Robert Barron and Missing the Point of the Book of Exodus

At Real Clear Religion, Fr. Robert Barron writes a post concerning the recent movie Exodus: Gods and Kings.

He takes the movie to task for missing the point of the Book of Exodus, saying:

the movie is spiritually flat

He elaborates by saying:

The problem is the way the relationship between Moses and the God of Israel is presented. In the Biblical telling, Moses, like many of the other heroes of Israel, was compelled to pass through a long period of testing and purification in order to prepare himself to receive the divine word. Only when he had been sufficiently humbled and purified was he able to take in the presence of God and to accept the dangerous mission of liberation that God gave him. Ridley Scott's Moses did indeed spend years in the desert to the east of Egypt, but he seems little changed from the self-absorbed, violent, and worldly prince of Egypt that he had been.

This article is well worth reading, without regard to your inclination to see the movie.

Hope and Archbishop Chaput

In an Advent reflection  Archbishop Charles J. Chaput writes about hope and contrasts it with optimism:

Optimism, as the great Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos once wrote, has nothing to do with hope. Optimism is often foolish and naïve — a preference to see good where the evidence is undeniably bad. In fact, Bernanos called optimism a “sly form of selfishness, a method of isolating oneself from the unhappiness of others.”

Hope is a very different creature. It’s a choice — a self-imposed discipline to trust in God while judging ourselves and the world with unblinkered, unsentimental clarity. In effect, it’s a form of self-mastery inspired and reinforced by God’s grace. “The highest form of hope,” Georges Bernanos said, “is despair, overcome.”

Read the entire article.

A man had two sons

In the Gospel Reading  from Mass today, 16 Dec 2014, Jesus tells a story to the Chief Priests and the elders of the people: A man had two sons.

Let us not say yes to Our Father, but never do what he commands us.  Let us "Be doers of the word and not hearers only."  

Let us not pay lip service to God, but be far from him in our hearts.

Let us heed John the Baptist and repent, repeatedly, turning again and again from the evil we have done, and to Jesus who loves us so very much, and who endured so very much so that we might be with him always.

Come Lord Jesus

I recently saw a post at In the Light of the Law concerning Mass for Sunday and a Holy Day of Obligation being satisfied with a single Mass.

He brings this up because of a post by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf addressing a question posed by one of his readers.

I am not smart enough about Cannon Law to speak on the points that they are making.  But, trying merely to satisfy obligations with a minimum of effort seems counterproductive to a relationship of love with God.

Will we say on the Day of Judgement "We are worthless servants, we have done only what we have been obliged to do?"  Are we worthless servants, doing only the minimum?

If or when you were engaged to be married, would you have tried to meet only the minimum requirements of your espoused?  Spending time together only when your espoused demands your presence? If you start out doing only the minimum for your beloved before you are married, how rough will your marriage be?

How is that being in union with the Spirit and the Bride who call out "Marana Tha!" "Oh Lord, Come!"

Where is the eagerness of the Bride to know fully her bridegroom?

In this season of Advent, may we reflect the eagerness of the Bride in our lives, in our labors and in our loves.  Marana Tha!

Diocese of Springfield Illinois addresses Y

At the blog for the Diocese of Springfield Illinois, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki writes an article  about results from the online surveys of active and inactive Catholics in Central Illinois.

He addresses early in the article:

respondents of both the active and inactive surveys mentioned that they disagreed or were at least troubled by some Church doctrines.

He points out that Jesus addresses this problem in the Gospels.
He goes on to say:

The challenge for us in the Church is to make sure that we are presenting these teachings in ways that are clear and accurate so that they can be properly understood. Some people are rejecting what they think the Church teaches, but which in fact may be a false understanding. Other times they do not know the reasons that underlie Church doctrine. We need to do a better job of explaining not only what the Church teaches, but why.

He addresses several responses that are evident in the surveys.  You should read his entire article.

The end -- of the Liturgical year

Today, 29 Nov 2014, is Saturday of the 34th week in ordinary time, the last day of the liturgical year.

The Liturgy of the Hours offers for the non-Biblical reading a segment of a sermon by St Augustine:

Do not be lazy, but sing to make your journey more enjoyable.  Sing, but keep going.  What do I mean by keep going?  Keep on making progress.  This progress, however, must be in virtue; for there are some, the Apostle warns, whose only progress is in vice.

 We hear many people saying today to "move forward," to "make progress" as though any change were good or for the good.  St. Augustine reminds us that it matters what we are progressing in, virtue or vice.

