politics
Parable of the Wheat and the Cockle
November 13, 2012
Lolium temulentum (cockle, tares) - Wikipedia
This past Sunday in the 1962 Roman Missal the Gospel reading was Mt. 13: 24-30, the parable of the man who sowed good seed in his field. While he and his servants were asleep, in the dead of night his enemy sneaked in and sowed cockle among the wheat. This was a really evil thing to do because you can’t tell wheat and cockle apart until the heads form. The wheat and cockle’s roots intertwine which is why the master told his servants not to pull it out but harvest the cockle first when the time came, bind it into bundles and burn it. That would destroy all the cockle seeds and prevent the spread of the weed.
While studying this passage with the help of The Parables of Christ
Jesus explained the parable he had taught to the crowd privately to the apostles. The sower is He, the Son of Man (the Messiah, Dan. 7: 27) and the field is the world. God can only do good, so the good seed represents the children of God – those who hear His word and keep it. Good seeds are everywhere in the world. Lucifer, sneaky and guileful, sowed bad seed – his followers who carry his poison into the world. Bad seeds are also everywhere in the world. We can’t get away from them.
The harvest time is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels who will first gather up the followers of Satan and throw them into hell. Then the faithful servants of God will be gathered up by the angels to heaven.
Perfect timing
Considering that 50% of Catholics in this election voted against the teaching of the Church and elected Obama and other pro-death politicians, this Gospel reading came at the perfect time. We must not be discouraged because this world and the Church will always have people who don’t fear God and do evil. As sinners, of course we all do evil, but here I am looking at the parable with the idea that those in mortal sin and propagating Satan’s agenda are the bad seed. Of necessity life is this way because we are not in heaven and heaven can’t be made on earth.
God gave us all free will and so He suffers evil in the world. He doesn’t go back on His creation. As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we must suffer that evil, too. The plus side is that we sinners have time for conversion, and if we suffer in our witness to Christ, we become holier and much less attached to our own will. Then there’s also the verse in Sirach 36:4 to consider:
As you have used us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory.
If we work with God on conforming ourselves to His will, He uses us to show those against Him His holiness and perhaps inspire them to conversion. God also shows us through those committed to evil His justice and glory. That happens through the natural consequences of sin and the chastisements He visits on the world, which will grow increasingly severe in answer to the increasing rebellion against Him.
The tares among us can’t make us dizzy, drunk, and dead with their false teaching as long as we are girded with the sword of the Spirit. And they, although they may be able to force their will upon us politically, will never have our hearts. That’s what’s most important.
Sometimes we have the erroneous idea that since God is in charge everything should be smooth sailing and sunny and we should suffer no pain. But clearly, by leaving the tares amongst us, He means for us to survive in grace and grow strong in charity by confronting the evils around us. That’s what it means to be in the Church Militant.
Tangentially, if we can’t stand conflict and face evil head on, we are bound to betray Christ. Then the cockle will have choked us out.
Father Fonck writes towards the end of his commentary on the parable:
The true Church must exist uninterruptedly to all time until the end of the world, just as the corn [used interchangeably with "wheat" by some commentators] remains in the field until harvest time. She can never deviate in her teaching from the truth, because, otherwise, being conquered by evil, she would cease to be the true Church.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
This post linked to Saints and Scripture Sunday.
The Morning After
November 7, 2012
Crying in your beer
I’ve thought a lot about what continuing this administration means for the common good, and where God is in all of this. As hard as many prayed, sacrificed, and fasted for the end of this regime, nobody should have thought that the war for our constitutional principles and precedence of the natural law would be easily won. The Pope’s Year of Faith is providential when you look at a few estimated statistics on this election: 90% of black people voted for Obama, 71% of Hispanics, 54% of women, and 40% of the elderly. Forty-two percent of the electorate is composed of people between ages 18-30. Twenty to twenty-five percent of the electorate have no religious affiliation and most vote Democrat.
Obama will be appointing at least two new Supreme Court Justices in this next term. They will be activist judges and will make the court more liberal than ever for the next thirty years. Gun control and other oppressive acts outside the Constitution will become a reality.
We are in desperate need of the New Evangelization. People need to see that the living God is the God of life but the majority in our country blindly and stubbornly chose death in this election. We couldn’t even take the Senate, a most important body that would have helped us thwart the loss of our liberties if a majority of God-fearing people had been elected.
Now is not the time, however, to cry in our beer. We must continue our prayer, fasting, and sacrifices. We must diligently educate ourselves in our Faith, continue to live the Gospel, and do what we can to educate others on our Constitution, the natural law, and moral obligations to others. We must be good Catholic witnesses wherever we are. We must prepare to be martyrs.
