Priest at Seton Hall University Warns of HHS Mandate (Spanish)

Official World Youth Day 2013 Statistics: 3.7 Million!

CWN - August 05, 2013

3.7 million people attended events on July 28, the final day of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, which culminated in Pope Francis’s Sunday Mass at the waterfront of Copacabana, according to statistics released by World Youth Day’s local organizing committee.

“Copacabana never saw so many people at peace, happy and committed to building a better world,” said Archbishop Orani João Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro. “It was an event without violence, depredations. And these positive signs we saw in the youth must endure. We want these young people, driven by the World Youth Day, to remain players in a new world.”

1.2 million pilgrims attended events on July 25, 2 million on July 26, and 3.5 million on July 27.

427,000 pilgrims from 175 nations officially registered, with the largest contingents coming from Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Chile, Italy, Venezuela, France, Paraguay, Peru, and Mexico.

644 bishops, including 28 cardinals, took part in World Youth Day, as did 7,814 priests.

Toward A Female Theology: Woman is More Bitter Than Death

Pope Francis is asking for a theology of woman which he says has never been written (In Flight Journalist Interview from Brazil World Youth Day 2013).  Here is one idea which, to many, might seem new: women are dangerous! Beware!

The most mundane book in sacred scripture is Ecclesiastes.  In that most secular of sacred texts there is a clear warning against women!  Ecclesiastes 7:25-30 says

"I have surveyed all things with my mind, to know, and consider, and seek out wisdom and reason: and to know the wickedness of the fool, and the error of the imprudent:
"And I have found a woman more bitter than death, who is the hunter's snare, and her heart is a net, and her hands are bands.  He that pleaseth God shall escape from her: but he that is a sinner, shall be caught by her.
"Lo this have I found, said Ecclesiastes, weighing one thing after another, that I might find out the account,
Which yet my soul seeketh, and I have not found it.  One man among a thousand I have found, a woman among them all I have not found.
"Only this I have found, that God made man right, and he hath entangled himself with an infinity of questions. Who is the wise man? and who hath known the resolution of the word?"

A major element in any feminine theology must include this negative element that was well emphasized throughout the Sacred Scripture, the Fathers and the Scholastics but has been rejected in modern thought.

The author says that he has rarely found a good man; but a good woman, never!  Of course, this was written before the Immaculate Conception.  What is curious is how he found good men if all of the women are depraved, given the fact that all men are also born of women!

This sounds so much like what I once heard in a movie: "All women are whores except my mother who is a saint!"

It is a secular caricature of women which does, however, make a necessary point regarding the ever present danger of disordered sexual desires in every ordinary person.  Concupiscence is the point.  The modern error is to make everything so platonic and deny sin and temptation.  How many disgraces have occurred under the guise of "platonic" relationships!  This very human theme, somewhat appropriated by Christianity, disabuses us (women as well as men) of the modern (and ancient) spell of universal innocence with the resulting neglect of training in virtue!  The truth is that no man is to be trusted (male or female) because all, except Jesus Christ Himself and the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, are sinners, at least stained with the stain of original sin, if not their own sinful stains too.  In this sense we are all whores!  (I am making my way through a book in German by von Balthasar largely on the Church as Whore!, [Wer ist die Kirche] the whore married, saved and purified and made perfect by the Lord, her Husband).  So, of course, in that very ontological sense no one is good.  You cannot trust yourself (regardless of gender).  Trust in Jesus and His mercy alone and entrust yourself to his strength.  As He Himself said, only One is good, the One who came from heaven.

The point is that women are dangerous (aside from any discussion about the defects of men) and so honest men must stay away from them.  They are to be distrusted and must be trained in virtue, hence they should obey in order to be good.  That is a necessary social truth which is present is some form or other in any well ordered society.  You cannot just mix everybody together without great disasters.  Just talk to any parents of a large family in any society.  When they reach adolescence it is essential to separate the girls from the boys for the protection of all!

Could we say that the danger of women is due to the corruption in the minds and hearts of men?  That is part of the issue for sure!  Keeping away is part of forming men in virtue.  This thesis is actually men being honest about the effect of women on them!  To deny it is dishonest and anti-woman because it claims for men a strength that they do not naturally possess.  Women are stronger then men, at least in this.  And this injuction to stay away and beware is a clear admission of that fact.  Hence the danger.  Beware lest you be caught in the trap unawares!

Matt Maher's Song of Adoration with Pope, Bishops and 3 Million+ at World Youth Day 2013

This man has won two grammy's and is a practicing Catholic!  He sang also for Pope Benedict five years ago (2008) at the New York Seminary, Yonkers.

Baptism in Lumen Fidei: The Rock Foundation in God!

