Fr. Longenecker: Angels, Shepherds and Sheer Joy

The following comes from Fr. Longenecker:

Angels crowd the Advent story, and their presence culminates in the throng of angels who appear to the shepherds on the hill outside Bethlehem. The angelic presences pushing in on the ordinary world come first to the priest Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and then to the Virgin Mary and Joseph. Finally, they appear with the message that God’s son has been born to the humble shepherds.

The story is told in the classic words of the King James Version:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

The presence of the angels in Advent is the presence of the supernatural pressing in on the natural. At the coming of Christ the veil between the seen and the unseen worlds is tissue thin. That which is invisible presses in upon those who can only see the visible. As God takes human flesh it is as if the whole divine realm becomes more present in this physical dimension.

Have you ever wondered why messengers from heaven so often appear to shepherds? Not only did the Christmas angels come to shepherds, but the Hebrew people were a nomadic herding tribe. Moses was a shepherd when God appeared at the burning bush. The great king David was a shepherd boy, and at Laus, La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima Mary appeared to shepherd children. The supernatural appearances come to humble peasants for a good reason. Humble workers are, on the one hand, likely to accept a supernatural appearance, and on the other hand, they are unlikely to fabricate a wild story. They’re down to earth, simple, honest and straightforward people — likely to believe in the supernatural but also unlikely to deceive.

The combination of angels and shepherds brings alive the wonder of Christ’s birth, and the symbolism of the shepherds and the wise men add to the levels of meaning and mystery. As his ancestor David was the shepherd king, the child in the stable will prove to be both the Good Shepherd and the King in God’s kingdom. So the angels herald his birth to the shepherds, and through the guiding star the kings make their way to pay him homage. As princes and peasants come together, they prove that the child is the Lord of both the highest and the lowest of humanity.

The angels of Christmas night also remind us of the role of the angels. They are God’s messengers and bring the message of Christ’s birth to the shepherds, and through them to the whole human race, but they are also agents of praise. The angelic role is to give everlasting praise, honor and glory to God. When the shepherds see the angels, they hear a hint of heaven and get a glimpse of glory. Their hearts lift in praise and wonder as they experience the stupendous sight of heaven being opened for a moment as God comes down to dwell among mankind.

As the shepherds take action and hurry to worship the newborn king, they remind us of an important takeaway from the story. Every glimpse of glory and spiritual uplift brings with it the call to action. The angels praise God, but they also serve God. They worship him, but they also render him service. They glorify him and they bear his message to the world. Likewise, following their example, at this Christmas season we turn out hearts in worship and praise, but we rise from Christmas Mass with an even greater determination to bring the angelic message of peace and goodwill to the world through both our lips and our lives.

The Deadly Sin of Pride

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker at Catholic Exchange:

There is a little poem by e.e.cummings which contains a line, “even on a sunday may I be wrong, for whenever men are right they are not young.” The poet is being paradoxically playful to make a point. When we are always right about everything we have not only lost the innocence of youth, but we are also guilty of the most basic sin of all, the deadly sin of pride. Pride is best understood as being right at all costs.

Some of the problems we think of as pride are really the symptoms of pride. We consider an arrogant person to be proud, but arrogance is one of the outward signs of pride. A person who displays his achievement or wealth, struts his good looks or brags about his victories is displaying the symptoms of pride, but pride is a much deeper problem and its symptoms can be seen in many other less obvious ways. A person who insists on arguing his point and will not listen to anyone else is proud. A person who simply assumes that he is right in his opinions is proud even though he may not strut or be arrogant. A person who can never be corrected, who is always defensive, who always has an excuse or always blames another person is proud because they cannot be wrong. Ever. At all.

In religious circles a person who is self righteous is proud. Now it gets tricky because a person who appears very humble and pious might, beneath the surface, be very proud of their piety and religious knowledge. At this point we have to laugh at ourselves. “What? You mean I am proud of being humble?” It’s true, some of the most incorrigibly proud people appear to be self effacing, obedient and pious souls.

This is why pride is so deadly, because it is the one sin that hides itself so effectively. The proud person, by very definition, does not realize he is proud. If he realized he was proud he would repent, but it is pride which keeps him from seeing that he is wrong or sinful in any way. Pride is a very difficult sin to do anything about because the proud person will even go so far as to admit that he is proud, and that makes him even more “right” than he was before!

