Reflections on the readings from 20 Jan 2018

The readings for today include the antiphon:

Let us see your face, Lord, and we shall be saved.

St John writes:
What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon and 
touched with our hands concerns the Word of life—

The face of the Lord has been seen.   Symeon saw it and sang:

Now Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace, for you have fulfilled your word.  My own eyes have witnessed your saving deed, a light to the nations and the glory of your people, Israel.

Mary saw his face, and  washed it, and kissed it.

The advent of the Lord brought our savior to us, and we have been saved. 

Let us see your face Lord, and we shall be saved.

Charles Chaput and Strangers

Charles Chaput, the archbishop of Philadelphia, has published a book entitled "Strangers in a Strange Land."  The title is take off on a Robert Heinlein science fiction novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land."  But Chaput has a subtitle:  Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World.

Early in Chapter 1 he is writing about the state of our culture, and what we as Christians are to do about it.  He points at the writings of Tocqueville where he writes about the role of religion in democracies.  Chaput writes:

But religion only works its influence on democracy if people really believe what the religion teaches.  Nobody believes in God just because it's socially useful.  To put it in Catholic terms, Christianity is worthless as a leaven in society unless people actually believe in Jesus Christ, follow the Gospel, love the Church, and act like disciples.  If they don't, religion is just another form of self-medication.  And unfortunately, that's how many of us live out our Baptism.

As I read that this morning, I thought it particularly appropriate as today is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and we are reminded not only of the Baptism of Jesus, by John, but also of our own Baptism.

100th Anniversary of Fatima Apparition

One hundred years ago today, 13 Oct 2017, an extraordinary revelation to three shepherd children in Portugal came to completion.  This revelation did not come through the powerful, the educated or the elite.  As the psalmist says "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful."  Jesus gives praise to the Father saying "for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children.  Father it is true.  You have graciously willed it so."

Mary, who appeared to those children, was herself a poor peasant woman, and little more than a child when the angel Gabriel appeared to her.  She was one of these little ones, and so were the Apostles -- just fishermen.  So too the prophets were common folk -- a dresser of sycamores.

The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, delivered a homily involving the apparitions at Fatima on the occasion of the consecration of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.  The text of the homily can be found here.

He writes early in the homily:

To be sure, in many ways there has been great progress over the past century: one thinks immediately of improvements in technology that have increased ease and speed of communication, commerce and travel; progress in the treatment and alleviation of physical and mental illness; progress in civil rights. Yet, there have also been horrendous setbacks in other areas, and even in those very areas where progress had been made. If we think about the century we are now concluding, does it not show itself to be one that in so many ways has been a living reflection of hell, one that on so many fronts has roundly mocked God?

And:

What is happening to our world? In so many different ways, what was once unthinkable has become routine. The century since the Fatima apparitions now ending has mocked God, but God will not be mocked: not because He delights in wreaking vengeance on us, but because turning our backs on God only bounces back to us, leading to our own self-destruction.

He recounts some of the horror of the intervening years and likens it to a hell on earth.  He attributes this in part to our failure to heed the message of Fatima, and calls us to heed that message, and respond to the requests made by Our Lady.

He points to Mary, the Mother of God and our mother, cites the words of Pope St John Paul II, and then reminds us of the central part of the message of Fatima:

What did she ask us to do? It should come as no surprise, because it is the central part of her message wherever and whenever she appears: prayer, penance and adoration. And she was very clear at Fatima about the twofold purpose of this request: to save souls from hell, and to establish peace in the world.

He concludes by turning again to Pope St John Paul II, this time his encyclical on the Eucharist, where the Pope quotes the words of St Thomas Aquinas:

Come then, good Shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us, still keep us thine;
So we may see thy glories shine
in fields of immortality.

O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.

It is a wonderful homily, and I encourage you to take some time and read and reflect on it today.

George Neumayr's article on the so-called debate on guns

At The American Spectator, George Neumayr writes an article about how unserious the discussion is about gun control following the mass murder in Las Vegas on Sunday 1 Oct 2017.

He writes:

The philosophy underlying liberalism is at once totalitarian and relativistic. It proposes more government and less morality.

and

From this ethos, regnant for decades in elite circles, has come an out-of-control society in which pols reflexively respond to unspeakable tragedy by advocating more and more laws for a people whose gradual loss of virtue guarantees that they will violate them.

This reminds me of Chesterton who said something along the lines of:

When you abandon the big laws, you don't get anarchy, but lots of small laws.

I think Chesterton was writing before WWII in England, but this is appropriate for our country in this age too.

In today's Mass Readings Baruch says:

Justice is with the Lord, our God;
and we today are flushed with shame,
we men of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem,
that we, with our kings and rulers
and priests and prophets, and with our ancestors,
have sinned in the Lord's sight and disobeyed him.
We have neither heeded the voice of the Lord, our God,
nor followed the precepts which the Lord set before us.

We have forsaken the big laws, the Law of God, and been smothered with a plethora of little laws that bind us unsparingly.