Here are three paragraphs from Pope Francis' first encyclical which highlight the essential nature of the sacraments, for God to live in the life of men today, with emphasis on the transforming and original power of the sacrament of Baptism.

The sacraments and the transmission of faith

40. The Church, like every family, passes on to her children the whole store of her memories. But how does this come about in a way that nothing is lost, but rather everything in the patrimony of faith comes to be more deeply understood? It is through the apostolic Tradition preserved in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit that we enjoy a living contact with the foundational memory. What was handed down by the apostles — as the Second Vatican Council states — "comprises everything that serves to make the people of God live their lives in holiness and increase their faith. In this way the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes".[35]

Faith, in fact, needs a setting in which it can be witnessed to and communicated, a means which is suitable and proportionate to what is communicated. For transmitting a purely doctrinal content, an idea might suffice, or perhaps a book, or the repetition of a spoken message. But what is communicated in the Church, what is handed down in her living Tradition, is the new light born of an encounter with the true God, a light which touches us at the core of our being and engages our minds, wills and emotions, opening us to relationships lived in communion. There is a special means for passing down this fullness, a means capable of engaging the entire person, body and spirit, interior life and relationships with others. It is the sacraments, celebrated in the Church’s liturgy. The sacraments communicate an incarnate memory, linked to the times and places of our lives, linked to all our senses; in them the whole person is engaged as a member of a living subject and part of a network of communitarian relationships. While the sacraments are indeed sacraments of faith,[36] it can also be said that faith itself possesses a sacramental structure. The awakening of faith is linked to the dawning of a new sacramental sense in our lives as human beings and as Christians, in which visible and material realities are seen to point beyond themselves to the mystery of the eternal.

41. The transmission of faith occurs first and foremost in baptism. Some might think that baptism is merely a way of symbolizing the confession of faith, a pedagogical tool for those who require images and signs, while in itself ultimately unnecessary. An observation of Saint Paul about baptism reminds us that this is not the case. Paul states that "we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). In baptism we become a new creation and God’s adopted children. The Apostle goes on to say that Christians have been entrusted to a "standard of teaching" (týpos didachés), which they now obey from the heart (cf. Rom 6:17). In baptism we receive both a teaching to be professed and a specific way of life which demands the engagement of the whole person and sets us on the path to goodness. Those who are baptized are set in a new context, entrusted to a new environment, a new and shared way of acting, in the Church. Baptism makes us see, then, that faith is not the achievement of isolated individuals; it is not an act which someone can perform on his own, but rather something which must be received by entering into the ecclesial communion which transmits God’s gift. No one baptizes himself, just as no one comes into the world by himself. Baptism is something we receive.

42. What are the elements of baptism which introduce us into this new "standard of teaching"? First, the name of the Trinity — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — is invoked upon the catechumen. Thus, from the outset, a synthesis of the journey of faith is provided. The God who called Abraham and wished to be called his God, the God who revealed his name to Moses, the God who, in giving us his Son, revealed fully the mystery of his Name, now bestows upon the baptized a new filial identity. This is clearly seen in the act of baptism itself: immersion in water. Water is at once a symbol of death, inviting us to pass through self-conversion to a new and greater identity, and a symbol of life, of a womb in which we are reborn by following Christ in his new life. In this way, through immersion in water, baptism speaks to us of the incarnational structure of faith. Christ’s work penetrates the depths of our being and transforms us radically, making us adopted children of God and sharers in the divine nature. It thus modifies all our relationships, our place in this world and in the universe, and opens them to God’s own life of communion. This change which takes place in baptism helps us to appreciate the singular importance of the catechumenate — whereby growing numbers of adults, even in societies with ancient Christian roots, now approach the sacrament of baptism — for the new evangelization. It is the road of preparation for baptism, for the transformation of our whole life in Christ.

To appreciate this link between baptism and faith, we can recall a text of the prophet Isaiah, which was associated with baptism in early Christian literature: "Their refuge will be the fortresses of rocks… their water assured" (Is 33:16).[37] The baptized, rescued from the waters of death, were now set on a "fortress of rock" because they had found a firm and reliable foundation. The waters of death were thus transformed into waters of life. The Greek text, in speaking of that water which is "assured", uses the word pistós, "faithful". The waters of baptism are indeed faithful and trustworthy, for they flow with the power of Christ’s love, the source of our assurance in the journey of life.

