March 11, 2013

Nothing is more important right now for Catholics and for the world than electing a holy and capable man to the throne of Peter. He will either be a light in the darkness as many of his predecessors, or he will help advance the darkness through ineptness or languor in dealing with the challenges of our times both ecclesiastical and political. Our responsibility as members of the Body of Christ is to pray, do penance, and sacrifice so that the Cardinals in the conclave will elect a worthy successor to St. Peter.

Personally, I’m distressed that in our diocese no Masses are being offered today or tomorrow in parishes or the cathedral for the election of the Roman Pontiff. In fact, none are scheduled for this purpose at all, although the bidding prayers on Sunday have included some intercessions. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, though, the one specifically for the election of the Pope, is the most powerful prayer we can offer and I believe we should be offering it in our diocese in solidarity with the Cardinal electors. Oh, well.

Father Mark Kirby, OSB, of Silverstream Abbey in Ireland has written a beautiful litany for the election with intercessions for every day of the week. Father George Byers at Holy Souls Hermitage has suggested praying the sequence from Pentecost Sunday, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, and the Emergency Chaplet of the Immaculate Conception for this election. Just click on the link to find them.

Although Rome is seven hours ahead of us, a friend and her daughter will be joining my husband and me late tomorrow morning at the small chapel in the cathedral to pray these prayers.  It won’t coincide with the voting time or the Mass time for the Cardinal electors, but at least we know we are helping intercede and God will listen.  No doubt many other Catholics will be doing similar things in their homes.

I’m mentioning these prayers so that others can use them, too, and be part of the world wide spiritual support for the Cardinal electors.

The bronze statue of St. Peter pictured in this post is in the Roman basilica and was made by Arnolfo di Cambia, c. 1300. I was a pilgrim who touched the worn right foot in 1998. Very humbling to be one of multitudes who over the centuries made their way to the Apostolic seat to venerate the simple fisherman Jesus left in charge of his flock, and to praise the Lord for giving us so many holy successors.  May the Lord bless us yet again now.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

March 14, 2013

Yesterday the conclave elected Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, who took the name “Francis” as the successor to St. Peter. The usual suspects within the Catholic Church began flipping out in a negative way with vitriolic comments that were so acidic they could have eaten away the computer screen. Why? Because…

This Pope is a Jesuit, and a good and faithful follower of St. Ignatius.  So good, in fact, that his fellow Jesuits in Argentina, eaten up by the Marxism of the twentieth century still bubbling along the surface of the twenty-first, ostracized him, sending him to be rector of  their seminary in Argentina. Now what better place could a religious community send someone who is faithful to the charism of the founder than to head up the place of formation for new members? They thought when they got rid of him as Provincial it would be the end of his influence, but God has the last word.

Pope John Paul II saw something in Bergoglio that would be good for the Church and appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992.  In 1998 he succeeded to the position of Archbishop and was appointed Cardinal in 2001.

Those inside and outside the Church who were hoping for a pope of “change” – change in Church teaching and discipline – are furious. He is a staunch defender of life from conception to natural death, he strongly but unsuccessfully opposed the gay “marriage” law in Argentina calling it “the machination of the Father of Lies” and said that adoption of children by homosexuals is a form of discrimination against children. The latter comment earned him condemnation from President Christina Fernandez of Argentina who compared his tone to “medieval times and the Inquisition.” About abortion Pope Francis said that “in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death.”

There will be no women priests. This Pope will uphold the continuous teaching from apostolic times that women cannot be ordained to the sacred priesthood, a truth Catholics must hold de fide. Likewise, he will uphold Church teaching on contraception.

We can also expect an authentic interpretation of the Catholic meaning of social justice, which does not mean giving Obamaphones to everybody on welfare or taking up rifles to assassinate politicians. Pope Francis knows what real poverty is and it is not what passes for poverty in the majority of the United States.  It is the poverty of those whose entire families live in the streets with little more than the clothes on their backs, make a pittance by climbing through the city dumps scavenging anything they can possibly sell, go to bed hungry, live in cardboard or metal lean-tos, and who have no conveniences of electricity or refrigeration to name a few examples. He has visited the slums often. For him the answer is not Marxism nor liberation theology as commonly proposed but following Christ who showed us the way to care for our neighbor and who never said “The government shall be the main support of the poor and wealth is bad.”

Anyone who has been paying attention to Church governance over the past 40-50 years is aware of the rot in the Curia and the filth, as Pope Benedict called it, in the clergy. This is where we will see the change needed in the Church. This is his mandate. Pope Francis is well equipped to carry out necessary reforms at the Vatican. Nobody on earth is above him to sideline him somewhere else as the Jesuits did in 1980. In this very necessary task of prime importance he has the dossier Pope Benedict left him that points clearly to what must be done for the good of souls. This is perhaps the reason he emphasized the phrase “Bishop of Rome” from the balcony yesterday.

What distressed me the most post election were the vicious comments made by my fellow Catholics attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Whether or not this Pope encourages the EF is not the main concern in the Church today. What Pope Benedict put in place will remain in place regarding the EF. Like Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict before him, Pope Francis will be calling the world to holiness, and that is the heart of the matter. Whether we are helped through the EF or the OF of the sacred liturgy toward that holiness is according to us and the Holy Spirit, who is, above all, the Spirit of charity.  At his blog, Father Z made it clear that trashing the Pope on the EF is unacceptable there, as did Father George David Byers at Holy Souls Hermitage. Thank you, Fathers!

I asked Father Mark Kirby of Silverstream Abbey in Ireland to write a litany we can use to pray for Pope Francis, who took his name after St. Francis of Assisi. While praying at the crumbling church of San Damiano one day, St. Francis heard Jesus say, “Go Francis, rebuild My house which is falling down.” I hope that Father Mark will do this for us so that, with the beautiful form of the litany prayer, we may help Pope Francis rebuild God’s house once again. If Father Mark does write a new litany, I’ll post the link here.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

March 15, 2013

Humility

We can tell a lot about a person from his non-verbals – how he carries himself, his gestures, the tone of his voice and facial expressions. From the beginning one of the most encouraging things about this pope was his profound bow as 200,000 people in St. Peter’s square and around the world prayed in silence for him before he gave the papal blessing to all. He will be leading all bishops and priests by this example of humility. This is not to say that previous popes in my lifetime were not humble. I cherished the humility of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Humility means that one can be easily led by the Holy Spirit, is a good listener, and will give others the benefit of the doubt before acting.