Meanwhile, God will not be mocked. We can be sure of that. What He will do and how He will do it remains to be seen, but we can be sure that it won’t be pretty for a country that continues to kill babies in the womb, the disabled, and the elderly. In this Year of Faith we must go out of our way to arm ourselves with truth and the sword of the Spirit. We must never give in to bullies who want to squelch our God-given rights to freedom of conscience and religion and our lives.
I look for a great outpouring of God’s grace on His followers in these coming years. He will not leave us to hell if we fix our eyes on the banner of the Cross. But none of us is going to avoid the coming chastisement of this world.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
Powerful Pro-life Ad
October 12, 2012
The rebellious disdainers of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, and those who still reject this encyclical and Casti Conubii, Pope Pius XI’s encyclical on married life, probably never expected that the most powerful country in the world economically and militarily would one day elect a President who supported finishing off babies who survived abortion. Because abortion “rights” was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the use of artificial contraception. Everything Pope Paul VI foretold in Humanae Vitae has come to pass, and beyond that even.
Now we are faced with an opportunity to begin a re-orienting of the popular culture to God. It will happen through the little daily acts that belong to each person calling himself Christian. One place it will start will be on election day, 2012, when people all over the country will have a clear choice between the purveyors of life and those of death. Will we take the trouble to vote that day? What will each of us choose?
Before you fill in the little circles or punch the buttons in the voting booth, Baby Boomers, here’s something else to consider. If it’s OK under the law to kill babies in the womb, do you think your relatives will hesitate to kill you when you are helpless in a hospital or nursing home bed because you have become and inconvenience to their “freedom” and financial ambitions? It’s our generation that opened these doors and the “death panels” are already in place.
Here is a video to help us think about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
Filial Piety, Patriotism, and Voting
September 5, 2012
A well-known Catholic blogger announced a couple of weeks ago that he will not be voting this year because he cannot support either presidential candidate. This led me off on one of my philosophical jaunts into the subject of filial piety and patriotism, a phrase that keeps popping into my mind from my Catholic education in the 1940s and fifties. Back then St. Thomas Aquinas’ writings were the touchstone for presenting a Catholic approach to all aspects of our lives, even in grade school.
My chief problem with this blogger’s stance is that it sweeps aside what I firmly believe to be a fundamental obligation we Christians have in the eyes of God towards our country – that of exercising, as St. Thomas put it, “the natural virtue of justice.” Because of our political structure, the chief way of doing justice is by voting. It is not, of course, the only way, but who we place in office has a great deal to do with whether we do justice to ourselves and to our neighbor in most other ways available to us. Thus, the act of voting is a moral issue.
Unfortunately, there is not and never will be a perfect candidate, because earth is earth and heaven is heaven. We are living in an imperfect society which will remain ever so until Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. Thus we must sift the candidates to discover the ones that are the best, even if they are the best among what we believe to be the worst. Why?
Filial Piety and Patriotism
Filial Piety and Patriotism disposes us to honor, love, and respect our parents and our country. Paul J. Glenn at his site, A Tour of the Summa, gives us a simple explanation of what St. Thomas writes:
Piety is the virtue which disposes a person to show due deference, honor, and veneration to those who hold a place of excellence, and who have conferred benefit upon him. Piety is paid first to God [as in the First Commandment], the supreme excellence, the giver of all good gifts. Secondly, piety is honor and veneration shown to parents [as in the Fourth Commandment]. Further, piety is due reverence and respect paid to kinsfolk, to superiors in Church or state, to one’s government itself and its allies and friends [patriotism].
Piety is a special virtue which springs from justice. It is specified (that is, given its character as a distinct virtue on its own account) by the fact that a special debt is owed to the principle of one’s being - God first, and then parents. The same virtue extends to those that represent the principle of spiritual and political citizenship, that is, leaders in Church and government.
Nobody who has paid attention to the culture of death could disagree with the fact that the United States is at a turning point. This November we will choose either life or death. We will either give our government the unequivocal rights to take away our religious freedom or we will refuse to surrender it. The life issues and the religious freedom issues cannot be separated, and they both are inalienable rights bestowed upon us by God. But these choices don’t reside solely in the vote for President.
In spite of the grave deterioration of justice in the court systems of our country and the abandonment of our Constitution by all too many leaders, we have one branch of government for sure that we can influence for the better. Even if the strongest pro-death person ever to occupy the White House is re-elected, we can and must vote for Congressional candidates who recognize and will act upon the preservation of life at all stages of existence and the preservation of religious liberty. Persons with these priorities are running in every state. This November we can move pro-life, pro-religious liberty politicians into the majority in Congress. That should be our primary goal. If we can prevent another four years of the current pro-death administration as well, we are obliged to do so.
