FLO

Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes.

One meaning of this phrase is that the more you do something the easier it is to get bored in doing it. Often this leads to going through the actions without the thought. You are on autopilot. How many times have I driven a stretch of road and couldn’t remember if the light was green or red? Did I blow off a red light?

Celebrating Mass and serving at the altar is not immune to this, especially when you are doing so every day and sometimes two or three times a day. Once you become bored with something you can become lackadaisical in doing it. One of our spirituality teachers taught us a way to help safeguard us from falling into this trap. It is a principle called FLO.

Say (serve) every Mass as if it were your First Mass.

Say (serve) every Mass as if it were your Last Mass.

Say (serve) every Mass as if it were your Only Mass.

As I thought about this principle I realized that it applies just as much to the laity as it does to the clergy. You can never know what is in someone’s heart or what is going through their mind but if you watch the communion lines there seems to be a number of people on autopilot. When you are distributing the Eucharist you can see in many eyes that they are just not present in the moment.

Receiving the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the single greatest thing we as humans can ever do. Jesus makes himself fully present to us even when some of us aren’t fully present to ourselves.  Then there are those who commonly receive the Eucharist as if they are in line at a fast food restaurant. They grab the Eucharist and quickly swallow as they hurry towards the door. There will be some that will be in their cars and down the street before the last person in line receives our Lord. They have given little thought to who they just asked to dwell within them. They have gotten their ticket punched and are on to better things. Better things?

Let us apply the FLO principle to receiving the Eucharist as well.

Receive the Eucharist as if it were your first time. Think back to the day that you were a first communicant or, if you are a convert, the Easter Sunday you became a full member of the Church of Christ. Remember how awesome it felt to receive the Lord, something up until that point you could only watch. I remember being full of joy unable to hold back the tears.

Receive the Eucharist is if it were your last time. Viaticum, food for the journey. This will be the last time you will be able to receive the Lord before standing before him in the judgment. He gives you himself as nourishment for the journey home. The last thing you want to do is grab and go. You want to spend as much time with him here as possible.

Receive the Eucharist as if it will be the only time you will ever receive him. This is the first and last times combined. If you could only receive the Eucharist just once in your life would you run for the door?

Each and every time we receive the Eucharist we should practice FLO. Be fully present to him and realize just who you are accepting into your body. Cherish him as if he will be the last food you will ever consume. Take time to prepare yourself properly and be in a state of grace so you can receive all the grace the Sacrament has to offer. Take time to be with him and invite him into your life. The rest of your life will wait for this moment to be over. There is nothing more important that this moment. Be present to him.

Lord, I welcome you into my life. I ask you to live in me and dwell within me. Let the light of your love fill me completely and burn out all of the darkness within me. Use me as an empty vessel to carry the light of your love to those still in darkness. When they look upon your light let them see only you through me. Make me an icon of your love. I love you Lord. Thank you for giving me your body and blood.

Puting Disorder in Perspective

In the movie “I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” there is a scene where the LGBT community is having a costume party. Gathered outside is a group of religious zealots who are protesting the event. They shout, “Gay is not the way” and “Homosexuality is an abomination”. You see how badly these words hurt the party goers and you can empathize with their struggle. 

Art often imitates life and this is no exception. Religious groups all over the world constantly protest and scream hatred towards these people because spewing hate is the easiest way to convert someone. The Westboro Baptist Church has captured headlines in recent years by protesting at the funerals of service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in war because of the government’s inclusion of people with same sex attraction in our military. This seems like such a long way from Jesus’ command to love our enemies. And therein lays the problem. The LGBT community is viewed as the enemy instead of people of God who are struggling with a disordered attraction.

A friend, a fallen away Catholic whose son has same sex attraction, recently asked me why the Catholic Church hates homosexuals. He left the Church because his son was not accepted there. He was open to listen and so we had a chat.

God created all things and all things were created good. All things were created by Love, through love, for love, and to love. God’s design is perfect. Through the envy of the devil sin came into the world and with it disorder. The second law of thermodynamics states that the state of entropy will always increase over time. In other words order always tends towards disorder. The natural course, if left unchecked, will always move towards chaos.

God created a perfect order, the way things are supposed to work. Anything that is contrary to this order is a disorder. God’s order for the family is one man, one woman, married for life, producing children. Anything that is contrary to that is a disorder. Same sex attraction is a disorder. At the same time so are fruitless-by-choice marriages, divorce, cohabitation, and casual sex. In God’s eyes these disorders are the same, disorders. There are those who think they speak for God who believe some disorders are worse than others. With all things being equal, a disorder is not a sin. Sin comes into play in the way we respond to a disorder.

It has been said that the Catholic Church hates the sin but loves the sinner. The problem comes in when we, who profess to be Catholic, mistake a disorder for a sin. We hate the disorder. But the truth of the matter is that we are all sinners therefore we all suffer from some type of disorder. The non-hypocritical thing then would be to all hate each other. That’s exactly what the devil wants us to do and exactly why Jesus commanded us to love one another has he loves us.

