact that by the marriage compact man and wife give to one another power the one over the other in perpetuity, it follows that they cannot be put asunder. Hence there is no matrimony without inseparability, whereas there is matrimony without “faith” and “offspring,” because the existence of a thing does not depend on its use; and in this sense “sacrament” is more essential to matrimony than “faith” and “offspring” (q. 49, a. 3).

It is easy to miss the revolution slipped into the thomistic shuffle. The condition of inseparability in marriage comes from the divinely instituted nature of the thing, and it is this condition which, in a certain sense, is most essential to marriage. One can be married without children, one can even be married and unfaithful, but one cannot be married and separable. Thus “inseparability, which pertains to sacrament, is placed in the definition of marriage, while offspring and faith are not. Therefore among the other goods sacrament is the most essential to matrimony” (49, a. 3).

Maybe it’s his Catholic upbringing shining through the sex-column cliches, but Savage is absolutely correct — indissolubility is far from natural. It is supernatural. The sacrament of Holy Matrimony is a radical shift in the tradition of marriage that cannot be defended on purely human terms. If we think we can treat marriage as a purely civil and social institution and retain what is essentially sacramental, attempting to magic up from the order of nature what is born in the order of grace, we’ll end up disappointed with just how difficult “forever” really is.

Now there is something wonderful here, and it confuses the issue. When Christ said “what God has joined let no man tear asunder,” he said it in the context of restoring an original institution, arguing against a culture of divorce and remarriage that “in the beginning it was not so.” Thus, in a certain sense, we can say that indissolubility belongs to marriage by nature, insofar as it was, prior to the Fall of Man, the “natural” state of marriage. It is true what Pope Paul VI says, that “although the sacramental element may be absent from a marriage as is the case among unbelievers, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage there must remain and indeed there does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so bound up with matrimony from its first institution that it is not subject to any civil power” (Casti Connubi, 34). But it seems to me that the fact that indissolubility belongs to unbelieving, non-sacramental marriages, far from arguing that indissolubility is of nature or of law, argues that unbelievers, in some way, partake in the order of grace. “From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it” (Casti Connubi, 9), and if our marriage is indissoluble, and we retain the character of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ even if we divorce and remarry, even if we claim by law and nature to have shuffled them off, it is because we have entered an institution that neither civil laws nor nature can dissolve, whether we meant to enter into marriage as a “divine institution” or not.

The married Catholic is unique because he has the capacity to know that what he does is not of man, but of God, and that in his marriage what is natural is perfected by what is divine. I say he has the capacity, because American Catholics tend to have a lame notion of Holy Matrimony as a kind of “Catholic version” of marriage, as if we replace judges for priests, drink more at the reception and voila, the sacrament! But our own tradition, which no one reads, makes it clear that the sacrament, while it does “add on” to what we might call “natural marriage,” is an addition that transforms and perfects what it is added to. The difference the sacrament makes is simple, but it only becomes clear to the Christian: Man and woman become more than themselves — they become signs of Christ’s marriage to his Church. To marry is to have one’s earthly fidelity and fecundity shot through by divine mysteries like rising sun through stained-glass, revealing to oneself and to the world the colors, contours, and splendor of Christ’s love for mankind. It is for this reason that the sacrament adds the terrifying condition of inseparability to marriage — Christ does not love us conditionally, or for a time, but forever. So with what foolishness we consider Holy Matrimony “basically the same” as marriage considered as a civil or natural institution! Holy Matrimony is different, and it’s high time we investigated the difference such a sacrament makes.

Love,
Matthew

Family Life, Sacraments

The State is Unnecessary

Progress_of_the_State_St._Paul_5

-“Progress of the State” quadriga at the base of the capitol dome, St Paul, MN.

-by Marc Barnes

“The State is unnecessary for the existence of marriage. As that Venerable Badass, Pope Leo XIII, put it in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, “Man is older than the State and he holds the right of providing for the life of his body prior to the formation of any State.” More directly related to marriage, the selfsame Pontifex sayeth: “No human law can abolish the natural and primitive right of marriage, or in anyway limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage, ordained by God’s authority from the beginning. “Increase and multiply.” Thus we have the family; the “society” of a man’s own household; a society limited indeed in numbers, but a true “society,” anterior to every kind of State or nation, with rights and duties of its own, totally independent of the commonwealth.”

This the heart of a radical Catholic politic, the fierce validation of the family as “totally independent of the commonwealth.” People fall in love, marry, and perpetuate the human comedy through the creation of smaller people, all without giving a single damn about the State. This seems self-evident. But this also means that the argument for the preservation of “traditional marriage” as a necessary institution for contributing progeny to the State is, at best, wonky. I suppose one may make a baby with a mind to the maintenance and health of the commonwealth, but this is an unnecessary addition. One may equally, ethically, naturally, and in affectionate accord with the Patriarchs of the Western Church, say “screw the commonwealth, we’re making a person as a distinct locus of value, lovely in itself, apart from any possible ends,” and proceed thereby.

