Forgiveness and Redemption: Compare and Contrast

The recent kerfuffle over Paula Deen is an interesting opportunity to explore the difference between Catholic teaching and the culture at large. While not condoning whatever Ms. Deen might have said, in the Catholic Church, we hold to the cliche that you should hate the sin and love the sinner. After repentance and restitution, we must be willing to forgive (even if we can't always forget). But in the culture's eyes, the sin IS the sinner. There is no such thing in the world as a good person doing something bad. Either the act is good because a good person does it, or the person is bad because he did a bad thing.

Celebrities do go through a sort of purgatory: actors check into Betty Ford, politicians become talking heads on cable news shows, but to me that still seems to minimize the wrong done. In the Catholic Church we're violently against sin, but also violently in favor of forgiveness. It's a tough balancing act to get them both right.

Young Serrans Talk, 6/13/2013

PDF of the Talk
References

Dieting sucks

I've been on a diet since December of 2012.  As of now I've lost 45 pounds. And actually, according to my Wii, if I lose 2 more pounds, I'll no longer hear it's chirpy little voice say "That's overweight!" when I weigh in (I was recently in Japan and the elevators actually do speak to you in that same chirpy voice, possibly telling me I'm overweight, it's hard to say). Since this is a family blog, I won't go into the details of my... digestive issues ... but let's just say it wasn't pleasant.  Fortunately the worst of it is over, but I still face the monotony of the diet.   The endless slog of it all.

Today I took a bowl of diet macaroni and cheese out of the microwave for what seems to be the thousandth time. I still have two boxes of those things in the closet.  It's almost like Elijah and the widow's jar of flour. No matter how much mac and cheese I eat, it never seems to be depleted. I remember I got a sample of that stuff with my other order and thought it was great and I could eat it every day.  I've been eating it every day, but it's not so great any more.  As I regarded the yellow soupy gruel, I looked over at my dog's bowl.  He doesn't like his food either.  "We both have a monotonous diet, buddy" I said. "No McDonalds for me and no Beneful for you."

When I started the diet I had a set of stock phrases ready in case anyone brought up my weight loss (I don't think on my feet so I have to plan ahead):  "I'm going to get healthy if it kills me!" I'd say in a cheerful voice.  And in fact if the mac and cheese doesn't kill me, these last two pounds on the Wii will.  That's become my final goal, to see what the Wii says when I'm in the normal range.  But I've been stuck on those two pounds for the last week.  I've unofficially decided the mac and cheese goes in the trash when the Wii Fit says I'm good, but that may never happen.

I can always cheat the system, but I've come this far.

So if you're considering getting fat, I'd discourage that notion. It's a whole lot easier to avoid putting the weight on, then it is to take it off.  Dieting sucks.

Father Rutler on Christ and the anti-Christ

Great video about prayer

http://www.instituteofcatholicculture.org/whatever-you-ask-in-my-name/

We have a lot to pray about these days.

Happy Birthday Mother Angelica!

Check out the story at around 40:20 in the video. Amazing!

On the importance of community and fellowship

Recently the pastor of my hometown parish announced that he was taking a leave of absence to reassess his vocation.  He had taken a sabbatical just last year and it's reasonable to think that this was on his mind during that time as well.  His stated reason was that the Church was too conservative and he had no enthusiasm for some of the recent initiatives in the Church (whatever that means).

Some may think that things are better this way and, in a sense, I'd agree with them.  Having one less dissenting priest around is certainly a good thing.  And I confess to a strange feeling about this, because I'd requested a novena of Masses for this priest and almost as soon as they were celebrated, he made his announcement.  It wasn't my intention that he step down!  I hardly know the guy, since this is my former parish and he became pastor long after I left. I had no idea he felt this way.  But maybe God applied those intentions to helping him make up his mind.

