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Soul Searching: Spiritual writings selected by Fr. Mario
3/17/2008 12:41:00 PM

The Hole In The Floor is a collection of "gems" discovered during the course of reading and reflection. Ideas and comments that I think are good enough to share. Therefore, my "research" blog, "The Hole In The Floor." Why the title? I explain on the blog itself. Check it out, I post it about 2 times a week.
Fr. Mario J. Arroyo
Pastor
11/19/2007 10:00:00 PM

By Richard John Neuhaus

We are all uncertain about what God wants us to do. That is to say, we do not know for sure. Of course it seems silly, when you’re well past middle age and have spent your life doing what you believe you’ve been given to do, to get up in the morning or suddenly stop in the middle of the day’s work and ask, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”

The answer is that we act in the courage of our uncertainties. I am fond of pointing out that the word decide comes from the Latin decidere, to cut off. You face choices—whether to be a priest, whether to go to this school or that, whether to marry a certain person, whether to pursue this line of work or another—and then you decide. And, in deciding, you have cut off the alternatives and pray you have decided rightly. But you do not know for sure. Alternatively, you are trapped in the tangled web of indecision.

In this connection I have had frequent recourse to one of the most liberating passages from Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 4. He has been trying to explain himself and his apostolate to the Christians in Corinth. He doesn’t know whether he has succeeded, and then he says this: “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. . . . Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”

Do not judge before the time! I do not even judge myself! These are the words of a life set free from the tangled web of introspection and indecision.

11/12/2007 4:46:00 PM

"It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose him as an alternative to hell. Yet even this he accepts. The creature's illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered. And by trouble, or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of the eternal flames, God shatters it, unmindful of his glory's diminution. I call this "divine humility," because it's a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us, a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up our own when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud, he would hardly have us on such terms. But he is not proud. He stoops to conquer. He would have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is nothing better now to be had."
(C.S. Lewis) Enemy-Occupied Territory
11/5/2007 8:29:00 PM

Beyond Purple Ecclesiology

I have no sociological data to back this up, but I'm convinced that there's a strong correlation between someone's implied ecclesiology and their overall attitude toward the Catholic church. More often than not, when people complain about "the church" -- no matter what their ideological or theological slant, whether they're inside the church or outside -- what they mean is the hierarchy. Sometimes it's actually just a handful of members of the hierarchy whom they find especially irritating. This sort of "purple ecclesiology," seeing the church almost exclusively in terms of the bishops, is a prescription for grumpiness.

The happiest Catholics I know, on the other hand, have a much broader concept of "church," whether they're conscious of it or not. For them, "the church" is a vast universe of individuals, movements, parishes, schools, journals, international networks, and all manner of other slices of life, engaged in a dizzying variety of activities, from contemplative prayer to feeding the hungry, to striving to translate the gospel into art, politics, finance, medicine, and other realms of secular culture. For those who see the church this way -- again, whatever their political or theological positions -- the bishops play an important role, but command relatively little of their energy and imagination. For every aspect of "the church" that they find frustrating or disappointing, such Catholics can usually reel off dozens of other things they find encouraging.

As then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself observed in 1984, in the long run of history, the best argument for Christianity is not its episcopacy but its artists and its saints.

10/29/2007 9:06:00 AM

Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to serving the poorest of the poor, said on more than one occasion that the greatest poverty in the world was not on the streets of Calcutta but here in the United States and Western Europe. She would say: “what a terrible poverty that says: I cannot feed one more child. I cannot clothe one more child. I cannot shelter one more child. I cannot care for one more child. I cannot love one more child.”

This is the great poverty that has enveloped our nation these past thirty-five years— poverty that amid unprecedented prosperity and wealth places strict limits on our capacity to love.

One of the themes that John Paul II wove through his encyclical The Gospel of Life could be described as the crisis of truth. John Paul believed that objective truth was accessible to everyone through the light of reason. In this, he stood in opposition to many in Western society who question the existence of truth.

For many in our culture today, tolerance and diversity have become the new absolutes. Certainly, there is much good in such values. Tolerance is an important and helpful civic virtue in a democratic society. And it is consistent with Christian teaching.

In fact, as Christians, we are called to do much more than tolerate others who may be different from us in a whole host of ways. We are called to reverence every other human being as one made in the image of God and one the Son of God deemed of such worth that he gave his life on Calvary. This does not mean, however, that every action is to be approved, much less respected. There are some actions and activities that are against the innate dignity of the human person and that infringe on the rights and dignity of others.

The point, here, is that the ideological underpinnings for pro-choice rhetoric derive from the relativism against which the pope complained. It is the crisis of truth that allows otherwise intelligent individuals to posit that they are personally opposed to abortion but they support the right of others to choose an abortion.

The question that needs to be posed to those who make this claim is: Why are you personally opposed to abortion? Why do so many of the pro-choice politicians even say that they want to make abortion rare? Why want to make something rare if it is truly a valid choice? The rhetoric of choice has been a very clever marketing campaign for something that is of its nature evil and repugnant.

While it taps into some deeply held American values of personal freedom and individual liberty, pro-choice position is actually an exercise in illogic. Nobody is actually pro-choice in the sense that they are in favor of all choices. Indeed, one always has to ask the further question: What is being chosen? In the case of abortion, the honest answer is: to destroy a human life.

In some of the inner-city neighborhoods where I served as a priest, there was a great problem with gun violence. Could you imagine anyone saying that they were personally against drive-by shootings, but if someone else wanted to do it they should have that right? Yet it is precisely that illogic that has been used now for several decades to defend the legalization of abortion—, the destruction of an innocent human life.

Without the acceptance of objective truth, everything becomes negotiable. The moral conscience of society and the individual are impaired. There is confusion in the recognition of good and evil. We become uncertain about such fundamental institutions for family and society as marriage. From the denial of natural truth, a nihilism emerges that we find expressing itself today in art, literature, and films. We become confused about what is good and noble. We question what is worth devoting our life to. This confusion results in a great interior emptiness. We try to distract ourselves with more and more things, divert our attention with more and more entertainment, and numb ourselves with drugs and other addictions.

I remember watching, as a child, an episode of The Twilight Zone. It began with doctors and nurses with surgical masks gathered around a hospital bed of a female patient whose face was completely bandaged except for her eyes and nose. From their conversation, it became apparent that this woman suffered from a hideous disfigurement which a series of plastic surgeries had failed to correct. They had attempted one final surgery that the doctors were optimistic would solve the problem, but they would not know for certain until they unbandaged her face several days later.

They finally come to the moment of truth—. After the unwrapping of the bandages— we see that the woman’ face is stunningly beautiful. The doctors and nurses shake their heads with disappointment and apologize for their failure. For the first time they remove their surgical masks revealing grotesquely hideous features. That is how it is in The Twilight Zone: The beautiful is ugly, and the ugly is beautiful.

This is a helpful image for the consequence of relativism that impairs a culture from recognizing what is objectively good, beautiful, and true. In The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul had this to say about objective truth: “the Gospel of Life is not for believers alone: It is for everyone. The issue of life and its defense and promotion is not a concern of the Christian alone. Although faith provides special light and strength, this question arises in every human conscience which seeks the truth and which cares about the future of humanity. Life certainly has a sacred and religious value, but in no way is that value a concern only of believers. The value at stake is one which every human being can grasp by the light of reason; thus it necessarily concerns everyone.”

This battle for the reality and existence of truth is not a new one, although the strength of secular relativism today is undermining the foundations of culture and society in a unique and devastating manner. We can find the battle between truth and its denial right in the Passion, when the accused prisoner, Jesus, asserts: “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice, w”hile his earthly judge, Pontius Pilate, feebly responds with the classic relativist’ question: “what is truth?” I prefer to be a disciple of Jesus rather than of Pontius Pilate.

By Joseph Naumann is the archbishop of Kansas City. These remarks are adapted from a talk he gave at the Gospel of Life Conference in Denver on October 20, 2007.

Published in First Things

10/18/2007 7:18:00 PM

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. –C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.
9/19/2007 2:42:00 PM

Do You Want To Know a Secret?
First Things
By Anthony Sacramone
Monday, September 3, 2007

Astounded as I was by the phenomenal bestselling success of Rhonda Byrnes’ The Secret—gobsmacked by the sheer weight of its pages, the width of its margins, and the commodious depths of its solipsistic inanities—I wondered: How can I cash in on the gullibility of the average consumer of spiritual bromides and New Age gobbledigook?

It would be tough going. After all, how could I hope to compete with such Secret insights as:

“This is a feeling Universe. . . . Ask once, believe you have received, and all you have to do to receive is feel good” (page 53).

