Where Mary was the Church is.

Where Mary was the Church is.


Where was Mary? She stood at the foot of the cross while her son paid the price of sin for all humanity.


I have stood alongside Mary at the foot of the cross on Calvary. I have seen the Lord upon the cross and I have participated in his crucifixion.


The latest polls tell us that seven out of ten people who call themselves Catholic no longer believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Even sadder is the number of clergy who no longer believe in the real presence.


For them, the Mass has ceased to be the Sacrifice and has become a service, a memorial, or a recreation. It is just something you have to go do on Sunday, if you can get yourself out of bed to go. It is something your parents drag you to. It is something your aging grandmother believes in like magic. Oh if she could only get with the times. For far too many Mass has become anything but what it truly is.


We are a modern, enlightened people. We believe in science and everything we see on Oprah. We have lost sense of the supernatural around us. Obi Won said it best, “It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds us all together.” Ok, maybe old Ben wasn’t talking about the supernatural but he was accurate in describing the supernatural.


The supernatural is real even if we cannot see it. If more people could see the reality of the Mass we would not have enough room in our Churches to fit everyone who wanted to be present for it. Mass acts as a conduit between time, space, the natural, and the supernatural. It is called the Sacrifice of the Mass for that very reason. Through the Mass we are transported to the foot of the cross on Calvary to stand with Mary, John, and all of the angels and saints throughout all time to be part of the single greatest act of love that will ever take place. This is not a re-creation. It is not symbolism. It is not metaphor. It is reality. It is a reality veiled to our human eyes because to see it removes all doubt. It ceases to be a matter of faith and becomes a matter of knowledge.


Remember this at Mass when you are sitting there and find yourself bored, mind adrift to meaningless things. Remember this when you are not fully present because you are thinking about that Facebook post or something a family member did to upset you. Remember this when you show up to Mass in flip flops, shorts, and a T-shirt. You are not only in the presence of all God’s creation, his angels and saints, and all of your loved ones who preceded you. You are in the presence of Christ upon the cross who died to redeem all humanity. In that moment where heaven touches earth upon the altar Jesus comes off of his cross and becomes fully present in the Eucharistic bread offered as our sacrifice to God.


Seven out of ten practicing Catholics no longer believe what they cannot see before them. As for me, I will stand with Mother Mary on Calvary, first weeping, then rejoicing as the resurrected Lord comes to me and says, “Take and eat. This is my body which was given up for you.”

Called to Love

I had just landed at O’Hare, returning from a recent business trip. I thought I would grab a coffee for my bus ride home so I headed to the Starbucks by baggage claim. There I was approached by a young lady. She wasn’t very attractive. She had a strong, square jaw and an Adam’s apple. It really came as no surprise when the first thing she said to me was, “So, I just came out as trans to my family and my parents didn’t take it well.”


The thing that was most apparent to me was the pain behind her eyes. I sensed a good soul, but one in great turmoil. The people who should have loved her the most rejected her as an abomination, as so many in our society do. She was kicked out of her home and was trying to make her way to live with an aunt and uncle in Colorado. She had next to nothing. She was alone and she was terrified.

At that moment I was presented with a choice. I could avoid this person the best I could. I could wave her off, get my coffee, and rush off to catch my bus. I could be the priest or the Levite and walk on the other side of the road to avoid a beaten traveler. I am sure she was used to people reacting to her that way.


Or, I could be the Samaritan and show compassion to someone in need. The key word in that sentence is “someone”. This was a person, a person with dignity. Dignity is God’s thumbprint on the human soul. Then I thought of the woman at the well. Did Jesus avoid her or did her treat her with dignity?


I don’t normally carry cash so I couldn’t help with her getting through the day or getting that flight to Colorado. But I could buy her some coffee and something to eat. More importantly I could treat her like a person and not as something repulsive.


“Lord, use me as an instrument of your will. Use me as an empty vessel, a lantern, to carry the light of your love to those still in darkness.” This is part of my prayers after receiving the Eucharist. The Lord was going to take me to task on this.


