Why your spiritual health should be a priority during sickness By: Philip Kosloski

 St. John Paul II urged those suffering to ask the hardest questions in life and not neglect their spiritual health.

Often when we get sick, the only thing we think about is our physical health. We want to get better and tend to block out all other areas of life.

However, St. John Paul II believed sickness was precisely the time to ask some of the hardest questions in life, diving deeper into your own spiritual life.

He explains this in his letter on the World Day of the Sick in 2005.

The annual celebration of the World Day of the Sick offers everyone a possibility of understanding better the importance of pastoral health care. In our time, marked by a culture imbued with secularism, some have at times been tempted not to recognize the full value of this pastoral context.

They think that human destiny is played out in other fields. Instead, it is precisely in times of sickness that the need to find adequate responses to the ultimate questions about human life is the most pressing: questions on the meaning of pain, suffering and death itself, considered not only as an enigma that is hard to face, but a mystery in which Christ incorporates our lives in himself, opening them to a new and definitive birth for the life that will never end.

When we are sick, we are always faced with the possibility of death. This can be a scary thought, but for the Christian, it should also include thoughts of hope.

In Christ lies the hope of true, full health; the salvation that he brings is the true response to the ultimate questions about man. There is no contradiction between earthly health and eternal salvation, since the Lord died for the integral salvation of the human person and of all humanity.

Jesus is the answer to sickness, suffering and death. He alone can offer us peace during times of uncertainty and grant us a glimpse of the glory that is to come.

In conforming us to the mystery of the crucified and Risen Christ, the Holy Spirit opens us from this moment to the joy that will culminate in our beatific encounter with the Redeemer. In fact, the human being does not only aspire to physical or spiritual well-being, but to a “health” that is expressed in total harmony with God, with self and with humanity. This goal can only be reached through the mystery of the passion, death and Resurrection of Christ.

If we find ourselves sick or in great pain, let us not forget our spiritual health and unite ourselves to Jesus on the cross, who provides for us all the answers we could ever need

The Holy Spirit in and of the Church by: Peter M.J. Stravinskas

 

The Church is holy because she has God for her Author, Christ for her Spouse, and the Holy Spirit for her source of life.

By: Peter M.J. Stravinskas

“Descent of Holy Spirit on the Apostles” (1885) by Mikhail Vrubel. [WikiArt.org]

Condensing forty-five pages of the Catechism into a brief reflection is a frustrating exercise, especially when the topic is the meaning of life in the Church. The approach here is not so much to summarize as to highlight special points of interest and/or items that have been ignored or contested in recent years about the Holy Spirit.

The very title of the section is important but elusive in English. Latin distinguishes between believing in something or someone and believing something or someone. The Creed says, “Credo in unum Deum Patrem omnipotentem. . ., in Filium. . ., in Spiritum Sanctum,” but [credo] “ecclesiam,” without the preposition. What is the significance? Very simply, that one does not believe in the Church in the same way as one believes in the Trinity; I believe in God while I believe the Church. Or better perhaps, I believe the Church because I believe in God. The act of faith in regard to the Church is secondary to that in regard to God.

In quick fashion, the basics of ecclesiology are rehearsed, giving the etymology of “church” [the assembly] and identity [the People of God nourished by the Body of Christ, so as to become themselves the Body of Christ]. We are reminded that the Church existed as part of God’s saving plan from all eternity “prepared for in the Ancient Covenant, founded by the words and actions of Jesus Christ, and realized by His redeeming Cross and Resurrection,” but yet to be revealed in all its glory at the end of time [778]. Picking up a critical theme from Vatican II, the Catechism recalls that “the Church is at one and the same time an hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ” [779]; in other words, it is neither desirable nor possible to separate the institutional elements of the Church from the more “spiritual” ones. Nor is it correct to view “official” Catholicism as one of many viewpoints, reflected in the “Catholicism” of various dissenting individuals or groups.

The next section discusses the Church as the People of God, the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Again echoing Lumen Gentium, the Catechism teaches that these images of the Church are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Hence, it is not legitimate to campaign under one banner in such a way as to put aside truths contained in other metaphors for the Church.

