Momma Mary and Birthday Parties

"Happy Birthday!"

It's something we have all exclaimed at one point or another. Most of us have also joined into a sung chorus of "Happy Birthday to you!" many times throughout the years. It's simply a normal thing we do for one another. We celebrate that our friends and family have spent another year with us. We celebrate them as persons who are irreplaceably unique and precious to us. Singing to or about our loved ones is a rare but precious tribute to all that they mean to us. It is a pearl necklace, brought out on special occasions, when normally we just adorn our relationships with scattered photographs and idle conversation.

Perhaps it is our readiness to sing to and about Mary that leaves so many people ill-at-ease with our love for her. I imagine that if I went to a friend's home and found him singing to his mother about how wonderful she is, I do believe that I might find it off-putting. But even more that that, we speak about our Mother Mary in supernaturally glowing tones and turn to her so readily in times of trial that a Catholic man must be a momma's boy indeed!

What might be my response to all of this perfectly understandable discomfort and unease? "Y'all just don't understand." If you understood how wonderful my Momma is, you would know why I can't stop talking about her. When I think of my Momma Mary and how she gave me my Savior the Lord Jesus, how can I not want to sing to her? When I think about my Momma Mary and how she lived her whole life chaste and pure, how can I not want to sit and talk with her? When I think about my Momma Mary and how she had to watch her most beloved Son die but never left Him, how can I not talk about her nobility and grace to everyone I meet?

More than all of the wonders of Mary's holiness and loveliness that we know from times past, the reason that we hold her in the highest of regards even today is that she never ceased to be that preternaturally loving mother. "Never was it know that anyone who fled to [her] protection, implored [her] help, or sought [her] intercession was left unaided." (Memorare) Our Momma Mary brings additional light to our lives, not a light that replaces or competes with that of her Son, but one that nonetheless adds something to counteract that darkness which always sits ready to invade our hearts. Our Lord said to us truly that He "came that [we] might have life and have it more abundantly." (John 10:10) I have to believe that part of His plan from the beginning was to give us so wonderful a Mother, who gave us so great a Redeemer.

Fathers and Sisters

In vocations circles, you will often hear priests speak about the religious sisters who inspired them to pursue joining the ranks of the presbyterate. If you listen and watch with well-attuned senses, you will notice a deep and abiding affection accompanying those stories. This is not by mere chance. It is a product of both who and what they are, and it comes from the deepest wells of self-identification.

The priest accepts, by the imposition of the bishop's hands, not just a new job or sacrament, but also the imposition of a new personal identity. The priest never needs to be introspective or searching in order to find himself; he needs only to look at the cross. He accepts the identity of an alter Christus, another Christ. The priest's personal self-realization is not in finding whom he was born as, nor even whom he was born again as, but rather in finding the deeper reality of the Great High Priest. The priest seeks out the profundity of the person who gave order to the universe and freely gave his life to reconcile sinners to God the Father. In the Son of God actively dying on the cross, gloriously Resurrected, and mercifully present to us in the Sacraments, the priest learns all he needs to know about himself. The innate gifts that the Lord has placed within him will shine forth and be all the more effective the more he allows himself to be filled with and acted through by the Life of God the Son.

The religious sister likewise has little to question when it comes to her calling. From the earliest days of the Church, young women sought to cleave to Christ as a more evangelical calling than that of Christian Matrimony, to live in that total consecration to God in which all the Church will share in the Heavenly Kingdom. Throughout the ages, from Ambrose and Augustine to Pius XII and John Paul II, the Church has called the religious sister forth with the Veni Sponsa Christi and affirmed that the consecrated virgin is a true spiritual bride to Christ. This, then, is her calling: to be about the life of the Bride of Christ, the Church. It is not surprising, then, that we find the consecrated virgin laboring in all the aspects of the life of the Church, especially in the care of God's children and in tending to the wounds within the Body of Christ. Whether in schools, hospitals, or homes for the aged, religious sisters everywhere are giving themselves devoutly to their spiritual families for the sake of their Heavenly Spouse. As the sister gains clarity from this understanding, we, the rest of the Church, gain clarity of vision as to our own identity as the Church.

We regularly parrot that the Church is not structures, hierarchies, and buildings--though She does employ them for the salvation of souls, but rather the Church is the spiritual reality of all those faithful who are united to Christ, most fully in Heaven, but also those of us below united to Him through the sacraments and ardent love. The joy, peace, and love that radiate from religious sisters is instructive to us. Though, in fidelity to our own callings, we may be bound by earthly labors, our hearts should be just as fervently devoted to the Lord.

To get back to our original topic, remember that the priest takes upon himself the identity of another Christ. Likewise, the consecrated virgin or religious sister takes upon herself the identity of another Bride of Christ. Though their deepest love and exemplar is in Heaven, the deep and abiding affection priests and sisters have for one another, collectively and individually, is logical given the personal realities that penetrate their lives. Though this chaste, vicarious love is rationally sensible, the innocence and joy with which it radiates is also profoundly beautiful and continues to stir my heart each and every time I encounter it.