43. The structure of baptism, its form as a rebirth in which we receive a new name and a new life, helps us to appreciate the meaning and importance of infant baptism. Children are not capable of accepting the faith by a free act, nor are they yet able to profess that faith on their own; therefore the faith is professed by their parents and godparents in their name. Since faith is a reality lived within the community of the Church, part of a common "We", children can be supported by others, their parents and godparents, and welcomed into their faith, which is the faith of the Church; this is symbolized by the candle which the child’s father lights from the paschal candle. The structure of baptism, then, demonstrates the critical importance of cooperation between Church and family in passing on the faith. Parents are called, as Saint Augustine once said, not only to bring children into the world but also to bring them to God, so that through baptism they can be reborn as children of God and receive the gift of faith.[38] Thus, along with life, children are given a fundamental orientation and assured of a good future; this orientation will be further strengthened in the sacrament of Confirmation with the seal of the Holy Spirit.

44. The sacramental character of faith finds its highest expression in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a precious nourishment for faith: an encounter with Christ truly present in the supreme act of his love, the life-giving gift of himself. In the Eucharist we find the intersection of faith’s two dimensions. On the one hand, there is the dimension of history: the Eucharist is an act of remembrance, a making present of the mystery in which the past, as an event of death and resurrection, demonstrates its ability to open up a future, to foreshadow ultimate fulfilment. The liturgy reminds us of this by its repetition of the word hodie, the "today" of the mysteries of salvation. On the other hand, we also find the dimension which leads from the visible world to the invisible. In the Eucharist we learn to see the heights and depths of reality. The bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, who becomes present in his passover to the Father: this movement draws us, body and soul, into the movement of all creation towards its fulfilment in God.

45. In the celebration of the sacraments, the Church hands down her memory especially through the profession of faith. The creed does not only involve giving one’s assent to a body of abstract truths; rather, when it is recited the whole of life is drawn into a journey towards full communion with the living God. We can say that in the creed believers are invited to enter into the mystery which they profess and to be transformed by it. To understand what this means, let us look first at the contents of the creed. It has a trinitarian structure: the Father and the Son are united in the Spirit of love. The believer thus states that the core of all being, the inmost secret of all reality, is the divine communion. The creed also contains a christological confession: it takes us through all the mysteries of Christ’s life up to his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven before his final return in glory. It tells us that this God of communion, reciprocal love between the Father and the Son in the Spirit, is capable of embracing all of human history and drawing it into the dynamic unity of the Godhead, which has its source and fulfillment in the Father. The believer who professes his or her faith is taken up, as it were, into the truth being professed. He or she cannot truthfully recite the words of the creed without being changed, without becoming part of that history of love which embraces us and expands our being, making it part of a great fellowship, the ultimate subject which recites the creed, namely, the Church. All the truths in which we believe point to the mystery of the new life of faith as a journey of communion with the living God.

Accomplishing the Hours of the Extraordinary Form (1962 Breviary)

Here is my horarium for the daily Breviary which I have been saying faithfully, at the regular intervals of the day, as a parish priest, for approximately three years now. It's deep and very fulfilling for a middle aged priest. I have to say that after spending three weeks this Summer chanting the Liturgy of the Hours with the monks at Mariawald (where Matins alone is over an hour), I now very much understand the brevior aspect of the Breviary. The major time difference I notice between the extraordinary and the ordinary forms of the Breviary is the rhythm of the minor hours and the three nocturnes for feast days. The minor hours (5-10 minutes each) are very helpful for the heart of the day to sanctify it with a regulated "turning to the Lord" in the Ecclesial  and priestly praise and worship of the centuries.

5 AM  Lauds
6 AM  (or as preparation for morning Mass) Prime
9 AM  (or as thanksgiving after morning Mass) Terce
12 Noon  (or prayer before lunch) Sext
3 PM  (or prayer after lunch) None
4 PM  Vespers and Matins of the following day anticipated
9:30 PM  Compline

N.B. Matins may, for a just cause, be anticipated the day before, after 2 PM, according to the 1962 rubrics: #144 Matutinum, ex justa cause, horis postmeridianis diei praecendentis anticipare licet, non tamen ante horam quartamdecimam.  My just cause is efficiency, that I am a busy parish priest and should like to be strictly faithful to fulfilling all of the office every twenty four hours and, preferably, at the proper times. On the rare occasion that I miss Matins at my habitual anticipated hour I have a full day to catch up! It works! I have never missed any of the hours so far. A major key to this schedule is spread it out, leaving nothing for the evenings, which are usually very busy.