I took the time to have a conversation with her. She got to share some of her sorrow. She gave me a hug and we went our separate ways. I would like to think we both profited from the exchange. My biggest mistake was in not remembering my cardinal rule. I didn’t ask her for her name. Our names define us. It is important to ask for a name. It is one way in which we recognize a person’s dignity and recognize them as a person.


Transgenderism is the hot topic these days. Those who support it consider it this generation’s civil rights fight. Those who oppose it find it silly in the least and downright repugnant, worthy of death, at the extreme. As I sat waiting for my bus I questioned why anyone would choose to put themselves through this. Then, in his usual way, the Holy Spirit offered an answer. They are simply trying to feel whole in the only way they know how.


People with gender dysphoria absolutely believe that they are living in the wrong body. The source of these feelings does not really matter. They are presented with a multitude of choices, none easy to live with; deny it, hide it, accept it, embrace it, attempt to rectify it, flaunt it, bear it, or end it. Which one can truly make them happy? Which one can make them feel whole? What if none of them can?


As Christians we believe that we all have crosses that we are to bear. We would see gender dysphoria as one such cross. There is a belief that one should embrace this cross and stay true to God’s commandments and the natural law. That is impossible for even those with the strongest faith to do let alone someone who has no faith or has never had a personal relationship with Jesus. Each responds to the cross they are given in the ways they know how. For some the only way they can find is to try to become that which they think they are.


Jesus did not command me to love only the perfect, sinless people. He did not command me to love only those who sin the way I do. He commanded me to love everyone in the way God loves me.

It is often said that the Church loves the sinner but hates the sin. It is true that all sin is bad. We are also told not to judge the sinner but only the sin. Judgment of the person is reserved to God alone. Judgment of the sin can only be done with full knowledge of all of the circumstances of the action. Who among us can claim to have such knowledge?


The Pharisees had knowledge that the woman had committed adultery. She had been caught in the act. The Law was clear on what her punishment had to be; death. Yet the just judge gave her mercy and compassion. Only he knew all the circumstances. Only he knew her heart.


How often do we become like the Pharisees and judge a person, like the woman at the airport, based solely on what we see? I do not know the circumstances of her life that led her to make the decisions she has made. I know neither her heart nor where the road she is on leads. Only the just judge knows these things. He did not relegate judgment of that person to me. He has only commanded me to love her has he has loved me.


Try to remember this when you look upon someone who has same-sex attraction, who is transgendered, a pedophile, or who is different than you. God has given them dignity. He loves them and he wants us to love them as well. When you can see Jesus dwelling in another first and foremost is when you can truly begin to love a person without reserve. That is the only thing that can begin to heal this broken world in which we live.

Let's get to the heart of the matter.

Since its founding circa 33AD the Catholic Church has taught that consecrated bread and wine become the actual body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is the real presence of Christ to his bride, the Church. The Church teaches that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith.

It is disturbing then that every poll taken points out that fewer and fewer Catholics still believe in the real presence. This is especially evident in the growing number of empty seats in the pews during Sunday Mass. If people truly believed that Jesus was actually in Church and that he had brought with him eternal life in paradise for those who believe in him we would have lines out the door. This is the belief the growing Church in Africa has where it is not uncommon to find people walking eight miles in all sorts of weather and danger just to receive him.

There have been a number of “public” revelations that I believe has fulfilled our understanding of the real presence.

In 1996 a consecrated host was found discarded in the back of a Church in Buenos Aries, Argentina. The priest put it in a dish of water to dissolve and put that in the tabernacle. After a few days the host started changing form instead of dissolving. The Arch Bishop of Buenos Aries ordered an investigation. The bishop at the time was Arch Bishop Jorge Bergolio. Most people recognize him today as Pope Francis.