20110516 New (Lord's Prayer 3)

The Priest's Embolism (expansion of a petition) after the Lord's Prayer

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Evil is real. There’s two main sources of evil: demons and us. Evil is when things are not the way God made them to be. If your leg breaks, that’s evil because you count on your leg to be stable and help you move about. But it’s not as bad as when we choose to do evil. Something bad may have happened to your leg, but when we choose to sin and do evil, we are freely choosing to break our relationship with God. Demons will work hard on us sometimes to push us to sin. They do this because they hate the fact that God chose to become one of us and because we have the freedom to return to God and be forgiven by Him. They are stuck in their evil and hatred and therefore resent us, even though they hate God.

It is important to remember our lesson of justice. Justice is treating each person or group of persons as they should be treated. It is also important to remember that it is justice that leads to peace and not the other way around. You cannot create justice simply by avoiding conflict. Justice is an exercise of love conquering fear. We seem to have an evolutionary push to try and get all we can out of everyone we can. Love for others helps us to get past the fear that we might get hurt or go without and take care of others first. In loving others first, we work to bring justice into our homes, communities, and society.

Only by grace can we do all of these great things. Grace is the life of God shared with us. Grace is God giving us His strength. God is able to give us all the grace we need to love others as we should and avoid sin because God IS Goodness and Love.

It can still be hard to trust in God, though. We know how weak we are, and it’s hard to accept that even God can make us strong enough to be a saint. Even so, it is never good to spend time worrying about something difficult in your life and whether you will be able to overcome it. Rather, take that anxiety and channel it into preparing for trials and struggles. Prepare for the hard things in life like Noah prepared for the flood, but know that God is your strength and protector like David did when he faced Goliath.

Faith, hope, and love are what we call the “theological virtues.” We call them this because they deal with God. We have faith in the one true God. We hope in Him to deliver us from evil and into the heavenly kingdom. And we strive to love Him and love our neighbor as Jesus commanded.

20110416 New (Nicene Creed 3)

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day, He rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

Even though He was betrayed, tried, convicted, and executed by earthly authorities (the Romans, Pontius Pilate specifically, King Herod, the Jews of Jerusalem in general, and the Sanhedrin and Judas Iscariot in particular), these parties are not the only ones involved in the death of Jesus.

Firstly, Jesus freely offered Himself. Jesus had within Himself the power to escape, but He chose to endure His sufferings so that He might redeem us. It is in this that the awesome power of God becoming man is shown. As a man, Jesus is able to be truly obedient and sinless but is able to suffer the evil and die the death that all of us sinners are due. As God, His self-sacrifice is an infinite gift: to all men in all places at all times.

If sacrifice is the main principle of worship, then the main principle of priesthood is offering the sacrifice for the people and sharing the grace of the sacrifice with them. Jesus is our great highpriest. He is our greatest teacher, He is our greatest king, and He offered the greatest sacrifice, His own life, and continues to share with us the grace of that sacrifice.

When Jesus appointed His twelve disciples (Apostles) to continue His ministry on Earth, He did so at the Last Supper. In blessing the bread, He said that it was now His Body, given up for us. In blessing the wine, He said that it was now His Blood of a new covenant. He then told His disciples to do the same. Jesus sacrificed His Body and Blood to make a new covenant with us. The Eucharist that we celebrate at Mass is that sacrifice brought into our lives, to each one of us in churches throughout the world for the last two thousand years and on into the future.

Even despite all the miracles Jesus worked, we might still doubt Him if not for one thing. Jesus rose from the dead. He showed us that He is truly from God, and, then, at His Ascension into Heaven, He showed us where He is going. Remembering that Jesus is man, we see as well that if we accept that He died in our place, we can rise to new life with Him and find our destiny in Heaven as well.

We must commit ourselves to Him and to righteousness, however. We all have some guilt for His death because He died for all our sins. As such, our lives are His alone to judge.

Irreducible Part 1

Irreducibility: it's a fancy word that has serious implications (another fancy word)... Let's put it this way: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Philosophy all have this same concept: There is a point beyond which you cannot reduce a thing without changing its identity.

For example, if you remove my hair, I am still human, and I am still myself, perhaps slightly more or less handsome. No big whoop. If you remove some more essential aspect of me, say all of my lower torso, something has definitely changed. I would then be lacking some significant aspects of what it is to be a human being.

Occam's Razor, a popular tool in philosophical circles, is essentially a mental process of removing all unnecessary elements of an argument or analysis to get closer to true understanding. It is often over-simplified to the axiom: "The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one." This generalization loses the elements of completeness and accuracy and in so doing actually proves the point that one can, in the process of simplifying, remove something that in fact is essential. Occam would agree that one always must favor accuracy over simplicity.

In the sciences we learn about elements. It is possible to have great quantities of an element. Think of a zeppelin full of hydrogen. It is possible to reduce this great quantities all the way down to a single atom. However, if one tries to reduce beyond this point, a radical reaction takes place called fission: energy is released, and what remains is no longer the same element as before. For a larger scale understanding of what energy fission releases, think of the uranium-based fission device dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

In our country right now, there is a debate ongoing as to the definition of marriage. It is incumbent upon all rational beings in a society to contribute to such discussions in the interest of truth, social order, and the continuation of the very fabric of society. The Catholic Church provides a beautiful definition for marriage: "[...] a covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring [...]" (CIC 1055).

