March 2020 – On God's Payroll

Please Don’t Give Easy Answers to Suffering’s by Mystery JASON CRAIG

Please Don’t Give Easy Answers to Suffering’s Mystery

What are the best reasons to reject God’s existence? One of the greatest thinkers of all time, St. Thomas Aquinas, could only conjure up two decent ones. The first is our apparent ability to explain away God through what we now call the physical sciences, and the second is the problem of evil, or suffering. If God existed and was good, why did He create a world with so much pain and suffering? Why continue to allow it? Although atheist authors are proliferating in modern times, there really aren’t any better reasons coming from them.

In the Summa Theologica, the most revered theological text of all time, Aquinas uses a method of discourse called disputatio to define and explain truths. This method first lists a number of “objections” to the truth being defined or proven, then a zinger quote that shows those objections might just be wrong, and then a focused answering (or dismembering) of the objections. In other words, he states the best opposing views in the most articulate and persuasive way, then throws a wrench in that thinking, and then uses that wrench to build out the truth. It’s tempting to want to skip to the answer, but good thinking requires thinking through a whole argument. The Summa is not just brilliant in its articulation of truth, but in its articulation of error too. Today we are often too quick to offer a solution without giving due time to the problem. Aquinas did not make that mistake.

For the “answer,” or the zinger quote to counter the problem of suffering, Aquinas quotes St. Augustine: “Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil,” (Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II. Q2. A3). So, the only decent answer to the question of suffering is that God can draw good from it. This does not mean, however, that all of the misery in the world is now easily “grasped” in a way that lets us move on to the next problem. Suffering is one of those things that is so mysterious and powerful in its effect that it disrupts our very vision of life. If it makes up 50% of Aquinas’ possible reasons for the non-existence of God, then we should be, perhaps, more reflective and humble in explaining the “logic” of pain and suffering, especially to those in the midst of it.

This site prides itself on presenting unapologetically the truth of the Catholic Church for and through the eyes of men in the trenches of leading and fathering, but there is a danger in being prideful in our “possession” of the truth. Truth should possess us. Even armed with Aquinas, we must be careful with what we know, remembering St. Paul’s simple words: “Knowledge puffeth up…” (1 Cor. 8:1, Douay). When someone is quick to dismiss or explain the sufferings of others, it is likely an example of an individual who lacks love, experience, or both. “And if any man think he knoweth any thing, he hath not yet known as he ought to now” (v. 8:2).

The way one “ought to know” suffering, it seems, is by entering into it. After all, to know God is to know Jesus Christ, and to know Him is to know His Holy Cross. God did not answer the “problem of suffering” by giving us the answer or work-around, but by diving completely into it, and coming out. Eastern religions like Buddhism “answer” the problem of evil by denying it, saying it doesn’t exist because there is no “dualism” between good and evil, we just experience the oneness of reality in different ways. You only think you are suffering, but in true enlightenment, you would be free from it because you would know it doesn’t really exist. Shallow self-help books propose similar solutions to suffering, but with a heavier focus on positive thinking, a sort of cognitive brutality against what your senses are telling you.

The answer Jesus gives opposes this sharply. Evil and the accompanying suffering it causes is so real that you must deal with it and only on the other side enter into the freedom of the resurrection and redemption. Not only can you not deny it or avoid it, you must pass through it to be saved. In Eastern religions suffering is escaped through enlightenment — realizing the irreality of suffering. In Catholicism enlightenment comes by walking the via crucis, the way of the cross.

When we are face-to-face with intense suffering, it is a mystery so profound it requires silence; it strips us of pretension and, potentially, of pride. But in this encounter new levels of holiness and unity, with God and others, becomes possible. The opposite is true as well: suffering can also turn us away from God. Well-formulated explanations of suffering have been written, but they pale in comparison to approaching the mystery through the story and experience of the one who suffers. Keeping with the tradition of the Book of Job (and the life of Jesus for that matter), we learn best to trust in God in the midst of darkness when we hear stories of others whose trust was tested by the trials they endured, not by those who can explain suffering as an abstract idea. Being close to others helps. Because, it seems, we will follow that road of suffering eventually, there’s unique courage in knowing we as Christians literally cannot suffer alone (see 1 Peter 5:9).

The Cistertians live a rather austere application of the Rule of St. Benedict, and in their tradition of reform they strip away all worldly comforts, embracing, as it were, a life of suffering which is the life of penance and self-denial. Yet even in their zeal for simplicity, which included removing all gold from their chapels and vestments and even removing artwork from their walls, they always maintained the tradition of having a painted crucifix to meditate upon —

and nothing else. Suffering achieves a similar end – stripping away all of our pretensions and sense of control and accomplishment, leaving only one thing before our eyes — the suffering Christ. Only from the pierced side of Christ is the truth, reality, and even the often miserable history of mankind understood in any meaningful way.

