Principle vs Person

More adventures in mashup blogging... 

mashup blogging (verb):  taking loosely related ideas that the blogger happens to have stumbled upon over a course of time and attempting to relate them

There's been much talk recently about social justice and the Church's responsibility to "do good" in the world.  Sure, it's important to "do good" in the world, but our focus on Jesus Christ must come first.  The former flows from the latter, not the other way around.  The Catholic Church's main function is to point to Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is a person - not an idea or a principle.  We can talk about the attributes of Jesus that are politically correct like rooting for the underdog and loving the sinner, but ultimately our Catholic faith is not merely about these niceties.  It is about the person of Jesus Christ.  And of course Jesus wasn't a social revolutionary or just a good example of how we ought to live.  He was God in flesh.  His divine personhood is beyond comprehension and is what all of creation revolves around.

RR Reno explains Aquinas explaining this concept:  Hat tip to someone for this, but I don't remember who (sorry).


http://www.kvss.com/pages.asp?pageid=77697

And so, I think we must all ask, what is our focus?  What is the focus of our parish?  Is it principles or is it the person of Jesus Christ?  If we focus too much on the principles and forget about the person, then the principles we love will stop making sense and ultimately break down.  The 21st century world has hijacked the great gifts Christianity has given to the world - that of human dignity, rights of the individual, etc.  But w/out Christianity, these principles simply don't make sense.  Eventually they break down and you end up with horrible man-made tragedies.  It's a slippery slope, so we must be vigilant in our religious devotion - our devotion to Jesus Christ through prayer, spiritual reading, Eucharist adoration, etc.  We must also be on the lookout for certain attitudes which attempt to divorce Christ from the Church.  The following passage is from The Death of a Pope.  What's really scary about this character's rant is that he sounds eerily similar to something you'd read in many of the mainstream "Catholic" circulars.

'That is the tragedy of the Catholic Church.  It could be - it could be - the most powerful, the most effective agency for bringing justice to the world, but always the charism of thousands is thwarted by the diktat of one or two old men.'... 'the infallible interpreter of God's will on matters as abstruse as the Immaculate Conception and as banal as condoms'

'But we cannot escape the fact - those of us raised in the Catholic faith - that our Church has a huge influence in the world, for good or for evil, and that influence depends on the mentality of one old man who puts another old man in charge of the Holy Office and appoints other like-minded old men as cardinals who in turn will choose another old man who thinks like them to be the next pope!  It is an unending cycle of senility and reaction that brings misery to the world!"

The character in the novel says what many who wish to change the Church according to their own agendas will not.  Many do not believe the fundamentals of Christianity.  They merely wish to use the Church as a tool to accomplish their own personal agendas.  Let us fight for Christ and not allow His Church to be perverted in this way.  May our Church be a beacon of light not in a merely worldly way, but in a supernatural way; a way that puts Christ on display to the world.

Welcome Home Local Anglicans

The story of the Anglican Church in America (ACA) voting to take up the Pope on his warm welcome to Anglican churches to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church is being reported all over the place. I was curious, so I went to their main website, which directed me to the Diocese of the Northeast, which lists 2 local churches:

• Holy Redeemer Anglican Church, Canandaigua, NY
• Holy Cross Anglican Church, Webster, NY

I am far from an expert on this subject, so I can't tell you anything in regards to the certainty that these churches will become Catholic and if so when that might happen. I do know that they would not be a part of this diocese. If you have more info - please let me know. Let us pray for both of the congregations and if it's true that they will be coming into communion with the Catholic Church let us welcome them with open arms.

Arch. Dolan: Still Being Awesome

I keep hearing on the radio, tv, etc that you're a shallow Christian if you give up something trite like chocolate or beer for Lent. This is confusing to me as I thought one of the aspects of Lent was self denial. So after having heard that Arch. Dolan gave up desserts and drinking for Lent, I feel much better about what I gave up. He's been making the rounds in the media again since he's been in NY for a year now. Here's a clip about confession from Sunday Night Live w/ Father Benedict Groeschel:



Hat tip to the NY State Catholic Conference's facebook page linking to this whispers post which included the below videos:


In this first clips Arch. Dolan talks about his weight and about schools.  Near the end he claims "Vouchers are an issue of fundamental justice".  I couldn't agree more with that.



In this clip he talks about politics and whether Catholics should be denied communion.  He says the cases are few and far between.  His example is a KKK member dressed in full garb.  He doesn't comment on very vocal pro choice politicians like the Nancy Pelosi's of the world, although I think the principle he laid out would include them.



Arch. Dolan talks about becoming a cardinal and about humor and joy.

AskAPapist.com Update

If you hop or skip over to askapapist.com, you'll notice there's not much going on.  I've written about this initiative here previously.  I've skinned the site and it seems to be a little faster than when it first launched.  So I think it's all set and now the really tough part begins - building a community.  The site is still in beta which means they aren't currently charging me.  However, this will probably end w/in a few months.  So I need to find out soon if the site is going to prove worthwhile.  In pondering how to get it off the ground, I considered entering in the Baltimore Catechism, but I decided that wasn't a great idea because it's really not the best fit.  My next attempt will be the following:

1. get real questions from real non-Catholics
2. get informed Catholics to answer these questions

I'm pretty certain Catholics will be drawn to answering questions once we get some.  It's #1 that's gonna take some work.   My new strategy is to seek out protestant websites/forums and let them know about it.