I was impressed also by the stories of how he lived in a small apartment in Buenos Aires and cooked for himself, rather than in the bishop’s palace being waited on by staff. And those continuous visits to the slums of BA. Then there was his refusal to take any Curial post even though he could have. This is not a man who loves power, but he isn’t afraid to engage it using strong language when necessary. Loving all of this.

Praying

We could call Pope Benedict XVI the Pope of Christian Unity, the Pope of Hope, the Pope of the Sacred Liturgy, the Teaching Pope and many other attributes. It looks like we’re going to be calling Pope Francis the Pope of Prayer among other things. Loving it.

Simplicity

After reading his first sermon I was thanking God for his vision of the Church and what we pilgrims are doing in it:

…we can walk as much we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a philanthropic [what he said in Italian, not the erroneous English translation] NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ.

When one does not walk, one stalls. When one does not built on solid rocks, what happens? What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sandcastles: everything collapses, it is without consistency. When one does not profess Jesus Christ – I recall the phrase of Leon Bloy – “Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.” When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.

…When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.

Loving his clarity and simplicity: Jesus Christ is the center. We choose either Christ or Satan.

Sense of Duty

This morning he met with all the cardinals in the Clementine hall and remarked:

Courage, dear brothers! Probably half of us are in our old age. Old age, they say, is the seat of wisdom. The old ones have the wisdom that they have earned from walking through life. Like old Simeon and Anna at the temple whose wisdom allowed them to recognize Jesus. Let us give with wisdom to the youth: like good wine that improves with age, let us give the youth the wisdom of our lives.

As an “oldo” as my husband and I laughingly call ourselves, I particularly appreciate these words which could be applied to every older faithful Catholic who has been treading the narrow path. We are still sinners, but we also have something to offer those coming along after us. It is always our duty to share the Faith and encourage the younger ones in their journey. Love this validation.

It looks like we’re going to have plenty to listen to and ponder with gratitude from this Pope.

I ask all my readers to speak kindly of the Holy Father. He is beginning a new life that is as antithetical to his personality as it was to Benedict XVI. To attack the Pope is to attack Jesus Christ as Father Byers wrote at his Holy Souls Hermitage blog, since the Pope stands for the Church and all that Christ taught. Catholics should remember this too. We don’t need to add fuel to what the secular media is up to. We aren’t to make any pope in our individual image. It’s the job of the Holy Spirit to continue His formation of Pope Francis, just as He does with us if we cooperate. Let’s all keep the Pope in our prayers.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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June 3, 2013

July 29 marks the beginning of daily newscasts from an office near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. by EWTN, one of the world’s largest religious broadcasting operations. Thank you Mother Angelica for being a pioneer in the New Evangelization using broadcast TV and the new media. Thank you for telling Catholicism like it is for all those years before you retired behind your cloister walls.

The purpose of this venture is to present the authentic Catholic point of view concerning various public affairs, and the fate of Christians abroad who are being persecuted and repressed.  The intended audience is the 75 million Catholics in the United States, who, I hope, will hear true Catholic principles applied to the many challenges posed by the world. The live, half hour broadcast will have no commercials and will be funded mainly from private donations as EWTN is in its entirety.

We can expect to see a network style newscast but without a particular political slant, a genuine blessing if this truly comes to pass. For those of us sick of MSNBC, CNN, FOX, and other MSM, this may be a breath of fresh air. Guests will be political, ecclesiastical, and cultural leaders who will help shed light on issues within and outside the Church without, I hope, yelling and screaming at one another. Let EWTN break that mold now. It sounds like we’ll be getting food for the intellect and reason to chew on. I can’t think of any venture more necessary today to help people think about the implications of so many issues we face.

One perhaps unintended benefit, if this show lives up to expectations, will be a broadening sense of what it means to belong to the one, holy, universal and apostolic Church.  EWTN already has that effect in toto, but a network news format may sweep in many more viewers who are not regular watchers and haven’t experienced this effect. In my diocese many, many people are very parish focused to the extent that they don’t see beyond the parish boundaries. If EWTN carries off the purpose of these broadcasts, perhaps more Catholics will develop a better sense of what it really means to be Catholic, a disciple of Christ, and a caring witness to the world – beyond their parish boundaries.

EWTN’s new venture will serve a good purpose with the non-Catholic audience also. Many non-Catholic people I know want to know how the Church really looks at things and are having an awful time finding out because of the massive misrepresentations by modernist priests, nuns, and certain bishops.

Let the light of Christ shine into the darkness. Let the clarity of truth be brought to all unfiltered, unambiguous, and unconformed to the double talk of the day. Let it be done in charity. Let us all learn to do it better.

I am looking forward to the first show and hope it lives up to what has been advertised.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

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July 31, 2013

Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid; he knows the difference between right and wrong.

Today I ran across an article at CNA concerning Cardinal George’s response to an attack by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. It seems that this group has announced its support for same-sex marriage so, while holding out its hand to receive huge amounts of money from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) it has allied itself with the militant gay movement and is promoting something it knows is against Catholic teaching.

It seems that some allegedly Catholic politicians were fired up over George’s cancellation of CCHD funds for their organization – after all, who wants to give a lot of money to somebody who has just spit in your eye – and they published a half page newspaper ad in the form of an open letter condemning George and “accusing the Church of turning her back on the poor.”

Pardon me while I pause for a moment to recover from laughing hysterically at this accusation. A 500 page book wouldn’t be enough to record all the things the Catholic Church has done for the poor since the beginning of the twentieth century alone, let alone since the time of the first Pentecost.

