The Story of Ash Wednesday

The following comes from The Catholic Exchange:

Q: A Protestant friend asked me why Catholics use ashes on Ash Wednesday. What are the origins of Ash Wednesday and the use of ashes?

The liturgical use of ashes originates in Old Testament times. Ashes symbolized mourning, mortality and penance. For instance, in the Book of Esther, Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes when he heard of the decree of King Ahasuerus (or Xerxes, 485-464BC) of Persia to kill all of the Jewish people in the Persian Empire (Est 4:1). Job (whose story was written between 7th and 5th centuries BC) repented in sackcloth and ashes (Jb 42:6).

Prophesying the Babylonian captivity of Jerusalem, Daniel (c. 550BC) wrote, “I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Dn 9:3). In the 5th century BC, after Jonah’s preaching of conversion and repentance, the town of Nineveh proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, and the king covered himself with sackcloth and sat in the ashes (Jon 3:5-6). These Old Testament examples evidence both a recognized practice of using ashes and a common understanding of their symbolism.

Jesus Himself also made reference to ashes: Referring to towns that refused to repent of sin although they had witnessed the miracles and heard the good news, our Lord said, “If the miracles worked in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they would have reformed in sackcloth and ashes long ago” (Mt 11:21).

The early Church continued the usage of ashes for the same symbolic reasons. In his book, De Poenitentia, Tertullian (c. 160-220) prescribed that the penitent must “live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of ashes.” Eusebius (260-340), the famous early Church historian, recounted in his The History of the Churchhow an apostate named Natalis came to Pope Zephyrinus clothed in sackcloth and ashes begging forgiveness. Also during this time, for those who were required to do public penance, the priest sprinkled ashes on the head of the person leaving confession.

In the Middle Ages (at least by the time of the 8th century), those who were about to die were laid on the ground on top of sackcloth sprinkled with ashes. The priest would bless the dying person with holy water, saying, “Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.” After the sprinkling, the priest asked, “Art thou content with sackcloth and ashes in testimony of thy penance before the Lord in the day of judgment?” To which the dying person replied, “I am content.” In all of these examples, the symbolism of mourning, mortality and penance is clear.

Eventually, the use of ashes was adapted to mark the beginning of Lent, the 40-day preparation period (not including Sundays) for Easter. The ritual for the “Day of Ashes” is found in the earliest editions of the Gregorian Sacramentary which dates at least to the 8th century. About the year 1000, an Anglo-Saxon priest named Aelfric preached, “We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.” As an aside, Aelfric reinforced his point by then telling of a man who refused to go to Church on Ash Wednesday and receive ashes; the man was killed a few days later in a boar hunt. Since the Middle Ages at least, the Church has used ashes to mark the beginning of the penitential season of Lent, when we remember our mortality and mourn for our sins.

In our present Ash Wednesday liturgy, we use ashes made from burned palm branches distributed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. The priest blesses the ashes and imposes them on the foreheads of the faithful, making the sign of the cross and saying, “Remember, man you are dust and to dust you shall return,” or “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

As we begin this holy season of Lent in preparation for Easter, we must remember the significance of the ashes we have received: We mourn and do penance for our sins. We again convert our hearts to the Lord, who suffered, died and rose for our salvation. We renew the promises made at our baptism, when we died to an old life and rose to a new life with Christ. Finally, mindful that the kingdom of this world passes away, we strive to live the kingdom of God now and look forward to its fulfillment in heaven. In essence, we die to ourselves, and rise to a new life in Christ.

As we remember the significance of these ashes and strive to live it during this time of Lent, we must allow the Holy Spirit to move us to charity toward our neighbors. Our Holy Father in his Message for Lent, 2003, said, “It is my fervent hope that believers will find this Lent a favorable time for bearing witness to the Gospel of charity in every place, since the vocation to charity is the heart of all true evangelization.”

He also lamented that our “age, regrettably is particularly susceptible to the temptation toward selfishness which always lurks within the human heart…. An excessive desire for possessions prevents human beings from being open to their Creator and to their brothers and sisters.” This Lent, acts of self-giving love shown to those in need must be part of our penance, conversion and renewal, for such acts constitute the solidarity and justice essential for building up the kingdom of God in this world.

Why We Love the Saints

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

Having the family background that I do (I am the only one in my family of origin that is still Catholic—everyone else now worships at the local Assembly of God) I have been asked, “Why do Catholics pray to and worship saints?” I have been told that it is idolatry and it takes away from Jesus’ role as the “one mediator between God and mankind” (1 Tim. 2:15).  So, this let us look at saints and their powerful witness and intercession. I have also been asked, “Why don’t you just pray directly to God?”

Let’s look at the term “saints” in general.  There are actually a few categories of them.  In Scripture, St. Paul seems to apply the terms “holy ones” and “saints” inter-changeably….but restricted to those who were baptized into the Faith.  Today we could also add the term “the faithful” to describe the baptized. It is also used to describe all those saints who have died but who have not been canonized—and those whose quiet holiness is known only to God. It is for this reason the Church celebrates them collectively on November 1st—All Saints’ Day.  At first it was celebrated for those who were martyred for the faith; there were so many in the early centuries of the Church that separate feast days could not be held — especially when large groups were persecuted and martyred at the same time. The third “level” of saints in the Church is of those who have been canonized.