“You are the master of your life and the Universe is answering your every command” (page 146).

“You are God in a physical body. . . . You are all power. You are all intelligence” (page 164).

“You are a human transmission tower. . . The frequency you transmit reaches beyond cities. . . . It reverberates throughout the entire Universe” (page 11).

Moreover, who could I find to match this all-star lineup of Secret contributors:

• Dr. John Martini: Author, Chiropractor, Healer, Personal Transformation Specialist
• Neale Donald Walsch: Author, International Speaker, Spiritual Messenger
• Dr. Joe Vitale, Author, Metaphysician, Marketing Specialist • Michael Bernard Beckwith: Visionary (Is that what he puts down on his taxes?)

Then it came to me: Rather than concoct something original, I would think these luminaries’ lucrative thoughts after them. If their cogitations were good enough to yank from the Universe some nice coin, then why bother reinventing the oldest con in the world? I’ll simply rip them off. After all, The Secret is no longer a secret. I’ll simply hash out a sequel.

And so I am pleased and proud to present the key to health, wealth, and happiness—entitled The Key. To help me articulate “The 7 Laws of The Key,” I have enlisted the aid of some of the finest alternative thought processors not currently doing hard time. They include:

Dick Knobloch: Author, Male Aviatrix
Key Alternative Thought: The universe is easily confounded, so please speak clearly.
You must be precise about what you want or you will send out mixed signals. If your transmitter’s frequency is not clear, you will register only static, and wind up with one of those all-night sports shows. So if you want a computer, don’t just think, “I want a computer,” lest you wind up with a Wang 720C. Be specific: Provide a model number and the number of USB ports, that kind of thing.

Barry Williams: Author, Farrier, Not the Guy from The Brady Bunch
Key Alternative Thought: If you see people who are poor, do not observe them.
You will reproduce in your own life that which you behold before you. You imitate that which you see, think, hear, and have deducted by court order from your paycheck. Deflect from view anything that negates your inflated vision of yourself. Especially fat people.

Devon Twitlow: Philosopher, Phrase-Coiner Key Alternative Thought: Illness cannot exist in a body that cannot meet its deductible.
You cannot catch an illness, any more than you can catch a rainbow. Sickness is just negativity manifesting itself as shingles, or what I call “negafesting.” You need never be sick again if you create an inner harmony that does not recognize the dissonance of the C282Y and H63D mutations of the HEF gene on the short arm of chromosome 6 at location 6p21.3 with two broken alleles.

Hroswitha Mittman: Author, Co-op Board Member, Spree Killer Key Alternative Thought: You create your own reality, so remember to buy glue.
Reality is whatever we imagine it to be. My plantar warts: gone. The genocide in Darfur: over. France: what? Delilah Mungfish: Author, Male Enhancement Practitioner Key Alternative Thought: Seek the power of teal. Color reflects what you want to attract. My home, my office, my torso—all are decorated in colors that represent what I want to manifest in my life. Blue is the color of money. Green is the color of money. Lavender is the color of money. Red reminds me to take my eczema medicine.

Dennis Kanine: Metaphysician, Cell-Phone Cameraman Key Alternative Thought: You are a magnet. No—better yet, you are one of those thingees that tells whether a battery’s gone dead.

Everything is energy. (Although I am not quite certain what energy is. I heard somewhere it was really rain drops and kittens.) Money is energy, and the Universe is a giant ATM. But not one of those ATMs that make you pay a fee (although alternate universes may, in fact, require a fee, so look into that). You will need a PIN, which should be easy to remember but not so easy that someone else can figure it out, like your birthday or 1-2-3-4. And remember to keep an eye out for anyone creepy standing behind you.

Lawrence T. Cupatelli: Author, Past-Life Coach, Virgo Key Alternative Thought: If you believe bad things can happen at any moment, you probably grew up in Queens.
There is no such thing as something merely happening that you did not manifest with wayward thoughts. After all: The Universe is created by thought (so would someone please stop thinking “Quark 6.5” and “Two and a Half Men”?). Children who die of water-borne illnesses by the tens of thousands do so only because they went to bed thinking, “I don’t want to die of a water-borne illness, along with tens of thousands of others.” Which is merely a way of saying “I do want to die of a water-borne illness along with tens of thousands of others.” It’s simple. Why can’t they get it? What’s wrong with them? A winner, no? It was remarkably simple: I just tapped into people’s most basic fear—that of not being in control. After all, who wants to believe that they’re at the whim of chance, accident, or worse—a sovereign God? The idea of being either lost in a Darwinian universe or limited by environment, genetics, and luck is much too disheartening. And the prospect of being in the hands of an unsafe Creator, who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, is absolutely infantilizing. Then there’s the insatiable need of some people to believe that they’re not being told the whole truth. From the tin-foil-hat crowd who believe George Bush flew those planes into the Twin Towers; to the Roswell junkies easily outraged at human arrogance in thinking we’re the only life forms in the universe; to the pop-scholars who see in the Gnostics equally valid interpretations of the life and ministry of Jesus; to the mountebanks who tout crystals as the way to “release” lymphoma—the idea of the real truth, as opposed to the official story, plays both to people’s cynicism and to their hope that, once discovered, such “truth” will protect them from future catastrophe.

Truth be told, The Secret is merely the latest in a decades-long line of self-help tomes: The Power of Positive Thinking; How to Win Friends and Influence People; I’m OK, You’re OK; and Think and Grow Rich being among the most familiar. What’s noteworthy is how truly unhelpful these books seem to be, given how quickly each title is superceded by yet another. Now: Do you want to know the real secret? There are no secrets. Elvis is not alive on an island paradise somewhere along with Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. You really do owe VISA $85,000. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. That thing on your face is not a mosquito bite but a basal-cell carcinoma. Doubleday is never going to publish your novella, A Cloaca for Danny. And Bruce Lee was not assassinated for revealing martial-arts secrets to non-Chinese—he simply dropped dead. If this seems too harsh, well, then, I promise: If you implement faithfully “The 7 Laws of The Key” every day, you will learn the real secret of The Secret—namely, that there’s a lot of money to be made in the self-help market. Just not by you.

Anthony Sacramone is the managing editor of First Things.
9/3/2007 5:26:00 PM

We are all uncertain about what God wants us to do. That is to say, we do not know for sure. Of course it seems silly, when you’re well past middle age and have spent your life doing what you believe you’ve been given to do, to get up in the morning or suddenly stop in the middle of the day’s work and ask, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”

The answer is that we act in the courage of our uncertainties. I am fond of pointing out that the word decide comes from the Latin decidere, to cut off. You face choices—whether to be a priest, whether to go to this school or that, whether to marry a certain person, whether to pursue this line of work or another—and then you decide. And, in deciding, you have cut off the alternatives and pray you have decided rightly. But you do not know for sure. Alternatively, you are trapped in the tangled web of indecision.

In this connection I have had frequent recourse to one of the most liberating passages from Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 4. He has been trying to explain himself and his apostolate to the Christians in Corinth. He doesn’t know whether he has succeeded, and then he says this: “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. . . . Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”

Do not judge before the time! I do not even judge myself! These are the words of a life set free from the tangled web of introspection and indecision.

By Richard John Neuhaus
First Things Blog
Friday, August 31, 2007, 6:32 AM
8/6/2007 11:47:00 AM

Excerpts from Danger and Opportunity: A Plea to Catholics By Robert P. George
Monday, August 6, 2007, on the First Things blog. I highly recommend the entire post.

“....for those of us who believe that the Church is a reliable teacher of truth, and that her doctrine is fundamentally sound, the last thing we desire is a transformation of the Church’s historical teachings. (If we wanted that, we would become Unitarians or join the United Church of Christ or, at least, cast our lot with the Episcopal Church in the United States.) What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.”

“The Church doesn’t need fundamental transformation; it needs to be about the business of transforming us. This is a task for the whole Church: bishops, priests, and other religious, and the laity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, this work of transformation of minds and hearts necessarily includes work of cultural transformation. For better or worse, culture is character-shaping and, thus, person-forming. That’s why the task of cultural renewal and reform is part of the Christian task—an essential part. It may not be rejected or neglected by the Church or her leadership in the name of evangelization of individuals; indeed, it is crucial to the project of evangelizing individuals. The task of evangelization is immeasurably more difficult where culture works powerfully against the witness of the Church by fostering, facilitating, and encouraging sin and undermining the efforts of religious communities and families to encourage in their members, especially young people, respect for themselves and others and fidelity to the law of God and moral truth.”