There are five clear elements to this definition: 1) it is a covenant - agreed upon by man and ratified by God, 2) it is between a man and a woman - it can neither be alone nor with same sex partners nor with multiple partners, 3) it is for the whole life - it is a bond of love meant to last from consummation until death and all points in between, 4) it is for the good of both spouses - it must upbuild both partners and cannot be a relationship of slavery or abuse, 5) it is meant to produce and raise children - it must not be intentionally sterile.

When any of these four elements is absent or denied, marriage itself is being abused. I'll ask you to forgive the stereotypes, but a man who beats his wife, a wife who has her eyes on moreso on the potential alimony than on growing old with her spouse, a man and wife that take no interest in one another, a spouse who insists on bringing other persons into the marital bed, a young couple who consistently put their own interests ahead of having children or raising their children well, all of these are shadow "marriages" and cry out for deliverance. But even more to the point, they are denying themselves the inherent goods of marriage which cannot be present when it is reduced beyond its simple form. Repeat: By willfully denying an essential characteristic, they are depriving themselves of the identity and goods of marriage.

If some outside entity were to recognize such a flawed relationship exists and deny the recognition of their bond as marriage, what harm has been done to them? What these men and women are seeking through marriage are certain personal, civil, and spiritual benefits. The spiritual benefits that may have been sought are not available regardless. The civil benefits are intended as support for properly formed unions and the children they raise up. If those other "marriages" are denied the civil benefits when they are violating the conditions for application of those benefits, namely contributing to the well-being of society by a healthy marriage, then they are not being wronged, but rather prevented from wronging society by drawing unjust compensation from the rest of the citizenry. The personal benefits such as recognition, personal satisfaction, deeper sense of intimacy are simply not the concern of everyone else. I truly desire that everyone have those goods, but societies must be concerned with common goods (truth, justice, peace) not private goods. Securing private goods are strictly a private matter, not governmental.

Marriage is an immense treasure. The Lord Jesus saw fit to raise it to the dignity of a sacrament. Man and woman find in marriage the motivation to draw closer to their divinely intended perfection and the sublime calling to bring about that perfection in the other. Such a creation must be treasured and defended. Hear the calling in your own lives, and remind others of it. Some or those "marriages" can still become true celebrations of Matrimony.

Please look for the second installment of this article, which deals with many arguments regarding marriage and how they hold up to scrutiny. As always, if you like it, hate it, or want to talk about it, comment below.

20100723 New (Lord's Prayer 2)

"Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

God is the source of everything we could need or want because He is the source of the whole universe. Asking God to give us our daily bread is recognizing that even our basic needs for life are from Him. This is what we recognize when we worship God. By making choices to live for Him, by faithful worship, and by giving things up to Him we recognize that He is our Lord in every sense.

Throughout time, mankind has struggled to live up to the goodness we were created to have. Even with the first man and woman, we wound up sinning and hurting our relationship with God. In every generation after, sometimes better, sometimes worse, we have continued to sin and to forget how much God has done for us.

Yet in every age, God has continued to reach out to us. He has given us covenants to try and help us to live out our relationship to Him, revealed Scripture to us to guide us, and has worked miracles to strengthen our faith. The fullness of all these outreaches is Jesus. He and His message are the final public revelation of God’s Word. He worked great miracles and still does even today. And He gave us a new covenant in His blood.

Jesus has given us true forgiveness for our sins. In dying on the cross for us, He accepted the death that would only be fair punishment for our sins. He died in our place to give the opportunity for new life to all mankind through all time. He even descended unto the dead so that He could raise the righteous of the past up to life with God in Heaven. He died for each one of us as if we were the only one. This is the example of the kind of love we are supposed to try to live out in our lives: to give your life for your friends.

20100723 New (Nicene Creed 2)

"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man."

Jesus is both God the Son and the Son of God. That is to say that He is both God and man. This is one of the most central and most difficult aspects of Christian faith. Many years of conflict led to the Church adopting this part of the Creed to express this idea.

Jesus being truly a man means that He shares fully in our human nature but without sin. He has both a human body and a human soul. He has a human mind and human free will. He lived a truly extraordinary life in that with everything He did, He united His human will with the Divine Will.

Given that Jesus shared fully in our human nature except that He was sinless, we have to deal with the question of how His humanity was sinless. Jesus received His human nature from His mother, Mary, by the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason and others, knowing that God had created and prepared Mary specifically to be His mother, we believe that Mary was also created without sin. The fact that Mary was conceived without Original Sin is what we refer to as the Immaculate Conception.

Because Mary was so important to God that He preserved her from sin and chose her to be His mother, we hold Mary in a special place in our hearts. We take her for our own because we take Jesus as our own.

Jesus’ life was mostly hidden from public view. He grew up in much the same way as every other boy. He lived out His teenage years much the same as others. He lived a fully human life, but His obedient sinless example stands as a challenge to us to follow in His footsteps.