Re-directing our country towards the good for which it was founded doesn’t happen over night. It took a long time for us to arrive at the mess we’re in and it will take a long time to set things right. Avoiding voting because we are in a snit over the quality of the candidates or their negative campaigning is an abdication of our rights. Abdication’s direct result is total loss. Worse than that, abdication is a failure to do our part in practicing the virtues of filial piety and patriotism – a failure in practicing justice and charity towards all.
Let’s let the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen have the last word:
The treatise on Patriotism in the writings of the greatest philosopher of all times, St.Thomas Aquinas, is to be found under the subject of “Piety”. This at first may strike as strange those who think of piety as pertaining only to love of God. But once it is remembered that love of neighbor is inseparable from love of God, it is seen that love of our fellow citizens is a form of piety. In these days when so many subversive activities are at work, a reminder of the necessity of loving our country is very much to the point.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
Building a Culture of Religious Freedom
July 30, 2012
On July 27, 2012, one of my favorite bishops, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, gave a talk to the Napa Institute, a fairly new Catholic organization whose mission is:
To equip Catholic leaders to defend and advance the Catholic Faith in “the Next America” – today’s emerging secular society.
You can read the entire speech, which I highly recommend, here. A couple of paragraphs had me wanting to jump up and applaud.
…We can start by changing the way we habitually think. Democracy is not an end in itself. Majority opinion does not determine what is good and true. Like every other form of social organization and power, democracy can become a form of repression and idolatry. The problems we now face in our country didn’t happen overnight. They’ve been growing for decades, and they have moral roots. America’s bishops named the exile of God from public consciousness as “the root of the world’s travail today” nearly 65 years ago. [And then far too many of their successors gave in to the spirit of the age, causing widespread apostasy from the Faith in many dioceses.] And they accurately predicted the effects of a life without God on the individual, the family, education, economic activity and the international community. Obviously, too few people listened.
We also need to change the way we act. We need to understand that we can’t “quick fix” our way out of problems we behaved ourselves into. Catholics have done very well in the United States. As I said earlier, most of us have a deep love for our country, its freedoms and its best ideals. But this is not our final home. There is no automatic harmony between Christian faith and American democracy. The eagerness of Catholics to push their way into our country’s mainstream over the past half century, to climb the ladder of social and economic success, has done very little to Christianize American culture. But it’s done a great deal to weaken the power of our Catholic witness. [Because in the process we have sold out to earthly concerns, having taken our eye off accomplishing God's will for us and looking away from Christ crucified.]
To put it another way: The right to pursue happiness does not include a right to excuse or ignore evil in ourselves or anyone else. When we divorce our politics from a grounding in virtue and truth, we transform our country from a living moral organism into a kind of golem of legal machinery without a soul.This is why working for good laws is so important. This is why getting involved politically is so urgent. This is why every one of our votes matters. We need to elect the best public leaders, who then create the best policies and appoint the best judges. This has a huge impact on the kind of nation we become. Democracies depend for their survival on people of conviction fighting for what they believe in the public square — legally and peacefully, but zealously and without apologies. That includes you and me.
We have no room for wimpiness or political correctness in the battle for the soul of our nation and for the souls of its inhabitants. We are at a turning point this year. Those of us who cannot physically take part in campaigning can offer our continuing prayers that America will once again return to being a God-fearing nation.
And now… A particular Father Andrew gives the invocation at the 2012 Colorado Republican State Assembly and Convention recently. Spare him five minutes and hear some real gems.
“The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’” – Catechism of the Catholic Church #2425
P.S. I claim no political affiliation. I am a fiercely independent voter who has had to hold her nose for all the elections since Ronald Reagan left office. Precisely because of the things Archbishop Chaput and Father Andrew are talking about.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
The Parable of the Kosher Deli
July 5, 2012
Archbishop William Lori of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, America’s oldest Catholic See, testified recently before Congress concerning the HHS mandate. Only the most dedicated political hacks and confirmed totalitarian socialists can refuse to get the meaning of “The Parable of the Kosher Deli.”
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
Did They Die in Vain?
July 4, 2012
Washington at Monmouth - Emmanuel Leutze
Today marks the official end of the Fortnight of Freedom, with the bishops asking that all churches with bells toll them at noon. But for us, this Fortnight should never end. It is, rather, a beginning, a start of awareness and commitment to fighting a new and timely revolution against the creeping forced intrusion by the American government of satanic evil in our daily lives. Unlike our forefathers, though, our weapons are holy hours, daily rosaries, daily prayer, knowledge of our Faith, keeping the Commandments, and doing what God has called us to do in our vocations. For some, that may mean direct confrontation and for others, participation in the silent army of prayer warriors.
As I looked at many Revolutionary War paintings, I thought about all those who died so that we could be truly free. If they could come back for a moment, what would they say to us? Perhaps the conversation might go like this:
Soldier:
What splendid progress you have made in this land. You have fine roads that take you to far places in contraptions I never dreamed of. Food is plentiful and look at all the dwellings! No one is dressed in rags and everyone seems to have devices to entertain themselves. But wait – something is missing.
