Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Have you heard of this relatively new apostolate? I had not, and but for an e-mail from one of the founders I might still be ignorant. After looking around a bit, this is what I found out. Catholic Radio International is a content provider for Catholic radio stations that started last May with an initial offering of three programs. They have now doubled this to six.  I do not know who if anyone is yet broadcasting these, but you can listen to their content online.

Here is more on CRI from Tim Drake’s column from the June 3-9 issue of NCR:

Jeff Gardner, formerly of Relevant Radio, and Catholic journalist Tom Szyszkiewicz have created Catholic Radio International as a way to provide content for Catholic stations.

“Historically, the Church has been at the forefront of communications,” said Gardner. “Whether the printing press or Vatican Radio, the Church has been about the business of spreading the Good News.”

Yet, says Gardner, when it comes to modern communications, the Church has had little if any involvement in television or motion pictures.

“Those have been the bulldozers for popular culture,” said Gardner. “The Internet, as a delivery platform for media, changes that. It’s a great social leveler and presents an opportunity to communicate with an audience at an economy never before seen.”

So, Catholic Radio International launched three programs in early May. The two commentary-style programs and one news program are available for download on the Internet.

“We’re trying to raise the quality of Catholic radio programming,” said Szyszkiewicz. “We need a Catholic response to National Public Radio.”

While their content is currently available online, the next step involves getting their programs aired on Catholic radio stations.

I listened to one of their program episodes on Ron Paul, from the program The Heart of the Matter. The programs are very professionally done and from a Catholic perspective they are clearly pretty solid.  However, in their treatment of Paul, I can’t help but offer some of my thoughts.  I would have liked to have heard a treatment not only of Paul’s not being in either the traditionally “left” or “right” camp but also I think necessary would be a treatment of shortcomings of libertarianism, which is essentially the same as one of the shortcoming of classical liberalism but on steroids. That is, libertarianism suffers from a lack of recognition of original sin and its effects.  Here is what I mean.

While modern liberalism generally suffers from an aversion to subsidiarity, libertarianism rejects subsidiarity in the other direction. In other words, while subsidiarity demands things be done at the lowest possible level, ultimately leaving to the individual and family that which they can effectively do on their own, it also recognizes that there is a necessary role for different levels of government and different degrees of governmental influence on daily life based upon the issues at hand. Libertarianism simply wants no interference on the individual in any manner.

Modern liberalism, if I might generalize, tends toward more and more control at higher and higher levels of government; except, that is, for issues related to sexual moral order and here they are very much in line with libertarianism.  Modern conservativism (which some suggest is the offspring of classical liberalism), is often characterized as being exactly the opposite of this.  On these issues, conservativism tends more toward libertarianism.  Again, libertarianism seems to presuppose that governments should have little to no role in almost every issue. In other words, it seems to see law as at best, a necessary evil rather than as an expression of wisdom.  Thus, laws should be kept to a minimum.  In our fallen world though, governmental instituted order, based upon natural law, subsidiarity, and solidarity, is a necessity. Ron Paul’s world view, as I understand it any way, is naive and simply a recipe for anarchy.

Any way, back to CRI.  Another critique that I have, and I suspect this primarily has to do with precision in wording, comes from a statement under the Masthead of their The Heart of the Matter program: “To omit information about an issue or an event is to lie.” Taken in an absolute sense, this certainly is not the case. However, from the context it is obvious that they are trying to say that the current culture of politics, media, etc. in which people intentionally mislead by omitting relevant facts that would change, or even contradict what is being asserted is in fact lying. That is true.

However, in itself, to omit information is not lying. The intent to mislead is lying (see CCC 2481). One always omits information in any assertion because he cannot possibly say everything about a matter that could be said.  One always must make judgments of relevance.  In addition, the difference between being wrong about one’s facts (which is in contradiction to the truth) and being a liar, is that one intends by his actions to mislead. In fact, one can omit even relevant information without the intent to mislead, without lying.

One could do this due to an error in judgment about the relevance of a fact or a lack of appreciation about how the missing information might lead to a misinterpretation. Moreover, there are times in which one is obligated to omit information about an issue. The sin of detraction is one in which one reveals true information about the faults or failings of one’s neighbor without an objectively valid reason (see CCC 2477).

Any way, I do not offer these as criticisms to CRI.  Rather arising from my temperament, I am wont to offer precisions and take opportunities to educate whenever they appear…which my wife hates by the way… Do check out CRI’s website and if you have a Catholic radio station you listen to, if you like what you hear with CRI why not suggest to your radio station that they pick up some of their content.

Monica mentioned to me yesterday that Bill Schneeberger would be on EWTN radio today with Teresa Tomeo (Shelray’s travel guide to the Holy Land). Well I missed it since she broadcasts at 8am central. Did anyone catch it?

Well who is Bill Schneeberger you might ask. He is the owner of BOGO wines, a winery that contributes from its proceeds to great Catholic, pro-life organizations:

Monica shared with me that he has developed a plan modeled after that of Susan Komen of the “pink ribbon” campaign. The focus of his plan is to generate awareness, interest, and funding for ethical stem cell research (adult, cord, autologous, etc). Monica writes:

He studied the Susan Komen plan to find out what made it so successful. You can barely buy a bag of chips now without inadvertently funding the the Komen foundation — it’s crazy - they are wildly successful at doing what they have done. I was at Target tonight w/ my husband and noticed they’ve got a whole “October is breast cancer awareness” promotion thing with all these pink products you can buy to help the Komen foundation. If Schneeberger’s initiative is only a fraction as successful as the Komen one, it will still do so much to help advance ethical research.

Schneeberger has obtained a patent trademark/logo for Adult Stem Cell Awareness. Yes, it is meant for car magnets - among other things, but please don’t think this is just about silly car magnets and even “Adult Stem Cell Awareness Month” . . . it’s about finding a way to get “adult stem cell awareness” into the world of the regular guy — and as small as it sounds, things like car magnets and awareness campaigns are incredibly effective. Well, just ask the Susan Komen foundation, right?