What is the object of our quest?  Sacrosanctum Concilium tells us:

The Church is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, but as a pilgrim, so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, the object of our quest.

If we are making progress in our journey to "that city yet to come," the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, where the Justice of God will reside, then we are growing in virtue and not in vice.

In a world that has lost any sense of virtue and vice it is difficult to know whether one is growing in virtue unless you are grounded in the Church, the scriptures and in Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

 

Cardinal George on Marriage

At Our Sunday Visitor, Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop emeritus of Chicago, has an article about how Marriage can transform a culture and the world.

He begins by stating that Marriage is not a hobby, and says of our society:

“Leadership” is confused with willfulness.

Near the end he writes:

Marriage is a full-time vocation. In drawing a man and a woman together, as husband and wife, into a communion of life and love, it calls them to overcome self-centeredness and give themselves entirely to each other, as Christ gives himself to his Church.

In their concern and care for each other and for their families, husbands and wives show the world, in a particular way, how to live according to the Great Commandment, with all one’s heart, mind and strength. It requires of them a great deal of realism and a large dose of forgiveness. It brings joy, often tempered by sorrows. It transforms people and the entire world.

You should read the whole article.

Dives in Misericordia -- another part

In reading more of Dives in Misericordia,  I was struck by the closing paragraph of chapter 7 Mercy Revealed in the Cross and Resurrection:

For mercy is an indispensable dimension of love; it is as it were love's second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-a-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world, affecting and besieging man, insinuating itself even into his heart and capable of causing him to "perish in Gehenna."⁸⁰

Thanks be to God that he loves us too much to let us die in our sins. No, he sent Jesus, God from God, Light from Light, to make it possible that we might be with him forever.

And as St John Paul II writes in chapter 8 Love More Powerful Than Death, More Powerful Than Sin:

Here is the Son of God, who in His resurrection experienced in a radical way mercy shown to Himself, that is to say the love of the Father which is more powerful than death. And it is also the same Christ, the Son of God, who at the end of His messianic mission - and, in a certain sense, even beyond the end - reveals Himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church, is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation history and in eschatology. In the same spirit, the liturgy of Eastertide places on our lips the words of the Psalm: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.¹⁰⁰

For those of us who do not read latin:

I will sing of your mercy forever, LORD^a

Reflection -- 16 November 2014

In Today's Gospel Reading, Jesus tells a parable about a man who goes on a Journey and entrusts some of his wealth to three of his servants.  At the close of the parable Jesus says:

For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

 

I am always reminded of the song "God Bless the Child" by Blood Sweat and Tears.  It opens with this passage from the gospel.

 

 

But this song misses the point that Jesus is making in the parable.

Jesus' point is not about money, for he says "You cannot serve both God and Mammon."

 

His point is about the gifts we have each received from God, Our Father, from whom we have received everything, including our existence.

 

Let us use our gifts to produce a profit for the Kingdom of God, let us steward our gifts and provide God with his portion of the fruit of our lives, our labors, our loves.  Let us give to God what is God's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Martin of Tours

Today, 11 Nov 2014, is the memorial of St Martin of Tours.

In September of 2013, I was on pilgrimage  to Rome, It, and prayed in the Church of St Martin on the Mountain.  It is a short walk from St Mary Major.

This painting depicts a significant scene in the life of St Martin, and his conversion to Christianity.

The Apse of St Martin on the Mountain

The nave of St Martin on the Mountain

There is a chapel devoted to St Martin of Tours in the lower church, in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.  It is adjacent to one dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

My parents named me after St Martin of Tours.

Dives in Misericordia

I have begun rereading dives in misericordia, and was struck by a passage in Chapter 2 (The Incarnation of Mercy).

Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does He speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all He Himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He Himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in Him - and finds it in Him - God becomes "visible" in a particular way as the Father who is rich in mercy."¹³

I think of this passage in respect to my reflection on Jesus' parable of the landowner and the ungrateful tenants.

November 4 -- St Charles Borromeo

Today is the memorial of St Charles Borromeo.  When I was in Rome in September of 2013, I went to Mass at the Basilica of Sts Ambrose and Charles, as I recounted here.

One point I didn't include in that post was that the heart of St Charles was reserved in a monstrance, in a chapel behind the main altar for veneration.

Reflection for Gospel reading -- 26 Oct 2014

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is put to the test -- again.
The pharisee asks:

“Teacher,^* which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Jesus' answer is taken from the Torah.

He said to him,^* “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

 

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

This is a citation from Deuteronomy, and is a well known Jewish prayer.