An independent investigator was called in and he took samples to more than one laboratory for analysis. None of the labs were told what the samples were of at the beginning of the investigation. All labs, the lab in Buenos Aries, the one in California, and the lab in New York, all reported the same thing. The sample they received was heart tissue. The scientist who did the study on the sample in New York was a well known pathologist who could tell a lot about how a person died based upon the condition of the heart. He reported that the person whose sample he was given had been greatly tortured and that the man had still been alive when the sample was taken.

What amazed the scientist was that the sample he examined was still alive. When they compared notes from the other labs they found the same conclusions and notes that the sample was alive. These investigations began over two years after the host was placed in the tabernacle after finding it discarded.

God will not force us to believe something if we do not want to. Every miracle comes with the ability to disbelieve. Those who disbelieve this call it a hoax and nothing more than a sham put on by a priest who was trying to become famous or gain money for his parish. But this miracle is not alone. There are many like it. We have the miracle of Lanciano, Italy that happened in the 8^th century which can still be viewed today. Then there is the Eucharistic miracle of Sokolka, Poland. In that miracle the host started to turn to flesh and was shown to be inseparably joined to the bread of the host. There are many, many more of these miracles on record.

The interesting thing about all of these miracles is that when analyzed they all are found to be the same thing – heart tissue from the left ventricle. The left ventricle is the life giving ventricle. It is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to the entire body.

If these miracles are indeed true then we get much more than just the real presence when we receive the Eucharist. Church teaching is correct, we do receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus but we receive him in the fullest manner possible. I am not just holding Jesus when I hold the Eucharist. I am holding his very heart in my hands. We have such a loving God that he will allow us to hold his very heart in our hands.

If the thought of that does not rock you to your core then it may be better for you to join one of the many thousands of non-Catholic Christian churches where communion is nothing more than a symbol or remembrance of the Last Supper. It is far better to eat mere bread while remembering Jesus than to take into your body the very heart of Jesus thinking he is nothing more than bread.

The Art of Distraction

As I sit down to pray the Liturgy of the Hours my mind is flooded with things of a critical nature that need my immediate attention. There is this great, incredible urge to put down my breviary and attend to those things first. I try to focus and press on, trying not to speed up my reading as to get done hastily.

About a half of the way through I start to get some peace of mind. The words start to flow and I become engrossed in the prayers. As I begin the concluding prayer I am awash in contentment, as if I had just finished running a marathon or have just finished a really good meal.

Now, on to those things that just couldn’t wait. I sit and think and for the life of me I can’t remember what they were. They were so important just fifteen minutes ago and now I have no clue.

This is the game I play with the devil several times a day. He doesn’t want me to pray so he fills my head with every excuse he can think of to keep me from doing it. Sadly, some days he is successful. Some days I get to the end of the day and realize that I have not spent this time with the Lord and I instantly feel like that fat kid who decides to eat an entire banana cream pie instead of going to the gym.

Then there is the guilt, which comes from him as well. It is not bad to feel guilt when we have done something wrong as long as we know that Jesus is always ready to forgive us if only we ask with an honest heart.

“Lord, I let the devil beat me today. Please forgive me and fill me with your strength as not to do the same thing tomorrow.”

That is the way the devil works. God speaks to us in a still, small voice that we have to listen for to hear. Knowing this, the devil will fill our day with as many distractions as he possibly can so we will miss God’s voice when it comes to us. I find no coincidence that as we have become more connected through our computers and cell phones that we have also become a less godly society. God is no longer in our government, schools, and places of work. He is barely in our families or our churches.

The more connected we become through social media the less connected we actually are with our neighbor. The things that used to bring us together in celebration now are experienced as likes on a webpage. We are losing touch with each other.

God created the world in six days. On the seventh day he rested. Did he have to rest because he was tired? Absolutely not. God rested to teach us the importance of rest. He set one day aside so that we could set everything aside for one day and enter into his rest. It is the day that we are called to worship him and spend time communing with one another. Of course, these days that day looks just like the rest. The devil fills that day with as much distraction as the others to keep us away from God.

