Comment on Joe Tremblay's 6/24 editorial

From "On the making of Catholics: How the Church Fathers united the faithful",
By Joe Tremblay
(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1634)

"...what is commonly expected of the today’s candidates in these programs is that they attend these lectures. The downside is that not much more is expected of them."

I hear you. I'm on my RCIA team and am also a professional instructional designer. In the ID biz, we have a saying that "talking isn't teaching," yet RCIA seems to be comprised of 99% talking and 1% ritual. (The way to get on an RCIA team seems to be to love talking--but we can learn as much from the candidates/catechumens as from hearing our own voices.)

"There are as many ways to God as there are men and women," The Pope has said. And yet we package them all together, and don't really get a deep sense whether the Church teachings have sunk in or not; it's a matter of endurance, not conversion.

And it isn't just about stuffing their heads with factoids; if we fail to show them--share with them--God's beauty and glory, we haven't done anyone a service.

Worse, I fear we are providing a very unsteady foundation upon which to build their faith.

If they are unable to bring real conversion into their hearts, and have this conversion show through their lives, acts, and families, how much better off are they, really?

Maybe we don't need to return to the ways of the early Church (after all, hardly anyone in America today is completely unfamiliar with Jesus Christ, unlike people living 1900 or so years ago), but I believe our RCIA programs could be effective on a much more spiritual level.

Does life get easier after conversion?

I'm on our parish RCIA team, and being fairly new to active Catholicism myself, a common (though often unasked) question is: Will my life get easier once I accept the Catholic faith?

It's reasonable enough to ask; it would probably seem unnatural to start any kind of new practice with the idea of making our lives *more* difficult. You can turn on your TV just about any time of the day or night and see some man or woman offering money, health, a new car, romance, or whatever--in direct response to the sending of a few hundred dollars, whether the religion in question is Christianity or the other great American religion, vanity.

But I think it's important to understand that there are no such material assurances in scripture.

Let's take Mary as an example. She is told by an angel that she will conceive and bear a son. "You have found favor with God," Luke reports. That seems like quite a distinction, as of course it is.

Today, we would think that finding favor with God to be a pretty cushy assignment.

And yet...where does Mary give birth? Not in a maternity ward (of course, there weren't any); not even in nice hotel. In a stable.

No sooner does she give birth than the Holy Family must literally flee for their lives to another country.

Was she married to a wealthy man? Hardly. Joseph was a carpenter, a blue-collar worker. No fancy home, no servants.

And let's face it, it's downhill from there. She went on to witness her only son tortured and executed to the taunting of a mob. Shortly thereafter, she had to comfort and encourage the disciples, a skittish bunch if ever there was one. (Read Blessed John Paul II's "Redemptoris Mater" for more on this.)

Today, we might be tempted to think that if that is favor with God, he can keep it. Even Teresa of Avila (who is becoming one of my favorite saints) once said to God, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few."

So in today's WIIFM (What's in it for me?) culture, we get back to our original question: Will my life be easier after my conversion?

Well, who can say? I would think that if you believe having a big house and a new car will make you happy, your conversion still has a way to go. Instead, think of it this way: come what may, you know--truly know--that you are embraced by a loving God whose ultimate plan for you is better than anything you can imagine for yourself.

Mary knew it, though it must have broken her heart. Still, she persevered, and now rules as Queen of Heaven. What a great example--and lesson--for us!

To sum up, your life may not be "easier" after conversion--but it will certainly be *better*.

Why don't we work harder in service of the Lord?

Even a dog wants to please his master.

How much more should we humans want to please our Lord?

Captivity is not Incarceration

I think I've mentioned before that I take notes during Mass. It's a great idea; I highly recommend it.

Sometimes I take notes at other times, too. The problem is, I don't always have a context for them, so later on, I often forget what the note was for--or even that I'd written it in the first place!

I had that experience the other day, when I came across a line I'd scrawled on the top of a piece of paper: Captivity is not incarceration.