 Jesus continues:

The second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This is a citation from Leviticus.

Leviticus is the first book of the laws of God, (not the first book of the Torah) while Deuteronomy is second law.  In this we can see the saying fulfilled, the last shall be first, and the first last.

Visited by family

Since Monday, my daughter and her two daughters visited with me.  We had a very nice visit.

We blew bubbles, went to the zoo, sang songs, read books and ate.  Some of my family who lives nearby, came to visit too.

It was a good week.

Houston -- More evidence of deep trouble in America

FOX News has an opinion article of some goings on in Houston, TX, which is reported also in the Houston Chronicle.

Deacon Greg comments on it saying near the end:

But I’m left to wonder just what the city of Houston intends to do with those sermons it has subpoenaed, and what sort of evidence it believes they contain. “Look! He’s preaching Christ crucified! Outrageous!”

Yeah. So?

Maybe government authorities feel those sermons—which, one way or another, inevitably point to the cross—are supporting activity that is somehow criminal; maybe they fear they are stirring up political opposition to something the preachers feel is immoral or unjust. If that’s the case, well, Houston, we have a problem. The last time I checked, speech in America is still free. So is religion.

Any effort to thwart or inhibit that is tiptoeing perilously close to tyranny.

The Deacon must be unaware that a Catholic priest was arrested and charged with violating the Hate Speech law in Canada a few years ago, because he read aloud from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.


As I said in a post last month:

Without "the design established by the Creator," there are no human rights.

Mona Charen, Ted Olsen and Marriage

At Townhall, Mona Charen has a column in counterpoint to Ted Olsen's pro gay marriage crap.

Charen:

Families began disintegrating and failing to form long before gay marriage became a cause celebre. But the movement for same-sex marriage pushes our culture in exactly the wrong direction because it forwards a damaging conception of marriage. Marriage, Olson says, "is about being with the person you love."

Not so. Marriage is about the welfare of children. The state confers benefits on opposite-sex couples because they conceive and raise children, and it believes that strong families are the foundation of strong polities. Libertarian claims that the state should remain aloof from family matters overlook the fact that when couples divorce or part ways, the state becomes involved in property division and custody, so it's unrealistic to keep the state out.

The problem with endorsing same-sex marriage is that it conveys to heterosexuals that mothers and fathers don't really matter.

I refer you to my post on Marriage as a gift of self, in imitation of the self giving of Jesus on the Cross.

Giving oneself completely, means all of oneself, always; your fruitfulness, your complementarity.  Marriage isn't just unitive, it is at the same time procreative.

The deepest meaning of love is to give yourself freely for another; your whole self, not just some part, not just for some convenient period of time, but for the whole of your life, until death do you part.  Since it is a free gift of self, marriage cannot be coerced, as it has been done routinely in many cultures throughout history.   It was the coming of Christianity which brought that practice to an end in our culture.

Marriage is fruitful because the defining act of Marriage is sexual intercourse between the husband and wife.  The husband and wife have complementary sexual organs.  This complementarity is essential for the propagation of the species, and is essential for the culture to be passed along to the future.  Marriage provides the stable building block on which culture and civilization stand, because the children who are the fruit of the sexual intercourse, are raised by their parents to be good solid members of their society.

Don't the states declare NULL marriages that are not consummated by sexual intercourse between the husband and wife?

I highly recommend reading Familiaris Consortio, and Deus Caritas Est.

Funeral Mass for Fr Benedict Groeschel CFR

Russell Shaw at Our Sunday Visitor has an article about the death of Fr Benedict Groeschel, CFR.  EWTN broadcast the Mass of Christian Burial for him the other day.

There were two cardinals, a dozen Bishops, more then a hundred priests, uncounted members of religious congregations, and innumerable laity at the Mass in Newark New Jersey.

I have read several of his books, and corresponded with him a couple of times more than 15 years ago.  He sent me a picture of himself with Mother Theresa which I have on my dresser.

Eternal Rest grant unto him O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. 

Cardinal Burke and some questions from the Synod of Bishops -- UPDATED

Fr John Zuhlsdorf has a blog with a wonderful video of
Cardinal Burke discussing some aspects of the Synod of Bishops.

He especially addresses the topics that are making headlines in the secular press, and occasionally in the Catholic Press.

The video is produced and aired by EWTN and runs about 1/2 hour long.

Cardinal Burke points to and cites many worthwhile encyclicals.

I encourage you to watch it, and read the pertinent encyclicals.
______________________________________________________
Update:

Edward Peters comments extensively on the video of Cardinal Burke which you can view at the link to Fr John Zuhlsdorf above.