Only you can put down the cell phone, the TV, the sports, or anything else occupying your time on that day. The devil surely won’t stop the distractions for you. It has to be a conscious action on your part to ignore him.  Take the time to listen for that still, small voice. God has something very important for you to hear.

To Lead or not to Lead?

It is not my place to disagree with any Pope when it comes to faith or morals so what follows is a theological disagreement with the recent change that has been made to “Lord’s Prayer”.

Pope Francis has recently approved a change to a phrase in the “Lord’s Prayer”. He changed the phrase, “do not lead us into temptation” to “do not let us fall into temptation”. His reasoning behind that is that God would never lead us into to temptation and he would never tempt us himself. The problem here, it seems, is that scripture does not seem to support that idea.

The first place to start is by looking at the prayer itself in the language it was written. Did we misinterpret the words as we have done in other places? In this case the answer is no. The original Greek does say, “do not lead us into temptation”. So we do have the right translation.

So, the next question we have to answer is if the Pope is correct in stating that God would never lead us into temptation. Does scripture support this idea? Again, the answer is no. Let us remember that the word temptation is synonymous with the word trial. A trial and a temptation are the same thing, at least scripturally.

The three synoptic gospels are very clear when they describe the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.    

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

– Matthew 4:1

                “Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.” – Mark 1:12

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil.” – Luke 4:1

The spirit in these passages is the Holy Spirit, or God. So it is very clear that God does lead us into temptation. He is not the one doing the tempting. If God did the tempting it would be entrapment for he knows exactly where we would fail.

In fact scripture is full of references of God testing man. God tested the Israelites for forty years in the desert –

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.” – Exodus 16: 4

“You shall remember all the ways which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” – Deuteronomy 8:2

Why would God lead us to temptation? It isn’t for his sake. God knows our weaknesses. He knows where we will sin if tried. God allows us to be tested so that we know where we are weak. We cannot grow in holiness if we do not know where we need help. When you purify gold you heat the metal until it melts and then the impurities can be removed. Temptation and trial do much the same thing to us. It allows our impurities to surface so we can ask God to help us purge them from ourselves. When we say no to temptation we strengthen our free will and it becomes easier to resist the devil. Temptation is only a bad thing for those of weak wills who cannot resist. Resisting a temptation is the spiritual equivalent of going to the gym and running on the treadmill. The more you do it the easier it becomes. This is also the same reason we fast.

My real rub to this change is that the Pope has changed the words of Jesus. As stated at the beginning of this harangue, three of the four Gospel writers give us the text of this prayer as handed down by Jesus himself. In the original language used, Greek, they use the words, “lead us not into temptation”.  In fact every translation used by the early Church, to my knowledge, wrote the words that way. If Jesus wanted us to say, “let us not fall into temptation” I think he would have used those words somewhere.

For any Pope to change the words Jesus gave us to teach a theological opinion that is not scriptural I believe to be in error. Now, Pope Francis did not do this on his own. He only approved what has been in the works for almost twenty years. I cannot claim to know the mind of the Magisterium so I look forward to reading the commentaries that are sure to come.

Fulfilling the Law

Jim took a job as an assembler in a furniture factory. His job was to put together a set of drawers that would be sold in the factory outlet center. The factory gave him a work area and all of the parts he needed to put together the set of drawers. Included was a set of instructions on how they wanted the drawers put together. Jim assembled the first set of drawers. It failed QA for many reasons. He tried again and again but the work of his hands was rejected. Over and over his work failed inspection.

Jim’s manager recommended to the owner of the company to let Jim go. He just couldn’t understand the instructions he was given and therefore could not do the job he was hired to do. The owner was a master carpenter who started the business from nothing. He decided that instead of letting Jim go he himself would spend a couple days working with Jim.

The next three days the owner spent with Jim showing him how to build the dresser. He walked him through each step showing him how the step was to be completed. At the end of the three days Jim not only knew how to build the dresser but he no longer needed the instructions. His work was of the highest quality. Jim moved through the ranks of the factory until he himself became a master carpenter.