But there's a larger issue of why he stepped down.  If he's more liberal than the Church, then he likely felt isolated and alone in his liberalism.  Loneliness is something that I think most of our diocesan priests face.  With declining numbers of priests, they don't have much of a community to engage with.  They may be the only one in the rectory.  And of course the rest of us can also feel alone as well.  Whether we think the Church is too liberal or too conservative, or too trendy or too traditional, or too this or too that, what we basically are saying is that no one in the Church is like us, and we have no one to confide in.

Myself, I sometimes despair that the Church is too liberal.  When I heard the story of this pastor, my first impression was: he should move down here, he'd fit right in.  While taking a Diocesan Catechist Certification class, I was told that Catholics committed more atrocities than any other group of German soldiers in WWII because of their tendency to follow orders, that women priests were right around the corner, and that Joan Chittister was a great model for Catholics to follow.  That's a lot for a conservative, traditional-minded Catholic to swallow in one morning.

Unfortunately, I don't think we connect with our fellow Catholics enough.  Our parishes are too big and the crowds produce a sea of anonymity. Finding a community of Catholics can help keep people in the center and away from the fringes on either the right or the left.  Perhaps my hometown Pastor and Catechist instructor would have become more comfortable with "conservative" Church teaching if they were regularly exposed to good faithful Catholics who happened to be conservative.  Perhaps I'd be more comfortable with the more liberal wing of the Church if I was regularly exposed to faithful Catholics who happened to be liberal. 

What tends to happen though is that people find like-minded individuals, either in person or online, and that tends to pull them to the extremes.  "You can fall out of the boat on the left side as easily as the right" as the saying goes.  I don't think we can have a good discussion with people any more.  Our role models on the cable news shows don't exhibit charity in their discussions.  Their opponents are either Nazis or Communists, either crazy, evil or both. And unfortunately we carry that into our day to day interactions to the point that we are afraid of making contact with people for fear of being labeled a Nazi or a Commie or finding out the other person is a Nazi or Commie.

I'm not sure what to do about it, but perhaps greater participation in the various parish events is a good start. Getting involved with the charities, fundraisers and social groups (like K of C or CD of A) may help broaden horizons and make us comfortable with each other.

And of course prayer should be the biggest part of it all.

Peter Kreeft -- How to win the culture war

The Lord, the Giver of Life

Notes for 4/14/2013 RCIA Class

Why are things so bad?

A question that we all deal with is "Why are things so bad?" or, more crudely "Why does everything have to suck so much?".  Surely if there's a loving God, He'd take care of all this?  Indeed, this is one of the common objections to an all-powerful, all-loving, personal God: evil still exists.

It's a great paradox but not one you can use to disprove the existence of God. Or, I should say, you can use it to disprove your idea about God, but not God as He is described in the Bible.

Let's take an example from the Old Testament (Numbers 21:5-9).

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”  Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many sons of Israel died. And the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it up as a sign; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it up as a sign; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Deadly snakes came upon the Israelites because of their sins.  The people asked for relief from the snakes and they got it, but not in the form they wanted.  Note that God didn't kill or drive out the snakes. Instead he gave an antidote: a bronze serpent that the Israelites were to look upon.

What kind of antidote is this?  A statue of a serpent cures snakebites?  In the Gospels, Jesus uses this passage to describe His own death (see John 3:14). The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide summarizes the connections succinctly:

Most fully does S. Chrysostom draw out the analogies between the brazen serpent and Christ. He says, “Lest any one should say, 'How are those who believe in the Crucified One able to be saved, when he did not deliver Himself from death?'” He brings forward the ancient history. For if the Jews by looking at the image of a brazen serpent were freed from death, how much greater benefit will they enjoy who look to the Crucified Redeemer? For by the one the Jews escaped temporal death: by the other believers escape everlasting death. There the suspended serpent healed the wounds which the serpents had made: here Jesus, nailed to the cross, healed the wounds inflicted by the incorporeal serpent (the devil). There those who looked with their bodily eyes obtained the healing of the body: here those who look with their spiritual eyes obtain the remission of all their sins. There a serpent bit, and a serpent healed: here death destroyed, and death hath saved. In the one case the serpent which destroyed was full of poison, and delivered no one from poison. And in the other case the death which destroyeth had sin, as the serpent had poison: but the Lord's death was free from all sin, just as the brazen serpent had no poison. You see how the figure answers to the reality.