When Jesus began His public ministry, He worked miracles to show that He was from God. He preached our relationship with God in a new way that focused on having a real relationship with God above simply following rules. Following the rules is great, but only if it is done with love. Jesus said that the greatest Commandment of God was to love God with all our heart, mind, body, and soul, and then to love our neighbor as ourselves.

20100707 New (Lord's Prayer 1)

Lord's Prayer Part I

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

God created us to love and serve Him and to be happy with Him in Heaven. At the end of our lives, we hope that is where we shall go. We only know a few things about Heaven, but we know that God loves us and knows what is best for us, therefore we trust that Heaven will be the greatest thing possible for us.

To be able to go to Heaven, however, we must observe God’s law on Earth. God created the whole universe good. In the beginning, some of the angels rebelled and thus were expelled from Heaven. We recognize therefore, that following God’s will is necessary for us to enter Heaven.

Thankfully, we can recognize God’s law, not only in Scripture, but also, using our God-given intellect, in the world around us. This is what we call the “natural law.” Everyone, whether Christian or not, is required by God to observe these laws because they are available to all of us.

As persons who long to be with God in Heaven, we must do all we can to love God and one another on Earth. We must also do what we can to make sure that people treat one another as they should be treated. This is called “justice.” While we cannot make people love each other, we can do things to help make sure that they do not treat one another with injustice. This is part of what we must do to bring a little bit of Heaven’s ways to Earth.

20100707 New (Nicene Creed 1)

Nicene Creed Part I

"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

Unlike most ancient belief systems, we do not believe in multiple gods, nor do we believe that God has only specific domains over which He has power. God is also not distant or uninterested in the world. Rather, we know God to be the One who created both the whole physical universe and the heavenly realities that we cannot see. Even more than that, He lovingly cares for His creation and actively works for the salvation of His prized creation, mankind, whom He made in His own Image.

Being made in God’s Image does not mean that God the Father looks like us, rather that we are made to resemble Him. We are made to resemble Him in His Essence, that is Love. We have intelligence, free will, memory, and the ability to love. In all of these things, we reflect God’s Nature and are meant to demonstrate His goodness to the world.

God is all-powerful, that is to say that everything in the universe is completely within His power. The only thing He never directly changes is human freedom. Rather than take away part of what makes us so special, He chooses to act in other ways that draw greater good out of the evils that we do.

God is all-knowing, that is to say that He perceives all aspects of all things in the whole universe through all time at all times. God is also eternal, that is not just to say that He has been in existence forever, but also to say that His existence has no reference to time. He created time and space for our world, not for Himself. He perceives all time already laid out before Him.

God is Loving, Merciful, and Just. Even though mankind sinned against God, He still reached out to us time and time again. That is not to say that He does not punish our offenses, but rather to say that He forgives far more than we deserve. God has a deep, abiding and passionate love for mankind that we have not nor can do anything to deserve. Rather, He has asked simply that we accept a loving relationship with Him, accepting Him as our God, and we shall be His people.

20100517 Question: Women Priests

13: Why can't women be priests?

13. The thing about the priest question is this: it is not a matter of profession, but of nature. Men and women both have human nature, but the difference between men and women is not just one of appearance. God has created each of them with certain strengths and weaknesses to complement one another and to serve different needs in the family. Since the sacrament of Holy Order (i.e. ordination to the priesthood) is a change to the soul that enables the person to be a minister of the other sacraments, it is necessary for that person (soul and body) to be of the proper nature to receive the sacrament. Just like with the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of Eucharist, and the oil of Anointing of the Sick, we follow the example of Christ, who instituted the Sacraments, as regards the proper matter for the sacrament of Holy Order; He chose only men. Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other women all did their part to spread the Gospel, but they were never Apostles, and we cannot, as Christians, presume to know better than the example the Lord Himself gave.

20100517 Question: Sexual Sin

12:It seems to me that clergy rarely falls into murder, thievery, or other sins that are primarily not carnal, but, when they do fall it is typically sin of a sexual nature. (Protestants just as often or perhaps more so than Catholics) Is this more so now than in biblical and later ages?

It doesn't seem that satan tried this temptation with our Lord, nor was there much problem that I know of in the early church or the apostles, etc. It would seem that our whole world is much like Sodom and that we must be very near the end!

12. I don't generally speculate on when the end of days will be, but we certainly do live in a degenerate time. You are correct that there is no record of the adversary tempting the Lord with lust. He did tempt Him with food, however. And generally, the spiritual doctors would say that more sins are committed in the dining hall than the bedroom. Again, I am not sure if that is still the case. What we do know is that it is certainly easier to resist temptations of the flesh in the one sense if we routinely deny ourselves in the other. I believe that one of the reasons we have such issues with sexual temptation in this day and age is because we have fallen out of the habit of regular fasting. The Church made allowance for substituting acts of charity for regular Friday fasting, and it seems we have taken to this wholesale. It is necessary to remember that, while the clergy are here to continue the personal ministry of Jesus Christ to His Church, they are still men who must strive for holiness just the same as we. When they sin, as all men in this fallen world do, they separate themselves from the Body of Christ and must seek to be reconciled to it through the sacrament of Penance.