Gospel Reading for 9 Oct 2014

A section from the reading of the Gospel today:

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

I am reminded of a passage from the first letter of St Peter:

Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.^e

Marriage -- The Gift

Dads work hard to make the bread
Feed the kids and give them beds
Beads of sweat drop from their brow
Forging steel or steering plow

Moms with their own flesh feed life
Build a home and shield from strife
Sickness fever any day
Mothers wipe the tears away

Mary Mother Virgin wife
Through her flesh came fullest life
Saying yes the gift complete
Mary's lap was Wisdom's seat

Jesus gives the gift of self
Pouring out his life and health
Scorned and scourged and nailed to tree
He gives his all for you, for me

Robert Barron and Aquinas' proof of God

At Real Clear Religion, Fr Robert Barron, writes about one of the five proofs of God's existence that Aquinas includes in his Summa.

Thomas Aquinas famously laid out five arguments for the existence of God, but he characterized one of them as "the first and more manifest way." This is the proof from motion, which can be presented simply and schematically as follows. Things move. Since nothing moves itself, everything that is moved must be moved by another. If that which causes the motion is itself being moved, then it must be moved by another. This process cannot go on to infinity. Therefore, there must exist a first unmoved mover, which all people call God.

As the song from "The Sound of Music" says: nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.

It is a good read and elaborates on what it means to "move" (this is not merely a change in coordinates, like a physicist might assume).

It's also a good refresher for those who remember this proof. 

Reflection -- Gospel Reading for 5 Oct 2014

In the Gospel Reading for today, 5 Oct 2014, the Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary time, Jesus tells a parable about some tenant farmers and their land owner.

The tenants are supposed to steward the land and provide a potion of the fruits of the land to the landowner.

Those ungrateful tenants beat and kill his messengers on two occasions at least, and when he sends his son to them, they kill him as well.

Jesus asks what the landowner will do to those evil tenants.  They respond “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.”

Jesus then quotes Psalm 118 to them: The stone rejected by the builders...

Was "the stone rejected by the builders" the refusal of the tenants to deliver the fruit of the land to the landowner?  Jesus says give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

Is this the echo we should hear?  Or is it the judgement of his listeners "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death" that is the rejection of the stone?

This question arises because of how this parable is fulfilled in the Passion.  Jesus, the heir, is taken outside the city and killed brutally.  What is the response of Jesus?  What is the response of Our Father?  Who among us is without sin?  Who among us is not redeemed by the passion, death and resurrection of Christ?  Are we not all those wretched tenants?

What is God's reaction or response to us?  How dissimilar it is to the one predicted by Jesus' listeners.

They were so wrong they rejected the cornerstone of the the Temple, the place with which all other features are aligned.  As Paul wrote "if God is for us who shall condemn?"

Jesus, the living bread come down from Heaven, is the Mercy of God.  He is the cornerstone of the Temple (the Church), and of our lives.  He says in John's Gospel  "God so loved the world that he gave^* his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life."

The stone rejected is Jesus, the Word of God.  The stone rejected is Jesus, the mercy of God.  The stone rejected is Jesus, who brings to fruition in us the work already begun.

In the end we must not reject the stone, but offer to Our Father, who holds our lives in his hands, who called us to life, in whom we live and move and have our being, the fruit of our lives, our labors, our loves.  We must give to God what is God's.

For when he is revealed in his glory he will separate all the people of every nation as a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats.  There are only two groups and essentially only one choice -- the blessing and the curse -- life and prosperity or death and doom.

Eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ who is the way the truth and the life.  To choose Jesus is to choose life.  To choose Jesus is to choose Mercy, and receiving mercy we become filled with mercy.

What we have received as a gift, let us freely give.

Rich Lowry on Neil deGrasse Tyson's accolytes

Note:  citations are in this color.  Links are in light blue.  My words are in white.


Over at National Review Online, Rich Lowry has a post about a recent skirmish between Sean Davis of the Federalist and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Lowry summarizes:

The problem is the belief of his (Tyson's) fans — encouraged by him — that science has all the answers; that anyone who believes in physics must adhere to a progressive secularism; that anyone not on board is guilty of rank anti-intellectualism.

Properly understood, science is a tool, an incredibly powerful one, but still just a tool. G. K. Chesterton wrote long ago, “Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.

The Bush-quote controversy reminds us that the self-styled champions of science are, like anyone else, prone to sloppiness, pomposity, and error. Just don’t tell the adherents of the Tyson cult. It’s not polite to scandalize the faithful.