Note also that I usually do each "hour" with the prescribed time as the deadline. For example, I always begin Lauds sharply at rising (5 AM), Prime by Mass time (or right after breakfast), Terce by 9 AM, Sext by Noon (just before lunch), None by 2 PM (just after lunch) so as to be able to do Vespers and the anticipated Matins at 2 PM (after the midday nap). So that my habitual window for doing the hours is thus:

5 AM Lauds
5:15 - 7:00 AM  Prime
7:00 - 9:00 AM  Terce
9:00 - Noon  Sext
Noon - 2:00 PM  None
2:00 - 4:30 Vespers and Anticipated Matins
8:30 - 9:30 PM  Compline

Seven times a day I have given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy justice. Psalm 118:164

Faith is the Foundation Even of Basic Etiquette

In the third to the last section of the new encyclical, Lumen Fidei, entitled A light for life in society, (#55), the Holy Father quotes T.S. Eliot's poem "Choruses from 'The Rock'" thus:

When faith is weakened, the foundations of life also risk being weakened, as the poet T.S. Eliot warned: "Do you need to be told that even those modest attainments / As you can boast in the way of polite society / Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?"[48]

Read the entire poem below to enjoy in verse what the Holy Father has spelled out in prose.  The message is the same.  Namely, that the world without God, Christ, the Church, honest Christians, is lost in the darkness; and that the fight for faith is a continuous battle which every man must fight, indeed, for the good of the world!

Choruses from "The Rock"

                                I

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,

The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

О perpetual revolution of configured stars,

О perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

О world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

   I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,

Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.

There I was told: we have too many churches,

And too few chop-houses. There I was told:

Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church

In the place where they work, but where they spend their

           Sundays.

   In the City, we need no bells:

Let them waken the suburbs.

I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:

We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor

To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

In industrial districts, there I was told

Of economic laws.

In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed

That the country now is only fit for picnics.

And the Church does not seem to be wanted

In country or in suburbs; and in the town

Only for important weddings.

CHORUS LEADER: Silence! and preserve respectful distance.

For I perceive approaching

The Rock. Who will perhaps answer our doubtings.

The Rock. The Watcher. The Stranger.

He who has seen what has happened.

And who sees what is to happen.

The Witness. The Critic. The Stranger.

The God-shaken, in whom is the truth inborn.

Enter the ROCK, led by a BOY:

THE ROCK: The lot of man is ceaseless labour,

Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,

Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.

I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know

That it is hard to be really useful, resigning

The things that men count for happiness, seeking

The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting

With equal face those that bring ignominy,

The applause of all or the love of none.

All men are ready to invest their money

But most expect dividends.

I say to you: Make perfect your will.

I say: take no thought of the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.

   The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all of my years, one thing does not change.

However you disguise it, this thing does not change:

The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches;

The men you are in these times deride

What has been done of good, you find explanations

To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.

Second, you neglect and belittle the desert.

The desert is not remote in southern tropics,

The desert is not only around the corner,

The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you.

The desert is in the heart of your brother.

The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.

I will show you the things that are now being done,

And some of the things that were long ago done,

That you may take heart. Make perfect your will.

Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen.

The lights fade; in the semi-darkness the voices of Workmen are

heard chanting.

In the vacant places

We will build with new bricks

There are hands and machines

And clay for new brick

And lime for new mortar

Where the bricks are fallen

We will build with new stone

Where the beams are rotten

We will build with new timbers

Where the word is unspoken

We will build with new speech

There is work together

A Church for all

And a job for each

Every man to his work.

Now а group of Workmen is silhouetted against the dim sky. From

farther away, they are answered by voices of the Unemployed.

No man has hired us

With pocketed hands

And lowered faces

We stand about in open places

And shiver in unlit rooms.

Only the wind moves

Over empty fields, untilled

Where the plough rests, at an angle

To the furrow. In this land

There shall be one cigarette to two men,

To two women one half pint of bitter

Ale. In this land

No man has hired us.

Our life is unwelcome, our death

Unmentioned in "The Times."

Chant of Workmen again.

The river flows, the seasons turn,

The sparrow and starling have no time to waste.

If men do not build

How shall they live?

When the field is tilled

And the wheat is bread

They shall not die in a shortened bed

And a narrow sheet. In this street

There is no beginning, no movement, no peace and no end

But noise without speech, food without taste.

Without delay, without haste

We would build the beginning and the end of this street.

We build the meaning:

A Church for all

And a job for each

Each man to his work.

                                II

Thus your fathers were made

Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of God, being built

upon the foundation

Of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief corner­stone.

But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless in a

ruined house?

Where many are born to idleness, to frittered lives and squalid

deaths, embittered scorn in honey-hives,

And those who would build and restore turn out the palms of

their hands, or look in vain towards foreign lands for alms to

be more or the urn to be filled.

Your building not fitly framed together, you sit ashamed and

wonder whether and how you may be builded together for a

habitation of God in the Spirit, the Spirit which moved on

the face of the waters like a lantern set on the back of a

tortoise.

And some say: "How can we love our neighbour? For love must

be made real in act, as desire unites with desired; we have only

our labour to give and our labour is not required.

We wait on corners, with nothing to bring but the songs we can

sing which nobody wants to hear sung;

Waiting to be flung in the end, on a heap less useful than dung."