In response to the open letter Cardinal George had the Chicago Sun-Times publish his response on diocesan letterhead. I am including most of the letter here and would have linked to the Sun-Times pdf file but the address was too long to be accepted by my hyperlink tool. If you go to the CNA article you can access it at the bottom of their article. Emphasis is mine.

On May 23, the ICIRR board broke faith with its member organizations when it publicly supported so called “same-sex marriage.” For its own political advantage, it introduced a matter extraneous to its own purpose and betrayed its own members, who were not consulted.

The CCHD had no choice but to respect the unilateral decision of the ICIRR board that effectively cut off funding from groups that remain affiliated with ICIRR. Without betraying its donors or the Catholic faith, the Catholic Church’s long-standing work for immigrant groups and for immigration reform remains intact. This record speaks for itself and is well known. It is carried locally by Priests for Justice for Immigrants and by Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants, in collaboration with the Archdiocesan Office for Immigrant Affairs and Immigration Education, led by Elena Segura with my complete support.

It is intellectually and morally dishonest to use the witness of the Church’s concern for the  poor as an excuse to attack the Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage. Four weeks ago, Pope Francis wrote: “…marriage should be a stable union of man and woman…this union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgement and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh and are enabled to give birth to a new life.” In other words, when it comes to marriage and family life, men and women are not interchangeable. The whole civilized world knows that.

Those who signed the open letter in the Tribune proclaimed their adherence to the Catholic faith even as they cynically called upon others to reject the Church’s bishops. The Church is no one’s private club; she is the Body of Christ, who tells us He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Because the signers of the letters are Catholic, they know that in a few years, like each of us, they will stand before this same Christ to give an account of their stewardship. [People, this is the truth. This is why the Church teaches us to meditate on the Four Last Things. We will stand before Jesus right after death and we will be judged in the light of His crucified Person. We will see ourselves as He sees us and we will account for our lives.] Jesus is merciful, but He is not stupid; He knows the difference between right and wrong. Manipulating both immigrants and the Church for political advantage is wrong.

 –Francis Cardinal George, OMI

   Archbishop of Chicago

St. Francis Meditating, El Greco, c. 1595, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

The CCHD has been a very sore point for many years for many Catholics who are asked to contribute yearly to fund it. Think of the CCHD as a financial holding tank funded by all the dioceses of the USA that doles money out to organizations that are supposed to help the poor. Instead, as American Life League published in a detailed report in 2011 and has continued to document, the CCHD, run as an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been proven to support groups that advocate abortion, contraception, same sex marriage, and other causes contrary to Church teachings. In recent years the head of the CCHD, Ralph McCloud, helped a notorious pro-abort woman, Wendy Davis, get elected to office in Texas while claiming he had no idea where she stood on abortion. He is still employed as Director of CCHD. This scandal has not gone down well with serious Catholics who take our doctrines of Faith seriously.

It is a very big thing that Cardinal George has cut off funding from the CCHD to ICIRR. As a Catholic, I am very grateful to him for taking action and not mincing words. Now if all the bishops of this country would oversee CCHD activities in their dioceses with vigilance and scrub the radical Marxist Alinsky ideologies from its operation at the USCCB, the knowledgeable Catholics in the pews would likely be willing to open their wallets again. Until then, I personally stand with Cardinal George. Jesus is merciful, but He is not stupid; He knows the difference between right and wrong. I can give my alms elsewhere.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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September 3, 2013

Pope Francis at his September 1st Angelus talk pleaded for all Christians everywhere to fast and pray for peace on Saturday, September 7, the vigil of the Nativity of Mary.

To this end, brothers and sisters, I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church on 7 September next, the vigil of the birth of Mary, Queen of Peace, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative.

On 7 September, in Saint Peter’s Square, here, from 19:00 until 24:00, we will gather in prayer and in a spirit of penance, invoking God’s great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world. Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace! I ask all the local churches, in addition to fasting, that they gather to pray for this intention.

Anyone paying attention to what is happening in the Middle East, the saber rattling going on between China and Japan over islands between them, and the wholesale slaughter of Christians in various African countries by the Muslims, to name but a few situations mankind is visiting upon itself, can see the need for a wholehearted response to the Pope’s call.

What are your parishes/dioceses/eparchies planning for Saturday? Can you stop the clock, so to speak, on your normal routine and bring friends and family to a prayer time? Is your parish priest willing to set up Eucharistic Adoration during the Pope’s hours so Catholics can participate in this effort? If not, can you watch one hour with Jesus as He asked His apostles to do in the Garden of Gethsemane?

Make no mistake about it. The wars we see all over the world are demonically inspired. Hatred for others is very strong, but God’s grace is far stronger. Are we not as Christians to love all? The Pope is asking each of us to do something extra to promote peace. My favorite demonstration is crowds on their knees before God in pursuit of the divine purpose of peace. Can we not do this small thing in the name of the Prince of Peace?

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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September 4, 2013

Today I read the conversion story of Father Jurgen Liias at the Coming Home Network. I urge all readers to visit there and be inspired by his journey. One paragraph struck me because it put into words what the end result of all evangelization efforts should be: a state of spiritual completion, of fulfillment at the end of an arduous journey. It also made me realize once again, the precious gift God gave me of being born into a devout Catholic family and taught by nuns in my most formative years who knew their faith and truly loved Jesus. While others endured much struggle to arrive at an understanding of what it means to be fully Catholic, I was handed it on a silver platter as it were. 

