Fr. Rutler: Christ comforted, encouraged and prepared a few to convert the many

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

In the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, our Lord appeared to numerous individuals and to various groups, including some five hundred on one occasion, and at last to the group who witnessed his ascent to glory in a cloud of light. A forensic investigator would logically ask why he did not appear to those who had crucified him, to those who had plotted against him, and to Pontius Pilate. Napoleon, in an amalgamation of pragmatism, cynicism and fascination, is said to have remarked that Jesus could have converted the whole Empire had he appeared from the dead in front of Caesar in the Roman Forum.

God’s ways are not our ways, and were it otherwise, there would have been no Holy Passion. But the same Saint Peter who had been appalled that Christ must die on the cross, was the first to enter the empty tomb and then proclaimed on Pentecost that he and others had seen the Lord. The question lingers though, about why Christ did not stun his enemies with his victory. Reports of his resurrection did cause some panic among the Sanhedrin and others, and the soldiers feared they might be to blame for having been neglectful watchmen, but none of the chief players in this greatest of all dramas, as far as we know,  had any encounter with the Risen Christ. One tradition holds that Pontius Pilate spent his last days wandering in exile, haunted because he could not be inspired.

As usual, the fertile mind of John Henry Newman proposes that that Christ did not show himself to all people, because appearing only to chosen witnesses “was the most effectual means of propagating His religion through the world.” Had his murderers seen him, they would have reacted with “sudden fears, sudden contrition, sudden earnestness, sudden resolves, which disappear suddenly.” By a strategy more pragmatic than any general’s, Christ comforted, encouraged and prepared a few to convert the many, for “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  So Newman says, “Doubtless, much may be undone by the many, but nothing is done except by those who are specially trained for action.”

Many saw Christ resuscitate the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain, to no lasting effect, for then as now, excitement is momentary and even threatening: the raising of Lazarus was what finally compelled the authorities to kill Jesus. Spectacles are not divine graces, and while false Messiahs can give people a thrill, only the true Messiah can give grace. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Peter, the chief witness, was trained the hard way through his own denials and repentance, and he continues to confirm others in the Faith through his apostolic successors: “This is a cause of great joy for you” (1 Peter 1:6). 

The Resurrection: The Greatest Event in History

The following comes from Fr. Rutler at the NCR:

We know directly from Saint Paul that Greek philosophers thought the Resurrection was a curious absurdity. Politicians more pragmatically feared that it would upset the whole social order. One of the earliest Christian “apologists,” or explainers, was Saint Justin Martyr who tried to persuade the emperor Antoninus Pius that Christianity is the fulfillment of the best intuitions of classical philosophers like Socrates and Plato.

Justin was reared in an erudite pagan family in Samaria, in the land of Israel just about one lifetime from the Resurrection. Justin studied hard and accepted Christ as his Savior, probably in Ephesus, and then set up his own philosophical school in Rome to explain the sound logic of the Divine Logos. Refusing to worship the Roman gods, and threatened with torture by the Prefect Rusticus, he said: “You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.” Then he was beheaded.

Fast forward almost exactly a thousand years, and another philosopher, Bernard of Chartres, also admired the best of the Greek philosophers and coined the phrase “We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.” There had been long centuries without much effort to explain the mystery of the Resurrection with luminous intelligence. In the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton would describe himself the same way. Being intellectual dwarfs may sound pessimistic, but there was also optimism in the fact that, lifted on the shoulders of giants, they could see even farther than the giants themselves. In witness to that, less than fifty years after Bernard died, building began on the great cathedral of Chartres. The magnificent rose window in the south transept depicts the evangelists as small men on the shoulders of the tall prophets. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are closer to Christ in the center of the window, than Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel who lift them up, seeing in fact what the prophets had longed for in hope.

The Risen Christ is neither a ghost nor a mere mortal. Ancient philosophies could be vague about things supernatural, and ancient cults could be distant from personal conduct. The Resurrection unites ethics and worship. The famous letter of an anonymous contemporary of Justin Martyr, meant to be read by the emperor Marcus Aurelius, said that the way Christians live “has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines.”

The Resurrection was the greatest event in history, and unlike other events that affect life in subsequent generations in different degrees by sequential cause and effect, the Resurrection is a living force for all time, making Christ present both objectively in the Sacraments, and personally in those who accept him. Thus, indifference to the Resurrection is not an option. The future life of each one of us depends on a willingness to be saved from eternal death. 

