Newman Conference

Portsmouth Abbey School of Portsmouth Rhode Island is hosting it's second annual conference featuring several experts in the thought of Newman 10-13 June. Looks interesting.

The timing is good because the Holy Father is scheduled to beatify the Cardinal later in the year in England.

Stone Throwing for Dummies

A Guide to Assessing Child Abuse

In response to the media and society's enthusiasm to rid the world of pedophilia I think the Church should begin a mandatory child abuse survey (for adults) and hotline in every parish to identify all of the predators in our society, to expose them and to expose all of the covering up in our neighborhoods, in our schools and in every social context, not just in Church. It is hypocritical and self-serving for us just to look for victims of priestly abuse when we all know that the problem is in every family (e.g. internet pornography), neighborhood, school and anywhere young people are.



PROTECTING THE SEXUAL INTEGRITY OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN

1. Are you male or female?

2. How old were you when you were first sexually stimulated.

3. What was the context? Alone. Pornography. Other person. Same sex. Opposite sex. Multiple other persons.

4. Where did it take place?

5. If pornography, what was the medium (e.g. magazine, internet, TV) and who provided it? e.g. relative, friend, etc.

6. How many times (or how often) did you participate in sexual activity before your eighteenth birthday? Give the type act(s) and roughly the number of times (or frequency) and whether others were involved in each encounter and your and their ages at the time, and their status or relationship to you (e.g. relative, teacher, doctor, non-Catholic clergyman [indicate denomination], Catholic clergyman, a person personally unknown to you), and their gender.

7. Have you yourself ever sexually stimulated and/or had genital contact with a minor (even while you yourself were under 18)?
A. If so, how old were you and how old was the minor involved?
B. What was the gender of the minor?
C. What was the type of act and how many times (or how frequently) did you do it?

8. Have you reported any of this abuse to the authorities?
If so, have the proper measures been taken to protect the children involved or to redress the wrong?

9. What is your level of same-sex attraction? (Circle only one please)
None. Exclusively attracted to the opposite sex; same sex has never aroused me.
Mild. I have been sexually aroused by the same sex on some rare occasions and never taken the initiative in a same sex encounter.
Medium. I have had same sex arousal on various occasions and continue to occasionally experience it and have enjoyed same sex encounters on some rare occasions even taking the initiative in some of those encounters.
Strong. I have frequent same sex arousal and have frequently aroused others of the same sex.
Exclusively same-sex. I have been and continue to be very much aroused only by the same sex and have never had any inclination toward the opposite sex.

10. What is your assessment of the society’s treatment of the Catholic Church over the societal problem of child sexual abuse? Unfair. Fair. Somewhat exaggerated. Grossly exaggerated.

Relativism is Tyranny

NEW YORK TIMES MARKS POPE'S ANNIVERSARY

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way yesterday's New York Times marked the 5th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI:

The news story is remarkable, even for the New York Times. Readers learn that the sexual abuse scandal is "growing" and is "quickly defining his papacy." Furthermore, the pope has "alienated Muslims, Jews, Anglicans and even many Roman Catholics."

In point of fact, the scandal ended about a quarter century ago: the timeline when most of the abuse took place was the mid-60s to the mid-80s. The only thing "growing" is coverage of abuse cases extending back a half-century, something the Times has contributed to mightily. To say his papacy is being defined by old cases may be the narrative that suits the Times, but it most certainly is not shared by fair-minded observers.

Yes, many Muslims were alienated by the pope's brutal honesty in calling out Islam for its subordination of reason, and indeed many proved his point by resorting to violence. The heroics of Pope Pius XII in saving as many as 860,000 Jews during the Holocaust is a stunning record, especially as compared to the editorial silence that the Times exhibited in addressing the Shoah at the time. It is not correct, as the Times says, that the pope attempted "to rehabilitate a Holocaust-denying bishop," rather he attempted to reconcile a break-away Catholic group which unfortunately had as one of its members a Holocaust-denying bishop. Anglicans unhappy with the pope's outreach to the disaffected in their ranks represent an embarrassing chapter for them, not Catholics. And it is hardly surprising that those Catholics who intensely disliked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger are, for the most part, the same ones who reject Pope Benedict XVI.

The pope can be justly criticized for missteps in governance and communications, but to paint him as a divider is a cruel caricature being promoted to hurt him, in particular, and the Church, in general.

Contact public editor Clark Hoyt: www.public@nytimes.com

For more from The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: http://www.catholicleague.org/

Pedophilia Negligence

There is quite a bit of rhetoric about protecting young people in the context of Church neglect. However, Church neglect is a small part of the widespread neglect in the entire society, the government, the public education system, the media and law enforcement, to address and correct the epidemic problem of the corruption of our youth.