A Reflection on the Sacrament of Christ

I was doing some house cleaning on my hard drive when I came across this essay I had written a few years ago for a distance class I took at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  I really enjoyed the 2 classes I took, but prayerfully decided not to continue as time becomes very limited once kids enter into the picture - which is probably the best reason to keep the priesthood celibate.  Not sure if it's worth sharing, but nonetheless here it is:


      My experience in Dr. Martin’s Theology of the Church class has been both instructional and life changing.  As a somewhat recent convert to Catholicism, I am continually reminded that Catholicism and Evangelicalism differ not only in a grouping of data or facts.  One cannot simply list a number of doctrines on a chart detailing the Evangelical understanding versus the Catholic understanding and expect to fully comprehend the true differences.  Likewise, one cannot move from Evangelicalism to Catholicism simply by intellectually accepting all the Catholic doctrines.  My venture into Catholicism continually forces me to step back and look at the bigger picture.  The foundations are quite different.  It is a different mind set and requires a total paradigm shift.  One of the most remarkable manifestations of these differences is the concept of sacrament.  The Catholic understanding of sacrament is that God interacts with our world not only in the spiritual realm, but also through real, material changes.  The sacrament is a symbol, but it is nevertheless, real.  He not only uses men as the object to be acted upon, but He also asks men to participate in performing these actions.  Certainly God is not constrained by us men.  However, God infuses his people with grace and specifically requests that we participate in His plan.  The fulfillment of His plan leads ultimately to our own salvation and can even assist in the salvation of others.  This participation takes nothing away from God's splendor or transcendence.  We offer God only ourselves, sinful as we are.  We have nothing else to offer Him.  God's grace to man is an undeserved gift even when we are asked to assist God in bringing His grace into the world.
      Many modern Christians are all too willing to turn their back on the 2000 year history of Christianity.  If we look too closely, our faces become "mud splashed with history".  At various times in history the Church has been charged with being too oppressive, too accepting, too strict, too lenient, too glorious, and too humble.  I've heard it explained that the Catholic Church generally takes a BOTH-AND approach rather than an EITHER-OR approach.  This BOTH-AND method is particularly useful in describing the Church herself.  The Church is both immaculate and fallen.  She is perfect in that she is the bride of Christ, but fallen in regards to the sinful nature of the individuals who constitute her membership.  Certainly there are less than flattering events in the history of the Church.  There were notoriously bad members of the hierarchy.  Some people may take an extremely idealistic approach and say they will either belong to an organization which has never flawed or they will not belong to any organization.  Upon this immediate error, a secondary error usually follows.  That error is to disregard the past as a mere embarrassment.  The mentality is that if our ancestors were less than perfect, then they must have nothing to teach us.  This approach is a grave disservice to all those who have fought for and defended truth.  Instead we should cherish our greater background; by doing so we will further understand ourselves.
      To understand sacrament we need not look further than Christ himself.  Christ is a scandal to the world in a similar manner as sacrament.  God, the infinite and eternal being, became a man and entered history at a particular moment in time in a specific location.  The scandal only increases throughout his life as he his despised by the world and ultimately beaten and executed as a criminal.  Blood and dirt ran down His brow as insults were hurled at Him.  How could God allow this to happen?  This is not an image of a god that mankind should look to, is it?  Even more certainly, this could not be, adopting the Jewish idea of monotheism, the one true God. The beautiful thing about Christ is that he is both fully God and fully man.  He has put on humanity and as such redeemed humanity.  Not only did Christ redeem humanity, but he redeemed the entire world. 
      The Church is the sacrament of Christ and us such is considered the mystical body of Christ.  By the definition of mystery, we cannot fully comprehend it until God chooses to reveal those aspects which are hidden. As de Lubac states, “signs are not things to be stopped at, for they are, in themselves, valueless.”  He continues, “under this aspect it is not something intermediate but something mediatory; it does not isolate, one from another, the two terms it is meant to link.  It does not put a distance between them; on the contrary, it unites them by making present that which it evokes.”  It is in this lack of total understanding that we turn to God and take the attitude of "whatsoever he saith unto you, do it".  It is not inconsistent for God to ask His people to do things that are outside the realm of their comprehension.  I wonder what was going on in the minds of the Israelites as they circled around the walls of Jericho for days.  We can attempt to defend and legitimize the Church to the world as merely a good organization that provides global social services.  There isn’t anything wrong with this approach unless it stops there.  We must view her as “the great sacrament which contains and vitalizes all the others.”
      The reformers looked at the Church with disdain.  It was a forgone conclusion in their minds that the Church, corrupt as it was, was too far gone and could not be reformed. The division of the Church can be blamed on the church herself.  It was in the Church’s lack of adherence to Christ’s way of life that brought about the doubts that she was the true bride of Christ.  Once the reformers did away with the Church, they had to also do away with the things the Church conferred. One thing led to another and they ended up with a whole new system, a whole new way of understanding Christianity.  This is why Evangelicalism from a Catholic perspective and vise-versa must be taken with a whole mindset.  It is a great hope that one day the Holy Spirit will rectify what man broke apart and unite all Christian communities.  In order to further this cause we must have a true ecumenism in which doctrines must be fully exposed and not hidden or changed.  According to Martin, it is only hospitable to do so.
      If we don't adhere to a mysterious understanding of the Church then we are left with 2 options.  The first is to take a purely materialistic view of the Church and reduce her to our own understanding.  We put her under the microscope and examine her as we would any human organization.  On this point, both the atheist and the non-sacramental Christian agrees.  A church becomes nothing more than the communion of the unholy people who fill her pews.  Baptism becomes merely a symbol as does the Eucharist.  Scott Hahn parallels this attitude to the Old Testament passage of Uzzah treating the Ark of the Covenant like just a box.  On the other hand, if we go the other way and fall into superstition.  Liturgical rites are treated as magical and this magic is indifferent to the disposition of the individual.  Clericalism begins to take over because if priests are able to consecrate the Eucharist, they must be on a level higher than a typical lay person.  The sacraments, which are a means, become the end.  We must always remember that the sacrament is meant to allow us access to the ultimate, but they themselves are not the ultimate.
      The most eye opening aspect of these reflections to me personally is that what I do matters.  If God’s grace is infused into us while we still walk this earth, then we better have something to show for it.  As an evangelical I found myself falling into the trap of “if the sacrifice of Jesus simply covers my sins, then the hell w/ it.  I will do whatever I want.  It doesn’t matter.”  Admittedly, Evangelicalism has an answer to this blasphemy, but it never really struck a chord with me.  Another, more obvious, consequence of believing in Sacrament is in partaking of the Eucharist.  As I more fully comprehend what the Eucharist is, I am continually astonished by it.  The Church is both the one who distributes the Sacrament while also being sustained by the Sacrament.  The Eucharist is the sacrament that brings Christ, the life and the truth, to the world.
      Recently I began attending Eucharist adoration at a local parish.  My mind was all over the place the first time I entered the Church.  Can this really be God right here in the middle of the city?  There are construction workers outside that seem to be indifferent to the whole thing.  I didn’t have to scale a mountain to get in here.  No one checked my credentials.  In a few minutes I’ll be going back to what I was doing before I came.  How can this really be God?  All of humanity hopes to meet their maker and he is right here before me?  How can this be?  I started to look around at the stained glass windows, statues, and paintings.  As I closed my eyes and opened my heart to God, I began to understand the Christian mystery as I never had before.
      Dr. Martin’s echoing of the Second Vatican Council, the theologians, such as Henri de Lubac, building up to the council, and the entire teaching of the Church from the beginning affirm that Catholics are blessed to be in communion with the One, Holy, Apostolic Church established by Christ himself.  This Church, like the moon, is not a light source in and of itself, but is continually illuminated by another source.  The more directly the moon is allowed access to the sun, the brighter the moon’s light.  If the sun is blocked for whatever reason, the moon’s light is stamped out.  Rather than the Church getting in the way of a Christian’s access to Christ, it is in the Church that one gets closest to Christ.