Much stress is placed on the call of the entire Church to sanctity – something often overlooked in the immediate post-Vatican II period; without a focus on holiness of life, one has no reason to belong to the Church. “One enters the People of God by faith and Baptism,” we read. Furthermore, we find the insight of Ad Gentes (Vatican II’s decree on missionary activity): “All men are called to participate in the People of God, so that in Christ, men form a single family and a single People of God” [805]. The missionary nature of the Church is thus emphasized, in response to those [even missionaries, oddly enough!] who have argued that there is no need to “make converts.”

The relationship between the ecclesial Body of Christ and the Eucharistic Body of Christ is developed in great depth: Being incorporated into the Body of Christ [the Church] in and though Baptism orients a believer to His Eucharistic Body; further, receiving the Eucharist makes one ever more fully and perfectly a member of that Body which is the Church [see 805; Cardinal Marx and the majority of the German bishops should re-read this section!]. Reading on, we learn that “in the unity of this Body [the Church], there is a diversity of members and functions,” but in so marvelous a manner that unity and diversity are strengthened, not compromised [806]. The uniqueness of every call within the Church is thus underscored; and so, there is no need for unhealthy competition among the various roles and ministries within the one Church, all of which exist to build up the one Body.

Everything is then put into proper perspective: “The Church is the Body of which Christ is the Head; she lives from Him, in Him and for Him; He lives with her and in her” [807]. How is the Church the Bride of Christ? Christ “loved her and gave Himself up for her. He purified her by His blood. He made of her the fruitful Mother of all the children of God” [808]. If every Christian, by virtue of Baptism, is a temple of the Holy Spirit, so is the Church, but even more wondrously, for “the Spirit is like the soul of the Mystical Body, the principle of its life” [809]. In sum, “the universal Church appears as one People which draws its unity from the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” [810].

We are next led through a consideration of the four marks or notes of the Church.

The Church is one because “she has one Lord, confesses one single faith, is born from one Baptism, forms a single Body, is enlivened by one Spirit,” thus causing her to “surmount all divisions” [866]. The Catechism exerts particular care to explain the meaning of Lumen Gentium’s “subsistit in” [is] in reference to the one Church of Christ and the Catholic Church. In answer to troublesome and mischievous theologians, the text teaches clearly that one is to see the realization of the one Church within the boundaries of the Catholic Church. It goes on to discuss the fractured unity of Christians in a way which is both honest and hopeful, relying on the realism of the Council and not the euphoria of the era following.

The Church is holy because she has God for her Author, Christ for her Spouse, and the Holy Spirit for her source of life. Although the Church is all-holy, she holds within herself sinners, all the while producing saints, of which the Blessed Virgin stands out as the first [see 867].

The Church is catholic because “she announces the totality of the Faith. . ., carries within herself and administers the fullness of the means of salvation. . ., is sent to all peoples, addresses herself to all men; embraces all times, and is, by her very nature, missionary” [868]. That’s quite a mouthful, but all that is encompassed in any true understanding of catholicity, while anything less is but a partial truth. Also discussed is the fact that “each particular church [diocese] is ‘catholic’” [832] because of its bishop standing in apostolic succession and in communion with the Bishop of Rome and every other Catholic bishop in the world.

The text asks the question: Who belong to the Catholic Church? It answers by citing Lumen Gentium 14, which speaks of those who “fully accept [the Church’s] organization and all the means of salvation instituted within her” [837]. It then continues by dealing with those who have “a certain but imperfect communion with the Catholic Church,” at which point specific reference is made to the Eastern Orthodox [see 838]. Clearly taking a cue from Pope John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio, the Catechism spends much time talking about the importance of missionary activity [849-856].

In presenting the apostolic character of the Church, the Catechism writes of her foundation on the Twelve Apostles, going on to observe that she is thus “indestructible” and “infallibly maintained in the truth,” due to her governance “by Peter and the other apostles, present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops” [869].

The fourth section is concerned with Christ’s faithful, which term includes all members of the laity, hierarchy and consecrated life. This diversity of roles is the clearest example of the presence and working of the Holy Spirit within the Church. An excellent explanation is given of “the hierarchical constitution of the Church,” taking in the very basic notion of ecclesial ministry in general, with the salutary reminder that “no one can take upon himself the mandate and mission of announcing the Gospel. The messenger of the Lord speaks and acts not by his own authority, but in virtue of the authority of Christ; not as a member of the community, but speaking to the community in the name of Christ” [875].