20100517 Question: Celibate Priests

11: Celibate Priesthood... Why?

11. First, to define the word celibate: celibate means "unmarried." It does not simply mean "single;" rather it signifies that someone has chosen to give up the goods of marriage and all it entails in order to serve more devotedly a higher cause. When a man chooses to accept the gift of celibacy, he is choosing to love the Church as Christ loved the Church, with his whole life. There are arguments from Scripture and history that point to a married priesthood in the early centuries A.D., and they are correct. As one sees in the Eastern Churches (Orthodox and Catholic), a married priesthood has existed for centuries. What is sometimes forgotten is that, for the first several centuries A.D., if a married man were to become a priest or bishop, he and his wife would be expected to be continent, meaning abstaining from sexual relations. While this discipline lasted for a substantial period of time, the Churches saw that it was not going to be tenable in the long term. In the East, the Churches eased the practice of continence for parish priests except for Sundays and Holy Days, but transitioned to a rule of celibacy for bishops, after the pattern of monastics. In the West, the Church judged that it was best for the good of the faithful that their priests maintain that single-minded devotion; therefore, they chose to augment the rule of continence with a promise of celibacy in order to remove the obstacle of married life. Each of these paths has their own difficulties, but it should be noted that since the initial conflict over clerical celibacy, evangelization has flourished in the Latin rite (the West). In fact, the "Western" Church has now been in Russia, the Far East, India, Western and Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, Indochina, and the South Pacific in addition to Europe and all of the Americas. Some may posit other arguments, but I think the devotion to things above that a celibate must have has been a central principle in the spreading of the Gospel to nearly every known people of the world. If you want to discuss any particular Scripture passage, just reply or comment.

20100512 Preview: The Spiritual Life

The Spiritual Life

By Michael A. Kirk

Universal Call to Holiness

The Second Ecumenical Vatican Council (Vatican II) reminded the laity of the Church of something that had long been overlooked in spiritual teaching: each and every member of God’s people is called to be a saint. For some time, the focus had been on the callings of priests and religious (nuns, monks, etc.) to be holy in order to be examples for the lay people. While there is a greater responsibility on the priests to be a worthy example of Christian living (i.e. Paul), the calling Jesus issued to us to be holy was given to all. We all have the examples and tools available to us either to accept God’s grace and grow in virtue or to reject God’s grace and continue to be made a slave to sin.

Having been given the amazing freedom and intellect that we have from God, there is almost nothing in this world that we cannot do. Yet we know that there are things we should do and things we should not. We know that some actions are fitting to our nature, and others are not. We are meant to live with God in Heaven, and we should show that by our lives here on earth. However, the spiritual life is not just “acting” but rather is “transforming.” God’s grace works real change in us, both through the sacraments and through working with us to grow in virtue and holiness.

Imitation of Christ

1 John 2:5-6 “This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live (just) as he lived.”

Jesus proclaimed in the Gospels that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” How then do we come to imitate the life of Jesus? The first thing we must do is to get to know Him better, look upon the choices He made and the lessons He gave, and learn what it is that we should value most and for which we should strive.

Studying Christ in the Scriptures we can see a contempt for the vanity of the world, a focus on the next life rather than this one. Jesus recognized temptations as what they were and showed us how to resist them. He employed adversity—in its ultimate form as the Cross—to accomplish the greatest goods. Furthermore, throughout the Gospels, the Lord submitted to the will of His Father and to the legitimate earthly authorities. And perhaps most prominently, He preaches and demonstrates love and forgiveness at all times, not only when convenient or accepted.

Lectio Divina

St. Jerome once said, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” The converse may also be said: in study of the Scriptures, one may come to know Christ more. Lectio Divina (Latin for sacred reading) is a practice of meditating on the Scriptures. Through this method, one may come to a deeper appreciation of Jesus the Christ and learn to better follow Him.

The practice of Lectio Divina naturally begins with the practice of Lectio, reading, wherein we attentively read a selected passage—note that it should be a well-selected passage, not just a random page or chapter. The passage should then be read again with Meditatio, deep thought or meditation on the message or messages of the passage. Readers should consider how they and their lives are reflected positively or negatively in the passage.

Using the fruits of Lectio and Meditatio, readers should enter into Oratio, prayer with God about the message(s) they are receiving from the passage, especially those themes that are leading them to reform their lives. The final stage of Lectio Divina is Contemplatio, contemplation. Contemplation means uniting one’s heart with God’s, or, rather, letting God’s heart fill and overtake your own.

Eucharistic Piety

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed that we might all be one as He and the Father are One. To draw us together, He gave us the Church to guide us and His own Body and Blood to unite us in Holy Communion. What we receive in Communion at Mass is Our Lord, glorious and enthroned in Heaven, so that we might dwell in Him and He in us. Jesus transforms the simple bread and wine we offer into His Body and Blood for us to consume, not only so that we can have a visible sign of our unity with one another, but also so that we can have a real and lasting unity with Him.