Over the years I have read innumerable books, have had many searching conversations, watched hours of EWTN, listened to many testimonies and teachings — all of which have contributed to the decision to become a Catholic. But above all it has been a deep, constant magnetic pull of the Holy Spirit to come to the center of the Church. It is this deep intuitive sense each time I enter a Catholic church or religious community that I am in the Church, not a church. We speak in evangelical circles when a person of the Jewish faith becomes a Christian that they have become a “completed Jew.” To become a Catholic is for me to become a “completed Christian.” As I have already previously articulated, the driving vision of my ministry has been to build a church that was “fully catholic, fully evangelical, and fully charismatic.” I have come to the conviction that one cannot be “fully catholic” apart from communion with the See of Peter. For that matter one cannot be “fully evangelical” or “fully charismatic” apart from the rich and deep historical meaning of those words in the fullness of the Catholic Church. As has been said to me on a number of occasions by wise and mature Catholic friends, you need leave nothing behind of any Christian tradition that is of true gospel value. All of it comes only to fullness. To become a Catholic is to receive from my Lord His last providential gift from the cross: “Behold thy Mother.”

How beautifully and blessedly put. All around us many are on the same journey as Father Liias. They are feeling the pull towards the Church but maybe God is saying to them, “not yet” as He did several times in Father Liias’s life. Our friendship with them, our sharing the love of Jesus with them, our sincere seeking of the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our words and actions may be a significant factor in their final choice to enter true Christian unity as Jesus prayed for in John 17:21. I feel very safe in saying that if all Christians were united in the fullness of the Catholic Church as Liias expressed it, the consistent witness to the Gospel truth would lessen wars, corruption in government, poverty, and the threats to life and family.

Perhaps a worthy prayer throughout the day for all Christians could be, “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.”

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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September 9, 2013

Copyright free image from morgueFile

Today I added a new link to my Blogroll, Audio Sancto. This site has sermons by various Catholic priests in good standing with their bishops and the Church on Catholic dogma, doctrine, and devotion dating back to 2003. You can subscribe to the podcasts through iTunes if you wish. I am listening to them on my computer.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes the Sunday sermons just don’t grip me. Sometimes I want to explore a subject of the Faith in greater depth or to learn something new. There’s always something new to learn about our Faith, yes?

Audio Sancto has been mentioned at some blogs I visit and in some comboxes so I decided to check it out. If you’re looking for sound Catholic teaching you will not be disappointed. Some sermons are longer than others, up to one hour, but some are a mere 6-10 minutes. We can always make better use of our time in waiting rooms, traveling, or taking a relaxing break by punching up one of these sermons. That is, unless we have 4-5 kiddos to keep track of. Perfect for those Sabbath Moments Colleen hosts at Thoughts on Grace.

I plan to be a regular visitor to Audio Sancto myself and hope my readers will find value there, too.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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September 10, 2013

Today I received an email from Human Life International promoting a partnering with the Nebraska Bishops’ Pro-Life Office and the Archdiocese of Omaha Respect Life Apostolate to present a timely and important conference October 18-19 in Omaha, Nebraska: Life, Dignity, and Disability: A Faith that Welcomes. Thank God the plight of the disabled is being brought to the fore in the pro-life movement. The disabled are more than babies in the womb with faulty DNA in danger of abortion. They are those who have been afflicted through accident, disease, and aging, or who are experiencing the debilitation of faulty DNA that makes its appearance later in life. 

The email notes:

Persons who are disabled are prime targets for abortion and euthanasia. A negative prenatal diagnosis is frequently a death sentence. Families who raise children with disabilities are often isolated and lonely. In both developed and developing countries the disabled are killed or discarded. These, our brothers and sisters, are dehumanized regularly by society so much so that many would claim that the dignity of the disabled is not even a “pro-life issue.” 

It is also true that many organizations, agencies, and people of good faith have come together to support persons with disabilities.

Most Rev. James D. Conley, D.D., S.T.L., Bishop of Lincoln, will give the keynote address at the conference, and Most Rev. George J. Lucas, Archbishop of Omaha, will be the main celebrant at the conference’s opening Mass.

Besides myself, other featured speakers include Peter Kreeft, prolific author and professor at Boston College; Joseph Pearce, editor of Saint Austin Review; Omar Gutierrez, manager of the Office of Missions and Justice at Archdiocese of Omaha; Sr. Terese Auer, O.P., chair of the Bioethics Department at John Paul the Great Catholic High School; Patty Franke, Be Not Afraid Ministry; Sarah and Jeff Schinstock, Family Life Office of the Diocese of Lincoln; Martin Cannon and Andy Bath, Saint Thomas More Society; and Arland K. Nichols, director of education and evangelization at Human Life International. 

There’s still time to register for the conference, and please invite your friends, family, and co-workers to attend as well by forwarding this email or sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

This sounds like a great conference with well-known speakers. Perhaps readers will notify their bishops and parish priests so this can be publicized in bulletins and diocesan newspapers. I wish I had both the monetary and physical capacity to attend myself, particularly because I am concerned about where bioethics is going in the Catholic Church.

Kudos to the Nebraska bishops and the Omaha Respect Life Apostolate for sponsoring this with HLI. Bishop Conley, successor to Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, seems to be carrying on the legacy he inherited as Lucas of Omaha carries on from Curtis. This is just the kind of leadership we need from our bishops with much lay involvement. Teamwork between clergy and laity witnessing to the Gospel is a beautiful sight.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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February 5, 2014

Rooster with pearls by unknown Flemish goldsmith, c.1570s

Sermon written (but, alas, never preached owing to a winter storm) for Mass at Christendom College on 
the Feast of St. Agnes, January 21st, 2014 by the Rt. Rev. Philip Anderson, Abbot of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey. In the hope that these words will reach the young adults who, during the March for Life days, missed hearing a holy challenge by the act of God, I offer Abbot Anderson’s sermon so that many more than the original intended audience may find it.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field . . . It is like a merchant looking for fine pearls (Mt. 13: 44-46).

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Dear students of this beautiful college having a most beautiful name,

This image of the precious pearl is quite remarkable.  The ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides described the ultimate reality, being, as something “complete on every side, like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from the center in every direction”.  This sounds like a metaphysical pearl.  But the reality indicated by Our Lord in the parable we have heard in the Gospel is beyond the ken of philosophy.  It has to do with a spiritual state of the human person, in which all the contradictions, misunderstandings, sins, lies, and multitudinous other ‘rough’ edges of life are molded at last into the supernatural, white harmony that is the life of Paradise in the beatific vision of the elect.