One important thing to remember is that scientists are like everybody else.  They can be egocentric, self aggrandizing, petty, and vindictive as well as "prone to sloppiness, pomposity, and error."

In other words they are sinners like the rest of us, in desperate need of the mercy of God.

The words from the book of Job, in the readings from Mass today come to mind:

Then Job answered the LORD and said:

Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you?
I put my hand over my mouth.
Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again;
though twice, I will do so no more.

Some humility in the presence of God is a good thing.

Michael -- Who is like God

Today is the Feast of the Archangels -- Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.  The Office of the Readings, in the Liturgy of the Hours, has as the non-biblical reading for this day, a section of a homily by St Gregory the Great.

He discusses the meanings of the names of the three Archangels who's names are used in the Bible.

Michael -- Who is like God
Gabriel  -- The strength of God
Raphael -- God's Remedy

In the Church where my granddaughter was Baptized, a week ago, is a stained glass window of St Michael the Archangel.

Let us pray this day for those named Michael, Gabriel and Raphael,
that they may know whose name they bear and why, and that they may experience God's Remedy.

Cardinal George Pell and True Mercy and the Indissolubility of Marriage

Cardinal Pell, at Catholic World Report, writes in  a forward to a new book:

Christianity and especially Catholicism constitute one historical reality, where the apostolic tradition of faith and morals, prayer and worship, is maintained. The doctrines of Christ are our cornerstone.

Interestingly, Jesus’ hard teaching that “what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19:6) follows not long after his insistence to Peter on the necessity of forgiveness (see Mt 18:21–35).

It is true that Jesus did not condemn the adulterous woman who was threatened with death by stoning, but he did not tell her to keep up her good work, to continue unchanged in her ways. He told her to sin no more (see Jn 8:1–11).

Read it.

 

Mass Readings For Sept 23 2014

I was struck by the Gospel Reading for this day.  In particular: 

Jesus "said to them in reply, 'My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.'"

I thought of a passage from the Letter of James.

Then the reading from evening prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours on 24 Sept 2014 was:

Act on this word.  If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves.  There is on the other hand, the man who peers into freedom's ideal law and abides by it.  He is no forgetful listener, but one who carries out the law in practice.  Blest will this man be in whatever he does. (James 1:22,25)

 

Baptismal Candle

This past weekend I visited with my daughter and her family, for the Baptism of their younger daughter, Ember.

She was baptized in the context of the Mass, with the first part occurring before the procession at the Baptismal Font near the main entrance of the church.  The meat of the Baptism occurred after the homily, also at the Baptismal Font, and took the place of the Creed.

All the members of the congregation renewed their Baptismal promises, while the parents and godparents made the Baptismal promises on behalf of Ember.

The priest was the same one who was at Meg and Mike's wedding; and the Baptism, like her sister's, was at the same Church where Meg and Mike married.

It was wonderful. 

Afterwards, Meg and Mike treated their family members and the godparents, to a brunch at Jines.

Ember slept very well that evening.

I had a very nice visit with my daughter and her family.

Humanae Vitae

I have been reading Humanae Vitae of late and have been struck by a few things.

Firstly, I was struck by paragraph 13 (Faithfulness to God's Design).  In it, Paul VI writes:

But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator.

I think this is a key point.  It goes with my understanding of the confusion which grips our society.  Our culture believes, and is taught, that man is an accident; the result of a random comingling of organic molecules.  But the Church correctly teaches that we are not accidents, that each of us is called to life by God.

Without "the design established by the Creator," there are no human rights.  This perspective is written into the founding documents of our country, but has been abandoned in recent decades.

How long can a country founded on the perspective that human rights are founded in a "design established by the Creator," survive without it?

 Secondly, there is the paragraph to Christian Couples (25), in which Pope Paul says:

While the Church does indeed hand on to her children the inviolable conditions laid down by God's law, she is also the herald of salvation and through the sacraments she flings wide open the channels of grace through which man is made a new creature responding in charity and true freedom to the design of his Creator and Savior, experiencing too the sweetness of the yoke of Christ.

and

For the Lord has entrusted to them (Christian husbands and wives) the task of making visible to men and women the holiness and joy of the law which united inseparably their love for one another and the cooperation they give to God's love, God who is the Author of human life.

Read the entire paragraph.  It is wonderful and encouraging.

Calvary -- a couple of reviews

I've read two reviews of the movie, 'Calvary'.  One by Fr Robert Barron, and the second by Archbishop Charles Chaput .