A "Hell"thy Fear

During this Lenten journey, I've been following along with the Spiritual Exercises Blog.  Today readers are asked to contemplate hell for the following reason:

We must always be aware that the love of God should be the motive for our actions. However, as we move through this life we may find ourselves assailed by temptations that confuse and weaken us, leaving us unable to enjoy the solace we once had during times when we were more aware of God’s love for us. It will be during these trying times that a simple fear of Hell (and disgust for that which leads to Hell) may augment our efforts and serve to keep us from the downward spiral of sin.

John Brown, SJ, also recommends reading 1-10 of the 32nd chapter of St. Theresa’s Autobiography (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/life.viii.xxxiii.html).

If here on earth we see one whom we specially love in great trouble or pain, our very nature seems to bid us compassionate him; and if those pains be great, we are troubled ourselves. What, then, must it be to see a soul in danger of pain, the most grievous of all pains, for ever? Who can endure it? It is a thought no heart can bear without great anguish. Here we know that pain ends with life at last, and that there are limits to it; yet the sight of it moves our compassion so greatly. That other pain has no ending; and I know not how we can be calm, when we see Satan carry so many souls daily away.

My mind immediately goes to current debates where those of a more traditional mindset are often charged with being uncompassionate.  After reading the above, I wonder which is the more compassionate approach: 1) affirming sinners in their sin (and thus loving them in a worldly way) or 2) speaking the truth in charity (and thus loving them in a supernatural way in hopes that they may avoid eternal damnation)

Bill McGlaughlin: Music for the Masses

I'm 2 days late on this, but nonetheless, Bill McGlaughlin's programming this week is titled "Music for the Masses".  I missed the first 2 days, but will try to catch some of the remaining broadcasts (91.5 FM at 7PM).