Parkland, Gun Control, and fearing the reaper

For about 6 weeks now, there has been unrelenting advocacy for gun control in the main stream media news organizations, following the school shooting in Florida.

Massive news coverage of teenagers saying they are tired of being afraid of gun violence at schools.

In response, I am reminded of a song from many years ago entitled "Don't Fear the Reaper."

It doesn't say what I intend, but the title is appropriate.

The reaper, obviously, is the grim reaper -- death.  Of which these kids are so tired of being afraid.  

This is the shroud that clouds all of mankind - death and the fear of death.  But I've noted elsewhere, nobody gets out alive.  We are all going to die, and you can't live your life consumed with fear that "today may be the day."

My dad always told me you can't let fear control your actions.  It is OK to be afraid, but don't let fear keep you from doing what's right.

St Paul tells us that whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

The greatest good is to be with Jesus, who died and rose from the dead.  Which is what Holy Week and Easter are all about:  Jesus' passion, death and resurrection.  Those who die in Christ will rise with him to eternal life.

Now St John Paul II, throughout his pontificate, encouraged us always to "be not afraid."  Don't be afraid to let Jesus into your life.  Don't be afraid to follow Jesus in your vocation.  Do not be afraid.

This is not just wishful thinking: just hoping that faith in Jesus will make a difference, or hoping that it will give us consolation.  Faith in Jesus does console us in the face of death, and faith in Jesus gives us hope.  But it does so because it is true.

Jesus, the living bread come down from heaven, the way, the truth and the life, the fullness of God's revelation of himself, and who reveals the fullness of man to man, tells us that it is his desire that we should be with him (where I am, they may also be).  

He endures his passion and death so that we might be with him always.  

In Christ, we live and move and have our being.  Through Baptism we entered into the mystical body of Christ, as through a door.  Where he has gone we hope to follow.  Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

So let us not be afraid of death, or gunmen at school.  Christ is with us, and desires that we should be with him in this life and in the life to come.

May this Pascal time draw us ever closer to him.

more while reading "Strangers"

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am reading "Strangers in a Strange Land," by Charles Chaput.  In Chapter 5, Love Among the Eloi, he writes:

Contraceptive intimacy, in contrast, is finally not "intimacy" at all.  It makes every sexual contact a disconnected point in time and an event without a future -- two people using each other as instruments for their own relief.

This strikes me as being extremely similar to a song from 1976 by Bob Seger:  Night Moves.

The lyrics include:

                 I used her, she used me 
                 and neither one cared,
                 we were getting our share 
                 practicing our night moves.

A song that encapsulates a generation's sad attempt at living in this immoral age.

We are called to so much more than "working on our night moves."  We are called to the fullness of joy.  Not a night of passion, a weekend tryst, a short lived coupling of cohabitation.  

No, we are called to an eternity of intimacy with the source of our existence.  A union we do not deserve, and without which we will remain utterly unhappy, and unsatisfied.

If we seek our fulfillment in this world we cannot be satisfied, because God has made us for himself, as St. Augustine tells us.

Let us not work on our "night moves," but on our relationship with the One who loves us more than we love ourselves.

Marana Tha.  Oh Lord, come!

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.