You, have you built well, have you forgotten the cornerstone?

Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of men

to God.

"Our citizenship is in Heaven"; yes, but that is the model and

type for your citizenship upon earth.

   When your fathers fixed the place of God,

And settled all the inconvenient saints,

Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade,

Then they could set about imperial expansion

Accompanied by industrial development.

Exporting iron, coal and cotton goods

And intellectual enlightenment

And everything, including capital

And several versions of the Word of God:

The British race assured of a mission

Performed it, but left much at home unsure.

   Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten

or ripe.

And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying.

and always being restored.

For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence:

For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of God.

For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.

And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance.

For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands

alone on the other side of death,

But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that

was done by those who have gone before you.

And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble

repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers;

And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as

devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying

within and attacked from without;

For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while

there is time of prosperity

The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity

they will decry it.

   What life have you if you have not life together?

There is no life that is not in community,

And no community not lived in praise of God.

Even the anchorite who meditates alone,

For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of God,

Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.

And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads.

And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour

Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,

But all dash to and fro in motor cars,

 Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.

Nor does the family even move about together.

But every son would have his motor cycle,

And daughters ride away on casual pillions.

   Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore;

Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste;

Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone.

Let the fire not be quenched in the forge.

                                                      

                                III

The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

О miserable cities of designing men,

O wretched generation of enlightened men,

Betrayed in the mazes of your ingenuities.

Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions:

I have given you hands which you turn from worship,

I have given you speech, for endless palaver,

I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions,

I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments,

I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust.

I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate

Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.

Many are engaged in writing books and printing them.

Many desire to see their names in print.

Many read nothing but the race reports.

Much is your reading, but not the Word of God,

Much is your building, but not the House of God.

Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated roofing,

To be filled with a litter of Sunday newspapers?

1st Male Voice: A Cry from the East:

What shall be done to the shore of smoky ships?

Will you leave my people forgetful and forgotten

To idleness, labour, and delirious stupor?

There shall be left the broken chimney,

 The peeled hull, a pile of rusty iron.

 In a street of scattered brick where the goat climbs,

Where My Word is unspoken.

2nd Male Voice: A Cry from the North, from the West and from

        the South

Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City;

Where My Word is unspoken,

In the land of lobelias and tennis flannels

The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit,

The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court,

And the wind shall say: "Here were decent godless people:

Their only monument the asphalt road

And a thousand lost golf balls."

Chorus: We build in vain unless the Lord build with us.

Can you keep the City that the Lord keeps not with you?

A thousand policemen directing the traffic

Cannot tell you why you come or where you go.

A colony of cavies or a horde of active marmots

Build better than they that build without the Lord.

Shall we lift up our feet among perpetual ruins?

I have loved the beauty of Thy House, the peace of Thy

sanctuary,

I have swept the floors and garnished the altars.

Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.

Though you have shelters and institutions,

Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid,

Subsiding basements where the rat breeds

Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors

Or a house a little better than your neighbour's;

When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"

What will you answer? "We all dwell together

To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?

And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.

О my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,

Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

   О weariness of men who turn from God

To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action,

To arts and inventions and daring enterprises.

To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited.

Binding the earth and the water to your service,

Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,

Dividing the stars into common and preferred.

Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator,

Engaged in working out a rational morality,

Engaged in printing as many books as possible,

Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles,

Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm

For nation or race or what you call humanity;

Though you forget the way to the Temple,

There is one who remembers the way to your door:

Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.

You shall not deny the Stranger.

                                   

                                IV

There are those who would build the Temple,

And those who prefer that the Temples should not be built.

In the days of Nehemiah the Prophet

There was no exception to the general rule.

In Shushan the palace, in the month Nisan,

He served the wine to the King Artaxerxes,

And he grieved for the broken city, Jerusalem;

And the King gave him leave to depart

That he might rebuild the city.

So he went, with a few, to Jerusalem,

And there, by the dragon's well, by the dung gate,

By the fountain gate, by the king's pool,

Jerusalem lay waste, consumed with fire;

No place for a beast to pass.

There were enemies without to destroy him.

And spies and self-seekers within,

When he and his men laid their hands to rebuilding the wall.

So they built as men must build

With the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.

                                V

О Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and

  impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and

  desperately wicked.

Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem

  the Arabian: were doubtless men of public spirit and zeal.

Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain: and

  from the friend who has something to lose.

Remembering the words of Nehemiah the Prophet: "The trowel

  in hand, and the gun rather loose in the holster."

Those who sit in a house of which the use is forgotten: are like

  snakes that lie on mouldering stairs, content in the sunlight.