Within its proper limits, the State does no more than regulate “the civil effects of marriage” (Canon 1016). Which leads to the not-so-shocking conclusion that, to the Catholic, there is no such thing as a “civil marriage” at all — there is only the State regulation of the effects of a sacramental or natural marriage on society. At best then, the State can be a help or a hindrance to natural and sacramental marriages. Currently, it is a hindrance.

Marriage, according to the Church, is an institution directed to several ends. Unity and indissolubility (without which a marriage cannot be said to exist), conjugal fidelity and the generation, nourishment and education of offspring (which are the natural ends of marriage), the signification of Christ’s love for his Church and a remedy against sin, and the mutual help of the spouses.

If we briefly compose a tally, we will find that the State is inadequate in regards to every good the Church claims makes marriage marriage. Against the good of indissolubility, civil marriage proposes divorce, remarriage, and pre-nuptial agreements. Against the good of conjugal faithfulness, civil marriage legalizes and decriminalizes adultery. Against the good of offspring and their education, civil marriage permits contraception, sterilization, abortion — and the public school system. And as far as concerns the strictly sacramental effects of marriage, the State ranges from indifferent, as they should be, to ominous, as when we see the religious criminalized for keeping their marriage-related activities strictly within the bounds of nature and the sacrament.

So the question becomes, what is the responsibility of the married Catholic in a State which is antagonistic to every conceivable end of marriage, long before any discussion of gay marriage? Surely the first step is to repudiate the State, and to live intentionally within a marriage “independent of” a crooked commonwealth; to live a marriage which recognizes the State as unnecessary, insufficient, and finally incapable of establishing, legislating, or sustaining it. By seriously downplaying the bloated and self-appointed importance of the State in matters of marriage, remembering that the fullness of marriage resides in nature and the sacrament, and that no marriage in the universe has ever come from the State — only then can we speak seriously about “fixing” it.”

Love,
Matthew

Family Life, Marriage, Sacraments

Deal or No Deal – Marriage or No Marriage

pope-pius-xi

“Whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it really is a true marriage, in which case it carries with it that enduring bond which by divine right is inherent in every true marriage; or it is thought to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and in that case there is no marriage, but an illicit union opposed of its very nature to the divine law, which therefore cannot be entered into or maintained.” (Pius XI, quoting Pius VI, Casti Connubii, 34)

-by Marc Barnes

“The intention of perpetuity, or no marriage at all. Cold, Pope. Real cold.

But what it means is that, insofar as it is the law of the State to allow divorce, remarriage and pre-nuptial agreements, a civil marriage is no marriage at all. If a couple were to take as their inward intention what the State takes as a possibility — that their marriage could be dissolved, children split between them, and provisions made for this event prior to the marriage itself — then they would not, in the eyes of the Church, be married. They would enjoy the pleasures of an illicit union.

I am not arguing, of course, that the majority or even any non-sacramental marriages are illicit unions. I am arguing that, from the Catholic point of view, a couple is required to spiritually reject the very constitution of a civil marriage, to “fill it up” in their intention what is lacking in its legal structure — by committing to stay together. A State marriage is only a marriage if it is, in intention, anarchic; a rebellion against the dismal, defeatist proposition offered by the State, which, devoid of grace, can only ever plan for the worst in man — the inevitable boredom of his marriage and the dissolution of his promises.

If this is true, then the idea of “protecting State marriage” or “preserving the civil institution of marriage” against being altered in its very meaning by an alteration of definition from husband and wife to a sex-blind affair — it seems paltry. Marriage is already, prior to any concerns over the manner in which the sexes constitute its essence, a rebellion against the State. To “save civil marriage” by maintaining it as “one man, one woman” would be to save an institution that the Christian, and indeed, every human looking to make one life out of two people, is called to reject. Any civil marriage, entered into as such, is an illicit union, no matter how stupendously straight or gloriously gay a couple has the pleasure of being.

This, on its own, should be sufficient to call into question the unfortunate position that Catholics, myself included, often take — that of the guardians of traditional marriage. Far from preserving and guarding an institution of the State, the role of the Catholic is to reject the State, question its foundations, and introduce something entirely new — entirely nontraditional. Indeed, it was precisely in rebellion against the human tradition of divorce and remarriage that that Rabbi, Jesus, said: “What God has joined, let no man tear asunder,” and everywhere Christianity spread, it struggled to break the tradition of polygamy, religious prostitution, divorce and remarriage. Christianity, as we will see, murders the all-too-human tradition of solubility with the frightening call to indissolubility.