We translate the word Torah to The Law. In our modern thinking we view law as a set of rules that we are to follow to the letter. The Pharisees viewed the Law in much the same way. They made it possible to be Jewish without the Temple by strict observance of the precepts of Torah. But if we look closer at the original words used a better understanding of Torah would be Instruction. Halakha (Jewish) Law literally means “the way in which to walk” or how to live a righteous life. Torah was given to man as an instruction on how to have a right relationship with God and with each other.

Like Jim, the Jewish people had problems understanding exactly what the instruction was telling them to do. Christians believe that Jesus is the Torah incarnate, the Law living among us. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. Jesus came to show us how to live out the Law the way that it was meant to be followed.

The thing that is missing in the legalistic way the Jewish people apply the law is agape, sacrificial love. St. Paul tells us that even if we have faith to move mountains if we do not have love we have nothing. Sacrificial love is the key to understanding the Law. We were given the Law by Love and through Love so we could love God and one another perfectly. The Ten Commandments are not simply a list of “thou shall nots”. The Ten Commandments defines the marriage covenant between God to his people and to his people with each other. The Ten Commandments tell us how to love one another.

Take for example the commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” The legalistic interpretation of this would be not to take another person’s life from them. When this command is lived to its fullest it takes on a much deeper meaning. When you are living this command through love it is not enough just to not harm someone. The fulfillment of this command is to love and care for everyone you have contact with. We are called to serve each other’s needs to the best of our ability. We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widow and orphan. We are to do so without concern for a person’s age, color, sex, or their location on a map. We are called to care without regard to the cost. We are called to love our best friend and our greatest enemy equally. This is what it means not to kill.

When we look at the Law through legalistic eyes we are often asking ourselves what the minimum we can do and still be within the Law. When we live the Law fulfilled as Jesus taught us to do we will always ask, “What more can I do?” No matter how much we give there is always more we can do. The work of Jesus, of sacrificial love, will never be complete on this side of heaven.

With every commandment given to us by God, whether that is the Ten Commandments or the two simplified commandments give to us by Jesus, ask yourself, “What more can I give?” Then let God direct your heart.

Full Circle

In ancient Rome when a baby was born it would be placed at the feet of the father or who the mother wanted the father to be. The man would look over the baby and if he wanted it he would pick it up. That baby would forever be his. If the father did not want the baby it would be abandoned. Most of the time the baby would be left in a conspicuous place so that someone would find it and give it a home. Babies were left on the door steps of the rich or left by farms in hope the farm owner would take the baby in and eventually make it a farm hand.

It was not uncommon that someone would rescue the abandoned babies. Many times these babies would die due to exposure. Babies who were born with defects would often be thrown out with the trash. When the Christians came to Rome they found this practice barbaric. They began to actively seek out these abandoned babies to give them a chance at life. They established orphanages to care for them.

In many ways this world has come full circle on those times. Instead of the father it is now the mother who determines a baby’s worth. If a mother wants the new life growing inside her it is fully protected by the law from the earliest stages. If the mother does not want the life she is free to have it killed and removed from within her. Some places in the United States have gone as far as to allow that baby to be killed even as late as post birth. Instead of going straight to the compost heap we now pick over the corpses of these murder human beings to harvest any part that we can use for another purpose. What remains is then disposed of with less concern than throwing out an empty plastic water bottle.

The blood of these innocents scream out to God for revenge. Justice is drawing near.

Dignity is the thumbprint of God on the human soul. God is the author of life and therefore the only one with authority to take life. Every great evil that has happened throughout human history began when dignity was ignored and a group of people were viewed as less than human.

Today, this dignity is being ignored at both ends of human life. We live in an age where it is thought to be merciful, compassionate, and responsible to end the lives of the unwanted unborn and to grant death with dignity to the sick and elderly.

As Christians we are called to recognize the dignity God has given to every human being and to know that the authority to take life belongs to God alone. Defend the dignity of every human person from conception to natural death.