What a subtle, lying, deceitful and insidious sin pride is! No wonder it is called “the first sin”. No wonder it is the first and most terrible sin of Satan who is the Father of Lies. Is pride deadly? Yes. It is deadly like a poisoned apple. It is deadly like a smiling murderer. Pride kills because the proud person cannot stand others who disagree. Not only does the proud person have to be right, but as their pride grows they must also destroy everyone else who is wrong. They cannot allow an enemy to remain. The proud person may not kill literally, but they kill reputations through gossip and detraction. They kill good will through hatred and recrimination. They kill charity through revenge and nursing a grudge. They kill friendship through arrogance, indifference to others and lack of compassion.

Humility counters pride. The word “humility” is derived from the same root as humor and “humus” which means “earth.” A humble person is down to earth. A humble person has a good sense of humor. Most of all, the humble person knows his failures, faults and foibles. He knows himself and can laugh at himself. e.e.cummings ends the poem by saying ruefully, “there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail, pulling all the sky over him with one smile.”

Mother Angelica’s Mad Method

The following comes from Fr. Longenecker:

After I became a Catholic, I waited 10 years before I finally received the gift of ordination. During my time as a layman I often wondered how I was supposed to serve the church. Then a visit from a wise older Catholic man named Francis pointed the way. He listened to my frustrations and then smiled and said, “Dwight, in the Catholic Church, don’t wait to be asked and don’t wait to be thanked. Just get on and do what you can with the gifts you have been given. The Lord will open the doors.” So I began writing because that was something I could do, and in doing so I found a way to serve God and his church.

This was the way of Mother Angelica. She did what she could with what she had, and God blessed her efforts and opened the doors. Her success could be called “Mother Angelica’s Mad Method” and it has particular principles from which the whole Church can learn.

The first principle of Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is that she began with prayer, not a master plan. The worldly way of accomplishing something is to determine the overall object, work out the strategy, set goals and establish a schedule to reach those goals. Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is similar to Pope Francis’ exhortation to “go out and make a mess.” She didn’t have a master plan. She had a relationship with the Master, and that was the foundation of her mad method.

The second principle of Mother Angelica’s Method is that she began with service, not buildings. Time and again in church life I see priests, prelates and people make big plans that involve bricks and mortar, staff and salaries.

Not long ago I was visiting a northern city and heard the story of a new multimillion dollar Catholic high school that was struggling for enrollment. Meanwhile, a private Catholic high school with a classical curriculum that met in a converted warehouse was bursting at the seams. The bishop had made the mistake of constructing a building before he constructed the ministry. “If you build it they will come”? Not necessarily.

Mother Angelica didn’t set out to have an international Catholic media company with posh offices in an affluent metropolitan area. She just started making her own TV show with second-hand equipment in her garage in the backwoods of Alabama. She began with ministry, and the bricks and mortar followed.

Mother Angelica’s third principle concerns money. She did not start with a huge capital campaign to raise the money to establish an international Catholic media empire. She didn’t have gala dinners with Catholic high-rollers who had to stump up for an army of highly paid directors, producers, financial advisors and administrative staff. She just got on with doing what she could do. She didn’t wait to be asked and didn’t wait to be thanked, and the Good Lord provided the money as it was needed.

Mother Angelica’s Mad Method is what I call entrepreneurial Catholicism. This mad method is very often not only Spirit led, but it is in a healthily subversive relationship with the hierarchy of the church. In a prophetic way, the entrepreneurial Catholic does God’s work without running to the priest or bishop all the time for approval.

Read the rest here.

Catholic Men Preparing for Spiritual Battle

The following comes from Fr. Longenecker at Crux:

Catholic men are arming themselves for battle.

Spiritual battle.

Behind the headlines and beneath the radar, a grassroots movement is growing among Catholic men in the United States. Spurred on by the culture wars, they are rallying to conferences, retreats, seminars, and parish study groups that aim to support them in their faith, encourage fellowship, and motivate Christian action in support of charity, social justice, pro-life causes, and the traditional family. Catholic men’s events have become phenomenally successful, gathering Catholic men from a wide spectrum of age ranges to hear motivational speakers, inspiring converts, and spiritual leaders.

In an interview with Tim Drake at Catholic Pulse, Dan Spencer, executive director of the National Fellowship of Catholic Men, said that at the beginning of the century there were just 16 Catholic men’s conferences. Now a quick check of the Web discovers more than 100 nationwide. In addition to the keynote speakers, the conferences feature workshops and breakout sessions focused on topics such as battling pornography, being a better husband and father, successful stewardship, and how to develop a stronger spirituality.