“There are many profound respects in which our culture is in need of transformation. Work is needed in every sphere. There are two issues, however, that are so central to our future and, indeed, to the future of mankind that they must, surely, be given a certain priority. Both are on the table now and will be resolved—for better or for worse—in the next decade or so. Critical (possibly irreversible) decisions will be made in the next year or two. I speak of the issue of marriage and the complex set of issues sometimes referred to compendiously as “bioethics.” In respect of both matters, things will go one way or the other depending on the posture and actions of Catholics.“

”If the Catholic community is engaged on these issues, working closely with evangelical Christians, observant Jews, and people of goodwill and sound moral judgment of other faiths and even of no particular religious faith, grave injustices and the erosion of central moral principles will be, to a significant extent, averted. Indeed, with respect to both marriage and the sanctity of human life, earlier reverses may themselves be reversed. If, on the other hand, the Catholic community compromises itself, abdicates its responsibilities, and sits on the sidelines, the already deeply wounded institution of marriage will collapse and the brave new world of biotechnology will transform procreation into manufacture, and nascent human life into mere disposable “research material.”

“This is no time for Catholics to be looking inward, gazing at our navels, too embarrassed (or desirous of the approval of cultural elites or fearful of their disapproval) to speak to the moral crisis of the culture. On the contrary, now is the time to bring our Christian witness, the very practical and effective love of Christ, unabashedly to the culture.”

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=815

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
6/16/2007 9:37:00 PM

St. Josemaria Escriva once warned against “the man, the ‘gentleman,’ ready to compromise” — because he would, in the saint’s estimation, “condemn Jesus to death again.” In a similar vein, G.K. Chesterton imagined that “the devil is a gentleman.” Of course, these writers do not mean to disparage the genuine gentleman — the well-mannered, considerate, courteous man. (May we all have such qualities!) Rather, they mean to warn us against the man who allows etiquette and appearances to muzzle his faith — the kind of man who makes social convention the measure of devotion.

Simon the Pharisee provides a good example of such a “gentleman” (cf. Lk 7:36-50). He invites our Lord to his house, but apparently not out of devotion. After all, he omits even the most basic acts of hospitality. More likely, he simply desires the prestige and honor of having a famous rabbi in his house. It is just the thing that he, a religious leader, should do. Such longing for the esteem of others blinds him to the truth of who Jesus is. The Creator and Redeemer of the world enters Simon’s house and he is more concerned with appearances. So when the “sinful woman” enters and worships our Lord through tears of repentance and anointing with oil, poor Simon can only think of “what kind of woman this is” and how Christ should not have any contact with her. We can almost hear him gasp in horror at the violation of etiquette.

The Pharisee’s attitude is alive and well. We fall into it every time we gloss over our faith or downplay our devotion for fear of appearing “too religious.” How many times have we held our tongues and failed to witness because of what others might think — because it might create an “uncomfortable” situation at the cocktail party, in the carpool line, at the soccer field, etc. How many times have we allowed ourselves to be silenced because we do not want to seem out of place or out of keeping with the culture.

Such a tamed, domesticated faith is precisely what the world wants from us, because it does not threaten the world at all. Religion is acceptable, the world tells us, as long as you keep it to yourself. Do not let your devotion interfere with your need to fit in, and you can be as devout as you like. In a sense, the world constantly behaves like Simon the Pharisee: inviting Christ on its own terms and resenting any manifestation of faith. As another election year comes upon us, it is important to note how many Catholic politicians have behaved similarly, tailoring their faith to suit the world. They resemble the Pharisee, for he, too, invited our Lord into his home but drew back when our Lord’s saving truth became socially awkward and more demanding than he wanted.

We should adopt, then, the attitude of the “sinful woman.” She was willing to become, in St. Paul’s words, a “fool for Christ’s sake” (cf. 1 Cor 4:10). Now this does not mean that we must interrupt dinner parties with public displays of devotion. Nor does it mean that we become rude in our witness or unnecessarily disruptive. But it does mean that we not allow the culture’s views to dictate the terms of our devotion. She understood what the Pharisee did not: the Lord’s teaching is for our salvation, not for our comfort and status in society. Indeed, our devotion often does and should interfere with what our culture views as normal. We need not make a scene of things. But naturally, peacefully, calmly and without rancor we must live genuine Catholic lives — even when it makes others uncomfortable.

The woman’s example becomes all the more compelling when we consider that her devotion to our Lord reflects His devotion to us. She can confidently humble — even humiliate — herself in the sight of men because our Lord had already done so in the sight of heaven. Imagine the gasp of the rebel angels as they saw the Son of God humbling Himself to take on our human nature, to dwell among us, and to be delivered into our sinful hands. Perhaps our Lord is so moved by the woman’s profligate display because He sees in it a reflection of His own. May He find in us the same willingness to bear witness and even to be “fools for Christ’s sake.”

Fr. Scalia is parochial vicar of St. Rita Parish in Alexandria.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Arlington Catholic Herald
6/4/2007 7:38:00 PM

Thomas The Theologian

Karl Rahner writes:
Although Thomas Aquinas was a friar and a monk, he was also in a very real sense, a "secular" priest, a priest for the secular city, for the world. Because he knew that he was sent to announce the good news of the gospel, he knew that he must be a theologian. He knew that man can really preach only by calling others through the witness of his life to believe with him. Thomas made the very center of his existence "to give to others those things that you have contemplated." For one's own contemplation, which preaching and teaching will communicate further, theology is an indispensable presupposition. That is why Thomas became a theologian, a theologian for whom the heart of the matter was what really counted, not quick emotional satisfaction.

Thomas studied and taught in that cool and clear objectivity which is the sign of a great man, the sign of a man who loves reality more than he loves his own subjective, selective curiosity. Thomas had the courage to strive for clarity wherever clarity was possible. He had the courage to bow before mystery where mystery remains. He could distinguish between the two in order to bring them closer. He had the courage to contradict opinions which were widespread or dominant in his time, and yet he never sought the sensational nor made novelty a criterion of truth. He also had the courage to act when he knew he was right. When he had no better solution, he could remain with the traditional point of view, although he must have been aware that this point of view was often insufficient.

In his theology Thomas spoke about God, not about himself....He was a man who loved to reflect, to speculate, and once remarked he would have given Paris for John Chrysostom's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Aquinas had the honesty to change his views he had expressed in his earlier works whenever fuller knowledge required him to do so. He always thought from the viewpoint of the whole, and still he had (inasmuch as an individual can) an understanding and appreciation for individual questions. He expressed his own opinion without arguing and without looking upon his opponents as stupid. In his voluminous works very rarely do we find a sharp word. He is big in his theology, not because he was the only and all-encompassing theologian (there can be no such an individual), nor because he himself thought he was such a man, but because he thought "in the center of the Church" (in medio Ecclesiae) , and because he remained open for everything which the past and which his own time could bring to him.

5/23/2007 5:07:00 PM

A Reflection by Steve Martin
Parishoner at St. Cyril

“The Bible is my sole and final authority, and to get saved, all you have to do is have faith in Jesus.” Many, if not most protestants have at one time or another uttered these two phrases. They are, after all, the founding principles for protestantism. That being said, if the protestant has read the Bible from cover to cover, and with an open mind, some passages are going to appear to contradict their beliefs.

One such passages is 1 Peter 3:20-21. This passage says, “…in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” The Baptist Church teaches that you don’t have to be baptized, but this passage clearly says that baptism saves you. That would mean you do have to be baptized. How can they reconcile that to their belief system? If they read the notes at the bottom of the page, they’ll find something that clearly is trying to get around the clear meaning of the passage, the writer has to add a lot of implied meaning by saying things like the baptism was also symbolic, despite the fact that can be found nowhere in the passage. The more passages like this that they come across that contradicts their Church’s teachings, if they’re intellectually honest, should cause some consternation. The explanations should bother them, because they require such tortured logic to get to an explanation that fit the preconceived ideas of the writer.

If they seriously think about it one question in particular will come to mind. How can they say their individual brand of Christianity is correct? No one ever has a good answer. The answer will always be to quotes some scripture and to say that you had to have faith. One of the biggest problems with that explanation is that it’s the same explanation you’ll get from most protestant churches. Pose a question about a doctrinal belief where two different denominations have two different beliefs, and the answer you’ll get will be for both sides to quote scriptures that appear so support their individual positions. At the same time both sides will say that the other is interpreting the scripture incorrectly. One side will say that they were guided by the Holy Spirit to the truth that they have found. Again, the other side will say the same thing. Both sides will have well educated, knowledgeable, and truly sincere people arguing their positions. Still, the only answers you’ll usually receive is something to the extent of, “The Bible says …” When both sides use the same source, the Bible, and come to different conclusions about the same passages, one has to ask the same question . “How do I know I’m right?”