And the others run about like dogs, full of enterprise, sniffing

  and barking: they say, "This house is a nest of serpents, let us

  destroy it,

And have done with these abominations, the turpitudes of the

Christians." And these are not justified, nor the others.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted

  for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and

  dodging his emptiness.

If humility and purity be not in the heart, they are not in the

  home: and if they are not in the home, they are not in the City.

The man who has builded during the day would return to his

  hearth at nightfall: to be blessed with the gift of silence, and

  doze before he sleeps.

But we are encompassed with snakes and dogs: therefore some

  must labour, and others must hold the spears.

                                VI

It is hard for those who have never known persecution,

And who have never known a Christian,

To believe these tales of Christian persecution.

It is hard for those who live near a Bank

To doubt the security of their money.

It is hard for those who live near a Police Station

To believe in the triumph of violence.

Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World

And that lions no longer need keepers?

Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be?

Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments

As you can boast in the way of polite society

Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their signifi-

  cance?

Men! polish your teeth on rising and retiring;

Women! polish your fingernails:

You polish the tooth of the dog and the talon of the cat.

Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her

  laws?

She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.

She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they

  like to be soft.

She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.

They constantly try to escape

From the darkness outside and within

By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be

  good.

But the man that is will shadow

The man that pretends to be.

And the Son of Man was not crucified once for all.

The blood of the martyrs not shed once for all,

The lives of the Saints not given once for all:

But the Son of Man is crucified always

And there shall be Martyrs and Saints.

And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps

We must first build the steps;

And if the Temple is to be cast down

We must first build the Temple.

                                VII

In the beginning God created the world. Waste and void. Waste

  and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And when there were men, in their various ways, they struggled

  in torment towards God

Blindly and vainly, for man is a vain thing, and man without

  God is a seed upon the wind: driven this way and that, and

  finding no place of lodgement and germination.

They followed the light and the shadow, and the light led them

  forward to light and the shadow led them to darkness,

Worshipping snakes or trees, worshipping devils rather than

  nothing: crying for life beyond life, for ecstasy not of the flesh.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of

  the deep.

   And the Spirit moved upon the face of the water.

And men who turned towards the light and were known of the

  light

Invented the Higher Religions; and the Higher Religions were

  good

And led men from light to light, to knowledge of Good and Evil.

But their light was ever surrounded and shot with darkness

As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead breath of

  the Arctic Current;

And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a flicker of life.

And they came to the withered ancient look of a child that has

  died of starvation.

Prayer wheels, worship of the dead, denial of this world, affirma-

  tion of rites with forgotten meanings

In the restless wind-whipped sand, or the hills where the wind

  will not let the snow rest.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of

  the deep.

  

   Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time

      and of time,

A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history:

transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time

but not like a moment of time,

A moment in time but time was made through that moment:

for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment

of time gave the meaning.

Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the

  light of the Word,

Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative

  being;

Bestial as always before, carnal, self-seeking as always before,

  selfish and purblind as ever before.

Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their

  march on the way that was lit by the light;

Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet fol-

  lowing no other way.

   But it seems that something has happened that has never hap-

  ­pened before: though we know not just when, or why, or

  how, or where.

Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for no god;

  and this has never happened before

That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first

  Reason,

And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race,

   or Dialectic.

The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells up-

  turned, what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?

Voice of the Unemployed [afar off]:

                           In this land
There shall be one cigarette to two men,
To two women one half pint of bitter
Ale....

Chorus: What does the world say, does the whole world stray in

high-powered cars on a by-pass way?

Voice of the Unemployed [more faintly

                                    in this land

        No man has hired us  . . . .

Chorus: Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face

          of the deep.

Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the

  Church?

When the Church is no longer regarded, not even opposed, and

  men have forgotten

All gods except Usury, Lust and Power.

                                VIII

О Father we welcome your words.

And we will take heart for the future,

Remembering the past.

   The heathen are come into thine inheritance,

And thy temple have they defiled.

   Who is this that cometh from Edom?

   He has trodden the wine-press alone.

   There came one who spoke of the shame of Jerusalem

And the holy places defiled;

Peter the Hermit, scourging with words.

And among his hearers were a few good men,

Many who were evil,

And most who were neither.

Like all men in all places,

   

   Some went from love of glory,

Some went who were restless and curious,

Some were rapacious and lustful.

Many left their bodies to the kites of Syria

Or sea-strewn along the routes;

Many left their souls in Syria,

Living on, sunken in moral corruption;

Many came back well broken,

Diseased and beggared, finding

A stranger at the door in possession:

Came home cracked by the sun of the East

And the seven deadly sins in Syria.

   But our King did well at Acre.

And in spite of all the dishonour,

The broken standards, the broken lives,

The broken faith in one place or another,

There was something left that was more than the tales

Of old men on winter evenings.

Only the faith could have done what was good of it.