But why does the Church make saints to begin with? Actually, it doesn’t.  It is God himself who—from age to age—has raised up certain people unto himself…people to show us the way to the “fullness of charity” (Eucharistic Prayer II) even while here on earth.  They were (and are) powerful instruments used by God for his purpose.

In the Old Testament God raised up Noah, Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon, Judith, Deborah, Esther and many others.  All canonizations are within the context of the Sacred Liturgy which is the highest form of praise one can give to God.  Eucharist means Thanksgiving and we give thanks for the great mercy and example he gives us through these powerful saints to inspire us and give us hope. The process of canonization is lengthy and nothing is done lightly or arbitrarily. Prudence and the test of time are necessary in order to avoid a rush to judgment about the saint’s entry into heaven.  Not only bishops and medical doctors have a part in the determination process but psychotherapists who are well versed in the Catholic Faith as well.

What are the criteria of a person’s life to make them worthy of sainthood? While one might first tend to think about their holiness of life, prayer life, good deeds to others, writings and all the usual matters  or perhaps think of their abilities to work miracles (St. Padre Pio), to levitate (St. Teresa of Avila), to have infused knowledge (St. Joseph of Cupertino), visions (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque), apparitions (Lourdes), bi-location (St. Anthony of Padua) or have survived for several years by consuming nothing but the Holy Eucharist (St. Catherine of Siena) or such other “mystical phenomena”,  the absolute first and highest among all others are obedience to the Church and heroic virtue.

St. Ignatius of Antioch tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that it is not enough to simply honor the bishop — as important as that is.  Rather, “we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord himself”.  One of the great documents that came out of Vatican II,Lumen Gentium, calls the bishop the “Vicar of Christ” (¶27).  Why obedience? It was—as Jesus himself said—his “food”; that is, to do the Father’s will (Jn 4:34). When we live our lives in obedience to our holy bishops and/or religious superiors it is then that we resemble Jesus most perfectly. Heroic virtue often goes hand in hand with obedience to the Church for quite often the saints were greatly tested by Church leadership and other religious authority.

Consider St. John of the Cross, the Carmelite monk who was the reformer of the Discalced Carmelite order of men. Although lead by God (and invited/urged by Teresa of Avila) to undertake this great reform, he was thrown into the monastery prison for some nine months, allowed a change of clothes after three months and received little food.  Rather than rebel, it was during this time in the dark, damp, rat-infested prison that John wrote one of his greatest poems—A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ; it is still considered even today as a spiritual masterpiece and one of the greatest works ever in Spanish literature. That’s heroic virtue.

Heroic virtue is refusing to defend oneself in the face of false accusations by religious superiors and being expelled from one’s  community (as in the case of St. Gerard Majella) and relying on God to eventually give defense and bring forth the truth. Gerard was ultimately exonerated and allowed to return to his community. The parents of Thérèse Martin (St. Thérèse of Lisieux) are candidates for sainthood for their heroic virtue of giving all five of their daughters to religious monastic life—four to Carmel with Leonie the middle child going to the Visitation Nuns in Paray-le-Monial. Back then when a woman entered into a monastery, the parents were no longer allowed to see their daughters or, at best, only once or twice a year and only through a grille. Often the parents would suffer hardship in not having anyone to tend to them in their old age. Why suffer all of this? Love of their Beloved Jesus and love of his holy and glorious Church and a strong, passionate desire to imitate him unto death.

“Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them
and found them worthy of himself.
As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their judgment they shall shine
and dart about as sparks through stubble” (Wis. 3:5-7).

Let us now return to our question at hand—about praying to saints. Every Protestant who may read this will admit that they have been asked at one time or other to intercede for someone in prayer.  Yet no Protestant would ever reply, “Don’t ask me…go directly to God with your request”.  If you and I could ask another human (even in our sinfulness) to make intercession for us or the needs of someone else, we can certainly ask the saints who are surely alive in Christ.  Part of the process of canonization is that once a candidate has been declared “Venerable” a miracle must be attributed to his/her intercession before he/she can be beatified.  From there another miracle must occur prior to the canonization.  Miracles that occur through the intercession of the saints and “hold” (a person must be cured for five years before it is accepted…it must also be instantaneous, complete, inexplicable) is the acceptable proof that they are indeed in Heaven.

But—”Jesus is the sole mediator”.  According to Merriam-Webster, a mediator is a legal term—one who “mediates between parties who are at variance”—such as we were before the great Atonement of Jesus on the Cross—we who had gone “astray like sheep” (1 Pet. 2:25).  Jesus then is the sole mediator of our salvation.  The term “mediator” is not the same as “intercessor”. The Greek for “mediator” in this passage is “mesites” (μεσίτης) while the Greek for “intercession” is “enteuxis” (ἔντευξις).  In the same part of Paul’s First Letter to Timothy quoted above he “urges…first of all that prayers, petitions, intercessions “enteuxis” (ἔντευξις) and thanksgivings be made for all people” (2:1) …nothing here about going to God direct. If Jesus is truly the sole mediator of our prayers it is because of both his mercy and generosity that allows us to pray in Christ throughthe Holy Spirit—our prayer is not outside of that of Jesus.

