I spent today in a glorious way. I got out around lunchtime and ran errands - put packages in the mail, picked up my silk blouse from the cleaner's, had a bite of lunch -
Visited a local discount shop (SteinMart, if you must know) and decided that commercial tastes leave a great deal to be desired, these days. Why do plus sized women's clothes have to be so horribly ugly? It's bad enough they are sooo B-I-G, surely they could be in reasonable prints and colors and fabrics and even shapes - not these garish multi-colored bizarro prints in weird manmade fibers looking like something out of a 60s acid trip. I wanted a decent, 3/4 length or long-sleeved top in bright jewel tones, not orange, not black leopard or psychadelic throwback insanity. I gave up and left the store with all my money unspent.
I went into Fresh Market to satisfy a week-old craving for Brussels sprouts. All they had was tiny ones about the size of a marble, on a stem - one stem left. I bought a small triangle of Brie and a loaf of sourdough bread.
Then I remembered - I'm still not in the habit of remembering the used bookstore up at the end of the highway - and I do love a good browse in a used bookstore. There, I hit paydirt. I found a book on philosophy that I'll be able to use in school, a book on the sermons of John Henry Newman, one on herb gardens from Rodale Press. I found music - a book of piano sonatas, books on organ music (someday I will have an organ to learn to play) - novels by Rosamunde Pilcher, whose personal note to me arrived on Christmas Eve (I wrote her several months ago, on impulse, after reading Coming Home and The Shell Seekers and she actually write me back!) and Rumer Godden and George Eliot and - oh, goodness how can I keep track of it all!
I came away with two massive shopping bags full of the most wonderful books - for $31! Now, with a cup of tea, and the living room vacuumed and the trash carried out, I am ready to bid the old year farewell.
It's been a rich and satisfying year. Even a glorious but unrequited love has enriched and blessed my life immensely - and that is the worst thing that has happened this year. There have been new friends adding richness to an already full circle of good friends - discoveries of new gifts and new callings. There have been "love letters from God" in the form of bluebirds and deer in the back yard, rainbows, and glorious rains. There have been hours of satisfying work, and a great many pats on the back from people whose opinions matter to me.
There is much to look forward to in 2008. I'll be starting school in a couple of weeks, and that will be a great adventure. There will be new things to write, new friends to love -
I always want to end a post with something wise, but I'm sadly lacking in that department tonight. I'm simply filled with contentment, and looking forward to what God has waiting for me in the new year.
God bless you all, and give you great joy this coming year.
Monday, December 31, 2007
If you want your comment posted -
Sign it.
I've gotten still another unsigned Anonymous comment this morning in response to Karl. Writer, you want to try again, put a name to it, I'll publish it.
However, I'll also tell you (again) that I left out part of his original post which includes identifying information about his ex-wife. And I'll tell you that you've only heard one side of the story: his. And I'll probably say a few other things that would just make everyone mad, but that I think would need to be said in the interest of fairness. Because this post I'm holding in reserve smacks too much of posts I've read on single's sites, praising a man you don't know in order to impress him with your own loyalty and "admiration."
Look. I've already pointed out that maybe Karl's ex-wife isn't presenting herself for Communion. or that maybe she and her second husband are living as brother and sister - that these things are Not. Our. Business. Nobody has bothered to reply -
and what needs to be said is, "Yep, there's a lot more to the story here than we've been told."
But you're right - Karl needs to come Home to the Church. Not because the Church needs him, mind you, but because he needs the Church. He needs to come home to the Church because the Church is true.
I've gotten still another unsigned Anonymous comment this morning in response to Karl. Writer, you want to try again, put a name to it, I'll publish it.
However, I'll also tell you (again) that I left out part of his original post which includes identifying information about his ex-wife. And I'll tell you that you've only heard one side of the story: his. And I'll probably say a few other things that would just make everyone mad, but that I think would need to be said in the interest of fairness. Because this post I'm holding in reserve smacks too much of posts I've read on single's sites, praising a man you don't know in order to impress him with your own loyalty and "admiration."
Look. I've already pointed out that maybe Karl's ex-wife isn't presenting herself for Communion. or that maybe she and her second husband are living as brother and sister - that these things are Not. Our. Business. Nobody has bothered to reply -
and what needs to be said is, "Yep, there's a lot more to the story here than we've been told."
But you're right - Karl needs to come Home to the Church. Not because the Church needs him, mind you, but because he needs the Church. He needs to come home to the Church because the Church is true.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
To Ms. M - an apology
Since you couldn't very well leave me an email address, let me take this opportunity to publicly apologize to you. I do remember you - well and warmly - not only from the parking lot but also from the product meeting, shortly before your little one was born.
I also remember well your warmth of affection and devotion for your mother and your siblings.
I remember conversations with your mother, which apprised me of aspects of your mother's life which your father's comments herein reveal either lack of knowledge or a simple not caring. These facts about your mother's life have a great deal to do with her standing with the Church at this time, and they are not my concern, nor even your father's - but hers and G's and their Confessor(s) .
The fact remains: your father has left the Church, and while he rails against your mother, he is no less culpable for his own choices. His original comments post implored me to appeal to the Roman Rota in my nullity situation for the sake of my soul's salvation (which I will not do, as homosexuality is very much a black-and-white issue, unlike the "lack of due discretion" grounds named in your parents' petition) and yet he has left the Church he appealed to.
There appears to me to be an alarming inconsistency in your father's words and choices. Either the Church in Rome is the True Church which, despite the human errors of certain of her representatives, deserves his loyalty, or it is false, in which case his resentments are senseless. Actually, they make no sense anyway - he speaks of the Church forcing your mother into obedience? by which it reads as if he expects the Church to force her against her will to reconcile with him or to abandon her second family.
Remember: it was only after re-reading your father's post and going to the web link he sent me, which details the history of the nullity process, that I recognized him as your father - which you have just confirmed for me. (Did he recognize me before posting?) There is no justification for his forcing himself on my acquaintance as he has done; his resentments toward your mother are far too obvious; he seems only to want to be sided with in horror: oh, how horrible a woman she is, and how careless the Church is for letting such a situation go undisciplined!
I can't do it. Your father is seriously in error.
Please be assured of my continuing respect and affection for you and the whole of your family. That includes Karl.
Laura
I also remember well your warmth of affection and devotion for your mother and your siblings.
I remember conversations with your mother, which apprised me of aspects of your mother's life which your father's comments herein reveal either lack of knowledge or a simple not caring. These facts about your mother's life have a great deal to do with her standing with the Church at this time, and they are not my concern, nor even your father's - but hers and G's and their Confessor(s) .
The fact remains: your father has left the Church, and while he rails against your mother, he is no less culpable for his own choices. His original comments post implored me to appeal to the Roman Rota in my nullity situation for the sake of my soul's salvation (which I will not do, as homosexuality is very much a black-and-white issue, unlike the "lack of due discretion" grounds named in your parents' petition) and yet he has left the Church he appealed to.
There appears to me to be an alarming inconsistency in your father's words and choices. Either the Church in Rome is the True Church which, despite the human errors of certain of her representatives, deserves his loyalty, or it is false, in which case his resentments are senseless. Actually, they make no sense anyway - he speaks of the Church forcing your mother into obedience? by which it reads as if he expects the Church to force her against her will to reconcile with him or to abandon her second family.
Remember: it was only after re-reading your father's post and going to the web link he sent me, which details the history of the nullity process, that I recognized him as your father - which you have just confirmed for me. (Did he recognize me before posting?) There is no justification for his forcing himself on my acquaintance as he has done; his resentments toward your mother are far too obvious; he seems only to want to be sided with in horror: oh, how horrible a woman she is, and how careless the Church is for letting such a situation go undisciplined!
I can't do it. Your father is seriously in error.
Please be assured of my continuing respect and affection for you and the whole of your family. That includes Karl.