Whole faith of a few,

Part faith of many.

Not avarice, lechery, treachery,

Envy, sloth, gluttony, jealousy, pride:

It was not these that made the Crusades,

But these that unmade them.

   

       

   Remember the faith that took men from home

At the call of a wandering preacher.

Our age is an age of moderate virtue

And of moderate vice

When men will not lay down the Cross

Because they will never assume it.

Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,

To men of faith and conviction.

Let us therefore make perfect our will.

О God, help us.

                                IX

Son of Man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears

And set thine heart upon all that I show thee.

Who is this that has said: the House of God is a House of Sorrow;

We must walk in black and go sadly, with long-drawn faces.

We must go between empty walls, quavering lowly, whispering

  faintly,

Among a few flickering scattered lights?

They would put upon God their own sorrow, the grief they

  should feel

For their sins and faults as they go about their daily occasions.

Yet they walk in the street proudnecked, like thoroughbreds

  ready for races,

Adorning themselves, and busy in the market, the forum,

And all other secular meetings.

Thinking good of themselves, ready for any festivity,

Doing themselves very well.

Let us mourn in a private chamber, learning the way of peni­-

  tence,

And then let us learn the joyful communion of saints.

   The soul of Man must quicken to creation.

Out of the formless stone, when the artist united himself with

  stone,

Spring always new forms of life, from the soul of man that is

  joined to the soul of stone;

Out of the meaningless practical shapes of all that is living or

  lifeless

Joined with the artist's eye, new life, new form, new colour.

Out of the sea of sound the life of music,

Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal

  imprecisions,

Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the

  place of thoughts and feelings,

There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of

  incantation.

  

   Lord, shall we not bring these gifts to Your service?

Shall we not bring to Your service all our powers

For life, for dignity, grace and order.

And intellectual pleasures of the senses?

The Lord who created must wish us to create

And employ our creation again in His service

Which is already His service in creating.

For Man is joined spirit and body,

And therefore must serve as spirit and body.

Visible and invisible, two worlds meet in Man;

Visible and invisible must meet in His Temple;

You must not deny the body.

   Now you shall see the Temple completed:

After much striving, after many obstacles:

For the work of creation is never without travail;

The formed stone, the visible crucifix,

The dressed altar, the lifting light,

               Light

               Light

               The visible reminder of Invisible Light.

                                X

You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned

By one who came in the night, it is now dedicated to God.

It is now a visible church, one more light set on a hill

In a world confused and dark and disturbed by portents of fear.

And what shall we say of the future? Is one church all we can

  build?

Or shall the Visible Church go on to conquer the World?

   The great snake lies ever half awake, at the bottom of the pit

  of the world, curled

In folds of himself until he awakens in hunger and moving his

  head to right and to left prepares for his hour to devour.

But the Mystery of Iniquity is a pit too deep for mortal eyes to

  plumb. Come

Ye out from among those who prize the serpent's golden eyes,

The worshippers, self-given sacrifice of the snake. Take

Your way and be ye separate.

Be not too curious of Good and Evil;

Seek not to count the future waves of Time;

But be ye satisfied that you have light

Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

   

   O Light Invisible, we praise Thee!

Too bright for mortal vision.

О Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;

The eastern light our spires touch at morning,

The light that slants upon our western doors at evening.

The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,

Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,

Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.

О Light Invisible, we worship Thee!

   We thank Thee for the lights that we have kindled,

The light of altar and of sanctuary;

Small lights of those who meditate at midnight

And lights directed through the coloured panes of windows

And light reflected from the polished stone,

The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco.

Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward

And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.

We see the light but see not whence it comes.

О Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!

   In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad

  when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too

  much pain.

We are children quickly tired: children who are up in the night

  and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for

  work or play.

We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad

  to sleep,

Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night

  and the seasons.

And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and

  relight it;

Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.

Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled

  with shadow.

We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to

  forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.

And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may

  set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.

And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.

О Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!

How to Make a Shake

Here is a fast and easy recipe for making an ice cold and sweet fruit shake with no added sweeteners.

1 frozen banana (I keep a stock of frozen bananas [very ripe, peeled and individually wrapped in cellophane] throughout the Summer.  They are delicious to eat just like that, as if a popsicle.  Another easy and most delicious frozen fruit are grapes.  Again, the riper the better; wash and freeze in tupperware as they are.  Eat them just like that.  Frozen grapes are a great Summer treat as are frozen bananas.

1 equal proportion of any type of fruit: e.g. watermelon, strawberries, a large fresh peach, one or two kiwis, a handful of mulberries (or any berry, for that matter).  I usually use just one type of fruit at the time, but some combinations work very well.  Experiment as you like here but the ratio of banana to all the other fruit should be 1:1.  The idea here is that the frozen banana offers the shake perfect consistency and the other fruit add the desired flavor and color.