It is, by now, common knowledge that there are adult predators in every youth hangout in America "cruising" and looking for young people, and very little is done to stop or even curb that trend.

A great part of the problem is that we turn a blind eye to consensual sex among minors themselves (which itself is child abuse!). Once you approve sexual immorality (in any form) and even promote it, the boundaries (including age boundaries) necessarily get blurred. For example, what is the difference in maturity between a girl on her eighteenth birthday and the same girl the day before! And the man in the world who most iconically promotes and defends her virtue, at every age, is Pope Benedict XVI.

The institution which is young people's greatest defence is the Catholic Church because she promotes the only real sanctuary of purity--the family--built on the chastity of true marriage. Increasingly the family is defended and promoted exclusively by the Catholic Church and the celibate priests and virginal nuns we so love to malign. It takes a holy marriage (i.e. a family) to raise and defend a virgin! All the courts and journalists in the world will never achieve that!

Vatican Blog

Did you know that the Vatican has a daily blog service? It is called Vatican Information Service.
I have added it to my blog list!

The Nuclear Family

A family is the marriage (permanent and faithful) of one man and one woman and the children of their holy love. Any human altering of the God-given structure of that fundamental and irreducible society destroys the very nature of the family and therefore of all of society, which is based on it. That is why the family is called the basic cell of society.

It takes a marriage, not a village, to raise a child. Where marriage is missing no village and no society can adequately supply the resulting deficiency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family

True Feminism

The Most Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest woman in the history of the world for her virtue and also for her popularity.

For her virtue because she is the perfect and perpetual Virgin and she is the perfect Mother of the perfect Son (God Himself).

For her popularity in that she is the best known and most praised and also the most controversial woman ever.

All of this agrees with the words announced by the Archangel Gabriel: "Blessed are you among women" (Luke 1:28) and prophesied by Our Blessed Mother herself when she said: "Behold, all generations shall call me blessed." (Luke 1:49)

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women..!"

To honor the Ever Virgin Mother of God, (e.g. saying the Hail Mary with reverence and devotion, and frequently) is the only true feminism.

Prayer for Poland

Today at 12:00 Noon Poland held "two minutes of silence" in honor of the tragic death of its president and other dignitaries in Russia yesterday morning, so the BBC reports.

It just occurred to me that a Catholic nation mourning the tragic death of it's citizens and leaders, while en route to commemorate the communist slaughter of tens of thousands of it's citizens, and on the liturgical fifth anniversary of the glorious death of the Venerable Pope John Paul II, on the eve of the Feast of the Divine Mercy, the Octave of the glorious resurrection of the Lord, there is much more that just the secularized "two minutes of silence." The Church of Poland is certainly offering every Mass in that land this Divine Mercy Sunday in mourning, and the midday Regina Coeli and their daily Rosary.

The BBC needs to realize that the prayer of Poland to the living and true God Jesus Christ is all but silent today. Believers pray when non-believers call for silence!

The Definition of the True Gentleman

Here is the classical definition of a gentleman by Cardinal John Henry Newman. It is certainly informed by Aristotle's description of the magnanimous man in the Nichomachean Ethics.


"...[I]t is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more iinvolved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candour, consideration, indulgence: he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province and its limits. If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; he honours the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civilization

"Not that he may not hold a religion too, in his own way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case his religion is one of imagination and sentiment; it is the embodiment of those ideas of the sublime, majestic and beautiful, without which there can be no large philosophy. Sometimes he acknowledges the being of God, sometimes he invests an unknown principle or quality with the attributes of perfection. And this deduction of his reason, or creation of his fancy, he makes the occasion of such excellent thoughts, and the starting-point of so varied and systematic a teaching, that he even seems like a disciple of Christianity itself. From the very accuracy and steadiness of his logical powers, he is able to see what sentiments are consistent in those who hold any religious doctrine at all, and he appears to others to feel and to hold a whole circle of theological truths, which exist in his mind no otherwise than as a number of deductions.

"Such are some of the lineaments of the ethical character, which the cultivated intellect will form, apart from religious principle. They are seen within the pale of the Church and without it, in holy men, and in profligate; they form the beau-ideal of the world; they partly assist and partly distort the development of the Catholic. They may subserve the education of a St. Francis de Sales or a Cardinal Pole; they may be the limits of contemplation of a Shaftesbury or a Gibbon. Basil and Julian were fellow-students at the schools of Athens; and one became the Saint and Doctor of the Church, the other her scoffing and relentless foe." (From The Idea of a University, 1852 [Discourse VIII, 10, {pp. 208-211 of 1893 edition}])

Ratzinger and Newman

The thought of the Venerable (and soon to be beatified [19 September 2010 in Coventry, England by Pope Benedict) John Henry Cardinal Newman was formative in the thought of the young seminarian Joseph Ratzinger. He attests to this in his published memoirs Milestones, p. 43 and in his 28 April 1990 presentation on the centenary of the death of the Cardinal.