I saw it and thought, what did I mean by that? I couldn't remember exactly, but it got me to thinking.

Sometimes, we are captives to our bad habits--or to sin, to be more honest about it. But it doesn't feel like we're in captivity. It's not like we're in some prison camp, flogged on a regular basis and fed scraps from the spoiled-food bin behind the supermarket.

It seems like we're in control. Like the alcoholic who says, "Hey, I'm not an alcoholic. I just enjoy a drink now and then." Or the girl whose had more sex partners than I've had fish dinners, but thinks she's just having fun.

These things can tie us with silken ropes. They can actually feel good--until we pull too hard against them, or worse still, try to remove them. Then we realize who's really in control...and it's not us.

Well, thanks to the scriptures, we know where this road leads, don't we, fellow prodigals? It's not incarceration, but it is captivity of the worst sort. And like the prodigal, we'll end up bankrupt--morally as well as economically.

So, then how do we get free? How do we make the jailbreak from sin?

By asking God for help, of course. God waits on us patiently, ready to respond.

"But isn't it really," asks the cynic, "just trading one form of captivity for another? Don't we exchange one master, the devil, for another, however benificent God might seem?"

Ummm...no. Because remember, God gives us many graces, and one of the most important is the ability to choose freely. We can choose to accept God or reject him. But once we accept satanic domination, once we slip those soothing, tempting, silken ropes onto our hands and feet--and around our neck--we can't so freely walk away from them. To use another old-fashioned word, we can't easily repent...unless we ask God for help.

Luckily, God is always there. And combining our determination with his infinite graces, we can succeed.

Now, does that sound like captivity to you?

Charity begins...in government?

I see that a bunch of professors at Catholic universities opposed the presence of Speaker of the House John Boehner (http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/cassidy/110519).

It seems they think he isn't supportive enough of government intervention in people's lives.

Well, you'll have to forgive me, but I thought that this sort of thing was way beyond government's job.

What I prefer is a government small enough that I can keep enough of my money to donate to the charities of my choice and where I know it can do the most good, and not have my hard-earned dollars confiscated and redistributed at some bureaucrat's whim. (This is also in keeping with the Catholic notion of subsidiarity.)

If these professors (who, while they may teach at Catholic schools, don't seem particularly Catholic; I wonder how many support abortion) believe that the only way the poor in this country will ever receive help is by forced contribution, they show a remarkably weak faith in Catholic teaching--and far too much faith in faceless bureaucrats.

For a more reasonable approach to this, see this link:
"...[A]n ongoing dialogue between Paul Ryan, a Catholic from Wisconsin, who is the House Budget committee chairman, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the president of the Catholic bishop’s conference, about Catholic social teaching and its application to the current budget debate."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/267678/shepherding-moral-economic-policy-paul-ryan-and-archbishop-dolan-s-dialogue-catholic-s

At the Transfiguration

At the Transfiguration, Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah.

Peter and James and John were present as witnesses.

Clearly, these three could recognize Jesus. But how did they know that the other two were Moses and Elijah? Did the Holy Spirit tell them? Did Moses say, "Hi, I'm Moses, and this is my friend, Elijah"?

I'm not trying to be irreverent at all. I just can't help but be a little curious about it.

Here's a question for you

Do you suppose Jesus ever had a toothache?

As fully man, he probably did. As fully God, certainly not.

What do you think?

"Do you hear that funny noise?"

If you're married, you've probably had this happen to you.

You're driving along, spouse seated next to you, and you notice an unusual noise coming from somewhere in the car.

So you spend the next twenty minutes trying to get your spouse to notice it, too. In your mind, it gets louder and louder until everything else is drowned out--except for your spouse telling you that he or she doesn't hear a thing.

Sometimes, I think this is how God talks to us. We hear something, softly, calling our attention; we're not sure at first, but it comes to occupy our minds more and more, until nothing else seems to matter.