Citizen:
Huh?
Soldier:
Yes. I perceive the heart has gone out of this fine country. Or if not, it is beating too faintly to hear.
Citizen:
Heart? We have plenty of heart! We have a fine standard of living. We can punish people for talking hate about same-sex attraction and activity, skin color, Muslims, and illegal aliens. Look, we have the first black president who even went to Harvard. The government is giving us free food, free contraceptives, free health care to those who can’t afford to pay, and every woman is given free reign to kill the baby in her womb if she doesn’t want it. The government taxes a bunch of rich people and spreads the wealth around so some people can live however they want for free. This is the good life, man. We’re all about freedom, dontcha know?
Soldier:
That isn’t what I died for – so you could shut people up who say things you don’t like. I didn’t die so you could kill babies in the womb – or the disabled and elderly for that matter. I didn’t die so you could have a government that tells you what you can eat, what health care you can have, and so you could be taxed to death to live even a simple life. I died so you would be free from government oppression and could say what you think, attend the church of your choice, and have the freedom to pursue ideas and freely contribute to the common good. I died so that you could live in a country where everyone can pursue opportunities that present themselves. But it looks to me like you’ve turned it into a country where some people are more equal than others.
Pervert! Do you even know what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution say?
Citizen (interrupts):
Now hold on a minute here…
Soldier (continues):
Fie upon you, mangy cur! Fie upon your loutish, lazy ways! You have given this precious land, this land where I spilled my blood and gave myself as sacrifice, to the devil. And I’ll show you how you did it.
Soldier walks over to the computer, hits a key and pulls up a Paul Harvey video on YouTube:
Yes, I know I am a poor writer and this scenario is implausible. How could a Revolutionary War soldier know how to use a computer? But I thought this tape by Paul Harvey deserved a Fourth of July setting and gave it my best shot. I promise not to do this very often.
Lets keep the Fortnight of Freedom alive in our hearts and lives so as not to make those great men of the Revolution to have died in vain.
HT to Father George David Byers at Holy Souls Hermitage and his post Ferocious Holy Souls Hermitage Exorcism Series Widget.
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R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)
Sabbath Moments
June 11, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, the weekly meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. These moments we call “Sabbath” are the times when we are “being” rather than “doing” with God, and the times when we are especially aware of His action in our lives. Visit Collen to read about other bloggers’ Sabbath Moments.
This week I had several occasions to see politics affecting people negatively. I really, really hate politics. Secular politics and Church politics. I wonder if more people are not hurt by politics than helped.
Today with the internet available to so many, any opiner can freely reveal the length, breadth, and depth of his massive ignorance and lack of moral compass with just the touch of a key. Reading this stuff unnerves me. As I was mulling over how the lack of charity in politics – Church or secular – leads people down a road away from God, a most happy thought occurred to me.
Heaven has no politics! Now that’s a real Sabbath Moment. My heart and soul turned cartwheels and I jumped up and down in the spirit. You might want to say to me, “Of course, dummy. No politics in heaven is a given. Are you just now getting it?”
And I would say to you, “Yep. This is the first time I’ve thought deeply enough on the subject to see the connection between politics and St. Paul’s 1 Cor. 13:13: And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity. Charity is the only virtue in heaven and for all eternity.
Charity is first the love of God and second, the love of neighbor. Since it is the only virtue in heaven, I have to live in my heart and soul now as if I am already in heaven or it’s likely I won’t get there. I have to excise from my life anything that does not lead to greater unity with God and I must try in all that I do, write, or say to act in a way that will lead others to God. That means restricting myself from giving undue attention to what is going on in politics and the media so I am not distracted from doing what God is asking of me right now.
Balance between what is necessary to know and the sheer sea of nonsense out there comes from a right relationship with God, which is something I have to work on every day. I must be informed on everything necessary to allow me to vote with moral rectitude. I need not pay attention to anything else.
These conclusions are for me only in my present circumstances. Others may have to wade a lot farther into the swamp because of their particular vocation. They may have to engage error and evil more directly and publicly. God obliges me to pray for them that they do their duty in an upright way. That is charity, too.
Meanwhile I am enjoying contemplating heaven free of politics and the incessant lies that accompany it – a heaven where I and the others who are there will enjoy the total peace of truth and justice in the Holy Trinity.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Perspective on Beatification of Pope John Paul II
April 28, 2011
On May 1, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI will officially assign the title “Blessed” to his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Our late pope was entirely devoted to Our Lady who always points us to Christ, so it is fitting that this ceremony is performed in May, Mary’s month. Also fitting is that it takes place on the same day as the communist International Worker’s Day because Pope John Paul II was the ultimate threat to communism.