If the areas of disagreement were only on peripheral issues, such as the method of baptism, submerging versus sprinkling, then one could say that the differences are irrelevant. If that were the case, then there would no issue; however, that is not the case. Some of the differences in beliefs between the various Protestant denominations are on the issue of salvation. The Church of Christ teaches that one has to be baptized, but the Southern Baptist teach that baptism is not necessary for salvation. Southern Baptist teach that you can never lose your salvation, while the Free Will Baptist teach that you can lose your salvation. Either baptism is or is not necessary. Either you can or you can’t lose your salvation. Both sides cannot be right. One side is wrong, and to be wrong about salvation is to run the risk of eternal damnation. Since both sides in the debate will give the same explanation as to why their position is correct and the other side is wrong, what it boils down to is they’re just hoping they’re right. They’re basically making an educated guess. Since some of these guesses concern salvation, I pose the following question: Would a loving God leave his children to guess what they had to do in order to obtain salvation?

Of course the answer to that question is no. A truly loving God would never leave his children to guess about how to obtain salvation, but that’s what so many Christians today in the various Protestant denominations throughout the world do. When they claim that the Bible is their sole and final authority, they have to resort to guessing about what it means. These guesses are well intentioned and usually well thought out, but what their interpretations boil down to is that each side simply saying what they think the scripture means. It’s nothing more. Without an authoritative interpreter, biblical interpretation becomes a matter of each individuals own opinion. Since each individual Protestant is interpreting scripture based on their own opinion, none of them has any more of a legitimate claim at having the truth they any other. Without an authoritative interpreter, no one can claim to have the truth.

The God of Christians is a loving God. He would never leave his flock to guess about what his message truly is. All sides, Catholic and Protestants, agree that the Bible is truly the word of God, although there is a disagreement over which books actually constitute the Old Testament – that issue will be discussed later. As mentioned earlier, Protestants really can’t give any reason why they’re individual brand of Protestantism is correct. All they can say is, “The Bible says XYZ and the Holy Spirit leads me to believe that it means X, and the other denominations are misinterpreting the scripture.” If that same question is posed to a Catholic, however, there is a very good explanation as to why the Catholic interpretation is correct. The Catholic Church is the authoritative interpreter of scripture. Each individual is not their own interpreter. Individuals have a limited right of interpretation, but it’s within the framework of Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium’s teachings.

On the pure logic of it the Catholic idea of having an authoritative interpreter makes much more sense than than Protestant idea of scripture alone as interpreted by each individual. Theoretically, under the Protestant view, there could be as many different interpretations as there are Protestants. Under the Catholic view, there is only one correct interpretation. Since there is only one interpretation, that can be considered the truth by Catholics. We don’t have to sift through competing interpretations. The Catholic view on interpretation, by far, makes more sense of the two.

3/2/2007 5:25:00 PM

Friend or vacuum salesman? by John Fischer

We’ve all heard the story before, or perhaps it even happened to you.

You receive a visit from a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. You are overjoyed at the reunion and honored that your friend would see the relationship worth cultivating and would actually seek you out. Or it might be a person you are just starting to get to know, and there are encouraging signs of a potential friendship.

In the course of a pleasant conversation, with the talk shifting randomly from one subject to another, you suddenly find you are discussing the virtues of various vacuum cleaners. You friend brightens at the topic because he’s recently had some great results with an amazing new machine that he extols with great pleasure. You are so taken by his excitement that you find yourself wanting to know where you might find one of these amazing vacuum cleaners since your old model has paled in comparison to his vivid description, and you’ve been thinking about looking into a new one anyway. It’s then that your new friend offers to solve all your problems by selling you one on the spot at a “one-time only, low, low price of $69.95.”

Suddenly, you feel an awful knot in the pit of your stomach. It’s not unlike the feeling you had when you came home one day to find your house had been burglarized. You feel violated, used. And you feel stupid for trusting this person and making yourself vulnerable to his schemes. He’s not after a friendship; he’s after a sale.

A believer’s mission to share Christ with people is one of the five great purposes for which we exist. But without the other four to balance it, we can end up peddling Christ with similar results. Even laying hold of a conversation with the intent of steering it in a particular direction can feel manipulative to a person.

If I listen to the other purposes in this light, I remember that God is in control of everyone’s own road to discovery. I don’t make anyone see the truth, I am only witness to what I have seen and heard. My relationship with people is an end in itself, regardless of whether or not they are Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheists. My purpose is to serve people, not sell them something. And maturity tells me that the Holy Spirit is my guide as to what to say and when, so as to not even worry about this or be overly conscious of my role in someone’s life as providing anything other than love and support.

“We don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can.” (2 Corinthians 2:17 MSG)
2/2/2007 5:45:00 PM

The Unfinished Creature

By Gil Bailie of the Cornerstone Forum.

As I have often said from the podium, it helps to clear away the "spirit of the age" clutter to ask: Why are we here? Or: What are humans for?

Now that I've violated the one grammatical principle that I still try to uphold -- against ending a sentence with a preposition -- let me repeat the offense: One way of putting our predicament is this: The challenge and the quintessential human task is to discover -- existentially at least, and cognitively as far as possible -- what human existence is all about. It remains, after all, an open question. We are, par excellence, the only unfinished creatures. But that does not mean that we are free to fashion ourselves according to our whims. Our existence would then simply been absurd, which is to say incapable of being assessed. A "well-lived life" would be an unintelligible phrase, purely subjective. There must be a pattern, a form, a purpose, and logic, in a "word," a Logos.

More that merely a synonym for the English "word," the Logos of John's Gospel means the reason, the pattern, the (Trinitarian) reality toward which creatures made in the image and likeness of God are inherently ordained. Everyone whose life has any moral or conceptual or existential coherence has a logos at work in the background of his or her existence, that is to say: an operational notion, however vaguely conceptualized, of the meaning and purpose of human existence.

The question is: how true is the logos on which one's life is based? A Christian, like everyone else, ought to routine ask: What are humans for? In other words: what is the true pattern, the true nature of human existence? To what are we called by the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of (the Trinitarian) God? The answer is Christ, simply: Christ: the Logos in the flesh, that is to say, the Reason (for human life) embodied in human form.

It would be technically true to say that "what we Christians believe is that Christ is the answer," but, in the squishy world of multicultural diffidence, that way of expressing it inevitably relativizes it. Imagine a person getting up at an international meeting of scientists and saying: "what we Western scientists believe is that the earth is spherical." There are people who don't believe that, but those who do believe it are right and those who don't are wrong. When is the last time you heard a Muslim say: "What we Muslims believe is that there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is is prophet"? Don't hold your breath waiting to hear it. Our Islamic brothers and sisters may be religiously mistaken (they are), but at least they believe what they claim to believe.

To make the truth claim unabashedly will seem, again in the present atmosphere, to be an act of pride. In fact it is an act of humility, inasmuch as the one who makes such a statement is precisely not stating his or her personal opinion. One is simply assenting to the truth that has been mediated by centuries of credible Christian witnesses ("Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe") and, provisionally at least, corroborated by one's own experience of prayer and the sacraments.

Accounting for one's creedal affirmation surely requires the summoning of apologetic, theological, and (especially in the case of Christianity) anthropological corroboration, but none of these things will avail if the original affirmation is too diffident, too equivocating, too relativized to be taken seriously.

To say, as Christians always have, that Christ is "Lord," is to say that He is the true Logos, the unsurpassable pattern of self-sacrificing love to which all humans are called by God. To say that Christ is the "Lord of history," is to say that history is the drama of Christ's gentle appeal to his mortal brothers and sisters to come their senses and claim their ontological inheritance by participating, here and now, in the joy of Trinitarian self-donation.

1/16/2007 9:52:00 AM

Signs of the Times By Gil Bailie

http://www.cornerstone-forum.blogspot.com/

In the January 6th edition of The Washington Post there appeared an article on the latest wrinkle in the eugenics revolution:

A Texas company has started producing batches of ready-made embryos that single women and infertile couples can order after reviewing detailed information about the race, education, appearance, personality and other characteristics of the egg and sperm donors. …

But the embryo brokerage, which calls itself "the world's first human embryo bank," raises alarm among some fertility experts and bioethicists, who say the service marks another disturbing step toward commercialization of human reproduction and "designer babies." …

"We're increasingly treating children like commodities," said Mark A. Rothstein, a bioethicist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "It's like you're ordering a computer from Dell: You give them the specs, and they put it in the mail. I don't think we should consider mail-order computers and other products the same way we consider children." …

The cost, convenience, prospects of success and ability to vet the donors all are attractive to Ryan's clients -- potentially not only infertile couples and single women but also gay men and lesbian couples. …

"People have long warned we were moving toward a 'Brave New World,' " said Robert P. George of Princeton University, who serves on the President's Council on Bioethics. "This is just more evidence that we haven't been able to restrain this move towards treating human life like a commodity. This buying and selling of eggs and sperm and now embryos based on IQ points and PhDs and other traits really moves us in the direction of eugenics." …

Children are now being fashioned to suit the preferences of their non-biological parents. Imagine a 16-year-old -- or, for that matter, a 30-year-old -- having to come to grips with the fact that his or her gender, IQ, eye-color, physical characteristics, athletic or musical abilities, and ensemble of genetic traits and predispositions were selected from available options by "parents" who were not , in fact, his or her biological parents after all. Thirty seconds reflection on this is enough to convince one that this dream is a nightmare.