Of course, what we're talking about is a lot more important than a squeaky fan belt or a stone caught in a tire tread.

But how is it that one person's mind can be suddenly "tuned in" to something, when perhaps it's been there all along, unnoticed, and continues to be so, even to those standing nearby?

Well, I don't really have any explanation--but I wonder how many people's souls would become tuned into Christ if they'd just stop talking, or watching TV, or texting inanities, long enough to let it happen.

The world may never know.

(By counterpoint, haven't you noticed that when you buy a new car, it seems like everyone else is driving the same model? Yet if you suddenly become alive with the Holy Spirit and start talking about your encounter with faith, it seems like everyone around you thinks you're nuts.)

My own story isn't interesting enough to write in detail, at least not all at once, but I for one am glad that the "funny noise" I heard turned out not to be an alternator burning out (though that's happened to me more than once), but God, burning his way in.

(As an aside, this entry came to my mind while reading Groeschel's "A Still, Small Voice", about private revelation.)

"I live in this city, but I don't know anything about it"

There's a saying that "Converts make the best Catholics." I don't know that it's true--it almost certainly isn't--but like a lot of sayings, there is some truth to it.

It makes me think of people who live in a big city, like Chicago (where I'm from).

You can talk to a lot of lifetime Chicagoans and ask them if they've ever visited any of the city's landmarks.

"Ever been to the Field Museum?" Nope.
"Ever take the kids for a picnic on the lake and to Lincoln Park Zoo?" Naah, too crowded.
"Ever see the collection of Impressionist paintings at the Art Institute?" Why?

People can live in the midst of wonders, and never bother to look around.

Sometimes it takes a visitor, or someone who's just moved there, to visit and point out the great features of a place.

I think the same is true of a lot of "cradle Catholics"; they take the faith for granted.

"Do you realize it's literally a miracle at every Mass?" Nope; got to get home before the ball game starts.
"Ever notice how good it feels to go to confession and get all that off your chest?" You're kidding--I just want to get it over with!
"Thanks to my new job, I can now afford to give more money to the church!" What for? Have you seen the Vatican? They've got all the money in the world.

Okay, I'm exaggerating to make a point. But you can probably see where I'm going with this.

Converts to Catholicism can be like eager new residents--they look around and marvel; after all, something drew them to that city in the first place.*

For me, I truly believe that the Catholic faith is literally God's gift to mankind. Let's appreciate it for what it is.


*For the moment, let's leave aside probably the most famous convert of all, the Apostle Paul...

What's left out of Catholic Creeds

I was listening to an audio by Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston/Houston. He's a fabulous speaker intelligent and educated, and fascinating to listen to. (I had the privilege of meeting him, in fact.)

In this talk, Cardinal DiNardo mentioned that the very first Christian creed was only three words--"Iesus Christos Kyrios", Jesus Christ is Lord.

Yet from that we get the much longer Nicene Creed, which can be somewhat legalistic, in case you haven't noticed. (This is also true of the Apostles Creed.)

To make a long story short, much of the content of the Nicene Creed exists to clarify points of conflict--was Jesus God and not man, man and not God, sort of man and sort of God? These were hotly-contested issues in the early church, and statement such as "fully God and fully man" were used as definitive statements of doctrine.

So all this stuff gets spelled out--baptism, resurrection, and a lot of other points.

But you'll notice that one thing is left out, and it's something that's central to the Catholic faith: the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

Why is that?

Some might say that it's because the Catholic Church invented it as a doctrine in the Middle Ages.

(Brian Currie, in his book "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic" has a good summation of all this in Chapter 2.)

But upon reading the early Church Fathers, the great believers who thrashed out doctrine in the first four centuries of the Church, I came upon a realization.

The Real Presence was not included in the Creed because at the time the Creed was developed, *no one ever seriously questioned whether Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist*. It was a given.

Not until much later did people start to question it, and for them it's been all downhill ever since.