What does it take to be declared “blessed?” Verifiable practice of heroic virtue and one miracle obtained through the intercession of the person after death. This criteria has been met. And although the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has four thick volumes of testimony on Pope John Paul II and one verified miracle, in subsequent years both the Church and the world will learn much more of the saintliness of this pontiff as his cause for sainthood advances.
Objections to the beatification
In recent weeks I’ve seen many people up in arms over the beatification. The fury against it comes from many places. Some cite the fact that he declared in Ordinatio Sacerdotales that the Church has no authority to ordain women to the priesthood. They have a political feminist agenda.
Others cite his praise of Legionnaries of Christ founder, Maciel, probably the greatest fraud in the Church in recent years, and Pope John Paul II’s handling of the priest sex abuse scandals. Yet others shoot flaming arrows in his direction for kissing the Koran and the two Assisi events. And finally, many objections arise from the blatant liturgical abuse demonstrated at his public Masses.
I’ve also seen snarky comments about it taking money to be beatified and that the cause is supported by people with plenty of money. Some declare that the beatification puts a blessing on everything Pope John Paul II said and did.
Whatever Pope John Paul II’s intentions were in the many things he did, some caused scandal. But who are we to judge what is in another’s heart? God has spoken on the beatification by granting a miracle through his intercession. That should be enough. How dare we stand in the face of God and decry His judgment?
Pope John Paul II was human. He was not perfect. No doubt he would be the first to say that sometimes he made bad judgments. But who has never made a bad judgment? I venture to say God’s mercy has saved all of us many times from our rampant stupidity. And what do some bad calls have to do with living a life of heroic virtue?
The pope is not the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. He cannot rise up and declare, “Off with their heads!” if things happen that harm the Church from within or without. Rather, the pope, and we know from testimony that John Paul II spent hours, often prostrate, in front of the Blessed Sacrament, must pray a lot to lead the Church prudently.
What strikes me about the aggressive nay-sayers concerning the beatification is that their problems come from abject ignorance of how the Church works in general – which is exactly as Christ founded it, their own political/secular agendas, and the appalling pride of “The pope didn’t handle his job the way I think he should have handled it so therefore, he should not be beatified.”
Prophetic Witness
Crown of Thorns, 1520-25, Lucas, Cranach the Elder (b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar), Oil and tempera on limewood, Private collection
I am convinced that the life of Pope John Paul II was a prophetic witness for our day and the future in the most fundamental aspect of existence – life and the dignity of the person. From that flows the sanctity of marriage and the domestic church – the family. Everything else hinges on life and dignity of the human person.
John Paul II set in motion something no other pope was able to do because of his time in history. He presented himself de facto as the father of all people by traveling to so many countries and reaching out to so many people. The Vicar of Christ is the Face of Christ to the world. He lived a life of the suffering Christ fearlessly and called everyone to Jesus in his travels.
Regardless of disagreements on decisions he made or how he chose to lead, established fact is that he has met the Church’s criteria for beatification. He was a loving, holy man and holy pope. The Church is better for his pontificate and he cannot be blamed for the eruption of festering Modernism and outrageous disobedience to Church teaching that showed its ugly face after Vatican II.
In fact, the blame falls on all of us who failed to pray for our priests and bishops, who failed to pray for the conversion of sinners, who made Sunday attendance something to be gotten over with and not genuine adoration of God, and who thought we knew everything about our faith because we memorized the Baltimore Catechism.
Christ said in Luke 12:1-3: “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed: nor hidden, that shall not be known. For whatsoever things you have spoken in darkness, shall be published in the light: and that which you have spoken in the ear in the chambers, shall be preached on the housetops.”
We have seen this Modernism, anthropocentrism, narcissism, and spirit of disobedience come fully into the light and broadcast everywhere. It is a massive threat to the salvation of souls and can only be overcome by the power of God. Why do some people refuse to understand that Pope John Paul II did the best he could in the circumstances God placed him in?
I think it is because they have no spirit of submission to the will of God.
The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, cannot be destroyed no matter what a pope does or doesn’t do. What we most need to do today is to follow John Paul II’s example of praying the rosary and participating in Eucharistic Adoration for the salvation of souls and reparation for the tremendous offenses against God. We also must know our Faith inside and out and teach it to our children.
Let us rejoice in the beatification, imitate Pope John Paul II’s virtues, and devote time to living our duties and responsibilities in such as way as to become as holy as God wants us to be. Let us leave the rest to God.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Sabbath Moments
February 26, 2011
Awareness of God
Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to see the “God times” other bloggers experienced this week.
(1)This week I’ve started my daily Lenten reading/meditation program with Meditations and Readings for Lent from St. Thomas Aquinas
Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his labor (1 Cor. 3:8).