Now, it’s true, I’m hoping therapies such as autologous tissue engineering will help my child survive her heart defects, God-willing. But there are millions of people out here who stand to benefit from this kind of awareness campaign — not only because it is ethically sound, but because adult stem cells are really producing life-saving results. One of the orgs that this kind of campaign will help, certainly, is Dr. Moy’s John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute. This is the kind of organization that we Catholics need to stand behind.

So, the goal is to try to get the info about the awareness campaign initiative in the hands of people who can really lobby for it. Politicians - for sure. I’ve already written my congressman. Unfortunately, it’s pretty slim pickings up here in terms of “pro-life” legislators. But can we be creative about who can help? Any ideas? What about professional societies who can lobby - how about Catholic hospitals? Catholic Universities?

In conjunction with Bill’s efforts, Monica has set up a blog which focuses on promoting Adult Stem Cell awareness. Go check out the blog, add it to your daily blog visits, and if you can get involved in some way, please contact Monica.

With school starting back up, for anyone who might be interested in a great resource for answering questions Catholic students on campus might have about the Catholic faith, here is what you are looking for: Questions College Students Ask

Last night we had a former student of mine over for dinner. Amanda is getting ready to go to Seton Hall University as a FOCUS missionary. I did a post on FOCUS last year telling a little bit about it and why I think it is an important apostolate. I never fail to be impressed and inspired by the faith of these young people who set aside their personal lives for at least two years to respond to what they discern God is calling them. They are great witnesses to the faith and help me to believe that the great springtime in the Church that John Paul the Great said was a possibility in the near future, may be coming upon us.

Amanda is one such young lady. She just finished an engineering degree (so she is up there in my book from the start I suppose) at the U of I and had accepted a job offer at a large defense contractor in Cincinnati last August, which included a program for getting an M.S. However, within a couple of months of graduating she attended a retreat and while in adoration became convinced that she was being called to share her faith with others through being a FOCUS missionary.

I have to tell you, at that time in my life being sensitive what God wanted for me was the furtherest thing from my mind. Put yourself in this situation. Here ere are the options you have to consider: a job doing what you have gone to school for 4 years to prepare for, making whatever starting engineers get paid these days with a Fortune 500 company, and built into the offer is a program to get you an M.S. degree and more money/upward mobility. Here is the other option to consider: a job sharing your faith with young people who are as yet oblivious to the importance of faith, making nothing, except…and here is the hard part… what you receive from asking friends, family, strangers, etc. for money to support you. This you get to do in addition to devoting your life to trying to help college students see how much they need God in the midst of a culture that says otherwise. This is made all the more difficult if you have a family that does not understand how, faced with these choices, one would choose the mendicant option that does not even come with a retirement plan.

Amanda has an infectiously positive personality and is deeply in love with the Lord. I am confident that God will work through her to bring countless young people to a deeper appreciation of their faith. Tricia and I chose to be one of her financial supporters. How could we not? She shared with us that one of the main methods of gaining adequate support is speaking at one’s parish during the weekend Masses. Her home parish pastor would not allow her this avenue. If we could, we would fund her entire needs…but the Church does not pay well enough to allow us to do that.

If you could meet Amanda you would be impressed. Tricia mentioned last night that she just makes it so easy to see Christ radiating through her. If any of you have a few extra dollars a month that you wouldn’t mind putting toward the mission of the New Evangelization, please prayerfully consider becoming one of Amanda’s supporters. You can do so here. I am sure she would be extremely pleased with any gifts offered but fyi, she needs about 100 supporters giving $50 - 100 per month.

(Note: the picture is of the entire FOCUS staff from this year’s summer training)

Evangelical and Pentecostal representatives will be joining the August 2007 Vatican/World Council of Churches study group where the issue of what a common code of conduct on religious conversion should look like from a Christian viewpoint. The council will pick up where last years group left off where it was decided there was a need of healing from an “obsession of converting others“. The three-year study group jointly undertaken by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and the WCC’s program on inter-religious dialogue in May 2006 with the hope of producing a code of conduct by 2010.

Although not quite Christian jihad or as big a problem as found in other parts of the world, one incident that sticks in my mind as an example of an obsession towards converting others, was a disguised trip for kids to a local water park actually being part of a planned evangelical baptismal altar call! Let’s get a head count on every soul who was saved today! It’s almost as though the idea of Christian conversions supposedly focused on the salvation of an individual soul has been hijacked by inflated soul number counts that go along with the hostile attitudes that live for proving, “why we’re right and you’re stupid” . I believe the root of the problem with the associated hostility and defensiveness during inter-religious discussion is that it often comes down to a personal goal of victory or “one more for our side“, like it’s somehow a validation of a superior faith or holiness. In reality, conversions are most likely to occur based on one’s openness, humility and most importantly - Grace.

Travis over at A Catholic Boudreaux blog has begun a Catholic “vlog” site called Catholic Tube.  Go over and take a look!

If you have not yet seen Champions of Faith: The Baseball Edition, you really must do so. It is a film detailing the witnesses of major league champions like Mike Piazza, David Eckstein, Jeff Suppan, Mike Sweeney, Jack McKeon and Rich Donnelly, and others.

I watched it this weekend and was very much impressed with the quality of the film and the sincerity of the players. It is fast moving, engaging and compelling. It provides the right balance of dramatized action and well chosen theme music with compelling, personal stories of these major league champions. Rich Donnelly’s story was especially moving. It sent chills up my spine. From the website above:

In his late 20s, [Donnelly] fell away from the faith but had a radical conversion experience after the death of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. Her amazing story and prophetic words, “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” became a family motto and came true in 1997 when the Marlins won the World Series at midnight. “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” story is featured in the Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition DVD.

I think that this film can be an effective tool for many reasons. Not the least of which is that sports has become for many men, a replacement for religion. It permits them to allow the ecstatic experience of competitive sports to masquerade for the authentic self-transcendence and the experience of God that they truly seek. Sports provides what they intuit to be a masculine alternative to the human feminine relationship to divinity which they can find uncomfortable, though in an unthematized way. In this well done film, men and boys can see their masculine sports heroes providing a manly witness to the necessity of a sincere commitment to one’s Catholic faith and to the love of God.