So, it does seem that the greatest challenge to God’s goodness and existence is the presence of our pain. Yet the greatest answer — perhaps the recipropocated “challenge” from God to us — is the reality of His suffering on the cross. If the “answer” to evil is that God allows it only so that He can draw more good from it, there is no greater example than the salvation He drew forth from the death of His Son, the unjust torture and execution of the totally Innocent One. “[We] preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23). The answer to suffering, then, is not a principle, but a Person. As we kneel through Lent and embrace forms of imposed suffering, we are confident to “get through” to Easter not by our will power, but because we are joining the Suffering Christ, and He is joining us.

All Is Fulfilled: Scott Hahn Reflects on Passion Sunday

Readings:

Isaiah 50:4–7
Psalm 22:8–9, 17–20, 23–24
Philippians 2:6–11
Matthew 26:14–27:66

“All this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel (see Matthew 26:56).

Indeed, we have reached the climax of the liturgical year, the highest peak of salvation history, when all that has been anticipated and promised is to be fulfilled.

By the close of today’s long Gospel, the work of our redemption will have been accomplished, the new covenant will be written in the blood of His broken body hanging on the cross at the place called the Skull.

In His Passion, Jesus is “counted among the wicked,” as Isaiah had foretold (see Isaiah 53:12). He is revealed definitively as the Suffering Servant the prophet announced, the long-awaited Messiah whose words of obedience and faith ring out in today’s First Reading and Psalm.

The taunts and torments we hear in these two readings punctuate the Gospel as Jesus is beaten and mocked (see Matthew 27:31), as His hands and feet are pierced, as enemies gamble for His clothes (see Matthew 27:35), and as His enemies dare Him to prove His divinity by saving Himself from suffering (see Matthew 27:39–44).

He remains faithful to God’s will to the end, does not turn back in His trial. He gives Himself freely to His torturers, confident that, as He speaks in today’s First Reading: “The Lord God is My help. . . . I shall not be put to shame.”

Destined to sin and death as children of Adam’s disobedience, we have been set free for holiness and life by Christ’s perfect obedience to the Father’s will (see Romans 5:12–14, 17–19; Ephesians 2:2; 5:6).

This is why God greatly exalted Him. This is why we have salvation in His Name. Following His example of humble obedience in the trials and crosses of our lives, we know we will never be forsaken. We know, as the centurion today, that truly this is the Son of God (see Matthew 27:54).

Yours in Christ,

Scott Hahn, PhD

Is Covid-19 a Punishment from God? By Trent Horn (from Catholic Answers)

Is Covid-19 a Punishment from God?

Whatever God’s designs may be in the present crisis, we must all draw close to God and repent

By Trent Horn (from Catholic Answers)

As Covid-19 spreads throughout the world many Catholics are asking if God sent this disease as a punishment for sins. Some have said God definitely is punishing the world or even the Church because of various recent events. Others contend that God would never punish people with a plague or pandemic and so it’s obvious that this disease is not a divine punishment.

The truth (as it often is) is found somewhere in the middle.

The Bible records God punishing people in this life for their actions through natural disasters. God rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah because of their inhabitants’ depravity (Gen. 19:24-25) and he sent venomous snakes to afflict Israel when they became impatient and spoke against God in the desert (Num. 21:6). Some of these punishments include sending diseases to afflict people such as the plagues upon Egypt (Exod. 7:16-17) and even a plague upon Israel (2 Sam. 24:15).

And this isn’t something God only did in the Old Testament. St. Paul admonished the Corinthians who received the Eucharist while in a state of sin: “that is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:30). St. Luke records how Ananias and Sapphira fell down and died after Peter confronted their dishonest behavior towards the communal collection (Acts 5:9-11).

Now, there is a question about what the biblical authors mean when they say God sent a plague or other disaster. It could be the case that God directly intervened in the natural order to bring such a calamity about or that he permitted a natural evil to unfold and simply chose not to stop it. Either way, the testimony of Scripture shows that we can’t say that God never causes sickness or death as a punishment for sinful behavior.

But that doesn’t mean illness or death are always a punishment for sinful behavior. A central theme of the book of Job was that he had done nothing wrong to incur the afflictions he endured (1:1). In fact, God became angry with Job’s friends for wrongly suggesting Job’s afflictions were punishments for sin (42:7). He tells Job (and the rest of us) that we are not in a position to judge why God allows some evils to occur (38:1-41). That’s because, as God said through the prophet Isaiah, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9).