Even in the Book of Revelation the “prayers of God’s people went up before God from the angel’s hand,” (8:4)…not the hand of Jesus.  If this is in a vision to John from Jesus himself, it must be God’s design that it happen this way.  Rev. 5:8 calls the incense itself the “prayers of God’s people”. Therefore when a priest and especially a bishop (because within him lies the fullness of the priesthood and he is Vicar of Christ) uses incense at Mass it is richly symbolic of him sending our prayers and the Eucharistic Sacrifice to God in Heaven—a breath-taking thought! The same thing is said about praying to the Virgin Mary…she keeps nothing for herself and simply directs us, “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5).  John does not tell us that the embarrassed couple even approached Mary about their dilemma. Ever-watchful mother that she is, she saw a need and acted on it. Her faith in Jesus’ ability brought about his first of many miracles.

Let us never shy away from asking Mary and the holy saints of God in Heaven to pray for and to intercede for us.  Whatever they obtain for us glorifies God—not them.  If God answers your prayer—made either to him direct or through any number of intercessors (whether heavenly or not)—feel free to send the customary offering of $10.00 to have a Mass of Thanksgiving said in gratitude. It is the perfect act of thanks. Or, step out in faith like the first (would be) male saint in the U.S. on his way to canonization, the Venerable Solanus Casey who would praise and thank God for answered prayers –before they were answered. Why not act now have that Mass said soon?

Catholicisms Pivotal Player: St. John Henry Newman

Word on Fire and Bishop Barron have made this episode of the Pivotal Players available at the canonization of St. John Henry Newman.  It is beautifully done and well worth watching.  Here is more on Cardinal Newman from Bishop Barron at Word on Fire:

As I compose these words, I am preparing to leave for Rome, where I will attend the canonization Mass for John Henry Newman, and then for Oxford, where I will give a paper on Newman’s thought in regard to evangelization. Needless to say, the great English convert is much on my mind these days. As I read the myriad commentaries on the new saint, I’m particularly struck by how often he is co-opted by the various political parties active in the Church today—and how this co-opting both distorts Newman and actually makes him less interesting and relevant for our time. I should like to show this by drawing attention to two major themes in Newman’s writing—namely, the development of doctrine and the primacy of conscience.St. John Henry Newman did indeed teach that doctrines, precisely because they exist in the play of lively minds, develop over time. And he did indeed say, in this epistemological context, “to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” But does this give us license to argue, as some on the left suggest, that Newman advocated a freewheeling liberalism, an openness to any and all change? I hope the question answers itself. In his Biglietto speech, delivered upon receiving the notification of his elevation to the Cardinalatial office, Newman bluntly announced that his entire professional career could be rightly characterized as a struggle against liberalism in matters of religion. By “liberalism” he meant the view that there is no objective and reliable truth in regard to religious claims. Moreover, Newman was keenly aware that doctrines undergo both legitimate development and corruption. In other words, their “growth” can be an ongoing manifestation of truths implicit in them, or it can be a devolution, an errant or cancerous outcropping. And this is, of course, why he taught that a living voice of authority, someone able to determine the difference between the two, is necessary in the Church. None of this has a thing to do with permissiveness or an advocacy of change for the sake of change.In point of fact, the development of doctrine, on Newman’s reading, is not so much a pro-liberal idea as an anti-Protestant one. It was a standard assertion of Protestants in the nineteenth century that many doctrines and practices within Catholicism represent a betrayal of biblical revelation. They called, accordingly, for a return to the scriptural sources and to the purity of the first-century Church. Newman saw this as an antiquarianism. What appears unbiblical within Catholicism are, in fact, developments of belief and practice that have naturally emerged through the efforts of theologians and under the discipline of the Church’s Magisterium. His implied interlocutor in the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine is not the stuffy Catholic traditionalist, but the sola Scriptura Protestant apologist.

Read the rest here.

Signs of the End Times: A Catholic Perspective

Why Catholics Practice Fasting and Abstinence?

The following comes from the Integrated Catholic Life:

Would you like to know the secret to a better, deeper, more joyful life in Christ?

Of course you would.  We all would.

Our bookstores are filled with books written to help us advance in prayer and the spiritual life. The “secret” we all look for is really no secret at all.  At its heart, the gospel message is one of self-denial and detachment from all things that are obstacles to our growth.  Jesus tells us that if we are to be his disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him (cf. Matthew 16:24). That is why Catholics practice fast and abstinence as a form of self-denial intended to lead us to perfection. So stick with me here and learn how self-denial will satisfy your deepest hunger.

The Catholic Disciplinary Laws of Fast and Abstinence

In these modern times, we don’t seem to hear much about fasting and abstinence anymore.  That’s a shame because the doctrine of self-denial is crucial to our becoming fully satisfied. Many of today’s Catholics associate fasting and abstinence only with the season of Lent and that’s a shame too. Let’s review the Church’s disciplinary law regarding Fasting and Abstinence:

• Fasting During Lent – The Church requires its members to fast on two days each year — Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Bishops in the United States have defined the minimum requirement of the fast for U.S. Catholics to be one full (but not excessive) meal plus other food not to exceed the full meal which may be taken in part at breakfast, noon or evening, depending on when one decides to take the “one full meal”. This law applies to Catholics between the age of 18 and 59.
• Abstinence From Meat on Fridays — The Church requires its members to abstain from eating meat on Fridays as an act of penitence.  In the United States, Catholics are permitted to substitute another form of penance on Fridays outside the season of Lent. This law applies to all Catholics who are over the age of 14.
• The Holy Communion Fast — Catholics must also fast for a minimum of one hour before receiving Holy Communion.