The Catholic Church does not hate those who suffer from same sex attraction. She does not view that disorder as being fundamentally worse than any other disorder. People who suffer with this disorder have the same dignity that every other child of God has and they demand the same respect due to this dignity. The Church is a safe haven for those who suffer with this or any other disorder. It is the only place one can find forgiveness and healing for responding to a disorder in the wrong way, a sinful way. As members of the body of Christ we should be standing on the steps of the Church welcoming every person with open arms. Instead, we are viewed as being locked arm in arm chanting “Gay is not the way. Repent or burn in Hell!”

This does not mean that the Church can or will accept a LGBT lifestyle as an acceptable lifestyle. At the same time friends with benefits, premarital sex, divorce and remarriage, or just casual sex is just as unacceptable. We don’t shun parishioners who are shacking up playing married and we shouldn’t be shunning people who are suffering with same sex attraction.

Love one another as I have loved you. Imagine what a world would look like if more of us could do just that.

Definitive Proof of God…kind of.

A priest and an atheist were walking down the beach one morning. They came across a Rolex laying in the sand. The atheist looked at the priest and asked, “How do you think this got here.”

After a moment of deep thought the priest replied. “After hundreds of millions of years of the waves churning up the shore it just formed there for us to find.”

“Do you know how absurd that sounds?” asked the atheist.

The priest just smiled. “Yes, I do.”

I find atheism to be greatly absurd. Many atheists tend to be scientifically oriented and tell us we need to be open minded to possibility but absolutely shut down the possibility of a supreme being, an intelligent designer, a creator, let’s call him…God. Atheist scientists reject God because they cannot prove he exists yet most of what they do propose is considered theory because it also cannot be definitively proven either. The proof that Judeo-Christian religions give for the existence of God is just as sound as some of the evidence science gives for some of their theories. So let’s start at the beginning and see where this takes us.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and darkness covered creation. Then God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.

The universe emerged from an extremely dense singularity. There was an explosion of light and matter that has been expanding ever since. This is known as the “Big Bang Theory” and is widely accepted in scientific circles to be the most plausible cause for the beginning of life as we know it. Ironically, this theory was put forth by the Belgian Catholic priest, astronomer, and professor of physics Reverend Georges Lemaître. Notice that the two statements do not directly conflict with one another. It is more like two different witnesses explaining what they saw in their own way.

Then God separated the heaven from the earth and the earth was formed amid the ocean.

Science tells us that the Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago, approximately one-third the age of the universe, by accretion from the solar nebula. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the ocean, but the early atmosphere contained almost no oxygen. Still no direct conflict…

Then God created the trees and the animals, birds of the air, and fish of the sea. Last God created man.

The Hadean eon represents the time before a reliable (fossil) record of life; it began with the formation of the planet and ended 4.0 billion years ago. The following Archean and Proterozoic eons produced the beginnings of life on Earth and its earliest evolution. The succeeding eon is the Phanerozoic, divided into three eras: the Palaeozoic, an era of arthropods, fishes, and the first life on land; the Mesozoic, which spanned the rise, reign, and climactic extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs; and the Cenozoic, which saw the rise of mammals. Recognizable humans emerged at most 2 million years ago, a vanishingly small period on the geological scale. Seems that science and the Bible tend to be in general agreement here.

So science tells us that everything just exploded into being from seemingly nothingness. Then gases gathered together and began to cool forming the stars and the planets and the other celestial objects. One of those planets, earth, was first a gas, then cooled to a molten solid. During that time all of the different atoms began to form and then those atoms gathered together to form molecules. Time, pressure, and heat all combined in just the right order and amount that one of these molecules began alive and was the first living single celled creature. That creature reproduced and reproduced and reproduced and eventually evolved to a new creature. This process continued until the earth was teaming with life and eventually, through evolution, man came into being.

But there is no supreme being, no intelligent designer, no God who put all of this into motion. Nature did all of this on its own. Here’s my rub with all of that…

If we were going to build anything, a house, a bridge, a giant sky scraper, the first thing we do is to create a blueprint. The blueprint tells the builder how to build the object. Life is no different. Life has a blueprint. The blueprint of life on earth is deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. DNA is an acid, a protein structure that instructs a cell on what it is to do, replicate, live. All life on this planet contains DNA and DNA does not naturally exist outside of the cell structure. DNA itself is not alive. 

We have been able to map out the human DNA genome. It is complex and genius in its structure. Like our Rolex on the beach it could not have just formed on its own and then gone on to create the cell in which it lived. It would be more plausible to say that a fetus is capable of forming its mother around it and then move on with its development.

Scientists generally agree that the genome points to an intelligent designer but atheist scientists refuse to make the jump to calling that designer God.

I was once on a flight with a woman who asked me what I thought was between the particles of an atom. I did not have an answer as I have never seen a scientific one. She said that she thought that it was God’s love and that it was his love that keeps the atom together. At the time I thought the woman was a bit bananas but the further my formation goes the more I know that she was absolutely correct.