Jesus likewise taught that some evils occur without any connection to sinful behavior. He said the victims of a building collapse in Siloam were not any more sinful than Jews that Pontius Pilate slaughtered (Luke 13:2-5) and that no one’s sin caused a man to be born blind from birth (John 9:3). God instead allowed the man to be blinded so that his healing power would be displayed through Jesus’ healing of him. This is similar to why God did not heal St. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (which may have been an illness; cf. Gal. 4:13, 15). Paul’s suffering was not a punishment for sin but an opportunity for God’s grace to be revealed. That’s why God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Not every natural evil should be seen as a punishment for sin. In fact, God usually allows the world to unfold according to the laws he built into it—miracles are the exception, not the rule. Because we live in a world governed by natural laws, we should start with the presumption that any natural evil, whether personal and communal, is a byproduct of those laws and not a specific punishment for sin.

Indeed, the Church hasn’t said other global pandemics, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other kinds of disasters that killed hundreds of thousands and afflicted millions were divine punishments. Therefore, why should we believe Covid-19 or any other disaster is different from past ones that we did not think were punishments for sin?

People in the Bible were living in a key phase of God’s plan, when divine interventions were especially common, and he gave them prophets to understand the reasons for these interventions. But we live in a different age, and public revelation has stopped, meaning we have to use other methods.

If the disaster only affected a group of people who we’d expect God to punish, like a group of abortion doctors or the attendees of a Satanic black mass, that could be evidence of divine punishment. It would also be permissible to believe a disaster was a divine punishment if it was foretold or accompanied by a church-approved private revelation, though even then the faithful would not be obligated to believe it because this truth is not found in public revelation.

However, we have no evidence like this in favor of the view that Covid-19 is a divine punishment. Yet God always brings about good when an evil occurs, and this pandemic provides a reminder that we must repent from our sinfulness while we have time to do so.

Indeed, that was the point Jesus made when people asked him about the seemingly senseless deaths of the Galilean Jews at the hands of Pontius Pilate. He said those slaughtered worshipers weren’t more sinful than the people of Siloam who died when a tower collapsed on them. What mattered was not why they died, but whether they were able to repent before they died, or as Jesus bluntly put it, “unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5).

You or I may or may not contract Covid-19. If we do, we may or may not die from it. We also may never know why God allowed some people to get this disease and not others. But what we do know is that you and I will die and come face-to-face with our Lord to be judged (2 Cor. 5:10).

Therefore, we should use this time of communal trial as well as the “personal disasters” that afflict most people to draw near to God. We should repent of any sin that keeps us apart from God and seek communion with him, even if it is through a prayer of spiritual communion and worshiping with the assistance of something like an online video stream of the Mass. And we should extend Christ’s mercy and kindness to the many people who are in need right now and may be suffering physically, emotionally, and economically. St. Paul put it this way in his second letter to the Corinthians:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (1:3-5).

End of Quoted Article

Plenty of Questions about Plenary Indulgences: A Priest’s Answers by Father Andrew Hart (Excellent and easy to understand)

Plenty of Questions about Plenary Indulgences: A Priest’s Answers

Today’s Guest Contributor is Father Andrew Hart, priest and friend of Bellator Society. He answers some questions for us about the special new Plenary Indulgence granted by the Holy See this week in response to the Covid-19 health crisis.

____________________________

Question: What is an indulgence?

Father: An indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment for sins whose guilt is already forgiven.

The Catholic Church teaches that every sin produces two effects in our souls.

First, we incur the guilt of sin, which in the case of grave or mortal sin destroys supernatural charity within us and deprives us of communion with God, or eternal life with him. Second, we incur temporal punishment, a spiritual debt to God.

The Catechism describes this as “an unhealthy attachment to creatures” (CCC 1472), a result of our having chosen something earthly over Him. In the Sacrament of Penance, the guilt of eternal punishment is forgiven by the individual’s confession and contrition and by the absolution of the priest. Supernatural grace is restored, and the possibility of eternal life returns. But even then, the temporal punishment remains. If that debt is not atoned for in this life, then it will have to be made up in purgatory.

Perhaps an analogy to everyday life is helpful here.

If you lend me your car so I can go to work, but I go joy-riding instead and bust up the fender, then I need to do two things as a result. I have to ask first for your forgiveness. But even after you forgive me, I still need to make up for the damage to your car that I have caused. In a somewhat analogous way, we could say that the temporal punishment is what we still have to make up in our relationship to God for the sins for which he’s forgiven us. An indulgence is a special spiritual favor from the Church that helps us atone for that in this life rather than after death.

Some might question how the Church can do this.