Of course, one might argue that in preserving marriage as an institution of husband and wife is the preservation of natural law rather than civil law, but it is doubtful to me whether the violation of natural law is best corrected by the State, or, to say it positively, that “things acting in accord with their nature” is a goal achievable through the State — especially when our State codifies all manners of distortions of the nature of marriage long before any discussion of gay marriage. But we’ll get there: To start, I only want to disrupt the Good Traditional Marriage vs. Bad Gay Marriage narrative, to aim towards the possibility of a creative, fruitful separation of civil and sacramental marriage, or rather, towards the acknowledgment that the Catholic and his State haven’t meant the same thing by the word “marriage” for quite some time. There’s some fresh air in this for the Catholic with the lungs for it. In a worldly city gone soggy with the separation of word from meaning, it is good to remember, in a desert-father fueled spirit of repudiation, that we do not do as the world does.”

2 Cor 4:4

Love,
Matthew

Sacraments

“I don’t get anything out of Mass!” Really?

Maybe I could be accused of waning in my compassion, but there are certain, predictable ones I love.  This is one of them.  My standard response is always, “What did you put into it?”  Red face, flustered, and a good solid, tangible “harumph!!!” is, I suppose, to be expected.

“My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates (the Mass) as if he were engaged in something ordinary.” -St John Mary Vianney

-by Rev. Lawrence Lew, OP

A man in white, the astronaut Yuri Gagarin, reportedly said: “I went up to space, but I didn’t encounter God”. But had he listened to the two men in white who spoke to the men of Galilee, he could have saved himself the trouble of seeking God up in space. “Why do you stand looking [up] into heaven?” (Acts 1:11). As another man in white said forty days earlier on Easter morning, “he is not here” (Mk 16:6). For neither down in the grave nor up in the skies will we find our God. Where, then, is Jesus? How might Man encounter God?

St Luke says that Jesus was taken “out of [the apostles’] sight” (Acts 1:9), and yet at the same time they are told to be Christ’s “witnesses… to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This seems rather paradoxical since the ordinary sense of witnessing means to see something or someone; it is through our senses that we ordinarily gain a witness’s knowledge. But Christ is taken from their sight, so He cannot be seen. The clouds veil Him, and so, Jesus is said to be beyond the perceptivity of our senses. But this does not mean that God is thus absent or unknowable or even non-existent, as Gagarin erroneously supposed. After all, St Mark says that even after his Ascension “the Lord worked with [the apostles] and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it” (Mk 16:20). So, Christ is present and active and He can be known through signs; from these effects we can witness the Cause.

The Sign par excellence by which Christ remains present and active among us, working with his disciples, is the Eucharist. The men in white promise the apostles that Christ “will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11), and we tend to think this is a reference to Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. But we need not jump to that conclusion. For just as Christ went invisibly, taken from the apostles’ sight, so He comes to us invisibly. He comes and is present and active among us through the gift of sanctifying grace, through the sacraments, and above all, through the Eucharist. As St Thomas says, “in this sacrament Christ shows us his flesh in an invisible manner”. Therefore, Ratzinger says, “every Eucharist is Parousia, the Lord’s coming” and “the Liturgy is Parousia, a Parousia-like event taking place in our midst”. For through the sacred Liturgy we encounter God, and He makes us “sharers in his divinity” (cf Preface of the Ascension).”

But, how is it that so many can go to liturgies and see the Eucharist, and still say, like Gagarin, “I didn’t encounter God”? Pope Francis speaks of how we all need, every day, at least an “openness to letting [Christ] encounter [us]”: it is the openness that comes through humble faith. Hence St Mark stresses that divine signs will “accompany those who believe” (16:17), for faith is the primary mode by which we can know and encounter God. So St Thomas points out that Man needs faith to “supply for the failure of the senses” to perceive God’s real presence among us. We Christians, therefore, “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7) St Paul says. For although Christ has been taken from our sight we can still come to know and love Him, to believe His word, and to experience His living presence in the Liturgy and in the world through faith. Thus Jesus says to his apostles: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you [so that] you shall be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8). So, especially in this period before Pentecost, let us pray as the apostles did: “Increase our faith!” (Lk 17:5). For it is the Holy Spirit who infuses in each of us the virtues necessary for us to be Christ’s witnesses, beginning with the theological virtue of faith.

