The Christocentric Life

Quote of the Day: St. Maximilian Kolbe

2011-08-14T16:35:00.000-05:00

The militant desires for everyone the light of faith, happiness, forgiveness of sins, and a heart afire with God's love. His dream is the happiness of all humanity in God.--St. Maximilian Kolbe

Quote of the Day: Bring Christ to the World-Blessed John Paul II

2011-08-08T07:56:00.000-05:00

It is not enough to discover Christ-you must bring Him to others! The world today is one great mission land, even in countries of longstanding Christian tradition.--Blessed John Paul II

Quote of the Day: Gerard Manley Hopkins

2011-08-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

The best ideal is the true
And other truth is none.
All glory be ascribed to
The holy Three in One.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins, Summa

The Feast of the Transfiguration

2011-08-06T09:56:00.000-05:00

August 6, 2011 by Communio

José Granados,, Embodied Light, Incarnate Image: The Mystery of Jesus Transfigured. (pdf, 2008).
From the text:

What is new and surprising in Christ is that in him we see not only a fraction of the past, but the ultimate origin from which everything comes; that he foreshadows not only a slice of the future, but the ultimate goal of the universe. In the life of the Son, time encounters its own truth by making visible the depths of eternity.

Now the glory of the one who eternally comes from the Father and eternally returns to him in love enters into the flesh, into the space where past and future, coming from and walking toward, memory and promise, are joined in the density of the present. We see then how Christ can fulfill the human experience of time beyond what is imaginable while faithfully preserving its structure. These reflections allow us to see in the Transfiguration a key to understanding the rhythm of salvation history. That the glory of Easter is anticipated on Mount Tabor is no exception, but rather a witness to Christ’s dominion over time, including the past and future. The second epistle of Peter tells us, indeed, that the Transfiguration validates the Old Testament in retrospect. From this point of view it is possible to see how the prophets and the just of the Old Testament were justified by the Spirit of Christ. We can glimpse also the meaning of Tertullian’s sentence, quoted in Gaudium et spes 22, in which he sees in the image of man a prefiguration of Christ’s image: “Thus that clay, already putting on the image of Christ who was to be in the flesh, was not only a work of God but also a token of him.” (full text)

Quote of the Day: St. Maximilian Kolbe on Truth, Good & Evil

2011-08-06T07:13:00.002-05:00

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"

~ St. Maximilian Kolbe

Quote of the Day: The Devout Life

2011-08-05T09:25:00.000-05:00

But even as Josue and Caleb declared that the Land of Promise was good and fair, and the possession of it would be easy and pleasant; so the Holy Spirit, speaking by all the Saints, and our blessed Lord Himself assure us that a devout life is a lovely, a pleasant, and a happy life.-St. Frances de Sales

Tolkien: Lover of the Logos

2011-08-04T15:20:00.001-05:00

August 4, 2011 by Communio

From the Spring 1993 issue: Mark Sebanc, JRR Tolkien: Lover of the Logos (pdf).
From the text:

Tolkien’s is an exquisitely proleptic art that takes a pagan, pre-Christian universe and suffuses it discreetly with a sacramental holiness stemming implicitly from what Balthasar makes bold to call a Christian form. . . . . Like a colossus, Tolkien bestrides the abyss which separates the ancient and medieval worldviews from that of modern man, who has utterly lost sight of the Christ form as the primary means of access to the noumenal world. The power of the Word has been repudiated, and all around us now we see only its debased and slatternly distortions, hideous and mass-produced, like Tolkien’s Orcs. Tolkien’s art restores the incarnational, Christo-logical inclination of language. . . . (full text).

Two Wonderful Videos on Catholicism

2011-08-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

Enriching the Good: Toward the Development of a Relational Anthropology

2011-06-27T09:01:00.000-05:00

June 27, 2011 by Communio

From the Winter, 2010 issue:
D.C. Schindler (bio). Enriching the Good: Toward the Development of a Relational Anthropology
From the text:

[W]ealth is not simply a collection of possessions (or indeed an abstract measurement of their monetary value) but more fundamentally a way of being, and specifically, being good. A response to the problem of poverty requires, before some sort of redistribution of wealth, more radically a reconception of wealth, and so an “enrichment” of the notion of the good, or it risks reinforcing the individualistic atomism at the root of poverty.

Ultimately, in order to overcome the poverty of individualism, which is a spiritual poverty at the root of material poverty, we must think of the common good in its most transcendent sense, and this entails a recovery of the Platonic understanding of goodness. (full text)

The Mystery of Grace by Romano Guardini

2011-06-25T09:34:00.002-05:00

Through your creation, O Lord, goes a voice that reminds us of something that is above everything created. The things and their ordering, earth, sun and stones, seem to be pure reality, but our heart knows that they proceed from your holy freedom, and are gifts that should always be accepted afresh. And so they point away from themselves to something higher than they are; but what they might be they do not say.

This indication is stronger in our own life. Plants and animals grow from their own nature and perfect themselves in it; not so men. Only in joining with this other does he come to himself; he gains his own being only when he gives himself to the other. But there is nothing mortal that could be the last fulfilling encounter for him, and so he is always wandering and searching.

But what he in fact seeks, he never gains through his own strength. Only grace can give it to him. On grace depends our salvation, but we have neither a right to grace nor the power to compel it. Grace must reveal itself to us, and only then will we recognize it. Grace must give itself to us, and only then will we possess it. And in it alone do we receive our own true self, which you, O God, assigned to us as you created us.

In the work of your redemption, O Lord, you started a fresh work. You yourself came and called to man. Your being, veiled from all creation, “shown out to him in the face of Jesus Christ”. You showed him how he was lost, and offered him forgiveness. Your love and holiness streamed out to him; now he can accept them and share them.

All that is your free gift, and yet the answer to our innermost need. We cannot conceive it with our own strength, but when you reveal it, we feel that it is the truth upon which we live. We must preserve it from the claim of the world and from the contradiction of our own inadequacy. But when our heart is open, the truth speaks within it and bears up our existence.

Awake within me a holy disquiet, O Lord, so that at all times I may search for you. Teach me to understand the mystery according to which you made my being: that I can only live from that which is above me, and that I lose myself as soon as I place myself within myself. Take my hand; help me to cross over to you, so that I may truly find myself in you.

Amen.

(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Become Humble like Mary-Mother Teresa

2011-06-24T07:50:00.002-05:00

With deep appreciation, I thank you for you remembering me in your prayers. My gratitude will be my prayer for you that you may become humble like Mary, so as to become more and more holy like Jesus. Together, let us thank God for all his tender love and care. Continue to pray for me and my sisters that we may not spoil God’s work. Always be one heart full of love in the hearts of Jesus and Mary by loving one another with a most tender and forgiving love.--Mother Teresa

The Creation of Man-Romano Guardini

2011-06-23T12:11:00.000-05:00

O Lord, you made all things. You gave them their being, set them in their place and gave them their measure. They are filled with your mystery, and the pious heart is moved by it.

We people, too, O Lord, were called into being and placed between you and the things. You have formed us in your own image and made us to share in your dominion. You have placed your world into our hands that it may serve us and that in it we may complete our work. However, we must remain your subjects, and our dominion becomes rebellion and robbery if we do not bow down before you, who alone bears the eternal crown and is Lord in his own right.

Wonderful, O God, is your generosity. You did not fear for your sovereignty when you created beings who were masters of themselves and entrusted your will to their freedom. Great and truly regal are you!

You have placed the honor of your will in my hands. Each word of your revelation says that you respect and trust me, that you give me dignity and responsibility. Teach me to understand that. Give me that holy maturity that is capable of receiving the right that you grant and of assuming the responsibility that you entrust. Keep my heart awake that at all times it may be before you, and let what I do become one with the command and the obedience to which you have called me.

Amen.

(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Working With the Grammar of Creation: Benedict XVI, Wendell Berry, and the Unity of the Catholic Moral Vision

2011-06-23T11:20:00.002-05:00

June 23, 2011 by Communio

From the Winter 2010 issue:
David Cloutier. Working With the Grammar of Creation: Benedict XVI, Wendell Berry, and the Unity of the Catholic Moral Vision
From the text:

At the heart of Berry’s work is a conviction about the pattern of nature, a pattern he seeks to discover through the careful practice of farming. He is sometimes called an “agrarian writer,” and he notes the influence of the “Southern agrarians” on his work. Yet he worries that, for some of these writers, their agrarianism “is abstract, too purely mental . . . too often remote from the issues of practice.” Berry’s own life is “forcibly removed” from “abstraction,” and instead “must submit to the unending effort to change one’s mind and ways to fit one’s farm.” But ultimately such effort is aimed at “seeing in nature the inescapable standard and in natural processes the necessary pattern for any human use of the land.”

The patterns are discovered through ignorance and discipline. “Ignorance” here refers to a “humbling knowledge” that is “a way of acknowledging the uniqueness of every individual creature, deserving respect, and the uniqueness of every moment, deserving wonder.” Such a way of proceeding acknowledges limits, both in oneself and in the human condition. Since we are often uncomfortable with such limits, hewing to them also requires discipline. In preferring a lack of discipline, we ordinarily end up allowing our desires to determine what we will do and how we will do it. However, “we have, in fact, no right to ask the world to conform to our desires.” . . .

[The] conflict between environmental romanticism and industrial capitalism, two oversimplified patterns, also appears in virtually the same form in our thinking about human sexuality. Indeed, Berry argues that our sexual lives are governed primarily by a “sexual romanticism,” that worships “true love,” trying to defend against the “sexual capitalism” of purely instrumental use of sex for pleasure. Sexual capitalists, he remarks, are merely disillusioned sexual romantics. As he puts it wryly, “The sexual romantic croons, ‘You be-long to me.’ The sexual capitalist believes the same thing, but has stopped crooning.” An oversimplified pattern of possessive ownership replaces the much more complex mutual belonging that is marriage.

Summarizing these oversimplified grammars in an essay on language, Berry diagnoses its “increasing unreliability” by explaining two types of language that fail to be accountable in their imprecision, and hence oversimplification. One kind of language is “diminished by subjectivity, which ends in meaninglessness . . . .” This is the language of expressivist romanticism. But then there is also “a language diminished by objectivity, or so-called objectivity (inordinate or irresponsible ambition), which ends in confusion.” This is the language of specialization, which Berry so often derides, a language characteristic especially of industrial science, but which also infects most areas of knowledge. Both these sorts of language, in different ways, ultimately dispense with the matter of truth, insofar as they fail to be accountable to the reality which they are trying to designate. Therefore, the languages are useful for concealing ignorance, but also for attempting supposed knowledge of things without the practices of discipline actually required. (full text.)

DAVID CLOUTIER is associate professor of theology at Mount St. Mary’s
University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

St. John Fisher-An Example for Our Time

2011-06-22T07:38:00.001-05:00

Saint John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr
If more Catholic Bishops were like Fisher more Catholic politicians would be like St. Thomas More
June 22nd

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester
Born at Beverly, 1469 - martyred June 22, 1535, Tower of London
Canonized (with Saint Thomas More) 1935

Saint John Fisher studied theology in Cambridge, England and became Bishop of Rochester. His friend Saint Thomas More wrote of him, "I reckon in this realm no one man, in wisdom, learning, and long approved virtue together, meet to be matched and compared with him."

Saint John Fisher and his friend Saint Thomas More gave up their lives in testimony to the unity of the Church and to the indissolubility of marriage.

Source: Daily Roman Missal, Edited by Rev. James Socías, Midwest Theological Forum, Chicago, Illinois ©2003

Born at Beverly, 1469 + June 22, 1535, Tower of London

Reply to Bishops Stokesley, Gardiner and Tunstal, sent to the Tower by Thomas Cromwell to persuade Fisher to submit to the King:

Methinks it had been rather our parts to stick together in repressing these violent and unlawful intrusions and injuries dayly offered to our common mother, the holy Church of Christ, than by any manner of persuasions to help or set forward the same.

And we ought rather to seek by all means the temporal destruction of the so ravenous wolves, that daily go about worrying and devouring everlastingly, the flock that Christ committed to our charge, and the flock that Himself died for, than to suffer them thus to range abroad.

But (alas) seeing we do it not, you see in what peril the Christian state now standeth: We are besieged on all sides, and can hardly escape the danger of our enemy. And seeing that judgment is begone at the house of God, what hope is there left (if we fall) that the rest shall stand!

The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it. And therefore seeing the matter is thus begun, and so faintly resisted on our parts, I fear that we be not the men that shall see the end of the misery.

Wherefore, seeing I am an old man and look not long to live, I mind not by the help of God to trouble my conscience in pleasing the king this way whatsoever become of me, but rather here to spend out the remnant of my old days in praying to God for him.

On the scaffold he said to the people assembled:

Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.

Wheefore I do desire you all to help and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the Catholic faith free from any fear; and I beseech Almighty God of His infinite goodness to save the king and this Realm, and that it may please Him to hold His holy hand over it, and send the king good Counsel.

He then knelt, said the Te Deum, In te domine speravi, and submitted to the axe.

Of all the English bishops, only Bishop John Fisher of Rochester publicly opposed Henry VIII's mandatory Oath of Allegience, which unlawfully declared King Henry the head of the Church of England. The bishop's stand ultimately cost him his life. May his example inspire all Catholics today, especially the bishops on whose courageous leadership the Church depends.

Collect:

Father,
You confirm the true faith
with the crown of martyrdom.
May the prayers of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More
give us the courage to proclaim our faith
by the witness of our lives.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. + Amen.

First Reading: I Peter 4:12-19
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And "If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?" Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 10:34-39
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

The Creation of the World-Romano Guardini

2011-06-21T06:47:00.002-05:00

O God, your revelation is a light for our mind, that it may understand, and a call to our heart, that it may hear and obey. So teach us properly to accept the message that you made man and with him all things.

We were born through you. We do not originate from the silent elements, but from the free power of your commanding word; not from the prime matter of the world, but from your clear truth. And all things were born through you. The world is not nature shrouded in its own mystery, but your work. You conceived it and brought it into being. From you it has reality and strength, being and purpose, and you bore witness to it, calling it “good” and “very good”.

I believe that all was created by you, O God. Teach me to understand this truth. It is the truth of existence, and if it is forgotten, then all sinks into injustice and folly. My heart has agreed to it. I do not wish to live in my own right, but in freedom through you. By my own efforts I have nothing; everything is a gift from you, and only becomes mine when I receive it from you.

Always I receive myself from your hand. So it is, and so it should be. That is my truth and my joy. Your eye is seeing me always, and I live upon your gaze, my creator and my salvation. Teach me, in the stillness of your presence, to understand the mystery that I am. And that I am through you and before you and for you.

Amen.

(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Tracey Rowland: The Anglican Patrimony

2011-06-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

18 06 2011

Professor Tracey Rowland is Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage & Family in Melbourne, Australia, and gave this address at a conference for those exploring joining a Personal Ordinariate in Australia. She is also the author of the popular and excellent Ratzinger’s Faith, published by Oxford University Press.

Pope Benedict XVI has consistently held that the ecumenical process is one of acquiring unity in diversity, not structural reintegration. For example, in his Ecumenical Address in Cologne in 2005 he remarked that ‘Ecumenism does not mean what could be called an ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history – it does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline’.

In this address he also spoke of dialogue as an exchange of gifts in which the Churches and Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches. This theme was reiterated in a parallel address in the Crypt of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, at the second World Youth Day of his pontificate. He noted that whereas an idea aims at truth, a gift expresses love. Both, he concluded, were essential elements of dialogue.

The announcement of the establishment of a Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans has been the most dramatic example of Pope Benedict’s attempt to put these principles into operation. According to Cardinal Levada:

It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this ecumenical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows.

In his published commentary on Anglicanorum Coetibus Cardinal Levada noted that this proposal of a Personal Ordinariate was consistent with the earlier ecumenical efforts of Cardinal Mercier of Belgium who explored the possibility of an Anglican union with the Catholic Church under the principle of an Anglicanism ‘reunited but not absorbed’. Cardinal Levada also noted that paragraph 13 of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism recognised the special place of the Anglican Communion as a body in which Catholic traditions and institutions were to some degree retained after the Reformation.

From my personal experience I would say that for many Anglo-Catholics the barriers to full communion with the See of Peter have tended to be primarily cultural rather than doctrinal. They have been reluctant to seek full membership of the Catholic Church because of a not unreasonable belief that they would have to abandon whole elements of their Anglican cultural heritage. It is precisely this problem Pope Benedict hopes the creation of an Ordinariate will overcome.

Read the complete essay here.

Caritas in Veritate and Economic Theory-Nicholas J. Healy, Jr.

2011-06-20T09:32:00.002-05:00

June 20, 2011 by Communio
From the Winter, 2010 issue: A Symposium on Caritas in veritate.
Nicholas J. Healy, Jr. (bio): Caritas in veritate and Economic Theory
From the text:

. . . Benedict is also asking us to re-conceive the meaning of economic activity and economic logic; the study of “efficient use of scarce resources” is not realistic. There is “more” to economic relations than efficiency or utility. The “economy” allows for an exchange of goods between members of the human family; market exchanges are an integral part of human life and the common good of humanity. The logic of gift is not extraneous to the logic of the market; it rather opens the door to good economic analysis. . . (full text)

The Anthropological Vision of Caritas in Veritate in Light of Cultural and Economic Life in the United States

2011-06-15T07:28:00.000-05:00

June 14, 2011 by Communio

From the Winter 2010 issue:
David L. Schindler. The Anthropological Vision of Caritas in veritate in Light of Cultural and Economic Life in the United States.
From the text:

Caritas in veritate takes up the complicated question of technology in its last chapter. Benedict of course acknowledges that technology “enables us to exercise dominion over matter” and to “improve our conditions of life,” and in this way goes to “the heart of the vocation of human labor” (n. 69). The relevant point, however, is that “technology is never merely technology” (n. 69). It always invokes some sense of the order of man’s naturally given relations to God and others. Technology thus, rightly conceived, must be integrated into the call to holiness, indeed into the covenant with God, implied in this order of relations (cf. n. 69): integrated into the idea of creation as something first given to man, as gift, “not something self-generated” (n. 68) or produced by man.

Here again we see the importance of the family. It is inside the family that we first learn a “technology” that respects the dignity of the truly weak and vulnerable—the just-conceived and the terminally-ill, for example—for their own sake. It is inside the family, indeed the family as ordered to worship, that we first learn the habits of patient interiority necessary for genuine relationships: for the relations that enable us to see the truth, goodness, and beauty of others as given (and also to maintain awareness of “the human soul’s ontological depths, as probed by the saints”: n. 76). It is inside the family that we can thus learn the limits of the dominant social media of communication made available by technology, which promote surface movements of consciousness involving mostly the gathering of bits of information, and foster inattention to man in his depths and his transcendence as created by God. It is in the family that we first become open to the meaning of communication in its ultimate and deepest reality as a dia-logos of love that is fully revealed by God in the life, and thus including also the suffering, of Jesus Christ (cf. n. 4).

Read the full article.

DAVID L. SCHINDLER (bio) is Provost and Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

A Birthday Prayer (for Veronica Rose Birzer)

2011-06-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

Veronica Rose Birzer born June 11, 2011

by Stephen Masty

A Birthday Prayer
(for Veronica Rose Birzer)

Hear the tocsin as it blows,
Down the mountain as it snows,
Word across the valley goes:
Born to us, Veronica Rose.

As our days turn middling dark,
As decay around us grows,
Pray she be our Joan of Arc,
Fearsome to our craven foes;
Arm her with Thine Holy Word,
Keep her safe where ‘ ere she goes,
Strong of will and mind and sword,
Make her, Lord, Veronica Rose.

As the face of Christ was washed,
(By her namesake, bear in mind),
Keep her selfish instincts quashed;
By Our Lady, make her kind;
Let her, Lord, draw joy in store
From all Thee made and all that grows;
Guard her soul for evermore,
And keep her Thine, Veronica Rose.

A brief Reflection on Marriage: In Unity and Love

2011-06-10T17:12:00.003-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

Lt. & Mrs. Winston Elliott IV

(Dedicated to Marti & Winston IV)

Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone..."

This is the first time in Sacred Scripture that our Lord says anything in creation is "not good." The light was good. The stars and the beasts of the earth were good. But it is not good that man should be alone. So our Creator, in perfect love, creates the human community of love. "I will make him a helper fit for him.” Not only will God give man a helper but the way he forms woman brings union to all humanity.

Genesis 2:21 "So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man...took one of his ribs ...and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man." So this new creation of God was not to be as the beasts and the stars. Not to be separate from man. For this new creation was joined to man out of his own flesh. How did the man react to this gift from his Creator? "Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...” Adam saw that woman was unique for she was forever a part of him. For she was created from the "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." The woman completes the man. He is not complete without her for she has his very bone as her beginning. Man has been given life by his Creator. Woman has been given her very existence as gift out of the very substance of man. What is the appropriate response to such gifts? Gratitude. Gratitude for the life, from love, God has given to man and woman. And gratitude for the gift of one another. For God now viewed his Creation, "everything he had made, and behold, it was very good."

What does this mean to sons of Adam today? What is man to do in relation to his life with woman? "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh."

Wedding feast at Cana

They become one flesh in the sacrament of marriage. How important is this to Jesus? Perhaps we can draw an answer to this from the wedding in Cana. Jesus lived life with a purpose. He had a mission and what he did in his earthly life tells us what we should remember about his, and our, mission. In Cana he is part of the celebration of the joining of a man and woman. There he performs his first public miracle. Is this a sign of the importance of marriage in the kingdom of God?