(Optional, a minimal amount of milk to help the blending.)
You can also add some raw almonds if you would like to add some protein to the shake.

First, blend the fresh fruit (and milk and almonds) and then add the frozen banana in quarters until all is a smooth consistency.  Pour in a glass and serve (makes about 16 oz.).  You can place this in the freezer for 15-20 minutes if you would like it colder.

Pope Francis Falls into the "Gay" Trap

All of the confusion resulting from what the Holy Father said in the press conference on the return flight from Brazil regarding a possible "gay" lobby in the Vatican comes from his use of the inadequate term "gay."

No priest should use the term "gay" or the term "homosexual" to categorize individual persons with same sex attraction because these terms are too vague and discriminatory.  "Gay" is vague because it can refer to anyone with same sex attraction at any level, even those who have never had the least temptation to act on the inclination or merely have some effeminate manner or other.  The Holy Father said that it is not his place to judge a tendency.  That's what he said.  Because he used the term "gay": "people who are like that ['gay']", and spoke of "'gay' persons", the vagueness of his language left the statement open for the world to interpret that those (clerics and others) who are actively and obstinately bent on sodomy cannot be judged, even by the Pope.  That is not what he said and certainly not what he meant because that would be contrary to the Gospel, which the Church and the Pope cannot contradict.

Here is my translation of that question and answer which was asked by the Brazilian journalist of The Guardian, longtime expert on the Vatican, Ilze Scamparini.

Ilze Scamparini:
I request permission to ask a somewhat delicate question: another image which has made world news is that of Monsignor Ricca and the news of his intimacies.  Your Holiness, I would like to know what do you intend to do on this matter?  How are you to face this situation and how is Your Holiness intending to face the matter of  the gay lobby.

Pope Francis:
The matter of Monsignor Ricca: I did that which the Code of Canon Law requires which is the investigatio previa.  And from this investigatio there is nothing of which they accuse him, we have found nothing of that. That is my response.
But I would like to add something else on this: I see that often in the Church, and aside from this case, and even in this case, they go to look for "the sins of your youth", for example, and that's published.  Not crimes, you see?  Crimes are another matter: the abuse of minors is a crime.  No, sins.  But if a person, be he lay, priest, or nun has committed a sin and later converts, the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is important for our lives.  When we go to confession and truly say: "I have sinned in this", the Lord forgets and we have no right not to forget, because we run the risk of the Lord not forgetting ours.  That's a danger.  This is important: a theology of sin.
I often think of Saint Peter: he committed one of the worst sins which is to deny Christ, and he was made Pope with that sin.  We should reflect greatly.
But returning more concretely to your question: in this case, I made the investigatio previa and we found nothing.  That was the first question.
Then, you spoke of the gay lobby.  Woe!  Much is being written about the gay lobby.  I have not yet encountered anyone who shows me their Vatican gay card.  They say that they are around.  I think that when you find a person like that you should distinguish between the fact of being a gay person from the fact of forming a lobby because no lobbies are good.  That's bad [cf. #8-9 of CDF document].
If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church [2357-2359] explains this very beautifully, for it says -- wait a minute, how does it say?... it says: "these people should not be marginalized for this, they should be integrated in society".  The problem is not with having the tendency, no, we should be fraternal, because this is one, but if there is another, there is something else. The problem is making a lobby out of this tendency: a lobby of the greedy, a lobby of politicians, a masonic lobby, so many lobbies! For me, this is the graver problem.  And I thank you so much for asking this question.
Thank you so much!

N.B.  In Light of the World Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the problem of homosexuality and the clergy.

World Unity Depends on Unity of Faith Says the Pope

That is actually what the word "Catholic" means: the many are one: living as one: working together because thinking together: one heart because one in mind.

His Holiness Pope Francis explains this fundamental truth of human existence and central tenant of true religion in the heart of his new encyclical (together with Pope Emeritus Benedict) Lumen Fidei.  Below is my brief summary of the relevant text (#47-48).

Our present world which is so much united materially and technologically is still very much divided regarding truth because there can be no authentic unity in truth without unity in God.  The secret to unity is unity of faith. And unity of faith comes first of all from the unicity of God: to know and to confess the one God, living and true. (Fides una est in primis ob unitatem Dei, quem novimus et confitemur.  Omnes fidei articuli respiciunt Eum...)  We have to apply ourselves to God.

Because the faith is one, the faith must be professed in all of its purity and integrity.  (Cum fides una sit, profitenda est in omni puritate et integritate. 48)

For authentic human unity, unity of living faith is essential; i.e. unity in the one true faith of the love of God, manifested in Christ, alive and perpetuated through His Church.