The entire season of Lent is a penitential time and our attitude and behavior during this season should be marked by some sort of self-denial.  The season of Advent is also a penitential season, but of less severity, and we should also mark this season with some form of self-denial, even if it is less than that practiced during Lent.

That’s it!  And so many of us complain and wait for the clock to tick down to midnight so we can have a ham sandwich. We need to turn our thinking around because uncontrolled appetites only become hungrier and more insatiable. That is why there is a myriad of “miracle” diets and weight loss programs on the market that promise results without effort. Well, there is only one source of miracles and that is God.  He has already provided us the ultimate diet program if we will but listen to him.

Although we often only hear about fast and abstinence associated with Lent, it is really a practice that is important all through the year.

So Let’s Broaden Our Understanding

As you can see, “to fast” generally means to significantly reduce the consumption of food or to forego it altogether for short durations. Abstinence is generally seen as avoiding the eating of meat.  But both acts are forms of self-denial.  More broadly speaking, self-denial is the act of giving up something that is good, be it food or some other “good” for the purpose of deepening our spiritual life and making acts of reparation for our sin or the sin of others. There is a long-history of the Catholic practice of fast and abstinence dating all the way back to the time of Christ. Our culture often incorporates these practices into our everyday language.  For example, the word breakfast is formed from two words, “break” and “fast” meaning simply that the first meal of the day breaks the fast from our last meal of the previous day. Another example, although this has nothing to do with fasting, is our word for the celebration of Christ’s birth which is formed by two words, “Christ’s” and “Mass” or Christmas.

Read the rest here.

The Question for Our Age: “Quo Vadis?”

The following comes from the Catholic World Report:

Secular liberalism is at odds with Catholicism. The point seemed obvious to most people until the postwar period, when the thought took hold that an essentially harmonious relationship could be established that would draw on the American model. America, it seemed, was different from Europe with its long tradition of statism and anti-clericalism. It rejected an established church, but embraced religious freedom, an active and diverse civil society, and a limited and decentralized government that did not try to dominate culture and gave the Church the protection and freedom she needed to thrive.

The attempt to establish a harmonious relation with the liberal state has been less fruitful than hoped, and even in America has run into profound difficulties. Our government and other authoritative institutions have become more centralized and more concerned with remodeling all aspects of life, including the beliefs and attitudes of the people. We are becoming more like Europe, and to make matters worse the outlook of the governing classes on both sides of the Atlantic has moved in a direction radically opposed to both religion and natural law. Throughout the Western world, Catholics and Catholic institutions are increasingly required to conform to anti-Catholic norms, and in much of it you can be punished as a criminal for public assertion of Catholic moral doctrine.

The intolerance is aimed less at Catholicism in particular, although the Church is a highly-visible target, than any form of Christianity that does not reduce without remainder to progressive politics and private therapy. We are increasingly ruled by practical utopians who believe themselves comprehensively responsible for human relations, and their efforts leave no place for an independent and refractory organization like the Church that proposes a contrary vision that now counts as intrinsically antisocial and oppressive.

So where will the present situation lead if—as seems quite possible—our secular authorities continue on their present course? Will the blood of the martyrs once again be the seed of the Church, or will multiplying restrictions and disabilities wear down Catholic life until the Church all but disappears?

Many societies have been anti-Catholic. How effective their anti-Catholicism has been has depended on the nature of the society and its guiding principles. Roman society, for example, had nothing to propose that could fill the needs Christianity satisfied, and the Roman empire was more loosely organized and its activities more limited than modern states. As a result, Roman persecutions, however savage they might be, were mostly local, sporadic, and ineffectual. By the time the Romans saw a need for comprehensive enforcement of religious loyalty the Christians were too strong and the empire too divided for the policy to be effective.

Some of the Church’s more recent opponents have been more organized, focused, steady, and successful. The Muslims eliminated Catholicism from North Africa, the home of Cyprian and Augustine, and the Protestants did much the same over large stretches of Europe. They were able to do so because the governments they established had more comprehensive concerns than the Roman government did, they took the issue of religious unity more seriously, and they stood for principles that had the broad-based appeal and staying power needed to establish themselves at least somewhat durably among the people.

In the last century the most severe attacks were carried on by secular systems that functioned as religions but excluded transcendent truth and authority. The attacks were organized and focused to the point of fanaticism, and they often led to widespread martyrdom of clergy and ordinary believers, as with the radically anticlerical regimes in Mexico and Spain and the totalitarian regimes that ruled Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and their respective empires.

Those attacks were not enduringly effective because the regimes carrying them on were too much at odds with human nature and with the societies they dominated for their vision to endure. Thus, for example, religious belief has bounced back in Russia, and Christianity is making unprecedented advances in China. Both countries had been searching for some sort of guiding principle, and when communism failed Christianity stepped into the gap. (In regions like East Germany and the Czech Republic, where communism was imposed from outside on a society in which religion was already weak, Soviet domination does seem to have accelerated the loss of faith.)

It appears, then, that as a human matter suppression of Catholicism is likely to work if the system that carries it on endures, takes the effort seriously, and offers a reasonably appealing way of life that provides somewhat of a substitute for what is suppressed.

So what does that mean in the case of secular liberalism, assuming it remains as ideological a system as it now seems? It has been enormously successful as a practical matter, and the way of life it offers evidently appeals to a great many people. Further, its opposition to Catholicism has become much more serious and active during the post-60s period. The result is that it has been very successful in changing religious views and weakening Church authority among the laity and even among many clergy and religious.