As Catholics, we believe that what each of us does affects the rest of the Body of Christ. We often think of this in negative terms – that is, that our sins can spiritually damage others. But it is true also positively speaking as well; the good we do can spiritually benefit others. When we obtain an indulgence, theologically we could say that what is happening is the Church, our Mother, is drawing upon and granting to a particular son or daughter a gift from her spiritual treasury. The “Treasury of the Church” is that infinite wealth of spiritual merit that the “whole Christ” offers to God – the glorious, salvific merits of Jesus the Head most especially, but also the merits of his Body, the communion of saints.

Question: What kinds of indulgences are there?

Father: Indulgences come in two basic types. A partial indulgence, as its name implies, removes some but not all of the temporal punishment we owe to God.

A plenary indulgence fully removes all punishment.

Indulgences are also sometimes distinguished by their “general grant,” that is, by the kind of act to which the spiritual favor is attached. There are indulgences related to particular prayers, to works of charity, to voluntary penitential practices, and to the public witness of the faith.

Finally, indulgences can be obtained for oneself but also for those who have died, so they can be distinguished in that way.

Question: What are the differences between the indulgences?

Father: To obtain either a partial or plenary indulgence, a person must be baptized, in the state of grace (at least at the end of the spiritual work to be done) and not excommunicated, and must have the general intention to actually obtain the indulgence itself. The major distinguishing characteristic of a plenary indulgence is that, in addition to performing the prescribed act, the person must 1) receive Eucharistic communion, 2) make or have made a sacramental confession within a week or two, and 3) pray for the intentions of the pope, usually done by one Our Father and one Hail Mary. Finally, the individual must be free from all attachments to sin, even venial sin.

Question: What are the historical objections/abuses associate with indulgences?

Father: Like many things in the Church’s history, abuses of indulgences have certainly been committed.

Sometimes, indulgences were confused with the forgiveness of sin itself, or as a permission to commit sin, or even as a pardon of future sins.

And there has always been a somewhat tricky debate over whether an indulgence could be obtained, for oneself or for a person who has died, by the giving of money or other material goods. In fact, a major cause of the Reformation was a dispute about indulgences, not only their theological explanation but even more so about the practical details of how they could be obtained, what purposes the money was used for, etc.

Question: What is different today?

Father: Catholics and Protestants still today have differences of opinion about the theological grounds for indulgences.

For that reason, there is still some disagreement about what happened in the Reformation era itself and whether everything related to indulgences was an abuse, or only certain practices.

Generally speaking, today the Church emphasizes that indulgences are spiritual realities for spiritual purposes.

For that reason, they cannot be obtained by someone who has a motive other than wanting to obtain the indulgence, or who doesn’t have a contrite heart.

The Church also no longer assigns a specific length of time to indulgences, as it used to do, mostly because those lengths of time were widely misunderstood. In the old days a particular prayer or work of charity might have a value, for example of 100 days. Many people thought that meant you would spend 100 fewer days in purgatory, but that isn’t the case. Instead, it meant the prayer or charitable work was equivalent spiritually to doing 100 days of penance here on earth. Today, we don’t refer to an indulgence’s time value anymore, just to whether it is partial or plenary.

Question: Is it like “buying your way to heaven”?

Father: No, an indulgence is not a ticket to heaven.

Remember that, in Catholic teaching, it is the presence of sanctifying grace that is the standard needed for heaven.

That grace is given by baptism but is lost in mortal sin. A person who dies with unconfessed mortal sin would, outside of an act of perfect contrition, merits eternal separation from God. This would be the case even if they had obtained many plenary indulgences in their lifetime. In other words, it is the presence or absence of the sanctifying grace of baptism that makes the difference.

It is true, of course, that indulgences remove the temporal punishment for sins that have been confessed and forgiven. This is true for oneself but also can be applied for the soul of a deceased person. In that case, if the person is in the state of purgatory, then a plenary indulgence obtained for them would obtain for them the release from purgation and the entrance into heavenly glory.

Question: What are the details regarding this particular indulgence?

Father: The recent decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary establishes plenary indulgences specifically related to those who have been infected by the corona virus, those who are caring for them and working to heal them, those who have been quarantined, and even to those members of the faithful who are willing to ask God to end this current crisis, to relieve those who are sick, and to be merciful to those who have died.

These plenary indulgences are also remarkable in that, instead of the usual requirement of satisfying the three usual conditions (praying for the pope, receiving Holy Communion, and making a sacramental confession), it is necessary in these cases to merely have the intention to do those things as soon as possible.

Question: Is there a timeframe given to avail oneself of this indulgence?

Father: In general, a plenary indulgence can be obtained every day, and in the situation of someone in danger of death even more frequently than that if necessary. The most recent decree does not specify a time limit for the new plenary indulgences, so presumably they will last as long as the corona virus continues to make people sick.

Question: What is “a full detachment from sin” and is that even possible?

Father: A full detachment from sin is the interior disposition in which there is no sin that one is unwilling to renounce.