This is a perfect tool, it seems to me, to begin to draw men into a thirst to learn about the faith. Coupled with a well thought out catechetical/faith formation program, this pre-evangelization tool should be a part of every parishes arsenal. You can go to the website to see the trailer to get an idea of the quality. It really is a must see!

…. with the media right now. Well, o.k., they are not precisely nuns but the media does not recognize the distinction between religious sisters who are cloistered and those who are not.

Any way, there has been quite a bit of interest lately, about women devoting their lives to become brides of Christ as Catholic religious. It seems ever since Time ran a story a little while back…The coverage continued with Good Morning America and local television stations out at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center interviewing Sister Sarah Roy and Katharine Johnson.

Now, People Magazine has done a story on Andrea Jaeger, the 1980s women’s tennis star who has just completed her third month as a Dominican sister. She has gone from tennis imp to Sister Andrea. The story is an interesting read. While the order is part of the Anglican Communion, I would suspect that if her dream was an authentic vision, St. Catherine will be back to lead her the rest of the way home.

While we are on the topic of evangelization and catechesis…

I have been interested in the Alpha Course for some years now. I have heard a lot about it and many good Catholics have sung its praises as an effective evangelization tool. Many of these Catholic evangelists I know well and have much respect for. Interestingly enough, those who might be considered not so faithful Catholics join them in praising the course. However, there have been a lot of criticisms as well. Some criticisms come from Catholics who say that the course makes good Protestants out of Catholics and criticisms from Protestants argue that it is a tool for making Catholics. Well, recently, I finally the both the time and opportunity to view the videos that are used in the course itself and have formed some thoughts about them. I thought I would jot some of them down before I forget.

First of all, for those who are not familiar with the Alpha Course here is some background. It was begun in an Anglican parish in London back in the mid 1980s. This parish is a charismatic parish that was associated with the “Toronto Blessing” for those who are familiar Benny Hinn. Alpha is a 10 week course that begins the first session with a meal. After the meal is a lecture and then faith sharing. There are a total of 15 lessons that are given with five of them being delivered during a weekend retreat. After each lecture, the attendees break up into small groups led by a facilitator. The course is copyrighted and comes with the stipulation that must be given in its entirety with nothing added or removed if one is to use it. The presenter in the video is Nicky Gumbel, an English, Anglican “clergyman” as he calls himself. Gumbel has developed his course such that he believes that any Christian tradition can feel comfortable in using it.

Because it is therefore, essentially Protestant, a Catholic supplementary series is offered by ChristLife Catholic Evangelization Services in Baltimore. ChristLife has been promoting the course to Catholics in the United States for about a decade or so. They indicate that “hundreds of Catholic parishes” are now using it. ChristLife says that the course is completely compatible with Catholic teaching but does not present the entire Catholic faith so they offer three supplementary series that can be used to “supplement” the Alpha course.

The first is called Touching Jesus Through the Church, presented by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, with 8 lessons. D’Ambrosio by the way endorses Alpha. He is a solid Catholic and very effective evangelist and catechist. The second series is called Drink From the Wells of the Church, presented by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM CAP, who was the preacher to the papal household for JP the Great. He also endorses Alpha for Catholics. Fr. Cantalamessa’s is a seven-talk series. Finally, they offer Catholics Listening to God, given by Bishop Mark Coleridge, an Australian Bible scholar. His is also a seven talk series.

O.k., so my thoughts. First, why is it so successful? I suspect that it has as much to do with environment and approach as it does with the way it proclaims the gospel message. I believe that the weekend retreats and the small groups are a significant part of this. The Cursillo movement, begun in the 1930s in Spain and now spread throughout the world, has had great success in employing these strategies as well. Nicky Gumbel is also a very good speaker. I know as an Irishman, I should not admit this but I find the British accent and phraseology charming and regardless of what is being presented, quite compelling for some reason. While that is not something US Catholics could adopt, I would say that his approach does provide several things that we could learn from.

One is just in style. I think one of the important things I find is that he does not overload the talk with information. He uses plenty of “white space” by using related anecdotes and illustrative personal experiences which I think are compelling for most people. He believes what he says and, while sensitive to his audience, is also firm about what he believes. He identifies his major points as he moves from one to the next and tells people how many he has to cover. Another very important strength is that after presenting a point, he continually invites his listeners to consider what this means to their own lives. In other words, he asks them to examine themselves and see how it might apply to them. There is a continual invitation to conversion. Alpha begins with Christ and helps the student to develop a personal knowledge of Him.

Now do I think that it is appropriate for Catholics, even as initial proclamation? I am sorry to say that I emphatically do not. Why not? I will start with its aim, which is to present the faith from the lowest common denominator as far as faith content is concerned. This by definition is Protestant and so it presents a truncated view of the faith as the essential Christianity. I also must disagree with ChristLife’s assessment that the way it is presented, the material is completely consistent with Catholic belief. It is not.

Here an initial concern is that the program of catechesis is clearly charismatic in focus. Charismatic spirituality is not bad in itself, but in a course like Alpha we are talking about providing the essential core of the Gospel message. While there are two lessons on Jesus, there are three on the Holy Spirit emphasizing the gifts and another session devoted to God’s healing of Christians. Because the weekend retreat is done something like a “life in the Spirit” seminar with the praying over people for the gift of tongues and for healing of any maladies, these become necessary for the Alpha program. However, it leaves the catechetical structure well out of balance and gives the impression that charismatic spirituality is the essence of Christianity.

A further problem is that it presents the faith from a Protestant Evangelical perspective with an emphasis on personal interpretation of the Bible and the suggestion that Scripture is the sole rule of faith. Although in places Gumble does seem to try to correct this impression, in the way he treats Scripture, the Church, becoming Christian, and obtaining forgiveness, he presents an unmistakable individualistic approach to Christianity and the false idea that there is no more to becoming a Christian than one’s personal proclamation of faith.

However, one might ask: can’t these shortcomings be overcome in a Catholic supplement? That is the claim. This is justified further in saying that the initial proclamation need not cover everything. To be fair, Catholics who claim this clearly do not think that there is anything problematic presented. I suggest they are simply not sensitive to the issues I present. However, even if this were the case, Alpha would still be problematic.