As if this were not bizarre enough, it was later reported -- in a study just published in the journal Fertility and Sterility -- that some fertility clinics have helped clients select embryos with disabilities or defects -- chosen to match the inherited disability of the child's future parent(s) -- such as deafness or dwarfism. It is not the first time those who are deaf or dwarfed or in some other way disabled have been reported to have elected to impose their disability on their offspring.

It may turn out that the greatest problem we face as this Brave New World overtakes us -- wearing down our revulsion and taking on an aura of normality -- is that the extreme misuses of genetic technology (at least until we grow accustomed to them) will run interference for the routine uses. The moral hideousness of the former will make the latter seem relatively innocuous by comparison.

This is precisely how moral catastrophes ripen. Does anyone think that Auschwitz or Buchenwald just appeared one day on the Polish and German landscape? No. Evil overtakes us in small, seeming innocuous ways, each incremental development merely the logical extension of a state of affairs to which everyone has previously grown accustomed.

1/16/2007 9:52:00 AM

Signs of the Times By Gil Bailie

In the January 6th edition of The Washington Post there appeared an article on the latest wrinkle in the eugenics revolution:

A Texas company has started producing batches of ready-made embryos that single women and infertile couples can order after reviewing detailed information about the race, education, appearance, personality and other characteristics of the egg and sperm donors. …

But the embryo brokerage, which calls itself "the world's first human embryo bank," raises alarm among some fertility experts and bioethicists, who say the service marks another disturbing step toward commercialization of human reproduction and "designer babies." …

"We're increasingly treating children like commodities," said Mark A. Rothstein, a bioethicist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "It's like you're ordering a computer from Dell: You give them the specs, and they put it in the mail. I don't think we should consider mail-order computers and other products the same way we consider children." …

The cost, convenience, prospects of success and ability to vet the donors all are attractive to Ryan's clients -- potentially not only infertile couples and single women but also gay men and lesbian couples. …

"People have long warned we were moving toward a 'Brave New World,' " said Robert P. George of Princeton University, who serves on the President's Council on Bioethics. "This is just more evidence that we haven't been able to restrain this move towards treating human life like a commodity. This buying and selling of eggs and sperm and now embryos based on IQ points and PhDs and other traits really moves us in the direction of eugenics." …

Children are now being fashioned to suit the preferences of their non-biological parents. Imagine a 16-year-old -- or, for that matter, a 30-year-old -- having to come to grips with the fact that his or her gender, IQ, eye-color, physical characteristics, athletic or musical abilities, and ensemble of genetic traits and predispositions were selected from available options by "parents" who were not , in fact, his or her biological parents after all. Thirty seconds reflection on this is enough to convince one that this dream is a nightmare.

As if this were not bizarre enough, it was later reported -- in a study just published in the journal Fertility and Sterility -- that some fertility clinics have helped clients select embryos with disabilities or defects -- chosen to match the inherited disability of the child's future parent(s) -- such as deafness or dwarfism. It is not the first time those who are deaf or dwarfed or in some other way disabled have been reported to have elected to impose their disability on their offspring.

It may turn out that the greatest problem we face as this Brave New World overtakes us -- wearing down our revulsion and taking on an aura of normality -- is that the extreme misuses of genetic technology (at least until we grow accustomed to them) will run interference for the routine uses. The moral hideousness of the former will make the latter seem relatively innocuous by comparison.

This is precisely how moral catastrophes ripen. Does anyone think that Auschwitz or Buchenwald just appeared one day on the Polish and German landscape? No. Evil overtakes us in small, seeming innocuous ways, each incremental development merely the logical extension of a state of affairs to which everyone has previously grown accustomed.

12/28/2006 5:44:00 PM

Democracy and Islam

By Gil Bailie

In earlier posts, I have risked looking foolish by venturing an opinion or two on international issues. In one post I suggested that the Iraqi quagmire has its roots in the Bush administration's overly generous but anthropologically flawed perpetuation of Enlightenment liberalism's naive underestimation of the role of Christianity is laying the groundwork for the success of both democratic institutions and the market economy. Though the economic market might fair better in a culture religiously rooted in Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist traditions than might the democratic marketplace of ideas, neither democratic institutions nor market economies are likely to produce the fruits that they produced when laid on the moral foundations provided by Christianity.

Apropos of this, in a recent exploration of what he calls the incompatibility of Islam and democracy, the Norwegian journalist, Fjordman, concluded with this:

U.S. President George W. Bush said he would accept it if Iraqis voted to create an Islamic fundamentalist government in democratic elections. "I will be disappointed, but democracy is democracy."

Is it really equivalent, Mr. Bush?

This brings us back to Plato's criticism of democracy as just an advanced form of mob rule. And without any constraints, checks and balances, that definition is correct. Benjamin Franklin said that "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" This is why he and the other Founding Fathers wanted the USA to be a constitutional Republic, not a pure democracy.

It is strange that the United States wanted to export to Iraq a naďve concept of democracy, one that provided too few rights and guarantees for individuals and minorities, one that their own Founding Fathers had specifically rejected for precisely that reason. And this did not even include an assessment of Islam, in which harassing and persecuting minorities and suppressing individual liberty is a matter of principle.

Those of us who enjoy the unmerited privilege of living in a society shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition commit the error that apparently Marie Antoinette never actually committed. We espouse a breezy "let them eat cake" attitude toward those who aspire to the social and material benefits we enjoy, blissfully unaware of the religious underpinnings without which democracy reverts to mob rule and the market to vulgar pandering.

12/11/2006 3:44:00 PM

Words of the Father

by John Fischer

�Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing ��

Words. We do so much in words. We hear sermons and read books and attend seminars and get all excited when someone says something in a way we haven�t heard before. And we get upset when someone says it in a way we think is wrong. We judge a person�s commitment or lack of it by his or her words. We rush to the store or jump online when new words come out. We are people of many words.

Imagine if God had chosen to come to us in the form of words only. Then following him would be a factor of how well you could read or take notes. And the keepers of the words would hold all the cards.

But he came in the flesh, or as John put it, �The Word became flesh.� (John 1:14) Later in his first letter, John expanded on that, saying that he was the Word of life that they heard and saw and touched. It was Christ�s physical presence that sealed it for them and for us all.

Even still, some prefer to stay immersed in words � their spirituality a factor of how well they can take notes. Imagine the disciples at the cross pulling out their Palm Pilots to take down Christ�s words as he died. That�s what would happen if words were everything.

But Christ�s presence transcended words. Those who followed him experienced him. They heard, saw, and handled the word of life in human flesh. And because of that they were able to observe Jesus as well as listen to him. And my guess is that what he showed them stuck with them more than what he told them. They heard him talk about serving each other, but they watched him wrap a towel around his waist and wash their feet. They heard him say that he came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and then they watched him spend himself on the crowds and the needs of everyone who came to him. They heard him tell them to remember him and what he did on the cross, and then served them bread and wine so they would have something tangible to remember him by.

The Word of the Father appeared in the flesh and his name was Jesus, and today, our human existence has taken on hope. We can hear and see what he did in his earthly life, and trust his Spirit to give us the power to follow in his footsteps, deny ourselves, and serve those around us as he did. May we be the fulfillment of the peace and goodwill the angels sang about on the eve of his birth!

John Fischer resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.

11/28/2006 7:29:00 AM

It's all in the relationship

“Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:33 NAB)

This is an important question to have in mind whenever we are talking to anyone: “What is best for this person?” It’s a way of both getting out of ourselves and being in a position to truly help someone else. It requires finding out more about the other person – asking lots of questions and paying close attention to the answers. My job is to gain insight into a person’s thinking so as to understand who he is, where he is at, and what he is trusting in. Only then can I have a real relationship with someone. If my primary focus is on me, and what is best for me, that doesn’t even constitute a relationship.