So the Real Presence is an essential part of the faith; don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Pentinence

I am on the parish RCIA team, so I have the privilege of helping new Catholics come into the Church. We have both "candidates", those who have been baptized outside the Church, and "catechumens", those who have never been baptized.

Lent is a busy time for us, as we guide these soon-to-be Catholics through the final stages of their preparation to enter the Church at Easter.

Right now, the candidates are about to make their first confession, or Sacrament of Reconcilitation, as it is properly called. Working with these candidates reminds me of the value of penitence, especially the Rite of Penitence within the Mass.

You may know that the words "Mass" and "mission" come from the same root, meaning "to be sent". We go to Mass not to end our week, but to start it--we are sent forth at the conclusion so that we can "love and serve both God and our neighbor."

Within the Mass, the pentitential rite is our way of looking back at the past week so that we can make adjustments to our behavior as we move forward.

Look at it this way: if you are flying an airplane cross-country and your instruments may not be working perfectly, you'll need to periodically check where you are so that you can be sure you'll get where you want to go, and not end up wildly off-course and out of fuel.

Pentitence is our way of looking back at where we've been, seeing where we need to make corrections to get back on course, and also examining what we can do differently going forward to keep from getting lost again.

(Let's take a moment and state that the penitential rite is not about feeling guilty or wanting to punish ourselves for being imperfect. We're all human, and we can take it for granted that that means we have our imperfections. But we need to acknowledge our shortcomings, in what we have done and what we have failed to do, so that we can keep from straying further off course.)

Yes, sometimes these corrections can be difficult or embarrassing. No one likes to admit that he has gone off-course, and sometimes we can be way off.

So let's remember where we are supposed to be going, and use the pentitential rite as a way of checking our course. If adjustments are needed, major or minor, it's better to face up to them than to end up exactly where we don't want to be.

Taking Notes at Mass

Something I've started doing within the last month or so is to bring a notebook with me when I attend Mass. It's helpful to me to remind myself later of some points that Father makes during his sermon--or even when I have some insight into some other part of the liturgy.

I'll write more on that later...for the moment, the point I want to make is that sometimes I get strange, or at least questioning, looks from some of the other parishioners. I guess it's natural enough to wonder at any unusual sight during Mass, whether it's fidgeting kids or someone responding to a text message (and yes, I've seen people do this during Mass).

My point is this: Don't ask why I'm taking notes at Mass. Rather, ask yourself why you aren't.

Pigs and Demons

One of the great annual events in Fort Worth is the Southwestern Exhibition and Livestock Show, better known as the Fort Worth Stock Show. It’s an event that lasts over three weeks, and features a rodeo, midway with carnival rides, and most importantly, extensive competitions of livestock judging.

If you’re not from agriculture country, you may wonder exactly how livestock is judged. Actually, it’s a very exhaustive combination of many factors, far too complex to explain here. Anyway, I’m certainly no expert.

I attended the Junior Barrow (pigs) competition for a while, trying to learn what the judges are looking for, but due to crowds, less-than-perfect acoustics and my own less-than perfect hearing, I couldn’t get a lot out of it, though I had a good time.

While I was there, I couldn’t help but recall the story of Jesus driving out the demons from Matthew 8, 28-32 (Or Luke 8, 32-33). You’ll recall that the demons flee into swine, which promptly drown themselves. Whenever I think of this story, often my first thought is that it’s a big waste of pork, and then I think of the swineherds, who were no doubt less than pleased about watching their herds go on a one-way swim.

Of course, the story isn’t about pork, and it’s not just about the spread of the Gospel to gentiles (by clear implication; there are no Jewish swineherds, of course). A modern reader has to wonder whether the references to demons are literal. The typical image that we’d expect today would be something from a bad horror movie.

Well, as with livestock judging, I’m no authority, but for years I had panic attacks, and some were quite severe. Having experienced these major panics, I can easily see how people believed in demonic possession. To me, the onset of an attack felt as though some other person was taking over my thought process. I had to struggle to think rationally at all, and the intense fear was like having someone continually telling me that the worst was about to happen.