Even this is only the beginning of the story. Now they are joined. They are one flesh. How are they to live the life of nuptial bliss? Jesus gives an answer to this question.

In John 17:21 Jesus prays that his disciples "...may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." With these words as a guide the family, the center of Christian life, may emulate the perfect community of love, the Blessed Trinity. Then they will play their part inspiring the whole world to believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Are we really capable of living love patterned after that perfect community? Jesus prayed that it would be so: "I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." A prayer for perfect love so that we may demonstrate to the world the Father's love. This is a mission for marriage and family life. Jesus wants this for us, his family. This is why he prays that "the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” He in us and we in him. One flesh. A union with God and with one another. Then may come forth generations to spread God's love to the world. Let it be so. Amen.

Gospel Reflection-Do You Love Me? Really?

2011-06-10T14:59:00.002-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 21:15-19

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you fastened your own belt and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will fasten your belt for you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Is the resurrected Lord being hard on Peter? Does he doubt the intensity of Peter's love for him? “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” This is the question asked of the disciple who was still wet from swimming to Jesus. The others in the boat were more restrained. They brought the boat in with the catch. Not Peter. He jumped in the water when he realized it was the resurrected Jesus standing on the shore. And now Jesus is asking Peter "do you love me more than these." Perhaps Jesus is thinking that Peter must speak the words out in a loud declaration for his own good. Especially after he loudly denied our Lord three times. Peter affirms: "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Now it is time for Jesus to give Peter directions. Jesus is preparing for his Ascension and he appears to give Peter singular responsibility. Jesus asks Peter to “Feed my lambs.” Peter must feed Jesus' flock. Jesus is not finished. "Do you love me?” Didn't Peter just answer this? Doesn't this seem to be a "really?" from Jesus? Or is he simply pushing Peter for a deeper meditation on what it means to love Jesus? So Peter again affirms “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus asks him to “Tend my sheep.” Is there a difference between tending the sheep and feeding them? Does it mean to guard them as well as teach them? Jesus does not explain.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” Wouldn't we be grieved if our beloved Jesus asked this three times? After all, we don't want to consider that he may doubt our love. And yet, let us think of our own lives for a moment. Have there been times when we turned away from Jesus? In our sinfulness have we denied Jesus our whole hearts? Have we placed worldly things ahead of him? Have we at times focused our lives on sex, power or money instead of our relationship with God? Are we always deeply aware of, and bold in our gratitude for, all that God has done for us? No? Then perhaps Jesus may be moved to ask us more than once "do you love me?" Maybe he is asking us this every time we turn away from him. Hundreds or thousands of times in our lives. How many times has he had to ask me "do you love me?" Perhaps, as with Peter, our Lord wished us to replace every denial, every sin, with a statement of love for him. "And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep." Jesus asks for Peter to answer the question. But Jesus clearly asks Peter not just for words, but also for action. Feed my lambs (little ones?), tend my sheep, feed my sheep. Love is fulfilled by action. Love without action is dead.

Lord we pray that with your grace we may say "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Help us to turn away from sin and turn to you in love. A love which is whole, complete, full and abiding. A love which always says Yes to you. Yes in words. Yes in our hearts. Yes in Action. Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes. Lord, I Love YOU. Amen.

Gospel Reflection-Unity in Love, The Blessed Trinity

2011-06-09T09:28:00.002-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 17:20-26

Our Lady of the Atonement Chapel, San Antonio

20 “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Jesus prayed for us. Jesus is praying for us. How do I know? Because his words are my guide and my hope. “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word..." The word of God, the teachings of Jesus, were spread throughout the world by his disciples. And generations of Christ's ambassadors have continued to spread the truth that is to be found in Jesus for over 2000 years. And now is our time to spread the Gospel. But first, let us remember what Jesus asked the Father for us. Jesus prayed "...that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you..." He prays for unity. Unity in Christ. Unity for all of his disciples. And not just unity. Jesus prays that we may have a share in the divine unity shared by the Father and the Son. Joined by the Spirit, the personae of the love which is shared by the Father and the Son, this divine unity is the model for our hope. For we are born in relationship. Our existence is defined by, made possible by, our relationship with our Creator. We are born in relationship with the Blessed Trinity. We have the gift of life because the Triune Community of Love breathed life into us. Stop for a minute. Meditate upon the model of perfect love and unity given to us by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This unending union of love, beauty, joy and wisdom is the reason we exist. We are made by, and made for, unity and love. What will happen if we begin to live this Trinitarian vision? Jesus says that if we do then "...they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." We will show Jesus to the world in how we love one another.

What an incredible prayer Jesus shares with his disciples in these words. And he shares them with us for he prays for all who "believe in me through their word." Jesus asks that we "that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one." "Perfectly one?" Really? Amazing. Unfathomable. And yet would Jesus pray for something that is impossible? Is anything impossible for God? If we begin to live in unity with each other and the Trinity then "the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." How will Jesus help us do this? He prays that "they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world." If we are "with" him we may behold his glory. We may behold the love shared by the Blessed Trinity "before the foundation of the world." This is overwhelming. Are we overwhelmed by this amazing glorious love? Is it our inspiration and our hope? Let us pray that it may become so more and more every day of our lives. Every every second that we breathe. For our very breath is a gift of of love from the Community of Love. In gratitude we say Yes. Yes, to the Triune God. Show us your unity and love. And with your grace we may emulate your perfection.

"O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you; and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”Amen.

The Spiritual Machine

2011-06-08T16:41:00.000-05:00

by Stratford Caldecott

I was speaking with someone who has lost heart because going to Mass seems to do nothing for him. There is no spiritual experience involved, so that he is just going through the motions. It increasingly feels like a waste of time, if not actual hypocrisy. The answer to this problem, I think, lies in how we participate. The Mass is the greatest-ever work of "spiritual engineering". Like a suspension bridge over some huge chasm, or a giant piece of machinery, it is intended to do something. But in order for it to do its work, you need to cooperate or participate. You do have to walk over the bridge, or turn the machine on. Most of the time we don't do that: we just watch. The only way to participate is to give ourselves spiritually - that is, in our will, or intention - to the action of the Mass. The Liturgy of the Word at the beginning of Mass, with the act of contrition and the reading of Scripture, is designed to prepare us to do that. The actual giving takes place in the Offertory, when we add our hearts to the sacrifice. The first part is like a kind of "melting" of our hard hearts, which are frozen in a particular configuration, a particular shape. We are supposed to then "pour ourselves" into the Mass, just like molten metal is poured from a crucible into a mould, where it can be set into a new shape. But this is harder than it sounds. We tend to want to hold at least part of ourselves back. We are afraid of changing, or we are attached to something we don't want to let go of, which we can't give to God. That is the struggle, and it is that which makes Mass interesting. But to the extent - even if it is a limited extent - that we manage to let go and to give something of ourselves to God, he is able to do something with it, and we will immediately start to feel something very definite, something subtle but unmistakeable, which confirms to us that the process is happening. (Here with permission by Stratford Caldecott from All Things New.)

The One and Living God-Romano Guardini

2011-06-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

Lord, living God, you are the one and only, and there is no other but you. All divinity is yours, and that which denies itself to you is a theft from you.

In your mercy you have revealed your being to us and let us know your name. We believe in you. Keep us in disbelief, O Lord, for in it alone are we preserved, and your honor is our honor, and your rule is our salvation.

You made the world and us in it. Being and existence, life and purpose, all comes from your omnipotent and loving word. And so we bow down before you, O Lord, and pray to you.

You are that Holy One; but we are sinful and confess to it. We thank you for letting us know this, for it is truth; only truth has the power to begin again and to overcome.

You, O God, are the Lord. Lord in yourself, substantially internally, as you revealed to your messenger when you said to him: “I am who I am.” And Lord of the world, for you created it and rule it. Your rule, however, respects the freedom of created things, and gives them freedom to will and to decide. Grant that I do not forget you and do not abuse your generosity-holy and benevolent God, Lord of our existence, preserve me from that!

I pray to you, O God, for you alone “are worthy to receive blessing and honor and glory and power”.

Amen.

(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Gospel Reflection-A Spirit of Power and Love

2011-06-08T06:39:00.003-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 17:11-19
11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Amen.

Jesus prays: "Holy Father, keep them in your name...that they may be one, even as we are one..." Jesus, in his present form, is leaving the world but his disciples will remain in the world. In love he prays that his disciples will remain steadfast in the Father. What does this entail? Clearly that they should remain true to the Father and the teachings of Jesus which draw us nearer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He also prays that they "may be one, even as we are one." Jesus prays for unity for the disciples and for his Church. A unity which is modeled upon the unity of the Father and the Son. A divine unity which is impossible without the grace of God. A unity which can only begin to be accomplished with God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) at the center. No unity is achievable, perhaps even desirable, without God as the unifying force which draws all creation together. A unity in diversity, yes, but with all eyes on the Creator. Jesus goes on: "While I was with them, I kept them in your name...I have guarded them...that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Jesus prepares to leave the world and says "these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." By staying true to the Father and the Son, true to Jesus' teaching, true to the Word of God we may have the joy of Christ in us. An incredible, in many ways unfathomable, gift. Do we remember that Jesus desires for us to have his joy in us? This is worthy of remembrance and contemplation.

"I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." We have the word of God which brings great joy. But the world rejects his word and us. Why? What has led the world to reject God and his word? How have selfishness, pride, materialism and pain become prevalent when God desires us to have his joy fulfilled in us? Yes, God gave us the freedom to reject him but why do we do it? Jesus warns us in this prayer that staying true to God will not be easy. "I do not pray that you should take them out of the world..." He doesn't ask for us to leave the world but that we should be kept from "the evil one." The resistance to God is not from our sinfulness alone. There is an active opposition to God. And the "evil one" leads it. In the face of evil why does Jesus want us here? It must be for a good reason. Otherwise wouldn't he remove us from this world and remove us from the temptations of evil? "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." Once again Jesus declares our mission. We are not here for ourselves. He wants us here so that we will, having been sanctified in truth, go out into the world! We are to take his truth to all the nations. We are to be his ambassadors. His truth is not for us hoard and keep to ourselves. He directs us to go out into the world as the Father "sent me into the world." We are to evangelize, to baptize, and to transform the world so that it reflects the love found the in the Blessed Trinity.

Lord, we need your grace so that we may stay true to your name. Triune God please immerse us in your love so that we may grow in likeness to you. Guide us and strengthen us. Help us remember what your apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: "I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you...for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control." Amen.

Gospel Reflection-"I am Praying for Them"

2011-06-07T08:13:00.002-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 17:1-11a
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, 2 since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. 4 I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; 5 and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made. 6 "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. 7 Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee; 8 for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9 I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; 10 all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee.

Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures and to meditate upon them day and night. We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So we ask that the words of Scriptures may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts.-Origen (ca. 185-254)

And now the Priestly Prayer of Jesus (John Chapter 17) concludes the Last Supper. This is the prayer which Jesus offers the Father before going to the garden of Gethsemane where he will be betrayed and his passion begins. He asks that his Father "glorify" the Son that the "Son may glorify thee." This is the time when, through his death and resurrection, Jesus will more fully manifest his humility and his divinity. He will glorify the Father by showing the Apostles the Father and speaking of him plainly. For the Father has given Jesus "power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him." Jesus has the power to give eternal life. Let that sink in for a moment. Through Jesus we are offered eternal life. Death has no sting for those who have eternal life. And life on earth becomes only a time of pilgrimage for this is not our final home. Please Jesus, tell us more of eternal life! "And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." To know God the Father and God the Son is eternal life. How do we know them? How do we know anyone? Spend time with them. In prayer, in scripture and in the sacraments. Be with them now, more often, more deeply, so that we may spend eternity with them in heaven. In our hearts we can be troubled by the actions of certain Church leaders and priests, we can be saddened by bad music and impious liturgies. Yet, in our hearts, we know that if we are in prayer, reading scripture and partaking of the sacraments we draw nearer to God. We must stay in relationship with Christ. We must spend time with our Friend and Teacher.

"I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word." The Father gave the Apostles to Jesus. Now the Apostles, soon to be given the Great Commission to go and make disciples throughout the world, have been taught the word of God by Jesus. "Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee..." The Apostles know what Jesus needs them to know. He has taught them and now he is"praying for them, I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine..." This is troubling. Jesus he is praying for those whom the Father gave him, he is not praying for the whole world. Is this a prayer for this moment or for all time? Jesus doesn't say. I want to focus on what he does say. "And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

Let us pray now for all those who, wounded by their own sin, have distanced themselves from God and his Church. Lord, these lost sheep are yours and yet they have turned away from you. Please pour forth your grace upon them so that they may return to your flock. And let us pray for those who, troubled by the scandals of sin by priests and bishops of the Church are estranged from you. Lord, your Church is a pilgrim church filled with broken sinners in need of repentance, including your priests and bishops. Turn all of us from our sin. And Lord, shine your light on those scandalized by sin in the Church so that they may have their faith renewed and return fully to You and your Church. And Lord please immerse in your Beauty those who, having seen too much ugliness in your parishes, have broken hearts for they desire that you be honored and glorified in beauty and in truth. Bring us all closer to you Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Liberal Education: The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education

2011-06-06T14:45:00.003-05:00

by Andrew Seeley

"Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

Readers must frequently be tempted to throw up their hands in despair over the state of education today. How can we reinvigorate our culture with a sense of what is True, Beautiful and Good when our schools seem determined to douse the light of wonder that is natural to young people? It kills me everytime I see a bright, chatty kid I met during his little league years come out of junior high school seemingly without a spark of interest in life. The Left wants to undermine any connection of the young to our traditions; the Right wants to test them into conformity with the existing corporate and bureaucratic system. Very few place any importance on developing the hearts and minds of the young by connecting them to riches of our Western tradition.

Christopher Dawson saw the problem facing Western civilization through the loss of commitment to liberal education. Yet he also saw a great hope for change through developments in the Catholic parochial system, as he pointed out in The Crisis of Western Education.

...As education reaches a certain point of development, it opens up new and wider cultural horizons. It ceases to be a utilitarian parochial effort for the maintenance of a minimum standard of religious instruction and becomes the gateway to the wider kingdom of Catholic culture which has two thousand years of tradition behind it and is literally world-wide in its extent and scope.

The Catholic Church embraced classical education in the early Middle Ages, incorporating it into monastic, ecclesiastical and, eventually, secular life. In one form or another, from the Benedictine monasteries to the medieval universities to the Jesuit’s Ratio Studiorum, Liberal Education has traditionally been the core of Catholic education. The goals of classical education – perfecting the natural powers of the mind while embracing and developing a tradition – coalesced perfectly with the incarnational, traditional and pilgrimmatic understanding of Christian life.

Liberal Education occurs within a tradition of learning and culture. The Greeks learned Homer and the poets, the laws and the histories. These contained the best and most beautiful accounts of the good, the beautiful and the true. Becoming conversant with these texts made the young accustomed to the most noble and challenging of ideas; he became a fellow in the highest society, one fit at some level to listen to, question, and even develop these great men.

For Catholics, the Catholic Tradition is our tradition. Catholic educators aim to make their students conversant with our comprehensive theological, apologetical, philosophical, aesthetic traditions. Liberally educated Catholics develop an admiration for, a confidence in that Tradition, in its power to stimulate and satisfy the mind and heart, in its strength to foster, accept and patiently answer the most searching questions, in its wisdom that emphasizes the beauty of life without hiding its evils, in its dynamic humility, which accepts the truth from whatever source it is found.

Catholic Liberal Education is Catholic in its inspiration, resources and direction. It begins in faith and seeks understanding under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium and through the rich patrimony of the Church's intellectual, spiritual and cultural tradition. It is also Catholic in its willingness to learn, within the boundaries of faith, from any source of wisdom -- Christian or pagan, ancient or modern.

The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education exists to help bring Dawson’s hope to reality, and we share his belief that a renewal of Catholic education will have a positive impact on the whole of society.

Dr. Seeley is Executive Director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. He is also a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, where his love has been teaching and learning with his fellow faculty and students from the greatest minds of Western Civilization. Get the renewal started! Invite a Catholic teacher, administrator or board member to our Academic Retreat for Teachers!

Gospel Reflection-"Do you now believe?"

2011-06-06T08:22:00.003-05:00

By Winston Elliott III

John 16: 29 - 33
29 His disciples said, "Ah, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and need none to question you; by this we believe that you came from God." 31 Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe? 32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone; yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33 I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Father of Christ, all-seeing, hear our prayers; Look kindly on your servant’s solemn song. He turns his footsteps down a godly path, Who knows, while living, the ingenerate God, And Christ, the king who bans all mortal ills. Once, out of pity for our hard-pressed race, Freely conforming to the Father’s will, He changed his form, taking our mortal frame. Though he was God immortal, freeing us all. From Tartarus’s bondage by his blood. Come now, refresh this soul of yours with words—Pure, godly sayings from this sacred book; Gaze here upon the servants of your Truth Proclaiming life in voices echoing heaven! St Gregory the Theologian. (Gregory of Nazianzus, 168-169)

"Now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure." Are the disciples really turning the corner? Are they finally beginning to comprehend who Jesus truly is? Are they saying this in response to Jesus saying in 16 "A little while, and you will see me no more; again a little while and you will see me"? Is this speaking plainly? I'm not convinced that they truly understand any better who Jesus is at the Last Supper than they have at anytime during their three years with Jesus. The disciples go on to say: "Now we know that you know all things...by this we believe that you came from God." And yet just moments before they exclaim in verses 17 & 18 "what is this he says to us...what does he mean." They believe. But they need help with their unbelief. Don't we all?

At this point in the story they must be mystified. Just seconds ago they made a strong statement of faith, "we know that you know all things...by this we believe that you came from God," and Jesus responds with:"Do you now believe?" This looks like the Jesus equivalent of "really?" And then it gets worse for our role models in faith. Jesus warns the disciples that things are going to get very ugly. He tells them that "the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone." Not only will they run and hide but they will abandon Jesus. They will leave their friend, their teacher, who "came from God," behind. They will leave him alone. Do they really believe? How strong is their faith?

Thankfully Jesus does not leave the disciples, or us, in this state of unrest. First he explains that he is never alone "for the Father is with me." Jesus has never left the community of love, the Blessed Trinity. With him in us and us in him we never have to be alone. Sometimes we, like the disciples, scatter to our homes. These homes are often full of distractions, pains, and troubles. He may be alluding to our "homes" in sin. The sins we turn to when we turn away from Jesus. But, what if we stay "home" with Jesus, in good times and bad? Jesus answers this when he says: "I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace." He has come that we may have peace. He does not say that the world will be peaceful. He does not say you will not suffer or face trials and tribulations. No. He says: "In me you may have peace." We may have peace in him in a world that is never peaceful. Let us turn to him and find peace in a world of strife. No Jesus is not left alone. And neither are we. We are joined with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are joined with the community of faithful believers. What is the important point to remember? "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Lord, we thank you for we believe that you never leave us alone. That you are with us until the end of the age. Like your disciples we believe. Help us in our unbelief. With your grace we may grow in faith and love. With your grace we may share your love with all creation. Father, Son and Holy Spirit thank you for showing us your community of love and for letting us join with you. Teach us to love as You love. Amen.

Mary, our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

The Life of Faith-Romano Guardini

2011-06-06T06:45:00.002-05:00

O God, creator and Father of life, you have given us temporal life that we may grow and perfect ourselves in it. You have placed it in our hands that we may lead it righteously, and you will in time demand an account of how we used it. But you have also given us another life, which awakens at the hour ordained by your mercy before the proof of your revelation. It comes from eternity, and is created in us by the Holy Spirit, giver of life. This life also you have placed in our hands. We may keep it intact, but we may also squander it; we may take pains to see that it grows and matures, but also neglect it and let it fall into ruin. And a time will come when you will demand an account of how we have used it.

Let me know always, O Lord, that this sacred life is within me. Let me stay aware that it is more real than all temporal life. Grant that I feel it's divine preciousness, which holds the ultimate meaning of our experience.

Give me great seriousness in all the concerns faith. Teach me to see what it needs to exist and to be faithful. Let me know its strength but also its weakness. If with the passing of time my feeling should change, and with it the human form though not the divine content of my faith, then teach me to understand this change. Grant that in the tests that it will bring I may stand firm, so that my faith may constantly gain stature and maturity, as you, O ruler of all life, have so ordained it.

Amen.
(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Encounter with Christ by Barbara J. Elliott

2011-06-05T14:55:00.001-05:00

Fr. David & Fr. Bruce Noble

by Barbara J. Elliott

I had never been in a hospice before, although several people had encouraged me to go and serve there. It just didn’t seem like my calling. Why go to serve the dying, when I can work among the living to equip them for a better life? It all seemed so depressing.

There was no one more surprised than I when I found myself walking into a hospice in Houston one spring evening, laden with flowers, fresh raspberries, sushi and champagne to visit Fr. David Noble. He was succumbing after a valiant struggle against cancer. I learned that afternoon from his twin, Fr. Bruce, that shortly after arriving at the hospice, the patient had expressed a hankering for salmon. And I knew from experience that a drop of bubbly would be welcome, having quaffed several with the Australian priests on a number of occasions.