Given all that, the obvious question as to the future of Catholicism in the West, humanly speaking, is how much staying power secular liberalism will have, and whether it will maintain its appeal to ordinary people. Luckily for Catholics (and for humanity in general), those requirements bring weak points of the liberal system into focus. Secular liberalism makes maximum equal satisfaction its highest good. That principle is what gives it popular appeal, but it means ever-greater demands on public resources, since people require more and more to be satisfied, and it also means ever-less discipline, loyalty, and public spirit to support the system, since it undermines ideals of love and sacrifice.

Secular liberalism lacks a grounded principle of authority, and its aspiration to universal satisfaction makes it adverse to widespread use of threats and force. As a result, its basic method for maintaining control is a system of payoffs, propaganda, and ever-more comprehensive regulation. That method has mostly been rather successful. Material benefits have been funded through the extraordinary productivity of capitalist economies in a technological age, propaganda facilitated by alliance with the mass media and the expertise and training industry (otherwise known as the educational system), and regulation made effective by a comparatively high degree of bureaucratic discipline and efficiency.

None of those resources are infinite or everlasting. Organizational discipline and efficiency don’t sit well with an emphasis on equal satisfaction, so they are unlikely to be maintained. Also, it is becoming harder and harder to fund public programs or provide individuals with satisfactory employment, so much so that public finance has been reduced to an endless series of short-term expedients that everyone knows cannot go on forever. When the money runs out, people start feeling real economic pressure, and the government is unable and seems unwilling to do anything for them, will they keep on believing what they are told? Why should they, when the basis of what they have been told is that they have a right to get what they want?

So it seems that during the coming decades it will be increasingly difficult for secular liberalism to maintain itself among the people as a minimally satisfying system of practice and belief. Still, historical change is generally slow, and liberalism has been very effective at weakening its competitors, so it is likely to be with us in an ever-less appealing and successful form for some time to come. The best analogy to the period we may have before us is therefore the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union. Catholics can expect any number of petty restraints and stupid oppressions, but no terror, and less and less real belief in the official system. As a result, we can very likely expect a fertile field for Christian witness and for the growth of new forms of Christian life and revival of very old ones.

Tim Staples on Defending Your Faith

By What Authority?

The following comes from Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction:

As I’ve mentioned before, and will mention again, one of the triggers for my journey to the Catholic faith began with a simple but life-changing question: By what authority does someone interpret Scripture and establish doctrine?

What made that question so pivotal for me is that it challenged a few vital assumptions in my Evangelical Protestant theology. It also came up at a time when I faced radical changes in the Episcopal Church, of which I was a member. I was alarmed by the way decisions were being made there that seemed contrary to Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Yet, according to the authority of that church, their radical interpretation of the Bible and establishment of tradition-breaking doctrine was legitimate.

I started asking, “Hey, wait a minute, who’s in charge here anyway?” It can’t be a theological free-for-all – can it?

At the same time, I watched as more traditional Evangelical Protestants, with their Bibles in hand, set themselves up as their own “authorities” and made some surprising decisions. Surprising to me, that is. Some dropped out of any regular church attendance (because it was an optional extra, rather than a necessary part of the Christian life). Some talked as if there was no objective way to discuss Scripture, as if it all came down to “what it means to me and you can’t tell me otherwise.” I saw the line between interpretation and application become blurred, if not erased. So, again, I wondered: who gets the final word?

I read Jesus’ prayer for unity and almost wanted to dismiss it as sentimental wishful- thinking on His part. I suspect many Christians do. And I struggled to reconcile the idea that the same Holy Spirit – invoked by every individual – could be inspiring so many outright contradictions among believers.

So I asked the question. By what authority does someone interpret Scripture and establish doctrine?

To find the answer, I dared to venture beyond the boundaries of history I had previously allowed (only as far back as the Reformation) and pushed through to the Ancient Church. I wanted to know what the generation of Christians following the Resurrection and original 12 Apostles believed and why they believed it. I was shocked to learn how very Catholic they were.

The Bible itself pointed me to the reality of Apostolic Authority and, eventually, the question was settled. Once that was done, the move into the Catholic Church became inevitable.

Thereafter, I thought that, since the question was important to me, I ought to put it to my Protestant friends because it ought to be important to them. I was naïve. The question was often unwelcome, but stirred up some remarkable reactions.

One involved a wide-eyed have-you-lost-your-mind kind of response. Not because I had lost my mind, but because the question itself seemed crazy. The answer, it’s assumed, was clearly established long-ago by someone,  somewhere – though they don’t know when or by whom or where exactly. Maybe by Luther or Billy Graham. But certainly not by the corrupt gang who messed everything up before them.

Not only was the question crazy, it was superfluous. It’s like asking whether or not the American Revolution was a legitimate action or speculating what might have happened had the South won the Civil War. Things are what they are, there’s no point in revisiting a question that’s been answered somewhere somehow.  Don’t mess with the “givens.”

If my friends thought about it at all, they often had varying answers. Authority to interpret Scripture, for them, may be based on a democratic consensus in their churches. Or because the Pastor went to seminary. Or a teacher seemed wise and holy. Or the interpreter is personally charismatic. Or maybe the person speaking says things that “ring true” or resonate with their own feelings or experiences.

But, at the heart of it, I found that my question triggered a debate most people didn’t really want to have.