Supernatural or not, it seemed supernatural to me, and it was only when I turned to the supernatural for help through prayer that I could consistently gain the upper hand on the attacks. The message, of finding a way to cleanse the spirit of very real, very evil presences can come about through the help of our helper, Jesus Christ.

Lord, save us! We are perishing!

In the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 8), we read the story of Jesus and the disciples leaving Capernaum and crossing the Sea of Galilee; a storm comes up, terrifying the disciples, but Jesus calms the storm.

“Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Jesus asks.

When storms come into our lives—and they always do—the same question could well be asked of us.

The wind of the storms can and often do terrify us, but we must always keep in mind that the very same winds that seem too strong for us to endure are often the very winds that propel us forward.

Of course, another question of trust enters in when the winds propel us in a direction other than where we think we want to go. Are we willing to endure the winds only if they move us in the direction we want to go? Or do look forward in faith to arriving at the destination God has in store for us?

I don’t know about you, but for me, it is taking a great deal of effort to have this much faith. When my personal boat is taking on water, rolling and yawing and pitching, moving in some direction I can’t understand, I wonder whether my nerves are strong enough to handle it, and can’t help but wonder if maybe there isn’t some other way.

Well, then, what are the alternatives? Matthew doesn’t tell us what happened after Jesus calmed the storm, but I figure that the disciples were left to row across the sea. Now there’s a daunting task. If the uncertainty of waves and wind are daunting, the certainty of a very long and difficult task can be worse.

My parish pastor, Father Paul Kahan, SVD, ends each of his sermons with the words, "Church, remember: God cares deeply about you." Father Paul is a wonderful man, and I believe what he says...but I confess that sometimes I wish those storm winds would ease off just a little.

Christianity in our culture

I was reading (Fulton Sheen, “These are the Sacraments”) that ancient churches often had the baptistry outside of the church. Yet today, it’s not unusual to have a baptistry near the altar. Is this a problem? I don’t think so; in ancient times, the mysteries of the church were truly that; non-Christians knew so little of the faith that they often believed Christians were cannibals, “eating the flesh and drinking the blood.”

So I take it as a positive sign than Christianity is ingrained enough in our culture that we don’t have to leave the unbaptized out of the picture—in this country, virtually everyone will have at least some idea of Christian rituals, and also know basic Christian teaching, even if they don’t know they know it. (I came across one idiot who claimed to be an atheist, but who said he followed the Golden Rule—apparently unaware of who proclaimed that rule originally.)

If there’s a downside to this, it’s that our ridiculous secular society thinks that they invented it. Charity, equality—they’ve become hallmarks of social and political argument, but there’s nothing historically political about them. They come from a religious background. Were Bismarck or Genghis Khan interested in charity? Only as a political expedient, if that. Did kings promote equality? Hardly; it was in their interest to promote exactly the opposite. It was the monk, not the monarch, who promoted equality among all men. It was the priest, not the politician, who through history insisted on charity.

I love being Catholic

I need to say it—I love being Catholic. Of course, being in the faith that represents the fullness of truth like no other is powerful and moving, but what impresses me so much is how this truth is reflected in the life and history of the Church.

First, there’s the liturgy. It’s more than just ritual or symbol; its first half (the Liturgy of the Word) is a living expression of God’s word through scripture—and second half (the Liturgy of the Eucharist) is a celebration of the Word made flesh. Through the Eucharist, we can’t get any closer to God than by literal, physical communion!

But there’s more to it than that; Catholicism is so much more than the Mass. This is the faith, after all, that has attracted (or produced, depending on your point of view) more great minds than any other institution. The list of names is nearly endless—from the early fathers like Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Ignatius of Antioch…each brought so much brilliance. Then of course there’s Augustine, who alone seems like the cornerstone of Western civilization. Moving through history, there are almost too many great thinkers and authors to name—Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas More…the list just goes on, up to modern times and such greats as Hilary Belloc, GK Chesterton (though I admit I can only take him in moderation), Fulton Sheen and of course our current Pope, Benedict XVI (whom I credit with literally saving my life).