The Church celebrates this gift in two main ways: the first is the Mass and Holy Communion, the other is Eucharistic Adoration. Eucharistic Adoration is the practice of worshipping Our Lord Jesus present in the Eucharist. This may be done by making a simple visit to the church or chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved (in the tabernacle). Eucharistic Adoration is also done solemnly with songs, prayers, and incense on certain occasions throughout the year, notably on the first Friday of every month and after Holy Thursday Mass.

Evangelization & Mission

For what has the Lord sent you out into the world? This is the question we each must answer when contemplating what “mission” means. There are missions which the Lord has given to His people. There are further missions to which the Church has committed herself. There are mission territories, where the Gospel still needs to be preached. There are mission churches, where the faithful are few, but dedicated to their faith. Then there are the missions for which the Lord has equipped each of us.

Some of us are made to be mothers or gardeners. Some are made to be fathers or soldiers. Some are made to be priests or engineers. For each of us, there will be some missions we accept and some we decline, both out of those for which the Lord has prepared us and those for which we might not be ready. What we must do in all cases is to do everything with the intention of furthering the Gospel in our own lives and that of others. Where something in our lives opposes our mission, we should seek to amend it without delay.

“Evangelization” is what we call spreading the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. In other times and places, this meant telling the pagan world about the One True God and His Son who died for our sins. In our place and time, it can still mean this, although it often also includes reminding a believer of what it means to be a Christian.

Spiritual Combat

The devil is real. Make no mistake about this. Before this world came to be, God made the angels, and one of the most powerful of these angels chose not to serve God, but to challenge Him. This angel and those who stood with him lost the glory that they had in God’s presence, but not their power. They are called fallen angels, or demons, because they fell from heaven’s glory to a lower state of being. These demons are not physical beings. Rather they are spiritual beings that seek to lead men to reject God in the same way as they once did.

Demons seek first and foremost to tempt us to fall. They may also try to coerce us (find ways to threaten us or our loved ones). In some rare, but real, cases, demons will oppress (affect the person’s life, well-being, or environment) or even possess (take charge of a person’s body, speaking and acting for them) someone without the person’s consent. While cases of oppression and possession are often the result of the person or an enemy opening them up to attack (by participating in some demonic or pagan activity), they can also happen when no one has done anything to provoke them.

The first recourse when we believe there may be demonic activity in our lives or that of others is to resort to prayer and the Sacraments. The Sacraments and fervent prayer, being full of the life of God, are the fastest, surest remedy to a demonic presence. If the appearance of demonic activity persists, then a priest should be contacted. With regards to demonic possession, specifically, it is imperative that a sound evaluation be made whether the problem is demonic, psychological, or medical. Taking the wrong approach in any case can have devastating results.

20100505 Update: The Eucharist

“The Eucharist and the Mass”

By Michael A. Kirk

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread…”[1]

The Eucharist is a sacrifice without blood. It is entirely different from the sin offerings that our Hebrew forebears offered unceasingly, vainly attempting to counterbalance the weight of their sins with quantities of the blood of oxen and goats. The offering of bread and wine is a sacrifice of thanksgiving (eucharistein in Greek) that the Hebrews called ToDaH. This is the sacrifice that is to be offered when we recall the great deeds that God has done for us.

Genesis 14:18 "Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram...”

Hebrews 7:1-2 "This Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High […] His name first means righteous king, and then he is also ‘king of Salem,’ that is, king of peace. Without father, mother, or ancestry, without beginning of days or end of life, thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever."

“Without the Shedding of Blood, There Is No Remission of Sins...”[2]

When the Lord saved his people from the bonds of slavery to men in Egypt, He had them eat the meal of the Passover sacrifice the evening before it was to be accomplished. In the Passover commemoration, the third cup of wine, which corresponds to God’s promise “I will redeem” from Exodus 6:6, is known as the Cup of Blessing, and, at the end of the meal, all participants in the Passover must drink from it. Blood was shed in the mark of circumcision in the covenant of Abraham. Blood marked the doorposts of God’s people at the Passover. And the Lord’s own Blood is offered to us in the Eucharist as the sign of our Redemption.

Exodus 24:7-8 "Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people, who answered, ‘All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do.’ Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of His.’"

Matthew 26:27-28 "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins."

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I...”[3]

The Hebrew people had an understanding that wherever one of the signs of God’s covenant was, the Lord had a special, real presence there. In the Ark of the Covenant, the Hebrews kept Aaron’s staff, the fragments of the Ten Commandments, and some of the manna with which God fed His wandering people in the desert. These signs of God’s providential care for and covenant with them served not only as consolations, but also as points of contact with the Divine. The Eucharist is the new sign of God’s covenant with His people, but rather than merely being present around this sign, He is substantially and personally present in it.

Exodus 25:8 "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst."

Exodus 25:22 "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you..."

Exodus 25:30 "You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me always."

Matthew 12:1 "At that time Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and eat them. [...] [Jesus] said to them, 'Have you not read what David did, when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering (of the presence) [...] I say to you, something greater than the temple is here."