Laura
Moving right along...
It's pouring rain here since before dawn. I love weather, and we've sure needed this rain - the entire Southeast has been under a miserable drought for over a year now - and hadn't fully recovered from our last.
Twice - Christmas Night and this morning, I've heard thunder. The old wives' tale down here is that if you hear thunder in a winter storm, you'll have snow within ten days. Interesting.
I mentioned Leaves of Heaven in an earlier post - a happy "accident" if I've ever had one - and I thought perhaps a poem might be a nice thing to share -
Oscar Wilde is known for his delightful plays (The Importance of Being Ernest, among others) and, sadly, for his scandalous life. But before he died he did become a Catholic - and the following poem is his:
Twice - Christmas Night and this morning, I've heard thunder. The old wives' tale down here is that if you hear thunder in a winter storm, you'll have snow within ten days. Interesting.
I mentioned Leaves of Heaven in an earlier post - a happy "accident" if I've ever had one - and I thought perhaps a poem might be a nice thing to share -
Oscar Wilde is known for his delightful plays (The Importance of Being Ernest, among others) and, sadly, for his scandalous life. But before he died he did become a Catholic - and the following poem is his:
E TenebrisCome down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Responding to Karl - too many nullity decisions?
Karl wrote, in part, in a comment that I have since deleted:
So wrote Karl in a comment to my post on my nullity process. I deleted his comment from that page because he went on to add potentially identifying information of his former wife. In fact, the more I think of it (this is my 3d edit of this post) the more I am certain that I am acquainted with his ex-wife.
First of all, I think it's incredibly arrogant to presume to know more than Mother Church. Sinfully arrogant.
Secondly, in very general principle, one must remember that civil law, which governs divorce, has been almost chokingly rigid until only about twenty-five years ago. People could not leave marriages without visual evidence of adultery - either photographic, or the testimony of a professional investigator. Non-support, violence, innumerable acts that made life burdensome and insupportable were difficult and humiliating to testify to, publicly; many people simply endured rather than air their dirty laundry in open court.
What people like our friend Karl, here, must ask himself is how many men and women were in canonically invalid marriages that Civil law would not allow them to escape? How many arranged marriages, for example, undertaken under coercion rather than free will, occurred in past eras? Marriages between members of royalty, for example, were often politically expedient rather than ecclesially cherished.
Less generally, Karl seems to think that his conduct after the marriage should have validated the marriage; however, it is issues existing at the time of the wedding that determine the validity of a marriage. We see, in a link Karl provided and which I have deleted in order to protect the parties, a nominally Catholic couple, both strong-willed and unwilling to consider wiser counsel; engaging in sexual relations prior to their marriage and, in fact, the ex-wife was pregnant at the time of the marriage - all issues which would hinder a full understanding and ability to enter into a sacramental marriage. In fact, the "lack of discretion" issue seems well-established in the testimony, based upon that engagement history - although the Roman Rota declared on April 17, 1997, that nullity could not be proven based upon the evidence.
Note: Nullity was not denied; it was simply held as not affirmed. Thus, Karl and his ex-wife are in a sort of nullity netherworld - and he is right in stating that his ex-wife was in serious error to have remarried under these conditions.
Now, Karl has asserted in his message that the priests of the Raleigh diocese are ignoring this decision and accepting his ex-wife and her "lover." If this is the woman that I believe it is, there is more to the story than Karl has included in his passionate narrative. She may not be presenting herself for Communion, she and her husband may be living together as brother and sister... there are several factors here that we are not told, nor is it, for present discussion, any of our cotton-picking business.
However, the fact is that Karl has left the Church - and although he says he left because of this nullity issue, the testimony bears out that the couple were not very serious about the Faith prior to the marriage and had, in fact, united with a nonCatholic religion during the marriage. This fact makes me sad; it seems to me that this decision is a self-centered bit of a temper-tantrum.
Karl is accountable to God. The Catholic Church is the One True Church, established by Our Lord while he was upon the earth. The Church is God's instrument, and it is incumbent upon Karl to reconcile himself to the Church, and not to be distracted by his former wife's choices, nor to use them as his thin excuse for his own rebellion.
Come on Home, Karl. Let go, detach, from your former wife's choices, and fling yourself into the great and gracious arms of Grace.
I am a former Catholic due to the liberal practices of the Catholic Church regarding marriage, divorce, adultery, nullity...
Do not be sure of the nullity of your marriage unless Rome renders the decision.
American Canonists are notoriously liberal.
The Catholic Church accepts my wife and her lover as a couple in your neck of the woods in North Carolina, in spite of two Roman Rotal decisions holding our marriage as valid. So the priests ignore them and tell my wife she just could not prove it.
She could not prove it BECAUSE it IS VALID!
So, I left the Catholic Church, after seventeen years of asking it to ACT to help heal our sacrament, which is a real joke about these things.
You can be nearly certain that you will obtain nullity, but you are gambling with your salvation so its up to you. Send it to Rome to be sure, no matter how long it takes or what it costs.
Just my two bits, as a lifelong Catholic, I am 53 now, who knows what truth means.
This is not said to hurt you. I care. How many men do you know who remain faithful to their adulterous spouse because they meant their vows? I am eighteen years abandoned but I meant what I said. But the Catholic Church mocks my faithfulness. I will remain faithful to her as well, I just cannot live with her either.
God be with you,
So wrote Karl in a comment to my post on my nullity process. I deleted his comment from that page because he went on to add potentially identifying information of his former wife. In fact, the more I think of it (this is my 3d edit of this post) the more I am certain that I am acquainted with his ex-wife.
First of all, I think it's incredibly arrogant to presume to know more than Mother Church. Sinfully arrogant.
Secondly, in very general principle, one must remember that civil law, which governs divorce, has been almost chokingly rigid until only about twenty-five years ago. People could not leave marriages without visual evidence of adultery - either photographic, or the testimony of a professional investigator. Non-support, violence, innumerable acts that made life burdensome and insupportable were difficult and humiliating to testify to, publicly; many people simply endured rather than air their dirty laundry in open court.
What people like our friend Karl, here, must ask himself is how many men and women were in canonically invalid marriages that Civil law would not allow them to escape? How many arranged marriages, for example, undertaken under coercion rather than free will, occurred in past eras? Marriages between members of royalty, for example, were often politically expedient rather than ecclesially cherished.
Less generally, Karl seems to think that his conduct after the marriage should have validated the marriage; however, it is issues existing at the time of the wedding that determine the validity of a marriage. We see, in a link Karl provided and which I have deleted in order to protect the parties, a nominally Catholic couple, both strong-willed and unwilling to consider wiser counsel; engaging in sexual relations prior to their marriage and, in fact, the ex-wife was pregnant at the time of the marriage - all issues which would hinder a full understanding and ability to enter into a sacramental marriage. In fact, the "lack of discretion" issue seems well-established in the testimony, based upon that engagement history - although the Roman Rota declared on April 17, 1997, that nullity could not be proven based upon the evidence.
Note: Nullity was not denied; it was simply held as not affirmed. Thus, Karl and his ex-wife are in a sort of nullity netherworld - and he is right in stating that his ex-wife was in serious error to have remarried under these conditions.
Now, Karl has asserted in his message that the priests of the Raleigh diocese are ignoring this decision and accepting his ex-wife and her "lover." If this is the woman that I believe it is, there is more to the story than Karl has included in his passionate narrative. She may not be presenting herself for Communion, she and her husband may be living together as brother and sister... there are several factors here that we are not told, nor is it, for present discussion, any of our cotton-picking business.
However, the fact is that Karl has left the Church - and although he says he left because of this nullity issue, the testimony bears out that the couple were not very serious about the Faith prior to the marriage and had, in fact, united with a nonCatholic religion during the marriage. This fact makes me sad; it seems to me that this decision is a self-centered bit of a temper-tantrum.