But, of course, we have to seek the precious pearl already in this life here below, even before we touch the shores of Heaven some day, by the grace of God.  You, as students, many of whom, if not all, are Catholic Christians, must know that your studies are not an end in themselves but a means of attaining to that perfection Our Lord spoke of: “Be ye therefore perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). The precious pearl you thus seek represents a certain moral and spiritual completeness that is an outstanding fulfillment of human life.  “Perfectus” in Latin is defined by the scholastic philosophers as cui nihil deest – that to which nothing is lacking.

One way of accurately describing this pearl, this perfection of human life, which lacks nothing, would be to call it a certain fullness of the theological virtue of charity, that is to say of the love of God and of our fellow human beings because of the love of God. Charity is the queen of the virtues and all the others go wherever she goes. 

St. Agnes, St. Bartholomew and St. Cecelia with an unknown Dominican, 1485-1510, artist unknown, color on wood, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

For St. Agnes, whose feast we celebrate on this day, the precious pearl was about holding on to her charity and her faith, despite the gruesome reality of bloody martyrdom to which she was subjected.  She is one of the great witnesses of the Faith, who found very quickly in her life the ineffable pearl, becoming herself a beautiful pearl in the sight of God.

In the monastic tradition there is a very terse description of perfection, an adage, which goes back to the earliest centuries of the Christian faith: “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.” That sums it up.  Indeed, in preferring nothing to the love of Christ, we love God, since Christ is God, a divine Person.  This perfect preference also recognizes the great mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Redemption, inseparable from the second Person of the Trinity (and where there is one Person, the other Two are always there as well).  This love of Christ includes our neighbor, as our neighbor is either already a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church in its broadest sense, or is ordered to that Body, destined, we hope, to have a place in it.

And so you must – especially those of you who are students, who hold in a way the future of the Church in your hands – you must aim at something great, high, noble and beautiful in this life, while always recognizing that any greatness that might fill our lives comes from God alone.  You must choose something like a pearl, something like a star, something worth pursuing to the end.  Why not?  You have but one life: why not live it to the utmost, why not push to the outer reaches of what is most excellent in human life?  

Why not be a saint?

Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, pray for us.  Amen.

Dear Readers, if you know Catholic college students, will you please send them a link to this post? Thank you and God bless you.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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June 18, 2014

Sermon of St. Martin, c. 1490, unknown Master, Hungarian, Tempera on wood, 101,5 x 89,5 cm, Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest*

Back in 1999 when I spent an hour in Adoration one day, I was contemplating the sad state of orthodoxy in our diocese. The bishop at that time so strongly discouraged the preaching of Church teaching against contraception that any priest who dared speak the truth in the confessional or the pulpit was moved that very week to the opposite side of the diocese, sentenced to a small out of the way parish because of vicious complaints by parishioners.

Liturgical abuse was rampant. No traditional Catholic devotions were encouraged, and at one parish, the pastor forbid his priests to attend the three hour Sunday afternoon Adoration the laity had requested. It was left to the Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers to repose the Blessed Sacrament when it was over at 3:00.

Bizarre doctrines could be heard from many pulpits on any given Sunday, such as, we can argue with God after we’re dead so as to justify our sins. Seminarians were screened so prospects who did not believe in women priests were never accepted. The lighting of the Easter fire was concelebrated with an Episcopalian “priestess” at the church next door in one rural parish, and the event was touted as great “ecumenism” in the diocesan paper. That publication was where I first learned that there were two Jesuses. The Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith. That’s when I found out about the Bultmannian heresy.

The Extraordinary Form of the Mass was forbidden on the grounds that “it would confuse the Protestants and we Catholics had to present a united front to them because we live in the Bible Belt.” However, it was just fine with the bishop for us to drive three hours one way to attend it in nearby dioceses. And it was fine with him that we laity could educate others about the Extraordinary Form, but only because under canon law he couldn’t stop us from doing it. When Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum in 2007, the bishop had no choice but to provide the Traditional Mass, but he picked the most vocally opposed priest to do the job, and we were insulted from the pulpit every Sunday for one reason or another.

Things changed under a new bishop, who is orthodox but inherited a tremendous mess. All these years since that day in Adoration when the Lord inspired me to pray a chaplet for the conversion of priests, I’ve done it quietly and privately off and on. At first it was daily, but I fell prey to discouragement over the years. Sure, things are changing for the better but it’s too slow for me. I thought maybe my prayers weren’t doing any good and prayed that chaplet less and less often. Oh me of little faith!

This week I learned that the very popular pastor of a nearby parish was relieved of his duties a couple of weeks ago for embezzling money for quite some time. That parish was almost dead before he came there, and in the past four years since he has been there, it revived with more and more people joining. Everyone knows that his personableness, enthusiastic preaching and devotion to the suffering played a big part in the revival. This priest was also one of the best confessors I’ve been to which proves that no matter how much a sinner a priest may be, God can still use him to guide us wisely in Confession. Although I am not a parishioner, his loss leaves a big hole in my heart. I did not think about how much he could need my prayers and, for the most part, I rarely hear priests ask for prayers for themselves.

Our priests are always in danger of sinning big. Satan hates them with a vengeance because he knows the Mystical Body of Christ needs them. In Zechariah 13: 7 we read, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand to the little ones.” Indeed, last Sunday when we attended Mass in that parish, we saw that many people were gone – between 1/3 and 1/2 of the congregation. It won’t be until some time in August that a new priest will be assigned to the parish.

I am now resolved to return to praying my “Chaplet for the Conversion of Priests” regularly and want to share it with readers who may find themselves drawn to doing the same.

Explanation of the chaplet

First though, in case anyone is thinking, “How dare you imply that priests need converting?!!!”, I must say that everyone of us needs conversion of heart, priests included. As Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 8:7, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”, and they all slunk off in shame.

To convert our hearts means to repent of our sins and be determined to follow that narrow way to the narrow door (Luke 13: 24). That narrow way is made of God’s instructions to us which we find in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, in obedience to the laws of the Church whether liturgical or canonical, in constant purification of our desires so that Christ becomes the center of our lives in all things.