A person who is detached from all sin recognizes that even a minor venial sin is an offense against the goodness of God and thus is willing to give up even that as well. Such a detachment would be lacking if one has an attachment to one or more sins, e.g. perhaps a particular situation one is unwilling to change, or a particular disposition one is unwilling to amend. A detachment from sin doesn’t mean one must succeed in changing those things, since the future cannot be known, but that one is willing in that moment.

With that clarification, motivated by a love of God above all else, a full detachment from sin is certainly possible.

__________________________

Fr. Andrew Hart is a priest of the Diocese of Little Rock. Born and raised in Arkansas, he attended seminary in Indiana and in Rome, and was ordained in 2012. He received a licentiate degree in canon law in 2018 from the Catholic University of America. Currently, he is the pastor of two parishes and serves as a judge on the diocesan tribunal

Catholicism’s Rich Understanding of God STEPHEN BEALE (another very good one)

Catholicism’s Rich Understanding of God

STEPHEN BEALE

Despite our differences, it is often said that Catholics and Protestants at least agree on some big things, like the divinity of Jesus and the triune nature of God.

That’s true, but one could contend that Catholicism has a richer understanding of who God is and how we relate to Him than many Protestant denominations, especially those in the Calvinist Reformed traditions. Here are a few reasons why.

Radical presence and absence

God’s simultaneous visibility and hiddenness is at its most intense in the Eucharist. There, we encounter Christ in the fullness of His divinity and the fullness of His humanity. Yet, our eyes see bread and out tongues taste bread. Our stomachs digest bread. But with the eyes of faith Catholics discern God’s presence in the bread, in the church sanctuary, and in themselves.

This duality is what drives the agony and ecstasy of so many saints. For example, consider these lines from St. John of the Cross’ poem, “By the Waters of Babylon,” which are soaked in so much sadness,

By the waters of Babylon
I sat down and wept,
And my tears
Watered the ground,
I took off my holiday robes,
Put on working clothes,
And hung my harp
on a green willow,
laying it there in hope
of the hope I had in you.
There love wounded me
And took away my heart.

Those lines pulse with a palpable sense of loss, grief over God’s absence. Yet that same saint can also write these lines in “The Living Flame of Love,”

O living flame of love
That tenderly wounds my soul
In its deepest center! Since
Now you are not oppressive,
Now consummate! if it be your will:

Tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!…
O lamps of fire!
in whose splendors
The deep caverns of feeling,
Once obscure and blind,
Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,
Both warmth and light to their Beloved.

Here we have the ecstasy of union, the burning fire of love consuming St. John of the Cross’ soul. This great saint experienced both extremes of a relationship with God, both divine absence and divine presence, and His experience of God was that much richer for it. One needs this sense of God’s complete presence and total hiddenness in order to truly encounter God as humans in a still-fallen world.

Radical freedom

The Church teaches that God really created us, which means that we really have a free will, not an illusion of one, as Calvinism compels us to believe. Although there are other Protestant traditions that also believe in free will, it is best explained within Thomistic philosophy.

In his book, the Analogia Entis, Catholic theologian Erich Przywara explains how extensive our freedom is. According to Przywara, our freedom to impose order on the world reflects the ‘infinity of possibilities’ in material creation. This free will also mirrors God’s own supreme dominion over the world, as St. Gregory of Nyssa notes in his essay on Virginity, “Being the image and the likeness, as has been said, of the Power which rules all things, man kept also in the matter of a Free-Will this likeness to Him whose Will is over all.”

God is the source of our free will and permits our free choices even when they are directed against Him:

God’s ever greater proximity to the creature is the cause of an ever greater independence on the creature’s part. What is more, this setting apart of the creature from God, as the most proper revelation of God’s bounty, happens in such a way that the creature, thus set apart, seems almost to assume the features of God: appearing as an original ground of itself, as a creative cause, as a generous cause, and as providence for others, even to the point that the creature is permitted to contradict God (Analogia Entis, 293-294).

It may sound strange to say that God’s proximity brings about our greater independence, but this is just another way of saying that God made us His special creatures by making us in His image, and giving a free will, fitting for those bearing His image. By believing in a free will like this, Catholicism recognizes God’s greatness in a way that is missed by the Calvinist tradition’s denial of free will.

The mystical union

The Catholic and Orthodox spiritual traditions soar to heights beyond what most Protestant traditions can conceive. From the earliest times there has been the conviction that not only are we called to salvation and friendship with God, but a mystical union. This is expressed above in St. John of the Cross’ poetry. His contemporary, St. Teresa of Avila, also experienced it, recounted in her autobiography. The critical moment came at the hands of a seraphim angel with a spear:

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God.