In our own state of South Carolina — a state where less than 5 percent of the population is Catholic — the first annual men’s conference was standing-room-only with more than 500 registrants. The second year the attendance nearly doubled. The same story is told at men’s conferences across the country.

The renewal of men’s ministry is also taking place at the parish level. Pastors and laymen are starting their own groups, while the National Fellowship of Catholic Men, That Man is You!, and The King’s Men offer guidance and content for local groups.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Longenecker on Perfect Contrition

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

If you go to confession just because you feel it is your duty and you scrounge around to find a few things you think might be a “sin” but you’re not really sure and you think you probably haven’t done anything bad because you’re a nice person and after all, you didn’t commit adultery or rob a bank or hit anyone…

This is not perfect contrition.

If you go to confession because you’ve done something that embarrasses you when you think about it, or maybe you just feel guilty or you are ashamed of what you’ve done or maybe you’re scared you’re going to get caught. These are some of the good emotions you should have, and this is better than nothing, but this is not perfect contrition.

This is what the church calls “imperfect contrition.”

Perfect contrition is when you have learned to accept the love of God and you love God so much that you are truly sorry for your sins because you have offended the one who loves you and gave everything to redeem you.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you lost your temper and slapped your mother. Think of the look of hurt and sadness in her eyes. Suddenly you see that and you are terrified at what you’ve done. You are truly and completely sorry because you have hurt the one who loves you.

THAT’S perfect contrition. When you are given the grace to truly repent because you have understood how much your sin has wounded the purity, goodness, beauty and truth of God himself.

Pray then, during Lent for the gift of perfect contrition, but to get there you must first understand and accept at the core of your being the totally perfect love and mercy of God.

Pray then, for this gift.

PS: One way to enter more fully, and experience the complete and total love of God is through my book Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing.

Strategies for Spiritual Warfare

The following come from Fr. Longenecker:

I had to speak with Tom about his passion for spiritual warfare. His zeal was unquestioned, and his desire to fight the good fight was admirable. He had his warrior’s rosary, his prayer book, his holy water and his scapulas all in place. He was ready to take up his weapons and fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil with all his might.

Tom’s problem was that he lacked the right strategies for spiritual warfare. He had identified some of the evils in society and was sure that he had identified some of the evil people, but I was worried that Tom’s assessment of the enemy was not quite on target. Tom had combined his passionate Catholic faith with equally passionate right wing politics. He had certainly identified some of the evils in society and the church, but his religion and politics were getting mixed.

I had another worry. Tom’s passion to pray against the world, the flesh, and the devil had a sub current of anger. Was it possible that Tom was projecting some of the turbulent lusts, frustrations, and rage within himself outward onto other perceived evil people, evil politicians, and even members of other religions and racial groups? Wrestling with the devil is like wrestling with an octopus in oil. It’s a slippery business. The devil is the father of lies and there is nothing he likes better than deceiving us and drawing us into the most cunning of spiritual traps. Tom was in danger of wasting time in “spiritual warfare” doing no more than wrestling with evils of his own imaginings.

There’s more. Tom lacked a proper strategy for spiritual warfare because he did not have a developed understanding of the nature of evil in the first place. Evil is not original. It is derivative. Satan cannot create anything good. All he can do is twist and corrupt what is good. That’s what he does: he lies. He tells half truths. He distorts the truth. He corrupts what is pure, twists what is straight, soils what is clean, and vandalizes what is beautiful. To fight evil directly therefore, is to try to fight something which is essentially a negative. Evil is to good what darkness is to light and what cold is to heat. Darkness and cold are an absence of light and heat. So evil is an absence, a distortion, and a corruption.

The best way to engage in spiritual warfare, therefore, is not to pray against the evil directly, but to pray for what is positive. The best way to counter all that is ugly, evil, and false is to support all that is beautiful, good, and true. Here’s an example: let’s say we want to pray against the sin of abortion. We not only pray for the abortion mill to close, but we pray actively for legislators and judges to enact pro-life legislation. We pray actively for pro-life workers and witnesses. We pray actively for all who help women in crisis pregnancies. We pray actively for families, children, husbands and fathers, women, and mothers.