Assumption plays heavily in any answer, if an answer comes at all. People assume that it’s understood where the Authority rests, in the same way they assume that a chair is reliable and will hold them up if they sit on it – or that the person in the uniform flying the airplane is qualified to do it. It’s a vague and mysterious trust in the established order of things.

What I hadn’t anticipated was how very unnerving and distressing the question could be. The one thing most people don’t want challenged are the core assumptions in their worldview. Usually it takes a personal trauma or cataclysm to make people re-think those assumptions: God didn’t behave the way they thought, there is a terrible sickness or death, a horrible act of evil, or a natural catastrophe. Other than that, why bother?  To ask such a thing is like throwing a brick through a carefully crafted Tiffany window. I asked because the crisis in my church forced me to.

Now, as a Catholic, I see more clearly what I’m up against. The Catholic faith is an assault that challenges the assumptions not only of Evangelical Protestants but of most people. It is solid, rigorous and unique – and therefore foreign and frightening and dangerous. It is the answer to an unwelcome question. So, how do we get people to ask a question they don’t want to ask? That’s one of the challenges of the New Evangelization.

Essentials of Conversion

The following come from Dr. Kenneth J. Howell at the Coming Home Network:

Becoming a Catholic can be a difficult row to hoe. The process of conversion is a complex one that involves almost every aspect of a person’s life. When people experience internal struggles of faith, marital discord because of possible conversion, the alienation of family members, or the loss of employment, the inherent obstacles of conversion hit them right in the face.

Yet, those who come as adults to the Catholic Church from another background do not have proprietary rights on the title of convert. The word “convert” derives from the Latin verb convertere and literally means “to turn to be with” (con = with, vertere = turn). It expresses the same meaning as the Greek word metanoia, the word used in the New Testament regularly translated as “repentance.” Converts are people who have changed their life and have moved closer to God through faith and repentance. Conversion in the Catholic sense is a lifelong process of repentance (metanoia), faith, and good works that yields a profound internal change of heart, ultimately leading to final union with God. In the final analysis, becoming Catholic is not about changing churches or adopting a new religion; it is a movement from Here to Eternity.

Whether one is a cradle Catholic or from outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church, conversion involves a process of change in one’s worldview that reaches to the core of one’s being. It is not for the faint of heart. Hidden beneath the process of conversion lie other more subtle obstacles that can be easily missed by those drawn to the Church. In their enthusiasm for a new-found faith or expression of the faith, potential converts can sometimes miss what a deep conversion really consists of. In this and following months, I would like to point to five areas that are both stumbling blocks and stepping stones for converts to the Catholic Faith.

Bishop Barron on Shakespeare and the Fading of the Catholic World

Catholicism: Here Comes Everybody

The following comes from Robert George First Things:

Those of us who are Catholics have had a rough few years. Well, make that a rough few decades. Horrific abuse scandals. Some weak, sometimes feckless, bishops. Wacky theologians. Boring homilies. Dreadful music. Widespread dissent, often rooted in appalling ignorance. I could go on. We envy our Evangelical friends for the vibrancy of faith in their communities. (Causing our Evangelical friends to wonder whether we’ve been hitting the communion wine too hard.) We envy our friends in the historically black churches for their great preaching and singing. We envy our LDS friends for having strong and inspiring leaders. We envy our Eastern Orthodox friends for having a beautiful liturgy. We envy our Orthodox Jewish friends for understanding the value of tradition, instead of throwing it overboard in pursuit of “relevance.” 

We feel sorry for ourselves.

But sometimes, one notices the little things that make it great to be Catholic. Like diversity. Diversity? I know what you’re thinking: “My goodness, Robby really has been hitting the sauce. He’s not usually the sort who goes for this p. c. diversity business.”

But, no, I mean it. Diversity. I was sitting at mass today, listening to the homily (which actually wasn’t all that boring, truth be told) and looking around at my fellow worshippers. I mean to tell you, it was glorious diversity. The Catholic Church really is “here comes everybody.” There were people I know who are Irish, Polish, Italian, Mexican, Filipino, Guatemalan, but also African, Indian (the kind from India), Korean, Vietnamese, Colombian, Russian (why they don’t go to the Orthodox Church, I’m not sure; but there they were), Lebanese, Japanese, Jamaican, Chilean, Ecuadorean—all in the same local parish

And that’s only the beginning.

There were the folks from the Western section of Princeton who work in financial services in NYC and have a net worth in the tens or even hundreds of millions. And there was the guy who owns the local bakery. And the woman who has one of the florist shops and another who has (or works in, I’m not quite sure) one of the few remaining travel agencies. There was the little old man with the amazingly bad toupee. (He’d be better off with some black magic marker.) There were the laborers who work with the local landscapers and builders. They and their families were sitting there alongside the rich people from the Western section and the University professors. One of the professors (who, as it happens, is one of the world’s leading scientists) was kneeling next to the wife of my tailor—she’s an immigrant woman whose simple southern Italian spirituality is of the sort that gets Catholics labeled Mary worshippers by our Protestant friends. Then there was the guy—late 60s or 70s in age, with the classic looks of the 1940s male movie star, right down to the pencil thin moustache—who kneels through the whole mass counting his beads and saying the rosary. He does it every Sunday.