A genuine encounter with God in the Liturgy, and His coming to us through sanctifying grace, thus gives rise to what Pope Benedict XVI called “Eucharistic consistency”. The Sign gives rise to signs that the Lord is working with His disciples, alive in His Church. So, as Pope Francis reminded us, “Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead”. In these various visible ways, Christ’s disciples become witnesses, tangibly banishing the demons of our world, confronting deadly things, and bringing healing and new life (cf Mk 16:17f). All who witness these signs can thus know that God is here – neither up, nor down, but here; the “tabernacle of God is among men” (Rev 21:3).”

Love,
Matthew

Cardinal, Fortitude, Grace, Perseverance, Sacraments, Virtue

The Grace of Final Perseverance

joseph7

A little preamble is in order here.  Protestant understanding of grace and Catholic understanding of grace are very different.  This distinction is often overlooked and generally misunderstood, yet it is perhaps the singularly most significant separating difference between Protestantism and Catholicism.

Generalizing across Protestant denominations, mea culpa, “sola fides”, or the doctrine of “by faith alone” implies once one is “saved” by turning from sin and accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in faith, that is all that is required.  “Once saved, always saved”, as the saying goes.

Martin Luther was a preacher and author of strong hyperbole.  He is often misquoted, or quoted out of context saying “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong”, or “sin all the more” once saved.  Protestant theology is NOT recommending sin here, but rather implying no sin is stronger than the saving power of Christ.  True.

However, Catholics believe the grace of salvation, too, is freely given and unmerited.  However, Catholicism does put a bit more emphasis on free will, and while grace is a free, unmerited gift, through free will we have the power to reject His love subsequent to our initial acceptance and baptism through our actions and choices.

Think of how a human relationship works, which I have ALWAYS found to be an excellent metaphor for relating to God, and you can see more clearly the Catholic perspective.  God loves us too much to rescind the divine authority He has given us in free will.  There is no authentic love, human or divine, without free will, according to Catholicism.  Hence, the need, as Catholicism states, for the “Grace of Final Perseverance”.

“Mortal sin” is called mortal because the sin is so grave and intentional, again through free will, that it “kills”/destroys the life of grace within us.  It is the life of grace within us which is the relationship with God.  God didn’t change His mind.  We did, and proved it through our choices and actions in free will.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

“Faith of our fathers, holy faith, we will be true to thee till death…”

-by Nicholas Hardesty, author PHAT Catholic Apologetics

“Final perseverance is that last grace which confirms us in the Lord at the moment of death. It is a free gift of God that preserves or maintains the state of grace in our souls so that we can die in that state. You are in a state of grace when your soul is in righteous standing before God. This gift preserves that state by enabling our will to cooperate with the various means of receiving grace, namely prayer and the sacraments.

The grace of final perseverance also implies that death comes when we are in that state of grace, and not in a state of mortal sin. By that I mean, when a person prays for the grace of final perseverance, he is also praying that death will come in a timely manner, when his soul is in righteous standing before God.

According to Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, final perseverance is basically God practicing his stewardship or loving care over our souls. It is, “an ever watchful superintendence of us on the part of our All-Merciful Lord, removing temptations which He sees will be fatal to us, comforting us at those times when we are in particular peril, whether from our negligence or other cause, and ordering the course of our life so that we may die at a time when He sees that we are in the state of grace.”

Final perseverance can be seen as a single gift of grace, or as the body or collection of graces we have received throughout our whole lives, all coming together to affect our final end. As a single gift, we are reminded of the Good Thief crucified alongside Jesus, who, after living a life of sin, was compelled to convert in his final hour after witnessing the example of Jesus. The grace of final perseverance made that possible.

As a body of graces, we think of the life-long Catholic who sticks ever closer to the sacraments and is evermore devoted to prayer as his age advances and his health deteriorates. And then, when death is surely near, he calls upon the priest to make his last Confession, to receive Viaticum, and to be Anointed. In this case, the grace of final perseverance was actually working throughout his whole life, compelling him to perform the various pious practices that brought him now, in his final hour, to death in the state of grace.

What an extraordinary gift this would be to receive! Extraordinary … and necessary, since we cannot go to heaven without dying in a state of grace. What’s more, this gift only comes by way of God’s merciful response to our entreating Him for it in prayer. This is basically what we’re doing when we say in the Our Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (cf. CCC nos. 2849, 2854), and in the Hail Mary, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” We are praying for the gift of final perseverance.

Scripture mentions final perseverance in several places:

Ezek 18:24-28 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die. 25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? 26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. 27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. 28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

Wis 4:10-15 There was one who pleased God and was loved by him, and while living among sinners he was taken up. 11 He was caught up lest evil change his understanding or guile deceive his soul. 12 For the fascination of wickedness obscures what is good, and roving desire perverts the innocent mind. 13 Being perfected in a short time, he fulfilled long years; 14 for his soul was pleasing to the Lord, therefore he took him quickly from the midst of wickedness. 15 Yet the peoples saw and did not understand, nor take such a thing to heart, that God’s grace and mercy are with his elect, and he watches over his holy ones.