I. This reward is at once common to all men and particular to each.
(1) It is common to all because that which all see and enjoy is the same, that is to say, God. Then shalt thou abound in delights in the almighty (Job 22:26). In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people (Isa. 28:5) and therefore St. Matthew says (20:9) that to every laborer in the vineyard there is given one penny.
(2) The reward is yet special for each individual. One man shall see more clearly than another, and shall enjoy more fully, according to the measure allotted him….
These short meditations afford much food for thought throughout the day and night and are a constant inspiration toward living a better life. I especially like how St. Thomas presents so many quotes from sacred Scripture to make his points.
(2) A huge storm front came through Wednesday night with a lot of thunder and rain that continued for half the day Thursday. Since my sleep was gravely disturbed I spent many hours repeating the wonderful words from the Good Friday Reproaches and the end of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy – Holy God, Holy mighty One, Holy immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
With the revolutions and killings in the Middle East, a Canadian hospital and death panel sentencing a little baby to death before his time (over money, not compassion), and elected officials in Midwestern states going AWOL, I really felt called to acknowledge God as supreme and plead for His mercy.
These words struck me for the first time as very Hebrew – very Old Testament. Each phrase increases in greatness the attributes of our Father, heaping declaration upon declaration. His holiness is inseparable from His might and immortality. Lots to meditate on here.
Next to the prayer I use to end my posts, this prayer is special to me. It has become one of my favorites to pray in the dark or in heavy pain – a great reminder of who I am and Who He is.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
St. John of Matha and the Captives
February 8, 2011
St. John of Matha, Laurent de La Hire (1606-1656, Paris), oil on canvas and wood, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Today’s 1962 calendar celebrates the feast of St. John of Matha (1160-1213). Pope Innocent III approved his founding of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (the Trinitarians) in 1198 for the purpose of ransoming captives from the Muslims. His community spread throughout France, Italy, England, Spain, and into north Africa where they were able to free many slaves. The ones well enough to be sent home went, but the Trinitarians were allowed to remain in north Africa to care for the ones too old or ill to go home.
Today’s feast is a reminder that slavery is far from over. Not only is slave labor practiced in the Sudan, Niger, Somalia, Chad, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Indonesia to name a few states, sex slavery is rampant in those countries as well as Cambodia, Thailand, middle Europe, Africa and the Middle East to name a few more.
One of the most concerning developments in the saga of human trafficking is the heavy trans-Atlantic sex trade and the growth of sex slave hubs such as Houston, Texas where United States politics facilitates transporting illegal immigrants by illegal immigrants for the sole purpose of prostituting girls as young as 11 or 12. Murder of these women is not uncommon if they are a threat to discovery. Our country, therefore, belongs on the list of countries facilitating human trafficking.
The scams worked on the slaves to get them here and keep them hidden are as varied as the evil human heart can devise. If the full numbers were to be discovered, every decent person would fall to his knees in a collective wail of anguish on the spot.
The Corporal Works of Mercy
Our time is St. John of Matha’s time to the nth degree. If ever we needed the intercession of a saint opposed to slavery it is now, and he is one we can turn to. He is a great example of living a corporal work of mercy which, unfortunately, was left out of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – #2447. (Every Catholic family should have a copy of this in the home for study and reference.) But just because it isn’t there doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply. In fact, it applies now more than ever.
You can find the seven corporal works of mercy listed in the Baltimore Catechism and the Catholic Encyclopedia. These are the ones I memorized in second grade, thanks to those good nuns who made sure we kids knew Church teaching.
They are to:
- Feed the hungry
- Give drink to the thirsty,
- Clothe the naked,
- Ransom the captive
- Harbor the harborless (shelter the homeless)
- Visit the sick
- Bury the dead
We cannot buy people out of sex or hard labor slavery today. The people enslaving others keep it hidden as much as possible because it is so lucrative – really dirty money but they get to live very high. Sometimes their governments protect the slavers. Pimps are slavers, too, holding their slaves captive by hooking them on drugs and beating them.
Government policies not to negotiate with terrorists negates buying people out of captivity, though private businesses and families have ransomed Somali pirate captives in recent years. So how can we ransom the captives today?
Ransoming captives is not a thing of the past.
The answer is by fasting and praying, assisting law enforcement in discovering traffickers, pressuring governments to stop human trafficking, speaking out against it wherever we can, sealing our borders and obeying our immigration laws, and helping in rescue efforts if we are able. We might submit a Mass stipend for the Holy Sacrifice to be offered for an end to human trafficking. Most of us can at least do the fasting and praying part if God has not called us to other ways of combating this dehumanizing crime.
The other slavery we need to ransom others from is slavery to sin. We are all captives of sin unless we struggle daily against the wiles of the devil. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, attendance at Mass whenever we can, offering up our pain and suffering for the salvation of souls, frequent Confession, daily prayer – all of these actions are spiritual almsgiving and a work of mercy.