This doesn’t mean I never talk about myself. It means that when I do, it’s for the purpose of identifying with another person. Real relationships reveal holes in our lives that others can relate to. And if Jesus will accept someone like me, surely people can recognize that Jesus will accept them. But this only works when we tell the truth. We have to first introduce our real selves to people before we introduce Jesus; that way they can understand why we need Jesus. Out of real relationships, God has a chance to work.

Paul says that the essence of his impact on people is to introduce himself to them. As he puts it, “We commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2 NIV) To commend himself is to commend Christ, because Christ is his all in all. It’s all embodied in the relationship. Think of it this way: All our relationships are godly because God is all wrapped up in the people he created. People are God’s priority. They’re ours too, if we are following him.

People can understand relationships, even if they do not trust them. Everyone wants a friend. Everyone wants someone to care. Everyone wants to know he or she can count on someone to be there. This is where Jesus picks up in true and trusted relationships. Our relationship with Jesus and with people is intertwined. Whether they know him or not, Jesus is the essential element in all our relationships. And we’ll know when it’s important for someone to know that. Most likely, they’ll be asking us to tell them.

Aim high. God places a high value on relationships. It is what makes up the stuff of eternity. Aside from God and people and the love that holds us together, what else is there?

10/18/2006 3:22:00 PM

I am providing this article as a help to any who may have questions regarding experiences with popular devotions. I receive many questions and sense a lot of confusion among people who experience exaggerated forms of devotion. The following document is offered as a help. Fr. Mario

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The Bishops issued this document at their November 2003 Conference. They hope to encourage the faithful to make use of sound devotional practices and to have a fuller understanding of the proper role of popular piety. "In genuine forms of popular piety, the Gospel message assimilates expressive forms particular to a given culture while also permeating the consciousness of that culture with the content of the Gospel," the bishops' conference recently wrote in a statement, quoting from the "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy."

As the Second Vatican Council pointed out so clearly, the life of the Church centers on the liturgy, the official public worship of God by the Church as the Body of Christ. The liturgy includes, above all, the Eucharist and the other six sacraments, but also other actions of the Church such as the daily prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, the rites of Christian burial, and the rites for the dedication of a church or for those making religious profession. Christ himself is at work in the liturgy, so that the action of the Church, which is the Body of Christ, participates in the saving act of Christ as priest.1 Precisely because every liturgical celebration "is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church," no other form of worship can take its place: a liturgical celebration "is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree."2

While the liturgy is "the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed" and "the font from which all her power flows,"3 it is not possible for us to fill up all of our day with participation in the liturgy. The Council pointed out that the spiritual life "is not limited solely to participation in the liturgy. . . . according to the teaching of the apostle, [the Christian] must pray without ceasing."4 Popular devotional practices play a crucial role in helping to foster this ceaseless prayer. The faithful have always used a variety of practices as a means of permeating everyday life with prayer to God. Examples include pilgrimages, novenas, processions and celebrations in honor of Mary and the other saints, the rosary, the Angelus, the Stations of the Cross, the veneration of relics, and the use of sacramentals. Properly used, popular devotional practices do not replace the liturgical life of the Church; rather, they extend it into daily life.5

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council recognized the importance of popular devotions in the life of the Church and encouraged pastors and teachers to promote sound popular devotions. They wrote, "Popular devotions of the Christian people are to be highly commended, provided they accord with the laws and norms of the Church."6 More recently, Pope John Paul II has devoted an entire apostolic letter to a popular devotion—the rosary—calling on bishops, priests, and deacons "to promote it with conviction" and recommending to all the faithful, "Confidently take up the Rosary once again. Rediscover the Rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives."7

Because popular devotional practices have such an important role in the spiritual life of Catholics, we, the bishops of the United States, have prepared this text to respond to questions that commonly arise in regard to such devotions. We aim to provide some explanation of popular devotional practices and their proper function in the life of the Church. On the one hand, we expect that, equipped with a fuller understanding of the proper role of popular devotional practices, the faithful will be better able to avoid possible misapplications and to recognize devotions whose appropriateness is questionable. On the other hand, we hope to encourage the faithful to make use of sound devotional practices, so that their lives might be filled in various ways with praise and worship of God. Faithful practice of popular devotions can help us experience God in our everyday lives and conform us more closely to Jesus Christ. As Pope Pius XII pointed out, the purpose of popular devotional practices is to attract and direct our souls to God, (If any popular devotion does not do this, no individual has the obligation to adhere to it or to necessarily like it.) purifying them from their sins, encouraging them to practice virtue and, finally, stimulating them to advance along the path of sincere piety by accustoming them to meditate on the eternal truths and disposing them better to contemplate the mysteries of the human and divine natures of Christ.8

Referring to the many forms of popular piety found in America, Pope John Paul II declared, "These and other forms of popular piety are an opportunity for the faithful to encounter the living Christ."9 I am providing this article as a help to any who may have questions regarding experiences with popular devotions. I receive many questions and sense a lot of confusion among people who experience exaggerated forms of devotion. The following document is offered as a help. Fr. Mario



1. What are the origins of popular devotions?

Unlike the sacraments themselves, popular devotions cannot be traced directly back to the ministry of Jesus and the practice of the Apostles. Most developed gradually over the years and even centuries as people sought ways of living out their faith. The origins of the more ancient devotions are often rather obscure. Some devotions, such as the rosary and scapulars, have come down to us as adaptations of the practices of religious orders. A few, such as devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Miraculous Medal, are considered to have their origin in a private revelation, that is, some vision or message given to one of the faithful.



2. What is the relationship between popular devotions and the liturgy?

Since the liturgy is the center of the life of the Church, popular devotions should never be portrayed as equal to the liturgy, nor can they adequately substitute for the liturgy.10 What is crucial is that popular devotions be in harmony with the liturgy, drawing inspiration from it and ultimately leading back to it. "These devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."11 While the liturgy always remains the primary reference point, "the liturgy and popular piety are two forms of worship which are in mutual and fruitful relationship with each other."12 Personal and family prayer and devotions should flow from and lead to a fuller participation in the liturgy.

As Pope Paul VI recognized, maintaining the proper balance may not always be easy and may require patient and persistent effort.13 He indicated that there are two extreme attitudes to be avoided. On the one hand, he rejected the position of those "who scorn, a priori, devotions of piety which, in their correct forms, have been recommended by the Magisterium, who leave them aside and in this way create a vacuum which they do not fill. They forget that the Council has said that devotions of piety should harmonize with the liturgy, not be suppressed."14 On the other hand, he likewise did not accept the position of those who, without wholesome liturgical and pastoral criteria, mix practices of piety and liturgical acts in hybrid celebrations. It sometimes happens that novenas or similar practices are inserted into the very celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. This creates the danger that the Lord's Memorial Rite, instead of being the culmination of the meeting of the Christian community, becomes the occasion, as it were, for devotional practices.15Here Pope Paul VI admonished us that "exercises of piety should be harmonized with the liturgy, not merged into it."16



3. What is the relationship between popular devotions and the Bible?

As the Bible stands at the core of what God has revealed to the Church, sound popular devotions should naturally be strongly imbued with biblical themes, language, and imagery. Pope Paul VI explained,"Today it is recognized as a general need of Christian piety that every form of worship should have a biblical imprint."17He applied this in particular to the example of Marian devotions: "What is needed is that texts of prayers and chants should draw their inspiration and their wording from the Bible, and above all that devotion to the Virgin should be imbued with the great themes of the Christian message."18 In speaking of the rosary, Pope John Paul II insisted that it is not a substitute for the reading of the Bible; "on the contrary, it presupposes and promotes" prayerful reading of the Holy Scriptures.19 While the mysteries of the rosary "do no more than outline the fundamental elements of the life of Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on the rest of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting of prolonged recollection."20



4. What is the relationship between popular devotions and culture?

Popular devotions arise in the encounter between the Catholic faith and culture. As the Church brings the faith into a culture, there are two kinds of transformation that take place. First of all, by introducing the Catholic faith, the Church transforms the culture, leaving the imprint of the faith on the culture. At the same time, however, the Church assimilates certain aspects of the culture, as some elements of the culture become absorbed and integrated into the life of the Church. This twofold process can be seen in the development of popular devotional practices. "In genuine forms of popular piety, the Gospel message assimilates expressive forms particular to a given culture while also permeating the consciousness of that culture with the content of the Gospel."21

The Catholic faith is thus able to enter into every culture, and people are able to live the faith in their own cultures, once these cultures have been purified of elements foreign to the Catholic faith. While this inculturation of the faith takes place in the liturgy, popular devotions carry the faith a step deeper into the everyday life of a particular culture. When properly ordered to the liturgy, popular devotions perform an irreplaceable function of bringing worship into daily life for people of various cultures and times. "The liturgy is the criterion; it is the living form of the Church as a whole, fed directly by the Gospel. Popular piety is a sign that the faith is spreading its roots into the heart of a people in such a way that it reaches into daily life."22Popular devotions allow the practice of the faith to pass beyond the bounds of the Church's official liturgy and to permeate more thoroughly the daily lives of people in their own culture.