In general, the argument that Alpha, as initial proclamation and the call to conversion, is not required to give the entirety of the faith. While initial proclamation in itself need not, the Alpha course is certainly catechetical as well. The General Directory for Catechesis in fact indicates that evangelization/initial proclamation are distinct but not separate. It goes on to say that any initial catechesis must be complete. The problem that is posed by incomplete catechesis is that in doing something partial, it provides a mistaken understanding of the reality you are trying to convey. I think that Gosta Hallonsten, former Carl Peter Professor for Ecumenism at The Catholic University of America, put this concern into another context that I think applies here.

Hallonsten said that Protestantism views, at best, the Catholic faith as “Christianity plus.” In other words, they think that Catholics have added unnecessary teachings to Christianity. He should know. He was a Lutheran theologian appointed to the Lutheran World Federation’s Lutheran-Catholic dialogue prior to his conversion to Catholicism. Gumbel affirms this idea of “Christianity plus” in his Alpha presentation. In his talk on the Church, Gumbel indicates that while truth is important, unity is just as important. He then cites a medieval theologian (whose name I did not recognize but it was something like Bertus Maldivius) who says that in essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty (this is actually from St. Augustine but he goes not to say but in all things charity). Gumbel goes on to interpret this to mean that we all ought to have the freedom to believe whatever else we wish as long as we agree on the essentials. In the context of what he is saying, the listener takes him to mean that that as long as every Christian accepts the essentials as he has presented them, then Christians ought to be free to add and believe whatever else they wish. Gumbel finishes by saying what joins us in infinitely greater than what divides us.

Hallonsten is emphatic that Catholics must engage in ecumenical dialogue with this understanding of the Protestant view. He, therefore, promotes a more integrated approach to dialogue rather than allowing it to be separated into compartments because compartmentalizing it and then concentrating on issues that Protestantism sees as the essentials (e.g. Sola Fide) abets the mistaken notion that Catholicism is Christianity plus. This same concern can be applied to the Alpha Course. What the Alpha graduate has been both implicitly and explicitly set up to believe, is that if they choose to take the Catholic supplements what they will next be receiving is the optional extras of Catholicism. Trying to deconstruct this view is somewhat problematic because in doing so, one is going to call into question why he was given Alpha in the first place. However, there is more deconstruction/reconstruction to be done.

The course provides both partial truths that distort the entire meaning and false statements about Christianity such as the one about being free to believe whatever one wants as long as they hold to the essentials (though who defines these is left unstated). The course discusses Sacraments but only as symbols with no efficacy and then of course, only two of them (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Gumbel presents the Evangelical notion that one is a saved Christian by simply proclaiming one’s faith. He also talks about sin and reconciliation. However, forgiveness is obtained from the moment of one’s repentance. Gumbel discusses the Church at the end of the course. It is presented as a three tiered structure with small cells (like Alpha small groups), mid size groups (about 35 people), and large gatherings for worship. He does say that the Church is necessary, but not for what. He gives only the reason that Christians are needed support each other in keeping up their enthusiasm.

In the end, the Alpha course presents a truncated view of Christ, the Church, the Sacraments, and grace. The Church is understood to be just a community of believers and not an essential mediator of salvation. John Paul the Great in Catechesi tradendae (paragraph 5) says that all authentic catechesis is Christo-centric. But in being Christo-centric we must present the truth about the whole Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (795), drawing on St. Augustine from his Confessions, refers to the Christus totus, the Whole Christ. Christ together with His Church make up the Whole Christ. The Church is not an add on, nor is it just a group of Christians who come together to increase one another’s fervor. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ and is necessary for salvation. One can be saved only by incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body through Baptism. The Whole Christ is necessary in order to receive the grace by which we are saved. Grace is a partaking in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4) and it is only through this partaking of divinity that we can be transformed into Christ and so enter into eternal communion with the Blessed Trinity. However, it is not automatic. As Jesus continually warns, we must be fruitful. In other words, we have to cooperate with His grace in order to become like Him. This is what we call good works. Only Christ’s death and resurrection make any of this possible. Furthermore, the Church is visible (see Matt 18:17; 1 Tim 3:15) and it is hierarchical (see Matt 16:18; Acts 1:15-26). This is the essential Good News and it must be proclaimed in its integrity for an authentic understanding of Christianity and the requirements for a fruitful Christian life.

It is counterproductive to first advocate a presentation of the Good News, and then to essentially deconstruct the initial presentation in order to present the fullness of truth. The thought that Alpha is neutral suggests to me that those who support it unwittingly fall into the trap that Catholicism really is Christianity plus. At least this is the effect of the approach. The Alpha course may be successful, but its success is in creating a Protestant view of Christianity. We already have enough Protestant Catholics in the Church today. What we need for a new evangelization is not to borrow approaches from others when they teach error. We need to take what is helpful in method from them but spend the effort and apply these methods in developing a program with an authentic Catholic faith content.

A very good news story, for those who might not be aware of the apostolate, is the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). FOCUS was begun by Curtis Martin in 1998 at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. It is an apostolate aimed at evangelizing university students on public and private university campuses. Martin followed the Campus Crusade for Christ model in developing his apostolate, with the difference that he has to his advantage the fullness of Catholic truth and the Sacraments. This is the amazing thing. FOCUS missionaries are college graduates, usually those who were served by missionaries while they were in school, who volunteer to give up at least two years to serving as missionaries. They are responsible for finding their own funding to support them during their time in the apostolate.

In less than a decade he has grown FOCUS to serving almost 20 universities. Martin does not intend to stop there. His goal is to reach every college campus and through reaching college students, to change the culture. A tall order.

I and my wife have personally met at least a dozen different missionaries. The first thing you notice is their maturity and their loving energy. They are also very selfless as a group. I met one young lady who gave up a slot in a very prestigious medical school to serve as a missionary. I have not yet met one of these young people with whom I was not impressed.

