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Monday, July 25, 2016

The Apostles

Giving your life for the sake of Holy Mother Church has been the act of heroism since its founding.
The Holy Scriptures speak of martyrdom. In the Acts of the Apostles 7:56–60, St. Stephen is the first to be accounted for. As for the Apostles, James the Greater (Son of Zebedee and brother of John) and Judas the Iscariot are the only two Apostles whose deaths are cited in the Bible.
Tradition and early writings of the Church account for Peter, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Simon the Zealot, Thaddeus (Jude), James the Lesser and Matthias.
Beginning with the first Pope, Peter is believed — by tradition and the writings of Origen and Clement of Rome — to have been martyred on a cross upside down on Vatican Hill. His remains are in St. Peter's Basilica, which were publicly revealed and venerated by Pope Francis in 2013.
James the Greater was killed by Herod Agrippa I, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 12:2). He was "killed with the sword," which is interpreted to be beheading. He is buried in the Cathedral of Santiago in Spain.
James the Lesser (James the Just) is cited by St. Hegesippus and Eusebius to have been thrown from the top of the Temple by Pharisees and Scribes but did not die. He then knelt and prayed for the forgiveness of those attacking him while he was stoned, but he was actually killed by a blow to his head by a fuller's club. His remains are kept in Rome in the Church of the Twelve Holy Apostles, which is a minor basilica.
Thaddeus (Jude), after traveling throughout the East, is honored by many Orthodox churches. There is discussion of his death, whether it be by a club or shot with arrows while crucified. There is also the claim that he died naturally. The most common account, though, is that he was martyred. The manner of his death is the only discrepancy. He is buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Primal Fear

Let’s ponder a significant yet often overlooked text from Hebrews, which describes our most basic and primal fear. Our inordinate fear of what people think of us is rooted in an even deeper fear, one which is at the very core of our being. The Hebrews text both names it and describes it as being the source of our bondage.  In order to unlock the secret of the text, I want to suggest to you an interpretation that will allow its powerful diagnosis to have a wider and deeper effect.
Consider, then, this text from Hebrews:
Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb 2:14-15).
Now this passage is clear enough that the origin of our bondage to sin is the devil. But it also teaches that the devil’s hold on us is the fear of death. This is what he exploits in order to keep us in bondage.
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Sunday, July 17, 2016

Mass and Death

One of the reasons why I think there will be an attack on priests who support the Sarah Appeal™ is because the liberal elite hear in it a criticism of their projects perpetrated in the name of the reforms called for by the Council Fathers in Sacrosanctum Concilium.  They think the suggestion that, perhaps, we could say Mass as our forebears did for so long is an accusation that they were wrong all along.  In fact, the versus populum thing was built precisely on a sandy foundation of incorrect scholarship which experts such as Louis Bouyer and Joseph Jungmann eventually repudiated.  However, by the time they did that, the fix was in.
Another reason why there will be harsh blow-back for anyone who supports the Sarah Appeal™ is because ad orientem worship is an invitation to conversion.  In another post, I alerted you to a priest who touched on the moral dimension that ad orientem invokes.  HERE Ad orientem worship is itself an implicit call to right conduct.  That’s certainly a reason for Satan to hate it, to move his agents to stomp it and those who support it into the dust whence Adam came.  That’s why the Enemy will move his pawns, bishops and … queens… into action.  NB again what Card. Sarah quoted, above, from St. Ambrose De mysteriis.
Speaking of “mysteries”, another reason why ad orientem worship will be ferociously resisted is because it is yet another corrective toward producing during Holy Mass the apophatic conditions in which the worshiper might have an encounter with Mystery.  This encounter is both alluring and frightening.  It is alluring because we who are in the image and likeness of God are restless to be with God, who in this life is utterly mysterious, whom we can only glimpse darkly, as if in a glass or perhaps through the crack in the rock as He passes on the other side. It is frightening because it moves us to deal with the reality of death, the knowledge that one day we will cross over.  Holy Mass must prepare us for death.   But if we are too afraid to deal with this, then we fill our liturgical worship with myriad distractions.  We eliminate silence.  We reduce music and ornament to the lowest sort of thing.  We banalize the language and eliminate anything too challenging.  We do all that we can to eliminate the difficult, challenging apophatic conditions that are the necessary propaedeutic for that alluringly frightening encounter.  If Holy Mass is not helping you to get ready for your own death, it isn’t fulfilling one of its most important purposes.
Card. Sarah placed his finger directly on a huge wound.  His speech will some day be recognized as an important turning point, a healing point.  But remember that, as Augustine once pointed out, the doctor doesn’t stop cutting just because the patient screams for him to stop.  Things will get mighty noisy and ugly before this is over, my friends.
Therefore, clean your house.
Examine your consciences, look over your vocation and your duties, and GO TO CONFESSION!
And please, I beg you, pray for me.  I can feel it on the horizon.  Pray for all priests and bishops.  Pray that their minds and hearts be opened and that their actions reflect a loving balance of prudence and courage.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Eucharist