Archbishop Chaput:

One of the truths at the heart of this film is that the sins of the past bear a bitter kind of fruit in the present, in pain, anger, and revenge. Hypocrisy never stays hidden forever. But the opposite is also true: Love also leaves its indelible mark on the world.

Both are highly enthusiastic about the film.  I'll probably see it when comes to my local library.

The First Amendment

 
Over the last week or so there have been many articles that address the proposal by more than 40 Democrat Senators to rewrite the First Amendment to the US Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

These include Editorials and OP-Ed pieces:

NRO Editors: Free Speech, Thank You very much

NRO Editors: Free Speech without Objection

George Will: Amend the Bill of Rights?

David Harsanyi: Who's a Threat to the Country?

My Senator, listed in George Will's column, seems to have no respect either for "the freedom of speech" or for "the free exercise thereof" (religion), as attested to by his association with the proposal to amend the Bill of Rights, but also his support for the HHS mandate involving Sterilization, Abortifacient drugs and contraceptives as it relates to Catholics, whose religion clearly teaches that such things are immoral.

I wonder how he thinks he's supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

Fulton Sheen through the eyes of David Limbaugh

Kathryn Jean Lopez has a nice article involving a new book by David Limbaugh, which cites Sheen's "Life of Christ."

She quotes from Limbaugh's work, and from works by Sheen.

A sample:
 
For his part, Limbaugh has an encouraging word for the faithful. He benefited from the kindness of friends who would give reasons for the faith they embrace. He writes about a friend of a friend who, one Christmas after law school, patiently talked about Christianity with Limbaugh, while he responded by expressing some of his doubts.

Limbaugh writes:

I shared with Steve certain doubts I had about the God of the Bible and told him I just didn’t buy into Christianity. I will never forget a couple of things about this exchange. Steve did not fit my perception at the time of the stereotypical young Christian — a judgmental holy roller who accepted Christianity uncritically. He exhibited an extraordinary measure of grace. He not only didn’t take offense at my skepticism, but he patiently retrieved his Bible from his bedroom and began to walk me through a few fascinating verses. This might have been the first time outside of Sunday school or church that someone went directly to the source and shared it with me.

Undaunted and unoffended by my challenge, he gave me a model Christian response. Despite my skepticism, I was not close-minded and was genuinely interested in learning. I knew, after all, that I hadn’t really given the Bible a hearing, much less a fair one. To my surprise — and this is embarrassing to admit — Steve showed me how verses of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, were tied to others in content and theme with remarkable frequency.

Limbaugh goes on to say that because Steve wasn’t remotely judgmental, “for the first time in my life  the Bible appeared to me to be thematically integrated. The scales of my eyes started peeling away.”

And from Sheen's work:

In an address in 1936, Sheen talked about the “Forgotten Man.” Digging deep, you can find him everywhere, Sheen said:

Our problem today then is the problem of the Forgotten Man — not the forgotten man in the sense of the man who is unemployed or hungry; not the forgotten man who is economically dispossessed, or socially disinherited; not the forgotten man of the bread lines, but forgotten man in the sense of forgotten human dignity, forgotten human worth, forgotten divine destiny, forgotten personality, forgotten power to rise above the state and the collective to commune with the Life and Truth and Love which is God. This is the real Forgotten Man of our day — the man who can enter into himself and find down in the depths of his soul that he was made for God and only God can make him remembered — even for eternity.

This article is worth reading just for the quotations from Sheen.

Rome Again -- in memory

One year ago, today, I was in Rome, It, for a pilgrimage.  That was the beginning of this blog.

The post for last year is:
http://variousthoughtsbymart.blogspot.com/2013/10/evening-came-and-morning-followed-first.html

Repent therefore -- that your sins may be forgiven.

At National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about the controversy regarding the
the St Patrick's Day Parade, in 2015.

All are welcome. The life of Christ demonstrates this — and then some. Cardinal Dolan has said this. Pope Francis said it in his Tuesday-morning homily in Rome. Across the street from Penn Station in midtown Manhattan stands St. Francis of Assisi Church, where there is a sign outside that says the same. St. Francis’s has Eucharistic Adoration from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday, and there is Confession there too, for many hours throughout the day. Be reconciled to Christ. That is the invitation. Fallen away, lost, miserable, confused, trying. Come to the healing waters of eternal life.

Yes, we are all sinners in desperate need of God's Mercy.  We must all repent of the evil we participate in.

St Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, says to the Jewish people in Solomon's Portico: Repent therefore, that your sins may be forgiven. (Acts 3:19).