They have a very difficult task in trying to make in roads with the students but they do their job very well. I can tell you from first hand experience that this is a very effective apostolate in reaching and converting young students to a vibrant faith life. I can tell very quickly in my classes which students are involved with FOCUS. In fact, more and more Newman Centers and campus ministries across the US are starting to learn that the quickest and most effective way to get their ministries to take off is to invite FOCUS missionaries to come in.

The Diocese of Peoria in one that is sold on FOCUS. They now have four campuses with FOCUS missionaries and want more. Bishop Daniel Jenky is so impressed with them that last night he bestowed the Diocesan Spalding Award on Curtis Martin. At the Mass before the banquet, the Bishop mentioned that he would like four more FOCUS teams. FOCUS is also a very important tool in helping with religious and diocesan vocations.

College years are the time for discernment, and being involved with FOCUS gives students the opportunity that young women and men need. The only possibility of hearing a vocational prompting (I know, it’s redundant) is to understand it is something they need to be discerning and they need help in developing the spiritual maturity to overcome the noise of the secular world. FOCUS is very helpful in both matters.

Besides giving two years of their lives, as I mentioned, FOCUS missionaries have to find their own funds. Can you imagine such a proposition? Hi, what were you thinking of doing after you graduate? How about putting that on hold for a couple of years and trying to get college students out of the bars and into church? Oh yea, you will have to pay your own way for the privilege.

If you are interested in helping to change the culture, you ought to consider supporting FOCUS. You can even choose your own missionary to support. If you are interested (and able) in helping to make a difference, go here!

Tracy Samantha Schmidt, a graduate from Dominican University and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, recently got a job with Time Magazine and decided to do some articles for the magazine based upon interviews she had done as a journalism student. The series of articles talks about how young women are changing the face of sisterhood in general, with other articles focused on St. John’s Catholic Newman Center and some women there. One of them is about a young lady at St. John’s, Katharine Johnson, who is now discerning between religious and married life. Another is about another young woman at the Center, Sr. Sarah, who has already made that choice. A third article is surprisingly about the resources available for discerning a vocation to the religious life.

The articles are very well done, and other than for the precision that she mistakenly equates the term nun with religious sister, it is surprising to see articles sympathetic to Catholic life in a magazine like Time. This is especially so for as aspect of Catholic life that is so antithetical to our modern wordly view. One might almost suspect that the author herself might be contemplating such a vocation. I plan to say an Ave for her any way.

If you have not seen the Mary, Queen of Angels 2006 issue of Dappled Things, it is worth taking a look. Here is a summary of the issue:

“Refiner’s Fire” by Shannon Berry is a wise, moving personal essay about the trials of prayer and discernment - one of the best I’ve read.

Poets Karen K. Adams ( “African Angelus,” “Little Hours”) and Sarah DeCorla-Souza (” Ordinary Time” ) both meditate on the quotidian miracle that is parenthood, while Amos Hunt, J.B. Toner, and Daniel Gibbons tackle terror in “Night Crossing,” despair in “To Whom Much Is Given,” and emptiness (”my winter’s silent utter zero”) in “Autumnal.”

Katy Carl recounts her meeting with a curious saint, “like something out of a Flannery O’Connor novel,” in “A Private Matter,” a personal essay in which she explores end-of-life issues and the possibility of wrongful behavior at a Catholic hospital.

In her story “Open Great Wide Doors,” Stephanie Mader sketches the lead-up to a brash and driven young man’s first encounter with God.

Matthew Alderman explains the artistic and historical inspirations behind his symbol-rich ink drawing, “St. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, Seated in State Upon the Throne of Peter.”

Our featured author this quarter is Arthur Powers, a relief and development director, lawyer, international businessman, and accomplished short story writer who has spent most of his adult life in Brazil. Dappled Things is pleased to premiere “A Hero for the People,” “Stone,” and “Carla,” a triptych of stories that form a portrait of modern Brazil: of the peasants, the priests, the landowners, the farmers, the students, and the educated elite who must confront the turmoil of twentieth-century change.

You can find all of these pieces and more from the Mary, Queen of Angels 2006 issue, as well as archived issues, submission instructions, and the Dappled Things forums, at www.dappledthings.org.

A few weeks ago I got a DVD in the mail and just now got a chance to see it. The DVD was of a talk entitled Truth, given by Fr. Larry Richards, a diocesan priest from the Diocese of Erie, PA. He has a regular show on Relevant Radio.

You can tell quickly that he is from Pittsburgh. He is a very compelling speaker and he has recently launched an interactive website: www.thereasonforourhope.org. The site is managed by The Reason for Our Hope Foundation which was founded by Fr. Larry.

Fr. Larry’s goal is to change the world by reaching 15 million people with the ultimate Reason for our Hope, Jesus Christ. The site allows visitors to send e-cards to family and friends, receive free MP3 downloads and screensavers, and more, all containing the message of hope. The only thing visitors need to do is register.

Check it and and see what you think.

Today is the feast of the North American Martyrs, the eight Jesuits who were martyred by Iriquois and Huron natives between 1642 and 1649. Especially noted by the Church this day are St. Isaac Jogues and St. John de Brebeuf. I taught about these Martyrs recently and so I had the opportunity to investigate the manner of their lives and deaths. All of these saints were enlivened with zeal for Jesus Christ and spreading His gospel, but these two stand out.

St. Isaac Jogues was concerned for the Natives’ spiritual and temporal welfare. During his missionary activities, he was captured, tortured and kept in slavery for over a year until Dutch Calvinists helped to rescue him. During his trials, several fingers from his hands had been chewed or burnt off. He was returned to France where he was given a dispensation to say Mass by the Pope since at the time his mutilated hands made that a canonical impossibility. He begged his superior and eventually was allowed to return to North America where all knew he would eventually suffer martyrdom. This came to fulfillment within two years of his returned. For more on St. Isaac see the Catholic Encyclopedia.