The strategy for spiritual warfare is therefore passionate, proactive, and positive. It is passionate because the heart is aflame with love for all that is beautiful, good, and true. It is proactive because it steps out with confidence and faith to engage evil. It is positive because it supports all that is good and strong rather than simply praying against the darkness and evil.

Read the rest here.

Paris Attacks: How Should One Respond?

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

One of the things which secular Westerners find so mind blowing about Islamic terrorist attacks is the irrationality of the evil.

We cannot understand a religion that drives young men to such mindless barbarism.

We don’t have the tools in our toolbox. We simply cannot understand their culture, their mentality, their religion or their reasoning.

In our materialistic, pleasantly hedonistic, tolerant lifestyle we cannot comprehend a worldview that demands such utter self sacrifice, murder of innocents and wanton destruction.

Even those who no longer believe are the products of two thousand years of Christian culture and the development of a Christian worldview. Even if we are not religious we believe in goodness, forgiveness, kindness and self control. We believe in honesty, rationality and the ability to compromise and live together. We believe in beauty, innocence, purity and the pursuit of genuine love. Even if we are hypocrites and failures we believe in these things and view the world in this way.

We can’t imagine what it is like to follow a religion that demands the kidnapping and torture of children and the slaughter of innocents.

When faced with the carnage what do we do?

First, I think we naturally do what humans do. We cry out for an answer and yearn for revenge. We want to retaliate. We want to wipe these scum from the face of the earth. We want to meet rage with rage and seek vengeance.

However, as  Christians we step up to stand with the victims in grief, compassion and prayer. We hold them in our silence, incomprehension and hope somehow that our support and solidarity will help them see a way through the mindless dark.

Then we step back from the lust for revenge. Justice and self defense are justified, but the cycle of revenge and bloodshed becomes endless.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Longenecker on Francis, Fatima and the End of the World

The following comes from Fr. Longenecker at Aleteia:

At the end of April it was confirmed that Pope Francis will travel to Fatima for the one hundredth anniversary of the Marian apparitions, and it is rumored that he will use the occasion to canonize the two youngest seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
 
This week, on the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the original image was venerated by the Holy Father at the Vatican. What is Pope Francis’ understanding of the message of Fatima, and why does the Virgin of Fatima seem so important to him, as she was to his two predecessors?
 
The stunning events at Fatima in May 1917 took place as the world lurched into the twentieth century—a century that would see two world wars, genocide on a massive scale, the invention of the atomic bomb and the rapid rise of technologies that would transform the world and the human race.
 
The Pope’s planned visit to Fatima and his celebration this week continues his interest and involvement with Fatima. His pontificate was consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima on May 13, 2013, by the cardinal of Lisbon. During the ceremony the cardinal prayed that Pope Francis be granted “the gift of discernment to know how to identify the paths of renewal for the Church.” He also prayed that the Holy Father be protected “in the difficult hours of suffering, so that he may overcome, in charity, the trials that the renewal of the Church will bring him.” This was followed five months later by Pope Francis consecrating the world to Our Lady of Fatima on October 13, 2013.
 
Pope Francis’ continued devotion to Our Lady of Fatima indicates a historic and significant link of the papacy with the prophecies of Fatima. John Paul II visited Fatima three times, and in 2000 beatified Jacinta and Francisco in 2000, and was also responsible for entrusting the Third Millennium to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in front of our Lady’s statue, on Sunday, October 8, 2000, when over 1,400 bishops were present for the Jubilee Mass.
 
Pope Benedict XVI also strongly supported Fatima and visited the shrine in May 2010, when, among other things he said: “We would be mistaken to think that the prophetic mission of Fatima is complete.”
 
In the famous vision of Pope Leo XIII Satan said if he had one hundred years he would be able to destroy the church. It is interesting to note that the dates were October 13, 1884. Two “Fatima Dates” crop up time and again. Pope John Paul II’s attempted assassination took place on May 13, 1981. Pope Francis consecrated the world to Our Lady of Fatima October 13, 2013. The apparitions began on May 13, 1917 and ended with the miracle of the sun on October 13, 1917. Could these momentous sign from heaven indicate the beginning of the one hundred years in which Satan would attempt to destroy the church? If so, are we approaching the end of that time? Does this make the pope’s visit to Fatima in 2017 more important than a mere centenary celebration?
 