Fr. George Rutler on Advent

The following comes from Fr. Rutler:

The four weeks of Advent are a test of how profoundly or superficially we understand the meaning of life. In these weeks, the Church reveals the deepest mysteries: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Christ saves us from the banality of skimming life on the surface:  eating, working, shopping, sleeping, waking up and doing it all over again. He created us for great glory, and that is why people become frustrated when they ignore these great mysteries. “Angst” is a kind of neurosis, stemming from an unwillingness to listen to the voice of Christ.  He may be drowned out temporarily by idle chatter and amusements, but as St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they find their rest in Thee.”  

Rushing Christmas, and not thinking about what Christ wants us to be, are signs of a culture absorbed in itself, so that it becomes no greater than itself. That old maxim is poignant no matter how many times we repeat it: “A man wrapped up in himself becomes a very small package.” More important than wrapping gifts in this season, is the obligation to unwrap ourselves:  to confess to Christ our failings and our desire to live life as He wants it, so that we might rejoice with Him forever and never be separated from Him.

Our culture is enduring a severe test of itself. If Christ does not rule our minds and hearts, mere humans will try to do it, and they will do it badly. When the Judges of Israel wanted a merely human king, Samuel warned them:  “He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his officials. He will tithe your flocks, and you yourselves will become slaves” (1 Samuel 8:14, 17). 

Our Lord promises that the truth will set us free. His word is truth. That is what He told Pontius Pilate, whose life was a dreary routine mired in cynicism. But even Pilate was amazed that Christ's own people had “handed Him over” to the government. By their own declaration, the crowd wanted “no king but Caesar.” Had they obeyed Christ’s truth, things would have been different for them. Each generation is tempted to hand Christ over to cynics. We do it when we barter our conscience for comfort and our freedom for frivolity.

If Catholics behaved as Catholics, our culture would be not be satisfied with getting little things from elected officials in exchange for our moral dignity. If we only want things, we shall only be things. Christ looks at us, as He looked at the crowds when He walked on this earth. And amid the passing fashions of mindless men, He says: “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). 

Ss. Damien of Molokai and Marianne Cope and a man named Joseph

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

The canonization of Marianne Cope, along with Kateri Tekakwitha, on October 21, occasioned the publication of a stunning photograph showing Marianne standing beside the funeral bier of St. Damien in Kalaupapa, Molokai. That was in 1889, and the picture is so sharp that it could have been taken today. It must be the first photograph of two saints together. The holy friendships of Teresa of Avila with John of the Cross, and Francis de Sales with 
Jane de Chantal illuminated civilization before photography. 

St. Damien’s body is scarred with leprosy but vested in the fine chasuble in which he used to offer Mass. St. Marianne, in her timeless religious habit, shows no sorrow for she obviously knows she is looking at a saint, not knowing that she is one herself. 

Studying that photograph, one thinks of how hard they worked, not only among the outcast lepers, but all their lives. Damien, born Jozef de Veuster in Belgium, was a farm boy, and Marianne left school in Utica, New York, after the eighth grade to support her family by working in factories. 

Not in the picture was their helper, Joseph Dutton, a Civil War veteran who was so traumatized by the ravages of war and his broken marriage that he became an alcoholic. He reformed his life, went to Molokai and worked with the lepers for 45 years — cleaning latrines, scrubbing floors, and binding sores — until his death in 1931. Their great happiness would have been clouded to see how much unhappiness there is in our land today. 

As a typical eighteenth-century rationalist, Edward Gibbon was cynical about Christianity, but as an historian he analyzed the decline of once-great civilizations in terms of natural virtue: “In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.” 

I expect that Gibbon would have understood modern saints no better than he did the early martyrs and confessors, but he would have seen in them a selfless energy that builds noble societies, and the neglect of such energy pulls them down. Our own nation is facing these realities as it decides what it wants to be. The present crisis in culture cannot be resolved if it is addressed only in terms of economics and international relations. The real leaders are not those who hypnotize naïve people into thinking that they are the source of hope. Those who can rescue nations from servility to selfishness are not on slick campaign posters, but in stark black and white photographs like that taken on Molokai in 1889.

Angels Among Us

The following comes from Fr. George W. Rutler:

The Feast of the Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael on September 29, is quickly followed by the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2. Here we get into a deep science: not the natural science which increasingly is opening up the wonders of the physical universe, but rather the higher science of perfect spirits and incalculable intelligences, whose lowest "choirs" are the angels and archangels. Unlike natural science, this knowledge comes not from observation but from revelation. We use reason to acknowledge that there are wonders beyond our ability to reason, and that includes angels who have no need of reason because they are pure intellects.