Careful delineation is given to the college of bishops and its relationship to the Church as a whole and to the Pope. The teaching task within the Church is elucidated in regard to the Pope, an ecumenical council and individual bishops, but not for bishops’ conferences – contrary to what some theologians and prelates have been proposing [888-892].

The ministry of sanctification is located within the ordained ministry [893]. Ecclesiastical governance is likewise entrusted to the bishops, who should emulate the example of the Good Shepherd [894-896]. Relying on Vatican II and subsequent teaching, the Catechism holds that the mission of the laity is primarily toward the world and normally not to be exercised within the Church, except in situations of genuine need [897-903]. The task of evangelization [outside the Church] and re-evangelization [within the Church] is something especially geared to the gifts of the laity [904-906].

Those “in the state of consecrated life, vowed more intimately to divine service and dedicated to the good of the whole Church” make “public profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience in a stable state of life recognized by the Church” [944-945]. This, of course, is nothing more or less than what we have always believed as Catholics, although not necessarily what some religious would have us think is the current mentality of the Church in regard to their special vocation.

In the discussion on the communion of saints, we are reminded that, called to be saints through Baptism, we are directed toward holy things. As the Eastern liturgy puts it, Hagia hagiois [Holy things for the holy]. This communion includes fellowship in the faith, sacraments, charisms, common life and charity [949-953]. Furthermore, our present communion on earth is inextricably linked to communion with the Church in her three-fold existence: on earth, in Purgatory, and in Heaven. The intercession of the saints and the poor souls benefits us; our request for their intercession acknowledges our bond to them; our prayer for the souls in Purgatory and their attention to our needs reveal the bonds which death itself cannot break [954-959].

Finally, our gaze is directed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and first member of her Son’s Church, as she “already participates in the glory of the Resurrection of her Son, anticipating the resurrection of all the members of His Body,” for we believe that she “continues in heaven her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ” [974-975]. Thus, the Church which has its origins in the eternal plan of God is likewise pointed in the direction of her final goal.

Heaven is indeed our final goal – the Church Triumphant. We need to keep our eyes fixed on that goal. With that in mind, we can make our own the lovely, moving and very sensible prayer of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, which brings into one all the themes which have occupied us in this novena to the Holy Spirit:

O my Lord and Savior, support me in my last hour in the strong arms of Thy Sacraments and by the fresh fragrance of Thy consolations. Let the absolving words be said over me, and the holy oil sign and seal me; and let Thine own Body be my food, and Thy Blood my sprinkling; and let my sweet Mother, Mary, breathe on me, and my Angel whisper peace to me, and my glorious saints and my own dear patrons smile upon me, that, in them all and through them all, I may receive the gift of perseverance, and die as I desire to live, in Thy faith, in Thy Church, in Thy service, and in Thy love. Amen.

One final thought: In not a few parishes, the faithful are invited to wear red on Pentecost Sunday – not just to match the chasuble of the priest – but so as to produce that blaze of fire which Our Lord declared He had come to ignite (see Lk 12:49 ) and which His Spirit conferred on that fearful yet hopeful band of disciples. In a thoroughly delightful poem, Holy Cross Sister M. Madeleva – onetime poet laureate of American Catholicism – playfully but profoundly would have us turn our minds and hearts to the ones she dubs “Red Tulips”:

God wrote it;
I quote it;
All ye, do ye note it
On the the margin of spring,
This homely apostil,
This miracle thing

Pentecostal!
“A dozen dull tulips were gathered together
In fear, every one;
When sudden arose a great stirring of weather,
Of wind and of sun,
And there sat on each tulip a parted tongue whether
Of petal or flame!” – lo, their gospel of life has begun!

The prayer of Mother Church is that each of us “dull tulips” be stirred into flame by “this miracle thing Pentecostal!”

About Peter M.J. Stravinskas 

Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas is the editor of the The Catholic Response, and the author of over 500 articles for numerous Catholic publications, as well as several books, including The Catholic Church and the Bible and Understanding the Sacraments.

Exceptionless Moral Rules By: David Carlin

One of the distinctive things about Catholic moral doctrine is that it has a number of absolute or exceptionless rules, many of them involving or at least associated with sexual matters.  For example:

• One must neverperform or undergo an abortion.
• One must nevercommit adultery.
• One must neverengage in fornication.
• One must neverengage in marital contraception.
• One must neverdivorce and remarry.
• One must nevercommit suicide.