DNA is God’s fingerprint on every single living cell. For me, it is definitive proof of the existence of God. God is love and love can never be forced. For love to exist there has to be a choice. God has given us the choice to believe in him or not and has given us enough wiggle room to logically argue ourselves out of belief.

Angels definitely know of God’s existence. For them their only choice is to serve or to revolt. There is no middle ground. Man was offered love over choice. This was the true envy of the devil.

Tug of War

Often, when we think of virtue and vice we often think of them as being in a tug of war against one another. For every vice there is the opposite virtue. The opposite of cowardice is courage. The opposite of vanity is humility. In reality, a virtue is not the opposite of a vice and a virtue never competes against a vice. There is no competition when it comes to the good things of God.

Instead, what we truly have are vices competing against one another. Cowardice is not the opposite of courage, foolhardiness is. To rush in without thought or regard is just as deadly as being paralyzed with fear resulting in inaction. In this regard a virtue is actually the midway point between two competing vices.

Take gluttony for example. Overindulgence of anything, be it food or some other pleasure, is always a bad thing. Total abstinence of food or pleasure is just as deadly. Sitting right there in the middle is the virtue of temperance.  Virtues lead to eternal happiness where vices always lead to unhappiness, destruction, and death.

The Catholic Church lists out seven deadly sins alongside the seven corresponding virtues. But, if a virtue is actually the midpoint between vices there are actually fourteen deadly vices. Our fallen world lives in excess so there isn’t much stress put upon the vices of deficiency. Ironically, the vices of deficiency are most commonly seen by religious trying to live their faith in excess. The seven virtues and competing vices are:

   

Vice of Excess	Virtue	Vice of Deficiency
Lust	Chastity	Prudishness
Gluttony	Temperance	Deficiency
Greed	Generosity	Wastefulness
Sloth	Diligence	Workaholism
Wrath	Meekness	Servility
Envy	Brotherly Love	Pusillanimity
Pride	Humility	Self Loathing

In the game of tug of war for our souls the devil is pulling on both ends of the same rope. It makes no difference to him which side wins. Trying to live out the virtues keeps you morally balanced and keeps the devil in check.

Just For You

I have seen the majesty of a Pacific Ocean night

Four thousand miles from the nearest shore

Bathed in the beauty of the cosmos

The stars in the heavens more numerous

Than the grains of sand upon the beach

The brilliance of the spectacle above

Mirrored by the green glowing bioluminescence

That surrounded me adrift upon a tranquil sea 

I have stood in the shadow of the mighty mountains

As the last fleeting light of day colored the crags above

Marvelous shades of crimson, orange, and purple

As the day lost hold of the sky and slipping gently

Into the ink dark abyss of the night

Then bursting forth above the snow capped peaks

The king to rule the night – a full moon

Bathing all with its tender ashen blush 

I have walked among the giants of this earth

Mighty sequoias standing taller that most 

Of the buildings man has dared erect

Coming into their grandeur from a tiny seed

And not through the vain work of our hands 

I have awoke with the forest as the first tendrils of light

Announced the defeat of night and heralded the approaching morn

Welcoming the day with the woodland creatures , deer, raccoons, and squirrels

Busily going about their day with little regard to my presence in this place

Leaping joyfully from ground to bush to tree

Without the slightest care in the world 

I know how Adam must have felt as he opened his eyes

For the first time to behold the world God’s hand just created

I have felt the same awe and fear that must have filled him that morning

I have come to realize just how tiny I am when I stand 

In the splendor of God’s great creation

          On the ocean,

          In the brilliance of the cosmos,

          In the shadow of the mountain,

          Or among the creatures of the forest

Only there, in the silence of my heart, does God speak

“I made all of this just for you.”

On the Tongue or in the Hand? How about in your Heart instead.

While away recently at a silent retreat with my brothers in diaconate formation I had the privilege to sit across from this painting of Mother Mary by Kathy Lawrence during our meals in the dining hall. With each meal I found myself drawn even deeper into the painting. I am not one who likes images of our Lord. Not that there is anything wrong with them or because I think they are idolatry. I don’t like them because all of them are someone else’s idea of what Jesus must have looked like. When we train our minds to see Jesus in a particular image we will often fail to see him as he is in those who surround us.

Jesus cannot be in him, he is a dirty homeless bum. Jesus cannot be in him, he is a ruthless Muslim refugee only trying to do me harm. Jesus cannot be in her, she is an illegal Mexican who has come to steal my life away from me. Jesus cannot be in her, that is Mrs. Prisker for God sake!

I will say that this is now my favorite image of Jesus. Thank you Kathy Lawrence.

We live in an age where there is a debate on the proper way we should receive our Lord when we present ourselves before the Holy Eucharist. There are those who will tell you that we are not worthy to hold the Eucharist in our hands. They are dirty and not sanctified by Holy Orders. There are those who will tell you that it is more reverent to receive him on our tongues. And there are those who will tell you that there are particles of Jesus that fall to the ground when we transfer him hand to hand. These are all valid arguments, to a point, and I accept all of them. But, I am still a ‘receive in the hand’ guy. Why is that so stuck in me?