Increased restrictions on guns, or licensing, of limitations on accessories will not cure the rot which pervades our society, for we are like the Jews in Exile.

Let us then do as Jesus says the people in Tyre and Sidon would have done, "repent in sackcloth and ashes."   The Lord has done great things for us, we are glad indeed.

Archbishop Chaput and A Letter To The Romans

Charles Chaput, the archbishop of Philadelphia, writes on the Archdiocesan website about Paul's letter to the Romans and its' application to today's Christians.  He points out that it is integral to the New Testament, writing:

The Church has always revered it as part of the inspired Word of God and incorporated it into her thought and practice.  The books of Scripture, even when they’re morally demanding, are not shackles.  They’re part of God’s story of love for humanity.  They’re guide rails that lead us to real dignity and salvation. 

He contrasts two recent publications, one by James Martin SJ,
and another by Daniel Mattson.

He writes of Fr Martin's book: 

Father Martin is a man whose work I often admire. Building a Bridge, though brief, is written with skill and good will. 

But what the text regrettably lacks is an engagement with the substance of what divides faithful Christians from those who see no sin in active same-sex relationships.  The Church is not simply about unity – as valuable as that is – but about unity in God’s love rooted in truth.  If the Letter to the Romans is true, then persons in unchaste relationships (whether homosexual or heterosexual) need conversion, not merely affirmation.  If the Letter to the Romans is false, then Christian teaching is not only wrong but a wicked lie.  Dealing with this frankly is the only way an honest discussion can be had. 

He contrasts Fr Martin's book with words from Mattson's book:

As Cardinal Robert Sarah writes in the Foreword, Mattson’s candor about his own homosexuality, his struggles and failures, and his gradual transformation in Jesus Christ “bears witness to the mercy and goodness of God, to the efficacy of his grace, and to the veracity of the teachings of his Church.”

 His article is brief and well written.  It is well worth your time to read it.

George Weigel, Catholic Lite and the death of Europe

At First Things, George Weigel writes an article discussing the demographic suicide of Europe.  

He begins by recalling the main points of a book he wrote some ten years ago, and a particular response from an Italian Euro-parliamentarian:

“Look, we know we’re finished. We’re trying to arrange things so that we can die comfortably in our beds. Don’t you Yanks come over here and start stirring things up.” 

He notes that he was reminded of this after the recent French election where it had been pointed out:

that the prime ministers or presidents of Europe’s largest economies—and of all the European members of that exclusive global club, the G7—are without children

 He then turns to what he refers to as the Catholic Lite Brigade.

In recent years, the Catholic Lite Brigade has reasserted itself in western Europe and in the counsels of the world Church. It is time to ask whether Catholic Lite—as displayed in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere—does not have something to do with Europe’s demographic meltdown. It is time to ask whether Catholic Lite is not at least partially responsible, not only for Europe’s self-chosen sterility, but for Europe’s rapidly accelerating embrace of euthanasia. It is time to ask why Catholic Lite has been such an abysmal failure in forming public moral cultures in which self-gift, not self-aggrandizement, is the touchstone of human aspiration.

The gift of self, a hallmark phrase that echoes in the documents of Vatican II and the writings of Pope St John Paul II, is the antithesis of self aggrandizement.  

In our own culture, the failure to recognize that marriage
is a gift from God, a gift of self in the light of Christ, leads to a death, a self-inflicted death for our culture too.  


Be sure to read Weigel's article in its' entirety.

Cardinal Sarah in Germany

Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, delivered an excellent talk at a Colloquium entitled "The Source of the Future,” in Herzogenrath Germany.  His focus is on the Liturgy and its' renewal.

He begins with a little history about what was called in the early 20th century “the liturgical movement."  Beginning with Pope Saint Pious X and his motu propio and its intention:

to restore the liturgy so as to make its treasures more accessible, so that it might also become again the source of authentically Christian life. 

He ties this to Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and addresses the motu propio "Summorum Pontificum," which was promulgated ten years ago, and whose anniversary is the reason for the Colloquium.

One of his comments:

The liturgy must therefore always be reformed so as to be more faithful to its mystical essence. But most of the time, this “reform” that replaced the genuine “restoration” intended by the Second Vatican Council was carried out in a superficial spirit and on the basis of only one criterion: to suppress at all costs a heritage that must be perceived as totally negative and outmoded so as to excavate a gulf between the time before and the time after the Council.

I think this well describes what Benedict XVI referred to as a hermeneutics of disruption.

He continues:

Now it is enough to pick up the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy again and to read it honestly, without betraying its meaning, to see that the true purpose of the Second Vatican Council was not to start a reform that could become the occasion for a break with Tradition, but quite the contrary, to rediscover and to confirm Tradition in its deepest meaning. 

The Cardinal addresses a number of points citing Pope Benedict, Sacrosanctum Concilium, a number of liturgists, and reflects on some statements from some bishops in the aftermath of Vatican II.

He makes so many excellent points, it is difficult to summarize them, and I encourage you to read the text of his talk slowly and thoroughly, in its' entirety.