 But perhaps there's a more immediate lesson to be learned here.  God, in His goodness, is slow to destroy. Instead He gives us a cure which we are free to choose.  So He does not destroy evil. To do so would rob us of our free will. Instead He places, alongside evil, a greater good that we may choose.

Secondly, actions have consequences.  In the story of the seraph serpents, the people grumbled against God, accusing Him of bringing them into the desert in order to destroy them.  Note the distinction: the Israelites were hungry in the desert.  Moses, acting on God's behalf, had brought them into the desert. It seems reasonable to ask Moses (and God) for food and water.  But rather than ask for food the Israelites accuse God of murderous intent, of an ulterior motive which had now been revealed.  That deserves some response from God.

But just as the sufferings were brought upon by their disobedience, their salvation was made possible by their obedience. In this case, the act of looking upon the serpent.  It seems an arbitrary and almost nonsensical demand: just look at the serpent.  Yet it's an easy way for them to demonstrate their obedience to God. And God never makes impossible demands. 

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI acted this way.  When he was elected Pope, most people expected him to swiftly and aggressively crack down on dissent and flaky liturgies. While Pope, he did crack down on some goofball bishops and theologians, but he primarily taught the truth.  He didn't wholesale excommunicate Theology departments at so-called "Catholic" universities, but instead promoted orthodox teaching: even to the point of writing his own thoughts down. Likewise he didn't purge the church of tie-dyed liturgists, but instead promoted reverent and beautiful liturgies, starting with his own Masses but also in the promotion of the Extraordinary Form and Anglican liturgies.

It may be disappointing the God or the Church doesn't smite the evildoers as often as we'd like.  Criminals run free, banal liturgies are the norm, dodgy theology is taught in schools and universities.  But God and the Church have patience.  At some point WE might be the fiery serpents to someone else.  And when we are in that position, we'll be happy that God doesn't just send a lightening bolt, which we might deserve, but instead gives us a chance to repent and reform.

He is Risen!

Indeed He is Risen!

Congratulations to the Neophytes who entered the Catholic Church last night!

Some light meditation music for Holy Week

The Incipit and Aleph, you can search YouTube for the whole thing.

As a bit of trivia, the Lamentations of Jeremiah are poety. Specifically, they are acrostic poems -- each verse starts with a subsequent letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.  There are five chapters in the book of Lamentations, and each as a multiple of 22 verses, which is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.  Some translations of the Bible label the verses as Aleph, Beth, etc instead of numbering them.

The "Incipit" is "Incipit Lamentatio Ieremiae Prophetae" or "The beginning of the Lamentations of Jeremiah". "Aleph" is simply announcing the first verse. Not much theology in this clip but it's pretty!

Nature of Beauty and Proportion in Catholic Art

By David Clayton

One of the quirky things about the Catholic Church is that EVERYTHING has been studied and analyzed. Even things like "beauty", which you'd think is simply down to someone's taste, has been examined to determine if there's an objective standard that makes something "beautiful" or not.

GK Chesterton.  God's Donkey.

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Eucharist

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist video by Dr Brant Pitre.  Interesting.

Principles of Catholic Politics by Deacon Fournier

Principles of Catholic Politics.

From the Institute of Catholic Culture in Arlington, VA. Scroll down for the videos of parts 1, 2 and 3.  (Part 1 is the best, IMHO).

Dismissal Notes for Palm Sunday

Dismissal Notes for Palm Sunday. These are actually for Palm Sunday of Year B (2012) but they still apply to Luke's Gospel.