Instead of the dreary, weepy atmosphere I anticipated, I walked into a celebration, replete with balloons, a chocolate cake, and cheerful guests bursting out of the hospice room. The nurse had to push her way through the well-wishers to get to the patient. And while chemotherapy and cancer had made Fr. David visibly weaker, he was the soul of wit and wisdom he had been over the decade I had known him. This was a celebration of life, in the company of people who loved these identical priests. Their separation from one another, or from us, was unimaginable.

Cutting small bites of salmon and spearing them to Fr. David was a joyful task for me. As I fed him a piece, I remembered the times he had put the Eucharistic Lord into my mouth at Mass. I helped him lift his head to sip from the champagne flute.

The love among these two priests and the people who had become their friends was palpable. They had served for years as hospital chaplains and leaders of Marriage Encounters all over the world. These men who had served were now being served, in an ellipse of love returning. We ate, drank, and prayed, then two young opera singers with angelic voices gave an impromptu performance of Ave Maria to conclude the celebration.

When I returned two evenings later, Fr. David had weakened significantly. He could no longer speak or drink from a cup. The twin priests had been scheduled to speak at a gala that evening, but Fr. Bruce had been persuaded by cooler heads to forego the grand public goodbye for his brother, leave him in bed, and go alone. I promised to stay with Fr. David while all the others would be gone.

In that time by his bedside, as Fr. David drifted in and out of morphine sleep, I took his hand and stroked the top of his head, where hair had been only days before. Is it wrong to be this familiar with a defenseless priest, I wondered, even if he is an old friend? I decided I would treat him like a father, since indeed, he was one. I poured out prayer in waves of love that transcended words, interceding for the path of his soul and the strengthening of his brother who would be left behind. Being able to adjust Fr. David’s sheets and pillow to make him comfortable was almost a relief, so great was the desire to do something, anything, to help. I watched and waited, grateful for the silence to pray, and even more so for the joy of just being there as a presence of love.

As people began to arrive after the benefit, the nurse posted me as the guard while she completed her work. One parishioner had brought a rare port from Australia, along with beautiful small glasses – her best, she said, because she knew Fr. David appreciated them. This was her flask of finest perfume, poured out for the alter Christus while he was still among us.

As the group came into the room, I was surprised at the somber mood and hushed tones. An inexplicable joy welled up in me as I stood by the bed with a lollipop sponge, putting drops of water, then port, onto Fr. David’s tongue. As the friends came forward one by one to say a few words to him, I hugged the ones who were wiping away tears. I found myself thinking, “We know where he is going now – how can we not be joyful for him?“ but didn’t say it, because it sounds like one of the sappy things annoyingly pious people would say. But somehow the joy and love that was welling up in me was brimming over into embraces for the others grieving. And it seemed perfectly normal at that moment, although I had never been in that situation. I stayed to help Fr. Bruce put sheets on the rollaway bed, so he could spend the night in the room. We both knew that his brother was close to entering the next realm.

As I got into my car in the dark, I had a sudden jolt of turning a corner in time. I was at the foot of the cross, touching the feet of Jesus. As his body was taken down, I was wiping it with a cloth. Then he was alive again. I heard his words in an interior silvery resonance: “Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done to me.”

And in a split-second encounter I finally understood what Mother Teresa meant when she said she touched the body of Christ in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor. As she washed the bodies of dying men and women, laid them in fresh sheets, and gave them a drink of water, in some mystical way she was touching the body of Christ himself.

I touched Christ’s body. I sat there stunned.

Saint Augstine on our Lord's Ascension

2011-06-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

(Sermo de Ascensione Domini, Mai 98, 1-2: PLS 2, 494-495)

Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above:Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? and when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food.

Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.

He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God. So the Apostle says: Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body.

Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.

On the Ascension and Presence of Jesus Christ

2011-06-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

On the Ascension from Insight Scoop, by Carl Olson

First, here is a short excerpt from "The Ascension: The Beginning of a New Nearness," from Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts (Ignatius, 2006):

You are surely familiar with all those precious, naïve images in which only the feet of Jesus are visible, sticking out of the cloud, at the heads of the apostles. The cloud, for its part, is a dark circle on the perimeter; on the inside, however, blazing light. It occurs to me that precisely in the apparent naïveté of this representation something very deep comes into view. All we see of Christ in the time of history are his feet and the cloud. His feet—what are they?

We are reminded, first of all, of a peculiar sentence from the Resurrection account in Matthew's Gospel, where it is said that the women held onto the feet of the Risen Lord and worshipped him. As the Risen One, he towers over earthly proportions. We can still only touch his feet; and we touch them in adoration. Here we could reflect that we come as worshippers, following his trail, close to his footsteps. Praying, we go to him; praying, we touch him, even if in this world, so to speak, always only from below, only from afar, always only on the trail of his earthly steps. At the same time it becomes clear that we do not find the footprints of Christ when we look only below, when we measure only footprints and want to subsume faith in the obvious. The Lord is movement toward above, and only in moving ourselves, in looking up and ascending, do we recognize him.

When we read the Church Fathers something important is added. The correct ascent of man occurs precisely where he learns, in humbly turning toward his neighbor, to bow very deeply, down to his feet, down to the gesture of the washing of feet. It is precisely humility, which can bow low, that carries man upward. This is the dynamic of ascent that the feast of the Ascension wants to teach us.

And this from "The Threefold Presence of Christ", from You Crown the Year With Your Goodness: Sermons Throught the Liturgical Year (Ignatius, 1989), by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar:

[Christ's] disappearance from the world begins with his Passion and ends with his Ascension. For since he was laid in the tomb, no worldly person, no one who lacks the Spirit of Christ, has seen him anymore. His coming to us, however, starts on Easter morning, where he meets one disciple after another; it continues throughout the Forty Days and is brought to its fulfillment at Pentecost, when he pours out his Spirit over the Church and thus fills her with his own innermost being. It is not that his presence changes into his absence; what changes is the mode of his presence. ...

As Catholics we can try to view this new presence from three angles: from God's point of view, from Christ's point of view and from the Church's point of view. ...

The Lord shares in God's mode of presence, but he is not only God, he is also man for all eternity, with a human body and a human soul. Now this humanity explicitly participates in the new mode of his presence and indwelling. And this is the really astonishing and baffling thing: that this finite soul and this limited body can share in the limitless omnipresence and intimacy of God. His wisdom and love have brought this miracle about: it is called "Eucharist". It is not only a spiritual being-together in which the parties think of one another, nor is it simply the kind of presence whereby man is in God: it is an indwelling of the divine-human being of Christ, soul and body, in the whole person, body in body and soul in soul. "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him." ...

[Christ] is with us not only as God, not only as the eucharistic God-man, but also, essentially, as Church. What we mean by "Church" comes into being as a result of his Eucharist, from the outpouring of his Spirit; the Church lives in the power of his being-with-us all the days, to the end of the world. ...

Love is heaven on earth. Only thus is the mystery of the Ascension complete, in which the Son comes to us so that we may be where he is. He is with God, and God is love. And if we love, says John, we are with God and in God.

Finally, from my article, "The Image of Man Has Been Raised Up: On the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord":

At the Ascension the crucified, risen Son of God returns to His Father. Having descended to dusty earth, He now returns to heavenly glory. Having conquered death, He ascends to eternal life. But He returns to the right hand of the Father not just as the Word, but as the Incarnate Word. The doors of heaven are now open and humanity can now approach the throne room of God, the way having been paved by the life, death, and resurrection of the God-man. Pentecost, finally, is the manifestation of the God-man's Church, which is both human and divine. The Church was revealed to the world on that day—fifty days after Easter—by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this theology is nice enough, but what does it mean for us? It means the Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of salvation won. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "in the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, the taking up, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory Christ completed the work of our redemption." The tendency is often to think of the Resurrection as the culmination of Jesus' salvific work, but it is the Ascension that places the final stamp of approval on the sacrificial and victorious work of our Savior. This is beautifully expressed in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens ... (Eph. 1:17-20).

Now that the Incarnate Son of God has ascended into heaven and sits in the throne room of God, mankind can follow. United to the Son through baptism and deepening communion with Him through reception of the Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments, the hope of heaven is ours.

"The ascension of Christ is our elevation," declared Leo the Great in a sermon on the Ascension, "Hope for the body is also invited where the glory of the Head preceded us. Let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we not only are established as possessors of paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ." Where the sin of the first Adam closed the gates of Paradise, the righteousness of the new Adam has opened them wide.

Read the entire piece.

Gospel Reflection-Speaking Plainly of the Father

2011-06-04T16:14:00.005-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 16:23b-28

23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. 24 Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. 25 "I have said this to you in figures; the hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name; and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father."

"O Lord Jesus Christ, open the eyes of my heart, that I may hear Your word and understand and do Your will, for I am a sojourner upon the earth. Hide not Your commandments from me, but open my eyes, that I may perceive the wonders of Your law. Speak unto me the hidden and secret things of Your wisdom. On You do I set my hope, O my God, that You shall enlighten my mind and understanding with the light of Your knowledge, not only to cherish those things which are written, but to do them; that in reading the lives and sayings of the saints I may not sin, but that such may serve for my restoration, enlightenment and sanctification, for the salvation of my soul, and the inheritance of life everlasting. For You are the enlightenment of those who lie in darkness, and from You comes every good deed and every gift. Amen." (St. John Chrysostom)

Jesus is preparing the Apostles for His death on the cross. They do not know this of course. But now Jesus is speaking of "that day." Is "that day" a reference to the three days He will be away from His disciples before the resurrection? Is He preparing them for when He will ascend to heaven? He doesn't explain. They, as usual, don't understand what He is telling them. They love Him as a friend and teacher but they do not understand His truth and nature. Not yet. But, Jesus admits that up until this time he has been speaking to them in "figures." But, the hour is coming when He will tell them "plainly of the Father." He will set their hearts on fire on the road to Emmaus. And again in the Upper Room. Then once more by the Sea of Tiberias when He stood on the beach and called out "...children, have you any fish?" Within moments of hauling in the fish Peter is in the water swimming to His beloved Teacher. And finally on the mountain immediately before His ascension. But was that the end of "speaking plainly of the Father?"

No, for the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. So Jesus, in unity with the Father and the Spirit spoke to the Apostles after His ascension. And He continues to speak to us today. The Word of God speaks of the Holy Trinity to us in His word, in the Holy Spirit and in the sacraments of His Church. Why is so much effort expended on our behalf? We who are slow to listen and slow to love. According to Jesus it is because "the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father." So simple. So beautiful and so mysterious. Without Divine Grace we can't begin to understand such Love. But, with it we can begin to love as God loves us. Jesus, who "came from the Father...into the world..." is "leaving the world and going to the Father." But in His love for us He never leaves us alone. We are welcome in the Holy Community of the Blessed Trinity. How amazing and how wonderful is so great a gift? Thank you Lord.

"For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life." Dei Verbum 21 (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation)

Clarity in Religious Practice-Romano Guardini

2011-06-03T10:50:00.000-05:00

O God, you bear all creation over the abyss of nothingness and infuse it with your power, so that it moves and lives. You have given a spark of clarity to all things, for only from you, the Father of light, do they receive their truth and their worth.

All things are moved by your breath and filled with your mystery. Each thing guides the spirit of man beyond itself to a being higher than itself, and allows man's heart to sense a power that does not come from his own resources.

Thus, pictures and concepts of the divine originate everywhere among peoples and individuals. Frequently they hold a deep meaning that moves the heart and promises goodness, but they also may hold evil and confusion that lead to error.

And so I beseech you to open my heart to the mystery that everywhere declares itself; but guard it also from the seduction to which it may give rise. Make my conscience secure, that at all times it may call the good good and the evil evil. Enlighten my mind so that it may distinguish that which leads to you, the true Holy One, and that which leads away from you into error and deceit.

Amen.

(From Prayers from Theology by Romano Guardini)

Gospel Reflection-Are our Hearts Full of Joy?

2011-06-03T07:38:00.003-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 16:20-23
20 'In all truth I tell you, you will be weeping and wailing while the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. 21 A woman in childbirth suffers, because her time has come; but when she has given birth to the child she forgets the suffering in her joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So it is with you: you are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you. 23 When that day comes, you will not ask me any questions. In all truth I tell you, anything you ask from the Father he will grant in my name.

"Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, lofty origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your brilliance penetrate into the darkness of my understanding and take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of both sin and ignorance." Amen.

With the assistance of this prayer from Thomas Aquinas I am hopefully better prepared to reflect on this challenging passage from the Gospel of St. John. Jesus warns His friends that"...you will be weeping and wailing while the world will rejoice..." Times seem to be good for the disciples of Jesus. The crowds have welcomed Jesus. Much good teaching and numerous miracles have been experienced. But, here at the end of the Last Supper, Jesus' words are troubling. What is this about wailing and weeping while the world rejoices? They are enjoying fellowship with Jesus, and with each other, and Jesus is saying "you will be sorrowful." Aren't we like the disciples? For we don't know what is yet to come and we celebrate today when tomorrow will bring suffering. We cannot read the signs of the times. We hear Jesus' words but we often tune out the references to suffering and hardship. But Jesus never leaves us in despair. For he reminds the disciples, and us, that after the pain of childbirth the mother "...forgets the suffering in her joy that a human being has been born into the world."

The story is about to move from the Upper Room to the garden where Judas' betrayal will be completed with a kiss. The disciples don't know this and I'm confident they are puzzled by Jesus' words. There is soon to be great sorrow, with Jesus' suffering and death on the cross. The disciples will desert Him and go into hiding. And yet all is not lost. Jesus has said that in a short time they won't see Him but they will see Him again. And He has also told them of the Comforter who is soon to come. Jesus follows his words of warning with words of hope: "...but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you." Yes, the resurrected Lord will be with the disciples again and they will be full of joy. But what about us? Are our hearts full of joy? We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the Holy Spirit is with us and with Him we should have "joy no one shall take from you." Do we have the joy of the mother when, after the suffering of childbirth, she sees her newborn child? Yes, we have the resurrected Jesus. We have the Holy Spirit. But, do we have Joy?

"When that day comes, you will not ask me any questions. In all truth I tell you, anything you ask from the Father he will grant in my name." Does Jesus speak here of our days on earth or when we meet Him in His Father's house? It seems "the day" has not come for me for I still ask Him many questions and what I ask of the Father is not always granted. I believe that in this final sentence of today's Gospel Jesus is alluding to the time when we join Him in Heaven. This passage seems to address both our times of suffering here and our joyfully anticipated reunion with Jesus in Heaven. Jesus often seems to speak in "both/and" mode as opposed to "either/or." Of course we wish it were easier to understand His teachings. We should pray to the Holy Spirit to increase our understanding of the Word of God and His words. And that our Joy may be complete.

I close with the rest of the prayer of Thomas Aquinas which began this reflection. Creator God, Three in One "...give me a sharp sense of understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations, and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in completion; through Christ our Lord. Amen"

Blessed Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

‘Tis the season for commencements

2011-06-02T21:47:00.001-05:00

by Andrew Seeley

‘Tis the season for commencements: collegiate, high school, elementary school, even kindergarten. Some are silly, some cute, some respectful, some tedious, some beautiful. On Saturday, I was blessed to attend one which, more than anything, was deeply joyful. The school was St. Augustine’s Academy in Ventura, California, which combined high school graduation with eighth grade promotion. From the hugs given by seniors to the eighth graders as they symbolically handed them their certificates to the evident affection and pride expressed by graduates, teachers and administrators, I couldn’t help but wish that I could say to a relativistic world, “This is all we want for you – love God, strive for goodness, excellence and self-control, sprinkle charity over all, and you can have joy!” When I returned home, I read this reflection of Pope Benedict’s, inspired by the daily reading from the Acts of the Apostles ("There was great joy in that city."):

"We are deeply impressed again and again by this expression, which in essence communicates a sense of hope, as if saying: It is possible! It is possible for humanity to know true joy, because wherever the Gospel arrives, life flourishes, just as an arid terrain that, irrigated by rain, is immediately verdant."

The first senior address expressed it all. Delivered by a beautiful, natural, confident young woman, in whose face shone mirth and gladness as she spoke wisely, seriously, and, above all, joyfully, her speech moved us deeply. The perfect blend of heart and head spoke more powerfully than any possible advertisement for the intellectual and moral strength of the school community in which she was nurtured.

Why don’t we as a society turn to such models, desiring to discover the secret of their success so that it might be shared with the young throughout the land? Alas, such models are too rare; many have never even heard that this is possible, so they never look. Others might hear people like me shouting, “Here is the real deal!” But not experiencing it for themselves, their impoverished imaginations twist all they hear and return our offer with sneering and mockery. Finally, the daunting commitment to the life of faith and discipline that makes such joy possible makes many turn away.

When my wife and I lived in Toronto during my days of graduate study, we were blessed to know of another such community, the Oratorians of St. Philip Neri, who ran a very successful philosophy program for seminarians. At a time when seminaries were continually losing vocations, the Oratory rector could boast that none of their students had ever left the program willingly. He mentioned that he received a call from another rector, who had heard of their success and wanted to know their secret. “I told him that we require all our seminarians to wear clericals whenever in public, require Mass, Office, Rosary and Adoration, have mandatory study times, etc. He just said, ‘We could never do that.’”

Joy is indeed possible. It comes with a price. But it is beautiful, sweet, inspiring; it makes you laugh with delight. Pay His price, so that “My joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.”

Faustina Dillon
St. Augustine Academy
Senior Address, May 2011

It's almost surreal to be standing here ––saying goodbye to high school years. I remember sitting there as a 5th 6th 7th grader and thinking I'd never make it–– because those seniors, they were just so old. I think I feel much younger now than I did then. This is our first step toward true adulthood and independence-- and all of the sudden I, and WE, I think, realize how dependent we are - on our family, our friends, this school. It IS a bit daunting to look into the future feeling uncertainty…. as far as I knew I was going to St. Augustine's for the rest of my life… and all of a sudden, I'm, uhm, not.

As graduates it seems the only thing we are certain about is how uncertain we are… …. for this reason I find comfort in our late Pope's reassuring message, "Be Not Afraid.". Here, we have begun our journey in life. In some sense leaving this haven is intimidating, we are parting with familiarity. I've spent half of my life at Saint Augustine Academy, and many of my classmates have similarly spent a significant part of their lives here…. I've heard that familiarity breeds contempt, but we step from St Augustine Academy with a fondness and gratitude in our hearts. It has prepared us to enter a world that is not necessarily ready to welcome us and our beliefs with open arms, but is none the less a world we are called to enter. As a class we have grown: intellectually and spiritually, we have been nourished, been affirmed as persons––something that, unfortunately, has grown increasingly rare in secular society. So we can dispel our fears, and shed light on the unknown, turning now to remind ourselves what we DO know and realizing that we have a lot more certainty than we may think:

First, we are Catholic:

Today, truth is often overshadowed by a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. We can be driven to impressive lengths trying to satisfy or escape our restless hearts: searching for a form of expression, for affirmation, for value, where it will not be found, and left only with emptiness. We all feel how much need of love is born in our hearts. To truly satisfy that longing we must first have a love of Christ, a love of our faith. Pope John Paul II tells us that it is "in Christ and through Christ [that] man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence." Our faith is a gift. And Christ who gives it to us is the "One Love" that can fulfill our longing. He loves unselfishly, He loves "without constraint or hesitation." Catholicism is not meant to be merely a cultural, ethnic, or familial affiliation with certain ideas or activities.

It is a lifestyle, a responsibility to know Christ. Through Mass, the Sacraments, through prayer, sacrifice we are able to cultivate the truest love and knowledge of our faith. and we must. Pope John Paul II told us that "The way Jesus shows you is not easy. Rather, it is like a path winding up a mountain." but we should " not lose heart!" he says, because "The steeper the road, the faster it rises towards ever wider horizons." Graduates, we are called to be vigilant in our faith, to nurture it, cherish it and remember our evangelical call to accept and proclaim the truth, always openly, lovingly, humbly.

Second - We are American. Yes Bridget, my little Canadian, that includes you.

I'm supposed to be too young to suffer from high blood pressure….my blood pressure really does go up …instantly…. when I think about the erosion of true American values, and the sad disregard for patriotism. I do not deny that Americans are human. That we are fallible. We have made mistakes, and we pray for the humility to learn from them, but we must remember that they do not define us. In fact, I believe that more often than not America's mistakes represent deviations from her defining principles. The true identity of this country arises from her founding upon the principles of freedom and respect for the dignity of the human person. This is especially relevant as we approach Memorial day and are reminded that true freedom is not free. We thank God for the courage of the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our country, for freedom. But these are not the only citizens responsible for upholding the ideals of our country. We may not be called to die for our country but we are certainly called to live for it in its truest form. We are the next generation of Americans, and with that comes the duty of renewing and keeping American values alive in our hearts and lives. I ask you to have a fervent love for America. To pray for our country and her leaders, even the ones you didn't elect. It is a country that in the past has sacrificed to defend ideals very intrinsic to our faith. Generations before today had to step up and purchase freedom at a dear price, they understood very deeply its worth. Unfortunately it seems that now many take this gift for granted, they do not know the threat of tyranny, persecution, they have not had to face it. Let us not be one of these. All Americans, particularly the youth have a specific role in the prosperity of our country. Our beloved John Paul II councils us, we should "not be afraid of the toil" "only of thoughtlessness and [cowardice]."

Finally, We are sinners, but, we are called to be Saints.