And there are so many other areas that I find moving about the Catholic faith. Architecture, music, art, science…I can’t begin to write anything that conveys the important and beautiful contributions that Catholicism has made to my life and the lives of so many.

Still…all these great topics don’t capture all that is best about the Catholic faith. What keeps the faith alive is its people. Of course not every single person is a saint. But for me, that’s not a negative; I’m no saint myself, so it’s encouraging to me to find others who are on a spiritual journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them.

With all this being said, what sort of a Catholic do I think I am? An improving one, I hope.

Pope Benedict XVI and his critics

Pope Benedict certainly has a lot of critics. Many of them don’t care who he is; he’s head of the Catholic Church, and that’s reason enough to detest him. Others jump to the conclusion that a German Pope must be a dogmatic, repressive, intellectual fossil who’s defending a medieval faith in the best tradition of the Spanish Inquisition. Other have no real opinion, but fall under the influence of critics, and are swayed by them. Finally, there are those who genuinely disagree with the position that the Pope represents—they want to see female priests, or have the Church embrace homosexuality, or something.

For just about all these critics, they are at a severe disadvantage—while they may be louder than the Pope, they are far less intelligent than he is. There’s just no other way to put it.

Because Pope Benedict XVI is one of the great intellects of our ages. This becomes immediately obvious to anyone who reads his works. Admittedly, some of his more theological works can be a challenge—they were not written for a general audience, and take some pretty hard work to appreciate. But for general audiences, the four book-length interviews he has given—starting with The Ratzinger Report in 1985, moving to Salt of the Earth in 1997, God and the World in 2005 (completed just before he was elected Pope) and most recently Light of the World in 2010—the reader encounters a man of stunning knowledge, insight, honestly, moral conviction, mental agility, and candor.

Reading these books doesn’t require a great knowledge of Catholicism…but it helps. The casual reader may be thrown by references to terms like “eschatology”, but keeping dictionary.com handy takes care of that. (While easy enough to do, this simple step is clearly more effort than most of his critics are willing to put forth.)

What is most amazing is that despite his background in academia, Benedict is no idealistic theoretician. His focus remains on the practical steps that the Church must take—and that we as Christian must take—to keep the faith healthy and real. He uses his intelligence to link all these concepts together, not use tortured logic to twist them apart.

If he has a vulnerability, it’s that I think he is disappointed and even shocked at the amount of hostility he faces, especially in the press. He is so straightforward in his manner and mission that I think he can’t understand why so many are so openly hostile. His message is that of love—God’s love for man, man’s love for God, and the Christian love for our fellowman.

What sort of minds find this objectionable?

Old Joke, New Message

One of my favorite jokes is about the man who’s working in his flower garden. For years, he has toiled to make it into a showcase. One day, as he’s working, the local priest walks by and offers a compliment—“Ah, it’s amazing what God can do, isn’t it?” To which the gardener replies, “Father, you should have seen it when God had it to himself.”

Now I know some people take this as a reflection of the gardener’s sense of pride. But I see it a little differently.

There’s no doubt that God’s works of nature are indeed beautiful. And there are some that we can enjoy purely by themselves—there’s nothing we could do to improve them. (How, for example, could we improve on the scenery of a mountain range, or a sunset?)

But there are many things of beauty that we can help improve—and that, in fact, require our efforts—the garden is just one example. Here’s another: a happy marriage is a thing of beauty, and reflects God’s plan for mankind. Yet as anyone who is in a happy marriage can tell you, it doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a great deal of work to maintain. So while it is a gift from God, like so many others it has to be cultivated to get the most out of it.

And like so many other of God’s gifts, all that effort is worth it.