"In January 1946, when I began my study of theology in the Seminary in Freising which had finally reopened after the confusion of the war, an older student was assigned as prefect to our group, who had begun to work on a dissertation on Newman's theology of conscience even before the beginning of the war. In all the years of his military service he had not lost sight of this theme, which he now turned to with new enthusiasm and energy.

"We were soon bonded by a personal friendship, wholly centred on the great problems of philosophy and theology. Of course, Newman was always present. Alfred Läpple - the name of the above-mentioned prefect - published his dissertation in 1952 with the title: Der Einzelne in der Kirche (The Individual in the Church).

"For us at that time, Newman's teaching on conscience became an important foundation for theological personalism, which was drawing us all in its sway. Our image of the human being as well as our image of the Church was permeated by this point of departure."

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19900428_ratzinger-newman_en.html

Every Man Belongs to Mary

"Woman, behold thy son." Jn. 19:27 With these words Christ crucified gives "the disciple" to Mary. In other words, the Mother of Jesus has a right to the reverence and honor (sonship) of each of His disciples. Our Lord, leaving her a childless widow (Saint Joseph probably having already left this world), entrusts His mother to the care of His faithful follower! To follow Christ is to care for Mary. The true follower of Christ must defend, promote, nurture and cherish Marian devotion, Christ commissioned it.

He first gives the disciple to Mary as her son. Christ from the cross gives first His beloved disciple to Mary--her property--"Woman, behold your son." So that every disciple of Christ, every human person (since all are called to be disciples of Christ) belongs to Mary. She has rights over us.

Even before we call her mother, she calls us son. This gives primacy to Mary, to her initiative, in our relationship with her. Because we are her sons she is our mother: because Christ gives us to her, she is ours).

Thus, every man is duty bound to Mary, we are her sons; therefore we must love and honor her as our mother: "Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold thy mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home." Mary has every right to our love and care in our families and in our homes.

Father Maximilian Heinrich Heim

In my continued search for experts in the thought of Pope Benedict I came across this Austrian Cistercian who is the Prior of the Kloster Stiepel

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Stiepel.

Here are the websites for his monastery http://kloster-stiepel.org/ and the Heiligenkreuz mother house http://stift-heiligenkreuz.org/ from which that monastery was founded.

On his monastery website there is an icon for Austrian Radio Maria http://radiomaria.at/ which is great German Catholic radio programming.

Father Heim has a book on Pope Benedict's ecclesiology published by Ignatius Press (2007) called Life in the Church and Living Theology.

Episcopal Domineering

Below is an article reporting on the present day ubiquitous authoritarianism of the diocesan bishop trampling the rights of parish priests. Aside from the merits of this particular case, Pastors' term limits are contrary to the universal norm of the Church: Parochus stabilitate gaudeat oportet ideoque ad tempus indefinitum nominetur... (It is necessary that the pastor enjoy stability, and therefore be appointed for an indeterminate period of time...Canon 522).

Term limits are allowed only if the bishops' conference allows them, but the ideal remains: that each pastor be permanent so that he can accomplish his mission as the father of the parish family under God, under the Pope and under the bishop.

It is hard to find any parish where the pastor or any priest is the longest reigning member of the parish staff, usually with disastrous results for the parish, like a family without a father, and contradicting one of the essential elements of fatherhood which is long-lived permanence. Fathers are like oaks, they should take a long time to grow and seldom if ever move!

There is another law which is often ignored in the appointment of pastors which says that in order to be validly appointed pastor of a parish the priest "must be outstanding in sound doctrine and uprightness of character, endowed with zeal for souls and other virtues, and possessed of those qualities which by universal law are required for the care of the parish in question." (Canon 521, par. 2) This principle alone would annul many of our present day pastors' pastorship. Many, because of heretical doctrine and/or immoral character are not fit for the office they hold.


Monday, March 29, 2010
The Thiberville saga continues
The blog Osservatore Vaticano reports that Cardinal Hummes of the Congregation of the Clergy has rejected -- with unusual speed -- the appeal lodged by the Abbe Francis Michel against his sudden dismissal from the curacy of the parish of Thiberville (and of several other parishes) by his liberal bishop on January 3, 2010.

One wonders to what extent this decision will negatively impact on the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, not to speak of its effect on tradition-minded parish or assistant priests.