Karl is accountable to God. The Catholic Church is the One True Church, established by Our Lord while he was upon the earth. The Church is God's instrument, and it is incumbent upon Karl to reconcile himself to the Church, and not to be distracted by his former wife's choices, nor to use them as his thin excuse for his own rebellion.
Come on Home, Karl. Let go, detach, from your former wife's choices, and fling yourself into the great and gracious arms of Grace.
obstacles -
I was supposed to meet with a retired priest this morning to discuss beginning spiritual direction, but the sinus ick I've been plagued with for the better part of the week seems to be settled in and it has me by the throat - literally: laryngitis.
I'm terribly disappointed. The more I read in St Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life the more convinced I become that my old habits as a former Protestant are self-defeating; I need help - to know myself more honestly and to learn to live a holy life, to be a holier woman. This particular retired priest, too, is a lovely gentleman, one I think I will love to work with. Another priest friend of mine recommended him highly, said he had found him to be an excellent Confessor. So I have been more eager about starting with Fr John today than almost all the Christmas festivities.
It's a huge step, this acknowledging that I need help. I've always had to at least convey an image of some sort of perfection and superiority; now I get to be just the opposite. It won't be easy for me, but I think it's time. Yeah, it's definitely time.
I'm terribly disappointed. The more I read in St Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life the more convinced I become that my old habits as a former Protestant are self-defeating; I need help - to know myself more honestly and to learn to live a holy life, to be a holier woman. This particular retired priest, too, is a lovely gentleman, one I think I will love to work with. Another priest friend of mine recommended him highly, said he had found him to be an excellent Confessor. So I have been more eager about starting with Fr John today than almost all the Christmas festivities.
It's a huge step, this acknowledging that I need help. I've always had to at least convey an image of some sort of perfection and superiority; now I get to be just the opposite. It won't be easy for me, but I think it's time. Yeah, it's definitely time.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Mass tonight, Mass tomorrow morning -
I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!
for, although He was God, He did not count his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men,And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:6-11)
God bless and keep you all -
Love,
Laura
I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!
for, although He was God, He did not count his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men,And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:6-11)
God bless and keep you all -
Love,
Laura
Saturday, December 22, 2007
From the "I Don't know whether to laugh or cry" file -
In light of recent waves of politically correct anti-Christian sentiment in the public arena, I am glad to see this. I only hope it's not too little, too late.
H. Res. 847
Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;
Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;
Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;
Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;
Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its Judeo-Christian roots;
Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;
Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God's redemption, mercy, and Grace; and
Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore, be it
- Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
- (1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;
- (2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;
- (3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;
- (4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;
- (5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and
- (6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.
Attest:
Clerk.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
I saw this at our local Catholic bookstore, and my spirit wouldn't rest until I'd made the splurge and bought it. Merry Christmas, Laura!
This book is utter joy. It doesn't contain insipid saccharine verse like Helen Steiner Rice - it's full of genuine legitimate, literary-quality poetry from men and women like Hildegard of Bingen, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Geoffrey Chaucer -
Even that prolific genius, "Anon." is here.
Do yourself a treat - check this one out.
Monday, December 17, 2007
One more week 'til Christmas!
I'm overwhelmed - where is the time going!!!???
I'm in panic mode because half my little choir is going to be away for Christmas. We're not even planning a Christmas anthem - because there are only three people to sing at either Mass.
It ought not to be like this. People complain about the lack of variety in our music, but when I have only six singers, and most of them travel extensively (my parish is mostly retirees, this being a retirement/resort area of the country) and all of them are mortally afraid of singing something different from what everyone else is singing - which eliminates harmony singing - what can I do?
I'm thinking of trying to solicit singers from the area high schools. There's a lot of antiCatholic sentiment in this area, though, and I don't think it will give me many new voices. Worth a try, I suppose.....
Any ideas?
I'm in panic mode because half my little choir is going to be away for Christmas. We're not even planning a Christmas anthem - because there are only three people to sing at either Mass.
It ought not to be like this. People complain about the lack of variety in our music, but when I have only six singers, and most of them travel extensively (my parish is mostly retirees, this being a retirement/resort area of the country) and all of them are mortally afraid of singing something different from what everyone else is singing - which eliminates harmony singing - what can I do?
I'm thinking of trying to solicit singers from the area high schools. There's a lot of antiCatholic sentiment in this area, though, and I don't think it will give me many new voices. Worth a try, I suppose.....
Any ideas?
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Confession - it really is good for the soul
That doesn't make it easy or comfortable, of course. Which is probably why - along with residual obdurate Protestant independence - I haven't been to Confession in months. (how many? none o' your biznez!)
But I did go today. I'm engaging in an online book study of St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life with a group of women I've met via a couple of Catholic web sites. We spent two weeks discussing issues surrounding Spiritual Direction, and this past Wednesday we were on Ch. 5 - detaching from our sins.
It's the very act of confession that I find awkward. I can think and pray on my way to the church, in line waiting my turn to confess, using a superb examination of conscience, and have my list of sins settled in my mind (and occasionally on paper) - but as soon as I get into the Confessional my mind goes into a disorderly blur.
Still, as Msgr I counselled me this evening, in order to do battle against my sins, I've got to use the arms available to me - and Sacramental Confession is the ultimate weapon known to mankind.
This is part of that spiritual warfare I've been writing about in recent months. We begin with ourselves, because if we don't we're just blowing smoke. We work on ourselves, we reach toward perfection, in order to become more fit and better trained for the battles beyond our own minds and souls.
I said, in a discussion of the promotion of contraception in Third World countries, recently, that we can't export a commodity we don't possess. In that case, I was referring to a national sense of reverence for life; in this case, I am thinking of radical, countercultural holiness. Sanctity.
If we want to make a difference in the world, we have to strive for a difference in ourselves. The work begins with Confession.
But I did go today. I'm engaging in an online book study of St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life with a group of women I've met via a couple of Catholic web sites. We spent two weeks discussing issues surrounding Spiritual Direction, and this past Wednesday we were on Ch. 5 - detaching from our sins.
It's the very act of confession that I find awkward. I can think and pray on my way to the church, in line waiting my turn to confess, using a superb examination of conscience, and have my list of sins settled in my mind (and occasionally on paper) - but as soon as I get into the Confessional my mind goes into a disorderly blur.
Still, as Msgr I counselled me this evening, in order to do battle against my sins, I've got to use the arms available to me - and Sacramental Confession is the ultimate weapon known to mankind.
This is part of that spiritual warfare I've been writing about in recent months. We begin with ourselves, because if we don't we're just blowing smoke. We work on ourselves, we reach toward perfection, in order to become more fit and better trained for the battles beyond our own minds and souls.
I said, in a discussion of the promotion of contraception in Third World countries, recently, that we can't export a commodity we don't possess. In that case, I was referring to a national sense of reverence for life; in this case, I am thinking of radical, countercultural holiness. Sanctity.
If we want to make a difference in the world, we have to strive for a difference in ourselves. The work begins with Confession.
Friday, December 14, 2007
SPIRITUAL WARFARE - Part IVa - Arming Ourselves
We expect to see antagonism toward the Church within the world; what is shocking is when we see it within the ranks of the membership.
The reasons for this are multifold, but for now I'd like to focus on one concern: issues of catechesis. People receive rotten, incorrect catechesis during their formation, or they misremember what they were taught, or Sister/Father Rebel throws out the ubiquitous "Spirit of Vatican II" excuse for abandoning uncomfortable teachings (like the ban on artificial birth control, or the need for Sacramental Confession, or the reinventing the Eucharist to be only a symbol which we all surpass).
We see a LOT of this in the South, where Catholics have always been a minority population, and most Catholics are transplants (usually Post-Vatican II retirees) from other parts of the country. The dioceses of New York, I'm discovering, are almost certain to send the South poorly catechized individuals who heartily resent the use of Latin even during heightened seasons such as Advent and Lent - "We did away with that junk after Vatican II!" one indignant parishioner told me as he quit the choir.