Pope John Paul II pointed out that popular piety provides important guidance to the Church for carrying out the task of inculturation.23 Understanding the popular piety of a particular people helps the Church to understand their particular spiritual needs and gifts. "This is especially important among the indigenous peoples, in order that 'the seeds of the Word' found in their culture may come to their fullness in Christ."24 The pope also referred to the example of Americans of African origin: "The Church 'recognizes that it must approach these Americans from within their own culture, taking seriously the spiritual and human riches of that culture which appear in the way they worship, their sense of joy and solidarity, their language and their traditions.'"25



5. Why are there so many different forms of popular devotion?

Since popular devotions arise in response to the spiritual needs of the culture in which they take shape, the degree to which any particular devotion is practiced will vary over time and according to the culture. Referring to different forms of Marian devotion originating in various historical and cultural contexts, Pope Paul VI explained that the Church "does not bind herself to any particular expression of an individual cultural epoch or to the particular anthropological ideas underlying such expressions. The Church understands that certain outward religious expressions, while perfectly valid in themselves, may be less suitable to men and women of different ages and cultures."26 Some devotional practices evidently correspond more closely to the spiritual needs of a certain people at a certain time than others. Popular devotions are not a matter in which "one size fits all." We must be aware that in our Church today in the United States there are various ethnic groups who are living in different cultural contexts, and we must be sensitive to the fact that these groups often find that some devotional practices meet their spiritual needs better than others.

Sometimes a certain amount of adaptation is required to make a popular devotion suitable for people in another place and time. For example, the Stations of the Cross began as the practice of pious pilgrims to Jerusalem who would retrace the final journey of Jesus Christ to Calvary. Later, for the many who wanted to pass along the same route but could not make the trip to Jerusalem, a practice developed that eventually took the form of the fourteen stations currently found in almost every church. Similarly, the 150 Hail Marys that were recited for the rosary were an adaptation of the medieval monastic practice of reciting the 150 psalms in the Psalter.



6. What is the role of the saints in the life of the Church?

Many popular devotional practices involve veneration of the saints. The saints have a special place in the Body of Christ, which includes both the living and the dead. Through Christ we on earth remain in communion both with the saints in heaven and with the dead who are still in Purgatory. We can pray for those in Purgatory and ask the saints to pray for us.27 Through their prayers of intercession, the saints in heaven play an integral role in the life of the Church on earth. "For after they have been received into their heavenly home and are present to the Lord, through Him and with Him and in Him they do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, showing forth the merits which they won on earth through the one Mediator between God and man."28 The saints, the members of the Church who have arrived at perfect union with Christ, join their wills to the will of God in praying for those in the Church who are still on their pilgrimage of faith.

Besides what the saints can do for us by their prayers, the very practice of venerating the saints does great good for those who are devoted to the saints. By practicing love of the saints we strengthen the unity of the entire Body of Christ in the Spirit. This in turn brings us all closer to Christ. "For just as Christian communion among wayfarers brings us closer to Christ, so our companionship with the saints joins us to Christ, from Whom as from its Fountain and Head issues every grace and the very life of the people of God."29 Love of the saints necessarily includes and leads to love of Christ and to love of the Holy Trinity. "For every genuine testimony of love shown by us to those in heaven, by its very nature tends toward and terminates in Christ who is the 'crown of all saints,' and through Him, in God Who is wonderful in his saints and is magnified in them."30



7. Why does Mary have a special role in helping us?

As the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary has a unique position among the saints, indeed, among all creatures. She is exalted, yet still one of us.

Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth. At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved.31

Mary embraces God's will and freely chooses to cooperate with God's grace, thereby fulfilling a crucial role in God's plan of salvation.32 Throughout the centuries, the Church has turned to the Blessed Virgin in order to come closer to Christ. Many forms of piety toward the Mother of God developed that help bring us closer to her Son. In these devotions to Mary, "while the Mother is honored, the Son, through whom all things have their being and in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, is rightly known, loved and glorified and . . . all His commands are observed."33 The Church honors her as the Mother of God, looks to her as a model of perfect discipleship, and asks for her prayers to God on our behalf.



8. How does our veneration of Mary and the saints relate to our worship of God?

The honor we give to God alone is properly called adoration, the highest honor we can give. The honor we give to Mary and the saints is called veneration. Proper veneration of the saints does not interfere with the worship due to God, but rather fosters it. "Our communion with those in heaven, provided that it is understood in the fuller light of faith according to its genuine nature, in no way weakens, but conversely, more thoroughly enriches the latreutic34 worship we give to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit."35 With this understanding, we see that proper veneration of Mary does not detract from worship of God. Even as the Mother of the Savior, Mary has a place that is in every way subordinate to and dependent upon that of her Son, who is the one mediator between God and humanity. The maternal role that Mary fulfills toward us as Mother of the Church "in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power."36

The Second Vatican Council explained very clearly that Mary can be said to fulfill a mediating role only in a secondary and derivative manner:

For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.37

What Mary does for the salvation of the human family does not come from her own power, but from a gift of divine grace that is bestowed on her through her Son. All the salvific influence that she bestows on us is produced "not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it."38 Mary in no way replaces Christ. Rather, her role is to bring us to Christ, as is illustrated in Mary's admonition at the wedding feast of Cana, "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5).



9. What is the difference between public Revelation and private revelations?

In some cases popular devotions are based on private revelations rather than public Revelation. The Church distinguishes between public Revelation, which God has given to the Church as a whole and to which all the faithful are bound, and private revelations, which God has given to a particular individual or group and which place no obligation on the rest of the Church. In its document The Message of Fatima, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offers a theological commentary that explains the difference between public Revelation and private revelation.

The term public revelation refers to the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which finds its literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments. It is called revelation because in it God gradually made himself known to men, to the point of becoming man himself, in order to draw to himself the whole world and unite it with himself through his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.39

Public Revelation has been transmitted in Sacred Scripture and in Sacred Tradition, which together "form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church."40 This is the Revelation that was given to the entire Church and that must be received in faith by all the People of God. It is complete in itself and does not need to be supplemented by later revelations. "In Christ, God has said everything, that is, he has revealed himself completely, and therefore revelation came to an end with the fulfillment of the mystery of Christ as enunciated in the New Testament."41The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council affirmed, "we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ."42

Private revelations are different, for they refer "to all the visions and revelations which have taken place since the completion of the New Testament."43 A vision or any other kind of miraculous communication from God or from Mary or another saint falls into this category. Private revelations are given to an individual or small group, not to the Church as a whole. Consequently, while specific commands may be directed to an individual or small group, no obligation of assent of Catholic faith is placed on the Church as a whole.44 "Even when a 'private revelation' has spread to the entire world . . . and has been recognized in the liturgical calendar, the Church does not make mandatory the acceptance either of the original story or of particular forms of piety springing from it"45 Private revelations do not have the same authority as public Revelation. Public Revelation "demands faith; in it in fact God himself speaks to us through human words and the mediation of the living community of the church."46 Private revelations do not demand faith on the part of the Church as a whole because such revelations do not belong "to the deposit of the faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help [people] live more fully by it in a certain period of history."47

The role of private revelations is to help people to enter more deeply into the faith that has been revealed publicly. Private revelations are thus in service to the faith, which is based on public Revelation. Private revelations are "a help to this faith and shows its credibility precisely by leading [one] back to the definitive public revelation."48



10. By what standard does the Church judge the genuineness of private revelations?

Private revelations are always to be judged by their conformity to public Revelation, particularly to the Sacred Scriptures, and not the other way around. As public Revelation is centered on Christ, any genuine private revelation will make Christ known and will help bring people to Christ.

The criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore its orientation to Christ himself. When it leads us away from him, when it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and better plan of salvation, more important than the Gospel, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit, who guides us more deeply into the Gospel and not away from it.49

Similarly, although not every popular devotion has its origin in a private revelation, every popular devotion must likewise be in conformity with the faith of the Church based on public Revelation and must ultimately be centered on Christ.