RadTrads

In the Catholic faith, a derogatory word for "radical traditionalist." This generally involves the following things: 

1) Rejection of Vatican II
2) Rejection of the non-Latin mass
3) Rejection of the authority of the current bishops and pope

 One of the common arguments used in almost every discussion about the things we do as Catholics is, “That is the way it was done in the early Church.” The argument is meant to convey that things were better in the early Church, more holy, and closer to God. The problem with that argument is that we have very short memories. To some five hundred years ago was the early Church. In a Church that is two thousand years old what is considered early?

On September 11, 2001 nineteen terrorists enacted the greatest act of evil against homeland America. That, of course, was the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. using hijacked commercial jet aircraft. Of these people, who knows more about the events that happened that day –

1: A person who was present in the towers and escaped the tragedy.

2: One of the many first responders who worked so valiantly to save lives.

3: Someone watching the events unfold from the window of their apartment nearby.

4: Anyone reading this blog entry today.

 It is obvious that we know more about the events of September 11^th today than anyone who was present when it happened. Time and distance have given us that ability. The same is true for our Church today. When an artist creates a masterpiece, whether it be a painting, a sculpture, or some other piece of art, they do not begin with the finished product and work backwards. They begin with a thought and the raw materials. They begin with an empty canvas, piece of marble, or slab of clay. Then they work forward, one small step at a time, until the visions in their minds become a reality before our eyes.

One of Michelangelo’s greatest creations is the Statue of David that he carved out of a solid block of marble over seventeen feet tall. When asked how he could create such a masterpiece he said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

The same is true about God’s masterpiece of the Church. It was not complete when Christ went back to the Father on Pentecost. In fact, the Church was barely more than a blank canvas on that day. God has been perfecting his masterpiece ever since. This will not be complete until Jesus returns to usher in the new age.

Those who wish to return to the ways things were only wish to do so in part. No one, not even the most staunch radical traditionalist, wishes to return completely to the way the early Church was. They are very much like “cafeteria Catholics” in the way they pick and choose the parts of the early Church they wish to go back to. I will offer just one example of this.

In the early Church you could go to confession only once in your life. Your sins were forgiven when you were baptized and then you got only one other opportunity to receive the healing sacrament of reconciliation. This led people, like the emperor Constantine, to wait to receive either of these Sacraments on their death beds. For some waiting meant missing the opportunity to receive the Sacraments and they died in a state of mortal sin.

In the early Church confession was not made in secret to a priest. Confession was public. You stood in front of the entire congregation and confessed your sins. Absolution came from the priest but brought severe penance with it. You were thrown out of your parish for a period sometimes lasting for years. You had to don sackcloth and ashes and sit at the steps of the Church to beg for forgiveness. Readmission to the Church was a slow and gradual process. What did this lead to? Did people leave the Church in droves over it? No, they didn’t but there were many sins that weren’t reconciled until the final moments of someone’s life.

No one I have ever talked to has expressed the desire to return to the ways of this early Church. If the argument that the early Church was more holy and closer to God shouldn’t we want to return to this form of confession as well?

God is still perfecting his masterpiece. He is doing so in the way he started to in the very creation of the Church. Jesus chose twelve men to be the leaders of his Church. He chose one to be head of the others. These were the original bishops and pope. To them he gave his authority over the entire Church. These men ordained additional men to assist them in this task. Then they ordained replacements as their days grew to an end. This is our Magisterium. God will continue to perfect his Church through them.

Each and every single member of the Mastierium throughout all time has been broken and sinful men. The perfection of the Church does not ride on them. The perfection of the Church comes through Christ alone through these men. We have Jesus’ promises that even the gates of Hell would not conquer the Church and that he will be with us always until the end of time. Broken men at the helm cannot destroy the Church. Some will say that they have tried to do so for two thousand years and yet the Church remains.

Trust in Jesus to be faithful to his promise. Fear not the direction the Church appears to be going in. Christ is still very much in charge. Treasure and enjoy this masterpiece that he is creating for all of us.