We have the Princeton University undergrads and graduate students headed for big things, and the people with Down’s Syndrome and other handicaps. We have the crying infants and squirming toddlers (not to mention the adolescents who, I’m sure, are giving their parents fits) and the people (mostly women, but a few men) who are certainly in their nineties. My sense is that the congregation as a whole is made up of fairly orthodox Catholics, which I doubt is always the case in university towns. When my former student, Fr. Mike McClane, preaches, only one or two people usually get up and walk out. Given that he often says things that cause massive heartburn to Catholics who strongly dissent from some of the Church’s moral teachings, that’s pretty surprising for a parish in a town like Princeton, but there it is. Anyway, if we’re missing ideological (or whatever you want to call it) diversity we sure have lots of all the other kinds, including, I’m sure, plenty of sinners like me, and even, I would be willing to bet, a few saints.

The Rock of Peter

Justice Antonin Scalia, RIP

We need to pray for the repose of the soul of this great public servant, Catholic, Supreme Court Justice and fool for Christ, Antonin Scalia.  Here is a great quote from the Justice from a talk to the Knights of Columbus:

“God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed,” Scalia said. 

“If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity,” he added. “Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”

Taste and See: The Five Senses of Faith

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

Ever since Christ invited Doubting Thomas—for whom a vision of the resurrected Son of God was not enough—to put his hands into the visible wounds, Christian faith has engaged with all five senses of the body.

Faith most obviously comes through hearing, as St. Paul first taught us. But in ways subtle and sublime it also is related to each of the four other senses, even the sense of smell and taste.

Hearing from a personal God: Faith, as Scripture tells us, comes through hearing. But why? Why not reading, for example? The encyclical Lumen Fidei (most written by Pope Benedict XVI) points to the story of Abraham as an example. Abraham’s encounter with God, Benedict notes, was marked by hearing a divine voice. This happened in his native city, his new home in the future promised land, and on the mountain where he took Isaac. While it may be lost on modern audiences, in the ancient world this encounter with God through hearing marked the God of the Israelites as a God of the person, rather than a god of place (or one associated with a particular situation). Click here to read more about why faith comes through hearing.

Faith as mystical vision: By faith in Christ, Christ comes to live within us, to dwell within us, as St. Paul writes and Galatians 2 and Ephesians 3. Citing these verses, the encyclical Lumen Fidei (most written by Pope Benedict XVI) says that faith in Christ becomes a sort of mystical seeing. We cannot see God the Father, but Christ does. “The Christian can see with the eyes of Jesus and share in his mind, his filial disposition, because he or she shares in his love, which is the Spirit. In the love of Jesus, we receive in a certain way his vision,” Benedict writes.

Touched through the sacraments: Christ’s ministry of healing often involved a personal touch. Christ did not simply wave his hands over the eyes of the blind man; he rubbed mud into them. The woman who was hemorrhaging was healed by touching His garment. His followers had the opportunity to be touched by Christ, but what about believers today? “By his taking flesh and coming among us, Jesus has touched us, and through the sacraments he continues to touch us even today; transforming our hearts, he unceasingly enables us to acknowledge and acclaim him as the Son of God. In faith, we can touch him and receive the power of his grace,” Benedict writes in Lumen Fidei(co-authored with Pope Francis). Benedict invokes the words of Augustine: To touch him with our hearts: that is what it means to believe.

‘Taste and see’: “O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet: blessed is the man that hopeth in him,” so proclaims Psalm 34:8. If it is through sacraments in general that we are touched by God, it is through the Eucharist that we taste Him. Such at least has been the interpretation of Church Fathers like Sts. Athanasius and Augustine, according to the Haydock Bible Commentary

Read the rest here.

"Here comes everybody!"

The following comes from Kathy Schiffer at  Seasons of Grace:

WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON?

• Actors John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jim Nabors, Faye Dunaway, Vincent Price, Susan Hayward and Patricia Neal
• Academics and intellectualsHadley Arkes (Amherst), Mortimer Adler (Great Books), Robert Bork (Yale), G.K. Chesterton
• Royalty King Charles II ( Great Britain )
• Artist Peter Paul Rubens
• Heroes of the Old West Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill and Doc Holliday
• Musician Dave Brubeck
• Politicians John Ellis (Jeb) Bush and Newt Gingrich
• Famed coach Knute Rockne (Notre Dame)
• Playwrights Tennessee Williams and Oscar Wilde
• Novelists Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Sigrid Undset and Dean Koontz

If you guessed “They’re all converts to Catholicism,” you’re absolutely right! All of these famous people—and many thousands of others—have made the journey into the hushed reverence of the Catholic Church.

Read the rest here.

Literature and Art: Two Great Pillars of Any Great Catholic Culture

The following comes from Russell Shaw:

One way to describe the present situation of the Church in the United States is to say American Catholicism is in a state of cultural crisis. And if that is true, then restoring a healthy Catholic subculture is necessary not just for the Church's flourishing but for its very survival.

Literature and art have to be part of it. There's a powerful link, a genuine two-way street, between culture and art. Writers and artists are products of their culture, which they also do much to create and shape and sustain. A religious body lacking writers and artists is impoverished at its roots and at risk of stagnation and atrophy.

I was reminded of these things while reading an essay-review of a new collection of letters by the late novelist and short story writer J.F. Powers. The piece was by the distinguished essayist and critic Joseph Epstein and appeared a while back in the Wall Street Journal.