When he celebrated the consecration to Our Lady of Fatima in October 2013, Pope Francis said: “The statue of our Lady, which has come from Fatima, helps us to feel her presence in our midst. Mary always brings us to Jesus…nothing is impossible for God’s mercy! Even the most tangled knots are loosened by His grace. And Mary, whose ‘yes’ opened the door for God to undo the knot of the ancient disobedience, is the Mother who patiently and lovingly brings us to God, so that He can untangle the knots of our soul by His fatherly mercy.”
 
This Pope, like his two predecessors seems acutely aware not only of the spiritual battle with Satan, but also of the possibility that time is short. In contemplating “the end of the world” we have to ask ourselves what that means.

Read the rest here!

Fr. Longenecker on Catholicism: The Original Mega Church

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

Pope Francis’ record breaking visit to the Philippines reminds the world of the sheer power of numbers when it comes to debates about religion.

Let the Oxford intellectuals like Dawkins squawk all they want about the evils of religion and the goodness of atheism.

They are a fly not even worth swatting when you consider the crowds in Brazil for World Youth Day and the phenomenal crowd that turned out in Manila yesterday.

Between six and seven million souls braved the rain to celebrate Mass with Pope Francis.

These were not wicked people who were responsible for all the evils in the world. These were not six million people causing all the wars in history. These were not crowds of delusional maniacs or head in the cloud believers in fairy tales. These were not fanatical puritanical spoil sports or slightly insane women with a religious mania.

These were millions of ordinary, down to earth, real people. They were the poor, the middle class, the young and the old. They were a throng of human beings who long for love, long for God, long for goodness, truth and beauty. They were Catholics.

The secular atheists must stop and think. They must stop and think hard. If their nihilism is so wonderful why are there not more people to follow it?

Oh, they claim that religion is dying and atheism will soon take over.

Talk about wishful thinking! Talk about fairy tales!

Religion is not dying out. It is stronger in the human heart than ever before.

Atheism will never be anything more than the frail, frightened voice of protest from old men with too much money, too much education and too little common sense. It will never be more than a cadre of cynics and snobs who think themselves clever for laughing at the simple faith of the huge majority of humanity.

Stalin once asked “How many battalions has the pope?”

If only he could have seen the great crowd of witnesses in Manila, and perhaps now in his own place the sick monster Stalin does see just how many battalions of faithful souls the pope has.

Maybe that is part of his punishment

…and maybe screams with impotent rage.

Fr. Longenecker: The Story of My First Confession

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

My first confession was when I was in my late twenties. I was a member of the Church of England and was taking a year between seminary and ordination.

I’d done something of which I was deeply ashamed and knew that I wanted to go to confession. As an Evangelical Christian I had been taught that I could just say “Sorry!” to God and that was enough.

After all, I was saved and going to heaven so my sins didn’t really matter that much. It was enough to mutter an apology to God and stay on the glory train to heaven.

The problem is, my theology was not profound enough.

I didn’t need a Catholic to tell me I had to go to confession. My heart told me I should go to confession.

I wanted to get it off my chest. I wanted forgiveness. I admit it. I also wanted the penance of seeking out a priest and humbling myself and being truly penitent. I wanted a stern priest and a severe penance.

In other words, it was because I took sin seriously that I wanted a church and a theology that took it seriously.

Furthermore, I wanted a church and a theology that took ME seriously. I wanted a church and a theology that took my choices seriously. I knew what I had done was a mortal sin and that I deserved to die for it. After all–that is what mortal sin is. If I was taking it that seriously–and it WAS serious, I felt cheated by a church and a theology that presumed that it was okay to just toss a little apology God’s way and then go on happily singing praise songs to Jesus.

So on a dreary February afternoon in London I went searching for a Catholic priest.

Notice that I was an ordinand of the Church of England. I was to be ordained later that year as a deacon.

The Church of England offered confession to those who asked, but I didn’t want the Church of England. Even then I knew I didn’t really want the Church 0f England.

So I hauled myself off to the Brompton Oratory and sat in the line with a load of Catholics who looked equally glum.

When it was my turn I stepped into the confessional. The priest was behind the screen and I spluttered out, “Father, I suppose I am first supposed to tell you that I am not a Catholic.”

“Well what are you then?” came a sharp voice with a hard Irish accent.

“I’m an Anglican. But I would like to make my confession anyway.”

“Well, I can’t hear your confession” came the voice. “You’re a Protestant. Now go and I’ll pray for you.”