St. John de Brebeuf was one who prepared Jesuits for their missionary activities. He would admonish his pupils that if they were to be successful in winning the natives to Christ, they must sincerely love them. He was also eventually captured and here is a description of the torture that he suffered:

On entering the village, they were met with a shower of stones, cruelly beaten with clubs, and then tied to posts to be burned to death. Brebeuf is said to have kissed the stake to which he was bound. The fire was lighted under them, and their bodies slashed with knives. Brebeuf had scalding water poured on his head in mockery of baptism, a collar of red-hot tomahawk-heads placed around his neck, a red-hot iron thrust down his throat, and when he expired his heart was cut out and eaten. Through all the torture he never uttered a groan. The Iroquois withdrew when they had finished their work. The remains of the victims were gathered up subsequently, and the head of Brebeuf is still kept as a relic at the Hetel-Dieu, Quebec.

From his diary, which is in today’s Office of Readings, it is clear that he both expected martyrdom and desired it. He was also quite aware of what awaited him but he was confident that if this was God’s will, that he would be given the strength to endure it. He writes:

Jesus, my Lord and Savior, what can I give you in return for all the favors you have conferred on me? I will take from your hand the cup of yours sufferings and call on your name. I vow before your eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, before your most Holy Mother and her most chaste spouse, before the angels, apostles, and martyrs, before my blessed fathers Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier–in truth I vow to you, Jesus my Savior, that as far as I have the strength I will never fail to accept the grace of martyrdom, if some day you in your infinite mercy should offer it to me, your most unworthy servant.

For more on St. John go also over to New Advent.

These men were moved by the Holy Spirit with a burning desire to witness Trinitarian Love made Incarnate in Jesus Christ and manifested by His total gift of Himself to the Father on the Cross, for us. It is with this love, made efficacious for us on the Cross, that we are called to participate as the medicine for the restoration of harmony on earth and the conquering of sin and death by drowning evil with love. Evil is not destroyed through violence, it is destroyed only by love joined to the Cross. In other words, the Cross triumphs over evil in our day and time only through God’s grace working through His unworthy servants who have incorporated themselves into Christ’s Mystical Body.

For those such as myself raised and nurtured in the arts of applying military tools as the solution to problems of aggressive violence, the Church’s wisdom of celebrating martyrdom is a continual blessing. It is easy to confuse the rightful honor given to those who selflessly serve others by protecting them, often at the cost of their lives, with the sometimes violent methods that need be employed. However, it must be clear that violence itself is not honorable, it is a necessary evil that is often too quickly employed. This is especially true of those who have the greater capacity to wield it.

In reading St. John’s diary, I am reminded that if I am to truly imitate Christ in trying to bring peace and safety to the world, I must have much more zeal for giving myself back to Him in imitation of His total self gift than zeal for attempting to bring peace through violence.

The recent, almost unbelievable, tragedy in Pennsylvania has been copiously covered in the news media. Unfortunately, it is becoming an all too common occurrence. One of the telling things in the coverage is the way that the press seems almost unable to understand the Amish response of forgiveness. The very day that the young girls were killed the community sent representatives to the family of the killer to offer condolences for their loss and assurance of the Amish families’ forgiveness. Half of those at this man’s funeral were from the Amish community.

This does not seem “to compute” to those covering the story. Perhaps this is not surprising since statistics suggest that most of those in the news media, who would be covering the story, are non-believers. However, I wonder how strange it might seem to some of us Christians? Forgiveness, even in the most difficult of circumstances, is a Christian obligation. To deny someone else forgiveness is to deny it to oneself as the Amish have rightly said. This Amish community is presenting an heroic Christian witness and they are making it clear that it is their Christian faith that allows them to overcome more common but less “human” inclinations. This witness raises the perennial question that causes so many to reject belief in a loving God–the existence of evil and suffering.

One of the oft quoted responses from the Amish community is that they make sense of this because they understand it to be God’s will. Even some Christians rebel against this idea because if God wills it, it would seem that God is willing evil. Now, since Amish belief is influenced by Reformed theology it is almost certain that they do not make a distinction between God’s positive will and His permissive will. Thus, it is unlikely that they would be able to address this concern for those who are not willing to accept what is certainly a contradiction between faith and reason. In fact, because of this lack of distinction and for other reasons, a movement began at the beginning of the 20th century with philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called process philosophy. Whitehead and his students began a new theistic system of thought in an attempts to address the problem of suffering with a good God and they did so by rejecting God’s immutability. Whitehead incorporated Darwinian evolutionary theory into his theory about God and envisioned Him, rather than as Immutable Eternal Act, as a process that is conditioned and changed by creation. God is in the process of becoming God.

Some Catholic theologians, especially among the Jesuits (no surprise I suppose) have adopted process thought. Following Whitehead, they reject Church teaching on God’s immutability by claiming this is not a biblical view but the distortion of the biblical God by the incorporation of Greek philosophy into early Christianity. This is, of course, a facile dismissal of Christian tradition that leads most process theologians, in the end, to dismissing the Trinity or at least an orthodox understanding of the Trinity. Recently, some Evangelicals have begun to catch onto some aspects of process thought under the moniker, “openness theology.” Openness theology, among other things, attempts to “excuse” God from association with evil by denying Him omniscience, omnipotence, or some other necessary attribute of divine immutability. Very popular these days is wanting God to suffer in His divinity (for more on this and a good response to process thinking see Fr. Thomas Weinandy’s article) in order to bring Him closer to us.

John Paul the Great warned, in Fides et ratio, of the dangers of rejecting a sound metaphysics (and it is clear he had Thomist metaphysics in mind) in trying to do theology because one is then obligated to create his own on the fly. Philosophy done ad hoc is never self-consistent and so it devolves into incoherence. This is exactly the problem with the philosophies that deny God’s immutability. The problem with denying God immutability, omniscience, or omnipotence is that these are necessary attributes of God. God cannot be God if He changes, if He does not know everything, or does not have complete authority over His creation. Why? Perhaps the truth of creatio ex nihilo, God’s creation out of nothing, can make it clear.

The Greek philosophers recognized that nothing comes from nothing. Anything that is contingent (that is, non-necessary existence) cannot exist without some necessary Source of existence. In fact, anything that can change must have a higher principle of existence that is responsible for giving to the object its capacity to change and that which it can change into. Therefore, if God can change, He must change into something He is not. Where does the “something” come from if it does already exist as part of God? It cannot come from Him or He would already posses it. A god who changes is not necessary being and therefore, He cannot create ex nihilo. In other words, he is not God.