The Eucharist comes to us as a work and gift of the whole Trinity. – Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM A friend recently told me that her father used to help her mother in the kitchen with the most tedious of tasks. One thing he liked to do was peel walnuts and sort them into buckets. Then, he would give bags of the nuts to friends and family. My friend’s father recently passed away and a few months later she reached into her freezer to get some of the walnuts to make banana bread. As she looked at the bag of walnuts she realized that even though her father was gone, he had left her nourishment for her journey. At that moment, my friend suddenly had a deeper understanding of the Eucharist. Jesus knew he was going to ascend into heaven, but he left his followers with something to nourish them, and not just earthly food but his own Body and Blood. We are looked after. We are cared for. We have a heavenly Father who knows our every need and goes to great lengths to give us what we require. Our daily bread is not a symbol or mere earthly sustenance; it is true spiritual food, the real flesh and blood of our Savior the God-man. The Eucharist is nourishment that transcends ceremony and finds its power and its essence in the very workings of the Trinity itself. Here are some of the amazing effects of the Eucharist:
1) Union with Christ: Reception of Jesus in the Eucharist fuses our being with that of Christ. St. Cyril of Alexandria describes it as similar to “when melted wax is fused with other wax.” The Christian journey is a journey to become like Christ, to “abide in him” and he in us. The Eucharist is the means for this to happen. 2) Destruction of venial sin: The Eucharist destroys venial sin. Destroys! Through sin, the fervor of our charity can be dampened by venial sin. But when we receive the Eucharist we are united with Charity himself, which burns away the vestiges of our venial sins and leaves us cleansed and ready to begin again.
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Sunday, July 3, 2016

Why does God allow violence to exist in the world?

Christians are obliged morally to combat injustice wherever it is and to work tirelessly for the salvation of souls.

The mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12 shocked and grieved many Americans. Coupled with the high number of shootings in the city of Chicago this year, Catholics are asking, why does God allow such violence to occur? What does it mean?
To shed some light on this difficult issue, editor Joyce Duriga spoke with moral theologian Melanie Barrett. Barrett chairs the Department of Moral Theology at the University of St. Mary of Lake/Mundelein Seminary and is the author of “Love’s Beauty at the Heart of the Christian Moral Life: The Ethics of Catholic Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.”
Catholic New World: Gun violence has been at the forefront of the minds of Catholics in Chicago with the rise in violence this year and with the massacre in Orlando. Why does God permit violence in the world? How does our faith help us understand violence? How is violence related to the presence of evil in the world?
Melanie Barrett: Why God permits evil in the world is a mystery. But we can speculate that it has to do with the meaning of love.
God’s very nature is love. He is a communion of persons eternally united in love. Because we human beings are made in the image of God, we too are called to love, not minimally but maximally: to love God with the entirety of our heart, soul, mind and strength; to love our neighbors as ourselves; and to love even our enemies (rather than taking revenge upon them).
Indeed, love is the human vocation. As the Second Vatican Council proclaimed, “Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes 24).
But in order to be capable of love, we must be free. Love can never be demanded or coerced; it can only be given freely. Otherwise, it is not truly love.
Animals perform many good acts — like protecting and nurturing their offspring, even at great risk to themselves — but they do so out of instinct, not love. By contrast, when human beings lay down their lives for the sake of the others — as did the Christian martyrs, in imitation of Jesus — they do so freely, and out of genuine love.
By endowing us with freedom, God makes it possible for us to love. But he also risks that we might refuse to love. And this dichotomy gives rise to the drama of salvation: either we say “yes” to God, through faith expressing itself in love; or we say “no” to God, by opting for selfishness, hatred and malevolent destruction.
We see the “yes” in a world in which the sacrificial love of saints like Maximilian Kolbe shines forth amid the carnage of the Nazi death camps and where Christian martyrs in the Middle East testify to the faith while being raped, tortured and brutally murdered by ISIS.
Although God permits the weeds and the wheat to grow together — because uprooting all of the bad weeds would destroy much of the good wheat as well — at the time of the harvest, the weeds will be permanently destroyed and the wheat will be gathered carefully under God’s protection (Mt 14:24-30). But this will take place on God’s timetable, not ours.
In the meantime, we Christians are obliged morally to combat injustice — wherever we find it — and to work tirelessly for the salvation of souls. We cannot build the kingdom of God on earth perfectly, but we can further God’s reign by preventing the weeds from completely taking over.
CNW: What should we learn from violence in the world? Is God sending us a message when these things happen?
Barrett: I don’t believe that God is “sending us a message” when unspeakable acts of violence occur. But such incidents do challenge us to respond morally with compassion for the victims and their families; with a thirst for justice, to remedy any wrongs that have been committed; and eventually, in the long run, by forgiving perpetrators: for “they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34), and “if [we] do not forgive others, neither will [the] Father forgive [our] transgressions” (Mt 6:15).
CNW: Violence results in suffering. How can we view suffering through the lens of our faith?
Barrett: By creating a world in which freedom exists, God permits evil — and suffering — to exist as well. However, by means of God’s providence, and with the help of his grace, we can grow spiritually through suffering. Because Christ redeemed us by voluntarily suffering on our behalf, “human suffering itself has been redeemed,” so our own suffering can share in Christ’s redemptive suffering (St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris 19).
We also can become more virtuous by developing courage, perseverance, patience and compassion. By turning to God in our distress, we can deepen our faith and hope as well.
As St. Paul taught, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:3-5).
Above all, suffering can provide the occasion for us to grow in love: either by allowing others to care for us in our time of need or by actively caring for others who are enduring hardships.
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