This painting cemented it all in my head. We have such a humble and loving God that when he decided to dwell among us as one of us he came, not as a great and rich king or a mighty military leader, but as a defenseless child, a child who was incapable of doing even the simplest of things. He had to held. He had to be cuddled. He had to be changed, fed, and cared for. He had to be taught how to feed himself, use the bathroom, and even speak. The Lord, the creator of existence itself, became like us in all things except sin.

I am not worthy to receive you Lord, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. My unworthiness does not trump his willingness. When I receive in the hand I get to do something that our Mother Mary got to do every day of his (Jesus) life – hold the creator of all things. I have a God who is so incredibly great and loving that he will not only dwell within me but allow me to hold him in the palm of my hand. That is truly awesome. My heart cannot contain the love I have. It must flow out in service to others.

On the tongue or in the hand? Neither Lord. I receive you in my heart.

The Nature of Sin

I am more than fifty pounds overweight. I have suffered with high blood pressure and gout since I was about eighteen. I am also a type two diabetic and have the beginning stages of neuropathy and vision problems related to that. I have heart disease and had a quintuple bypass at the age of forty-five. My heart was over 90% blocked. Needless to say, I am in poor shape. Sadly, I am not alone. Over 40% of the American population is in the same boat and that number grows every day. As the American lifestyle spreads throughout the world so do our health problems.

Yet, there is hope. I have found a cure. I have found a pill that reverses every disease that I suffer with. It has been medically proven to end obesity, reverse diabetes and heart disease, and even clear my blocked arteries. There are doctors screaming at the top of their lungs trying to get the news out. People in my predicament either haven’t heard, don’t believe, or choose not to accept the cure. My brother in the diaconate told me about it and I have seen this miracle work in his life. I’ve done my research. I am a believer.

What is this miracle pill you may ask? Well, it’s not really a pill. It is a whole foods, plant based diet that concentrates on starch as the primary fuel source. Whoa, hang on a minute. That’s code for vegan. Well, yes and no. A WFPB diet does qualify as a vegan diet but many vegan diets don’t qualify as a WFPB diet. It’s a square-rectangle sort of thing.

Now, I know that I have lost over half the people reading this blog. There is just no way they are willing to look at giving up eating meat and oil and fat even it is the key to having a long healthy life. They are unwilling to listen even if it means saving their life. They want their hamburgers and bacon and steaks more than they want a healthy life. The desire for something pleasurable today outweighs life in abundance tomorrow.

And that is exactly the nature of sin. Christ offers us life in abundance if we love him. What is the proof of love?

                “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” – John 14:15

So, we show our love for Jesus by following his teachings. Only the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth. Jesus passed his teachings down to his Disciples, who passed them on to their replacements, continually through time, until we end up with the Pope and the Magisterium. The Catholic Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth today (1 Timothy 3:15). When people disagree with the Catholic Church when it comes to faith or morals they do not disagree with the Church, they disagree with Jesus.

We sin, that is, we choose to disobey one of God’s commands for one of two reasons: desire or fear. We choose to disobey God because we desire a temporary pleasure that we are not allowed or because we fear some sort of pain or suffering. Our society is not only physically obese but we are spiritually obese as well. Our society, which once claimed to be predominantly Christian, is leaving the mainstream Christian faiths for a more “spiritual”, personal relationship with Jesus. Of course that relationship is more like the one you have with a neighbor you never talk to and only occasionally wave at if you happen to see them taking out their trash.

People claim they love Jesus yet have no desire to follow his commands because, well, they are just too restrictive. I want to sleep with anyone I please, marry whomever I desire for any amount of time I deem long enough, lie, cheat, steal, and kill offspring I am not ready to care for. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to follow the natural law and define my gender for myself solely based upon what my feelings are today. God created them man and woman in his image. Man and woman pushed God out of the picture and recreated themselves in an image of their choosing.

We are physically obese because we choose our desire to eat what we please over what we are designed to eat. We are spiritually obese because we choose to sin through desire over loving Jesus. Both types of obesity lead to death. Physical obesity leads to a poor life and mortal death. Spiritual obesity also leads to a poor life but ends with eternal death.

For some of us it takes a near death experience, like a clogged heart and a quintuple bypass, to wake us from our slumber to make the changes necessary to live. It is not too late to throw out that bacon and pick up an apple. If you are reading, this it is also not too late to start actually loving Jesus and begin following his commands. God desires obedience more than sacrifice – 1 Samuel 15. Turn to him with a contrite heart and take that first step to spiritual fitness.

A Pearl in the Making

When an irritant, such as a sharp piece of sand, works its way into an oyster it deploys a defensive mechanism where it coats the irritant with a slime-like substance called nacre. Layer after layer of this nacre is applied until the irritant is smooth and lustrous and known as a pearl. The longer this pearl remains in the oyster the larger and more beautiful it becomes. The best and most valuable pearls are formed over a very long time.