Mt 10:22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

Jn 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Rom 11:22-23 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off. 23 And even the others, if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

Rom 14:4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand.

1 Cor 15:1-2 Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, 2 by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Phil 1:6 And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Phil 4:7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Col 1:21-23 And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

1 Thes 5:23-24 May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

2 Tim 2:12 if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;

1 Pet 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you.

2 Pet 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall;

In my mind, any passage that refers to the importance of enduring to the end, continuing in His kindness, standing fast, etc. is also a passage about this grace.”

Love,
Matthew

Reconciliation, Sacraments

Mercy…ransomed, redeemed, suddenly debt-free!!!!

mercy-grace

Having spent a year in Turkey, without practical access to a Catholic Church, (Ed. reminds me of Mass online in Dammam surreptitiously in my hotel room) the author, a convert to Catholicism, returns to the US and to a VERY expensive reckoning with the AZ DMV in attempt to regain his driving privileges…

Max-Lindeman

-by Max Lindenman

“…on my first Saturday back in the Valley, I decided to get them absolved and receive Communion for the first time in 13 months.

The church had an open confessional, and the priest turned out to be one of the most benevolent-looking men I’d ever laid eyes on…

After breezing through what I considered the small stuff, I recounted the tongue-lashings I’d dealt out while in the grip of my awful temper. Whenever I recalled these moments privately, or for the benefit of friends, I wilted with shame. They seemed to me not only sinful but contemptible, evidence of a low and ill-formed character. The priest gave no sign of holding such an opinion. With no change in his cuddly affect, he offered a few general pieces of advice and absolved me.

“For your penance,” he said. “I give you one Our Father.”

I felt exactly the way all those Bible verses say I should feel: ransomed, redeemed, suddenly debt-free, welcomed back into the bosom of the family. It made me so giddy that I forgot how to begin the Act of Contrition. The priest pointed to an end table between us; taped to its surface was a piece of paper bearing all the words from start to finish. After I got through it, the priest said, “God bless you.”

I offer these two anecdotes side by side not because they’re so wildly different, but because, in nearly every respect, they’re so similar. In each case, an authorized representative of a legitimate power helps a man atone for some past transgression.

Both representatives strive, above all, to be helpful…The only difference is that one form of penance pinched, memorably, whereas the other was memorable for not pinching at all.

From time to time I hear from people who believe that penance should pinch, that redemption dearly bought should also be dearly paid for…

…the near-occasion of my explosiveness is conflict with my fellow humans. I lack the creativity to stick it to them in ways not covered by the Sermon on the Mount. My approach follows the same phases as Field Marshal Haig’s – either cower behind the parapet or charge. It produces more or less the same results his did. In the best of all possible worlds, I’d be a desert hermit. In this one, I’ve got to earn a living, which means seeking terms with all manner of disagreeable people.

There’s an old story about a prudish actress – I forget who – who installed a swearing jar on the set of one of her films. On the first day of shooting, her more spirited co-star – I want to say Ava Gardner, but I could be wrong – took one look at the thing, dropped in a twenty, and extemporized a prose-poem in high modern Billingsgate. Jesus has dropped a twenty in all of our swearing jars, but there’s a catch. When we transgress, we have to pay Him. By holding down the payment to a token, the priest ensured I could afford to go on trying.”

“It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist [Matt. 3:6], but in Acts [19:18] they confessed to the apostles.” –St Basil the Great (Rules Briefly Treated, 288 [A.D. 374])

Act of Contrition

O my God,
I am heartily sorry for
having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins,
because I dread the loss of heaven,
and the pains of hell;
but most of all because
they offend Thee, my God,
Who are all good and
deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins,
to do penance,
and to amend my life.
Amen.

Prayer of Absolution (priest)

God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of Your Son, You have reconciled the world to Yourself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the church, may God grant you pardon and peace. And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mercy, Lord!  Mercy!

Love,
Matthew

Family Life, Marriage, Sacraments, Theology of the Body

Why is Catholic Marriage different?

WeddingKneelingBeforeEucharist

In my experience trying to understand Catholic teaching on marriage, the language is more like love poetry than a practical, utilitarian assembling of rights and functions.  See Song of Songs.  WIFM = What’s In It For Me? is definitely NOT the Catholic understanding of the sacrament of marriage, quite the contrary, quite;  even though, culturally, we may use the same word to describe a dramatically different understood reality.  If our current crisis causes this greater clarity to come more fully into focus, grace doth abound.  Rom 5:20.