Angels are creatures, but existed before the first man (Colossians 1:15-16). They are subject to Christ (1 Peter 3:21-22). They enjoy the constant presence of God (Luke 1:18-19). They are numerous beyond human calculation, and so they are described as thousands upon thousands, or myriads, since Hebrew has no word for “millions." (Hebrews 12:22-23). They know God's will but do not know all its details (Matthew 24:35-36). Angels are multi-lingual (1 Corinthians 4:9) and patrol the earth (Zechariah 1:10-11). Although Christ is divine, he can appear as an angel (Hosea 12:4-5). Angels can appear as winds and fire (Hebrews 1:7) and they rejoice when we go to Confession (Luke 15:9-20). Scripture never says that they have halos, and only seraphim and cherubim are described as having wings, so we would probably not recognize an angel if we saw one. They are astonishingly strong, so that one was able to slay 185,000 Assyrians. They want to comfort us (Matthew 28:1-7) and do not want us to give them the worship which is due to God alone (Colossians 2:18-19). Jesus had power to invoke 72,000 of them (twelve legions) had he wanted to avoid crucifixion, but he did not (Matthew 26:52-53). At the end of the created universe they will accompany Jesus in the Final Judgment (Matthew 25:31).

As angels have no bodies, they have no size, and so they care for everyone equally, regardless of size or age or worldly importance. Jesus said that the littlest human body has a guardian angel in heaven (Matthew 18:10). In each of us the guardian angels see their Lord and our Lord. So Pope Francis said on September 20: "Every child that isn't born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ."

St. Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) wrote to a young girl: "Never say you are alone in sustaining the battle against your enemies. Never say you have nobody to whom you can open up and confide. You would do this heavenly messenger a grave wrong."

"Little children, love one another"

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler at Sunlit Uplands:

Before our present time, not so many people lived long enough for hips and knees to wear out. Memories also fade, but that problem of being old is not new: “Even if [your father’s] mind fails, be considerate of him; do not revile him because you are in your prime” (Sirach 3:13). A whole science is developing to stave off forms of dementia. There is also a spiritual dementia that forgets God, but the mystery of the Holy Trinity is the cure for forgetfulness. Pope Francis recently preached: “The Holy Spirit is God active in us, God who helps us remember, who awakens our memory. Jesus himself explains this to the Apostles before Pentecost: ‘the Spirit that God will send in my name will remind you of everything I have said.’”

The Risen Lord helped the two men on the Emmaus Road to remember the prophecies of the Resurrection. The Pope used the image of a road for Christian life: “Memory is a great grace, and when a Christian has no memory — this is a hard thing, but it's true — he is not a Christian; he is an idolater, because he is before a God that has no road, that does not know how to move forward on the road. Our God is moving forward on the road with us, He is among us, He walks with us. He saves us. He makes history with us. Be mindful of all that, and life becomes more fruitful, with the grace of memory.”

Through the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother had the Church’s best memory, and she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Spiritual memory is not like the reminiscence in which our culture engages on Memorial Day, for instance. That is an edifying piety, and Cicero said that to forget one’s past is to remain always a child. But the Holy Trinity transports the soul into an existence not limited by time. That is why the “memorial of the Eucharist” is an actual encounter with Christ and not a form of nostalgia.

We cannot know the full mystery of the Holy Trinity, but unlike oriental forms of mysticism which would obliterate consciousness altogether, we are given an eternal memory when we love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Beloved Disciple said, “We love Him because He loved us” (1 John 4:19). St. John lived until the third year of the reign of the emperor Trajan, which was 100 A.D. He may have had some gerontological decay, for he had to be carried about and kept repeating, “Little children, love one another.” When the Ephesian believers tried to “be considerate of him” by asking why he said only that, over and over again, he replied, “Because this is our Lord's command and if you fulfill this, nothing else is needed.”

Fr. George Rutler on Being Witnesses

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

When Shakespeare imagined what young King Henry V might have said before the Battle of Agincourt a century and a half before, he wrote one of the most celebrated speeches never really spoken. Nonetheless, it expresses the pride and thrill of having been privy to a great event:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed,Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks,That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The eyewitness accounts of those who walked with Christ and saw the things he did and heard the words he spoke may give the impression that the narrators had an advantage over us these two thousand years later. St. John spoke with reverential awe of "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life" (1 John 1:1). However, not one of the apostles, nor for that matter any human being, was at the beginning of everything. It is by God himself that the creation of the world is revealed, and it is by God in Christ that we learn our purpose in the created order. As Christ who has no beginning or end, but has also a human nature that does have a birth and death, he conflates eternity and time so that when we are united with his death and resurrection in baptism, we mystically are able to be at the beginning of the world and at its end. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (1 Colossians 1:17).