David cries to God in penitence, “If thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it; with burnt-offerings thou wilt not be delighted; a sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 1: 18). “Thou wilt not despise” is a way of saying, “Thou wilt love and cherish and gather to Thyself.”

Moses said to his people, “Now, when thou shalt be touched with the repentance of thy heart – and return to Him – the Lord thy God will have mercy on thee” (Deut. 30: 1-3).

The prophet Joel tells us, “Now, therefore,” saith the Lord, “be converted to Me with all your heart in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, patient, and rich in mercy” (Joel 2: 12).

Second, this chaplet also links the priests directly with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The primary purpose of the priest is to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary to the Father. He stands as an Alter Christus, a mediator in the place of Christ as Christ has ordained, and is the only one who can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, confect the Holy Eucharist. He is also the mediator in place of Christ when he administers the other sacraments. Our belief in the Blessed Sacrament is central to the Catholic faith. Without the priest, we would not have the opportunity to receive the great graces from receiving the Holy Eucharist, going to Confession, the Last Rites, etc.

Third, the Blessed Mother holds all priests dearly as her special sons. While we are all sons and daughters of Our Lady by virtue of Christ’s words in John 19: 26-27, the priests are especially dear to her. They are her children in the most danger all the time because without them the Church could not exist. (See the link above.) Satan seeks to destroy the Church any way he can.

When I pray this chaplet I am fully aware that I myself need conversion daily, and it becomes an earnest prayer not only for priests, but also for my own spiritual growth. It has no approval of ecclesiastical authority, just from my pastor at the time, but I have been thinking about seeking approval so that others may have a wide access to it.

Chaplet for the Conversion of Priests

1. Using the Rosary, begin with the Crucifix and say the Anima Christi.

2. Offer the next four beads for the welfare of the Holy Father and his intentions: Our Father and three Hail Marys.

3. On the “Our Father” beads say: O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

4. On the “Hail Mary” beads, say: O my Jesus, truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar, I beg Thee, convert Thy priests.

5. Continue the chaplet through the 5 decades in this manner. At the end say three times: O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

6. After saying this say 3 times: Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us and on Thy priests.

7. Then say 3 times: Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us and for our priests.

*About the art: There are two related panels, painted on both sides, in the Hungarian National Gallery which once were the wings of an altarpiece dedicated to St Martin and St Nicholas. One of the wings represents St Martin and the Beggar (outer side) and the Sermon of St Martin in Albenga (inner side). The other wing depicts St Nicholas and the Daughters of the Nobleman in Pataria (outer side) as well as the scene St. Nicholas Resurrects Three Deads.

The panel represents a legendary scene from the life of St. Martin. The Bishop, having given his clothes to a needy man, celebrates mass in poor, hastily acquired garments. At the elevation of the Host angels descend to cover his bare arms.

The altar table in the sanctuary, shown in great detail, is decorated with a picture within the picture: a horizontally arranged retable with a scene of the Crucifixion. This is of special importance in the history of the development of winged altars in Hungary, for it demonstrates that this early type of retables of which very few examples have survived, was still in use at the end of the fifteenth century. Seen against the embroidered white altar-cloth the shadows are effective. The artist’s representation of the missal is most realistic; also the representation of the mitre and the Gothic style objects made of precious metals, the ciborium between two candlesticks, the chalice and the paten, the latter only just visible under the edge of the communion cloth. Realism was not, however, an end in itself; the painter introduced these details to create an atmosphere of wonder before the legendary scene. The realistic characters are also imbued with piety. The portrait-like features of the male figure kneeling on the right suggest that it was he who commissioned the altarpiece. The painter’s endeavours to represent the interior in perspective, the sharp folds shown almost in relief and the subtle colour effects all place the master of this panel among the finest Hungarian painters active in the late fifteenth century.

-          Courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art

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June 19, 2014

Corpus Christi Procession in Mrzezyno, Poland, June 3, 2010, courtesy of Wikimedia

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, observed in most of the world, but not in the USA which transfers it to this coming Sunday. Dom Jean Pateau, Abbot of the French Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Fontgombault delivered this sermon to the monks and visitors at Mass this morning. Thank God for the internet which makes it possible to read it the same day it was preached.

June 27, 2014

Every now and then when we were children our Mother would exclaim in exasperation, “I should have gone into the convent!” It was always because our behavior had gotten her to the breaking point of frustration. I’m sure every mom reading this can identify with that. Whenever this happened all of us would break out in peals of laughter because Mom didn’t become Catholic until she met and married our Dad. We would say, “But Mom, you couldn’t have done that because you weren’t even Catholic.” Her point was well taken, however, and we immediately amended our conduct.

The rigor of convent/monastery life must be experienced, be lived, to fully appreciate it, yet for those of us called to live in the world but not of the world, the lure of the cloister often beckons our hearts. We are fascinated by the mystery of silent living in prayer and work, and not a little curious about how people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and continents can manage to live under the same roof without becoming dysfunctional as so many families are today. Of course the answer is the integration into the culture and charism of the particular institute without losing the individuality of each member.

In 1999 Bishop Slattery of Tulsa welcomed 13 Benedictine monks from Fontgombault in France to establish a priory in his diocese. In an astonishingly short period of time, the flourishing priory became a full-fledged abbey. This latest video from Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek gives us an insight into the cloister. In the interest of promoting religious vocations I am posting it here.

Also, as is usual since St. Benedict began establishing monasteries, wherever Benedictine monks are flourishing cloistered nuns are sure to follow. In 2005 Bishop Slattery approved the foundation of the Benedictine Sisters of Clear Creek and the Mary Queen of Angels Convent. If anyone has daughters considering contemplative religious life with the Benedictine charism, this convent, which has taken over the grounds where the Clear Creek monks first lived, is worth contacting. They accept applicants up to age 35.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

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October 9, 2014

St. Gregory the Great, Titian, via Wikimedia

In a recent post, Fruit of the Holy Spirit: Continency, I opened the door to discovering a deeper meaning than self-control for continency. Today I am opening the door to considerations on benignity, which is frequently translated as “kindness”.