Actually, we did not - but the retention of Latin is not my point.
It is truly heartbreaking to see such rancor and competition within the Church, within our own parishes - but it ought not to surprise us. After all, Jesus Himself warned us that, in the Last Days, "if it were possible, even the elect would be led astray."
If we wish to be able to Fight the Good Fight, as Paul said, we need to be prepared to fight on all fronts, home (within the Church) and "abroad" (the world). We need to be able to give a good account of our Faith wherever it is needed. This means we really do have to know our Church. We have to be well-acquainted with our Catechism and our Bible, to keep abreast of new document releases and old ones. A nodding acquaintance with Church History isn't a bad idea, either.
We also have the obligation to be working not only on the intellectual conformity to the Church, but also on the transformation of our characters.
I have a feeling I'll be blogging about this quite a bit in the coming weeks, as I prepare to being work on my MA-Theology from one of our major Universities.
May God raise up many well-equipped workers in His fields.
The reasons for this are multifold, but for now I'd like to focus on one concern: issues of catechesis. People receive rotten, incorrect catechesis during their formation, or they misremember what they were taught, or Sister/Father Rebel throws out the ubiquitous "Spirit of Vatican II" excuse for abandoning uncomfortable teachings (like the ban on artificial birth control, or the need for Sacramental Confession, or the reinventing the Eucharist to be only a symbol which we all surpass).
We see a LOT of this in the South, where Catholics have always been a minority population, and most Catholics are transplants (usually Post-Vatican II retirees) from other parts of the country. The dioceses of New York, I'm discovering, are almost certain to send the South poorly catechized individuals who heartily resent the use of Latin even during heightened seasons such as Advent and Lent - "We did away with that junk after Vatican II!" one indignant parishioner told me as he quit the choir.
Actually, we did not - but the retention of Latin is not my point.
It is truly heartbreaking to see such rancor and competition within the Church, within our own parishes - but it ought not to surprise us. After all, Jesus Himself warned us that, in the Last Days, "if it were possible, even the elect would be led astray."
If we wish to be able to Fight the Good Fight, as Paul said, we need to be prepared to fight on all fronts, home (within the Church) and "abroad" (the world). We need to be able to give a good account of our Faith wherever it is needed. This means we really do have to know our Church. We have to be well-acquainted with our Catechism and our Bible, to keep abreast of new document releases and old ones. A nodding acquaintance with Church History isn't a bad idea, either.
We also have the obligation to be working not only on the intellectual conformity to the Church, but also on the transformation of our characters.
I have a feeling I'll be blogging about this quite a bit in the coming weeks, as I prepare to being work on my MA-Theology from one of our major Universities.
May God raise up many well-equipped workers in His fields.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
and Almost Free -
The Diocese of Charlotte has notified me that the ruling in my Petition to determine nullity of my first marriage (to the Faerie Queene) is Affirmative -
that is, that the marriage is, according to Canon Law, Null -
and my file has been sent to the Archdiocese of Atlanta for review and hopeful ratification.
The difference in my spirit is amazing - there's no anticipating what this is going to feel like.
Deo Gratias!
that is, that the marriage is, according to Canon Law, Null -
and my file has been sent to the Archdiocese of Atlanta for review and hopeful ratification.
The difference in my spirit is amazing - there's no anticipating what this is going to feel like.
Deo Gratias!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
SPIRITUAL WARFARE Part III - Entering the Conflict
There’s a story that has been around for years: you can place a frog in a pan of cold water that is slowly brought to boil while the frog complacently adapts to his environment – until it kills him. The analogy is frighteningly apt. Ninth grade students reading Elie Wiesel’s Night are appalled at how the Jews of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Europe refused to believe the warnings sent to them by witnesses of Nazi atrocities against their people. “That’s dumb!” they say almost as one voice.
Yet such complacency, such disbelief, is our own sin. We have allowed atrocity to build on top of atrocity and we have not stood in the gap and cried “Foul!”
In the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, President Bush stood before our nation and warned us that the war we had entered into, on terrorism, would be exceedingly difficult precisely because it is a war against an attitude, a philosophy of destruction, and not a sovereign nation or specific king. In the same way, we as Christian people are called to be engaged in a battle for souls – a battle not against individual men and women or armies, but, against attitudes and philosophical constructs that lead to the injury and destruction of the immortal soul:
St. Paul urged the Ephesians: “… we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand….” (Eph. 6:10-13)
A deceitful view of the truth, common in our culture, says that all opinions have value, all ideologies are of equal merit. This is a worldview that tells us it doesn’t matter what we think, what we do, or how we live.
After all, it whispers and sometimes shouts, God only wants us to be happy!
No, dear friends. God does not want us to be superficially “happy.” God wants us to be good, so that we can be supremely happy with Him through all eternity.
Despite what we have been told by prevailing “wisdom” – which insists that I have “my truth” and you have “your truth” – there is only one Truth – and it is revealed to all of human history through the Person of Jesus Christ and through the agency of His Church. The issue is whether we are going to be faithful and obedient to the Truth or whether we are going to, by default, become complicit with the Enemy. We must recognize this and adapt our attitudes accordingly. There will be no middle ground.
We are called to be a countercultural people, in the world but not of it. This is not a popular or easy path. It means that we have to be engaged – deliberately engaged – in trying to know and to conform ourselves to a standard of thought, conduct, and feeling that the world is telling us is old-fashioned, archaic, and even repressive. It will require the engagement of all three of those dimensions – thought, conduct, and feeling – to combat the evil in our midst.
When we were baptized into the Church, into the Christian faith, we received, as Paul says, our adoption as joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8: 15). We are now citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven – in exile in this world, but eagerly awaiting our call Home, where we belong with Him. He is our Heavenly Father, but He is also our King. We are called to honor the laws, customs, and loyalties of our Homeland, even while we are in exile, as did the Children of Israel during their exile to Babylon. Like them, we are strangers and sojourners, having relinquished citizenship in this world in exchange for a Heavenly citizenship; we must therefore honor our first loyalty to God.
This loyalty is not popular in the world. Our eccentricity points out the destructiveness of a worldly, pagan culture and makes its residents uncomfortable. We will face a lot of misguided but well-intentioned opposition and downright hostility. The Enemy of our souls will make many attempts to get us to renounce our identity as sons and daughters of God.
The means he will use are manifold. Each of us has his particular weakness – lust, love of wealth and luxuries, self-aggrandizement, love of power – and it is to these that the Enemy appeals to us as individuals. What tempts me to stray from fidelity to Our Lord may not be what tempts you, and it hardly matters; the Enemy will address us personally.
We must begin our defense against the Enemy, and our offense against his domination of our culture, by changing our minds; old attitudes, the old complacency, will not do for us any longer.
It is astonishing to see how many verses in the Scriptures directly address the issue of our thoughts, our minds, and our orientation in the world but not of it:
Be transformed by the renewing of your minds – (Rom. 12:2)
Whatsoever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. (Phil. 4:8)
Be not conformed to this world… (Rom 12:2)
Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility to God? (James 4:4)
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. (I John 2:15)
As we change our attitudes, our ideas, we must also take action.
We must never grow weary of defending the defenseless by our opposition to abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell exploitation. That is obvious – but it is only a beginning. We must also defend the dignity and worth of all human life, in the aged, the infirm, the culturally and socio-economically deprived.
We must also defend what is decent and honorable in our culture and oppose all that is mediocre, salacious, and banal. As inconvenient as it is, as bitterly uncomfortable as it makes us, we must face head-on the fact that our culture is becoming desensitized to sin – just like the frog in the pot of water. The mediocre and banal – if not the utterly salacious – entertainments that we feel entitled to enjoy are like a termite infestation eroding the moral and spiritual fiber of our culture.