St. Paul was not there at the Resurrection, but Christ came to him on the Emmaus road, and ever afterward the Apostle would say in both defense and boast that he had been born "out of time." During the forty days of Lent, the Church is there with the Lord, going up to Jerusalem in an actual way, and not merely reminiscing or imagining as in a stage play. This is a particular gift of these Lenten weeks, but it is not confined to this season. Nor is it limited to one place. The Holy Eucharist enables all worshipers to be with the Lord, anyplace in the world at any hour, attending at the same time his sacrifice on the Cross and his Paschal victory. St. Peter could say with holy pride, "we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain" (2 Peter 1:18). And while that is a sublime thing to be able to say, so can we rejoice as well, for we too hear a voice from heaven when we are with the Lord at the holy altar: "This is my Body… This is my Blood."

Fr. George Rutler: Christ's Little Ones

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

Liturgical readings in the Easter season often couple the Book of the Acts of the Apostles with the Book of Revelation. They are so different that at first you might think it is like putting a history of Dutch New Amsterdam alongside a science fiction novel. The Acts seem so human, with charming details, such as the fine needlework done by Dorcas (Acts 9:36-42). There is none of that in the Revelation of St. John. But think again: Dorcas the seamstress was raised from the dead. That is as astonishing as St. John’s descriptions of Heaven, which — since they are being filtered from eternity into time — seem almost like hallucinations.
 
St. John was not given to fantasizing, but he was shown truths to which the most bizarre fantasies compare only as frail shadows. The very practical historical details in the Book of Acts are but the other side of the coin of the great mysteries privileged to St. John. They are clues to a more solid world than this perishable one, in which mortal eyes can only see “through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). There is a biological parallel of this in the way a baby can see only shades of gray at birth, with between 20/200 and 20/400 vision. After three months, however, the baby can recognize faces even at a distance and can tell bright colors. In Heaven there are no pastels, but all is bright, like the primary colors of a “rainbow shining through an emerald” (Revelation 4:3). If St. John’s description seems confused, it is because human words cannot diagram the grammar of Heaven.
 
Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, described education as something like bringing eternal wisdom out from latency into articulate consciousness. A new baby can look very old, and Socrates sensed that the life of this little one was coaxed from eternity into this mortal world. The teacher, acting as a midwife (maieutikos) lets hidden knowledge breathe.
 
Having come down from Heaven, Jesus shot his sharpest language at those who would harm the littlest children, whose lives are endowed from Heaven. Even selfish people with a shred of conscience need verbal fig leaves, euphemisms, to cover their shame when they sanction unholy acts against life. Sometimes they call babies killed in “partial-birth” abortions “viable fetuses.” On April 18, The New York Times referred to newborn babies murdered by an abortionist as “neonates.” You might then call Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents, the Termination of the Neonates. But the same issue of that newspaper, in an article on page 24 about diaper training, spoke of “babies” as did an Op-Ed essay on gun control.
 
Our Lord knows more about it than we do, and that is why he said: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).

Fr. George Rutler: “Principalities and Powers”

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

During the years I have been pastor here, I have written books on various subjects. Had I enjoyed the luxury of an academic position with ample time to think and write, I suppose what I wrote could have been better. The time I did have available had to be squeaked out of a normal parish life, which is not unlike that of a busy family. I recall how I wrote one book in the office of another parish, in between filling out Mass cards for parishioners at the front desk.

I am grateful that I had to find time, because it made time more precious. I am glad that all of my priesthood has been as a parish priest and not as a professor, for parishes are far more stimulating to creative thought than classrooms are, because the real challenges of life are more frequent and insistent in a normal neighborhood than on a leafy college campus.

I am not against intellectuals, unless they think of themselves as such, and I have spent perhaps too much time in schools myself, but I find that people who do not make a career of school are generally brighter than those who do. Some of the brightest people I have known dropped out of school early on. I do not mean to diminish those who have dedicated their fine minds to noble teaching, and many of them are as intelligent as the ordinary people I meet on the street every day. It is just that teaching in a university is like fishing in an aquarium, and teaching in a parish is like fishing in the ocean.

My newest book would have been bigger had I not had to baptize, marry and bury people. But if the book is small, its theme is big because it is an account of a year, 1942 to 1943, in the world’s biggest war. The Second World War was a struggle against blatant evil. That is why I called the book “Principalities and Powers” — for that is how St. Paul described the constant struggle between Christ and the Anti-Christ. That time of war paraded some of history’s worst villains, and also some of its best heroes.

The Church struggled against the same moral threats that menace our society today. In 1943, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber of Munich held up the Holy Cross of Christ against the Twisted Cross of the National Socialists and said what it behooves everyone to say against anyone who misuses civil power: “The State, as an institution built by God, can establish its laws, and its subjects are under the obligation to obey them, for the sake of their conscience. The State has the right to levy taxes and to demand sacrifices of property and life in the defense of the Fatherland. The State, however, has no right to make laws which are incompatible with Divine Law and the Natural Law.”