Most people, I believe, including most people who are on the whole sympathetic to the prohibitions just outlined, feel that some exceptions should be made to the above prohibitions. But their sympathies are partly misguided, and warrant serious clarification:

(1) Divorce.  Almost everybody agrees that marriage should be a permanent and lifelong thing.  Once you’ve promised to remain married “till death do us part,” you should make every effort to keep that promise.  You should bear with your spouse’s shortcomings as long as they are bearable.  But sometimes they are not bearable.  In that case, you may resort to measures to remove those conditions that are making you miserable.

Of course, Catholicism agrees with this, after a fashion.  It is willing to tolerate, if there is sufficient cause, divorce from “bed and board” – that is, a permanent separation.  What it is not willing to tolerate is a divorce from “the chains of matrimony” – it is unwilling, in other words, to tolerate the kind of divorce that allows for remarriage.

Most people find this unreasonable.  “Why,” they ask, “should a man or woman who made a foolish mistake early in life, the foolish mistake of marrying a very unsuitable partner, be barred from ever enjoying the many benefits and consolations of marriage, these including children, a shared marriage bed, shared values, shared ownership of property, and so on?”

The Catholic Church itself seems to share these misgivings as to the no-remarriage rule.  And so the Church makes annulment available, allowing that the parties involved in an immature decision that was no real marital union the possibility of a declaration of nullity. Annulment is not divorce.  It is simply a declaration that the apparent first marriage was not in fact a real marriage.

By maintaining this theory of annulment the Church remains faithful to Jesus’s ban on divorce-and-remarriage.  Unfortunately, in practice annulment is, at least in many cases, little more than a legal fiction that allows Catholics to divorce and remarry just like their non-Catholic neighbors.  It is then, as it has often been called, “Catholic divorce.”

(2) Adultery.  Suppose you’re a married man or woman working for the CIA as a counter-spy, and suppose that by engaging in an adulterous relationship with a spy from Russia or China or Iran you will very probably gain information that will save hundreds or thousands of American lives – Catholicism says you mustn’t do this.  As for the hundred or thousands of lives that may be lost as the result of your remaining faithful to your wedding vows, well. . .regrettable, but not to be saved by immoral means.

Or suppose, less dramatically, you’re a healthy young woman with normal sexual appetites, but your husband (like Lady Chatterley’s husband) is incapable of performing the sexual act; and let’s also suppose that your husband (again like Lady Chatterley’s husband) has given you permission to go to bed with other men – provided these men treat you with kindness and respect, and provided precautions are taken against pregnancy and disease.  Again, Catholicism says: NO.

Even if aliens from a distant galaxy turn up and tell you, a married woman, that they will destroy the planet Earth and every person on it unless you have sex with, say, Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks, Catholicism will still say NO. As St. Paul warned when the Faith was still young, we cannot “do evil that good may come” (Rm. 3:4)

(3) Fornication.  Suppose you’re an elderly widow, and you and an elderly man, likewise widowed, are in love with one another.  You’d both be happy to marry one another.  However, your late husband, who left you many millions, provided that in the case of your remarriage all these millions would go to the SPCA or, worse still, to Planned Parenthood.  Would it be morally okay for you and your boyfriend, while remaining unmarried, to have sexual relations with one another?  Catholicism says NO.

I’ve given enough hypotheticals to make my point.  Readers can easily imagine what other hypotheticals I might offer about abortion, contraception, and suicide.  In all these imaginary cases Catholicism would say, “No exceptions may be made,” while the average non-Catholic would say, “Surely some exceptions may be made.”

What justification can a Catholic offer for these exceptionless rules?  I think there are three.  Given space limitations, I won’t elaborate, at least not today.

First, the Catholic can say: “This is what divine Revelation tells us.  These absolute rules have been revealed to us by God, speaking through Jesus, through the Bible, and through the Church.  We dare not disagree with God.”

Second, the Catholic can say:  “This is what natural law tells us, and by natural law I mean a moral law that is the common law of the human race, a law that all humans understand, at least in its fundamental principles.  We must listen to the voice of nature.”