We must not make excuses for careless self-indulgence. When we engage in activities, recreations, and conversations that make a mockery of the best of our identity as Catholics, we give that round of battle to the Enemy. It’s no good saying of a television show that glamorizes adultery or violence, “Oh, it’s just TV, it doesn’t really matter.” It matters a great deal; TV and other mass entertainments have been a primary means of desensitizing the culture to sin, evil, and coarseness.
Parents, particularly, must be diligent to protect the minds and souls of their children. Catholic parents who allow their children to watch MTV, BET, movies that glorify violence, and other aggressively contemptuous entertainments fail in their duty to train their children’s minds, characters, and consciences. Parents who do not challenge their children’s schools’ use of novels like Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, with its unchallenged contempt for others (both peers and those in positions of authority, particularly for religious), and its masturbatory references, fail in their duty to safeguard the minds and imaginations of their children and to preserve in their communities an adherence to the Christian standards of common decency that have shaped and defined those communities to the present day.
Moreover, we are defending not only our own children, but the children of those parents who are not doing their duty or living as active Christians.
When anti-Christian voices in our communities threaten the values and symbols we hold dear, we have an obligation to raise our voices in protest against the few dominating the many. We have an obligation to remind our elected civic leaders that the Constitution does not support freedom from religion, and that the voice of the majority chooses the policies and representations of our communities.
In every way imaginable, we have an obligation to seek and to conform to godly principles – as citizens, neighbors, and consumers. Our countercultural influence will not be nearly as effective if it is not all-encompassing, to the best of our ability at any given moment in time. What I am prescribing here will be an ongoing, developing endeavor, for the rest of our lives.
Finally, all our actions must be wholly undergirded with prayer. In prayer we touch the Mover of the Cosmos; in prayer we effect networks of change on a grand and an infinitesimal level. Our ideas and our actions become grounded and fused through prayer. Most of all, in prayer we enter God’s own presence – and in that Presence we ourselves are transformed. That ongoing transformation is what makes possible the change in mind, heart, and action we are being called to undertake.
Our culture is no longer dominated or governed by the principles of Judeo-Christian morality. Our identity and our values as Catholics are being challenged with increasing hostility. Battle lines are being drawn more dramatically with every passing week – between the friends of Christ and His enemies. The distinction between darkness and light, right and wrong, is becoming more dramatic.
Complacency will place us in the position of spoiled salt, to be thrown out (Mt. 5:13) or the lukewarm, who will be spit out of His mouth in Judgment (Rev. 3:16).
We truly are at war, as Paul says. – Therefore, grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power Put on the full armor of God so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics… That is why you must take up all God’s armour, or you will not be able to put up any resistance on the evil day, or stand your ground even though you exert yourselves to the full. So stand your ground, with truth a belt around your waist, and uprightness a breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the gospel of peace and always carrying the shield of faith so that you can use it to quench the burning arrows of the Evil One. And then you must take salvation as your helmet and the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God. (Eph. 6:10-17)
May He find us faithful to the very end.
Yet such complacency, such disbelief, is our own sin. We have allowed atrocity to build on top of atrocity and we have not stood in the gap and cried “Foul!”
In the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, President Bush stood before our nation and warned us that the war we had entered into, on terrorism, would be exceedingly difficult precisely because it is a war against an attitude, a philosophy of destruction, and not a sovereign nation or specific king. In the same way, we as Christian people are called to be engaged in a battle for souls – a battle not against individual men and women or armies, but, against attitudes and philosophical constructs that lead to the injury and destruction of the immortal soul:
St. Paul urged the Ephesians: “… we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand….” (Eph. 6:10-13)
A deceitful view of the truth, common in our culture, says that all opinions have value, all ideologies are of equal merit. This is a worldview that tells us it doesn’t matter what we think, what we do, or how we live.
After all, it whispers and sometimes shouts, God only wants us to be happy!
No, dear friends. God does not want us to be superficially “happy.” God wants us to be good, so that we can be supremely happy with Him through all eternity.
Despite what we have been told by prevailing “wisdom” – which insists that I have “my truth” and you have “your truth” – there is only one Truth – and it is revealed to all of human history through the Person of Jesus Christ and through the agency of His Church. The issue is whether we are going to be faithful and obedient to the Truth or whether we are going to, by default, become complicit with the Enemy. We must recognize this and adapt our attitudes accordingly. There will be no middle ground.
We are called to be a countercultural people, in the world but not of it. This is not a popular or easy path. It means that we have to be engaged – deliberately engaged – in trying to know and to conform ourselves to a standard of thought, conduct, and feeling that the world is telling us is old-fashioned, archaic, and even repressive. It will require the engagement of all three of those dimensions – thought, conduct, and feeling – to combat the evil in our midst.
When we were baptized into the Church, into the Christian faith, we received, as Paul says, our adoption as joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8: 15). We are now citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven – in exile in this world, but eagerly awaiting our call Home, where we belong with Him. He is our Heavenly Father, but He is also our King. We are called to honor the laws, customs, and loyalties of our Homeland, even while we are in exile, as did the Children of Israel during their exile to Babylon. Like them, we are strangers and sojourners, having relinquished citizenship in this world in exchange for a Heavenly citizenship; we must therefore honor our first loyalty to God.
This loyalty is not popular in the world. Our eccentricity points out the destructiveness of a worldly, pagan culture and makes its residents uncomfortable. We will face a lot of misguided but well-intentioned opposition and downright hostility. The Enemy of our souls will make many attempts to get us to renounce our identity as sons and daughters of God.
The means he will use are manifold. Each of us has his particular weakness – lust, love of wealth and luxuries, self-aggrandizement, love of power – and it is to these that the Enemy appeals to us as individuals. What tempts me to stray from fidelity to Our Lord may not be what tempts you, and it hardly matters; the Enemy will address us personally.
We must begin our defense against the Enemy, and our offense against his domination of our culture, by changing our minds; old attitudes, the old complacency, will not do for us any longer.
It is astonishing to see how many verses in the Scriptures directly address the issue of our thoughts, our minds, and our orientation in the world but not of it:
Be transformed by the renewing of your minds – (Rom. 12:2)
Whatsoever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. (Phil. 4:8)
Be not conformed to this world… (Rom 12:2)
Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility to God? (James 4:4)
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. (I John 2:15)
As we change our attitudes, our ideas, we must also take action.
We must never grow weary of defending the defenseless by our opposition to abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell exploitation. That is obvious – but it is only a beginning. We must also defend the dignity and worth of all human life, in the aged, the infirm, the culturally and socio-economically deprived.
We must also defend what is decent and honorable in our culture and oppose all that is mediocre, salacious, and banal. As inconvenient as it is, as bitterly uncomfortable as it makes us, we must face head-on the fact that our culture is becoming desensitized to sin – just like the frog in the pot of water. The mediocre and banal – if not the utterly salacious – entertainments that we feel entitled to enjoy are like a termite infestation eroding the moral and spiritual fiber of our culture.
We must not make excuses for careless self-indulgence. When we engage in activities, recreations, and conversations that make a mockery of the best of our identity as Catholics, we give that round of battle to the Enemy. It’s no good saying of a television show that glamorizes adultery or violence, “Oh, it’s just TV, it doesn’t really matter.” It matters a great deal; TV and other mass entertainments have been a primary means of desensitizing the culture to sin, evil, and coarseness.
Parents, particularly, must be diligent to protect the minds and souls of their children. Catholic parents who allow their children to watch MTV, BET, movies that glorify violence, and other aggressively contemptuous entertainments fail in their duty to train their children’s minds, characters, and consciences. Parents who do not challenge their children’s schools’ use of novels like Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, with its unchallenged contempt for others (both peers and those in positions of authority, particularly for religious), and its masturbatory references, fail in their duty to safeguard the minds and imaginations of their children and to preserve in their communities an adherence to the Christian standards of common decency that have shaped and defined those communities to the present day.