11. Who has the responsibility to ensure that popular devotions are faithful to church teaching?

We all have a responsibility to be prudent and to do the best we can to ensure that the popular devotions we practice are faithful to church teaching and that we practice them in an appropriate way. As successors to the Apostles, however, bishops have a special responsibility both for their own dioceses and for the Church as a whole. Priests and deacons assist bishops in fulfilling this responsibility. With regard to the whole Church, all bishops have the obligation to promote and to safeguard the unity of faith and the discipline common to the whole Church, to instruct the faithful in love for the whole mystical body of Christ, especially for its poor and sorrowing members and for those who are suffering persecution for justice's sake, and finally to promote every activity that is of interest to the whole Church, especially that the faith may take increase and the light of full truth appear to all men.50

In addition, bishops have the particular responsibility to exercise pastoral care over their dioceses, which includes overseeing the fostering of sound popular devotions and monitoring their appropriateness.51 In some cases, the pope may grant approval to a popular devotion or express caution regarding a particular devotion, sometimes even forbidding its use. Ordinaries of the dioceses in which devotional materials are published and/or devotions are broadcast, even on the Internet, should exercise proper oversight to ensure that these materials are consistent with the theological and ecumenical developments of the contemporary Magisterium.



12. How do popular devotions relate to our responsibilities toward others in our world?

Many popular devotions have a public and social character. They are a constant reminder of the social dimension of the Gospel. God has created us as social beings by our very nature. We always live in a relationship of interdependence with others and always have a responsibility to work for the common good of our society. Furthermore, as this interdependence is not limited to those near to us but extends to all of humanity around the globe, our responsibility to promote the common good likewise extends to all of humanity. Pope John Paul II calls us to exercise the virtue of solidarity, which "is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all."52

Crucial to our duty to promote the welfare of others in our society and in our world is our duty to promote the welfare of the poor, for whom God shows special concern. The summit of Christian worship, the Eucharist, "commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren."53 In the same way, all other Christian worship and prayer, including popular devotions, in bringing us closer to God should inspire us to share ever more fully in God's special love for the poor.



Conclusion

The Church has learned from experience that authentic popular devotions are an invaluable means of promoting an increased love of God. The important role of popular devotions was discussed at the Synod for America and received particular mention in Pope John Paul II's post-synodal apostolic exhortation The Church in America (Ecclesia in America):

The Synod Fathers stressed the urgency of discovering the true spiritual values present in popular religiosity, so that, enriched by genuine Catholic doctrine, it might lead to a sincere conversion and a practical exercise of charity. If properly guided, popular piety also leads the faithful to a deeper sense of their membership of the Church, increasing the fervor of their attachment and thus offering an effective response to the challenges of today's secularization.54

As Pope Paul VI recognized, popular devotional practices can sometimes manifest certain limitations:

Popular religiosity of course certainly has its limits. It is often subject to penetration by many distortions of religion and even superstitions. It frequently remains at the level of forms of worship not involving a true acceptance by faith. It can even lead to the creation of sects and endanger the true ecclesial community.55

This should not obscure, however, the great benefits to be derived from the practice of sound popular devotions. Pope Paul VI went on to say that if popular religiosity is well oriented, above all by a pedagogy of evangelization, it is rich in values. It manifests a thirst for God which only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of manifesting belief. It involves an acute awareness of profound attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the Cross in daily life, detachment, openness to others, devotion. . . . When it is well oriented, this popular religiosity can be more and more for multitudes of our people a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ.56





For Further Reading

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines (December 2001).

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Message of Fatima (June 26, 2000). In Origins 30:8 (July 6, 2000): 113-124.

Pope John Paul II. Apostolic letter On the Most Holy Rosary (Rosarium Virginis Mariae) (October 16, 2002).

Pope Paul VI. Apostolic exhortation For the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Marialis Cultus) (February 2, 1974).

Pope Paul VI. Apostolic Constitution on Indulgences (Indulgentiarum Doctrina)(January 1, 1967).

10/5/2006 8:22:00 AM

First Things blog, Oct. 4, by Robert T. Miller, Assistant Professor at the Villanova University School of Law.

Characteristic of postmodernist art is transgression, the idea that the artist ought to produce works that violate traditional moral and aesthetic norms. The theory is that such norms are ultimately baseless, and thus violating them will liberate us from their tyranny and (the theory suddenly gets vague here) open up for us a new form of life that will somehow be better than that we have enjoyed in the past. This was never, in my view, a plausible program, and the utter predictability of much postmodern art, along with its complete failure to deliver any better form of life, suggests strongly that the program of transgression is a dead end.

However that may be, transgression remains popular with artists themselves because it allows them to pretend to speak truth to power, to pose as courageous intellectuals exposing the pretensions and predations of the bourgeois power structure. Serious people always knew this was something of a joke. Postmodern artists exhibit in swanky galleries, party with rock stars and movie starlets, and—inexplicably to my mind—sell their works for tidy sums. All too often such artists are even on the public dole, accepting subsidies from the government of that bourgeois power structure they claim to subvert. But in all this, even if the postmodern artists could not plausibly claim to be demonstrating actual courage, they could still claim a counterfactual courage: They could say that they would transgress courageously the norms of a power structure that took them seriously enough to retaliate against them for their actions, provided only that they could find such a power structure to offend. Just give them a chance, and they would prove how brave they really are.

That chance came last week for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, which was about to mount Hans Neuenfels’ production of Mozart’s Idomeneo. In the original, Idomeneo appears in the last scene announcing peace. In Neuenfels’ version, Idomeneo makes this announcement carrying the severed heads of Poseidon, Christ, Buddha, and Muhammad. The deep, original, and very transgressive message is obvious: Destroy religion and there will be peace. For Christians, of course, this is a yawn; we hear the same thing on the radio every time John Lennon sings “Imagine.”

But it’s rather different, as the Deutsche Oper rightly concluded, for some Muslims. If you show Idomeneo severing the head of Muhammad, some Jihadists may well do the same for you—for real, with a videotape released to Al Jazeera to prove it, unless, that is, they just don’t leave your bloody carcass on the street as they did with Theo van Gogh. Given a chance to transgress the norms of a power structure that fights back against transgressors, the artists at the Deutsche Oper folded immediately, thus demonstrating to the world what we knew all along, that postmodern artists are courageous only when in no real danger. Postmodern art can exist only in a tolerant, liberal society of the kind postmodernists affect to criticize but are actually parasitic upon.

In one sense, I don’t blame the Deutsche Oper for canceling Neuenfels’ Idomeneo. After all, it’s a dreadful production, and surely its artistic value does not justify risking the violence that might result. But there is a principle at stake, too—the principle that we in the West will not be intimidated as to what we say about Islam by threats from the Jihadists. Most people are never called upon to face physical danger for the sake of moral principle, and I do not judge harshly those who, when the summons comes, run away. But there is a certain justice—even poetic justice—in witnessing the hypocrisy of postmodern poseurs being exposed in such a public way.

I recently argued in this space that Benedict XVI, in his speech at Regensburg, was implicitly challenging Muslims to engage in dialogue with the West on something like equal terms, accepting criticism with the same frankness with which they deal it out. The Muslim response to that challenge was largely angry and often violent. We now see in Berlin that the impresarios at the Deutsche Oper weren’t listening very closely, either, or, if they were, lacked the courage to respond.

8/28/2006 3:44:00 PM

We All Begin Messed Up

Families that thrive are the ones that can absorb conflict and failure and still exhibit love and acceptance at the end of the day. The family that fears its conflict and buries its failures under a farce of good impressions is the one that eventually produces dysfunctional people who carry around bags full of unresolved issues. Sometimes maintaining a “happy” family can be the worst thing you can do. It can drive a lot of powerful emotions underground, where they will eventually surface in unhealthy ways.

Too many of us worry too much about appearances? We often act as if it were our responsibility to make God look good by letting people see us as superficially happy people. But in reality what we do is make God look bad, because we are being basically dishonest; we are being dishonest with ourselves. If you continue doing this long enough, you will forget who you really are. I find that a lot of us get so far away from knowing our real selves that we come to need professional counseling just to help us face the truth about who we really are. This is the result of living to make an impression rather than living out the truth in God’s eyes. We are too good at looking good. I always tell people that we have to imitate what Jesus did. He lived His life for “an audience of One.” That “One” was His Father. Jesus was true to Himself because He was true to God as the only one He was trying to impress.

Some of us, it seems, that the more active and public we are about our faith, the more we experience the pressure to make believe that everything is just fine. After all, don’ you have to be the model of the joyful confident christian person and family. Trying to impress others, we become disconnected from who we are and start making believe that we actually are who we appear to be, and the wider the separation, the more the sense of being fake takes over. That does not mean you have to walk around with your dirty laundry on you sleeve, that is the other extreme.

So what do we do? You let go of loving the idealized perfect, and you imitate Jesus in loving the messed up people that we are. That is precisely how God loves us. He sent Jesus to show us His love when we did not deserve it.

Our normal tendency is to fake it. Fake ourselves out and other people. Jesus