Safe Haven

I don't know any other way to be holy. If you are serving others, let it be a physical prayer. There is no mystery or secret. Prayer is communion with God, and communion with God is detachment from "the world, the flesh, and the devil." I suppose the post is misnamed a bit, because it doesn't have to be vocal prayer. Though of course your face isn't likely to come off, in any case. We feel these existential moments of dread at times, and you have to wonder what would happen if we prayed, instead of distracting ourselves. Let's find out.

We're not all that strong, you know. The merit in life is in the little cracks of life, the moments you don't notice, until they have passed. I do worry, though. I don't recall that many cups of cold water offered in the name of Jesus. In a sense, I want to laugh. To say this life of mine has been characterized by sacrifice is a stretch. And yet, I know the way to the fount of mercy. I know one thing for sure: He is more ready to forgive than we are to ask. As grace gives us the power, then, never let us tire in asking.

I was recently told, "You will come to appreciate the value of silence." Before God, that is. Everything in our culture wants to distract us, and that makes sense. God speaks in the silences. Our enemy wants to keep us from the joy of being in God's presence, if at all possible. "In the silence of the heart, You speak." Amen.

The seed-bed of the Church's Sacred Tradition is the prayerful reflection upon the Gospels, and the entirety of God's saving message in Christ. Liturgy is not therefore made; it is obeyed. The Romans viewed kneeling as a sign of subservience and weakness, but the Christian message has always viewed it as an ennobling humility; that is, man is dignified and empowered when he acknowledges God's kingship. But neither will the Church abandon the practice of standing, since it is the victorious slain Lamb of God who stands in Heaven, interceding for His brethren. It is through Him that we have access to the Father.

I heard a priest say that God is more solicitous for our salvation than we are. And yet, some people will continue to believe that a holy striving is somehow contrary to the gospel. On the contrary; if you get an inspiration to pray more, or to read the Scriptures, do it. You may be one of those people who believes God is out to get you. If you fearfully say, "Look what good I did! Please don't hate me!" then you might be one of those legalists everyone is going on about. I don't know many of those, but if you are, you have my sympathy. For the rest of us, a plan that embodies "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you" is in order. After a while, the fear of Hell is replaced by the disappointment of broken fellowship. Then we are beginning to love as He loves us.

If you're anything like me, you forget the main thing. We're weak, you see, and everybody has that One Thing. We all think that everyone would hate us if they knew. Or, fair enough, you have a whole string of reasons to hate yourself. But the One Thing is the sin that makes you think it's all pointless, and you may as well give up. Not everyone's is the same, but everyone has it. Despair is the enemy's favorite trick, because it becomes a feedback loop of failure and shame. If the enemy can make you think you are worthless, you'll stop reaching out to God and others. Faith is a great gift, because it illumines the Way, even when we have gone astray. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It is fact; it is not conjecture, or sentiment. It has never meant that we have nothing left to reconcile. It does mean that God has taken an unyielding stance of favor toward every single one of us. As we get closer to God, the purity of His fiery love will test o...

I went ahead and bought it, and I'm glad I did. The greatest living baseball announcer just retired after 67 years, but I'm almost certain he would say that this is greater than all those games. I couldn't help but think of my father, whose favorite team was the Dodgers. If he needs my prayers, he has them. Word is that Mr. Scully never misses a Mass at Dodger Stadium. I can believe that. Sometimes the icons are real. Baseball still has heroes, but as with anything else, they may not be the ones you expect.