Moreover, we are defending not only our own children, but the children of those parents who are not doing their duty or living as active Christians.
When anti-Christian voices in our communities threaten the values and symbols we hold dear, we have an obligation to raise our voices in protest against the few dominating the many. We have an obligation to remind our elected civic leaders that the Constitution does not support freedom from religion, and that the voice of the majority chooses the policies and representations of our communities.
In every way imaginable, we have an obligation to seek and to conform to godly principles – as citizens, neighbors, and consumers. Our countercultural influence will not be nearly as effective if it is not all-encompassing, to the best of our ability at any given moment in time. What I am prescribing here will be an ongoing, developing endeavor, for the rest of our lives.
Finally, all our actions must be wholly undergirded with prayer. In prayer we touch the Mover of the Cosmos; in prayer we effect networks of change on a grand and an infinitesimal level. Our ideas and our actions become grounded and fused through prayer. Most of all, in prayer we enter God’s own presence – and in that Presence we ourselves are transformed. That ongoing transformation is what makes possible the change in mind, heart, and action we are being called to undertake.
Our culture is no longer dominated or governed by the principles of Judeo-Christian morality. Our identity and our values as Catholics are being challenged with increasing hostility. Battle lines are being drawn more dramatically with every passing week – between the friends of Christ and His enemies. The distinction between darkness and light, right and wrong, is becoming more dramatic.
Complacency will place us in the position of spoiled salt, to be thrown out (Mt. 5:13) or the lukewarm, who will be spit out of His mouth in Judgment (Rev. 3:16).
We truly are at war, as Paul says. – Therefore, grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power Put on the full armor of God so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics… That is why you must take up all God’s armour, or you will not be able to put up any resistance on the evil day, or stand your ground even though you exert yourselves to the full. So stand your ground, with truth a belt around your waist, and uprightness a breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the gospel of peace and always carrying the shield of faith so that you can use it to quench the burning arrows of the Evil One. And then you must take salvation as your helmet and the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God. (Eph. 6:10-17)
May He find us faithful to the very end.
Monday, November 19, 2007
SPIRITUAL WARFARE, Part II - Signs of the Times
Somehow, throughout the modern era, good Christian people have stood quietly by and allowed the whole fabric of our society to be undermined by people holding a worldview hostile to Christianity. We have allowed those hostile to religion to dictate to us how we may or must act in the name of “love,” and we have tragically acquiesced. We have allowed ourselves as a culture to adopt a quietism or passivity that has spread as a sort of moral anesthesia even among Christians.
Our entertainments – movies, radio, television – have injected new situations and attitudes into the culture. New norms of morality have been introduced and effected a major cultural paradigm shift, by sheer dent of audience numbers.
And this has happened because good Christian people have been lulled to sleep by an obscene, pagan idea: I have my truth, you have your truth, and it is incumbent upon you to be “nice” to me and let me have my way. You, Christian people, have to be “nice,” and let me do what I want, without criticism. And so evil has again come to dominate the world and our culture, causing us to have more in common with the pagan world than with the predominately Christian culture of even fifty years ago.
I can by no means provide an exhaustive list of the indicators and consequences of the change in our cultural paradigm, but I do offer for your consideration the following:
• The development of multiple means of artificial birth control and the overwhelming cultural acceptance of those means, which have combined to remove sex from the realm of marriage and procreation and to place it in the exploitive arena of depersonalized recreation.
• Legalized abortion, on demand and unrestricted throughout the duration of a pregnancy.
• Euthanasia, presented as a “compassionate choice” to end suffering of the terminally ill or seriously injured. (This is also known as “terminal medication.”)
• Overall lack of respect for the aged and infirm and a tendency to get them “out of the way” through institutionalized “homes.” This is also leading to an increased acceptance and practice of euthanasia.
• The simultaneous masculinization and cultural objectification of women through the misguided manipulations of radical feminism and the mass marketing of pornography.
• A glorification of homosexuality, to the point of “legalization” of gay marriage and adoption and the establishment of gay student organizations, even on high school campuses.
• A love of violence as entertainment. Our movies, television shows, and much of our popular music (rock and hiphop, especially) thrive on the portrayal and prescription of violence as a solution to conflict and personal dissatisfaction..
• A growing verbal violence through the acceptance of profanity in our entertainments and, consequently, in our public conversations.
• A love of the sensational – for example, the celebrity cult. For years, actors and actresses had to adhere to strict “morality clauses” in their contracts; now, the tabloids are filled with the irresponsible exploits of celebrities. Once characters who sinned eventually faced the consequences of their wrong-doing (think of Greta Garbo’s Camille); now all manner of sin and aberration is touted as glamorous and desirable, a normal part of culture and of a “healthy” and glamorous life.
• The vilifying of religion and religious. Formerly, Hollywood treated religion with respect (think of Boys Town, I Confess, and other movies strongly featuring religious characters and themes); now the religious are often the villains, or at least maladjusted foils in the movies in which they appear.
• A cultural ridiculing of traditional moral values. It is not enough that “alternatives” are presented to the nonbeliever; now Christian people must be ridiculed and insulted for holding fast to traditional moral values such as chastity, celibacy, sobriety, and simplicity.
• The promotion of worldly acquisitiveness and valuation and the elevation of the material over the spiritual.
• The dramatic decline of academic standards in our schools and the resulting decline in young people’s ability to engage in rational thought and make responsible, informed, considered decisions. We are raising generations of children that will blindly follow where the “experts” tell them they should go.
• The increased love of the banal and mediocre. Look again at our entertainments and see where there is any genuine talent, ability, or artistry to be found in them. Sarcasm increasingly passes as humor (thank you, Roseanne) and sentimentality passes for wisdom (thank you, Oprah).
• Instant gratification is expected as our native birthright.
• The growing contempt for menial labor and for those who perform it.
• The forced removal of prayer from our public schools.
• The revision of American history to whitewash over the influence of the pursuit of religious freedom in the population and founding of our nation. A growing number of high school graduates do not know that our celebration of Thanksgiving has anything whatsoever to do with God or the pursuit of religious freedom.
• The denial of the influence of the Ten Commandments on law and social policy, manifested by the forced removal of the Ten Commandments from the public venue, such as our area courthouses.
• The forced removal of Nativity scenes from community and public buildings, in the name of “freedom from religion.”
Our entertainments – movies, radio, television – have injected new situations and attitudes into the culture. New norms of morality have been introduced and effected a major cultural paradigm shift, by sheer dent of audience numbers.
And this has happened because good Christian people have been lulled to sleep by an obscene, pagan idea: I have my truth, you have your truth, and it is incumbent upon you to be “nice” to me and let me have my way. You, Christian people, have to be “nice,” and let me do what I want, without criticism. And so evil has again come to dominate the world and our culture, causing us to have more in common with the pagan world than with the predominately Christian culture of even fifty years ago.
I can by no means provide an exhaustive list of the indicators and consequences of the change in our cultural paradigm, but I do offer for your consideration the following:
• The development of multiple means of artificial birth control and the overwhelming cultural acceptance of those means, which have combined to remove sex from the realm of marriage and procreation and to place it in the exploitive arena of depersonalized recreation.
• Legalized abortion, on demand and unrestricted throughout the duration of a pregnancy.
• Euthanasia, presented as a “compassionate choice” to end suffering of the terminally ill or seriously injured. (This is also known as “terminal medication.”)
• Overall lack of respect for the aged and infirm and a tendency to get them “out of the way” through institutionalized “homes.” This is also leading to an increased acceptance and practice of euthanasia.
• The simultaneous masculinization and cultural objectification of women through the misguided manipulations of radical feminism and the mass marketing of pornography.
• A glorification of homosexuality, to the point of “legalization” of gay marriage and adoption and the establishment of gay student organizations, even on high school campuses.