Fr. George Rutler on the Man for All Seasons

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

Our parish is blessed with a shrine to Saint Thomas More. The young artist who painted the saint’s image after Holbein was a refugee from communist Eastern Europe. He did such a good job that Cardinal Egan, dedicating it, said that he would not be surprised if this were the original.

We recently celebrated the joint feasts of Saint Thomas More, who was Chancellor of England, and Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Their personalities were different in many ways, and it was almost a miracle that an Oxford man and a Cambridge man got on so well and eventually were canonized together. The Act of Succession and the Act of Supremacy were the challenges that King Henry VIII threw at them, and the saints returned the challenge. The issues were rooted in natural law: the meaning of marriage and the claims of government. These are the same issues that loom large today. Whatever our courts of law may decide about these matters, Saint Thomas says: “I am not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm against the General Council of Christendom.” In 1919, G. K. Chesterton predicted with powerful precision that, great as More’s witness was then, “he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years’ time.”

For every courageous saint back then, there were many other Catholics who instead took the safe path of complacency. More’s own family begged him to find some loophole, and — after the sudden deaths of eight other bishops — Fisher was the only one left who acted like an apostle. Those who opted for comfort and wove the lies of their world into a simulation of truth had a banal and shallow faith that Pope Francis has called “rose water.” It is a good image, for rose water is not blood and cannot wash away sin.

The “Man for All Seasons” wrote to his beloved Margaret from his cell in the Tower of London: “And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.”

The “Fortnight for Freedom” extended from the vigil of the feasts of Fisher and More to July 4th, but its prayers continue, as the Church’s many charitable and evangelical works are threatened by our present government’s disdain for the religious conscience, most immediately evident in the Health and Human Services mandate and the redefinition of marriage. In 1534 Henry VIII’s arrogation of authority over the Church was quickly followed by a Treasons Act which made it a high crime to criticize the King. In contemporary America as in Tudor England, the surest way to let that happen is to say, “It can't happen here.”   

Fr. George Rutler: Calling evil its true name

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

With my parents at a performance of Gounod's Faust at the opera some years ago, when Marguerite went mad in Act V after killing her baby, my mother let out a gasp that embarrassed me, for we were in a box over stage left and conspicuous. Now I bless my mother because that maternal empathy is the heart of civilization. “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children” (Jeremiah 31:15). Stifle the mother, and you stifle the child, and the world dies. Our Lady, being a take-charge kind of woman, as was evident at the wedding in Cana, may have been a midwife often in Nazareth, weeping at the loss of infants as she surely did when the innocents were massacred in Bethlehem.

In the opera, the repentant Marguerite is taken by angels singing “Salvation!” But Faust, who bartered his soul to Mephistopheles before fathering Marguerite's child, is bound to that Satan who, in the words of Milton, bids “Evil, be thou my good.” Anyone who calls evil good, moves discourse about infanticide to a very dark place.

On April 26, President Obama, the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, not only thanked that organization which aborts around 300,000 children a year, but added, “God bless you.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 13, Nancy Pelosi said that the abortion issue is “sacred ground.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 20, a New York Times Op-Ed contributor described the aborting of her 23-week-old son, who had a heart defect: “I felt my son’s budding life end as a doctor inserted a needle through my belly into his tiny heart. As horrible as that moment was — it will live with me forever — I am grateful. We made sure our son was not born only to suffer. He died in a warm and loving place, inside me.” Evil, be thou my good.  

Our merciful Lord will hear the cry of those who make terrible mistakes, especially those who have not had the grace of being taught right from wrong. To them he offers real angels, and not singers on a stage. But he also predicted that “a time is coming when anyone who kills will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Like Faust, such people ask God to bless destroyers of life, and call the killing fields “sacred ground,” and even describe the womb of a mother who kills her child as a “warm and loving place.” Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said that no one is safe around a mother who would kill her own child. Anyone who makes a Faustian bargain knows that even Christ is not safe around such a mother: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Satan calls evil good. Christ calls it crucifixion.  

Fr. George Rutler: The surest way to persecution is to say, “It can't happen here”

By Father George Rutler at New Advent:

Our parish is blessed with a shrine to Saint Thomas More. The young artist who painted it after Holbein was a refugee from communist Eastern Europe. He did such a good job that Cardinal Egan, dedicating it, said that he would not be surprised if this were the original. 