St. John of Matha, pray for us and for all of God’s children who are enslaved physically or spiritually.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
British Humor Hits Home
January 19, 2011
How much of the following video could apply to Post Vatican II American bishops and theologians? The description of Modernists in the Episcopal Church of England lets us laugh a little over a serious subject. Sometimes if we don’t laugh, we will surely cry. From Yes, Minister,
What’s a Modernist?
Being Catholic and Being a Politician – Mutually Exclusive?
January 10, 2011
St. Thomas More : "The King's good servant-but God's first."
Over the past year I and some other Catholic bloggers have wrestled with how to define ourselves regarding politics. In the musings a question arises: Given the evidence of so many Catholic politicians abandoning basic teachings of the Church on the subjects of abortion and gay marriage, to say nothing of their corrupt acts in other areas,
Can a Catholic be a politician and remain faithful to Church teachings, or,
Are being a faithful Catholic and serving as a politician mutually exclusive?
Magister Christianus at Bedlam or Parnassus blog highlighted the heart of the matter in his recent post The Lordship of Jesus Christ which I highly recommend reading in full. He wrote:
…Yet if the one true God, eternally existing as three distinct Persons and fully revealed in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, is the Lord that He claims to be, then there can be nothing to compete for our allegiance. Our first, last, supreme, and everlasting commitment is to that Lord. All other commitments must be viewed within that prior commitment and must be subservient to it…..
Of course, I cannot be completely frank about my relationship with God without being open about Who He is. In other words, I cannot say that I am a Christian, but in my role as a politician claim to be open on the issue of gay marriage. I cannot say that I serve the Lord Jesus Christ without acknowledging what He is, and since He is the word made flesh, this includes acknowledging His teaching.
Or rather, I could do this, if He were not Lord, and now we return to the central issue. If God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is indeed the one Lord of all, then Christians cannot compromise on how their service to this Lord is rendered. It cannot be only as a matter of convenience and it cannot be on purely private or personal terms. It must be all the time, everywhere, and with everyone, and in an age when the exact opposite is being taught to our children through all avenues, there can be no more important lesson for them to learn.
What Magister writes is indeed the heart of the matter. Jesus Christ is Lord. As Father Philip Wolfe, FSSP once shouted from the pulpit, “There can be no compromise with Catholic moral teaching!” And Catholic moral teaching is from the Ten Commandments which enshrine a right relationship with God and the dignity of the human person.
So, given the utter and complete corruption in American politics, are we condemned to see the light of Christ extinguished as notorious politicians who strap on the Catholic badge repeatedly trample upon the dignity of the human person and deny God His rightful place in our lives? Are all Catholics who may be called to the vocation of politics destined to betray Christ as we have seen with the Kennedys, Pelosi, Biden, John Kerry, etc.?
Things have looked grim for years, and especially grim since the 2008 election. We might be disposed to throw up our hands in despair, but if we look around we can find that God indeed gives the graces necessary for a Catholic politician to know, love, and serve God in this world without sacrificing his duties to the state. In fact, I believe that a politician’s duties to the state cannot be exercised appropriately without knowing, loving and serving God.
Sir Ellis Clarke, (28 December 1917 – 30 December 2010)
I am indebted to Helen Gonsalves of Catholicseeking for posting about the recent death of Sir Ellis Emmanuel Innocent Clarke in A Man in Love – A Final Tribute to Sir Ellis Clarke.
God answered my questions posed above with a sterling example of a politician in love with God and his faith – who never wavered from the moral center Catholic teaching gave him. Trinidad and Tobago was blessed to have this man as its first president and powerful influence in TT politics.
No doubt it took great courage for him to stand for the truth along the way, to call out for the dignity of the human person, to honor God in his deeds. Just at this time when in the United States we are undergoing fierce battles with our government over basic human rights, we, through the life and death of Sir Ellis Clarke, are shown what a Catholic politician can and should be.
Now, by suffering with joy, prayer and penance, practicing the skill of clear thinking from a solid classical base, voting responsibly in elections, and wise preparation of our children to live a Christ-centered life in secular society, Catholics can change the face of politics in America for the better. We do not need to know the specifics of how this will be done. God knows. God will accomplish it. He is awaiting our oblation. That is enough.
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R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Henryk Gorecki and Pope John Paul II
November 15, 2010
Our Lady of Czestochowa
Pope John Paul II and composer Henryk Gorecki had much in common. Both were Poles, both lost their mothers at young ages, both resisted and thwarted the Communists oppressing their country, both experienced deeply the anguish of World War II and the Holocaust, both became great because of strength of character and moral authority.
Cardinal Wojtyla’s motto, Totus Tuus, spoke of his great love for the Blessed Mother both personally and as a Pole. She is intimately tied to the Polish people whose devotion to her is unexcelled by any other nation. They weave Mary into the tapestry of their daily, ordinary life, their spiritual life, their family life. Shrines to Our Lady dot the countryside along the many pilgrim paths.