Ironically, contrary to the originators’ intentions, the implications of a changing, suffering god are not the source of comfort or encouragement. If God can change, then there is no guarantee that he will ever overcome evil or even want to. He could change his mind about salvation and leave us all to go to hell as we deserve. He could change his mind about creation, annihilate it, and start over. He would not be Love but the Absolute Will of Islam and Christian voluntarism (which B16 recently criticized). With this type of god, we have no assurance of anything; certainly not salvation and eternal happiness. Our existence could quickly come to an end, we could spend enternity in hell regardless of our faith or good works, or we could spend eternity suffering in heaven if a suffering god turns out to be what it is that our mutable god turns into.

Evil and suffering are difficult to understand, especially when we experience them. This is not surprising since the correct understanding of evil (moral and natural) and suffering are as the privation of some good that ought to be there but is not. Again, this is a logical necessity because concrete existence can only come from God; only He can create out of nothing. God can only create good. Furthermore, God must keep whatever He creates in existence as a continuing act so there is no possibility that a concrete, positive “thing” could be evil in its being because it would require that God cooperate with evil (at least by keeping evil in existence if not creating it). This is another irony of those who reject God’s omniscience or omnipotence because they think that this requires God to cooperate with evil. Logic dictates exactly the opposite. Thus it is to be expected that while we can understand the existence of evil and suffering in the abstract as a necessity of the abuse of free will, when faced with a concrete experience of it we can never understand it. Evil is a privation of the good and, therefore, has no logos, no ratio, no meaning. It is an existential state, not an ontological reality that can be made sense of.

The wisdom of the Cross, as St. Paul teaches (see 1 Cor 17-31), is not a worldly wisdom. Rather, it is the grace of Christ rushing in to replace the good that has been removed through the evil of sin. That is why Paul says that with the Cross of Christ, where sin increased grace abounded all the more (see Rom 5:20). Grace heals the effects of evil because grace restores the communion with the divine nature, lost through sin, that all creation requires for its integrity (cf. 2 Pt 1:4).

This is the wisdom and brilliance of the Cross; God’s power is His Love; it is Himself. The total self gift of Christ in obedience on the Cross has undone the first sin of Adam. Sin and evil now become the catalysts for their own eventual destruction. God does not use evil as though it were some tool. He permits evil so that all have the free will to give themselves totally to Him or reject Him. But He only allows the sin and death that greater good can come from it. Christ calls all Christians to take up our crosses and to cooperate with Him in restoring to the world the harmony that sin destroys.

This is the witness of the Pennsylvania Amish community this last week. Instead of becoming cooperators with evil by wishing harm and vengeance on another of God’s creatures and thereby emptying the Cross of its power, they are showing that Christians must be cooperators with the Cross of Christ by rejoicing in their sufferings for sake of the building up of the Church (see Col 1:24). They show that we must return hate with love and show how Christ conquers the world.

In Wednesday’s General Audience catechesis Pope Benedict addresses the calling of Matthew as an Apostle. He notes the nature of Matthew’s life as a tax collector and Jesus’ mission to sinners and proclaims:

Jesus no one from his friendship. More than that, precisely when he is seated at the table in Matthew-Levi’s house, answering those who were scandalized by the fact of his frequenting rather undesirable company, he makes the important declaration: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

This is an important truth that we need to continually keep in the forefront of our thoughts. Fortunately, this is not one of those truths that was attenuated in the fuzzy catechesis of the last generation or so. However, Benedict reminds us that Jesus comes to us sinners for another purpose than to just hang…:

Today one cannot admit attachment to what is incompatible with the following of Jesus, as are dishonest riches. Once he said openly: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21). This is precisely what Matthew did: He rose and followed him! In this “rising” one can see the detachment from a situation of sin and, at the same time, the conscious adherence to a new life, upright, in communion with Jesus.

Jesus’ love is an offering of communion with the divine nature. However, this communion can only be had when we conform ourselves to the inner Trinitarian structure of love. That is, it must be a total gift of oneself to God. What that means is that one cannot hold on to those aspects of himself that are not in accord with divine life. I am speaking here of choosing disordered self love for which the 10 commandments provide a clear outline.

The preachers of “inclusivity” do not generally make this connection. They recognize that Jesus loves everyone and invites everyone to communion with Him. That is why they love to preach about Jesus’ mission to sinners and outcast. However, when they preach in this way, it is usually aimed against those (especially the Catholic Church) who point to the Gospel’s demand for personal interior and exterior transformation. When they do this they presuppose that when the Church points out this need for personal change, She is saying that God does not love those who refuse to amend their ways. This is why they counter with Jesus’ going to the lowly and sinful as a counter example to the moral demands. This is where these preachers would do well to better understand some metaphysics.

The Church teaches that God does not change. He is immutable and so the only change that occurs…is with us. We either return God’s love with a total gift of ourselves or we remain in our separated condition. Jesus’ love is inclusive yes, but we are free to exclude ourselves from it if we so choose. So there is the possibility of exclusion, by self exclusion. Rather, as with Matthew we must detach ourselves from those things that weigh us down…and I am not talking about guilt. We have to detach ourselves from sinful attachments that annihilate our communion with God. Lust, pornography, adultery, fornication in all of its forms, gluttony, sloth, calumny, theft, abortion, artificial contraception, and every other form of radical selfishness. This is the first step because one must first possess himself. But it does not stop there.

Total self giving only begins with self possession because you cannot give what you do not have. However, the Beatitudes show the rest of the way. We have to be perfect by giving ourselves totally to God and so to others. This is achieved through forgiveness of others, humble faith, purity of heart, and the embracing of our crosses among other things. Luther thought that the Beatitudes were an ratcheting up of the requirements of the Law. He taught that they were given in order to lead us into despair so that we could recognize the Law was impossible and be freed of it by choosing the Gospel. However, he was wrong because he did not understand the intrinsic nature of grace. God’s grace is a gift of Himself; it is participation in the divine nature. Through it we can be divinized, overcome our fallenness, and by cooperating with His grace, achieve the interior transformation to which Jesus calls us all. That is the purpose of the Sacraments. The sacramental life is the path to true communion with Jesus.