The following is a quick translation of the Osservatore Vaticano article, courtesy of our friend Natasja Hoven of Katolsk Observator:




Everybody knows the very famous Thiberville case, in the diocese of Évreux. This diocese is one of the most ill-fated in France. After Mgr Gaillot and Mgr David, the not so genial Mgr Nourrichard administers the collapse of a land which in times past was Christian, a land where churches are closed one after the other, catechism is deserted, vocations discouraged and finances dried up.

In this desert, a priest, abbé Francis Michel, maintains the most flourishing of parishes, Thiberville. This parish priest, not coming from a traditionalist milieu but profoundly traditionalist, in anticipation had applied the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum since many years back. In his church the masses are celebrated according to the form in our days called “the extraordinary form” and also masses according to the “ordinary” form, but in a manner in conformity with the wishes of Pope Benedict XVI, that is, turned towards the Lord.

And what was the result? Thiberville and the 14 parishes which abbé Michel is serving formed the most living Catholic ensemble and the one with the greatest missionary zeal of the diocese of Évreux : the church of Thiberville is full at all the masses, assuring the service “in turn” for the other churches ( desserte « tournante » des autres églises), there we find sound catechism, active participation of the faithful, abundance of ministrants, confraternities, all the churches magnificently restored, funerals celebrated by the parish priest himself … Those parishes where the communion of all the Catholics are lived in an exemplary way are a model for the application of the pope’s wish.

This is exactly what the “spirit of Vatican II”, with 40 years of delay, is not able to stand. At the end of December of last year, Mgr Nourrichard informed the parish priest … that his parish was abolished and brought together with a “parish ensemble”. By this procedure, the parish of Thiberville would no more have a parish priest of its own, as he was “withdrawn”.

We all know what followed: On January 3rd the bishop went to Thiberville with his collaborators in order to announce “with distress” the decision “beyond recall”. However he met with the revolt of the whole canton, which refused the end of the Catholic faith in this corner of the Norman land. A church full to the brim, on the first row of which were present the mayor and the county councilor together with the whole municipal council, acclaimed their parish priest and hindered the bishop to announce that he was suppressing the parish and its parish priest.

An appeal was then (twice) presented within the prescribed delay, before the Congregation for the clergy. The case was overwhelming for the bishop. It is necessary to understand that such an appeal is a delaying appeal: things remain as they are as long as the Roman decision does not intervene. In similar cases the Roman decision usually comes very late, when emotions have calmed down.

On the other hand everybody knows that Rome strongly disapproves of parish regroupings that are legally indefinable, this being a problem which retains the keen interest of the Roman canonists. Since the Council the rights of the parish priest have diminished. The traditional principal of the irremovability of the parish priest remaining (as in the popular saying: “the parish priest is the pope of the parish”). But the bishops’ conferences of each country have received the faculty of disregarding this right. This is how it is in France: the parish priests are from now on nominated "ad tempus", which is something that notably puts off balance the structure of the traditional diocesan life: the post-conciliar French bishop actually has much more power over his priests through the nomination “game” than the traditional bishop had. Moreover, it frequently happens that bishops do not nominate parish priests but only “parish administrators”, which makes the priests even more dependent on the diocesan administration.

In this case there was thus now the situation where there was a slow process while the Congregation of the Clergy examined the case, and thus there was a recovering of calm and common sense told that the Catholic life would continue in the parishes of abbé Michel and that the unjust – legally – and disastrous – pastorally – decision of the bishop could be nothing but reversed.

And then it was exactly the opposite that happened! The appeal that was presented in the end of February received a reply less than a month later …: On March 26th abbé Michel was informed … that his appeal was turned down and purely and simply rejected! The decision is signed by Cardinal Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for the clergy: the parish of Thiberville does not exist anymore and thus has no parish priest.

Even in Rome one is dumbfounded. But everybody understands that the pressure exercised by the French bishops’ conference has had an uncommon force. The most eminent French instances have made it a question of principle. And they have won.

At least as yet. This decision is certainly going to be subject to appeal, and other means may be used. There is a rumor already on this matter. I will tell you more about it as soon as possible …

However it remains that for the good people of God, the negative sign that has been given is catastrophic.

posted by Carlos Antonio Palad at 4:41 PM 31 comments

Sanctity in Love and Life

Holy Matrimony is to love what Baptism is to life, the elevation and the sanctification thereof. Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the Church and by the power of the Holy Spirit changes the profane into sacred realities.

It is analogous to the consecration of bread and wine at Holy Mass, with the difference that the bread and wine are completely and substantially changed into the reality of the living God Himself: the Flesh and Blood of Christ our Lord.