Finally, the Catholic can say: “Once you allow for a few exceptions, you’ll soon have to allow for more, and then more and more, until, finally, the rule collapses altogether.  Make a few exceptions for divorce, and soon people will divorce for trivial reasons.  The same with abortion, suicide, adultery, etc.”

In fact, as we’ve seen in recent decades, that’s precisely what has happened. The process begins with hard cases and has within it no limiting principle. And so the norms themselves essentially evaporate except as “ideals.”

I hope to analyze this problem, which has now gotten entry even in Church circles, in the near future

Mary: Mother of the Church by Mary Ortwein

 Mary: Mother of the Church

Mary Ortwein

It was the day after Pentecost, and Mary was sorting through her thoughts.  What a day it had been!  She, the other women who had befriended Jesus, and the disciples had been praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit ever since Jesus had disappeared into the sky.  The others had been asking her, “What exactly are we praying for?”  She knew, but the Spirit had not given her words to tell them, so she had said little.

But, oh, my!  There was a great wind—in the room with them.  And such an energy.  It was like the air was alive!  Then tongues of fire came out of the wind and touched them.  They were tongues of fire, but they did not burn, they did not hurt.  Instead, she watched as people exploded with the sweet joy that she knew was the Spirit’s touch. There wasn’t even chaos, but everyone got up.  They went as one body out of the room. It was like the wind carried them into the streets.  Every one of them had been so filled with joy that people even thought they were all drunk.  They weren’t drunk, but they weren’t normal either.  They were babbling, speaking in strange languages, which, amazingly, people understood.

Peter stood up and spoke like he had never spoken before.  These were clear thoughts and strong emotions, spoken with conviction and a certain power.  He told the story of her son–his life, death, and resurrection.  He told it well!  So many people who had been on the edges of Jesus’ teaching had shaken their heads “Yes!” to what Peter said.  They were moved.  Tears flowed.  They answered Peter’s call for repentance and baptism.  Yes, Jesus would be very pleased with Peter yesterday!

But then, Mary grew pensive.  She was back in her habit of “pondering in her heart” this morning.  Her sense was that yesterday everything changed for her.  For one thing, instead of 120 or so people to “mother,” now there were 3000 more.  Mary knew many of them.  A good number were women—some coming into the group of disciples with their husbands.  Others came as widows.  “Yes,” Mary thought, “I need to pay special attention to them. Most of them have no means or little means of support.”  Mary smiled.  “Well, I guess I will be mother to them…and continue to be mother to those disciples and….”

A New Feast

This inner dialogue is imaginary, but the role of the Blessed Virgin as “mother” is very real.  Pope Francis promulgated a new feast in honor of Mary in 2018, Mary, Mother of the Church.  It is always to be on the Monday after Pentecost—today.  It’s a new feast, but with an old title. St Ambrose of Milan seems to be the first person to use it—in the fourth century.

We know Mary to be the Mother of God.  We know her to be our mother—a mother to each and all of us.  But perhaps it is good to think a bit about Mary, Mother of the Church.

Part of the title comes from the fact that Mary is listed in Acts as being in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost.  And Pentecost is considered the birthday of the church.  She, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God, was present for the church’s birth, too.

I have spent the Easter season reading a short section of Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) each morning.  Paragraphs 52-68 of this core document of Vatican Council II summarize church teaching about Mary beautifully.  If you want to know exactly what official church teaching about Mary is, use this resource.

Here is a small part of what it says:

The Virgin Mary, who at the message of the angel received the Word of God in her heart and in her body and gave Life to the world, is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the redeemer.  Redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son and united to him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with her high office and dignity of the Mother of the Son of God, and therefore she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth.  But, being of the race of Adam, she is at the same time also united to all those who are to be save; indeed, “she is clearly the mother of the members of Christ…since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” (Lumen Gentium, paragraph 53)

Today’s Gospel

We can think about church teaching in Lumen Gentium and we can picture today’s Gospel.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.”  And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.”

Jesus wasn’t just arranging for someone he trusted to look after the needs of his mother, who would have no means of income or support with her only child crucified.  Jesus was doing that—but he was also doing much more:

Jesus was giving Mary the task of mothering the disciples, mothering the church—and mothering us.