In this season of marriage ceremony, let us pray for those who take on this most solemn vocation.  I have recently begun attending a secular support group to offer support to divorced men and fathers as they bear the cross of divorce and separation from their children and the torture of the family court system, biased against men.  Please pray for all who suffer this most desperate of crosses, regardless of their sins.


-by A. David Anders, PhD

Catholic teaching on marriage elicits more practical opposition and misunderstanding than perhaps any other Catholic doctrine. When I ask people what is keeping them from full communion with the Catholic church, Catholic teaching and the canon law on marriage rank high on the list.

The reason for the opposition is easily understood.  Christ calls married couples to lifelong fidelity, no matter what. A valid sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved for any reason by any power on earth. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:6) This teaching seems so difficult that the apostles themselves could hardly believe it. “If this is the situation between a husband and wife,” they said, “it is better not to marry.” (Matthew 19:10)  Christ himself admitted that the teaching was impossible without grace: “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.” (Matthew 19:11)

Some Protestant denominations wish to make an exception to this law in cases of adultery or abandonment. They base this exception in the so-called “exception clause” of Matthew 19:9. But St. Paul explains Christ’s teaching very clearly in 1 Corinthians 7:10: “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord):  A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”  For this reason, the Church allows for the “separation of bed and board” in cases of abuse and neglect, but in no way countenances the remarriage of those separated while the true spouse is still living.

Why? Why does Christ call Christian couples to such a high standard of fidelity, even to the point of embracing the cross of suffering? The reason is that Christian marriage is no mere human contract. It is a mystical participation in the sacrificial, self-giving love of Christ for his Church. (Ephesians 5) It is a special vocation to holiness, an ecclesial state in the same way that priesthood or religious life is an ecclesial state. Christian marriage participates in the sacramental mission of the Church to bring Christ to the world. St. John Paul II wrote that “Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers.” (Familiaris Consortio)

The really glorious news is that God never calls us to a task without giving us the means to accomplish it. For this reason, the sacrament of marriage is accompanied by astonishing graces that are unique to the married state. The Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes) put the matter quite beautifully:

“Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfil their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God.”

To be sure, not all married couples experience or enjoy the full benefit of these graces. The increase of sanctifying grace in the sacraments calls forth our willing cooperation. Pope Pius XI explains: “[since] men do not reap the full fruit of the Sacraments . . . unless they cooperate with grace, the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field.” (Casti Connubii)

In order to reap the full benefits of sacramental marriage, one must live a sincere, faithful and generous Catholic life. St. John Paul II explains:  “There is no doubt that these conditions must include persistence and patience, humility and strength of mind, filial trust in God and in His grace, and frequent recourse to prayer and to the sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation. Thus strengthened, Christian husbands and wives will be able to keep alive their awareness of the unique influence that the grace of the sacrament of marriage has on every aspect of married life.” (Familiaris Consortio).

Christian marriage is an awesome calling. Like all the sacraments, it is “a mystery,” but a mystery of astonishing fruitfulness. The law on Christian marriage is arduous because the end of Christian marriage is so sublime. Through it we are “caught up into divine love.”  The Council teaches: “Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love.” (Gaudium et Spes)”

“…Thy Kingdom come!  Thy will be done!  On earth, as it is in heaven.”

Love,
Matthew

Eucharist, Sacraments

Holy Thursday – “If it’s a symbol, then the hell with it.” – Flannery O’Connor

Monstrance

I, exquisitely, as a life-long Catholic have the privilege, too, of struggling with the literality of the Lord’s words, “This IS my body.  This IS my blood.”  Imho, I don’t think Jesus meant these specific words to be a “no-brainer”.  I believe He wanted humanity to spend the rest of its existence intently contemplating them, more than anything else He ever said, the centrality of it is such.  Recall the Catholic definition of mystery, infinitely knowable.

One of the most important and soothing, palliative things a Catholic can receive just before death is viaticum in the last rites.  For as much critique as the Church may unjustly endure for not taking the Scriptures more literally, this she takes exquisitely literally.

-by Jennifer Fulwiler is a host on the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM, and the author of Something Other than God, a memoir about her journey from atheism to Catholicism. Her website is ConversionDiary.com.

“How could a reasonable person living in the 21st century actually believe that at the Catholic Mass, bread and wine are truly (like, not symbolically) changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ?

This was one of my biggest stumbling blocks when considering Catholicism. When I first heard that the Church still believes that the Mass makes Christ’s one sacrifice at Calvary present here and now, that on Holy Thursday the Lord made it possible that bread and wine could be turned into the flesh and blood of God himself, I prayerfully thought: “Are you kidding me?” I’d never heard a bolder, more audacious claim made by a modern religion.