St. Paul tells us in Galatians 5: 22:

But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.

I favor the translation of the Douay Rheims Bible because it forces us to look beyond the mere word, “kindness”, which limits the true meaning of the Greek chrestotes (khray-stot’-ace). The Greek means “usefulness, i.e. morally, excellence (in character or demeanor) — gentleness, good(-ness), kindness” according to Strong’s.

Chrestotes is different from the next word, agathosune  (ag-ath-o-soo’-nay) in the same passage: meaning goodness, i.e. virtue or beneficence, translated as “goodness” in many Bibles, which we will take up in the future. The Latin Vulgate translates chrestotes as benignitas, from which we get the English word, “benignity”.

In today’s world moral excellence in character or demeanor is not prized, nor do we see much goodness and kindness from public figures who have the most influence on our lives whether in government, media, sports, etc. I am not sure whether teachers preparing children and adults for the sacrament of Confirmation are delving into the meanings and application of this fruit of the Holy Spirit either. Therefore, in the spirit of living the Gospel, let’s walk a little way with the Church Fathers and learn a fuller meaning of benignity.

The Fathers invariably use this word in the context of a person of power exercising this fruit with regard to someone of lesser stature in the social order of things, or someone who possesses something generously giving it or its use to another regardless of stature.

The benignity of rulers

St. Gregory the Great in his letter to Romanus, Guardian (Book IX, Letter 26):

Although the law with reason allows not things that come into possession of the Church to be alienated, yet sometimes the strictness of the rule should be moderated, where regard to mercy invites to it, especially when there is so great a quantity that the giver is not burdened, and the poverty of the receiver is considerably relieved.

And so, inasmuch as Stephania, the bearer of these presents, having come hither with her little son Calixenus (whom she asserts that she bare to her late husband Peter, saying also that she has labored under extreme poverty), demanded of us with supplication and tears that we should cause to be restored to the same Calixenus the possession of a house in the city of Catana, which Ammonia, her late mother-in-law, the grandmother of Calixenus, had offered by title of gift to our Church; asserting that the said Ammonia had not power to alienate it, and that it belonged altogether to the aforesaid Calixenus, her son; which assertion our most beloved son Cyprian, the deacon, who was acquainted with the case, contradicted, saying that the complaint of the aforesaid woman had not justice to go on, and that she could not reasonably claim or seek to recover that house in the name of her son; but, lest we should seem to leave the tears of the above named woman without effect, and to follow the way of rigor rather than embrace the plea of pity, we command you by this precept to restore the said house to the above-named Calixenus, together with Ammonia’s deed of gift with respect to this same house, which is known to be there in Sicily—since, as we have said, it is better in doubtful cases not to execute strictness, but rather to be inclined to the side of benignity, especially when by the cession of a small matter the Church is not burdened, and succor is mercifully given to a poor orphan.

To John, Archbishop of the Corinthians St. Gregory the Great writes (Book V, Letter 52):

Yet, inasmuch as it is fit for us to incline to mercy more than to strict justice, it is our will that the same Euphemius and Thomas be restored to the rank and position, but to that only, from which they had been promoted to sacred orders, and receive during all the days of their life the stipends of these positions, as they had been before accustomed. Further, as to Clematius the reader, I appoint, from a like motive of benignity, that he is to be restored to his rank and position.

We can see in both of these cases, benignity is associated with both justice and mercy.

The benignity of God

The Fathers often refer to the benignity of God. St. Cyprian of Carthage in his treatise on the Our Father says:

He who made us to live, taught us also to pray, with that same benignity, to wit, wherewith He has condescended to give and confer all things else; in order that while we speak to the Father in that prayer and supplication which the Son has taught us, we may be the more easily heard.

St. Ireneaus, engraving, public domain

St. Irenaeus in Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 24) writes about those who bring in false doctrines:

Wherefore they also imagine many gods, and they always have the excuse of searching [after truth] (for they are blind), but never succeed in finding it. For they blaspheme the Creator, Him who is truly God, who also furnishes power to find [the truth]; imagining that they have discovered another god beyond God, or another Pleroma, or another dispensation. Wherefore also the light which is from God does not illumine them, because they have dishonored and despised God, holding Him of small account, because, through His love and infinite benignity, He has come within reach of human knowledge….

Daily life illustrations

From these examples we can see that benignity is always exercised in the context of relationships, whether they be between ourselves and others or God and ourselves. Parents, bosses, owners of property, government officials, civic leaders all have the chance to show this fruit in their everyday actions. Whenever we use our power or authority in favor of someone without causing harm to others, we exercise benignity.

For an example, a company’s policy says that hourly workers are to be docked wages to go to doctor appointments. However, hardworking single parents struggling to make ends meet who need to take sick children to the doctor cannot afford to be docked. A supervisor who offers make-up time to the employee rather than docking wages is exercising benignity. The company loses nothing because the time off is made up doing work that needs to be done. The employee gains by keeping wages that would otherwise have been lost, and the boss gains from greater commitment on the employee’s part. Whether the supervisor will escape punishment for acting with benignity is another story, depending on the atmosphere of management. Clearly, though, St. Gregory the Great shows us by his actions that in small things the exercise of benignity is warranted.

Another example would be of a parent who has established a family rule that everything in the house must be picked up and put away – toys, clothes, etc. before going to bed. But Johnny has taken sick. Benignity and common sense says that he take medicine and go to bed without regard to toys strewn about. When Mom, Dad, or a sister or brother picks up Johnny’s things, benignity is shown.

Then there’s the farmer with a small grove of fruit trees. He has no use for the fruit so he allows a friend to gather it for his own use. Nothing obligates the farmer to permit someone to come on his land and take what he owns, but benignity governs his permission.