I am going to make broad outlines of the books of the Bible, for my use, and to assist a project I am working on. I'm going to try to keep them really simple, but as I go, you may see more detailed outlines if it serves. It is good to get a broad picture, and thereby to become personally familiar with the Sacred Scriptures that God has given us. Note: This overall outline will include the seven books of the Old Testament, rejected by Protestants. With that said, here we go: Genesis: "In The Beginning" (Chapter) 1-11: The Primordial History                 12-36: The Patriarchs                 37-50: Joseph Note: Tamar, Interrupted (38)

Our friend Mitt Romney demonstrated the phenomenon of leading the national polling, but losing the race, because the state polls never shifted. Ironically, Trump partisans are citing national polls as evidence that Trump is winning, or will win. But the states that are toss-ups according to Real Clear Politics would have to break better than 3 out of 4 to Trump for him to win. Not likely. There is nothing real to indicate that Trump is broadly more liked than Romney was. For a bunch of close states to shift all in one direction, there would have to be a strong indicator that Trump is leading the national race. Not only is he not leading national polling in any discernible sense, he's lost ground. States don't shift first; the nation shifts, and then states realize they don't want to miss the party. Debates rarely change the fundamental tenor of a campaign, but they tend to reinforce earlier trends. He shouldn't have to fight for GA, and NC; these are GOP strongholds. Th...

Ratzinger says that liturgy and liturgical development retains a connection to the places where God revealed Himself in Christ. The worshipping community was created by the saving action of God; therefore, any attempt to respond "creatively," or with a view toward the community's self-actualization, will end in failure, at best. We might say that Sacred Tradition is the living memory of the People of God, as they meditate on the Scriptures. Therefore, no person has the right to alter the liturgy as he sees fit. Ratzinger writes, "The greatness of the liturgy depends...on its unspontaneity." Adding to his thoughts that Sola Scriptura could not serve a unifying function for the Church, he also writes, "Scripture is Scripture only if it lives within the living subject that is the Church." Liturgical development would have to be the obvious consequence of the lived experience of a living subject. It will be interesting to hear his account of this, go...

It is a great mercy that the possibility exists that those who are not presently in full communion with the Catholic Church may be friends with God, despite their ignorance concerning His Church and the gospel she preaches. Nevertheless, we have to be clear on that. In practical terms, I know more than a few people who were baptized Catholic, and in their terms, "got saved" in some Protestant community, and mistakenly think everything is fine. Firstly, every person is called to the Catholic Church. It's the one that Christ himself established, and he did it for our salvation. Secondly, if you know that the Catholic Church was made necessary for salvation by Jesus Christ, and you leave anyway, you're in danger of Hell itself. DON'T DO THIS. Just don't. For my part, I found my way here, and though it was largely a joyful experience, I can tell you that the Church's exclusive claims made a difference. I should say it more strongly: There is no reason to...

Do you ever just stop and think, "Maybe I have no idea what's going on here"? During Holy Mass, we heard the reading where God kindly tells Job to button his face, and I couldn't help but think that even venturing a guess as to how my life will go is rank presumption. As long as we have breath, we should keep going. Keep looking for God, keep trying to go deeper. We are the reason it hasn't happened to the degree we want. There are people who don't like striving in the spiritual life; they think it's some self-help heresy. But holy striving is fully in the light of who Christ is. It's not from terror, or human weakness. Agree with God about yourself. We cannot change ourselves, but we can allow him to change us.

There has always been an intimate relation between the saving acts of God, and liturgical music; namely, the former gives impetus to the latter. The recognition by Israel that their deliverance from the Egyptians, and the song that resulted was temporary produced the hope that pushed their ecclesial life forward. Although Christian faith possesses more in the form of realized hope, especially in the Eucharist and the other sacraments, hope is still quite vital on this side of the veil. The Holy Spirit produces in the redeemed the songs of Heaven. The ancient Greeks had been aware of the power of music, to either elevate, or to denigrate man. Without going into an extended discussion of sacred music itself, the Christian community had been aware from the earliest days of the potential danger in the art form. Indeed, heresies were transmitted through Greek hymn forms. So, one of the regulating influences for the Church is the biblical story, centered on Christ, the Word, (Logos) the ...