Despite God’s perfect, sacrificial love for me I am sure that I am as irritating to him as a sharp piece of sand is to an oyster. God doesn’t coat me in layers of nacre but he is forming me none the less. I know I am not the man I was three years ago when I was accepted into aspirancy to be ordained a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. I am nowhere near the man I was five years ago when this journey began. I also know that I am nowhere close to the man I will be in two years, God willing, when I am ordained nor the man I will be each year after that. Formation is something that lasts right up to the beginning of purgatory.

I was about as far away from the man I am today that I could have been. I am a former fleet sailor, a salty dog, with sea water in my veins. I was a Gunner’s Mate, a dealer of death and destruction. I ate like a sailor, drank like a sailor, played like a sailor, and have a mouth of a sailor. This is something only a sailor truly understands but the stereotype wasn’t far off base back then. The nineteen year old me would have probably hated the me of today.

Reading scripture I see that I am in good company. King David would have been right at home on a warship. He was about as flawed a person as they come. But he was also a man after God’s own heart. How could a man as flawed as David be favored by God? He knew when to be humble and honestly repent. True repentance is in very short supply today. Today’s culture is more like King Saul who thought he knew what was better for God than God did.

And then we have Saint Paul. Before he went by his gentile name of Paul he was known by his Jewish name of Saul. Saul was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was even more Jewish than the great Jewish teacher of the law, Gamaliel. Paul’s formation began with a blinding light and Jesus asking why Paul was persecuting him. Paul went on to become the Apostle to the Gentiles and one of the greatest Christian evangelists to ever walk the planet. But he didn’t start out this way. After regaining his sight he was more or less exiled to Tarsus to undergo three years of formation.

Lord, I do not know where this road I am on is leading but I trust it is where you want me to go. Keep applying the nacre. I hope to be a pearl for you one day.

Sola, Sola, Sola

My uncle is a devout Lutheran. He loves God deeply and is on fire with the Holy Spirit. He does the good work of bringing men into a deeper love for God and to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He recently asked me why I converted to Catholicism. The simple answer is that I came to believe that the Catholic claims were truth.

Luther founded his church on three basic principles: sola fide, sola gratia, and sola scriptura. As a Catholic I believe the first two although I understand them a bit differently. The big difference between the two faiths is with sola scriptura.

Sola Fide – By Faith

The doctrine of Sola Fide says that a person is saved through faith. This is absolutely correct. One can only be saved if he or she has faith in Jesus Christ, son of the living God. Luther changed the verse in Holy Scripture that says this by adding the word “alone” to it because it was his opinion that it should have been written that way. The Lutheran belief is that one need to do nothing more than have faith and salvation will be granted. Luther believed that no sin could separate man from God and that he could commit murder or adultery a thousand times a day and that it wouldn’t matter. This has led to the common belief that all sins are already forgiven so asking forgiveness for sin is no longer necessary. It has also led to the belief that one does not have to do any “works” to prove your faith.

Catholics agree that a person is saved through faith. Without faith one cannot obtain salvation. But scripture is also very clear that sin can still separate man from God and that sins committed after the crucifixion still need to be forgiven apart from the crucifixion. For this Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He paid the price for sin but we still have to ask for that to be applied to our debt.

Think of it like this – a rich man creates a fund to pay the electric bills of everyone in his town. Catholics believe that you have to apply, or ask for, this money to be applied to your bill. Lutherans believe that your bill is automatically paid without you asking for it to be.

So, instead of believing that all we need is faith alone Catholics believe that we are saved by faith through love. Jesus said that if you love him you will follow his commands. Following his commands require works of love and obedience. Are works required for salvation? If you love Jesus and therefore are obedient to him they are.

Sola Gratia – By Grace

The doctrine of Sola Gratia says that a person is saved by grace. Again, this is absolutely correct. All salvation is granted through the grace of God and cannot be merited on our own accord. Here again Luther inserts the word “alone” to break the tie between the works that we do and the grace that we receive. No works are necessary. God will grant his grace to whoever believes in him. In reality we do the good works we do because of the grace we receive. One way to think of grace is like a supernatural glow our souls have when our wills are aligned with God’s will. When we receive God’s grace we will be doing the good works of love that he wants us to do. A good way to state the Catholic belief is:

By the grace of God, we are saved through our faith; this faith entails by its very nature, good works, always enabled by prior grace, without which this faith is dead.

Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone

Thus brings us to the probably the biggest issue that separated Catholics from non-Catholic Christians. One of Luther’s doctrines is sola scriptura or scripture alone. Catholics believe in the three legged stool of sacred Scripture, sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. Until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press c. 1440 the Christian faith was passed on orally. The common people generally did not know how to read and books were expensive. The faith was passed on by the bishops who passed on faithfully that which they had received from their bishops who received it from their bishops who received it, going back to the beginning, from the mouth of Jesus. The Magisterium is made up of the Pope (the head bishop) in union with all of the bishops. Through apostolic succession the Magisterium is the sole authority of the Catholic faith.