I was shocked and embarrassed and ashamed of myself. In fact I wasn’t mad at him. He was just doing his job.

Nevertheless, not to be daunted, I made my way to Westminster Cathedral and joined another line for confession with another gang of glum looking Catholics.

This time I said the same thing and there was a pause from the other side of the screen.

This time a gentle English voice said, “Well now, I’m not supposed to hear your confession because you’re not a Catholic, but here you are, and here I am and the Holy Spirit is between us. He has brought you here no doubt and so why don’t you go ahead and make your confession?”

So I poured out my heart and he listened and admitted that I had done wrong. He gave me a bit of wise counsel and then prayed with me–withholding absolution as he was bound to do, but assuring me nonetheless of God’s love and forgiveness for me.

All these years later I have remembered those two priests–both of them faithful in their own way. One harsh–but I needed harsh, and one gentle–and I needed gentle.

And by God’s gentle and amazing providence both priests on that dreary afternoon opened my heart to God’s healing.

Read the rest here.http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/01/the-story-of-my-first-confession.html

Fr. Longenencker: Sharing the Gospel With People Who Don’t Care

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

We are in a situation in the West that the Christian church has never experienced before. We have a good news to proclaim, but those who need to hear are deaf.

The atheists and anti-Catholics we can deal with. We know they hate God and hate the gospel, and we can understand and maybe even sympathize a little with how they feel. Maybe they were hurt, betrayed, disappointed or wounded by members of the Church. Maybe they were poorly catechized or brought up in some kooky sect that delivered a God who was a false god.

But at least we can engage with people like that. There’s a discussion.

What do we do, however, with the vast number of people in our culture who simply don’t care? They simply do not have any perceived need for God. They have a job. They have sex. They have food. They have entertainment available 24-7. What could they possible need God for? Why on earth would they want to go to church, get religion or have any interest in God at all?

Oh, we re-assure ourselves-”there is a God-shaped space in each one of our lives.” Really? That may be so, but it doesn’t seem to be registering with a huge number of people? “God shaped space? Whaddya talking about ? I just need another sandwich….or more sex or more booze or more stuff or more entertainment.”

So how to evangelize in a society satiated with materialism, entertainment, pleasure and power? Do we push harder on the issues that are important to us? Do we raise our voices even more about abortion, same sex marriage, contraception, co habitation and the whole long list?

I don’t think so. Sure those things are necessary and we shouldn’t give up on those campaigns, but something else is needed more: the first Christians converted a hostile Rome Empire within three hundred short years. They did so because they lived lives of amazingly radical discipleship. they LOVED one another. They LOVED their neighbors. They LOVED God. They LOVED their children, their wives, their husbands, their old people and their babies. 

The Romans married simply for procreation and civil order. If the husband was affectionate toward the wife it was a bonus. The Christians spouses loved one another for life, and this was a remarkable and un heard of supernaturally amazing innovation. The Romans practiced abortion and infanticide on a wide scale. The Christians rescued the children from the trash heap, from the sewer and from the septic tank. The Romans practiced child abuse, human trafficking and slavery. The Christians treated their slaves as members of the family, loved their children, rejected sodomy and pedophilia and rescued prostitutes and slaves. When the plague hit a city the Romans abandoned the place and headed for the hills even abandoning family members to the plague. The Christians stayed behind and tended the sick and if they caught the plague and died considered it the gift of martyrdom.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker on The Body of Christ (Substance and Reality)

Corpus Christi

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker: 

Not too long ago while celebrating Mass I drifted into a kind of silence.

I had spent the day paddling through the shallow waters of contemporary culture and mainstream media and was feeling both tired and soiled.

Then as I celebrated Mass it seemed to me that what I was doing there was real. It was somehow solid and real in a way that nothing else in the world compared to.

The flippy flappy headlines of the day with their superficial concerns, the cycle of economic worries or delights, the celebrity gossip and ecstasy or sorry at the triumph or loss on the sports field–all of it was seen for what it is: ephemera.

But at Mass. Now there we have something solid. I recalled Newman’s words on leaving the Church of England to become a Catholic: “Now this is a real religion.”

Read the rest here.

Romance of Religion: "Faith is an adventure, a journey, a quest... It's a great story"

An excerpt from chapter five of The Romance of Religion. 