Matthew 28:20 "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

Luke 24:30-31,35 “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight […] Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread…”

“Salvation comes from our God […] and from the Lamb”[4]

Our Lord Jesus the Christ, the Lamb of God, became man specifically that He might become the final sacrifice to save us from our sin. Abel offered a first-born lamb, and his sacrifice was looked upon with favor. Abraham offered a ram provided by God in place of his first-born son. The Hebrews offered yearling sheep in place of their first-born sons. To accept the redemption offered by each of these sacrifices, the people had to consume the lamb. The Lord God gave His first-born Son to be the lamb of sacrifice to redeem our lives. He did so not only so that by dying in our place, He might free us from our sins, but also so that by taking and eating of His Body, we might have His Divine Life welling up within us.

Genesis 22:8 “‘Son,’ Abraham answered, ‘God Himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.’”

Exodus 12:5-8 “The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight. They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb. That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”

Leviticus 23:12-13 "You shall offer to the Lord a holocaust an unblemished yearling lamb. Its cereal offering shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil […] and its libation shall be […] of wine."

John 1:29,34 “‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. […] Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.’”

Luke 22:19 "Then he took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.'"

Revelation 19:9 "Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb."

---

[1] Matthew 6:11

[2] Hebrews 9:22

[3] Matthew 18:20

[4] Revelation 7:10

20100510 Question: Mary

10: Mary...

10. Concerns regarding the relationship between Catholics and Mary generally revolve around a few key issues: 1) Do Catholics worship Mary? 2) Why do Catholics believe that Mary never sinned? 3) Is it not better to give attention to Jesus rather than Mary?

These are all very good questions. With regards to the first question, the simple answer is "No."

1) Catholics do not worship Mary. All aspects of religion are not necessarily worship. Many Christians, for example, choose to abstain from work on Sunday in order to observe the Lord's command to keep the Sabbath holy. Also, studying Scripture and leading a moral life are aspects of Christian life that are not worship per se. For many Protestant communities, the meaning of worship has been distorted so as to be roughly equivalent to prayer, singing, or listening to a sermon. Catholics remember the history of our Salvation from the beginning of time and what Christ showed us upon the Cross: "worship" means "sacrifice." The word "prayer" bears the meaning "asking for a favor," which does not of itself entail worship, otherwise, we would be worshiping our neighbors whenever we are in need of a cup of sugar. Singing does not of itself entail worship; otherwise we would be worshiping every child to whom we ever sung "Happy Birthday." Study or listening to lectures certainly does not of itself entail worship; otherwise most of us would have spent a fair portion of our lives worshiping dinosaurs or ponies. We, as Catholic Christians, ask Mary to pray for us to God, to join us in worshiping Him, and to lead us into a deeper imitation of His Ways. We sing of the holiness and virtue of Mary because, as the first and most loyal disciple of Jesus, she provided for us such a great example. We study and seek to know more of Mary because, after all, it is from her that Our Lord drew His sacred humanity. For us Catholic Christians, no matter how much we may admire Mary, we offer spiritual sacrifice to one God alone--the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

2) God the Son received His human nature from Mary. That nature needed to be without stain of sin, Original or personal. We know that the merits of Christ's sacrifice (i.e. forgiveness of sin) could be applied to points earlier in history because we saw just such a thing with the prophets Isaiah, who was purified from sin by a heavenly ember, and Elijah, who was assumed into Heaven. Given the angel's greeting to Mary in the Gospel according to Luke, "Hail, she-who-has-been-graced," which is absent her name and wholly unique in all of Biblical history, we are led to see that she must have been blessed in some way that separates her from the rest of humanity. What might this singular grace have been that she had even before conceiving the Lord? Once we recognize that Mary was uniquely blessed among all humanity and remember that she is the source of Jesus' sinless human nature, it becomes obvious that the two are related and that that singular blessing is that the forgiveness won by Christ on the Cross was applied to Mary at her conception that she might be forever without sin, a new Eve who can remain sinless next to the new Adam who would die for our sins rather than sin Himself.

3) Lastly, of course, worshiping Jesus the Christ is better than speaking about Mary. The real question is, "Why do you have to choose?" Worshiping God is better than hugging your Grandma, but that doesn't mean it's not good to do both. Like it or not, if Christ is the head of the Church and we are members of His Body, Mary is also our mother. While she can never replace Our Lord, not by a long shot, she does deserve a great deal of respect and love, and we would be doing wrong by her and by Jesus to ignore her or speak ill of her.

20100503 Question: The Final Battle

9: In the final fight portrayed in Revelation, who would be the soldiers on each side? I figured for God, he would have all his angels and his saints fighting with him. But, if the angels aren't really alive, how can they die? So will the fight just go on forever, because angels can't die? I was also wondering, regarding Guardian Angels, do they feel our pain? That is, if we get hurt, in anyway, can they feel it?

9. The references in the book of revelation to the angels waging war are actually referring to two different times. some of it is referencing the original fall of the angels who refused to love and serve God. Then, partially in reference to the end of the world, there is a lot of eschatological imagery (images used to talk about future events, mostly symbolic).

It is true that angels are not alive like we are (we are souls that animate, or "make alive" human bodies). When we die, our souls are separated from our bodies, and we await the resurrection when our bodies will be restored and glorified. Angels experience none of this. They do not have senses in the same way we do. They do not suffer death like we do. They do not suffer pain in the same way we do.