• A love of violence as entertainment. Our movies, television shows, and much of our popular music (rock and hiphop, especially) thrive on the portrayal and prescription of violence as a solution to conflict and personal dissatisfaction..
• A growing verbal violence through the acceptance of profanity in our entertainments and, consequently, in our public conversations.
• A love of the sensational – for example, the celebrity cult. For years, actors and actresses had to adhere to strict “morality clauses” in their contracts; now, the tabloids are filled with the irresponsible exploits of celebrities. Once characters who sinned eventually faced the consequences of their wrong-doing (think of Greta Garbo’s Camille); now all manner of sin and aberration is touted as glamorous and desirable, a normal part of culture and of a “healthy” and glamorous life.
• The vilifying of religion and religious. Formerly, Hollywood treated religion with respect (think of Boys Town, I Confess, and other movies strongly featuring religious characters and themes); now the religious are often the villains, or at least maladjusted foils in the movies in which they appear.
• A cultural ridiculing of traditional moral values. It is not enough that “alternatives” are presented to the nonbeliever; now Christian people must be ridiculed and insulted for holding fast to traditional moral values such as chastity, celibacy, sobriety, and simplicity.
• The promotion of worldly acquisitiveness and valuation and the elevation of the material over the spiritual.
• The dramatic decline of academic standards in our schools and the resulting decline in young people’s ability to engage in rational thought and make responsible, informed, considered decisions. We are raising generations of children that will blindly follow where the “experts” tell them they should go.
• The increased love of the banal and mediocre. Look again at our entertainments and see where there is any genuine talent, ability, or artistry to be found in them. Sarcasm increasingly passes as humor (thank you, Roseanne) and sentimentality passes for wisdom (thank you, Oprah).
• Instant gratification is expected as our native birthright.
• The growing contempt for menial labor and for those who perform it.
• The forced removal of prayer from our public schools.
• The revision of American history to whitewash over the influence of the pursuit of religious freedom in the population and founding of our nation. A growing number of high school graduates do not know that our celebration of Thanksgiving has anything whatsoever to do with God or the pursuit of religious freedom.
• The denial of the influence of the Ten Commandments on law and social policy, manifested by the forced removal of the Ten Commandments from the public venue, such as our area courthouses.
• The forced removal of Nativity scenes from community and public buildings, in the name of “freedom from religion.”
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Spiritual Warfare - Part I
This article was published as "Spiritual Warfare" by 4Marks magazine on May 1, 2007. I am assured by the editor, Dan Flaherty, that there is no conflict with my publishing the article elsewhere. I offer it here over the next few days as an installment of continuing thoughts on the matter. - Laura
Fighting the Good Fight
Living as a countercultural people
We are at war. No, not the war that is on the evening news each day, centered in Iraq and Afghanistan; this is a war closer to home, engaging each and every person – with dire and mortal consequences.
It is a war for our immortal souls – and the battleground is our minds.
In the early years of the Christian era, Christians were a decidedly unpopular minority in the known Western world. Their presence was uncomfortable to the status quo; they worshipped a single God who, they insisted, had become man, died and rose again. They rejected the myriad of local deities, so when trouble fell on a city the Christians could be blamed for having offended the gods. In Rome, where the Emperor was deemed a god, the Christians’ refusal to pay homage in the accepted ways became a much more personal offense.
In those early days, Christians were scorned, persecuted, arrested… and condemned to death. Atrocious, horrific deaths.
Out of this hostile climate, the apostles’ writings were easily accessible as more than simple metaphor: fighting the fight, wearing the armor of Christ, engaging in spiritual warfare. The images used by St. Paul in particular provided a multi-dimensional reality easily applicable to the spiritual life; the spiritual and the physical were very much integrated.
When a person from a pagan culture became a Christian, the conversion was a complete turn-around from his former life. Nowhere is this more vividly illustrated than in St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians. Corinth was such an infamous center of moral depravity that even the pagan classical world vilified the most outrageous depravities by associating those behaviors with “playing the Corinthian.”
Yet Corinthians came to Christ and were transformed (I. Cor. 6:9-11)
With the Christian conversion of the Emperor Constantine, circa 312, things began to change. Christians were no longer vilified and persecuted but were recognized as respectable members of society. The Christian influence began to spread throughout the world, above ground and in broad daylight rather than in stealth among the catacombs. The Christian worldview became the socially accepted norm throughout much of Western Civilization for the next 1800 years.
It seems that the pinnacle of a Christian world would have coincided with the Victorian era, when European colonization of Africa and Asia opened the remaining “dark continents” to the infusion of the gospel - by Catholics as well as Protestants - where it had not traveled before (or at least not in many centuries). This was an era in which all decent people were expected to be churchgoers, regardless of their denomination or sect. Laws governing morality were solidly based on the Ten Commandments, and social mores conformed to Judeo-Christian morality, at least publicly.
Of course, this Christian influence has not been without challenge or opposition. Whereas in the apostolic age embracing the Christian faith literally meant embracing a likely death sentence, when Christianity became socially legitimated, it became possible for people to profess a faith they didn’t actually hold. Moreover, throughout history dissenting voices were raised in various cultures and in various ways. Selfish hedonism existed side by side with monastic asceticism. Chaucer’s friar rode side by side with the monk and the young theology student. Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Galileo - philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment - were contemporaries of St. Francis de Sales. Yet Judeo-Christian moral and religious values had become the defining elements of civilized society.
Then, in the Victorian era, that pinnacle of Christian socialization and reform, of manners and decency, German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, set the world on its ear by declaring “God is dead.”
It didn’t matter that Nietzsche was on the brink of insanity or that he died in a lunatic asylum; the boldness, the defiance of his statement caught like wildfire. Marxism appealed to a different sort of rebellion. God began to become unpopular again, as first the intellectual elite and then the moral reformers (like Margaret Sanger) became bolder and more outspoken in their contempt for the Christian faith and its accompanying morality.
World War I left many artists and philosophers disillusioned, and their works reflect their anguish at the state of the world. The concept of a Post-Christian era was raised very quickly; Ezra Pound dated his Post-Christian calendar from October 31, 1921, the date James Joyce finished Ulysses.
It takes time for ideas to filter from the elitists to the masses, however; among many sociologists and theologians, the consensus seems to be that the decline of Christian influence on the world reached its crisis point when the Anglican Church stood as the first religious body to formally acquiesce on the issue of contraception. Until that time, all Christian peoples and churches had deplored the use of contraception as a dire opposition to the will of God. From that point, society began a rapid descent into socially accepted depravity.
Fighting the Good Fight
Living as a countercultural people
We are at war. No, not the war that is on the evening news each day, centered in Iraq and Afghanistan; this is a war closer to home, engaging each and every person – with dire and mortal consequences.
It is a war for our immortal souls – and the battleground is our minds.
In the early years of the Christian era, Christians were a decidedly unpopular minority in the known Western world. Their presence was uncomfortable to the status quo; they worshipped a single God who, they insisted, had become man, died and rose again. They rejected the myriad of local deities, so when trouble fell on a city the Christians could be blamed for having offended the gods. In Rome, where the Emperor was deemed a god, the Christians’ refusal to pay homage in the accepted ways became a much more personal offense.
In those early days, Christians were scorned, persecuted, arrested… and condemned to death. Atrocious, horrific deaths.
Out of this hostile climate, the apostles’ writings were easily accessible as more than simple metaphor: fighting the fight, wearing the armor of Christ, engaging in spiritual warfare. The images used by St. Paul in particular provided a multi-dimensional reality easily applicable to the spiritual life; the spiritual and the physical were very much integrated.
When a person from a pagan culture became a Christian, the conversion was a complete turn-around from his former life. Nowhere is this more vividly illustrated than in St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians. Corinth was such an infamous center of moral depravity that even the pagan classical world vilified the most outrageous depravities by associating those behaviors with “playing the Corinthian.”