O.k., now this is a “must read” for we hyperactive Americans. Zenit has a translation of B16’s Angelus address on St. Bernard that he gave on Sunday. St. Bernard was a master mystic and I think that Benedict is of the same cloth. Here is the essence of the address:

[snip]

St. Bernard speaks of this among other things in his brief but consistent “Liber de diligendo Deo” (Book on the Love of God). He has another writing that I would like to point out, the “De Consideratione,” a brief document addressed to Pope Eugene III. The dominant theme of this book, extremely personal, is the importance of interior recollection — and he said this to a Pope — an essential element of piety.

It is necessary to pay attention to the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of one’s condition and occupation, observes the saint, because — as he said to the Pope of that time, and to all Popes and to all of us — numerous occupations often lead to “hardness of heart,” “they are no more than suffering for the spirit, loss of intelligence and dispersion of grace” (II, 3).

This admonition is valid for all kinds of occupations, including those inherent to the governance of the Church. The message that, in this connection, Bernard addresses to the Pontiff, who had been his disciple at Clairvaux, is provocative: “See where these accursed occupations can lead you, if you continue to lose yourself in them — without leaving anything of yourself for yourself” (ibid).

How useful for us also is this call to the primacy of prayer! May St. Bernard, who was able to harmonize the monk’s aspiration for solitude and the tranquility of the cloister with the urgency of important and complex missions in the service of the Church, help us to concretize it in our lives, in our circumstances and possibilities.

We entrust this difficult desire to find a balance between interiority and necessary work to the intercession of the Virgin, whom he loved from his childhood with tender and filial devotion, to the point of meriting the title of “Marian Doctor.”

Let us invoke her so that she will obtain authentic and lasting peace for the whole world. In a famous address, St. Bernard compares Mary with the star that seafarers look to so as not to lose their way.

He wrote these famous words: “Whoever you are that perceive yourself during this mortal existence to be rather drifting in treacherous waters, at the mercy of the winds and the waves, than walking on firm ground, turn not away your eyes from the splendor of this guiding star, unless thou wish to be submerged by the storm. … Look at the star, call upon Mary. … With her for guide, you shall not go astray, while invoking her, you shall never lose heart … if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal,” (”Homilia super Missus est,” II, 17).

Hardness of heart from too much activity and not enough quiet prayer.  I suspect most of us can identify with this. Americans especially are hyperactive, even when they are being couch potatos, they are being sense stimulated (though into a passively receptive state). Authentic Benedictine spirituality can be a cure for this hard heartedness.

This article from Newsweek is meant to be a calming portrait of Billy Graham, considered by the author of the piece to be an extraordinary man nearing the end of a remarkable life on earth. He is portrayed as a man grown wise with years, at last able to focus his attention on the eternal verities from which an earlier obsession with politics may have partially blinded him. As the author of the piece has it, Graham has never been more important as a Christian role model. For he is no longer obsessed with the culture war. He is, according to the author, a mediatorial figure now, gentle of spirit, seeking a path between those religious conservatives who would, for instance, demonize homosexuals and those secular liberals who would demonize religious conservatives.

After all, the author implicitly asks, isn’t such a role model just what Evangelicals — and all of us grown tired of the culture wars — are looking for now? Why, just last week, the author informs us, a Pew Research Center survey showed that “…66 percent of all Americans want a ‘middle ground’ on abortion. Six out of 10 white evangelicals also support compromise; meanwhile, 44 percent of white evangelicals —- the highest figure recorded in five years of polling—back stem-cell research.”

However, without making any presumptions about the real Billy Graham, I must raise my own questions: What exactly is the “middle ground” on abortion? Or, if the human embryo is truly a human life — and there is no plausible account of what else it might possibly be — how can we see it as acceptable fodder for medical experimentation? Should we who are vexed by these questions just shut up now and look to the elderly Graham, as portrayed in Newsweek, as the true model for us all? Does an authentic Christian life require a quietistic capitulation to the ethos of the utilitarian eugenicists who write for Newsweek?

Alas, one suspects that journalistic spin has twisted the truth of the man. But, in any case, we here at C-L-S would be undaunted. We know that as far back as the monothelite crisis, and even farther, only one center in the Christian world has kept from ever fumbling the ball on issues of faith and morals…

Perhaps no work in modern theology brings together as well as Louis Bouyer’s Cosmos: The World and the Glory of God the three realities of creation – cosmos, liturgy and sex — whose connection it is our intention to elucidate on this blog.  Bouyer, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, puts on full display in this volume an immense erudition and speculative insight whose effect is to vividly portray the perennial relevance of the Church’s liturgical vision of the cosmos and the nuptial metaphysics that expresses most profoundly, in deep connection with the revealed figures of Scripture, the God-world relationship.

In fact, Bouyer’s work might be seen as an a priori synthesis of the primary intellectual concerns of the last two pontiffs: JP II’s theology of the body, and Benedict’s liturgical vision, which itself takes cosmic proportions (see The Spirit of the Liturgy).  Bouyer establishes, in fact, a nuptial metaphysics of Sophianic dimensions – that may indeed go beyond the related theme as found in JP II – and his incorporation of properly liturgical themes with speculative theology may have been unmatched in the twentieth century.

The volume has many different themes and levels of meaning that cannot be easily summarized in a blog blurb.  Some of the themes: the foundation of human reason in mythopoetic consciousness, the connection of human history to cosmic destiny, the connection of “impersonal” nature to the liturgy of the angels, the completion of humankind’s microcosmic subjectivity in the nuptial relationship between man and woman, the link between magic and technology, the interweaving realities of individual human personhood (summed up in the person of Mary) and social existence (summed up in the Church), and much, much more.

Though, perhaps, the book cannot be understood fully except in connection with the eight other volumes of the nine-volume synthesis of which it forms a part, it nevertheless stands on it own as a great work of theology that should be more widely read…Do not tarry!  Buy this book!