Again, our Blessed John Paul II councils us that often times the youth "get lost in [themselves], in the whole world about [them], and in all the network of human affairs that wrap [them] around"; he challenges each individual, "Allow Christ to find you." We must accept that challenge, and further embrace the responsibility to acquaint the world with Christ. We have been given a message of hope, and in this period of youth, this time of vivacity, energy, and opportunities we can offer ourselves and others an alternative to escapism. Blessed John Paul II calls us to recognize that, "a disciple of Christ is never a passive and indifferent observer of what is taking place. On the contrary, he feels responsible for transforming social, political, economic and cultural reality." And this transformation begins with the transformation of self. We should especially remember this as we part ways and enter the world. Allow the joy of Christian life to radiate from you.

I think this is especially powerful in young people. And as we bear witness to Christ and truth we must recognize that we cannot do it justice without humility. I was in Mass a few weeks ago and the spirited and unaffected Irish priest advised us " always go to Christ's mercy…. if you go to His justice, you'll never win." In the course of this speech I have made a contrast between the world we will enter and the world as we would have it be. But this contrast is not meant to shift responsibility. We find ourselves in a paradoxical position: On one hand we have been given much and much is expected, on the other hand we are all and will always be the prodigal son. Humility is the virtue that constantly reminds us that we need Redemption, that it is not through our own merit that we can live up to our Christian ideals.With that in mind we must mark the importance of humility, which St. Bernard defines as "the foundation and safeguard of all virtues" and which ultimately makes it the foundation and safeguard of sanctity.

Each of us will follow different vocations... struggle…..suffer…and sometimes even succeed. we are united through our shared identities, through the Mystical Body of Christ and our call to holiness. Each of us moves from this point in our life knowing that "It is Jesus who stirs in [us] the desire to do something great with [our] lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow [ourselves] to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit [ourselves] humbly and patiently to improving [ourselves] and society, making the world more human and more fraternal."

My dad has always told me to "drink the adventure of everyday life." I think this is very essential to living out our vocation, to joy, and to hope. It touches on the previous quote from John Paul II, as it informs us that mediocrity must be overcome on a daily basis, in our ordinary and even uneventful daily lives there is adventure. I think we often forget that there is opportunity waiting for us: the challenge to love those in our home, our neighbor.

Every period in life presents unique and new challenges, as we approach this new period, outside of the protective nature of a community that shares our values, we should take on last piece of advice from John Paul II we should "become who [we] are."

Thank you all for being here, for supporting us today and in the past--our families, our friends, our faculty and staff, our benefactors, and our headmaster, Mr. Van Hecke. God Bless You All!

Dr. Seeley is Executive Director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. He is also a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, where his love has been teaching and learning with his fellow faculty and students from the greatest minds of Western Civilization. Get the renewal started! Invite a Catholic teacher, administrator or board member to ICLE's Academic Retreat for Teachers!

Gospel Reflection-Would this be the Day?

2011-06-02T07:57:00.001-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

Mt 28:16-20
16 Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. 17 When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. 18 Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.'

Alleluia! Come, let us worship Christ the Lord as he ascends into heaven. Alleluia! Today is the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord.

Would this be the day? Jesus has told the disciples that He must leave them, but that He will send them the Spirit, the Counselor who will guide them with wisdom and truth. They know that Jesus must leave them. But, while rejoicing at His resurrection are they perhaps still sad that He will leave? As a young boy who loved his father with a great passion I frequently would stand at the front door as my father left for work. I would watch him get into his truck and drive off. In my small world leaving for work meant leaving my world. What if he didn't return? Some days I would not rise early enough to hug him and kiss him before he left. On those days I would go to the door, perhaps seeing his truck pull out, I was too late. My fear that he would not return, compounded by the lack of a warm goodbye and expression of my love for him, would leave me weeping at the door. Were some of the disciples weeping when their master, their teacher and friend left them? Was knowing that Jesus was sending them the Spirit a great enough consolation that within those tears of loss that they could focus on the joy of the Ascension and the coming of the Comforter?

"When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated." We aren't told why they hesitated. We just know that they did. Would you and I hesitate? Is it because we still doubt that He is who He says He is? Is it possible that some of the hesitation is because they are anticipating what comes next? Jesus is leaving. They will be left behind. Yes, the Spirit is coming. But they may be thinking, what comes next? What will we do now? Jesus speaks words of consolation: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Don't worry. I have the authority to give you a new mission, a purpose in life. Now get ready. Here it comes. "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." The mission is given. The Lord has spoken and the disciples are given their orders. "Go and make disciples of all the nations..." Not just preach and make converts. Make disciples. Disciples don't only believe they strive to follow Jesus' commands. True disciples center their lives, all that they do, on Jesus. Their world is transformed so that they view culture, economics, politics and family life through the lens of Christ. Jesus commands that His disciples go to all the nations "and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you." This is our task as disciples of Jesus. Who are we teaching? Or are we waiting for someone else to respond to the "Great Commission?"

Lord we know that you said: "And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." Thank you for staying with us. Still we are often weak and wounded disciples who hesitate. Sometimes we are lonely and just want to draw near to You. Please don't leave us at the door thinking that You have left and we didn't get to tell You that we adore You. Remind us that You are with us till the end of time. Holy Spirit, be our comforter. Strengthen us so that we may respond to the great commission with a resounding Yes. Guide us to serve the Blessed Trinity in all that we do. Teach us the fullness of truth so that we may make disciples of all nations in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Blessed Virgin Mary, our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

Gospel Reflection-Uncomfortable Truth

2011-06-01T03:40:00.004-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 16:12-15
12 I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you to bear now.13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come.14 He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.15 Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.

The disciples are more than a bit confused and disturbed. They were prepared for what they thought would be a pleasant supper with Jesus before the start of the festival of Passover. Then Jesus washed their feet. What was that about? He told them about serving one another, but He was Lord and Master so why wash their feet? Then He spoke of betrayal and soon after Judas left in a hurry. Later He talked about being hated by the world and coming persecutions. And now Jesus speaks of the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth. Who is the Spirit of Truth? Hasn't Jesus been telling them the Truth for three years? This is not the nice supper with the Teacher the disciples had expected.

"I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you to bear now." We are like the disciples aren't we? The Lord has many things to say to us but we are not prepared, not strong enough, to hear His words. Or, perhaps even more disturbing, we are afraid if we listen to closely to His teaching we may have to change our lives. Maybe sometimes Jesus is too honest for us. He holds up a mirror and the image we find there is not pretty. How can we face the truth about the world and ourselves? Jesus gives us the answer. The Spirit of Truth is coming and He will "lead you to the complete truth...and he will reveal to you the things to come." The complete truth is available to us in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. Jesus tell us that all that the Spirit "reveals to you will be taken from what is mine." So the Holy Spirit reveals to us the fullness of the truth that Jesus has been teaching. The truth of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not three truths. Jesus makes clear that there is complete unity of purpose and truth in the community of the Blessed Trinity. "Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he {the Spirit of Truth} reveals to you will be taken from what is mine." Are we ready for the Three in One Creator, a Triune community of Truth? No. And yet, Jesus has told us, the Spirit will guide us to truth and reveal the things to come. People get ready because, ready or not, the Spirit is with us. The Spirit of truth is here. Let us greet Him with open arms and prepared hearts. When the truth makes us the most uncomfortable, that is when we most need to implore the Holy Spirit to come to our aid. We can't handle the truth. Not by ourselves.

Holy Spirit, like the disciples we are often hardheaded, sometimes hardhearted. We want the truth but we still fear the truth. We beseech You to fill us with Your truth and give us the grace to accept it. Show us how to love as You, the Father and the Son love. Come Holy Spirit, fill us with your love, your truth and your light. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Mary, our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us. Amen.

Today's Gospel Reflection-Does Yes lead to Joy?

2011-05-31T07:34:00.007-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

Luke 1:39-56
39 Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. 40 She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? 44 Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.' 46 And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; 48 because he has looked upon the humiliation of his servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, 50 and his faithful love extends age after age to those who fear him. 51 He has used the power of his arm, he has routed the arrogant of heart. 52 He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly. 53 He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty. 54 He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love 55 -according to the promise he made to our ancestors -- of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever. 56 Mary stayed with her some three months and then went home.

I write this on the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary who at the news of the pregnancy of her cousin Elizabeth immediately sets off "into the hill country to a town in Judah." From her love of her cousin, and prompted no doubt by the Holy Spirit, Mary takes what is believed to be a four day journey into the hills. It must have been a strenuous walk for a pregnant teenage girl. Imagine the scene. Arriving tired she most likely wishes for a chance to rest and freshen up. But, she is greeted with another in a series of awe inspiring moments in her life. For Elizabeth greets her with "Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?" What an amazingly powerful greeting packed with theological punch. The most blessed of all women, all women in all of time. First the angel Gabriel with the startling news of the Annunciation and now Elizabeth. Was Mary still reeling from Gabriel's message? Perhaps she already was experiencing the inner peace of those blessed ones who respond to God with a resounding Yes. Mary's fiat is a joy for her and a gift to us. But, let's not pass over the rest of Elizabeth's greeting: "Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled." Mary is saluted not only for being the Theotokos, the Mother of our Lord. She is our marvelous inspiration for she believes the "promise made by the Lord would be fulfilled." What an incredible faith. Do we have such a faith? Have we asked the Lord to pour forth His grace upon us so that we may have the faith that Mary has? The faith that both comes from and leads to believing His promises to us will be fulfilled?

What would we do with a faith as strong as Mary's? I think I know. You see it is revealed to us in the words of Elizabeth. Here's what will happen to us if we allow ourselves to fully live the Annunciation, Mary's fiat, Elizabeth's greeting, and our Mother's marvelous Magnificat. Lean in, listen closely, this is where it gets good: "Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy." John leapt for joy. Even in the confinement of Elizabeth's womb, John leapt for joy. Will we leap for joy? Just stand up for a moment. Give it a go. Just start with a little leap. We should leap you know. I think Jesus would appreciate a leap. Mary, our Mother, would smile at our leaps. Maybe you have been a Christian your whole life. Maybe you are a convert like me. It doesn't matter how long you have believed the promises of our Lord would be fulfilled. It matters that you believe what Mary believed. And then you say Yes. Mary says "the Almighty has done great things for me." Hasn't He done great things for us too? Now, how about that leap?

O Lord God, Blessed Father, Son and Holy Spirit hear my prayer. Give me the grace to say Yes. Let it be done unto me according to Your Word. Teach me to leap for joy. For You are Love, Joy, Truth, Beauty and Goodness. And You offer everything to me. I want to say Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times Yes. With Your grace, even in my weakness, please help me to say Yes. This day and every day, Yes.

Mary, Mother of God, Bearer of the Son, our Mother. Thank you for your Yes. Pray for us Mother. Especially today. Pray that we may learn to leap.

Joy of Joys! Dedication of the new Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

2011-05-30T22:06:00.005-05:00


First Holy Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham!

On May 28, 2011 the new Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was dedicated in Houston. Thank you Blessed Mother for guiding our parish and for Your Yes which brought us the gift of Your Son. (More photos here.)

Cardinal DiNardo gives the Homily at the Mass of Dedication

Prayer for the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham

O blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon us, our parish, our country, our homes, and our families, and upon all who greatly hope and trust in your prayers. By you it was that Jesus, our Savior and hope, was given to the world; and he has given you to us that we may hope still more. Plead for us your children, whom you did receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of your Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we all may be made worthy to see and praise God, together with you in our heavenly home. Amen.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

On Mourning, Broken Families and our Earthly Pilgrimage

2011-05-30T19:57:00.001-05:00

It is troubling to watch good Catholic families in pain, job loss, separation, divorce.The Faith is not a bullet proof defense from our broken world full of broken pilgrim souls in a society which has forgotten God. When I first became Catholic I thought you would be safe if you went to daily Mass and were obedient. How foolish of me. A childish hope in a temporal salvation. How much I didn't know, and still don't. Our Lord's tears would flood the world I fear.

O that it be easier or that we were stronger Lord. Please immerse us in Your Grace. I know I wasn't seeking a journey, but a safe home. That is yet to come as in this world of toil and troubles peace is only to be found in spiritual union with the Blessed Trinity. The safe is home is not yet. And yet it is here in our hearts, in our souls, in the Blessed Sacrament. O Lord I need you so for I am broken and weak. In my brokenness I need you more than in my strength. Thank you Lord. For I need you all the time. I weep Lord. Bathe me in Your love. Nothing less will bring me home.

Blessed Mother of us All, pray for wounded families that they may be healed. That we may see the loving community of the Holy Trinity as our inspiration, our strength and our refuge. Amen.

Today's Gospel Reflection-Witnesses to the Truth

2011-05-30T02:27:00.004-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

Jn 15:26-16:4a
26 When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness. 27 And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning. 1 I have told you all this so that you may not fall away. 2 They will expel you from the synagogues, and indeed the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy service to God. 3 They will do these things because they have never known either the Father or me. 4 But I have told you all this, so that when the time for it comes you may remember that I told you. I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you;

"When the Paraclete comes...he will be my witness." Who is the Paraclete? Our Lord says He is the Spirit of truth. Jesus also proclaims the Paraclete is "my witness." But wait, why does the Son of God, He who says "I am the Way; I am Truth and Life" need a witness? Moreover, the Spirit of truth is not to be the only witness. Jesus' disciples too "will be witnesses." What is happening here? Is Jesus on trial? Why does he need witnesses at all? Didn't over five thousand participate in the miraculous meal of loaves and fishes? How many witnesses are needed? Jesus is offering a preview of the trials to come for Him and for His disciples. Trials which will lead to torture and death, His own included. Its going to get rough for "the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy service to God."

The Paraclete will witness for Jesus. To us and to the whole world. Who will we witness to? Will we testify on our Lord's behalf, will we share His story of forgiveness, love and salvation? Those who persecute Him, and us, "...will do these things because they have never known either the Father or me." Perhaps this is an answer to why witnesses are needed. Our Lord tells us these persecutors know neither Him nor His Father. So perhaps we should start with them. Let us witness to those who persecute us. It doesn't mean they will stop the persecutions. Not right away. Not completely. But through us they may meet Jesus and His Father. Introduce them to "the Way...Truth and Life." They probably won't thank you for it. But wait...perhaps if you are a faithful witness you may hear those beautiful words...well done good and faithful servant, join the company of saints. You are welcome here in My Father's house.

Come Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, Spirit of Truth! Please witness to me and to the whole world. Teach me to testify for Jesus, who is the Way, Truth and Life. Without Him there is no life within us. We are creatures and the Lord God, Three in One, is our Creator. Blessed and Holy Trinity pour forth your grace upon us so that we may brighten the whole world with the light of Your truth.

Holy Mary, our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us. Amen.

Jesus is Catholic

2011-05-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

Jesus Is Catholic | Hans Urs von Balthasar | From In The Fullness of Faith: On the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/hub_jesusiscatholic_oct06.asp

Jesus must be Catholic, otherwise his Church, which follows him and is promised his fullness, could not be called Catholic. Being Catholic means embracing everything, leaving nothing out. How can an individual human being do this, even if he is the only begotten Son of God? We shall not explain this by theological speculation. It is something that can reveal itself to us only if, in the openness of faith, we let our eyes rest on his self-manifestation. He is the revelation of someone else, of the Father, who is "greatepr" than he, and yet with whom he is "one". This is the message of his words and his life.

He can reveal the Father in this way only through a twofold movement: he steps forward (with divine authority) in order to make the Father visible, and simultaneously he steps back (as the Suffering Servant) in order to reveal the Father, not himself. We must not fail to discern him in his mode of stepping back, for he is the only way to the Father. In other words, the Father reveals himself by revealing the Son; he gives himself by giving his Son: dando revelat, et revelando dat (Bernard). Nor must we cling to him in his stepping forth, for, in all the density of his flesh, his whole aim is to be transparent, revealing the heart of God. In the same breath he can say, "My flesh is food indeed" and "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail." We must not hedge him round with a pietistic Jesus-spirituality on the grounds that "only the Son knows the Father"; he is the Door, and a door is not for clinging to: it is for going through. He is "the way": we are not meant to stand still on it but walk along it, toward "my Father's house", which has "many rooms". And at the same time we do not leave these rooms and this path behind us, for Jesus is also the light of the world, the truth, the Resurrection, the presence of eternal life. But he is these things, not in his own power, but because he manifests the Father's love.

Lest we become completely confused and wearied by this riddle of his simultaneous stepping forward and stepping back, his appearances and disappearances, he goes beyond it: when he rises from the dead and goes back to the Father, he sends the Holy Spirit from the Father. This Holy Spirit is the one, whole, personal manifestation and confirmation of this baffling unity between Father and Son, the divine "We" that is more than the mere "I" and "Thou". It leads beyond the endless process of counting up, of supplementary definitions, to the reality of mutual presence and indwelling, without causing Father and Son to submerge in the Spirit. The Spirit comes to the aid of our helplessness in the face of the unity of opposites so clearly expressed in the gospel. He rewards us for not trying to resolve this apparent contradiction by our own efforts-for this would be to destroy the core of the Catholic reality: if we are to see things properly, we must include the opposite of what we have seen. It is not that what we see suddenly turns ("dialectically") into its opposite, but that in the lowliness of Jesus there is a direct revelation of his lofty nature; that in his severity we discern his mercy, etc.

And it is not that, in his human lowliness, he shows the greatness of the divine Father; it is not that his human severity prepares the way for the Father's compassion. Rather, his lowliness reveals the humiliation of the Father's love, and that shows his greatness. Thus, too, his human severity reveals the unshakable nature of the Father's love, and hence of its compassion. So, in the distinction between Father and Son, we discern simultaneously the unity of the divine essence, and, within it, the possibility of uniting those qualities that seem to us irreconcilable. The famous Catholic "and"--Scripture "and" Tradition, etc.--which is the object of Protestant criticism, has its true origin here, and here alone.

A Church can be Catholic only because God is Catholic first, and because, in Jesus Christ and ultimately in the Holy Spirit, this catholicity on God's part has opened itself to the world, simultaneously revealing and giving itself. The Spirit is "Person", the "We" in God: he provides the basis for the "we" that exists between God and ourselves, and hence too between men. But we would know and possess nothing of this if Jesus Christ had not stood at the alpha and omega of all God's ways in the world, as the form of revelation available to anyone who is open to it, i.e., is prepared to believe.

The Spirit Proves ... What Is Beyond Proof

The Spirit's chief quality, in obediently allowing himself to be sent out into the world by Father and Son, is his freedom. He blows whither he will and cannot be fixed in any particular form. He appears as a hovering presence (the "dove"), communication ("tongues"), devouring transformation ("flame"), a breeze that allows us to breathe deeply ("wind"). He "interprets" the mysterious figure of Jesus, revealing its divine being, its trinitarian dimensions, its mystery-quality; in this way the Spirit proves and "convicts" (Jn 16:8). He withdraws Jesus from all rationalistic incursions, and he also prevents Scripture (which he inspired), dogma (which interprets) and the Church's discipline from being swallowed up in purely worldly categories. He lends his wings to the Woman of the Apocalypse so that she may flee to the desert. He refuses to let himself be caught and domesticated, not even by pneumatic "methods" of prayer. We must not cling to Jesus, but let him ascend "to my Father and your Father"; only if we exhibit a readiness that stipulates no conditions can the Spirit, in his freedom, prove to us that the entire Catholic revelation-God, Christ, the Church- was and remains a project undertaken by the sovereign free love of God.

God's Love Is Catholic

God's love is ever greater; we can never catch up with it. It has no other ground but itself. It comes to us from ever further afield and goes forth to embrace wider vistas than I could ever imagine. That is why, in my limitedness, I always have to add an "and"; but what I thus "add" has always been there in the love of God.

When God, in sovereign freedom, enters into a world, he is not doing something else, something additional (as if God were Catholic in himself and became even more Catholic by bringing what is not-God, creation, into his totality); the Father of Jesus Christ is never any other than the Creator, who, showing them great care, carries all his creatures in his bosom. Everything temporal has its place within God's eternity. The Incarnation is not an episode in the life of God: the Lamb is slain from all eternity, and hence was born, grew up, and rose again from all eternity too. In itself, the adopting of human nature, with all its ignorance and limitation, into the divine nature is not an event in time, although the human nature so adopted, like ours, was something living and dying in time. (C. S. Lewis) Furthermore, the process of integrating creation into God's world (and within the time-dimension it really is a process: the lost sheep is searched for, carried home and put back into the flock) is always present in God's plan of salvation (cf. Eph 1 :1-10) as a complete design; it is carried out in a sequence that is unbreakable (cf. Rom 8:29f.) and in which neither human nor divine freedom is overplayed.

At the beginning there stands the "and" in "God and the world". In its abstractness, in this context of juxtaposition, however, it would not be a Catholic "and" unless it were contained, right from the outset, in the concrete "hyphen" represented by the incarnate Son (and he is more than a mere "mediator" between two parties: he is the One who creates unity: Gal 3:20) and the sending of the Holy Spirit, who brings everything to a conclusion (yet definitively opens everything up), enabling the creature to participate in the "divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4) as well as embracing it-as the divine "We"--in the community of the Trinity. This community cannot perfect itself apart from the mutual presence to one another of the divine Persons; equally, it cannot do without the reciprocity of God and his creature if it is to show forth its precious richness.