That saying is no less pertinent today than it was in 33 AD.

Cardinal George and a tale of a real and a fake church

In his column in the Diocesan Paper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.,
writes of a tale of two churches.

The tale involves the history of the Church in this country, and some recent developments.

A Sample:

This church, a hierarchical communion, continued through history, living among different peoples and cultures, filled with sinners, but always guided in the essentials of her life and teaching by the Holy Spirit. She called herself “Catholic” because her purpose was to preach a universal faith and a universal morality, encompassing all peoples and cultures. This claim often invited conflict with the ruling classes of many countries. About 1,800 years into her often stormy history, this church found herself as a very small group in a new country in Eastern North America that promised to respect all religions because the State would not be confessional; it would not try to play the role of a religion.

This church knew that it was far from socially acceptable in this new country. One of the reasons the country was established was to protest the king of England’s permitting the public celebration of the Catholic Mass on the soil of the British Empire in the newly conquered Catholic territories of Canada. He had betrayed his coronation oath to combat Catholicism, defined as “America’s greatest enemy,” and protect Protestantism, bringing the pure religion of the colonists into danger and giving them the moral right to revolt and reject his rule.

You'll want to read it in its' entirety.

http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2014/0907/cardinal.aspx

Kathryn Lopez -- Beacons in the Dark

From an article on Townhall, Kathryn Lopez writes about the killing of Steven Sotloff,
in the light of a talk given by Fr. Paul Murray, an Irish Dominican.

A sample:

Fr. Murray talked, among other things, about the dangers of relativism. While it appears "apparently sane and humane," and "identified in the popular mind with such fine and necessary things as tolerance and affirmation, openness and freedom," Fr. Murray said, relativism, despite its quiet air of inevitable reason, leaves us "disarmed just at the moment when we should be armed," unable to successfully respond to challenges to faith.

"Surely, now is the time for us to hold fast to our Catholic faith and joyfully proclaim it," he said, adding that that is exactly what Catholic studies programs exist to help people do.


You will probably want to read the whole column.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput and a lesson in priorities

Saw this by the archbishop of Philadelphia about the HHS mandate(for Sterilization contraceptives and abortifacient coverage under ObamaCare) and the extermination of religious minorities in the middle east.  Here is a sample from the archbishop.

The extermination of religious minorities in the Middle East — what Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan calls “attempted genocide” — has so far drawn a very different response.

How should we as Catholics respond? We can start by realizing that a discomfort about dealing with religious liberty issues abroad has been part of the culture of America’s foreign policy bureaucracy for a long time, despite the 1998 law. Our current national leadership has simply made it worse. As much as we love our country — and Catholics have proven that love again and again in public service and in combat — our primary loyalty as Catholics is to Jesus Christ, to the Church as our community of faith and to our fellow Christians. They come first; and if in our hearts we don’t place them first, then we need to take a hard look at what we mean when we say we’re “Catholic.”
 

It is well worth reading.  Read it all.  A lesson in priorities

Unity vs. Division

I recently visited my daughter’s family, and we went to the Zoo.

My son-in-law wore a tee shirt with a quotation from Harvey Milk on the back and a supposed mathematical equation on the front saying that unity was greater than division.

I’ve been thinking about an example to show that the assertion is seriously confused.

________________________________________________________________

Consider a large, very large, chamber with knee deep water coated with a flammable substance. I’ve been thinking olive oil, since lamps have been made using it since ancient times. However, olive oil lacks the volatility, the vapor pressure one would expect from kerosene, or gasoline. The advantage is that olive oil smells pleasant, and isn’t toxic.

Back to our very large chamber filled with knee deep water coated with a thick layer of this pleasant, flammable substance.

In this chamber all the people of the world live. No one can remember ever living in any other circumstance. The world is dark, and the people like the oil they are standing in. Some like it to the point of coating themselves with it, and others around them as well.

From above, a gondola is lowered with a middle aged man, 33 years of age. The gondola does not reach the surface of the knee deep water covered with the olive oil. In fact no one can get into the gondola without the help of someone else boosting them up.

The man gets out of the gondola, and begins to talk with the residents. A few respond to their encounter with him, and he boosts them up, so they can get in the gondola. Once there, he cleans all the oil off of them, so that they’re clean.

He chooses twelve and sending them out by two’s, he and they go into the knee deep water and oil and engage the people still living in the chamber in conversation, telling them that they can get in the gondola and be clean too.

Those who respond are brought back to the gondola, boosted up into it and have the oil cleaned off of them.