In one of his science fiction books, C.S.Lewis portrays an angelic being who moves through a solid brick wall, and when the hero asks if this ethereal being is real he is challenged about the nature of reality. The angel passed through the brick wall, but what if it was the brick wall that passed through the angel? Lewis points out that this is all a matter of one’s perspective and perception. If you saw a man step through an opaque bank of fog, and you did not know that the fog was actually a wall of mist you might think that the man was a ghost or a spirit. He had, after all, according to your perception, stepped through what seemed to be a solid wall. Of course you would have it the wrong way around. The man stepped through the wall of fog not because he was insubstantial, but because the fog was.

It has become clear that when I have been talking about fairyland and going to other worlds that I have been referring to our intercourse with the spiritual realm. To use the word ‘spiritual realm’ is in itself misleading because by ‘spiritual’ most people mean ‘ethereal’, and by ethereal they mean made up of ‘ether’ and ether is a gas, so what people usually mean is that when you speak of the ‘ethereal’ you are simply gassing. In other words, you are full of hot air.

By ‘spiritual’ they also think of angels, who they conceive either as a kind of fairy godmother or as plump, pink bottomed cherubs or effeminate handsome youths with wings. Or when they think of spiritual beings they think of ghosts–wispy illusions of smoke and shadows that disappear as soon as you say, “Boo!” When all is said and done, ‘spiritual’ for most people means gaseous, ephemeral, non physical and therefore unreal, or at least less real than all that which is substantial and physical.

However, this is exactly the opposite of what I think of when I hear the word ‘spiritual’. I think the spiritual beings,  like the man stepping through the fog, are more real than what we consider substantial and physical–not less real, and that the things we consider solid and physical and ‘real’ are actually rather slippery and ephemeral, impermanent and insubstantial. Happily, modern physics seems to be coming around to the conclusions that ancient religion arrived at thousands of years ago.

In all sorts of ways we are learning that what we thought was solid and real is insubstantial, and what we thought was ‘spiritual’, ethereal and unreal is  actually the most reliable form of reality.  Modern physics is now more like metaphysics because the modern physicist has shown us that what we thought was solid matter is not so solid after all. It is a tissue of energy and invisible particles bound together no one knows how. Furthermore, our perception of this tissue of the so-called “physical realm” has been shown to be no more than a series of chemical and electrical reactions in our brain. Nevertheless, our perception of reality is very convincing, and it is easy to believe that it is the only form of reality. It is not hard to imagine how one might believe a convincing illusion to be the only reality there is.

If you go to the movie theater you see something which seems very real. You hear the hero laugh and you see the villain sneer. The illusion is so powerful that it can make you gasp with fear, howl with laughter and weep with poignant grief. For a few hours you are transported to a world of adventure, and the darkness of the theater allows the illusion to seem totally and utterly real. But then the credits roll, the lights come up and you remember that it was all a temporary world created with the amazing  alchemy of modern technology. In fact the whole wonderful world was nothing but a magical mixture of music and machinery, lenses and light, and when it is reduced further you realize that it was all a concoction of digital images and digital sound and even these things were no more than electronic impulses chugging through a very smart machine. The illusion of the cinema is therefore one complex illusion piled on top of many others.

Now imagine for a moment, that a person was born in the movie theater and never went outside the movie theater. Ever. He would, of course, perceive the cinematic illusion as the real world. If you went into that cinema and turned on the lights and said, “You know, all that you have seen here is merely a picture of the real world.” He would not believe you, indeed, the more you insisted and the more you cajoled and the more you tried to explain the ‘real’ world outside, the more he would find your fairy tale a ridiculous fabrication. Indeed he would find it not only ridiculous but dangerous.

Let us imagine that you said to the movie man, “The real world is like that world, but the people are not big flat images up on a screen, they are smaller, but although they are smaller they are not less important. In fact they are three dimensional. They are real, and because they are real, the images you have been looking at are only worth something in their relationship to the real people outside.”

He would say, “What is ‘three dimensional?” You would reply. “You can walk around them. You can touch them. They are not flat. They are round.” He would say, “What is ‘round?” And if you said, “You can eat the food. Some of it tastes good. The  root beer and the roast beef  are delicious. Some of it tastes bad. The red beets are bitter and the broccoli tastes bad. ” He would say, “What is taste?” And when you stopped frowning in frustration and said, “But you can smell things there. The roses you see smell beautifully sweet and the wet dogs smell like sweaty socks.” He would reply, “What is smell?”