We recently celebrated the joint feasts of Thomas More, who was Chancellor of England, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Their personalities were different in many ways, and it was almost a miracle that an Oxford man and a Cambridge man got on so well and eventually were canonized together. The Act of Succession and the Act of Supremacy were the challenges that King Henry VIII threw at them, and the saints returned the challenge. The issues were rooted in natural law: the meaning of marriage and the claims of government. These are the same issues that loom large today. Whatever our courts of law may decide about these matters, Saint Thomas says: “I am not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm against the General Council of Christendom.” In 1919, G. K. Chesterton predicted with powerful precision that great as More’s witness was then, “he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years’ time.” 

For every courageous saint back then, there were many who instead took the safe path of complacency. More’s own family begged him to find some loophole, and — after the sudden deaths of eight other bishops — Fisher was the only one left who acted like an apostle. Those who opted for comfort and wove the lies of their world into a simulation of truth had a banal and shallow faith that Pope Francis has called “rose water.” It is a good image, for rose water is not blood and cannot wash away sin. 

The “Man for All Seasons” wrote to his beloved Margaret from his cell in the Tower of London: “And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.” 

The “Fortnight for Freedom” extended from the vigil of the feasts of Fisher and More to July 4, but its prayers continue, as the Church’s many charitable and evangelical works are threatened by our present government’s disdain for the religious conscience, most immediately evident in the Health and Human Services mandate and the redefinition of marriage. In 1534 Henry VIII’s arrogation of authority over the Church was quickly followed by a Treasons Act which made it a high crime to criticize the King. In contemporary America as in Tudor England, the surest way to let that happen is to say, “It can't happen here.”

“Come Holy Spirit. Enlighten the hearts of your faithful people...”

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler via New Advent:

There is some sense to calling Pentecost the birthday of the Church, but it can be somewhat glib. You might say that the Church was born when Christ was born, or when water and blood, Baptism and Eucharist, flowed from Christ’s side on the Cross. You might even say that the Church was born with Adam and Eve and came to maturity when Jesus, the new Adam, and his mother Mary, the new Eve, greeted each other in the unrecorded instant before the break of Easter dawn. What we can say with precision is that on Pentecost the bond of love between the Eternal Father and the Eternal Son filled the Church. When Christ prayed the night before he died, he spoke of that unifier which is the Holy Spirit: “I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them” (John 17:26). 

The Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI is to put to work the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are given in Confirmation: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They give life to the Seven Holy Virtues and defeat the Seven Deadly Sins. He who has never been tempted by those sins would be an oyster or a rock rather than a human. Perhaps the most underestimated sin is sloth. It is not simple laziness: sloth is spiritual apathy that dampens ardor for serving God in our short lifespan. An example of this is an individual who recently complained about Pope Francis canonizing the 813 martyrs of Otranto, since it might be taken as an affront to Islam. We cannot pretend that they were martyred by wild Methodists brandishing water pistols, but the real problem is that slothful souls cannot understand why anyone would give one’s life for Christ. Rather, Pope Francis said, “As we venerate the martyrs of Otranto, let us ask God to sustain those many Christians who, in these times and in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence, and that he give them the courage and fidelity to respond to evil with good.” 

In our corner of the Church, which is New York, sloth is more subtle than heresy or blasphemy or wrath. Notwithstanding all the good things in our archdiocese, it is significantly below many other areas of our nation in attendance at Holy Mass and in priestly vocations. This is not what one would expect of a people filled with the Holy Spirit. With the beauty of worship in our parish, and the springtime of vocations exemplified by two of our young men being ordained this month, we too may risk becoming smug, a condition as ugly as it sounds, forgetting that there is much more to do. “Come Holy Spirit. Enlighten the hearts of your faithful people.” 

Father Rutler is Pastor of the Church of Our Saviour in New York City.

Fr. Rutler: Pope Benedict XVI has been a Very Good Father

By Father George Rutler

The meteorite that exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the force of thirty atomic bombs had the biggest impact since the one that exploded over Tunguska in 1908 with a force more powerful than all the bombs, including the atomic ones dropped in the Second World War. But such a force of nature, when observed passing safely by with breathtaking speed, can also be a sign of the beauty and brevity of all things.

So it was in “The Year of Three Popes” when the death of Paul VI was followed by the death of John Paul I just four weeks after his election, and then the election of John Paul II. Cardinal Confaloniere said of John Paul I, in the exquisite Latin for which he was famous: “He passed as a meteor which unexpectedly lights up the heavens and then disappears, leaving us amazed and astonished.”

The impact of that pope's sudden death seemed at the time to be immeasurably hurtful, and yet he made the way for many providential events. Now the gracious abdication of Pope Benedict XVI also amazes and astonishes. When he assumed the papacy, he knew the work would not be easy: “Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.” Without histrionics or self-pity, he quietly took up his burden in the succession of St. Peter to whom the Lord said, “Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not; and that when you are converted, you will strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31-32).