In baptism and in marriage the human persons remain, but they are changed and made good, in the former in life and in the latter in love.

Be Ye Perfect

Every man needs to strive for perfection. The world needs great men. Enough with the mediocre. That is the essence of Christianity. Christ is the perfect man. Perfect God was needed to make perfect man! Christ is both, perfect God and perfect man. Because of Him men can be perfect, by His mercy.

"If good men were better there would be less bad [men]". Saint John Chrysostom

To make the world a better place and to make men better the only real way is to change yourself. Convert!

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.

"During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.

"Socrates taught us: Know thyself!

"Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: [let him who is without sin be the one to throw the first stone at her the Lord says to those about to stone to death the woman caught in adultery] it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't."
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 168.

His holiness Pope Benedict XVI takes up this same theme in his encyclical on hope, Spe salvi, when he speaks of divine judgment after death.

"With death, our life-choice becomes definitive--our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1033-1032) On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbors--people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are. (Cf. ibid., 1023-1029)

"Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people--we may suppose--there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil--much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul...the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love." The purification of that type of soul which is good and not perfect at death is Purgatory.
Spe salve, 46-47

"You therefore are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt. 5:48)

Furthering the Black Genocide

"Health insurance for all," covering contraception and abortion for all, will translate as further decimating the poor populations of the nation's citizens, a disproportionate amount of which are black. Thank God the poor illegal immigrant will be as yet unaffected, having to still pay for their abortions out of pocket. May the poor Catholic faithful save our nation and our world!


http://plinthos.blogspot.com/2010/02/afro-american-genocide.html

Purity is Necessary

One of the messages from yesterday's Gospel (5th Sunday of Lent [year C]) of the woman caught in adultery and forgiven with the advice "go and sin no more" is the essential Christian virtue of chastity. We could put it this way.



To be pure you need Jesus...and...

To be with Jesus you need to be pure.



He gives the grace; His love is the sufficient motor force for chastity. And purity of heart and life is necessary to see God.

Priestly Priorities

An old wise and faithful priest told me (a middle-age priest) that his good old pastor had told him:

"Buy a new breviary and re-plate your chalice (or buy a new one) every time you buy a new car."

I thought of this wise priestly advice in prioritizing in our spending (divine worship being our first love), on retreat at a Franciscan hermitage where the chalice badly needed re-plating. I guess the middle-age mendicant priest hermit neither ever heard the advice or has ever yet bought a new car! I don't judge him, but it does give me a point for self-examination on how I might spend more, much more, the maximum, everything!, on God. We can all do more in this area. Giving the best and most precious to God is a testimony and a buttress to faith.

God's Look Alike

Today's Mass reading from Hosea 6:16 speaks of the urgent need for real divine intimacy saying "Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord," not superficially but with the greatest depths.

In scripture "knowing" and "getting to know" is an image for the marital act, marital intimacy. "To know the Lord" is to be intimate with Him, to go deep with Him, to have Him on the inside and to get inside Him, to feel Him, to want to feel Him , to struggle to be one flesh with Him. Below is my translation of Saint John of the Cross' description of the likeness in beauty resulting from divine intimacy.

"'We shall see ourselves in Your beauty.' Through the exercise of [divine intimacy] we shall see ourselves in Your beauty; that is, that we shall be likened in beauty, and that Your beauty be such that, looking at one and the other, it shall look like You in Your beauty and shall see itself in Your beauty, which shall be transforming myself in Your beauty; and thus I shall see You in Your beauty and You me in Your beauty; and You shall see You in me in Your beauty, and I shall see me in You in Your beauty; and thus I shall be like You in Your beauty and You shall be like me in Your beauty, my beauty shall be Your beauty and Your beauty my beauty, and I shall be You in Your beauty, and You shall be me in Your beauty, because Your beauty itself shall be my beauty. This is the adoption of the sons of God, who will truly say to God what the Son Himself said through Saint John (17:10) to the Eternal Father Omnia mea tua sunt, et tua mea sunt; which means: 'Father, all things Mine are Yours and all things Yours are Mine'; He by essence, being the natural Son, we by participation, being adoptive sons, thus He said it not only for Himself, He Who is the Head, but for all the mystical body, which is the Church."

The Spiritual Canticle (A) 35 Song, 5 (BAC p. 548)

Therefore, in the highest level of human intimacy with God you shall see yourself in Him and He shall see you in Himself. And you shall see Him in you and He also shall see Himself in you!!! And that seeing will be a reflection of the metaphysical, you will see it because it will be so in fact. The reality of you being in Him and He in you shall be manifest in the shared divine beauty.