The main focus of this chapter is on how the Incarnation alters the Judeo-Christian reluctance to display God. (In fairness, it is an abhorrence to the Jewish mind, whose Scriptures from the earliest draw a sharp distinction between the Creator and the created.) But Ratzinger says that synagogue art took a softer line than might be supposed, owing to the theological inclination to make past events present through art. And a large difference going forward lies in what the Incarnation means: it represents God's will to reveal Himself. In Christ, something of the mystery of God is made visible. An icon or image of Christ has three essential elements or reference points: His suffering, death, and resurrection. Any one image may emphasize one element over the others, but none may be denied. The chapter seems to be a return to the earlier insight that everything comes from God and is returning to God. (Exitus-reditus) Paradoxically, we use our senses to transcend them, to be folded i...

Everything that lives especially has a time; it lives and dies, according to its purpose. There is a sense in which certain kinds of time pass beyond the control of people. The purpose of the Incarnation, (and thus, the Cross and resurrection) is to re-orient human history and cosmic history around the saving acts of God. Man overcomes the futility of his short life by enfolding it into the "forever" that the victorious risen Christ ushers in. There is no warrant for changing the liturgical calendar based on the seasons in certain parts of the world, for example. It would make the liturgy subject to creation, and not the other way around. Jesus sees no contradiction in coming in the flesh to a particular place and time, but by His work, being the summation of everything. That is a worthy thing to ponder.

I took the Pew survey on political identification. I'm right in the middle. I didn't know fear of outsiders and people of color was a conservative value. (Actually, it's not.) So there's that. I mean, I guess I did join the Catholic Church. You can't get any more "ethnic" than that. Forgive me, I may be inclined to think the lot of you are unhinged.

I had the privilege of reading it for the members of our Bible study last night. Verses 27-31 will take your breath away: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and he who cannot keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; men shall tell of the LORD to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it." About 1000 years later, St. Paul wrote something . Jesus, I trust in You!

There are people rejoicing that somehow Donald Trump has broken the monotony and stability of our political system. Put down your Rand, and your supply of illegal drugs, and come to your senses. You should never rejoice that an intellectual amoeba is within a breath of the presidency, even if the alternative is Hillary Clinton. She may well be uniquely corrupt, but Democrats haven't changed that much. If indeed the judiciary is so far gone that only Trump can save us from doom, it's been a nice country. Not my problem. Even though the executive has accrued much more than symbolic power, the president is a symbol. And he's not a symbol I want representing me. Politics has always been imperfect, but its drama and its theater demonstrate even now that we aspire to things in politics, and through politics. It's one thing to remember that politics is only earthly; it's quite another to go to the gutter, and congratulate yourself for your alleged detachment.

Ratzinger is concerned here to defend eucharistic piety from charges that it is superstitious. Such a charge proceeds from the premises articulated by things said previously: if the focal point is the community, then anything which distracts from the community and its self-awareness is to be abandoned. On the contrary; the community and its purpose is made by the self-gift of the Lord, one which is extended to the unique eucharistic mode. Ratzinger argues that to distinguish the gift from the Person diminishes the magnitude of Him, and what He offers. Though we also recall that reception of Holy Communion is not obligatory on every occasion, he makes a bold argument to the claim that adoration and Communion are opposed: he says that to eat is to adore; it is to accept the covenant it signifies. He argues that the same liturgical primitivism (and an uncritical one, at that) that views the medieval liturgies with suspicion also cannot abide deepening eucharistic piety and architectur...

Ratzinger begins this chapter reminding the reader that everything Christians did architecturally served a liturgical purpose; that is, all such decisions are driven by the understanding of what God has revealed, and therefore, the proper response of the faithful is thus determined. God's ubiquity surprisingly affects liturgical posture, in that it doesn't eliminate a kind of spatial awareness, but causes it to be even more centered on the central saving event: the resurrection of Christ. He thus strongly advises the priest face ad orientem, that is, turned with his back to the people, facing east. It has been his opponents, who, while claiming he suffers from an irrational nostalgia, disallow any liturgical development, and chase a kind of liturgical primitivism. He gives one example of the negative impact of the partial truth of the Eucharist as meal: the focal point becomes the community, rather than God, whose saving action called the community into existence.