There was a part of me that kept hoping I’d find that it was all a misunderstanding, that Catholics were only required to believe that the consecration of the Eucharist was a really, really, really important symbolic event. I was a lifelong atheist, after all. It was enough of a feat that I even came to believe in God in the first place. It was enough of a leap of faith for me to believe that some miracles might have happened a few times throughout history. But to ask a former militant atheist to believe that a miracle happens at every single Catholic Mass, that bread and wine are actually changed into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ despite the fact that they look exactly the same… it seemed too much to ask.

It is surprising, then, that when I consider how much my life has changed since my husband and I both became Catholic at Easter Vigil in 2007, I find that there is really only one thing to talk about: the Eucharist.

I could try to pen a great ode proclaiming my joy at having come to know God on a level I never imagined possible for someone like me. I could write about the challenges we’ve faced, and the oasis that our newfound faith provided for us when we felt cast out into the desert. I could talk about the freeing power of Confession. I could say something about how my life is unrecognizable from what it was a decade ago. But when I started to write on each of those topics, I realized that each one of them — everything, really — comes back to the Eucharist.

By the time I received my first Communion I had come to accept that the teaching on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is true. Or, perhaps more accurately, I was willing to accept on faith that it was not false. I was undoubtedly being led to the Catholic Church, and found its defense of this teaching to be compelling, so I trusted that it was true in some mysterious way, even though I didn’t really get it. That was the best I could do, and I never expected to understand it any more than that.

Even as the years have rolled by, after receiving Communion week after week, I still don’t know how it works. I don’t often have a visceral reaction when I first see the consecrated host held above the altar, and don’t think I ever felt the Holy Spirit hit me like a ton of bricks the moment the consecrated host was placed on my tongue. Yet, despite the lack of immediate emotions, despite the fact that I can’t tell you exactly how it all works, I now believe with all my heart that it is true. I know that I eat the flesh and drink the blood of God at the Mass, and that it is the source of my strength.

I know it for the same reason a baby knows that its mother’s milk is the source of its nourishment: the baby can’t tell you how the milk is created by the release of prolactin and the cells in the alveoli. He can’t tell you about the importance of immunoglobulin IgA and fat-to-water ratios. He couldn’t even begin to understand how and why the milk nourishes him if you tried to explain it. He just knows how very much he needs it. He knows that the mysterious substance that his mother gives him is the source of his strength as much as he knows anything at all in his little life. And so it is with the Eucharist and me.

This belief in and love of the Eucharist is one of the most surprising things that’s ever happened to me. Never in my dreams would I have thought that I could believe such an outlandish claim. In the first months after my conversion, I would sometimes ask myself if this was all in my head, if perhaps I am eating bread and drinking wine at the Mass, but that its great symbolic value has led me to put myself in a different state of mind. And all I could come up with is this:

If this is a symbol, then I am insane.

It’s not a particularly eloquent defense of the Eucharist, but that’s about the best I can do. The way this Sacrament has slowly transformed my soul and given me a connection to God that I never knew before, the way I could easily move myself to tears at the thought of not being able to receive it, the strength I have drawn from having this direct communion with God – if these things are not real, then nothing is.

As I reflect back on my journey from atheism to Catholicism, the whole story of my life comes together in a very simple way: I realize now that my entire conversion process — really, my entire life — was one long search for the Eucharist.”

“What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.”
—Flannery O’Connor, from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

Love & Blessed Triduum,
Matthew

Sacraments, St Joseph

The Act of Dying

SaintJoseph1

I, personally, feel very privileged.  I got to brush the teeth of both my parents prior to their passing.  I was present for my mother’s passing, but not my father’s.  They were in Florida.  By that time, I had had to return to Illinois.  I kissed my father on the forehead, the last time I saw him.  An infection of his prevented the lips, and besides, fathers and their sons never kiss on the lips?  Right, men?  So, the forehead as he lay in his deathbed at the nursing home, seemed most appropriate.  Most.  Still does.  Still does.  His final words to me were, predictably, “Take care of yourself.”  This was not a glib adieu.  When he said these words, then, I knew, they always had profound meaning.  I have learned even more since.

I encountered hospice eight weeks later when my mother passed.  Everything hospice told would happen did.  A peaceful passing requires resolution.  All her children gathered.  Though she could no longer respond, we said prayers around her bed.  We each told her in our turn all was well, and so would we be, and that it was ok, it’s ok to go.  And, she did.  Peacefully.  Praise Him.

Br_Thomas_Davenport_OP
-by Br Thomas Davenport, OP (Br Thomas received his PhD in Physics from Stanford prior to joining the Order.)

“I had never heard the phrase until I spent some time visiting a hospice center, and it always struck me as incongruous. While everyone in their care was dying from one thing or another, they referred to patients who had shifted from slow and steady decline to the stage where the body starts to shut down as “actively dying.”