Just as this catholicity goes beyond a dialectic of reversed opposites, it also goes beyond a coincidentia oppositorum. Rather, it is an inclusion: nature is included in grace, the sinner is included in forgiving love, and all plans and purposes are included in a supreme gratis--"for nothing".

Today's Gospel Reflection-If you love Me?

2011-05-29T07:17:00.005-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 14:15-21
15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. 18 "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

Jesus begins these words from John 14 with the a loaded question. "If you love me..." But wait. Isn't he talking to his disciples? Why does he begin his teaching with "IF you love me..." At this point in the story Judas has left the room. Surely our Lord does not need to begin by saying "If you love me..." These are His closest friends and they are still asking Him "to show us the Father." If this is the state of His closest friends then what chance do we have? They had spent three years living with our Lord and still didn't know him. He still had to begin His teaching with the words "IF you love me..."

But, the love of our Lord for His disciples, and the whole world, is demonstrated in the words that follow. "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever." The Counselor is coming and is here. The "Spirit of truth...for he dwells with you." What is possible with this Spirit? The most amazing, wonderful, joy filled, transforming possibility of all. For with the guidance of the Counselor, the grace of the Father, and the inspiring love most beautifully demonstrated by the great community of love, the Blessed Trinity, we may yet be what we were Created to be. With the help of the Holy Spirit we may become "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

O Lord we are heartily sorry that our poverty of spirit makes it necessary for you to begin with "IF you love me..." We are weak and sinful, just like Your first disciples. But our gratitude is great for You have not left us alone in our sin. You came and showed us true Love. And You and the Father presented us with the Counselor, so that we may follow your commandments and be loved by Your Father and You. Come Holy Spirit, show us the Father and the Son. Please teach us to love as the perfect Triune God loves. Help us to love with beauty so that our Joy may be complete. You in us and we in You.

Mary, our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us. Amen

Prayer for the Light of Truth-Cardinal John Henry Newman

2011-05-29T06:12:00.000-05:00

O my God, I confess that You can enlighten my darkness. I confess that You alone can. I wish my darkness to be enlightened. I do not know whether You will: but that You can and that I wish, are sufficient reasons for me to ask, what You at least have not forbidden my asking. I hereby promise that by Your grace which I am asking, I will embrace whatever I at length feel certain is the truth, if ever I come to be certain. And by Your grace I will guard against self-deceit which may lead me to take what nature would have, rather than what reason approves. -Cardinal John Henry Newman

St. Augustine-The Easter Alleluia

2011-05-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to come; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.

Because there are these two periods of time—the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy—we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.

Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial—shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future.

Now therefore, brethren, we urge you to praise God. That is what we are all telling each other when we say Alleluia. You say to your neighbor, “Praise the Lord!” and he says the same to you. We are all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.

We are praising God now, assembled as we are here in church; but when we go on our various ways again, it seems as if we cease to praise God. But provided we do not cease to live a good life, we shall always be praising God. You cease to praise God only when you swerve from justice and from what is pleasing to God. If you never turn aside from the good life, your tongue may be silent but your actions will cry aloud, and God will perceive your intentions; for as our ears hear each other’s voices, so do God’s ears hear our thoughts.

Today's Gospel Reflection-A Caution, An Inspiriation, A Slap in the Face

2011-05-28T08:22:00.008-05:00

by Winston Elliott III

John 15: 18 - 21

18 "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.

Today's Gospel reading is a caution, an inspiration and possibly a slap in the face. A caution as Jesus warns us of the forces who will attack us if we follow him. An inspiration in that our Lord tell us that "if they kept my word, they will keep yours also." What a great grace for Him to share His creative omnipotence with us. But we can't forget the slap in the face.

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own." Does the world love us more than it should? Do we hesitate to fully offer our service to Christ for fear that the world (family, friends, boss) would love us less? Are we so attached to the world (pride, luxury, anger) that we do not allow the love of our Lord to fully transform us?

"Because you are not of the world...therefore the world hates you." Is this a slap in the face? Then remember, its not too late for the world to hate you for His sake. They will persecute you because "they do not know him who sent me." A servant is not above his master. But, the love of our Master is the love of a Friend and a Brother. Let's run to the side of our Lord. Don't stop, run. Now.

O Lord, please give us the strength to be in the world but not of the world. Only through Your grace will we turn our eyes to You and away from those who persecute You. Immerse us in Your love so that we will transform ourselves, and the whole world, in Your Holy Name.

Mary, our Hope, Seat of wisdom, pray for us. Amen

“Queen of peace, pray for us”

2011-05-28T06:17:00.000-05:00

Holy Mary is the Queen of peace, and thus the Church invokes her. So when your soul or your family are troubled, or things go wrong at work, in society or between nations, cry out to her without ceasing. Call to her by this title: Regina pacis, ora pro nobis -- Queen of peace, pray for us.'' Have you at least tried it when you have lost your calm? You will be surprised at its immediate effect. -St. Josemaria Escriva (Furrow, 874)

Its Been You Lord, Right Down the Line

2011-05-27T14:57:00.002-05:00

Some of us will remember this song, Right Down the Line, by Gerry Rafferty. I gladly offer these lyrics as a tribute to my marvelous wife, Barbara. I also offer these lyrics in praise and thanksgiving for the Blessed Mother Mary. A loving Mother who never leaves us alone. Never should we be truly lonely as She will always bring a gentle caress and be by our side. She will whisper gentle words to her Son so that we may be healed and comforted. And of course, with small editing, these words serve as a tribute to our Lord-Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My Northern Star. The Blessed Trinity. The Triune Community of Love and Joy. O God, welcome us into Your presence. We find our Joy in You source of all that is True, Good and Beautiful.

Right Down the Line

You know I need your love
You've got that hold over me
Long as I've got your love
You know that I'll never leave
When I wanted you to share my life
I had no doubt in my mind
And it's been you woman
Right down the line

I know how much I lean on you
Only you can see
The changes that I've been through
Have left a mark on me
You've been as constant as a Northern Star
The brightest light that shines
It's been you woman right down the line

I just wanna say this is my way
Of tellin' you everything
I could never say before
Yeah this is my way of tellin' you
That every day I'm lovin' you so much more
'Cause you believed in me through my darkest night
Put somethin' better inside of me
You brought me into the light
Threw away all those crazy dreams
I put them all behind
And it was you woman
Right down the line

I just wanna say this is my way of tellin' you everything
I could never say before
Yeah this is my way of tellin' you
Everything I could never say before
Yeah this is my way of tellin' you
That every day I'm lovin' you so much more

If I should doubt myself, if I'm losing ground
I won't turn to someone else
They'd only let me down
When I wanted you to share my life
I had no doubt in my mind
And it's been you woman
Right down the line

The Civic Duties of Catholics

2011-05-27T12:46:00.000-05:00

"In their patriotism and in their fidelity to their civic duties Catholics will feel themselves bound to promote the true common good; they will make the weight of their convictions so influential that as a result civil authority will be justly exercised and laws will accord with moral precepts and the common good."--Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam actuositatem 14

Prayers for a Marriage

2011-05-27T11:46:00.000-05:00

Please friends in Christ storm the heavens with your prayers for a good friend of mine whose marriage is in great difficulty. Please intercede for him, his wife and his children. Mary, Mother of us all and patron of families, please intercede for this family. A miracle is needed.

No Bloodless Myth: Jesus of Nazareth as the Eternal High Priest and Sacrificial Victim

2011-05-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

by Tracey Rowland

The second volume of Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth covers the events in the life of Jesus from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his even more triumphal resurrection.

One emphasis which flows through the chapters like a watermark is the pivotal position of Christ bridging the Old and Testaments, bringing one to fulfilment and inaugurating the other. In the mysteries of Holy Week Jesus is revealed as the eternal high priest and sacrificial victim as well as the King of his people.

In an address given in Jerusalem in 1994 at the invitation of Rabbi Rosen, Joseph Ratzinger described Christ’s crucifixion as an ‘act endured in innermost solidarity with the Law and with Israel’ and he noted that the crucifixion was the perfect realisation of what the signs of the Jewish Day of Atonement signify. As he explained, all sacrifices are acts of representation, which, from being typological symbols in the Old Testament, become reality in the life of Christ, so that the symbols can be dropped without one iota being lost:

The universalising of the Torah by Jesus, as the New Testament understands it, is not the extraction of some universal moral prescriptions from the living whole of God’s revelation. It preserves the unity of cult and ethos. The ethos remains grounded and anchored in the cult, in the worship of God, in such a way that the entire cult is bound together in the Cross, indeed, for the first time it has become fully real.

Similarly, in an address to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in Paris he noted that both the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John go beyond the link of the Last Supper to the Pasch and view the Eucharist in connection with the Day of Atonement. Christ, who makes an offering of himself on the Cross, is the true and eternal high priest anticipated symbolically by the Aaronic priesthood. To borrow a phrase from the Oxford Professor of Poetry, Geoffrey Hill, this was ‘no bloodless myth’.

The Atonement of Christ as both the eternal high priest and sacrificial victim not only fulfils the Old Testament in the sense of transfiguring its symbols into a new reality it also gives rise to a new sovereignty, a new kingship.

This theme of the sovereignty of Christ has been addressed by a number of high profile contemporary theologians, including John Milbank and William T. Cavanaugh. In the fifth chapter of Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon Milbank provides an application of Giorgio Agamben’s account of the homo sacer in Roman jurisprudence to an analysis of the trial of Jesus. According to a treatise of Pompeius Festus, after the secession of the plebs in Rome it was granted to them the right to pursue to death someone whom they as a body condemned. Such an individual was declared homo sacer, and his death was not exactly by homicide, punishment, or sacrifice, rather, such a person was sacer, in the sense of cast out and utterly abandoned.

Milbank suggests that Jesus was presented in the Gospels as a homo sacer three times over:

Once, because he is abandoned by Jewish sovereignty to the Roman executive. Twice, because he is abandoned by Roman sovereignty to the sovereign-executive mob; three times (at least according to Luke and John), because he is in some obscure fashion handed over by the mob to the Roman soldiers and executed after all in a Roman fashion.

Milbank concludes that neither Jewish nor Roman law had really succeeded in condemning Jesus, only the mob did this – it became in effect the sovereign power and the Romans its irregular executive. Sovereign power and plebiscitory delegation were thereby uniquely collapsed into one another. Paradoxically, however, the crucifixion replaces the sovereignty of the mob with the sovereignty of Christ. As the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper famously expressed the principle: ‘there is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, "Mine!"

However while the first Good Friday was the ultimate Day of Atonement and while the cross represented, as St. Augustine suggested, something of a ‘mouse-trap’ for the devil, (in the sense that Christ set the Cross as a trap with his blood for bait, with the result that the devil, having shed the blood of one who was not his debtor, was forced to release his debtors), until Christ’s triumphal return at the end of the world, the devil will contest this sovereignty and incite the mob to worship other gods, to engage in various forms of idolatry.

When the sovereignty of Christ is contested by the sovereignty of the mob, the consumption of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharistic Feast (commemorated in a special way on Holy Thursday) becomes supplanted by ersatz rituals. The human desire for self-transcendence and an experience of solidarity is sought to be quelled in other ways. Hence football matches and rock concerts can become quasi-liturgical events and shopping can become the mechanism by which one cobbles together at least a surface-level self identity.

According to Naomi Klein, the author of the 2002 best seller No Logo, brand-name multinational corporations sell images and lifestyles rather than simple commodities: ‘Branding is about ideas, attitudes, lifestyle and values all embodied in the logo’. The ‘transcendental logo’ replaces the corporeal world of commodities, of ‘earthbound products’. The market power of brands and logos attests to a sublimated need in post-modernity for the sacramental, that is, for signs and symbols which give definition to the individual self.

In a fascinating essay on St. Francis and McDonald’s which compares the reception of the stigmata by St. Francis of Assisi, with the mechanisms by which brand logos are engraved on the human memory, Yves de Maeseneer develops the thesis that brand-name multinational corporations have their own theo-aesthetic programme. They foster a peculiarly post-modern form of idolatry. Places like Eurodisney are not only, as the French say, a ‘cultural Chernobyl’, but a secularist analogue for sacred spaces which hold out the promise of an escape from the mundane.

William T. Cavanaugh in his ‘The World in a Wafer’ essay suggests that the kenotic or self-sacrificial love of God ‘creates the possibility of a human subject very different from the consumer self’ however he reaches the conclusion that the Christian solution to the homeless ego in search of a symbol by which to define itself, is currently eclipsed by the false idols of consumer culture. The logos of designer brands replace the Eucharist as the source of the unity or disunity of the self.

In contrast to the ideology of the brand-name multinationals, Cavanaugh believes that Eucharistic theology ‘produces a catholicity which does not simply prescind from the local, but contains the universal Catholic within each local embodiment of the Body of Christ’. As a consequence, ‘the consumer of the Eucharist is no longer the schizophrenic subject of global capitalism, awash in a sea of unrelated presents, but walks into a story with a past, present and future’.

Christianity is therefore the tradition in which the division between the universal and the particular, the parish and the global community, can ultimately be reconciled. Within this tradition there is a most sacred place, but it exists beyond time in the eternity of the New Jerusalem; while in the period between the first Easter and the consummation of the world, the Eucharist unites the universal and the particular in a multitude of sacred places across the globe.

This vision of the Eucharist as both an affirmation of the uniqueness of the individual person, and a source of social unity, was poetically expressed by the poet Gottfried Benn. In Verlorenes Ich (The Lost Ego), he wrote:

Oh, when they all bowed towards one centre and even the thinkers only thought the god, when they branched out to the shepherds and the lamb, each time the blood from the chalice had made them clean/and all flowed from the one wound, all broke the bread that each man ate - oh, distant compelling fulfilled hour, which once enfolded even the lost ego.

In The Pope and Jesus of Nazareth (Veritas Press, 2009), Simon Oliver argues that the notion of the descent of Christ to the dead on Holy Saturday with its kenotic (self-empyting) Christology is for Benedict a kind of hermeneutical key for reading the whole Gospel narrative: ‘Christ arrives to reveal the theophanic nature of creation, and by means of a new light to intensify creation’s (and therefore reason’s) theophanic character’. As Oliver expresses this theological insight:

The incarnation in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is therefore one aspect – the supremely revelatory and salvific aspect – of a theophanic and christoform creation. This is revealed in the maximal and singular union of the divine and human in Jesus. We might even say that the universe was created so that God might become incarnate, revealing creation as a descent from the Father of lights which is itself a participation in the eternal begetting of the Son.

It is this incredible divine gift which Christians across the globe celebrate on Easter Sunday, following the celebration of the gift of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and the gift of Atonement and a new kingship on Good Friday. As the choir sings in the Liturgy of the Blessing of the Holy Oils:

Christ, our King, our Priest, our Prophet
Sealed as God’s beloved Son,
With your chrism anoint your people,
Make them holy, keep them one.

Tracey Rowland is the Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne, Australia. Her most recent books are Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (T & T Clark: London, 2010).

Today's Gospel Reading-"I Have Called You Friends"

2011-05-27T07:54:00.001-05:00

"I have called you friends." In today's Gospel reading (below) Jesus says his friendship is in sharing with us "all that I have heard from my Father." So may I say that friendship for me must include sharing what I know of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost with my friends? Jesus further says that we are his friends "if you do what I command of you." Then he commands us "to love one another." Jesus wants to be friends with us and we can be friends if we follow his command. It sounds simple. But, simple things can also be very difficult.

Lord, please pour forth your Grace upon us so that we may follow Your command and be Your friends. As our Friend strengthen us with Your wisdom and assist us so that we may be better friends to You and to our brethren. What you ask, "love one another as I have loved you," seems impossible. We are not strong enough to love as You love. And yet, we desire to do Your will. Lord we ask You this favor, friend to friend, help us to love as you love. Then our joy will be complete.

Mary, our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

John 15: 12 - 17
12	"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13	Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14	You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15	No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
16	You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17	This I command you, to love one another.

The Truth About the Pope—and Why It Matters | An Interview with Dr. Tracey Rowland

2010-10-15T22:38:00.002-05:00

Winston Elliott, Tracey Rowland, Barbara Elliott

| Ignatius Insight | October 15, 2010

Tracey Rowland is Dean and Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute (Melbourne), a member of the Centre for Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham and a member of the editorial board of the English language edition of Communio, founded, among others, by Joseph Ratzinger. She is the author of Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II (2003), Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Benedict XVI (2008), and, most recently, Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (2010). She recently took time from her busy schedule to discuss the work and thought of Joseph Ratinger/Pope Benedict XVI.

Ignatius Insight: You've now written two books about the theology and thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI. If you had to describe his theology and thought to someone who knew little or nothing about the topic, what would you say?

Dr. Rowland: I would say that he is interested in the relationship between God and the human person and in particular the role of love and reason in this relationship. He wants people to understand that while there is something called Christian morality, Christianity is not just another option on the menu of ethical codes. It is about a personal relationship with the Trinity, and without that the ethical code can seem incomprehensible and oppressive.

Ignatius Insight: What misunderstandings or misrepresentations of Benedict's thinking do you find most bothersome or in need of correction?

Dr. Rowland: Unfortunately many people, in particular journalists, can only think in dialectical categories like: left-wing, right-wing, progressive, conservative. They never ask questions like: conserve what? or progress toward what? It is very difficult to present Ratzinger's ideas in sound-bites without doing violence to the nuances.

There is, for example, a sense in which it may well be right to classify Ratzinger as a progressive in 1964 and a conservative today but what changed is not the actual theological beliefs held by Ratzinger, but the historical and theological contexts. In 1964 to be progressive meant wanting to introduce some flexibility into a theological framework which had become ossified and dry. It meant being critical of Su‡rezian Thomism. Today, being progressive means being in favour of contraceptives, women priests, homosexual "marriage" and Marty Haugen.

As Cardinal Francis George has often written, it is not a case of being left wing or right wing, but being for Christ. In some social contexts that will look right wing, in others, left-wing, but these terms and labels are not the standard, and nor are they stable.

Ignatius Insight: Who were some of the essential intellectual and theological influences—both ancient and contemporary—on the young Ratzinger?

Dr. Rowland: Among the Patristic theologians, St Augustine was clearly the most influential, among the medieval theologians it was St. Bonaventure, and thereafter there were a number of significant nineteenth century influences associated with the Tübingen School, such as Adam Mšhler, and there was also the influence of Blessed John Henry Newman. Among twentieth scholars, the key influences were: Romano Guardini, Josef Pieper, Martin Buber, Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Karl Rahner was also someone with whom he collaborated at the Council and probably by whom he was to some degree mentored at the Council, but as Avery Dulles observed, Ratzinger grew to understand that he and Rahner lived on different theological planets: whereas Rahner found revelation and salvation primarily in the inward movements of the human spirit, Ratzinger finds them in historical events attested by Scripture and the Fathers.

Ignatius Insight: Rupert Shortt, in a recent review of Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed, wrote that "Professor Ratzinger's volte-face [in the late 1960s] was matched by what struck many observers as a shift in his character. An earlier openness was supplanted by intolerance and gloom. The psychological element, wholly overlooked by Rowland, is revealing." Shortt obviously believes that Ratzinger's theology and perspective changed dramatically and suddenly some forty year ago. Is there evidence for that argument? And why is the debate over this topic so important?

Dr. Rowland: First, let me say that my book was published in the Guide for the Perplexed series which the publishers market as an 'upper level introduction to the thought of those writers readers can find especially challenging'. Concentrating on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas. In other words, the book was not written as a biography, nor was there ever any brief from the publisher to delve into the psychological drives of the subject. The brief was to present an account of Ratzinger's thought for theology students trying to get a grip on its essential contours, with special reference to his contributions to the discipline of theology. Accordingly, the dominant theme of the book was how Ratzinger has dealt with what in Principles of Catholic Theology (1982) he called the severest crisis in Catholic theology in the twentieth century, namely, 'understanding the mediation of history in the realm of ontology'. Most of the material presented relates to that problematic.

That said, I think that just as there are at least two fundamentally different approaches to the documents of Vatican II, the 'hermeneutic of rupture' and the 'hermeneutic of reform' or continuity, there is an analogous division of interpretation over Ratzinger himself. What everyone agrees upon is that Ratzinger is an intellectual. No one tries to argue that he has been infected with peasant piety herding cows in the Bavarian alps as some tried to dismiss Wojtyła as a Carpathian peasant. The line becomes, this fellow was one of the most gifted clerics of his generation, open to new ideas and progressively oriented, but then in 1968 he found students demonstrating outside his lecture theatre and claiming that Christ was a sado-masochist. He then, so this narrative goes, had something like a breakdown from which he has never recuperated, and since that time he has been a neurotic conservative. This way one can acknowledge his talent but dismiss his substantive judgments on the grounds that they are the result of emotional fragility rather than intellectual rigour.

Read the rest on Ignatius Insight

Cardinal Ratzinger was no Liberal--Tracey Rowland

2010-10-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

Fr Joseph Ratzinger, right, talks with an unidentified prelate in this photo taken in 1962 during the Second Vatican Council. The future Pope Benedict XVI attended all four sessions of the council as a theological adviser to German Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne. Photo: CNS/KNA

Ratzinger as Peritus

Joseph Ratzinger attended the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) when he was in his mid-30s as a peritus, or expert theological advisor, to Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne.