Whenever a judge exercises discretion in sentencing, he may show benignity. A criminal may deserve a life sentence, but a judge, considering circumstances, chooses to hand down a lesser penalty. As custodian of the law, he shows benignity. The same applies to the police officer who lets a speeder off with a warning ticket.

Benignity can never be such when a ruler allows a situation destructive to the common good of the people he is responsible for to continue unabated. Allowing illegal immigrants to pour across a nation’s borders may look like benignity, but the ruler has no duty or obligation to the illegals. He does, however, have a duty and obligation to the citizens of his country to protect them from diseases and violence brought in by illegals. He has an obligation to maintain order in the economy and daily life of citizens which is disrupted when people willy-nilly flood across borders. Moreover, he is enabling the governments of illegals to get off without practicing benignity to the people they are obligated to care for.

A parent who fails to enforce house rules and lets Mary Sue get away with all kinds of laziness, disrespectful language, sarcasm and bullying of siblings is not exercising benignity but raising a horror, abdicating a God-given responsibility to raise righteous children for the kingdom of God. Such a parent is not behaving in a morally upright manner.

Let us ask ourselves these questions:

What do I have power/authority over and how can I use it with benignity?

Do I conduct myself in a morally upright way with excellence of character and demeanor, or do I fail in justice and mercy towards others?

Do I rationalize sins by telling myself that nobody is getting hurt from my secret actions, thus going in the opposite direction from benignity into malignity?

If someone offends me, can I cut him slack without falling into the enabling category? Not make a mountain out of a mole hill?

God exercises constant benignity towards us in the graces He continually gives us; graces we neither merit nor deserve. Should not benignity be one of the ways we pattern ourselves after God, bringing the light of Christ into our world?

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

This post linked to Sunday Snippets.

October 18, 2014

Faithful Catholics the world over have been deeply concerned about the machinations going on at the Synod these past weeks. I am no exception. While I firmly believe that Jesus meant it when He said in Matt. 16:18: “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, I, nonetheless, am horrified to see a very small group of bishops conniving to control the outcome of the synod in the favor of secular desires. Visit Father Z’s blog to read more details on the Synod.

The midterm report, called the Relatio (full text here), was a scandalous piece of work and caused the Synod hall to erupt as faithful Cardinals reacted against its contents. The Kasperites and gay ideologues in attendance must have thought they could shove their agendas down the throats of the majority, but fortunately that failed. What I noticed was a complete lack of quotes from Sacred Scripture, the CCC, and Fathers of the Church to bolster their secular nonsense in this document, precisely because no such quotes exist. Nevertheless, Kasper has been the darling of the media and has given numerous interviews in which he continues to claim that the majority of the Synod backs his approaches and that he has the backing of the Pope.

One interesting event this week was the release of an interview Kasper gave to Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register and published at Zenit on Wednesday, October 15. Pentin recorded it on his iPhone and Kasper seemed only too happy to promote his views. When severe criticism erupted over his remarks, not only on the Synod atmosphere concerning divorce and remarried Catholics being admitted to Holy Communion, but particularly on the African Cardinals of whom he said, “they should not tell us too much what we have to do,” Kasper denied that he had ever given the interview in the first place and Zenit removed it from their site. Read the entire interview at Pentin’s site.

Claiming that “this is the spirit of the Council”, Kasper is the poster child for why Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had to declare repeatedly that the Second Vatican Council had to be interpreted with the “hermeneutic of continuity”. That a Pope would even have to make such statements shows that skullduggery is, and has been for the past 50 years, afoot on the part of key Church leaders. These men are well educated in theology, Scripture, and the Catechism but we’d never know it by their utterances. It’s obvious that they want to court the adulation of the world and that Christ appears not to be the center of their lives. They seem to truly want to change Church teachings through subterfuge bit by bit.

I was thinking this morning of Judas, the betrayer of Our Lord. Jesus loved him and kept him with the rest as His closest companion. Even up to the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the sacred priesthood, Judas was there. He saw all the miracles Jesus wrought, His compassion and mercy towards sinners, the sick, and the dead, His unwavering expression of the truth, but still he persisted in his evil ways. Did Judas remain in Jesus’ inner circle because he believed that one day he would have even greater power and control over money to feed his greed? Surely it couldn’t have been because he believed and took to heart all of Jesus’ teachings and admonitions, or that he had a commitment to the truth. Jesus must have known all along what Judas was up to and his motivations, yet He permitted him to stay close.

I am sad to say that in our Church today we have a frightening number of apparent Judases among the clergy. How else can we interpret the words and deeds of bishops and cardinals that are in clear opposition to the words of Christ? These past couple of weeks surely show that we laity must pray and sacrifice for our bishops, and keep them close as  Jesus did even when they are up to questionable behavior.

God never asks a person to live a particular vocation without giving that person abundant graces to fulfill his calling. That would be utterly cruel and against His nature. Therefore, we must assume that when a person acts contrary to his calling, and in this case the bishop’s calling is first and foremost to teach the faith clearly,  he is betraying his vocation and repulsing the graces God is giving him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church #888 couldn’t be more clear about the preeminent task of bishops:

Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task “to preach the Gospel of God to all men,” in keeping with the Lord’s command. [Mk. 16:15] They are heralds of the faith who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers” of the apostolic faith “endowed with the authority of Christ.”

Attempting to introduce new practices that undermine the teachings of Christ is a betrayal. Refusing to reach out with the truth in charity yet not compromising with the world is a betrayal. Peace of heart and life in union with God is only found in staying true to the teachings of the Church which we received from Christ and the apostles. To downplay or deny these teachings when ministering to those in pain from their mistakes and sins is the height of cruelty. The bishop who does this will be accountable to Christ on judgment day, less so the flock he has deceived.

Fortunately, Cardinal Pell has some comforting words concerning the outcome of the Synod for faithful Catholics everywhere. You can also find today’s Bulletin from the Synod here, which places the focus where it belongs. Take a few minutes to listen to Cardinal Pell, who is one of Pope Francis’ advisers on the council of eight cardinals.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

This post linked to Sunday Snippets.