Because he had spent all his life looking at movies he would not have the  mental equipment to even begin to conceive of taste and touch and smell and what ‘three dimensional’ means.  Locked in the cinema his whole life, he would laugh at such things. He would scorn you if you tried to convince him that another world existed, which was like the world you saw, but was not less real, but more real. He would consider you to be a dreamer, a fool and a dangerous lunatic. Furthermore, if he lived in the cinema with a whole little tribe of like minded cinema people, he would feel secure that he and his fellow movie people were right and you were wrong.

So it is with the materialist. He is trapped in his little one dimensional movie house with his materialist friends and cannot see any further.

Go here to learn more about The Romance of Religion.

A Theist or Atheist?

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker: 

HuffPo reports that an atheist in New Jersey has succeeded in getting a license plate that reads ATHE 1ST. The problem is the statement is ambiguous. What if I read it and conclude that the driver is… A theist? That’s the problem with atheists…they haven’t thought of all the possibilities.

Their advertising stunts are so lame. What about the one in Times Square last year which showed encouraged people to enjoy Santa Claus, but not Christ because Christ was a myth? Duh. So Santa is real? Then there is the really, really smart clever and witty bus signs posted in England that said something like, “God probably doesn’t exist so enjoy yourself.” Is that it? Is that all they could think of? Is that the extent of their wit, their wordplay, their badinage? What about the super dull bus poster above? And advertising on a bus to start with? Who advertises on a bus? Can’t help thiking of nuns on the bus. It’s much the same sort of tiresome, self righteous, yawn inducing activism.

And people say Christianity is boring?

Geesh, Christianity is very interesting compared to these yawners. I mean we’ve got cool stuff like snake handlers, incorrupt bodies of saints, relics, Eucharistic miracles, statues that weep and bleed, apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and more. We’ve got monks who brew beer and nuns who levitate. We’ve got saints who bi-locate, exist for years on nothing but the Eucharistic and joke with their torturers. You might not believe any of that stuff or think it’s all some sort of psychosis, but at least it’s interesting. Furthermore, we have fun stuff like pilgrimages, and World Youth Day, and all night vigils and climbing the Santa Scala on your knees–not to mention wild places like Antonio Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona, Mont St Michel, the catacombs or that Capuchin cellar in Rome with all the bones.

Atheism on the other hand is so mind numbingly dull, and the worst kind of atheism is the self righteous, “We’re good people too you know” kind of atheism. “Oh, look at me. I’m working at the soup kitchen!  I campaigned to ban nuclear power! I have a ‘co-exist’ bumper sticker on my Prius.” They pretend to be revolutionaries, but to me they seem as dull as the McMansion next door and the usual suburban, fast food, shop at the mall American. At least the old fashioned atheists followed their logic and tried to wipe out everyone who didn’t agree with them. Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot had teeth. The present day respectable atheists are about as interesting as yesterday’s oatmeal.

They’re bland. “It’s a case of the bland leading the bland…and they shall both fall into the ditch.”

Not only dull, but humorless. The closest thing to wit I’ve ever experienced with atheists is a bit of sophomoric sarcasm. They’re always so darned serious…especially about themselves. Not only dull, but a little bit spooky.

The conversation with atheists always lacks a certain edge. There’s a slipperiness to it and a lack of grip–like wrestling in jello with a one armed man. I have thought long and hard about this phenomenon and I think it is because the theist is arguing from a positive proposition and the atheist is arguing from a negation. The theist is arguing in support of something positive. The atheist can only deny. That denial and essential negativity culminates in a vagueness about everything–their mindset seems dull and out of focus.

The bottom line is that if there is no God, no heaven and no hell and no final judgement then what’s the point? The weary dullness of the atheist is a true reflection. Without an afterlife and a final tally then there are only two options: the old Greek choice– Epicureanism and Stoicism. The first is, “Eat, Drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.” The second is “Be good. Be noble… for tomorrow you die.”

It’s like we’re all on the deck of a sinking cruise liner with no lifeboats. The Epicureans sit down to a five course meal and try to hold on while the tables slip away. The Stoic stands on the deck, gazes into the distance and goes down with the ship.

The Christian spots a distant light, believes it is a rescue ship, dons a life jacket and jumps in to swim for it or die in the attempt.

Chesterton writes better on this subject here.