Sacred Tradition did not support Luther’s theology so one of the things he had to do when he broke away was throw out 1500 years of Catholic teaching so he could teach his opinion instead. He did this by instituting the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura states that we do not need sacred Tradition, we only need that which is written in the bible. So what does the bible have to say about that?

“I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. Follow what is written in Holy Scripture, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

1 Timothy 3: 14-15

Anyone familiar with this verse knows that is not what is says. The actual scripture says –

“…you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

It is not scripture that is the pillar and bulwark of the truth, it is the Church. Holy Scripture says that Holy Scripture is not the pillar of God’s truth, the Church is. Luther threw out 1500 years of the Church so he could interpret scripture to support his differing opinion. If the Church is the pillar of truth and Luther disagrees with the Church…

This is where I started to believe the Catholic claims.

God's Recital

Susan was a six year old ballerina. She worked hard for weeks and now was on stage for her first recital. She wanted nothing more than for her daddy to see her dance but he was away on business. He had hoped to make it home but with flight delays due to bad weather it didn’t look good.

Susan stood on stage with the other little girls as she scanned the audience. Her eyes desperately darted about looking for her father but he was nowhere to be found. Her heart began to sink as the music started. Then she saw his smile. He was sitting front row center. He had made it and she was filled with joy.

My older children were brought into a life of faith when they were older. It is not something they grew up with. They are now rebellious teens and question the things they have been taught. They are not sure if they believe or if they don’t or really what they believe. Mass is something they do only because it is required.

I have struggled with that. During Mass we make a few oaths that we will live for Christ and die for him if necessary. Whether we realize it or not we swear our eternal lives as part of these oaths. Yet many, including my children, don’t have the slightest clue what they are actually doing or committing their lives to. We come to watch other people sing. We take communion. We get donuts afterwards if the youngest is good. Really, there is nothing to get excited about.

There are days that this really bothers me. Why require them to go and take a half hearted oath they do not understand? There are times where I just throw up my hands and say fine – stay home. That is exactly what I did when I got confirmed. I left the church. That wasn’t God’s plan for my life and he continually beckoned for me to return home for over a decade. Eventually my ears were opened and I heard his voice. Can I trust God to do the same with my children?

Mass is the single greatest event in human history, second only to the incarnation. In each and every Mass heaven is connected to earth and we are allowed to stand at the foot of the cross during the sacrifice of our Lord with all of the angels and saints that have ever existed and who ever will. We cannot see this supernatural reality happening around us in our fallen nature but it is happening none the less. If we could see this reality there is no other place we would ever want to be. I get to make up for what is lacking in Jesus’ crucifixion. What possibly could be lacking? Quite simply, my participation. That is what Mass does. It allows me to participate in the greatest sacrifice of all time. I get to stand at the foot of the cross with Mary.

Susan so desperately wanted her father to see her dance. She worked hard trying to get the moves just right. It was something extremely important to her and she wanted to share that experience. Mass is that for me. I don’t require my children to attend Mass because I am a mean dad. I don’t have the misconception that they will suddenly be filled with the Holy Spirit and commit their lives to God. I do it because I know it is the most beautiful and important thing we can ever experience on this side of heaven and I want to share in the beauty with them. I am less, my family is less when they aren’t there with us.

Lord, I will get them there. The rest is up to you. Help me to open their hearts to your beauty and love.

Catholic Guide to the Triduum

Thanks to Jonathan Teixeira and Melissa Keating at The Focus Blog for putting this together.
http://focus.org/blog

To Have and to Hold

It was a beautiful Saturday in June. The Church was full. A man and woman stood in front of them all and exchanged their vows. The priest announced them, man and wife. When the pictures were taken the man walked out of the Church, got into a car with his girlfriend, and the two sped off to dinner together.

All of us would look upon that man with distain. How could he treat his marriage vows so flippantly? Did they actually mean anything to him? Few of us realize how much of that man is in so many of us.

One facet of a Sacrament is it is an oath to the death. In marriage, the couple exchange vows promising to be faithful to each other until the natural death of one of the two. What these vows do is to define their relationship. A Sacrament is a covenant. A covenant is an agreement where you give your full self in return of another’s full self until death of one of the two parties. This is why there is no such thing as a Catholic divorce. A contract is an exchange of goods or services for an agreed upon period of time. Far too many marriages these days are contractual instead of covenantal.

Every Sacrament has this aspect to it. In the Sacrament of Confirmation a person stands before the entire Church and makes a declaration of faith. You make vows to God that you will the live the faith faithfully. Does this sound like a marriage? Well, that is pretty much what it is. In the Sacrament you define the terms of the covenant. You are my God and I am your son or daughter. When we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation we agree to certain duties and responsibilities which include things like attending Mass every Sunday and other holy days of obligation, making a confession at least once a year, abstaining from meat on Fridays or offering another penance on Fridays outside of Lent, and following a proper fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Many who receive this Sacrament never darken the doorstep of a Church again until they want either the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony or a funeral. Others do attend Mass on occasion but put as much work into this marriage as they would if they were attending a time share meeting in Florida.

The Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist isn’t about receiving communion. Yes, we do receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ when we present ourselves at communion but this Sacrament is also a covenant. It too is an oath to the death that comes with duties and responsibilities. In it we receive our Lord but we also give ourselves to him. When we receive the Eucharist we are taking a vow to live for Jesus and die for him if necessary. How do you show Jesus you love him? It is not by doing good works or by being nice to people. You show your love for him by obeying his commands. Jesus passed his teachings on to his disciples, who passed them on to their replacements. This continued through the centuries until the teachings were handed down to the bishops who currently serve the Church today.

We live at a time when rebellion to authority is common place. There are many who receive the Eucharist who can’t wait until they get to the Narthex to tell you the ways the Catholic Church is wrong and needs to change. If Church teachings are handed down from Jesus then they aren’t disagreeing with the Church, they are disagreeing with Jesus. If you love me you will follow my commands. Sorry Jesus, you are out of date and need to change these commands to be compatible with our times.

So we look with disdain on the man who leaves his new wife at the reception and goes off with his girlfriend to dinner. We concentrate more on the splinter in his eye over the plank in ours. When you don’t see a Sacrament for what it truly is it is easy to overlook our own vows. When you start treating the Sacraments as the oaths to the death they really are you begin to see the beauty each covenant brings and draw ever nearer to Jesus.

Kumbaya

I once worked with a man who often confused words and their meanings. One night he told us a story about a man in Minnesota who lost both of his arms at the elbows in a concubine. Imagine the look of horror on our faces, and not for the reason he thought it was there.  Finally, someone asked him if he knew what a concubine was. He said yes, it was that green tractor that harvests corn.

Um, no Wade…

The truth of the matter is that words do have meanings despite how we choose to use them. You would never hear a doctor say that he was going to perform an appendectomy if he were going to remove your tonsils. You would never ask a mechanic to fix your drive shaft if your car wasn’t stopping properly.

Take the word communion as an example. From a general religious understanding it is a communal meal shared with all present. Most Christian faiths celebrate some sort of communion where all are invited to partake in the community meal representing the Last Supper. Catholics in particular are often criticized for only allowing only Catholics in a state of Grace to present themselves for communion. How is this considered communion if the entire community present is not invited to partake?

If we break the word down into its parts we get “com – union”. The deeper sense of the word means “with – union” or “in union with”. Receiving Catholic communion isn’t simply the getting the bread and wine that represents the Last Supper. Catholic communion is a Sacrament, which, when traced to its original is “an oath to the death”. When one presents himself for communion how is he taking an oath to the death?

When I present myself for communion (actually the reception of the Holy Eucharist) I am making a public statement, and renewing my oath to the death, that I am in union with the Catholic Church and all of her teachings, that I will live my life for Jesus and die for him if necessary. If I do not live up to this oath I forfeit that which I gave as collateral for this Sacrament, namely my eternal life. It would be intellectually dishonest for someone who doesn’t hold the Catholic faith to present themself to receive the Eucharist and take this oath. They are not in union with the Roman Catholic Church.

Likewise, Catholics are barred from receiving communion from another faith tradition for the exact same reason. That faith community may very well view it as nothing more than a communal meal all are invited to share but to a Catholic it is a public affirmation of being in union with that faith. We are not in union with that faith so we must not partake in that communion.

Unfortunately we live in an age where more and more Catholics stand at Mass and utter the creed, “I believe in one God…” but then only make it as far as the Narthex before they are willing to say, “But the Church is wrong on (insert any number of issues)”. There is no shortage of Catholics who say that the Church needs to change Her teachings to get with the times. You cannot possibly be in union with the Church when you believe that the Church is wrong. If you are not in union with the Church you cannot honestly take an oath to the death stating that you are.

We are required by our faith to believe and accept all of the Church’s teaching on faith and morals even if we do not understand them. When you disagree with a Church teaching you disagree with Christ directly. To say that the Church is wrong in the matters of faith and morals is to say that Jesus is wrong. To say that Jesus is wrong is to cease to be Catholic.

The Triple Lindy

Thornton Melon was a first generation son of an Italian tailor. He did poorly in school and went into his father’s line of work. Through hard work he became a giant in the corporate business world. When his son tells him that he is going to drop out of college because he was not doing well Thornton enrolls as a freshman to go through the process with his son.

One of the first classes Thornton has is in business administration where he immediately butts heads with the Dean of the business school. Dr. Barbay teaches text book business administration that no longer coincides with the reality of how business is actually run. The students pay more attention to Thornton than to the professor. The movie, of course, is Rodney Dangerfield’s 1986 comedy Back to School.