This idea of a union is built upon the Church Fathers belief in divinization or theosis, the belief that we participate so deeply in God’s being that we become like Him. Here is how one of the earliest Church Fathers, St. Irenaeus, described it in Against Heresies:

For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have said, ‘You are gods; and you are all sons of the Highest.’ But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, “But you shall die like men,” setting forth both truths — the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves.

Summary

Each of the above builds on the previous ones. God in His great love for us, condescends to be present to us. Yet God, as God, remains wholly Other. Thus, there in His essence He must in a sense always remain hidden from us. In the Eucharist, God comes to us in both ways, as radical visibility and radical hiddenness.

God is nearer to us than our inmost, as St. Augustine said. God is present to us in our inmost depths, giving us the gift of a free will, which allows us to make choices that distance us from God. Sometimes, it’s not that God has hidden from us but that we have hidden from Him, like Adam and Eve cowering in the Garden of Eden.

Of course, that same free will allows us to make the decision for God, to go all in, so to speak, even to the point of participation in His very being.

There is a sort of a back and forth, a rhythm or great symphony, to all of this. God comes to us, but also remains withdrawn. We withdraw Him only to seek Him ever more. We ascend and descend. He descends to us and ascends. We seek and find Him. He seeks and finds us as well.

St. Paul puts it a different way in his speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17:24-28,

The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.

He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Much like the water on the shore, we flow out from God, only to be drawn back into the ocean.

✠

By Stephen Beale

Stephen Beale is a freelance writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised as an evangelical Protestant, he is a convert to Catholicism. He is a former news editor at GoLocalProv.com and was a correspondent for the New Hampshire Union Leader, where he covered the 2008 presidential primary. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN and the Today Show and his writing has been published in the Washington Times, Providence Journal, the National Catholic Register and on MSNBC.com and ABCNews.com. A native of Topsfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University in 2004 with a degree in classics and history. His areas of interest include Eastern Christianity, Marian and Eucharistic theology, medieval history, and the saints. He welcomes tips, suggestions, and any other feedback at bealenews at gmail dot com. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/StephenBeale1

Coronavirus Essentials: How the Church Is Applying Public-Health Directives

COMMENTARY: A global pandemic is hardly the time for acrimony and accusations in the Body of Christ. It is better to extend the benefit of the doubt and attempt to understand why such decisions were taken.

Father Raymond J. de Souza

Editor’s Note: This article originally ran March 26, 2020.

One-quarter of the population on planet Earth is living under some kind of state of emergency or lockdown, advised — or mandated — not to leave home except for “essential” services.

It is a clarifying point in the culture. In much of the world, gathering for worship and prayer in churches has been judged “not essential.” Even keeping the churches open for private prayer has been determined in some places to be “not essential.”

This has caused some to criticize bishops who have suspended public worship and others who have closed their churches.

A caveat is in order: A global pandemic is hardly the time for acrimony and accusations in the Body of Christ. It is better to extend the benefit of the doubt and attempt to understand why such decisions were taken.

Bishops and pastors are being asked, in a matter of days or even hours, to make decisions that no one alive has ever taken before. In such an environment, the more prudent option — for civil and ecclesiastical authorities — is to take the most severe option sooner rather than later.

For example, shutting down public transit may be aimed at the crowded London Underground or New York subway and may well be overkill for the bus through rural Cambridgeshire or upstate New York that may only have two or three passengers on it. But there is no time for all those relevant distinctions, and so the shutdown of everything is applied.

How Christ Makes Himself Present to the City and to the World

Mass Gatherings and Gatherings for Mass

In the first days of the restrictions, it was mass gatherings that were prohibited. That’s why most sporting events were canceled quickly. In many places that meant also gatherings for worship.

That’s why many bishops made a distinction between Sunday Mass and weekday Mass. Sunday Mass would tend to gather more than the threshold — at that time, 250 people in some places — while weekday Masses would not. There was no suspension of gathering for Mass, that is, but of mass gatherings.

It would be incorrect to accuse, for example, Virginia of now making it illegal to attend church services. A church service — as of March 25 — of six people could go ahead. A bachelor party of 11 people could not, given the Virginia order; and if they wanted the party in a restaurant, it could not be held no matter how few friends the groom had.

As the gathering threshold ratcheted downwards — to 100, 50, 10, five and, in Germany and the United Kingdom, even two(!) — weekday Masses also were suspended with the participation of the faithful. Private Masses, of course, could continue. Some such Masses streamed online show that there are one or two people present, leading the responses or even music — all the while observing the recommended social distance.

What About the Bars?

An early complaint was that restaurants and bars were free to remain open while churches were limiting worship. That indicated an inversion of priorities, surely?
Three things were at work there: First, it is likely that bishops — particularly in northern Italy — were more responsible than commercial operators, taking necessary steps earlier. Asking a bishop to make decisions like a nightclub owner would be odd.