In many glorious ways, Benedict XVI has done just that. With unerring fidelity he has explained the sacred deposit of the Faith to its opponents, both cultured and uncultured, with patient eloquence and stunning insight. Many reforms in the Church’s structure and the purification of abuses were his intense initiatives. Rather like St. Francis of Assisi going to meet with the caliph of Egypt clad only in simplicity, Benedict XVI refused to wear a bullet-proof vest when he went to Turkey, turning the anger of many to respect. A new reverence and beauty in worship has been his gift to the Church through his renewal of the sacred rites, and the provision of an ordinariate for whole groups seeking full communion with the Church “amazed and astonished” many.

Now, his renunciation of the Keys entrusted to him, teaches the essence of the papacy as a stewardship that transcends the charisms of any individual. Officially, a pope is Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God. But to the world, this Pope has also been a very good Father. 

Father Rutler is Pastor of the Church of Our Saviour in New York City.

Fr. George Rutler on Pope Benedict

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

When a pope retires, I have to change the proposed topic of my column. Now I know how a pastor must have felt in 1415 when Pope Gregory XII resigned, and in 1294 when Celestine V did the same. While papal resignations cannot therefore be said to have become a habit, they do remind one that Holy Orders are indelible, but the papacy itself is not.

We also are reminded, as we need to be in an age of diminishing attention spans, that there have been 265 popes. I recently read of a Protestant lady who converted to Catholicism upon being shown that list. God gave the Keys of the Kingdom to Peter, knowing that the Galilean fisherman had a limited life span. Since there is no re-incarnation, there is a succession, and that will go on until the end of time. Even calling Rome the Eternal City is extravagant rhetoric, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). No one knows this more clearly than Pope Benedict XVI, whose intellectual brilliance and eloquent teaching have enabled him to explain this to the world in remarkable ways, but never more so than by his own example. 

Pope John Paul II died in the days of Easter, having taught a confused world, as Christ said when He rose from the dead, “Do not be afraid.” Pope Benedict XVI is relinquishing the Keys in Lent, and another will hold them in Easter. This gives a special import to the Forty Days on which we have now embarked. Pope Benedict enters a new phase of his life, when he will be devoted to praying for all of God’s holy Church. All of us can more closely identify now with the first apostles, who were called by Christ to change their lives. The fishermen became fishers of men, and that is why we are here now, worshiping the same Lord that they learned to worship after many signs and revelations. 

 As Lent is a time of abstinence, it would be good to abstain from the vain speculations of the media and self-appointed “experts” inside the Church and out, who see these things with merely human eyes and may use a papal resignation as a suggestion that the papacy is just another human office like a presidency or prime ministership. We should also remember that the world has been around a lot longer than we have, and if an asteroid changed the whole ecology of terrestrial life some 66 million years ago when it struck Mexico, as scientists have now determined, the Good News of Christ really is recent news. What is required at this crucial moment in history is that we follow the example of the first apostles: “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him” (Luke 5:11).   

Catholic MIlitary Chaplains and Religious Liberty

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

The Geneva Convention’s classification of military chaplains as noncombatants has traditionally been interpreted in the United States to mean that chaplains normally do not carry weapons. This often puts them in precarious positions when they are in war zones. Over four hundred chaplains have been killed in the line of duty. Catholic chaplains are especially exposed to dangerous situations by their obligation to administer Absolution and Anointing. They have received every kind of decoration for valor, and seven have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

All four chaplains awarded the Medal since the Civil War have been Catholic. Among them, Lieutenant Vincent Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest and Navy chaplain, who served with the Marine Corps and was killed while aiding the second Platoon of M Company at the battle of Dong Son in Vietnam, has been proposed for heaven’s highest honor, canonization as a saint.

The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda. One year ago, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains tried to forbid Catholic chaplains from reading a statement from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees all priests in the Catholic Ordinariate for the Armed Forces, in which he objected to federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception in violation of the right to religious freedom. Now the government would compel chaplains to acquiesce in “same-sex” simulations of marriage. The Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel has said that military members who dissent from this agenda are “bigoted” and “need to get out.”

As behavior contrary to Christian morality becomes a civil right, Catholics in particular could soon become, quite literally, outlaws. Our current President recently announced that he will disobey a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by his own hand, which states that chaplains cannot be forced “to perform any rite, ritual or ceremony that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles or religious beliefs of the chaplain.”