Unlike a normal hospital, the hospice rooms had no monitors steadily tolling the patient’s heartbeat or screaming for attention when vital signs change, so the evidence of this new phase varied – perhaps a particular weakening of the breath, a lack of blood flow to extremities, or an inability to keep the patient conscious. This stage could still last for days, and the more I witnessed such a decline the more this “active” part of dying seemed oddly named.

In a certain sense, all death is passive. It comes about when the human body can no longer fulfill its life-sustaining functions because of disease, trauma, or simple weakness. Unlike the acts of speaking or running or jumping, the hospice patient’s “active” dying is something that happens to him, not something he does.

We cannot simply will our body to stop functioning in the way we can will to raise our right hand. The truly human acts related to dying are always indirect. For good or for ill, they are only preparatory for a moment that we never fully control.

This thought struck me profoundly on my last visit to Fr. William Augustine Wallace, O.P. I had visited Fr. Wallace many times over the last four years, but by the time I first met him his Alzheimer’s had limited us to nothing more than a superficial conversation. There was a certain passivity on his part in all of our interactions, usually involving me saying something to get some response from him. Just walking into his room always drew a smile, and I would bring up his time in the Navy, his time as a priest, his teaching, or his work in natural philosophy, hoping to get a look of recognition and a few words, which usually trailed off incomplete. Early on I could ask for his blessing and he would gladly, if haltingly, oblige, but eventually I had to settle for leading him in the Our Father or a part of the Rosary.

A little over a week ago we got the news that he was declining – in hospice terms, actively dying. After compline, about ten of us brothers visited his room as he lay on the bed, eyes closed, breathing slowly, and clutching the rosary that one of the sisters had placed in his hands. He had already received the Anointing of the Sick, so a priest prayed aloud the Commendation for the Dying. He spoke loudly so that Fr. Wallace might still hear him, but I noticed no signs of recognition.

After singing the Salve Regina, we decided to pray a decade of the rosary. None of us who were there could claim to have been his friend, or even to have known him much at all, but I remember thinking that I would like to stay with him overnight, hoping that at least one of his brethren could be with him in case he did not make it until morning. By the end of the decade the slow breathing had stopped. Fr. Wallace had died surrounded by ten of his Dominican brethren praying the Rosary.

Given the passive and reactive nature of our interactions over the years it is hard to imagine that he was actively holding off the physical shutdown of his body for some particular moment like this. It was truly a beautiful moment of Divine Providence. A moment hours, days, even years in the making, most of it out of his or anyone’s control. Still, Fr. Wallace’s decline over the years was simply a longer, drawn out version of what leads up to any death. We can never really be sure when death will come or whether we will truly have the time or the power to prepare ourselves when it becomes unavoidable.

The Church has always encouraged the faithful to reflect on, to pray about, and to prepare for our own death. This is not a morbid and depressing suggestion but a humble recognition that we will all face death and that the way we face it has serious consequences. Further, the Church encourages us not to take on this task alone but to draw on the support of our fellow Christians and, most especially, the saints. They have gone before us through death to eternal life, and we can trust that they will act on our behalf even when we cannot.

The last thing I remember Fr. Wallace doing before he was actively dying was faltering along as we prayed a decade of the Rosary, the same prayer we were praying the moment that he died, insistently calling upon the help of our Blessed Mother: Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

THE REASONS ST. JOSEPH IS THE PATRON OF THE DYING

There are three reasons why St. Joseph is the special patron of the dying:

1) He is the foster father of the Eternal Judge, Who can refuse him no request.

2) He is terrible to the demons; the Church calls him the Terror of demons and Conqueror of Hell.

3) His own death was most beautiful, for he died in the arms of Jesus and Mary; this is the principal reason why he is the patron of a happy death; the death of no other Saint was so happy, so glorious.

St. Francis de Sales was of the opinion that St. Joseph died of the love of God; St. Alphonsus Liguori considered this most reasonable.

PRAYERS FOR A HAPPY DEATH

O Glorious St. Joseph, behold I choose thee today for my special patron in life and at the hour of my death. Preserve and increase in me the spirit of prayer and fervor in the service of God. Remove far from me every kind of sin; obtain for me that my death may not come upon me unawares, but that I may have time to confess my sins sacramentally and to bewail them with a most perfect understanding and a most sincere and perfect contrition, in order that I may breathe forth my soul into the hands of Jesus and Mary. Amen

O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires.

O Saint Joseph, assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me all spiritual blessings through your foster Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord, so that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer you my thanksgiving and homage.

O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His head for me, and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath.

St. Joseph, patron of departing souls, pray for me.  Amen.

Love,
Matthew