But they are alive in that they are able to chose their own way. Inanimate objects have no power of choice, nor of knowledge, nor of love. We know that angels can learn and do have knowledge and can sense things, though in a different way from us. We even know--in the case of demons at least--that they can feel pain, but it is a spiritual pain, whereas ours is usually a physical pain.

But the battle we are concerned with primarily is the war for men's hearts. The angels, saints, and we members of God's church here on earth are constantly at war with the forces of evil in men's hearts as well as those powers possessed by the devil and his angels. the message of Revelation is primarily that the end of time comes for each of us at different times (often without notice) and that we need to be on the right side of the battle whenever that time comes...

I do not know if they feel pain that corresponds to our pains... I know that the life of God, His grace, His blessing, is painful to the demonic angels that truned away from God... I have not found a reference anywhere as to whether God's angels feel pain, but I am thinking about how Heaven is to be devoid of suffering and sadness... I'm going to present the opinion that angels probably look on things with God's perspective: rather than suffering and sin being things that cause them pain, they probably perceive them as obstacles to overcome for the greater glory of God...

20100503 Question: Catholic Missal

8: What is a Catholic Missal? (It was on Jeopardy: which president was sworn in with his hand NOT on a Bible, but on a Catholic Missal. Lyndon B. Johnson was the answer, on Air Force One after JFK’s assassination.)

8. The Catholic Missal was a book commonly used at the time by Catholics to pray along with the Mass. It would have the Scripture readings and the prayers in both Latin and English in a side-by-side fashion. "Praying the Mass with Missals" was something of a rallying cry for Catholics in the United States in the fifties and early sixties. It was encouraging Catholics to, rather than be occupied with other prayers, be more fully engaged in the Mass itself, what the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council would call "full, conscious, and active participation." LBJ remains the only president known to have been sworn into office on a book other than a Bible, though we do not have records of precisely on what many of the earlier presidents were sworn in. It is worth pointing out that Daily Roman Missals for post-Vatican II Mass (generally called the Novus Ordo Mass) are also available for use nowadays and can be very useful for praying the Mass. http://www.bookschristian.com/books/james-socias/daily-roman-missal/319085 is just one place they may be found. If you are interested in one, I would recommend shopping around as prices may vary.

20100426 Question: Miracles

7: Does God still work miracles of the supernatural sort today (in much the same way as in the book of Acts?)?

7. The Lord certainly still works miracles. There are several miracles verified every year. Most of them are medical in nature, spontaneous and complete healing upon petition. Most verified miracles are specifically examined as a part of the canonization process for a saint, which requires two separate miracles to occur by their intercession to God on behalf of the petitioner. These miracles are considered to be God's approbation of the sanctity of the saint's life as an example for His people. Others, of course, take place, such as the levitation of St. Joseph Cupertino or the bilocation of Padre Pio, but miracles during the course of the saint's life do not count toward their canonization. Only those after their death can demonstrate the special relationship they have with God.

On a different note, the theophanies of God (the manifestations of God in the burning bush, pillar of cloud, wrestling with Jacob-Israel, etc.) are a thing of the past since the Lord God has appeared fully and finally in the person of Jesus the Christ.

There are some warning signs to look for as pertains to charlatans that we could also discuss...

20100426 Question: Seven Deadly Sins

6: Why do many Catholics refer to the 7 deadly sins when they aren't mentioned in the Bible directly and were compiled by a man who had nothing to do with the Bible?

6. Yeah, one thing to get used to with Christianity: there are lots of things we do, talk about, etc. that are not expressly in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us how to build a synagogue or a Christian church. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us how Christian ministers should dress. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us what books belong in the Bible! The comfort we have in Catholic Christianity is found in the fact that we grew organically from our Hebrew roots in the revelation of Jesus the Christ, through the ministry of the Apostles, and shepherded through history by their successors, the popes and bishops. Protestant communities are generally defined by what they deny of the Catholic Faith (though they would never admit it). Many of them are not even aware of this historically obvious distinction.
The "Seven Deadly Sins" are just one articulation of a common practice among Christian spiritual leaders of the early Middle Ages to identify the common causes of spiritual failing. Many other spiritual doctors refer to the "Eight Vices" including vainglory, pride that arises after having conquered other temptations (see Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian). The effort was partially based on passages from Proverbs and Galatians that list offenses to God. Pope St. Gregory the Great really just made a very publicly published list to be of use to the people of God.

20100426 Question: Incense

5: What is the ball with smoke in it that you use during some masses? What is it used for and why?

5. The device you're referring to is called a thurible. It is essentially a means of carrying (and employing in worship) a censer, a bowl used for the burning of incense. Incense is a sweet-smelling resin made from sap that makes a pleasant-smelling smoke when burned. Typically, charcoals are lit and placed in the thurible, then, when incense is desired for the ceremony, some of the incense will be spooned out onto the coals by the priest and then blessed. Therefore the smoke is seen as blessed, in the same sense as holy water, though for different purposes. The thurible is then used to incense the altar, blessed object, or the people of God, all things seen to have the blessing of God on them. Incense is most prevalently used in Mass and at Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, times when we are most directly worshiping our God.