Epstein calls Powers a "superb artist" who wrote "some of the most striking fiction of his day''--fiction which, he adds, "holds up well in ours." He has no doubt that something besides Powers' own talent accounts for his achievement. What that something was, he explains like this:

"Catholicism in those years [the mid-20th century, that is] provided a distinct culture within America. For Catholics the church, capital and small letter C, was both the center and periphery of life. It had an authority and a hold on American Catholics that has long been leaching away."

Although Powers died in 1999 at the age of 81, he was essentially a chronicler of American Catholicism in the years before the Second Vatican Council--the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. His writing output dropped off markedly after the middle decade of the latter decade.

True, his second novel, and last book, Wheat That Springeth Green, appeared in 1988. But few readers find it up to the level of his earlier work. Some parts are admirable, but the narrative as a whole is diffuse and rather wandering, as if by then Powers didn't know quite what to make of the Church. The old Catholic subculture he'd known so well had vanished, and what replaced it resembled bits and pieces from a broken kaleidoscope.

But that old subculture was something else. Epstein, a Chicagoan, recalls his hometown as a place where Catholicism was "a natural part of the cityscape." Priests in Roman collars and nuns in habits rode the buses and frequented the libraries. Catholic kids went to Catholic schools where they learned Latin and theology and labored under "unremitting discipline."

Numerous writers besides Powers found this to be culturally rich soil. And not just in Chicago. Edwin O'Connor mined the soil of Irish-American Catholicism in Boston. Walker Percy, a convert, found inspiration in Louisiana's Catholic culture. Another O'Connor, Flannery, played variations on the theme by contemplating Bible Belt fundamentalists in light of the great tradition of her Catholic faith. The list could easily be extended.

And now? There are still talented American Catholics who write, but there is no recognizable body of writers drawing upon a Catholic culture to produce work comparable in cultural density to that of Powers and the rest.

I repeat: literature and art are products of culture, and culture is a product of literature and art. Separate the two things, and the art is in trouble--as is the culture itself. And that in a nutshell is the cultural crisis in American Catholicism as we are experiencing it today.

Discovering Catholicism: Saved from a Life of Drugs

Era of Comfortable Catholicism Is Over

The following comes from the NCR:

Catholics at the 10th anniversary of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast got a startling wake-up call on Tuesday morning: They have lost the luxury of being comfortable in their faith in 21st-century America. More than ever before, they must embrace the risks of discipleship by encountering others and witnessing to the Gospel.

For the 800 people gathered in Washington, the morning’s speeches were mainly divided between Princeton professor Robert George’s sobering assessment of what Christian discipleship requires in America’s current cultural-political landscape and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston’s cheerful exhortation for Catholics to embrace the missionary spirit of the early Church.

The breakfast coincided with the feast of Our Lady of Fatima as well as the 33rd anniversary of the near-assassination of St. John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington set the tone for the morning with his invocation, asking God’s blessing “in this time of spiritual renewal and New Evangelization” on the breakfast participants gathered “together here in faith and testimony to the Holy Spirit.”

The cardinal asked that God might “lift our hearts, enlighten our minds and strengthen our souls,” and he asked for the intercession of St. John Paul II and Mary under her titles of Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Guadalupe, as they prepared to “re-propose the Gospel to the world.”

“We ask you to inspire us to be more courageous in responding to the challenges of religious liberty, social justice and to the gift of human life,” he said. “Let us be agents of the New Evangelization, living as faithful followers of Jesus, your Son, in sharing our faith with those around us.”

After a short video introduction from Jim Caviezel about his new film, When the Game Stands Tall, the audience  settled in for the two main speakers.

No More ‘Tame Catholics’

George told Catholics that he had a “somber” message for them: “The days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past.”

He warned that a “price is demanded” of all committed believers, as mainstream America registers its preference for Catholics who might go to Mass but do not embrace the totality of the Church’s teachings — or those who know the Church’s teaching but prefer safety in their silence.

“In other words, a tame Catholic who is ashamed of the Gospel is socially acceptable,” said George, even as he called on his audience to “take risks” and follow Christ’s words to “take up thy cross and follow me.”

The costs of discipleship may be personal, familial or professional, he said. Standing up for the Church’s teaching on the dignity of human life and marriage — teachings which he said are “not fourth-class Gospel truths” and must be proclaimed with all of the Church’s revealed teaching — may lead to charges of “bigotry” or waging a “war on women” or that Christians are an “enemy of reproductive freedom.”

“To believe in the Gospel is to make oneself a marked man or woman,” he said.

Culturally, the Church in America has found itself in “Good Friday,” George observed.

The shifting, more hostile cultural landscape indicates American society’s “love affair with Jesus and his Church is over.”

George reminded his audience that while Jesus Christ has won the ultimate battle, those who live during this time must one day “give an account for all we do” before the “Lord of truth, the God of history.”

“One thing and one thing only will matter: Was I a faithful witness to the Gospel?”

“My friends,” he said, “the Gospel is true, and that is the most important thing to know. … We’re betting our whole lives on it.”

Happy Gospel Warriors

Following upon George’s somber analysis, Cardinal O’Malley livened the mood with a couple of humorous anecdotes. But the cardinal’s levity served to underscore his point that Catholics must embrace Pope Francis’ call to foster a “culture of encounter” and practice “the art of accompaniment” as modern-day disciples of Jesus Christ.

“Our task is to turn consumers into disciples and disciples into disciple-makers,” he said. “We need to prepare people to witness to the faith and not to send people into the witness-protection program.”

Read the rest here.