He was one of a number of young European theologians present who were frustrated by the rigidity of the pre-Conciliar theological establishment.
Seminarians were taught with manuals containing summaries of Catholic doctrine dredged largely from 17th century commentaries on the works of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In the 1940s, this ‘manualist Thomism’ came under fire for being dry, narrow, ossified and not in all ways consistent with the classical Thomism it claimed to champion.

Among the leading periti there was an almost universal belief that this theological diet was inadequate for dealing with the problems of the late 20th century.

There had been two world wars, an economic depression and an unusually large number of psychopaths in positions of authority.

People were emotionally wounded and in the midst of so much evil they doubted the existence of a personal God who cared about them. The works of the existentialist philosophers spoke more directly to the grief and anxiety of the post-war generations than a framework built from Aristotelian categories and Latin maxims. Accordingly, the periti set off on a course of renewing the intellectual life of the Church with reference to the perceived pastoral needs of ‘modern man’. Differences soon emerged, however, over the intellectual material to be put at the service of this renewal. After the Council many of the periti, Ratzinger included, were contributors to the journal Concilium.

However, by the fifth Concilium Congress held in Brussels in 1970, it was obvious that there were sharp divisions among members of the editorial board and that there was no common line among the former periti on how the Conciliar documents were to be interpreted.

Some were treating 1965 as a theological Year 0. Everything that went before, including the papacy, was up for review.

In 1972, Ratzinger, with a group of friends including the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Swiss blue-blood polymath, founded an alternative journal named Communio.
Whereas Concilium authors tended to approach the documents of the Council with what Ratzinger called a ‘hermeneutic of rupture’, making every pre-Conciliar belief and practice questionable, the Communio authors offered a ‘hermeneutic of continuity’.

Read the rest of the essay here

Gratuity in the Market by Stratford Caldecott

2010-10-08T15:32:00.002-05:00

I am taking the liberty of sharing a post by Stratford Caldecott from his excellent site The Economy Project. Enjoy.

____________________________________________

Gratuity in the Market

In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict tells us that “if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well. Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfil its proper economic function” (35). That trust has today been severely undermined. He adds that “in commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity” (36). So what do we make of the market, and of the Pope's warning?

There is a kind of flow, or exchange, making the world go round. This is the flow of self-gift, sometimes called love. It is what creates the world, and keeps it going. But it is reflected or echoed within creation in many different ways, and as far as human organization is concerned it is reflected in two main ways. There are two ways in which to exchange or share tangible goods: it may be done either as a gift, or as a transaction. In a transaction – corresponding to contract-style relationships in law involving commodities – one thing is given in return for another. This may be a kind of barter, where I give you my sheep in return for your goats, or it may involve money. Money was invented for situations where I don’t happen to want your goats, or anything else that you have at the moment, but I might want something later. We establish currency as a medium of exchange. Money is therefore a symbol of the spirit of love within the market: it connects everything together and enables it to flow. That explains why it can so easily become a false god.

Read the rest on The Economy Project

Jesus Christ: Revelation of the Trinity--Cardinal Marc Ouellet

2010-10-04T21:12:00.000-05:00

The following is an excerpt from Cardinal Marc Ouellet's talk on Jesus Christ: Revelation of the Trinity presented at the May 27 session of Nothing More Beautiful which originally appeared in the Western Catholic Reporter:

What a wonderful idea to place a series of Christian meditations under the theme, "Nothing more beautiful"!

Even if people can have different ideas about what is most beautiful, we are all stirred by beauty. I remember how I admired the beauty of the Rocky Mountains when I was assigned here to Edmonton. What an incredible journey from Jasper to Banff - it rivals Switzerland! Those who visited the area during the Winter Olympics must have delighted in it.

There is natural beauty, the beauty of a landscape and there is also the beauty of a feat of sports, the beauty of a countenance or of a personal relation that is dear to us. An event can be beautiful, as can a love, or even a sacrifice that we admire. In my diocese, an unmarried woman adopted 30 severely handicapped children, quite a unique family, for which she cares with a love and a respect that elicits everyone's admiration.

Our world easily doubts truth, it is tempted, too, to despair in the goodness of being, but it is still sensitive to beauty. How many artists suffer in ways that can at times lead them to the verge of personal shipwreck, but the beauty that fascinates them also saves them from drowning. The beautiful opens the heart to another dimension, like a window onto the infinite.

Christian faith has been taught with passion because its mysteries are true and good for the human being, but have we explored the path of the Beautiful so as to propose it to our contemporaries?

You invite us to take up this challenge once again in this series of conferences inspired by Pope Benedict's inaugural homily: "There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him."

As I listen to Pope Benedict preach and read his writings, I often catch myself saying, "How beautiful it is! For he knows how to show the beauty of Christ, who is the human face of God, a God who is love and who calls us to love. . . . Is there anything more beautiful?"

Without being pretentious, I would like to speak to you of God's beauty, as this appears in the face of Jesus Christ. God is the Creator, he is the author of all the infinitely variegated forms of beauty. What must be the beauty of the one who, like an inexhaustible poet, scatters so much beauty through the universe: "How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth" (Psalm 8.2).

This cathedral of St. Joseph in Edmonton, like many other Christian places of worship through the centuries, speaks in its way of God's beauty to those who cross its threshold to penetrate through the nave to the sanctuary, where the nuptial mystery of Christ and his Church is reverently celebrated. We will take these different parts of the church building as our guide to discovering the beauty of God in Jesus Christ.

The portico

Allow me to begin with a detail from the life of Christ that will place us on the trail of God's beauty. Jesus is walking with his disciples in the portico of the Temple in Jerusalem, watching the people deposit their offerings in the treasury.

Suddenly, he sees a poor widow put in two coins. He calls his disciples and says to them, "Truly, I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all the others. For they contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living she had" (Luke 21.3-4).
Jesus marvelled at the widow's gesture, which was total gift, just as Elijah once asked the widow at Zarephath to prepare for him a small cake with the last of her oil and flour and obtained this from her, even though she had nothing else and was preparing to die after she and her son had eaten this last bit of food.

She, too, gave everything, in obedience to the word of the prophet.
Abraham made an even more beautiful and dramatic gesture when God asked him to go up to Mount Moriah and offer his son Isaac in sacrifice.

Torn between the call of God and his love for his son, Abraham obeyed God, hoping against hope that God would reward his faith. And he was heard. The angel of the Lord stopped Abraham when he was about to slay the boy and promised him that all generations would be blessed because of his faith.

The faith of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob has traversed the centuries, challenging the people of Israel, its kings and prophets, to obey the Word of God and to live a covenant of love and fidelity with him.

The covenant God offered was rarely met with fidelity, which is a form of beauty. The bride often prostituted herself with the idols of Canaan, stirring up the wrath of the divine Bridegroom she had betrayed.

The altar of sacrifice

But one day, beauty met this offer of the covenant once and for all. A young woman of Israel promised in marriage to Joseph received the visitation of the angel Gabriel, the great messenger of the Lord of the New Covenant.

The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. You will conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High" (Luke 1.31-2).

Without being able to see all the dimensions of this announcement, but in the fullness of her immaculate faith, the Virgin assented and cast herself headlong into this adventure. She did not doubt at that moment that she was opening the door of the human race to the most beautiful of the sons of men, so beautiful that he would overwhelm all hearts, the hearts of his friends as well as the hearts of his enemies.

As entirely beautiful, true and good as he was, he would be very badly received, for wasn't his message too beautiful to be true?

He was treated as a false prophet, an agitator of the people, a blasphemer, one who profaned the Sabbath, in brief, an evildoer who ended his days hanging between two criminals on a cross. He expired with a great cry, abandoned by all but his mother who stood at the foot of the cross, suffering unspeakably with him.

The most beautiful of the children of men, the most innocent and the most holy - could he have met with a worse fate? Wasn't the beautiful kingdom he preached a mirage, an illusion, a deception?

The dark night that followed his death could have left this doubt. Everything seemed to be compromised. His mission had failed in the eyes of men, but God kept watch over his destiny.
Once he had sent his own Son to earth to reconcile the world to himself, God could not abandon him to death. God could not allow his chosen one to see the corruption of the grave.

Because his only Son bore Love to the depths of Sheol, God could not but speak once again the original Word: Fiat lux! Let there be light! And the light was. The body of Christ that lay in the tomb was suddenly pierced with a heavenly light, the traces of which we find on the Holy Shroud of Turin.

The gates of death burst open and the crucified finds himself beyond death, glorified, reunited with his Father in glory and closer than ever to all of humanity through his powerful intercession at God's right hand. He who brought Love's answer to all the world's need for love, achieves the victory of Love.

There is nothing more beautiful than this destiny of the Son of Man, become the Son of God with power by his resurrection from among the dead (Romans 1.4). There is nothing more beautiful than the resurrection of Christ and his ascension to the Father's right hand, where he intercedes for us as the high priest of the New Covenant.

Jesus Christ is the sole mediator of the New Covenant, which was sealed in his blood. There is nothing more beautiful than the Holy Eucharist, which plunges the assembly into the heart of the Holy Trinity through Christ's priesthood, exercised conjointly by priests and the baptized faithful.

In the sacred Scriptures, at the profound depths of revelation, St. John affirms with great solemnity, "God is love" (1 John 4.8). He is love not only because he loves us; he is Love itself. He is Father, Son, and Spirit of Love - one God in three persons, as the creed will say later. One God thrice holy, that is to say, one God who is thrice Love.

The windows

During his voyage to the United States in April 2008, Pope Benedict noted that the stained glass windows of a cathedral can seem dull if we look at them from outside, but from the inside of the building, their beauty captivates us. The luminous beauty of Christ is accessible if we encounter it personally inside the Church, in spite of all its limits and failings.

Today, the Church's sins are displayed openly and are accompanied by a great deal of publicity. This is hard to bear, but such trials can help to purify and deepen our faith.
Throughout the centuries, the Church's faith in a God who is One and Three underwent development and progressive clarification. The passage from Jewish monotheism to Christian, trinitarian monotheism was far from easy.

It took hundreds of years to establish the formulae of faith. The great councils of the first centuries were decisive for determining exactly how the divine and human identity of Jesus is to be understood: a single divine Person in two natures.

The Church had to resist the Arian heresy, which denied Christ's divinity, as well as the Nestorian heresy, which, in denying that Mary was the Mother of God, did not acknowledge the divine identity of the person of the Son.

In the fourth century, St. Basil defended the divinity of the Holy Spirit by arguing that if the Holy Spirit had the power to divinize us by grace, he had to be divine. This argument was adopted by the Council of Constantinople in 381.

There was a long process riddled with obstacles and difficulties, which led to a clear dogmatic affirmation of God's triunity, beginning from the identity of the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is only on the basis of the biblical revelation that culminates in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that the Church confesses that God is triune, that he is Father, Son and Spirit, three divine persons in the unity of the same nature.

The tabernacle

With this synthetic formula, we enter into the Holy of Holies, the tabernacle. The word "tabernacle" comes from the word "tent" and evokes the proximity of the God of the covenant, who wishes to "pitch his tent among us."

In the Word made flesh and through his side, which was opened by the lance, the Holy of Holies was opened to us and God definitively pitched his tent among us. The real presence of Christ in the holy species conserved in the tabernacle always remains a privileged point of access to the intimacy of God.

St. John speaks of eternal life, of the communion between the Father and the Son, of the unity of the God who is love and of the condition for participating in this love: "He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4.16).

Each time we approach the altar of the sacrifice and the tabernacle of the divine presence with faith, we proclaim with our actions and our attitudes the Love that has pitched his tent among us.

From the nave to the street

Just as the laity forms the greatest visible portion of the Church, the nave constitutes the largest part of the church building. It is the place of assembly before the altar, where Christ offers himself and gives himself in communion. From here, the disciples leave to proclaim the Good News to the world, the good news of the Holy Trinity.

In fact, what difference does the Trinity make in our lives? Wouldn't it have been enough to believe in one God, like the Jews and Muslims? It is easier, at least at first glance, to believe in a God who is unique and simple, that is to say, alone. Absolute.

So why complicate life with the doctrine of the Trinity, over which intellectuals stumble?
We know the story of the little child St. Augustine met at the seashore as he was laboriously pondering the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The child is filling a little hole in the sand with seawater. Augustine tells him that it is impossible to make the ocean fit into this little hole. The Child Jesus answers that it is even more difficult to fit the mystery of the Holy Trinity into our small human intelligence.

Nothing is more beautiful than the Trinity. Nothing better explains the beauty of the world, the "why" of creation and the meaning of human existence.

At the summit of creation, man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God. The union of love of the spouses, from which the child proceeds, is a splendid image of the trinitarian mystery.

The family is a living proof that God is love and that he finds in the communion of persons the place par excellence of his revelation in and dialogue with the world. Pope John Paul II ceaselessly promoted the family as the privileged path of the new evangelization.

The total gift of self that I mentioned at the beginning of this catechesis generates joy and enthusiasm, because God is in himself absolute Gift of himself. Where absolute love reigns, there is only gift, welcome, return-gift and gift again. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as a superabundance of love, an "ever-greater" of love that is impossible to calculate or to fathom.

Pope Benedict loves to remind us that Jesus Christ is the human face of God. In the majestic features of the Saviour that we find imprinted on the veil of Manopello and on the Shroud of Turin, we contemplate a sacred mystery that compels us to silence and adoration: "From this face a solemn majesty shines, a paradoxical lordship.

"This face, these hands and these feet, this side, this whole body speaks. It is itself a word we can hear in the silence. How does the Shroud speak? It speaks with blood, and blood is life! . . . It is like a spring that murmurs in the silence, and we can hear it, we can listen to it in the silence of Holy Saturday."

We Christians have no monopoly on adoration. Like the other religions, we prostrate ourselves as creatures in the face of the God who transcends all things.

Nonetheless, our adoration involves something unique and exclusive, which no other religion can approach. This is the adoration in Spirit and in truth, of which Jesus speaks when he converses with the Samaritan woman at the well.

This adoration is that of Jesus Christ himself, the adoration of the Son begotten of the Father before all the ages. He came to earth to draw humanity into his filial love for the Father, into his eternal adoration, which he opens to us through faith, Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
There is nothing more beautiful than this eucharistic immersion in the mystery of the Three and in the ocean of their love, through the offering of the only-begotten Son. This offering is placed in our hands and we unite our own offering to it so as to participate, already now, in eternal life, that is, in the infinite exchange of love between the divine persons.

There is nothing more beautiful than to know and to live at that moment the marvel of Christianity, the certainty of loving and of being loved, the joy of possessing God and of being possessed by him, the gladness of belonging to the kingdom of absolute love.

The beauty of St. Joseph's Cathedral, where we are gathered, reflects the plenitude of meaning that emanates from the glory of God in Jesus Christ. May we ourselves, as persons and as Church, become more resplendent with this glory.

The Battle of Britain--Will Catholicism or atheism prevail? (CWR)

2010-10-03T18:31:00.000-05:00

By George Neumayr | October 2010

In World War II, Great Britain survived an atheistic assault from outside the country. Today’s “Battle of Britain” comes from an atheistic assault inside it. British culture is crumpling under the growing weight of a fervent secularism that appears religious and an exhausted state religion that appears secular. The once-claimed sturdy Anglican bridge between Christianity and the modern world has largely collapsed, leaving those thrashing around down below it to swim from the Thames to the Tiber or drown.

The Catholic Church in the United Kingdom, to be sure, has her own problems, but, as Pope Benedict’s historic September visit to Britain suggested, the country’s future could end up looking like its distant Catholic past. Pope Benedict stepped into the battle for that future not as a triumphant warrior but as a humble witness to the truth and grace contained in Christ’s Church.

The tone of Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain was set even before he got there. Asked by a reporter on the flight over what he could do to make Catholicism appear more “attractive” and “credible” to secularists and atheists in Britain, the Pope responded by challenging the premise of the question. He noted that a Catholicism which thought in those superficial terms would become just one more dangerous ideology and power grab in a world that needs fidelity to Christ:

One might say that a church which seeks above all to be attractive would already be on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for itself, does not work to increase its numbers so as to have more power. The Church is at the service of Another; it does not serve itself, seeking to be a strong body, but it strives to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ accessible, the great truths, the great powers of love and of reconciliation that appeared in this figure and that come always from the presence of Jesus Christ. In this sense, the Church does not seek to be attractive, but rather to make herself transparent for Jesus Christ. And in the measure in which the Church is not for herself, as a strong and powerful body in the world, that wishes to have power, but simply is herself the voice of Another, she becomes truly transparent to the great figure of Jesus Christ and the great truths that he has brought to humanity…

Read the rest at Catholic World Report

The Influence of John Henry Newman on Benedict XVI By Tracey Rowland

2010-10-03T09:34:00.003-05:00

Later today {9/16/10, ed.}, Pope Benedict XVI begins his Apostolic Journey to the United Kingdom, the main purpose of which is the beatification of John Henry Newman on Sunday, 19 September. But few English speakers seem to realise the extent to which Newman influenced German Catholic thought in the first half of the twentieth century, and particularly the theology of Joseph Ratzinger.

The Munich-based Jesuit, Erich Przywara (1889-1972), editor of the theology journal Stimmen der Zeit, had developed an interest in Newman as early as the 1920s and had encouraged Edith Stein (now St Teresa-Benedicta of the Cross) to translate Newman's pre-conversion letters and his Idea of a University into German.

The cultural critic Theodor Haecker, who had converted to Catholicism in 1921, had also translated works of Newman into German and is one of those specifically cited by Ratzinger as a popular author for seminarians of his time.

Haecker is also credited with introducing Sophie Scholl, martyr of the White Rose movement, and others in her circle to the works of Newman. During the Advent of 1943, Haecker quoted from his translation of Newman's Advent sermon on the Antichrist (Tract 83) to members of the anti-Nazi student group.

Haecker believed Newman was especially valuable for demonstrating the legitimate role of reason in the act of faith and for explaining conscience in relation to other acts of the mind, thus making conscience an organ and mediator of knowledge.

He praised Newman for his clear perception of the intellectual difficulties which exist for the faith in the modern world, and in particular for his understanding that these difficulties could not be overcome with "a naked syllogism."

The latter comment was a criticism of the tendency in pre-Conciliar theology to present the faith with reference to Latin maxims and syllogistic "proofs." In all Haecker published some seven books on Newman, mainly translations into German.

When Ratzinger joined the seminary in Freising in 1946, his Prefect of Studies, Alfred Laepple, was working on a dissertation on conscience in the work of Newman. Ratzinger has since reflected that for seminarians of his generation, "Newman's teaching on conscience became an important foundation for theological personalism, which was drawing us all in its sway. Our image of the human being as well as our image of the Church was permeated by this point of departure."

Ratzinger was to take from Newman his understanding of papal authority as a power that comes from revelation to complete natural conscience and Newman's rejection of the popularist interpretations of papal authority as something akin to absolute monarchy.

Ratzinger has written that the pope is not an absolute monarch, but more of a constitutional monarch - that is, someone whose powers are circumscribed by conventions or constitutions, or in the case of the Pope, by revelation itself.

But it was not only Laepple that was immersed in the works of Newman, so too was Gottlieb Soehngen (1892-1971), Ratzinger's teacher in fundamental theology and the director of both of Ratzinger's theses.

It was under Soehngen that Ratzinger studied Newman's Grammar of Assent. Soehngen had also worked on the topics of the convertibility of truth and being, on sacramentality, and on the border issues between theology and philosophy, all of which reappear as perennial themes in Ratzinger's publications.

In an address delivered to mark the centenary of Newman's death, Ratzinger remarked that even deeper for him than the contribution of Soehngen for his appreciation of Newman was the contribution which Heinrich Fries published in connection with the Jubilee of Chalcedon.

Here he found access to Newman's teaching on the development of doctrine, which he regards, along with Newman's doctrine on conscience, as Newman's decisive contribution to the renewal of theology. Newman's work "placed the key in our hand to build historical thought into theology, or much more, [Newman] taught us to think historically in theology and so to recognize the identity of faith in all developments."

This was a reference to what Ratzinger would later identify as the most significant issue for Catholic theology in the twentieth century - that of coming to an understanding of what he termed "the mediation of history in the realm of ontology."

In short hand terms, one might call this the Heideggerian "being in time" problem. Whereas the theological establishment prior to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s prided itself on being "ahistorical" or "above history," the effect of Heidegger's philosophy was to push to the front of theological speculation the issue of the significance of time and history for the development of tradition.

The different responses to the documents of the Second Vatican Council often revolve around different understandings of the role that history plays in theological speculation.

Here it is highly significant that Ratzinger's understanding of the development of doctrine comes from the convergence of the works of Newman and those of scholars of the nineteenth century Tuebingen school, who were working on parallel themes to those of Newman.

Newman was introduced to a French audience by Henri Bremond whose work in turn influenced that of Maurice Blondel, author of the seminal History and Dogma (1903). Blondel then influenced the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac, who, along with his student Hans Urs von Balthasar, ultimately became friends and mentors of Ratzinger.

In his introduction to the English translation of Blondel's The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma, Alexander Dru (a close friend of Theodor Haecker) noted that the very first edition of Annales de Philosophie Chretienne (a journal owned by Blondel and to which he was a frequent contributor) "pointed to the need to break away from the narrow Latin, Roman and Mediterranean conception of Catholicism by pointing to the relevance of the German Catholic writers of the Romantic period." Dru also noted that Blondel and Bremond - among others - were "carrying on (unbeknown, at first, to themselves) the tradition of Tuebingen (and in some respects therefore of Newman)."