I am always edified by the sacrificing spirit of good soldiers, and as a chaplain to West Point alumni here in New York, I am pleased when cadets serve at Mass. Governments that have tried to manipulate soldiers and doctors and teachers in perverse ways have always had a short shelf life. The nineteenth-century French political philosopher Frédéric Bastiat warned: “When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.”

Military chaplains do not bear arms, but they have recourse to another arsenal: “Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11).

"Risus abundat in ore stultorum"

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

In the wake of the recent hurricane, a sibilant television commentator said, “I’m so glad we had that storm.” Apologies aside, his words betrayed a view: people are expendable for the sake of promoting a political program. In this instance the program was a form of socialism that has brought so much sorrow to other nations.

When free people vote against their own freedoms, they knock down the columns of a free society on themselves, the way Samson brought down the temple on his own head. The first column to collapse will be the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. Naïfs who thought this could not happen will be startled when the Church has to close charities, hospitals and schools, and even parish churches if they are subject to tax intimidation. This will be far more disastrous to our civilization than the looming fiscal chaos and international instability. Although certain areas on November 6 reported massive voter fraud, the election results cannot be blamed just on corruption. Voters deliberately rejected warnings clearly made by moral and political leaders.

At least we have a beacon of honesty shining on the Catholic Church in the United States. The 70 million or so Catholics were a Potemkin village, and the numbers of faithfully practicing Catholics are a small portion of that. Long before he became pope, Benedict was a prophet who said, “The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.” As the state’s lions begin to roar, the nominal Catholics will skip out of the arena.


For a long while Roman Catholicism became for many a nervously self-conscious kind of Cute Catholicism, with leprechauns, mariachi bands and Santa Claus instead of confession, prayer and fidelity to doctrine. But behind each leprechaun St. Patrick stares, and behind every mariachi band Our Lady of Guadalupe weeps, and behind every Santa Claus, Christ Himself judges.

Catholics could have saved the best in America, and they can only blame themselves for what has fallen down: marriage breakdown, contempt for chastity, a record low birth rate, and destruction of infants. Looking at his own decadent empire, Cicero wrote:

“Do not blame Caesar; blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful, good society’ which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean: more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.” 

We can feast with Caesar, but he will soon feast on us, and we can laugh with him, but he will soon laugh at us. “Risus abundat in ore stultorum.” There is much laughter in the mouth of the foolish.

Fr. George Rutler: "The righteous will shine like the sun..."

The following comes from Fr. George W. Rutler:

As the Plymouth Bay Colony was starting up, a scholar back in England published the philosophical reflection, Anatomy of Melancholy, analyzing his own tendency to depression, which he attributed to “black bile.” It is not clear whether he hanged himself, but he certainly made it fashionable for philosophers to be gloomy. Yet even he had his moments: He liked listening to the barge-men in Oxford swearing, “. . . at which he would set his hands to his sides and laugh most profusely.” In the next century, an old friend of Dr. Johnson said that he had tried to be a philosopher “but cheerfulness kept breaking through.”

 Something more than cheerfulness keeps breaking through the dark patches of life: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary evidence the divine clarity lighting up the shadows: Christ's Baptism, The Wedding at Cana, The Proclamation of the Gospel, The Transfiguration, and The Institution of the Eucharist. The Transfiguration is a singular instance of the joy of heaven bursting blatantly into this world. So, some of the Church Fathers have said that the Transfiguration was not a miracle at all, because it revealed the glory of God that miracles only hint at. 

 Christ showed this radiance to Peter, James and John to sustain them as they were about to enter the dark whirlpool of the Passion. Whenever times seem dark, Christ keeps breaking through. The darkness makes the light ever more vivid. It is a principle in painting, called chiaroscuro, that colors are brightest when they are contrasted with darker shades.

 One of countless examples of how this is lived out was that of a young priest, Alois Andritzki, born in 1914 to a family of the minority Sorb people in eastern Germany. He was ordained in the diocese of Dresden-Meissen and ended up in the Dachau concentration camp on trumped-up charges. His real offense was to have preached against the eugenics policies of the Nazis. In a nearby “sanatorium,” doctors and nurses killed 16,000 handicapped and mentally ill people, including children, who were declared “unworthy of life.” On February 3, 1943, Father Andritzki was ill, and his handsome and athletic body had become emaciated. He asked for Holy Communion and instead was given a lethal injection. Last year, he was beatified as a martyr.

 Father Andritzki’s dark cell was transfigured by the same light that keeps breaking through in the dark days of our own culture as morbid voices sound increasingly like the eugenicists of the past. Only the willfully blind can deny how dark it is getting. And only the melancholy can ignore the brightness that is enlightening many people who in less challenging days may have taken the Faith for granted. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43).  

For more on Blessed Alois Andritzki please click here.