Second, public authorities are reluctant to cause mass economic pain. Bartenders and waiters cannot work from home; a closure means no money for a large number of people close to the economic margins. A closure order means an instant economic crisis. The same intensity of economic pain does not apply to churches, museums and galleries, which is why they may have been asked to shut down earlier.

Third, the decision did reflect the declining importance assigned to religion, deeming it as “nonessential.” There can be no getting around a secularized shift in public opinion.

Is Prayer in a Church Essential?

After the suspension of public Masses, a consensus emerged that churches would stay open for private prayer, often with Eucharistic adoration. People could come to pray on their own, keeping the recommended distance from each other. Some parishes therefore moved Eucharistic adoration from a small chapel to the main body of the church.

Then the public-health advice shifted from avoiding public gatherings to staying at home — period. People should stay at home, venturing out only for “essentials” like groceries or medicine.

Thus the question became: If I can be in a supermarket with 20 other people to buy groceries, why can’t I be in a church with five other people — far more spaced out — in order to pray?

The default position toward keeping grocery stores open certainly did not extend to churches. That is partly a reflection of a secularized society. Partly it reflects Protestant culture, where churches are almost exclusively used to gather in numbers for worship and prayer. The custom of an individual dropping in to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or to pray alone in Eucharistic adoration, is a Catholic practice. Even today, many churches in Italy are open for private prayer. Long before the pandemic, the vast majority of churches in Italy would be quite accustomed to only a few people being inside almost all of the time, aside from Mass.

Why Did Bishops Agree to Close the Churches?

Should bishops have been more insistent on keeping their churches open for private prayer as “essential”? The argument for that is not implausible, that a secularized culture needs the witness of those who consider the good of the soul at least equal to that of the body.

There are three counterarguments.

First, bishops have no information upon which to make their decisions other than what they are told by public-health authorities. And with the exception of a few archbishops in major cities, most local Churches are not even in contact with senior public-health officials. They get their information on websites and social media like everyone else. In the absence of any other information, it is understandable that bishops would follow, in a state of emergency, the advice they are given.

Second, keeping churches open in some cases simply means the pastor unlocking the door. In many places, though, it involves more people than that, and therefore may require people to come to work who should stay at home. Again, in time of emergency, the rule for the more complex cases applies to every case.

Third, there is a delicate element treated with discretion. Decisions about the coronavirus are made, for the most part, by elderly people for elderly people. Bishops are generally seniors; and in many places, their parishes are more akin to the demographics of retirement homes than community centers. Places where seniors gather have the most restrictive measures in place. In light of the severe restrictions — no visitors, except in danger of death — placed on nursing homes, the closure of churches is more understandable.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England, hinted at that when he explained why the bishops of England and Wales chose to close their churches even when given an exemption from the government to keep them open for private prayer. An open church would be an implied invitation, even a “temptation,” for some to venture out who should stay at home. He had in mind those who were “vulnerable,” by which he meant, but did not say, the elderly, who comprise the largest share of almost all parishes.

One reason Italy has been so hard hit is that it has the oldest population in the world, save for Japan. Many parishes would make Italy’s population seem young by comparison. A 73-year-old bishop, thinking about parishes where more than half the parishioners are over the age of 70, may well consider it better to close the church entirely, especially if the pastor himself is over 70 and would be responsible for opening, closing and supervising the church. Many diocesan communications with priests are very attentive to this last reality, advising elderly priests — many of whom are active pastors — to take severe precautionary measures.

Sacramental Challenges

Now that the churches are closed in many places around the world, the challenge remains about how to administer the sacraments. For the moment, weddings, funerals, baptisms and confirmations are suspended. Confessions are not being heard, save for a few outdoor/drive-thru solutions. Holy Communion is almost nowhere being distributed.

That cannot continue in the long term and remains the next great challenge, for which solutions are not obvious.

Father Raymond J. de Souza is the editor in chief of Convivium

The Media and the Mediatrix by DONALD DEMARCO

The Media and the Mediatrix

DONALD DEMARCO

A mediator is someone who is situated between two parties and seeks to bring them into accord. The mediator does have a particular position of his own but operates in a completely unselfish manner. A medium, in the sense of a psychic, refers to one who establishes contact with the supernatural world. All three senses refer to a middle through which two things are brought into contact with each other.

In Catholic Mariology, Mary is given the title “Mediatrix” to indicate that she, as Mother of God, is the medium through which flow all God’s graces. The Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, 61-2) states that “she cooperated in the work of the Savior, in an altogether singular way, by obedience, faith, hope, and burning love, to restore supernatural life to souls. As a result she is our Mother in the order of grace.”