While Newman's teaching on the development of doctrine opened a pathway for history in theological thought, the doctrine of conscience gave weight to the emerging body of mid-twentieth century scholarship presented as Christian personalism.

Both John Paul II and Ratzinger were heavily influenced by personalist currents in their early academic years.

Whereas the young Karl Wojtyla was in contact with the French sources of the movement, and with the work of the Munich-born philosopher Max Scheler, the young Ratzinger came to personalism primarily through the Saarland philosopher Peter Wust (1884-1940) and the Austrian born Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber (1878-1965).

In the nineteenth century, Newman was working on theological topics that ran parallel to those of the Catholic theologians at the University of Tuebingen and which could be described as a Catholic engagement with themes of interest to the Romantic movement.

Although Germany, France, England and Scotland all had their own particular Romantic movements, a common theme running through all of them was an interest in history, tradition, memory and the motions of the human heart.

These topics were absent from the neo-scholastic theology of the same period. They were to enter into the theological tradition in the twentieth century by way of a number of authors, including the scholarship of Przywara, Soehngen and Haecker in Germany, Blondel and de Lubac in France, and von Balthasar in Switzerland.

Newman is linked to all three of these tributaries. One might say that at the Second Vatican Council it wasn't merely the Rhine that flowed into the Tiber, but the Cherwell and Isis were there too.

It is therefore particularly fitting that it should be Benedict XVI - the student of Soehngen and colleague of de Lubac and von Balthasar - who finally beatifies Newman. As Alfred Laepple once remarked, when he and Ratzinger were seminarians, Newman was their hero.

Tracey Rowland is the Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, and the author of Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2010).

This ran originally here on September 16, 2010.

We were made for Love

2010-10-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

I ask each of you…to look into your own heart. Think of all the love that your heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give. After all, we were made for love. This is what the Bible means when it says that we are made in the image and likeness of God: we were made to know the God of love, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to find our supreme fulfillment in that divine love that knows no beginning or end.--Pope Benedict XVI

Rights-in-relation: need for an anthropology (from The Economy Project)

2010-10-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

I am taking the liberty of sharing a short post by Stratford Caldecott from his excellent site The Economy Project. Enjoy.

Rights-in-relation: need for an anthropology

Cardinal Angelo Scola, speaking in Venice recently, discussed the phenomenon of the expansion of the notion of 'rights' in the context of modern political discourse without any agreed philosophy underpinning them.

We are faced with a paradox: a hitherto unprecedented circulation and expansion of rights in tandem with a degree of vagueness about their content... Looked at from one side, any catalogue of rights has formidable economic and social implications, but in truth it is itself the product of a certain view of man which is always I-in-relation. To recover the true face of rights it is indispensable to engage with their anthropological and social dimensions: an objective on which the various sciences and disciplines converge, each with its own specificity but in a perspective which increasingly requires a transdisciplinary dimension.

It seems to me that the Cardinal is getting at the following. Human rights can only be based on (a) the inherent or intrinsic value of the person, existing in relation to God, cosmos, environment, and fellow human beings, and (b) the actual needs (rather than wants) of that person in that situation if he is not just to survive but to flourish. This requires that we know at least roughly what a human being is and what causes him to flourish - in other words, we need an adequate anthropology. Without that, we are whistling in the dark.

Through Christ and in Christ

2010-09-30T17:06:00.000-05:00

Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father.--Gaudium Et Spes (22)

Tracey Rowland--Seeking a Christocentric Culture

2010-09-30T10:27:00.001-05:00

Winston Elliott, Tracey Rowland, Barbara Elliott

Last evening I had the opportunity to listen to a masterful presentation by Tracey Rowland on culture and the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. She is Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies in Melbourne, Australia. She is also a member of the editorial board of Communio: International Catholic Review, North America Edition. Tracey has focused her scholarship on the interpretation of Vatican II and the theology of culture. She is the author of several books that I highly recommend: Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Dr. Rowland's work, along with that of David Schindler, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI, provides us with the theological and anthropological understanding necessary to transform our culture so as to reflect the perfect love of the perfect community, the Holy Trinity. Thank you Tracey.

Novena to Our Lady of Walsingham

2010-09-27T19:14:00.001-05:00

Devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham is always centered on the Mystery of the Annunciation. It was at the Annunciation that Our Lady accepted God's invitation to be the Mother of God, the Theotokos. She gave herself over to God's will and conceived by the Holy Spirit. By this same Holy Spirit Mary always leads us to Jesus, and her prayers help us say "yes" to God's will in our lives even as she did at the Annunciation.

¶ The Veni Creator Spiritus may precede the Novena devotions.

Veni Creator Spiritus

O come, Creator Spirit, come
And make within our souls thy home;
Supply thy grace and heav'nly aid
To fill the hearts which thou hast made.

O Gift of God, most high, thy name
Is Comforter; whom we acclaim
The fount of life, the fire of love,
The soul's anointing from above.

The sev'nfold gift of grace is thine,
Thou finger of the hand divine;
The Father's promise true, to teach
Our earthly tongues thy heav'nly speech.

Thy light to every sense impart;
Pour forth thy love in every heart;
Our weakened flesh do thou restore
To strength and courage evermore.

Drive far away our spirit's foe,
Thine own abiding peace bestow;
If thou dost go before as guide,
No evil can our steps betide.

Through thee may we the Father learn,
And know the Son, and thee discern,
Who art of both; and thus adore
In perfect faith for evermore. Amen.

X In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Cardinal Mercier's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Written by him from the Holy Ghost Chapel in the Slipper Chapel

Walsingham, England

Holy Spirit, soul of my soul I adore you; enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me; tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in every-thing that you ask of me and to accept all that you permit to happen to me, only show me what is your will. Amen.

Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be...

Ancient Walsingham Prayer

O alone of all women, Mother and Virgin, Mother most happy, Virgin most pure, now we sinful as we are, come to see thee who are all pure, we salute thee, we honour thee as how we may with our humble offerings; may thy Son grant us, that imitating thy most holy manners, we also, by the grace of the Holy Ghost may deserve spiritually to conceive the Lord Jesus in our inmost soul, and once conceived never to lose him. Amen.

¶ The Litany of Our Lady of Walsingham follows.

Litany of Our Lady of Walsingham

Mary
Mary, without sin,
Mary, God's Mother,
Mary the Virgin,
Mary taken to Heaven,

Mary at Bethlehem,
Mary at Nazareth,
Mary at Cana,

Mary at the cross,
Mary in the Upper Room,
Mary model of Womanhood,

Woman of Faith,
Woman of Hope,
Woman of Charity,
Woman of suffering,
Woman of anxiety,
Woman of humility,
Woman of poverty,
Woman of purity,
Woman of obedience,

Woman who wondered,
Woman who listened,
Woman who followed Him,
Woman who longed for Him,
Woman who loves Him,

Mother of God,
Mother of Men,
Mother of the Church,
Mother of the World,
Mother we need,

Mother of the Unborn,

Mother who went on believing,
Mother who never lost hope,
Mother who loved to the end,

Pray to the Lord for us

Pray for all mothers.
Pray for all families.
Pray for all married couples.

Pray for all who suffer.
Pray for all who wait.
Pray for all women.

Remember us.

Remember us to God.

Be our Mother always

Pray for all children

We thank God for you.

Let us Pray.
All Holy and ever-living God, in giving us Jesus Christ to be our Saviour and Brother, You gave us Mary, His Mother, to be our Mother also; grant us, we pray you, to live lives worthy of so great a Brother and so dear a Mother, that we may come at last to you the Father of us all, Who lives and reigns for ever. Amen.
Our Lady of Walsingham, Pray for us.

Prayer to Our Lady of Walsingham

O blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon us, our parish, our country, our homes, and our families, and upon all who greatly hope and trust in your prayers, (especially...) By you it was that Jesus, our Savior and hope, was given to the world; and he has given you to us that we may hope still more. Plead for us your children, whom you did receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of your Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we all may be made worthy to see and praise God, together with you in our heavenly home. Amen.
Our Lady of Walsingham, Pray for us.

Eyes on the prize--Romano Guardini & "The End of the Modern World"

2010-09-14T10:06:00.001-05:00

Medieval man centered his faith in Revelation as it had been enshrined in Scripture, in that Revelation which affirmed the existence of a God Who holds His Being separate and beyond the world.--Romano Guardini

Guardini, in The End of the Modern World, reveals the depth of the Christian faith found in medieval Christianity. Do we Christians today center our faith in Revelation as it is enshrined in Scripture? Does our faith shape our lives? Does our faith shape how we spend our time, our talent, and our money? Or do the priorities of the world shape us?

It is a necessity of the Christocentric Life to keep our eyes on the prize. Looking neither to the left or to the right, we followers of Christ run the race to the end. Only then may we hear "well done, good and faithful servant."

"The doctrine of creation most decisively reveals the power of God, the Infinite Sovereign. The world was created out of nothing by the freedom of the Almighty. Whose commanding Word gives to all things being and nature; of itself that world lacks any trace of internal necessity or external possibility.

Christian Faith meant trust in and obedience to God's Revelation to man. It also meant that man must confront and answer His Call, which alone gives meaning to finite personality."

"One great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament"--J.R.R. Tolkien

2010-09-13T15:05:00.003-05:00

“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament . . . . [ellipses in original] There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends, life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained , or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.” J.R.R. Tolkien to his son, Michael, dated 6-8 March 1941

From Brad Birzer's marvelous book, J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth.

"Threads" interview of David L. Schindler

2010-09-13T10:10:00.004-05:00

David L. Schindler is Gagnon professor of fundamental theology at the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C., and editor of the North American edition of Communio, the international theological review. A nationally recognized author, teacher and lecturer, his latest book is "Heart of the World, Center of the Church" (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich.). He spoke with "Threads" recently from his Washington office.

THREADS: How would you describe the central themes of 20th-century Catholic theology -- the main accomplishments and reversals over the last 100 years?

SCHINDLER: Let me begin by focusing on one theologian in particular, and then point out some of the themes that revolve around his work. The theologian is Henri de Lubac, and his life, interestingly enough, spanned most of the century: He was born at the turn of the century and died just five years ago. In a certain sense, De Lubac's work was part of all the major controversies from the late 1930s right up until the last decade or so of his life -- both the pre-Vatican II debates and the post-conciliar ones.

The basic theme of the 20th century -- and in a way, it's the theme of every century, but it has a particular urgency in our time -- is our sense of God in light of the problem of atheism. This finds its abstract formulation in the question of nature and grace, which was so controversial from the beginning of De Lubac's career up through the years following the council. The question has to do with the way in which relation to God becomes constitutive of the human being, such that life is fundamentally a drama, an engagement with God.

What De Lubac understood [most profoundly] was this problem of atheism; one of his best known books is "The Drama of Atheist Humanism." The battle before the Church, as she faces the culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, is the question of atheism. In the 19th century, you had an atheism of the style of Nietzsche. In the 20th century, at least in America and in Anglo-American liberal society, the problem of atheism takes the form of Jack Kevorkian or the philosopher Richard Rorty --

I'm curious why you'd pick De Lubac as pivotal, rather than Balthasar or Congar or some of the German theologians.

The quick answer is that, in a way, De Lubac was first. His work became the galvanizing point of debate. His book "The Supernatural," published in 1946, criticized what he saw as too much dualism in the modern Catholic tradition. In other words, he perceived that Catholic theology, by excessively separating the natural and supernatural orders, was actually colluding with a kind of naturalism in the culture. That's putting it abstractly. But the point for De Lubac is: Is the relationship to God constitutive for the human being, does it constitute his being, or doesn't it? Is God something accidental and abstract, or Someone the relation to whom goes very deep in the creature? De Lubac's work became the classical point of reference, and even though Balthasar may one day be seen as the great interpreter of the Second Vatican Council, the one whose writings most profoundly grasp the council's main themes, still the council itself was really shaped by the theology of De Lubac.

The aftermath of the council was marked by the divergence of "Concilium" and "Communio" theologians in interpreting what Vatican II actually intended. What was that split about?

In the opening phase of the council, theologians shared a common view that a certain kind of traditional Catholic theology had to be renewed. That had a lot to do with the sense of God and the relation of the natural and supernatural orders. But, as so often happens when you have a negative unity, a common enemy, you discover that once you're victorious, not much positive unity remains. So as the council went on, theologians seeking renewal bifurcated into one group that wanted to adapt as much as possible to modern culture, post-Enlightenment culture; and another group who insisted that, in order to achieve renewal, we had to go back to the sources and immerse ourselves in the tradition. As Charles Peguy said, one has to go to the bottom of the well to retrieve the freshest water.

This divergence continued into the years after the council and resulted in the creation, first, of a review called "Concilium" --

Who were the motive thinkers behind "Concilium," as opposed to "Communio?"

For "Concilium," they were Karl Rahner, Schillebeeckx and Hans Kung. For "Communio," De Lubac, Danielou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Ratzinger and Karol Wojtyla [now John Paul II]. The difference between them, again, was this nature/grace question. Theologians like Rahner tended to emphasize human experience. The "Communio" theologians tended to stress the need to start from within revelation, within the tradition, as the key interpreter of human experience.

You're currently editing a new series of books on Catholic ressourcement theology. What exactly does that term -- ressourcement -- mean, and why would a traditionally Protestant, Calvinist house like Eerdmans have an interest in publishing a series about it?

I'd go back to Peguy: You find the freshest water at the bottom of the well. The idea of the series is to translate for the first time, or bring back into print, the main books of the thinkers who engaged this task of ressourcement , i.e., going back to the sources. People like Romano Guardini and his book. "The End of the Modern World." Or De Lubac himself and Georges Bernanos, one of the great novelists of the 20th century. Balthasar said that Bernanos gives us the greatest paradigm of the priesthood of the laity. His novel, "Diary of a Country Priest," offers us perhaps the most vivid example of what the council meant when it talked about the vocation of living out the call to holiness in the world . . .

Anyway, our purpose is to make these authors available to a generation that, since the council, hasn't had access to this kind of literature.

But why Eerdmans?

Eerdmans made a decision some time ago to broaden its offerings, but beyond that, I think they see some parallels in the relationship Karl Barth had to Protestantism, and the work of Balthasar to Catholic theology.

Why did you embark on this project personally?

Because it extends the purpose of "Communio." When Ratzinger, Wojtyla and De Lubac began "Communio," they wanted to recover the sources of Catholic thought, and that's very much my objective in the ressourcement series. Of course, in Europe you don't have the dearth of writing by these [ressourcement] authors that you face here.

In this country, Kung and Schillebeeckx seem far better known than Balthasar and De Lubac. Why?

In a way, they're more popular because they fit the zeitgeist better; their patterns of thinking are more congenial to the American spirit, especially in light of the secularization of our culture. We live in a post-Enlightenment culture, not a patristic culture.

With De Lubac and Balthasar, the retrieval [of Catholic sources] requires a kind of reversal, turning our [post-Enlightenment] thought patterns upside down and inserting ourselves inside revelation -- and through prayer, obedience and participation in the life of the Church, reading culture from a Christological point of view. It involves discerning the signs of the times through the mind of God. That's not a matter of hubris, but of prayer and obedience.

When you say we live in a post-Enlightenment culture as opposed to a patristic one, what does that translate to for the average layperson?

The autonomy of the individual. We have a self-centered, constructivist view of the self. We emphasize doing, making and the creativity of the self. As a result, our thinking, being and doing are not inserted sufficiently into our relationship with God. "I want to make my own world and have my own thoughts" -- that approach is pervasive in democratic, capitalist societies like the one we inhabit today.

So what would a truly Christian, patristic culture look like?

A good way to understand that is to read some of the recent encyclicals of this pope -- Evangelium Vitae, for example. At the heart of Evangelium Vitae is a deeper, contemplative, Marian sense of reality as gift; a primacy of recognizing people for what they are; a culture of being rather than having. Compare that to the culture we have today, which is highly instrumentalist and utilitarian; where we value things and even people for the pleasure they can bring or how they can be used for profit. This is the instrumentalism and utilitarianism which the pope sums up in what he calls the "culture of death." But the core error in all of this is our defective relation to God.

You bear some personal scars from the debate over how to interpret capitalism in light of Catholic teaching. You're aware of Cardinal Ratzinger's critique of consumer capitalism in the '80s, and the economic writings of this pope. How should Catholics think about capitalism, and how would you answer the argument that capitalism is the healthy alternative to things like Marxism?

Again, it comes back to communio theology. The idea of communion. We're called to love others as God loved us; to participate in the Trinitarian communion of love within God Himself through His son Jesus Christ. Now, that may sound highly abstract, but it's the nub of everything else. The call to love needs to penetrate every phase of our existence.

We have to order our economy within this call to love. The fact that Marxism-Leninism has been eliminated doesn't mean that the only alternative is a capitalism to which the Church must provide a moral correction. The Church proposes something different from both -- namely, communio. That should provide our basic context. In other words, the call to sanctity should form what we do in our economy. So, with a notion like self-interest: Of course we can't suppress that impulse forcibly; if we try, we end up in totalitarianism. But that doesn't mean we should bless it as a virtue of necessity. The call to sanctity requires a transformation of self-interest and its replacement, insofar as possible, with love.

Adam Smith [author of "The Wealth of Nations"] is undergoing a kind of rehabilitation these days. Some people claim there's a support [for his thought] in Centesimus Annus, as though what is privately a vice -- self-interest -- well, if we channel it, we can make it socially a virtue. I don't think the pope affirms that; in fact, I believe he sees that as residing at the core of both spiritual and material poverty throughout the world.

But then how should we interpret Centesimus Annus, because it certainly has been hailed as a document that blesses a modified democratic capitalism.

It blesses a free market, and of course freedom is an essential element of any adequate understanding of the human person. But it puts this in the context of a call for integral, authentic human liberation. Liberation comes first -- liberation from sin. It involves forgiveness by the Holy Spirit and conversion, and the paradigm is Mary. So yes, there's an approval of a market economy, but precisely in the context of this radical conversion, the call to love.

OK, given what you've just said about capitalism, how should we think about technology as Catholics -- and particularly the new communications technologies? I mean, capitalism runs on technological innovation, and we're not going to be able to escape that, given the nature of progress.

Bernanos said that we should assume intellectuals are imbeciles until they prove the contrary. That insight has a particular resonance in a technological culture. All of us, in this culture, grow up with the presumption that a technique or a method can solve problems that require genuine intelligence, interiority, morality and spirituality. This happens in a comprehensive way in academic circles -- the reliance on critical methods -- where it becomes a substitute for wisdom, which requires depth of contemplation.

It's been our temptation since the world began -- we find a technical means to solve a spiritual problem. But today the temptation is greater than ever, because our techniques have greater potential than ever before.

A good place to begin thinking about these questions as Catholics is the issue of contraception. Built into the Church's rejection of contraception is a certain understanding of technology. We can't just blunder into any old mechanical or chemical means to solve a human problem. Technical means need to be penetrated from within with contemplation, morality and a sense of God and the order required by God. Now, all of this is at the level of principle, but it's also concrete, because it affects everything we think about and do.

This is one of the great battlegrounds of the future. Catholic theology must engage with this issue much more radically than it has in the past.

I wonder if the roots of this nation in the religious wars of the old country -- the need to escape the bitter sectarian divisions of Europe -- haven't resulted in a contemporary American mindset of, "Let's agree to go with what works."

Well about those religious wars, I would say we need to look at whether we're really any less violent, now that we've achieved a certain civility and an agreement to cooperate. One could argue that we're every bit as violent as we were 300 years ago, but now we're killing different people more subtly and calling it humane, thanks to euthanasia and abortion.

This leads to the question of utilitarianism, because [as a culture] we've said, "Let's set all these important questions about the meaning of life aside, and instead let's just agree to do what works." The trouble with "doing what works" is that it tends to create a lowest common denominator mentality. In other words, we agree to focus only on what feeds us, clothes us and gives us comfort --

It also creates a completely instrumentalist mindset.

Exactly. Things that obstruct my comfort have to be moved out of the way. But I don't think our response [as Catholics] can be romanticism. By that I mean, there are always advances in history which are coincident with corruptions, and corruptions which are coincident with advances. And history is real -- so we don't have the option of a nostalgic reaching back to some mythical society in the past. We have to ponder these technology issues much more fundamentally than we have to date, and understand the role they play in creating an instrumentalist culture.

The irony of technology is that while we're speaking here, you're being recorded onto a computer's hard drive for uploading onto the world wide web, to be listened to by people anywhere from Ireland to Antarctica. What you say will potentially be heard just as easily in Johannesburg as Los Angeles. Obviously, these technologies have some positive value, but how do you sort through it from a Catholic perspective?

As technology develops, we need to probe it and bring into sharper relief the dangers involved. I mean, there's a certain abstraction in these new communication technologies, because the communication is not incarnate. There's an elimination of space and time, and we need to reflect on the meaning of that.

You recently edited a book by Romano Guardini, "Letters from Lake Como," that dealt with some of these technology questions. He was writing some 60 years ago, but do his thoughts contain anything we can draw sustenance from today?

His letters were a reflection on what he observed as Southern Europe industrialized -- thoughts on the changing nature of tools and the idea of a craft, and what the changes were doing to the landscape. He's not just hearkening back to some ideal past; rather, he's trying to highlight the dangers inherent in mechanization, and our need to be clearly conscious of what gets lost. The best thoughts by Guardini on this subject are found in the last chapter of his book, "The End of the Modern World," where he really outlines the dangers. Technology changes consciousness. Industrialization changes consciousness.