There is a ladder that extends from the gondola up through the ceiling of the chamber, into the heavens apparently, and those who have been cleaned of the oil climb the ladder, while some return to the people still wandering about in the oil covered water.

They say to those in the water "you don’t need to stay in this place. It’s dangerous, you’ll burn."

Some in the water like the olive oil very much; they go about slathering the olive oil on other people in the chamber telling them how wonderful it is to be coated with the pleasantly smelling oil.

When they see the people in the gondola, who are clean, and those among the people who have re-entered the oil coated water to tell those who remained of the dangers they live in, the people who love the smell and feel of the olive oil become enraged.

They speak of the virtue of unity, that everyone should find joy in being coated in the oil and that those who are in the gondola are divisive and haters.

But I ask you, since those covered in the oil are going to be burned, is dividing the people so that some of them can be saved, less than the unity where all will burn eternally?

All men are called to the salvation that is in Christ, and God provides sufficient Grace for every man to be saved from the eternal fire. Will you embrace that salvation or will you degrade those who call you out of the fire?

White's 20 movies and their meanings

Movies of the Last Decade

Armond White had two articles today on National Review Online this morning dealing with movies and a break point for the culture a decode ago.  The first "The Year the Culture Broke" pointed to two movies and stated "All entertainment now reflects our political division."

The second, "Across the Ungreat Divide," lists 20 movies that "effectively destroyed art, social unity, and spiritual confidence. They constitute a corrupt, carelessly politicized canon."

In reading his list of these movies I noted that a few of them have strong characteristics of Christianity, or speak to or about the church. 

White --  2) The Dark Knight (2008) used the Batman myth to undermine heroism, overturn social mores, and embrace anarchy.

It seemed to me that The Dark Knight dealt with the dispute between anarchy and order.  In the end the dark knight takes upon himself the guilt that justly belongs on another, Harvey Dent.  I saw here a reflection of Christ taking the just punishment our sins deserve upon himself.  The Dark Knight didn't die to save Harvey, but he had to run because it was necessary for the authorities to chase him, so that Harvey's good name could be saved.  The consequences of this deception are realized in the movie's sequel, The Dark Knight Rises.

It is true that Heath Ledger's character, Joker, personifies anarchy, and the accolades Ledger received for his portrayal tended to embrace anarchy.  But, the Joker was not the protagonist, nor was he victorious in the end.  His view of the people of Gotham was debunked with the scene involving the ferries.

White -- 3) Ocean’s Twelve (2004) — Steven Soderbergh salutes land of the greedy and home of the depraved in a reboot franchise sequel, scoffing at the post-War conviction of Sinatra’s Rat Pack original.

In this film I saw a story about the Son of Man and his relationship to the Church. At the close of the film, Brad Pitt's character, Rusty Ryan, leads Catherine Zeta-Jones' character,  Isabel Lahiri to her father, whom she has had almost no relationship with since childhood.  This is the story of the Son-of-Man who like Tobiah leads his bride home to meet his blind father, Tobit.  Isabel, an image of the Church, is led home to her father who is God the Father, by her bridegroom, the Christ.

White -- 5) Wall-E (2008) — Nihilism made cute for children of all ages who know nothing about cultural history or how to sustain it.

Though this film is the "Bambi" of environmentalism, I saw in this movie a part of the story of the Church.  The church is represented by Eve as well as the ship, the Axiom.  Eve is sent to look for plant life on a desolate earth.  She doesn't find it.  However, a simple robot named Wall-E, whose job it is to clean up the mess left behind finds growing plant life, but does not know how significant it is.  He, in the process of showing Eve his greatest treasures, shows her the plant.  This causes an automatic response in Eve, and she is reclaimed by the Axiom to bring the object of her search to the Captain.

Wall-E follows.  He is like a bull in a china shop once on the Axiom producing a rag tag group of broken robots that follow him.  He and Eve are labeled rogue robots and are hunted by the authorities.  The autopilot of the Axiom, which runs the ship on behalf of the Captain, has received secret orders to NEVER return to Earth because the automated attempt to clean up the mess, has failed.  Wall-E and Eve bring the good news of the growing plant to the Captain in spite of the autopilot.  Wall-E is seriously damaged in this endeavor.

The Captain asserts his authority and launches the ship back to earth, in order to save the earth.  During the closing credits, the initial plant is shown as the basis for a growing tree and a rebuilding of life on the earth.

The tree is an image of the Church, as is Eve, as is the Axiom.   Who does Wall-E represent?