You cannot teach something to someone that you are not immersed in yourself. Reading a cook book does not make one a gourmet chef any more than owning a piano makes one a pianist. Real teachers live in the subject they teach.

Many main stream non-Catholic faith traditions hold fast to the sola scriptura belief, the belief that only the things in the bible are important. But Jesus didn’t write a book. In fact, the only time that the bible says Jesus wrote anything it was in the dirt and never seen by anyone but him. Life as a Christian probably would be so much easier if he had written down exactly what his teachings were in a way we wouldn’t argue over them. But Jesus knew that you couldn’t teach what you are not immersed in.

So Jesus didn’t write a book. Jesus lived with the Twelve. They traveled everywhere together. Jesus did the majority of his teaching, not in the temple, not in a synagogue, and not on a mountain top. Jesus did the majority of his teaching on the road as he and the Twelve walked from place to place. The Twelve were immersed at every moment with the teaching of the Master.

After Jesus ascended to heaven the Twelve did likewise and immersed their disciples into the teachings they had received. They didn’t sit down and write the New Testament. They saw no need to record, in written form, their way of life. They lived the New Testament and they brought converts to the faith by the example of their lives.

History is often lost to the sands of time if it is not recorded for posterity. Only after they realized that Jesus probably wasn’t going to come again in their lifetimes and seeing their end in sight did they start to write down their witness. But that did not change greatly how the faith was passed on. It was still passed on by immersion. For almost 1500 years the faith was handed down, not in book form, but by Sacred Tradition. The Church lived their faith. It wasn’t until the invention of the printing press in c.1440 that the concept of the bible in book form, available to the masses, was even possible.

Then in 1517, a Catholic monk revolting from the Church, threw out Sacred Tradition, and introduced the world to the concept of sola scriptura –scripture alone. This allowed him to translate the newly printed bible in a way that proof texted his opinions over the teachings that have been handed down for a millennium and a half. Even in his own lifetime scholars of Luther used his own argument of sola scriptura against him by arguing that he was also wrong and that their opinion was correct. This has spawned the nearly 40,000 different denominations of Christian faith that all teach something different as the whole truth.

The Catholic Church, both Eastern and Western, still maintain their immersion in both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, passed down to the faithful through the authoritative teaching office of the Church known as the Magisterium.

This is the “Triple Lindy” of our faith, Scripture – Tradition – Apostolic Succession.

I am Negan

In the last two seasons of the Walking Dead we have seen the survivors at Alexandria, the Kingdom, and Hilltop trying to break free from Negan and the Saviors. After a virus wipes out civilization Negan formed a group called the Saviors to restore order to a chaotic world. He requires total obedience to him and forces the communities he conquers to provide him with the majority of the food they raise and the goods they scavenge. He forces compliance through great brutality that he sees is as tragic but lovingly necessary.

We live during a time when the culture believes that real freedom is having the ability to do anything you want any time you wish to do it. Murdering a developing baby in the womb is a choice. The culture demands that we all accept a different definition of marriage and now goes as far as to tell us a person has a right to choose for themselves what biological gender they wish to be. This isn’t true freedom. It is slavery to our passions. It is slavery just as much as the survivors on the Walking Dead are slaves to Negan.

Take smoking as an example. No one takes up smoking because it is the right thing to do. People take up smoking because it gives them pleasure. They get a high when they breathe in that nicotine rich smoke. But soon they become a slave to that pleasure. They become addicted, a slave to smoking. Eventually the cigarette dictates when they must go and have a smoke, when they must leave a party, a family event, their job. Those bound by the heaviest chains find it even difficult to travel if they can’t get their fix at the required intervals. This is slavery to a passion.

We as Catholics fast during Lent to strengthen our will power. The only real freedom any of us have is the ability to say no. Yes, sin is pleasurable. It can be as addicting as smoking. Having the ability to say no to that pleasure is liberating. Come, enjoy the freedom of having sex with someone desirable and cheat on your wife. NO! Come, enjoy the freedom of cheating your neighbor out of his goods. NO! Come and abort the baby growing within you so you can continue the freedom of a care free life. NO!

No is the only real freedom we have. The “Thou shall nots” in the Ten Commandments do not restrict freedoms. They make one more free. “Thou shall not commit adultery” does not take away your freedom from having sex with anyone you find desirable. It liberates you to be able to fully love your spouse and not be a slave to animalist desire. Let a river run free and many times it will be anorexic, shallow, and lacking. Restrict its flow and the river will team with life. God gives us restrictions so that we can have life and have it more abundantly.

Fasting is an exercise that increases our ability to say No. The more we fast the easier it is for us to liberate ourselves from the chains of slavery to self pleasure and sin. This liberation is never easy. Just ask a two pack a day smoker or the survivors in the Walking Dead. The more we can say no to ourselves the easier it becomes. The craving for a cigarette may never go away but the ability to get past the craving without falling slave to it becomes easier the more we do it. No should be one of the most important words we have at our disposal. Practice using it more.