It may be said that Mary is a mediatrix of grace in three ways: first, as the Mother of God, through whom Christ came into the world; second, as the Immaculate Conception who was a sinless model for all to imitate; and, third, after her assumption through her apparitions and constant prayers interceding for all her children. Nathaniel Hawthorne had a sense of the intermediary efficacy of Mary when he wrote the following words: “I have always envied Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred, Virgin Mother who stands between them and the Deity, intercepting somewhat His awful splendor, but permitting His love to stream more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman’s tenderness.”

The contrast between the mass media, that delivers news, and the Mediatrix who transmits grace is of special importance for our contemporary world. News can be a vehicle for ideological propaganda. In this case, the term “media” is misleading since the mass media is not particularly concerned with bringing reality into harmony with the consumer. On the other hand, the grace transmitted through Mary as Mediatrix is reliable and without a taint of deception.

The American journalist Walter Lippmann began his 1922 classic Public Opinion by asserting that “the world outside and the pictures in our heads” are not necessarily the same. He was careful to distinguish between news and truth, suggesting that the two could coincide only in a few limited areas, such as the box score. The media had the ability, according to Lippmann, of making molehills out of mountains and mountains out of molehills.

The practice of twisting or distorting the news to serve propaganda interests is commonly referred to as “spinning.” Edward Louis James Bernays, an Austrian immigrant who combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon on mob psychology with the psychoanalytic ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, is regarded as “The Father of Spin.” In his 1928 book, Propaganda, he states the following: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” Bernays was proud of his work and is given credit for helping to make the use of tobacco and alcohol more socially acceptable to Americans in the twentieth century.

The media has gone far beyond making tobacco and alcohol more acceptable. Pornography is now “adult entertainment.” Abortion is merely a “choice,” while the abortionist is a “health care provider.” Adultery is “serial monogamy” and same-sex marriage is “equal” to traditional marriages. Euthanasia is “death with dignity” or MAiD (Medically Assistance in Dying). Those who have reasonable objections to such activities are dismissed as “conservative,” “rigid,” “judgmental,” or worse.

As economist Thomas Sowell has written, “If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.” Saint John Paul II was very much aware of this problem. “The question confronting the Church today,” he stated, “is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”

”Spinning,” therefore, is a form of propaganda achieved through providing a biased interpretation of the news, an idea, or an event. Putting a “spin” on things implies a tactic that is deceptive and assuredly less than truthful. Currently, it is a tactic that no candidate for a high political office can do without. Spinwars by Bill Fox and Spin Cycle by Howard Kurtz provide ample evidence for this contention. We now have “spin rooms” and “spin doctors” that give a certain breadth as well as urgency to this dubious practice. Last month, Joe Biden stated that 150 million Americans have been killed by guns since 2007. This contention out-spins even the most flagrant of the spin-masters. Who could possibly believe, with just a moment’s reflection, that more than 58,000 fatalities per day result from gun violence? Those who are more diligent about facts report that Biden was off by 149.9 million.

The opposition between news that defrauds and grace that is food for our souls is far from a mere academic distinction. Simon & Schuster is distributing a novella entitled The Testament of Mary which depicts the Mother of God fleeing from the scene of her son’s death in fear of her own life, threatening the Gospel writers with a knife, living as a bandit, and stealing in order to survive.

We must be most careful about the news we read. But we should have no such trepidation with regard to God’s grace that is transmitted through Mary, the Mediatrix of grace. The present moment calls for a return to God. The Mother of God may be needed now more than ever before.

Image: The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin by Jan van Eyck

By Donald DeMarco

Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He’s a regular contributor to the St. Austin Review.

The Media and the Mediatrix: by DONALD DEMARCO

The Media and the Mediatrix

DONALD DEMARCO

Image: The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin by Jan van Eyck

By Donald DeMarco

Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He’s a regular contributor to the St. Austin Review.

Is Covid-19 a Punishment from God? Whatever God’s designs may be in the present crisis, we must all draw close to God and repent By Trent Horn (from Catholic Answers)

Is Covid-19 a Punishment from God?

Whatever God’s designs may be in the present crisis, we must all draw close to God and repent

By Trent Horn (from Catholic Answers)

The truth (as it often is) is found somewhere in the middle.

End of Quoted Article

“In a Little While”by Jesus

Responsorial Psalm34:17-18, 19-20, 21 AND 23

R.   (19a)  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
The LORD confronts the evildoers,
to destroy remembrance of them from the earth.
When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,
and from all their distress he rescues them.
R.   The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.
Many are the troubles of the just man,
but out of them all the LORD delivers him.
R.   The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
He watches over all his bones;
not one of them shall be broken.
The LORD redeems the lives of his servants;
no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him.
R.   The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

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