Certainly as boys who had lost their mothers early in life, Mary as tender mother held a special place in the hearts of Gorecki and Wojtyla. When he became Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla kept this motto and love of the Blessed Mother for the rest of his days, a counterpoint to those in the Church who strove to scrub her from notice.
Gorecki’s life and the Pope’s life intersected at several points, their relationship speaking of a high regard for one another. The first notable event was the commissioning of Beatus vir by Cardinal Wojtyla for the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Stanislas, bishop of Krakow, who was assassinated by King Boleslaw I over sins the King didn’t want to give up. I will write more about this in my next post on Gorecki.
Pope John Paul II traveled to Poland several times. For the 1987 pilgrimage to his native land, the Pope’s friend Gorecki composed the hauntingly beautiful Totus Tuus in the his honor. Written for mixed choir, Gorecki immortalized in music the Pope’s life theme:
Totus tuus sum Maria,
Mater nostri Redemptoris.
Virgo Dei, virgo pia
Mater mundi Salvatoris.
Totus tuus sum, Maria!I am completely yours, Mary,
Mother of our Redeemer.
Virgin Mother of God, loving virgin,
Mother of the Saviour of the world.
I am completely yours, Mary!
Here is the Choir of New College, Oxford delivering the work in its entirety.
R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
Henryk Gorecki, 1933-2010, RIP
November 15, 2010
Patriots come in all sizes and shapes, in good health and infirmities, from all classes and occupations. What they have in common is love of country, a fine sense of justice, and resolute determination to prevail against tyranny.
November 12, 2010, God took to Himself a great Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki, who died of a lung infection in his home town of Katowice, located in beautiful Silesia of southern Poland. Gorecki had a long career as teacher, composer, and patriot, resisting the Communist government continuously over the years.
In 1975 Gorecki became Professor of Composition at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice where he became extremely aggravated at Communist interference with the academy. He continually battled the Party, protecting the staff, students and the school itself from political pressures until he finally resigned in 1979 in protest over the government’s refusal to allow Pope John Paul II to visit Katowice.
This was not the end of his resistance, though, but the beginning of a new way of fighting the Communist Party. Gorecki founded the Catholic Intellectuals Club and remained a thorn in the side of the government through the 1980s while remaining an active but not prolific composer.
Although Gorecki began his career in the dissonant style of modernism, he, abandoned this approach to composition and began to turn out extraordinarily beautiful, ethereal works that sound like the soul straining for God. He, like Bela Bartok of Hungary, returned to his country’s folk roots for inspiration, and turned out one-of-a-kind compositions inspired by significant events or themes.
To me, the prevailing art, music, architecture, and literature of the western “intelligencia” of the 20th century expresses man’s hopeless self-centeredness and his subsequent disintegration in a falling away from a right relationship with God. As a devout Catholic, Gorecki did not remain a slave to the screeching dissonance and mad explosions of modern music that sound like a hellish and never-ending train wreck, but rather carved his own way into expressing beauty in sound. The harmony of a Christ-centered life produced works of passion and transcendent beauty that the Iron Curtain could not contain.
Westerners – and indeed the whole world – fell in love with Gorecki through his Third Symphony, composed in 1976. Also known as “The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”, this three part work for orchestra and soprano links three themes of universal suffering.
Movement I’s libretto comes from a 15th century lament. Movement II’s libretto gives voice to a prayer invoking the protection of the Blessed Virgin, written on the wall of a Nazi prison cell in Zakopane by eighteen-year-old Helena Blazusiak, who was held there at the time. Movement III’s libretto contains the words of a Polish folk song – the cry of a Silesian mother looking for her son who was killed in the Silesian uprising.
Gorecki never again composed in this style, leaving the symphony a unique jewel among many gems. Perhaps he thought it was enough to give the frenetic world one hymn of mourning, a statement of grief, a pause in the disharmony of death, a stopping point for introspection that only music can provide.
I love Gorecki’s approach to his life’s work. In a 1994 interview he said:
I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will write for because you have to give the listener something and he has to make an effort in order to understand certain things. If I were thinking of my audience and one likes this, one likes that, one likes another thing, I would never know what to write. Let every listener choose that which interests him. I have nothing against one person liking Mozart or Shostakovich or Leonard Bernstein, but doesn’t like Górecki. That’s fine with me. I, too, like certain things.
Gorecki’s Miserere, which he boldly composed for a large choir in response to police brutality against the Solidarity movement, is sung here by the 130 person Choir of the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra. The visuals are paintings by artist Józef Stolorz, a fellow Silesian who also suffered under the Communist regime.
R. Now and forever. Amen.
(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)
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