It changes vocabulary too.

It changes everything. As Allan Bloom said many years ago, there's a world of difference between one great thinker who grasps and integrates the whole, and a thousand mediocre thinkers who understand only part of it. To the degree we allow ourselves to be a culture ordered to immediate self-interest, with everyone working on a part without an interest in the good of the whole, we will be fundamentally fragmented.

Among your many other tasks, you play a key role at the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family. What's the future of the institute? Why is it so important right now?

The origins of the institute are found in then-Cardinal Wojtyla's reading of the reception of Humane Vitae by Catholics in the '60s and after. He felt that the problem with the encyclical was that it didn't have a full enough anthropology; in other words, it wasn't integrated adequately into the larger question of the nature and destiny of the human being. The purpose of the institute is to develop that anthropology, in other words a full understanding of the nature of the human person in community, in light of the main doctrines of the Church --Trinity, Christology, Mariology, ecclesiology, etc.

The point is that the family is the basic cell of humanity, of the Church and civil society. If we lose the basic integrity of the family, then we've lost civilization. The pope's foresight on this issue has really become clear since [the U.N conferences in] Cairo and Beijing. What's going on now is not fundamentally a battle of economics or the threat of an arms race, but a struggle over the meaning and destiny of the human person.

One value of the institute seems to be as a countersign to contemporary academic life. So much of today's secular academic research seems focused on reducing the family to a relative, cultural construct.

Absolutely, even on questions as fundamental as: "Is there a basic difference between men and women?" It's paradoxical that the Church has become the last bastion of defense of authentic differences between men and women. The Church is the only one speaking unequivocally, internationally, to this point. What's at stake is the integrity of the love at the heart of the basic human community -- namely, the family.

Take the question of gender: Anyone who hasn't been sleepwalking in America over the last three or four decades knows how urgent the question of gender is -- same sex marriage; whether there are two genders or five. In the context of Beijing, there's increasing pressure to make five genders normative. These issues need profound responses. Intuitively, most people properly formed see problems with that idea [of five genders]. But it's one thing to understand things intuitively, quite another to articulate a response so that people can sort these issues out as they reflect on the culture.

One final question: Why did you write "Heart of the World, Center of the Church."

For some of the reasons we've talked about here. The problem in our country is atheism. But it's a peculiar sort -- a practical atheism. Nietzsche embodied a European unbelief that was sensitive to the question of the infinite and presumed that since God had died, humanity had to fill the infinite void left by Him and become infinitely creative.

In this country, we have an atheism with a shrug of the shoulders, a kind of relaxed unfolding of random finiteness. Our atheism is not a matter of reflective principle; instead, we're not even conscious of God or His absence, because we're so busy consuming.

Atheism with a happy face.

Right. So, as a culture, we have an enormous problem -- and it's a religious one. Catholics need to respond by working to reinstate a sense of God so that we can regain an adequate sense of our own creatureliness -- in other words, "I'm not the source of my own being, my own moral norms. I'm not the author of my life and therefore not the one who decides about my death."

What's happened in U.S. Catholicism -- thanks in part to [Jesuit Father] John Courtney Murray, who did many good things otherwise -- is that we now assume that we can't bring God into the heart of this discussion because, there are a lot of non-believers out there. But that's precisely the point. It's because religious questions have been so radically removed from our culture that we're so vulnerable to phenomena like Jack Kevorkian and abortion.

As the philosopher Will Herberg observed in his book, "Protestant, Catholic, Jew," Americans are privately very religious, but then in public we all agree to subscribe to the virtues that make us good democrats and good free marketeers, so that faith becomes essentially a fragmented, private reality. In effect, we're private theists and public atheists.

Do you have one particular source of apprehension and one special source of hope as the century closes -- from a Catholic theological perspective?

Grounds for hope? Americans are religiously sincere and morally generous. This country has a tremendous energy and abundance of good will. In the light of God's infinite mercy, that's always a good reason to hope.

My fear is that we don't see the subtlety of how -- as the pope says in Evangelium Vitae -- democracy can invert into totalitarianism. We have the illusion that we're free because no one tells us what to do. We have political freedom. But at the same time, a theological and philosophical set of assumptions informs our freedom, of which we're unconscious. A logic or "ontologic" of selfishness undermines our moral intention of generosity. We don't have the requisite worldview that would help us address abortion or the more general, current threat to the family.

Can we unmask the assumptions of our culture and deal with them in a way that will free the latent generosity of the culture? Or will those hidden assumptions overcome our generosity? This is the real battle, both globally and in America. It calls for a new effort of evangelization -- which consists, above all, in first getting clear about the ideas in Evangelium Vitae; understanding the logic of self-centeredness in a post-Enlightenment liberal culture. Alasdair McIntyre has a great line: that all debates in America are finally among radical liberals, liberal liberals and conservative liberals. That's how I would sum up. If we don't come to terms with liberalism.

But liberalism in what sense? Quite a few people who would describe themselves as conservative or neoconservative are, in fact, liberal . . .

That's the point: They're the conservative wing of liberalism. And in a sense, they wouldn't even deny that, insofar as their project is to show that a benign reading of American liberal tradition is harmonious with Catholicism. That's what I'm challenging. Their approach doesn't go to the roots of our [cultural and spiritual] problem, as identified in this pontificate and in the work of theologians like De Lubac and Balthasar.[Contemporary U.S. culture is rooted in] self-centeredness. A false sense of autonomy centered in the self; an incomplete conception of rights. So we need to reinstate a right relation to God on all levels -- not only at the level of intention, but at the level of the logic of our culture. Our relation to God has to inform not only our will, but how we think and how we construct our institutions.

(This interview is condensed and adapted from the full audio recording, available in RealAudio 2.0 at www.archden.org/archden. Audiocassette copies are available for $6.95 from the Communications Secretariat, Archdiocese of Denver, 200 Josephine St., Denver, CO, 80206. Please enclose a check made payable to the Communications Secretariat.) Archdiocese of Denver.

This came from la nouvelle theologie.

If you see charity, you see the Trinity

2010-09-08T19:11:00.000-05:00

“If you see charity, you see the Trinity”, wrote Saint Augustine in De Trinitate. The Trinity is the perfect model of a community of love. A true community (communio) is where love received as a gift from our Creator is poured out in abundance to the broken and the needy. Doesn't this include most of us? Aren't many of us in need of a "Good Samaritan" who offers healing love to hearts that have grown cold?

In "Deus Caritas Est" Pope Benedict XVI writes that those who carry on true works of charity: "must not be inspired by ideologies aimed at improving the world, but should rather be guided by the faith which works through love (cf. Gal 5:6). Consequently, more than anything, they must be persons moved by Christ's love, persons whose hearts Christ has conquered with his love, awakening within them a love of neighbour. The criterion inspiring their activity should be Saint Paul's statement in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: “the love of Christ urges us on” (5:14). The consciousness that, in Christ, God has given himself for us, even unto death, must inspire us to live no longer for ourselves but for him, and, with him, for others. Whoever loves Christ loves the Church, and desires the Church to be increasingly the image and instrument of the love which flows from Christ."

Government can provide social services, tax credits, assistance payments, "free" lunches and perhaps even contribute to the "general welfare." But, can it love? No. The national government should stop taking resources from some of us to give to others. This most often has a paralyzing effect on impulses toward true charity and reduces what we have to give.

In gratitude for the tremendous love that has been given to us Christians will share with the broken, the lost and the lonely. Why is it important that we share the love we have been given? As John Paul II wrote: "Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This...is why Christ the Redeemer 'fully reveals man to himself'".

Man remains the same in primitive conditions as in technologically developed societies

2010-09-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

"Man qua man remains the same in primitive conditions as in technologically developed societies and does not advance to a higher level simply by the fact that he has learned to employ more highly developed tools. Human nature starts over from the beginning in every human being. Therefore there cannot be such a thing as a definitively new, advanced, and smooth-running society. Not only was this the hope of the grand ideologies, but it has been becoming more and more the general objective expected by all ever since hope in the hereafter was demolished. A definitively well-run society would presuppose the end of freedom. " -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

What is the object of human life?-Russell Kirk

2010-02-03T11:28:00.006-06:00

What is the object of human life? The enlightened conservative does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success; or enjoyment; or longevity; or power; or possessions. He believes instead, that the object of life is Love. He knows that the just and ordered society is that in which Love governs us, so far as Love ever can reign in this world of sorrows; and he knows that the anarchical or the tyrannical society is that in which Love lies corrupt. He has learnt that Love is the source of all being, and that Hell itself is ordained by Love. He understands that Death, when we have finished the part that was assigned to us, is the reward of Love. And he apprehends the truth that the greatest happiness ever granted to a man is the privilege of being happy in the hour of his death.

He has no intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics. Men are put into this world, he realizes, to struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that "they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Russell Kirk

In the paragraphs above, from A Program for Conservatives, Dr. Kirk addresses conservatives. However, I believe he also describes the calling of the Christocentric Life. His words remind us of our pilgrim status in this world of tears. We are not called to material success. We are called to obedience. We are called to love. We are called to love He who is Love Himself. A society where a large number of Christians know and live this calling will be transformed. The True, the Good, and the Beautiful will find their true place in our culture only when many more of us are obedient to Love.

O my God, I love Thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art infinitely worthy of love; I love also my neighbor as myself for the love of Thee. Amen

Let this be the year

2010-01-04T18:51:00.003-06:00

"...whoever desires greater action needs better contemplation; whoever wants to play a more formative role must pray and obey more profoundly; whoever wants to achieve additional goals must grasp the uselessness and futility, the uncalculating and incalculable (hence "unprofitable") nature of the eternal love in Christ, as well as of every love along the path of Christian discipleship. --Hans urs von Balthasar

It is the start of a new year, a new decade. Many of us have set goals, made resolutions and prepared action plans. We may want to write a book, read more, earn more, be on time. Perhaps with all of our self improvements and increased efficiency we can be more productive at work and at home.

Do we also have the desire to be disciples of Jesus? Von Balthasar urges us to live lives of greater contemplation so that our actions may further the Kingdom of God. As intentional disciples we know that living the life of eternal love may appear as foolishness to the world. However, our love is not calculated to please the world but is offered in gratitude to our Lord and for all of his children.

Whoever wants to command must have learned to follow in a Christ-like manner; whoever wants to administer the goods of the world must first have freed himself from all desire for possession; whoever wants to show the world Christian love must have practiced the love of Christ (even in marriage) to the point of pure selflessness.--von Balthasar

Here von Balthasar offers us a great challenge for to follow in a Christ-like (love immersed) manner may be to follow on to death. Do we trust the Lord (or anyone) enough to obey when everything we have may be demanded? Are we capable of freeing ourselves of all desire for possession? Only with the grace of God can we even conceive of why this may be desirable. Many of us may ask ourselves if we have ever felt a love so great that we would even consider this level of selflessness.

One might think that what our Lord asks is too much. Maybe to live the beatitudes is beyond human capability. Let's not be radical. After all, moderation in pursuit of supernatural virtue is no vice, is it?

Or perhaps for you this is not just the start of a new year or decade. Maybe now is the beginning of a new life in Christ. A life of radical love and radical commitment. Maybe this is the year when I love more than I have ever loved before. This could be the year when I live a life of gratitude and gift. Gratitude for the love of the Father and the sacrifice of his Son. Gratitude for the Holy Spirit who opens my eyes to the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

And this may be the beginning of my new life of sharing the love of the Lord with everyone I touch. Loving in a new way, with boldness and beauty. Maybe this is the beginning of loving without fear of rejection. Fear rejected and love embraced so that I am in communion with God and all his creation.

Yes Lord, please immerse me in your grace. Thank you Lord for your love. Thank you for your peace. Please Jesus help me to be more like you so that your light shines through me. I love You. Help me to love You more. Amen.

cross posted at "Intentional Disciples"

An Inconvenient Truth--Loss and Love

2009-12-28T18:10:00.006-06:00

"The Jesus who makes everything OK for everyone is a phantom, a dream, not a real figure. The Jesus of the Gospels is certainly not convenient for us. But it is precisely in this way that he answers the deepest question of our existence, which--whether we want to or not--keeps us on the lookout for God, for a gratification that is limitless, for the infinite. We must again set out on the way to this real Jesus."--Benedict XVI

The twelve days of Christmas from December 25th through Epiphany on January 6th are a time of year when many of us are celebrating the birth of Jesus with great joy. A time of families reunited, gift and gratitude.

For others of us this is a time of heightened pain and struggle. We may be among the lost, the lonely and the broken. Praying for the love of God to fill our hearts for they are dark and empty. Come Lord Jesus, warm my heart with your love.

We may be mourning the loss of loved ones. Their absence is more sharply felt in a time when we most desire to heal our souls with the comfort of their loving embrace. A gentle touch, a kiss, a kind word which cannot be shared cuts like a knife into our wounded hearts. Come Lord Jesus, heal my heart with your love.

Perhaps we are struggling with financial hardship and despair over what the new year will bring. We have responsibilities to provide for our families and to meet our obligations but we lack control over our situation. Come Lord Jesus, take away my fear.

Our Father in heaven sent his only Son to us so that we may be healed by his love. He should have been welcomed with a warm embrace, instead he was spat upon. Jesus should have been protected by those he loved, but he was betrayed and abandoned by those closest to him. He was neither wealthy or powerful in the worldly sense. The Father knew this was how his beloved Son would be treated and still he sent Him to us. Why did the Son open himself up to this much pain? Could there be a bigger burden than to take on all of the sin of world?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Our Lord loves us so completely that he allowed his Son to suffer and die for us. This is an inconvenient truth. It is heart warming to think of the divine infant lying in a manger. But, we must be ever mindful that his purpose was to reconcile us with the Father. He chose to suffer for us so that we may find love eternal.

Lord Jesus, in our suffering, in our pain, in our fear give us the grace to open our hearts to you. For if we join our hearts with yours we may suffer but never will we be alone. We will be comforted and we will find hope. Father in heaven thank you for the gift of your Son. Mother Mary, help us to walk the path to the real Jesus. Amen.

cross posted at "Intentional Disciples"

Beauty for Truth's Sake-Queen of the Sciences

2009-12-23T10:48:00.002-06:00

Below is a post by Stratford Caldecott on Beauty for Truth's Sake. I highly recommend this site and his recent book by the same title. My comments are appended at the end.

Queen of the Sciences

Here is a passage from Fr Robert Barron's wonderful book The Priority of Christ (pp. 155-6):

In the thirteenth century, Bonaventure maintained that all of the non-theological arts and sciences taught in the university find their proper center in theology, that science which speaks directly of Christ the Logos. As the rationality of God the creator, Christ is the physical, mathematical, and metaphysical center of the universe and hence the point of orientation for all of the sciences dealing with those dimensions.

In the nineteenth-century, at the high-water mark of modern foundationalism, John Henry Newman felt compelled to call for the re-insertion of theology within the circle of university disciplines. Following the inner logic of Christian revelation, Newman, like Bonaventure, saw that theology not only should be around the table, but must be the centering element in the conversation, precisely because it alone speaks of the creator God who is metaphysically implicit in all finite existence.

A few lines later he adds: "Newman saw that once theology is displaced, some other discipline necessarily takes its position at the center and thereby disturbs the proper harmony among the sciences, for no other discipline has the range or inclusiveness properly to hold the center."

The same argument is made powerfully in Alasdair MacIntyre's recent book, God, Philosophy, Universities. But what is this "proper" harmony that Barron appeals to? Why is only theology capable of "holding the center"? The point is that, while theology cannot determine the methods or content of the individual sciences, it alone is concerned with that which transcends them all. It is a place-holder for that which connects everything - for what Barron terms "co-inherent relationality." Theology as a formal discipline is a quest for that relationality. Without it, rationality itself fragments and falls apart.

Icon by Solrunn Nes (www.icon-painting.com). "Just as the Virgin was called to offer herself entirely as human being and as woman that God's Word might take flesh and come among us, so too philosophy is called to offer its rational and critical resources that theology, as the understanding of faith, may be fruitful and creative. And just as in giving her assent to Gabriel's word, Mary lost nothing of her true humanity and freedom, so too when philosophy heeds the summons of the Gospel's truth its autonomy is in no way impaired. Indeed, it is then that philosophy sees all its enquiries rise to their highest expression" (John Paul II,Fides et Ratio, 108).

{End Caldecott post}

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"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"

These words of William Butler Yeats in The Second Coming may be used to describe a culture in which Christ is no longer at the center.

Thank you Mr. Caldecott for reminding us that when the study of theology loses its rightful position in higher education all learning and culture loses it unity. For without relationship with our Lord things fall apart and hope is lost.

cross posted at "Intentional Disciples"

Rendering God Credible

2009-12-21T13:36:00.004-06:00

Above all, that of which we are in need at this moment in history are men who, through an enlightened and lived faith, render God credible in this world. The negative testimony of Christians who speak about God and live against him, has darkened God's image and opened the door to disbelief. We need men who have their gaze directed to God, to understand true humanity. We need men whose intellects are enlightened by the light of God, and whose hearts God opens, so that their intellects can speak to the intellects of others, and so that their hearts are able to open up to the hearts of others. Only through men who have been touched by God, can God come near to men.--Benedict XVI

What an amazing goal, to be a person "...who, through an enlightened and lived faith, render[s] God credible in this world." How close do we come to rendering God credible to this world? Is this even our desire? Do we believe it possible to become such a person? What is our picture of how such a person would live?

Where to begin? For many of us it may begin with a prayer: Lord immerse me in your grace so that I may joyfully accept your love. Help me, in loving gratitude, to make you the center of my life. Lord transform my faith so that I may render you credible to the world. Empower me to be your ambassador to my fellow men and strengthen me to serve you in humility. On my own I am weak, but with you Lord I believe all things are possible.

To put Christ at the center of our lives is the challenge of our age. To live our love of Christ with all our heart and all our mind and let His light shine through us for all to see. This is the call of the Christocentric life.

In his 2005 Subiaco address (quoted above) then Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the crisis of a European culture "...that, in a manner unknown before now to humanity, excludes God from the public conscience, either by denying him altogether, or by judging that his existence is not demonstrable, uncertain and, therefore, belonging to the realm of subjective choices, something, in any case, irrelevant to public life."

To heal such a diseased culture is possible. With the extraordinary love of a Father to show the true way, his children may render Him credible to the world. In the process we may bring many to know the joy of love everlasting. Please Lord, let it be so.

cross posted at "Intentional Disciples"

Beauty

2009-12-17T16:50:00.000-06:00

Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past--whether he admits it or not--can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love. -Hans Urs von Balthasar

We who pray for the grace to grow closer to our Lord may find an expanded relationship to him through beauty. As Balthasar points out to deemphasize beauty in our pursuit of truth and goodness is to risk losing all three of the transcendentals. Let us pray to know our Lord in his Holy Scripture and in the teachings of the Church. And also in the beauty of the liturgy and our worship. Many wonderful works of art, literature and music have the power to draw us nearer to God if we would welcome them into our lives.

In this season when the commercial nature of the Christmas season often confronts us with schlock and parodies of real beauty we can focus on the love of Christ as it is expressed in true beauty. A few suggestions: spend some time looking into Image (www.imagejournal.org). This a very fine journal and website dedicated to faith and beauty found in literature, music, and art.The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, by John Saward, is a fine book which explores beauty as found in the lives of the saints and in the works of Christian art.

Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that "like the rest of Christian Revelation, the liturgy is inherently linked to beauty; it is veritatis splendor (the splendor of the truth)." He goes on to say "in Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendor at their source...no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God's love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love." --Sacramentum caritatis

The Holy Angels

2009-12-16T16:52:00.000-06:00

My good friend Fr. Titus Kieninger of Opus Angelorum (www.opusangelorum.org) writes to remind me that the Holy Angels live the Christocentric life. As we see in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

331 Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him." They belong to him because they were created through and for him: "for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him." They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?"

As we await the celebration of the coming of our Lord let us ask his Holy Angels to intercede for us that we may live our lives dedicated to Jesus Christ. That our thoughts, our words, and our actions may reflect fully His love for us. That we may see in the world the beauty of His creation.

Angelic messengers please carry our prayers to our Lord that He may hear our eternal gratitude for a love beyond compare.

Love conquers all

2009-12-15T16:53:00.000-06:00

"Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This...is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself." --John Paul II

To put Christ at the center of my life is, I believe, the very heart of discipleship. Accepting the love of Christ and responding by loving him in return. Through Christ loving my neighbor, for he too is a beloved creation of my Lord. This is the very core of the Christocentric life.

I look forward to participating in a transformational experience. For certainly to follow Christ is to be transformed and transforming. To see all that we do through the lens of Christ will, for many of us, turn upside down our view of politics, art, economics, charity and work. I pray that it may be so for the kingdom of God is among us, and I wish to see all things new in Him.

Mine has been an interesting journey from agnostic to atheist; from atheist to Christian; and eventually into the Catholic Church. I have spent most of my life seeking truth, only to find that there was a God-sized hole in the center of my being. This hole could only be filled by the love of Christ. He waited for me to say "yes." A loving embrace which is never taken away. This is my home. I pray that we may encourage one another in love so that we forever experience the beauty of his Truth.

"May the Holy Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be able to offer your contribution to the building up of the “civilization of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!"--Pope Benedict XVI