Yet Corinthians came to Christ and were transformed (I. Cor. 6:9-11)
With the Christian conversion of the Emperor Constantine, circa 312, things began to change. Christians were no longer vilified and persecuted but were recognized as respectable members of society. The Christian influence began to spread throughout the world, above ground and in broad daylight rather than in stealth among the catacombs. The Christian worldview became the socially accepted norm throughout much of Western Civilization for the next 1800 years.
It seems that the pinnacle of a Christian world would have coincided with the Victorian era, when European colonization of Africa and Asia opened the remaining “dark continents” to the infusion of the gospel - by Catholics as well as Protestants - where it had not traveled before (or at least not in many centuries). This was an era in which all decent people were expected to be churchgoers, regardless of their denomination or sect. Laws governing morality were solidly based on the Ten Commandments, and social mores conformed to Judeo-Christian morality, at least publicly.
Of course, this Christian influence has not been without challenge or opposition. Whereas in the apostolic age embracing the Christian faith literally meant embracing a likely death sentence, when Christianity became socially legitimated, it became possible for people to profess a faith they didn’t actually hold. Moreover, throughout history dissenting voices were raised in various cultures and in various ways. Selfish hedonism existed side by side with monastic asceticism. Chaucer’s friar rode side by side with the monk and the young theology student. Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Galileo - philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment - were contemporaries of St. Francis de Sales. Yet Judeo-Christian moral and religious values had become the defining elements of civilized society.
Then, in the Victorian era, that pinnacle of Christian socialization and reform, of manners and decency, German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, set the world on its ear by declaring “God is dead.”
It didn’t matter that Nietzsche was on the brink of insanity or that he died in a lunatic asylum; the boldness, the defiance of his statement caught like wildfire. Marxism appealed to a different sort of rebellion. God began to become unpopular again, as first the intellectual elite and then the moral reformers (like Margaret Sanger) became bolder and more outspoken in their contempt for the Christian faith and its accompanying morality.
World War I left many artists and philosophers disillusioned, and their works reflect their anguish at the state of the world. The concept of a Post-Christian era was raised very quickly; Ezra Pound dated his Post-Christian calendar from October 31, 1921, the date James Joyce finished Ulysses.
It takes time for ideas to filter from the elitists to the masses, however; among many sociologists and theologians, the consensus seems to be that the decline of Christian influence on the world reached its crisis point when the Anglican Church stood as the first religious body to formally acquiesce on the issue of contraception. Until that time, all Christian peoples and churches had deplored the use of contraception as a dire opposition to the will of God. From that point, society began a rapid descent into socially accepted depravity.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Better than a birthday -
is a special anniversary.
On November 3, I celebrated the Fifth Anniversary of my reception into Christ's One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Someone said to me that I'm no longer a newcomer, but I do believe if God allows me to live, with all my faculties intact, for another fifty years, I'll never exhaust the riches of this glorious Faith - or, indeed, ever be anything other than a neophyte.
Still in process of applying to Franciscan Univ. - time is flying and I'm not sure where it's gone. But I will have everything DONE this weekend.
Also - VERY big news - my Advocate in my nullity proceeding has written her brief, and my file has gone to the Defender of the Bond and the Judge for a decision. I'm told I should have the entire thing resolved (down to and including the Second Instance) in a couple more months - perhaps by mid-January.
Things are happening rapidly. I'm rather dizzy by it all.
I only pray that Christ will be glorified.
On November 3, I celebrated the Fifth Anniversary of my reception into Christ's One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Someone said to me that I'm no longer a newcomer, but I do believe if God allows me to live, with all my faculties intact, for another fifty years, I'll never exhaust the riches of this glorious Faith - or, indeed, ever be anything other than a neophyte.
Still in process of applying to Franciscan Univ. - time is flying and I'm not sure where it's gone. But I will have everything DONE this weekend.
Also - VERY big news - my Advocate in my nullity proceeding has written her brief, and my file has gone to the Defender of the Bond and the Judge for a decision. I'm told I should have the entire thing resolved (down to and including the Second Instance) in a couple more months - perhaps by mid-January.
Things are happening rapidly. I'm rather dizzy by it all.
I only pray that Christ will be glorified.
WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAKE!!!!!
Christine - you gave me a cake! I know I couldn't have eaten the whole thing all by myself!!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO IT????? LOL
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Near occasion of sin?
Ouch! Mary-T, a.k.a. "canon law Mary" - handed me a whammy last night. We were talking about our mutual frustration with a particular web site, when she said, "You know what? I'm just going to have to quit going on there. Whenever I talk to you or anyone else from the site, it's 'what's going on with so-and-so...?'" and all we do is gossip. It really is a near occasion of sin for me!"
And I feel so embarrassed, because she's right. It's a milieu that fosters gossip and criticism and fault-finding and - for me, the smug sense of how much smarter and more sensible I am that other women (and a lot of the men).
For instance: right now there is a thread in which a woman jokes about buying a couple of new coats for her new northern home (she's from warmer climes, originally); the thread develops into a discussion of the "luxuries" considered "necessary indulgances" by the women - be it clothes, cosmetics, books, etc. -
- and I think, y'all are talking about spending more for a damn purse than I can bring home from either of my primary jobs in a month's time!" and I feel self-satisfied that I have no such need for something as vain as a $600 purse to make me feel fabulous!
And in another thread, a woman announces that she sent a man a message which he didn't respond to, so "it's all over." And without knowing a thing more than that, more than twenty-five women have jumped in that thread to commiserate with the woman about what a heel and a snake in the grass said man is for not responding to her message -
- and I think, how absolutely egotistical and even megalomaniacal it is that she should expect the world to revolve around her little two-sentence message. There are a dozen perfectly good reasons why the man didn't respond to her message. Yet. If it's who I think it is, I would add to the list of possibilities that the "relationship" being boasted of in the past couple of weeks is nothing more than a construct of her overfertile imagination. That means - there was nothing to BE OVER.
After all, when we say a relationship is OVER, it must first have existed. It must have had a beginning, a moment of engagement between the parties.
God preserve me from winding up like some of these people, who embarrass the daylights out of me with their folly.
Which is pride, sinful pride on my part, because I presume I'm superior to them.
I'll talk it over with Father, tomorrow.
And I feel so embarrassed, because she's right. It's a milieu that fosters gossip and criticism and fault-finding and - for me, the smug sense of how much smarter and more sensible I am that other women (and a lot of the men).
For instance: right now there is a thread in which a woman jokes about buying a couple of new coats for her new northern home (she's from warmer climes, originally); the thread develops into a discussion of the "luxuries" considered "necessary indulgances" by the women - be it clothes, cosmetics, books, etc. -
- and I think, y'all are talking about spending more for a damn purse than I can bring home from either of my primary jobs in a month's time!" and I feel self-satisfied that I have no such need for something as vain as a $600 purse to make me feel fabulous!
And in another thread, a woman announces that she sent a man a message which he didn't respond to, so "it's all over." And without knowing a thing more than that, more than twenty-five women have jumped in that thread to commiserate with the woman about what a heel and a snake in the grass said man is for not responding to her message -
- and I think, how absolutely egotistical and even megalomaniacal it is that she should expect the world to revolve around her little two-sentence message. There are a dozen perfectly good reasons why the man didn't respond to her message. Yet. If it's who I think it is, I would add to the list of possibilities that the "relationship" being boasted of in the past couple of weeks is nothing more than a construct of her overfertile imagination. That means - there was nothing to BE OVER.
After all, when we say a relationship is OVER, it must first have existed. It must have had a beginning, a moment of engagement between the parties.
God preserve me from winding up like some of these people, who embarrass the daylights out of me with their folly.
Which is pride, sinful pride on my part, because I presume I'm superior to them.
I'll talk it over with Father, tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
