"I would encourage all people of good will who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship."
-- Pope Benedict XVI
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Answer to Jake III - Not the 1st, but the 14th
Answer to Jake II - Ethics
We should not stay away
Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy. We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.-- Hebrews 10:23-25
A prayerful relationship with Christ, and thoughtful reflection on His Word, are important. But we need our fellow Christians, and we need our Eucharistic encounter with the actual Body of Christ. Don't stay away from the assembly of the Mass.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Uncaused Cause
Answer to Jake
Prohibition has failed
Sown among thorns
"They are the people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit."--Mark 4:18-19
What thorns are choking the Word in your life?
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sin taxes
Adoption
“Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”-- Mark 3:34-35
God made us. We could have been mere toys or tools, slaves or servants. But God has chosen to offer us the chance to be His children, brothers and sisters of His Son. Christ has come to us and made Himself Our Brother. We have much to be grateful for.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Human law should not suppress all vices
Re-presentation
Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf. Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world. But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice. Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.-- Hebrews 9:24-28
Again, we see that the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass is a re-presentation of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross. Not a do-over, but a participation across time.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Solidarity
If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.-- 1 Corinthians 12:26
This is eminently true of the Church, but is true of the human superorganism generally. We are called to love our neighbor as our self.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Blessed Are Those Persecuted in Christ's Name
In today's Gospel, we learn something about that, when Our Lord visits His hometown:
Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”-- Mark 3:2-21
If people you care about think you've lost it because you are considering that maybe belief in God, in Christ, in His Church, might just make some sense after all, don't be afraid to follow the Truth where He leads you. Offer up to Christ your loved ones' resistance and the pain it causes you. Even though He's God, He's been there. He understands.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Christ offers you a Chrysalis
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Visit the Amazing Time Machine!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The Beginning of Wisdom
Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.-- Mark 3:1-6
Ah, thinks the modern Christian. Those legalistic Pharisees--following the letter of the Law and not its Spirit! But it's not so simple. We read in the Book of Exodus that God--the same God Whom the Pharisees in today's Gospel plotted to crucify--is the God Who told Moses and the Israelites:
These are the words the LORD has commanded to be observed. On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be holy to you as the sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day shall be put to death. You shall not even light a fire in any of your dwellings on the sabbath day.”-- Exodus 35:1-3
It's hard to imagine how the Pharisees could have read this any way other than the way they did. Is God contradicting His own Law? And how could God have made such a Law for the sabbath, if, as we read yesterday, the sabbath was made for man? What good has such a harsh law ever done for man?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Forty years of slaughter
Remade by the Sabbath
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”-- Mark 2:27-28
This is often taken, correctly, as a rebuke to arid legalism. But why should the sabbath's being made for man imply that the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath?
Monday, January 21, 2013
A very old wineskin
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Life of the Party
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons.-- John 2:6
Six twenty gallon jars would have yielded 120 gallons of wine. That is far more wine than could have been needed. It is superabundance. Exuberant, joyful, even playful superabundance. Enough for a very long, very lively party. God's love is like that.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Here comes everybody
Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus heard this and said to them, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”--Mark 2:16-17
At the Eucharist, all of us sinners are called to the feast of Jesus Christ. If you ever wonder why so many sinful folks (like me) are in the Church constantly screwing things up, just remember: everyone in the Church is a sinner. Our behavior down through the centuries, and our constant failure to live up to the ideals we preach, is thus pretty unsurprising.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Break on through
In today’s Gospel, we meet another seeker who couldn’t see Christ for His followers.
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,it became known that he was at home. Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door, and he preached the word to them. They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him,“Child, your sins are forgiven.”– Mark 2:2-5
A way to Christ can be found, even if the Church seems forbidding. Have faith, and persevere.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Harden not your heart
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Great grocer, unhinged political thinker
Answer to Job
Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.-- Hebrews 2:18
All of the Abrahamic religions present God as merciful. In the Incarnate God on the Cross, though, Christianity presents us with more than this, with an image of God in radical solidarity with our sufferings. Although his Gnostic thinking on it was gravely wrongheaded, Jung was felicitous when he dubbed the Crucifixion the “Answer to Job.” When we ask why God allows us to suffer, we should remember that He suffers with us: that he has taken all of our suffering up into His Glory, and that it is to Him Who feels our suffering more deeply than we feel it ourselves that we may look for help, and find total empathy and compassion.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Tremble to believe
– Mark 1:21-28Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers, and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Fishers of Men
Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.-- Mark 1:17
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Seamless Garment
My wonderfully wise wife just now shared this video with me.
He must increase; I must decrease.
He must increase; I must decrease.– John 3:30
Friday, January 11, 2013
The Vine
The report about him spread all the more, and great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.– Luke 5:15
Again we are reminded that while the Incarnate God could and often did heal ailments afflicting the biological life of the body (bios), that wasn’t really the Problem of Evil that God came among us in human flesh to solve. Sin and death were. Christ came to give us life everlasting (zoe) through the conquest on His Cross of sin, and the consequent conquest by His Resurrection of the death that sin brought into the world of men.
This is the plainspoken Good News consistently proclaimed throughout the New Testament and the Patristic writings of the early Church. But why should we trust the witness of the early Church? What if right from the beginning, it was just some delusional cult?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
New Bishop for Limerick
The amount of cynicism about the Church amongst Limerick people is hard to exaggerate. Even those in the diocese who still bother to attend Mass have weathered much pain in recent years, as the Catholic News Agency reports:
Bishop Murray, 72, resigned from the diocese in December 2009 after an Irish government report found he had acted “inexcusably” by not investigating serial sex abuser Fr. Tom Naughton when he was an auxiliary bishop of Dublin in the 1980s. The findings came amid continued reaction and controversy over the Catholic bishops’ response to the sexual abuse of minors.
CNA further reports that Fr. Leahy has “entrusted himself to the Virgin Mary and asked Catholics for their prayers.” He has mine! By God’s grace, may he succeed.
Not every problem is caused by our bêtes noires.
Color-blindness is sometimes too blind
Not by Bread Alone
– Luke 4:14-22Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Gandalf the Gay
Of course, when not playing Gandalf, Sir Ian spends much of his time engaged in political activism on behalf of his fellow gay people; not unrelatedly, he participated in the unfortunate protest against the Pope's recent visit to Britain. Unsurprisingly (and understandably, I admit), this went unmentioned in the Columbia article.
My passing (minor) observation is merely this: Those of us, like me, on the conservative side of the present stage of the kulturkampf might do well to strive to remind ourselves periodically that even some of our most cherished conservative cultural treasures are often in part gifts to us from our gay neighbors.
New Big Projects
The End of Wisdom
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.– 1 John 4:18
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
The Sage
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.– 1 John 4:7-10
Monday, January 7, 2013
Vogt's Essentialist Argument
This overlong post will address only Vogt’s first argument–specifically, why it fails to be the sort of non-religious argument suitable for use in the secular public square that Vogt claims to be aiming for. Heaven help the reader, but there are ten sections in all, which I shall address when I can and insofar as they interest me. Oddly enough, this post doesn’t contain any reflections whatsoever on the prudence or desirability of same-sex civil marriage: considering the metaphysics behind Vogt’s first argument and its unreadiness for prime time in the secular public square takes me far enough afield by itself.