On May 1, Archbishop Gomez reconsecrated the United States to Mary’s care under the title, “Mary, Mother of the Church.”  In this action, he joined bishops in many countries and Pope Francis in turning over our world to Mary’s love and protection during this pandemic time.  Here is one of the prayers of that ceremony–a good prayer for us today.

Prayer:

Accept with the benevolence of a Mother the act of consecration that we make today with confidence, and help us to be your Son’s instruments for the healing and salvation of our country and the world.

Mary, Mother of the Church, you are enthroned as queen at your Son’s right hand: we ask your intercession for the needs of our country, that every desire for good may be blessed and strengthened, that faith may be revived and nourished, hope sustained and enlightened, charity awakened and animated; guide us, we pray, along the path of holiness. Mary our Mother, bring everyone under your protection and entrust everyone to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Three Births and the Third Person of the Trinity (reblogged)

On the Readings for Sunday, May 31, 2020, Pentecost Sunday

Detail from “Pentecost” (c.1545) by Titian [WikiArt.org]

Readings:
• Acts 2:1-11
• Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
• 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Rom 8:8-17
• Jn 20:19-23 or Jn 14:15-16, 23b-26

He is silent, yet sounds like rushing wind; he is invisible, but appears as tongues of fire; he is constantly working and giving, but is often overlooked and underappreciated.

He is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, the third Person of the Trinity. He has many names in Scripture, including Advocate, Comforter, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of grace.

In the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the coming of the Holy Spirit is described as “a noise like a strong driving wind” and his presence as “tongues as of fire.” Notice how elusive the language is: the Holy Spirit is not a driving wind, but is like such a wind; he is not a tongue of fire, but appears as one. There is a paradox here, which is so often the case with the Holy Spirit: he is both very elusive and yet constantly active. It’s as though you see something or someone out of the corner of your eye, but no matter how quickly you turn, they are gone.

Isn’t this the sense conveyed by Jesus, who said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8)? The word “born” is deeply significant for there are three very important births, or creations, described in Scripture in which the Holy Spirit moves and acts, giving life.

These three births are closely connected. First, there is the birth of the cosmos and the creation of the world: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). There it is again: the Spirit was moving. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et vivificantem (Pentecost, 1986), further notes that the presence of the Spirit in creation not only pertains, of course, to the cosmos, but also to “man, who has been created in the image and likeness of God: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” (par. 12).

The second instance is the conception of the God-man, Jesus Christ. What did the angel say to Mary? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk. 1:35). Once again, the Holy Spirit is active; he is coming with power. Once again, he is intimately involved in bringing about a man. In the first creation it was Adam; now, the new Adam.

The third birth, or creation, took place at Pentecost, fifty days after the death and resurrection of Christ. “The time of the Church began,” wrote John Paul II, “at the moment when the promises and predictions that so explicitly referred to the Counselor, the Spirit of truth, began to be fulfilled in complete power and clarity upon the Apostles, thus determining the birth of the Church” (DV, 25). At Pentecost, the Church—the family of God and the mystical body of Christ—is birthed by the Holy Spirit. And he is the soul of the Church. “What the soul is to the human body,” wrote St. Augustine, “the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 797).

Emile Mersch, S.J., in The Theology of the Mystical Body (Herder, 1952), wrote: “The Holy Spirit is continually being sent, and Pentecost never comes to an end.” The Acts of the Apostles reveals the Holy Spirit “ceaselessly coming down into the world, no longer under the form of fiery tongues, but through the intermediary of the apostles and their preaching.”

He is still coming, filling, moving, and giving life. Let’s pay attention!

(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the May 23, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

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About Carl E. Olson  1135 Articles

Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Will Catholics Be “Left Behind”?, co-editor/contributor to Called To Be the Children of God, co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius), and author of the “Catholicism” and “Priest Prophet King” Study Guides for Bishop Robert Barron/Word on Fire. He is also a contributor to “Our Sunday Visitor” newspaper, “The Catholic Answer” magazine, “The Imaginative Conservative”, “The Catholic Herald”, “National Catholic Register”, “Chronicles”, and other publications.

Why your spiritual health should be a priority during sickness BY Philip Kosloski

 

St. John Paul II urged those suffering to ask the hardest questions in life and not neglect their spiritual health.

Often when we get sick, the only thing we think about is our physical health. We want to get better and tend to block out all other areas of life.

However, St. John Paul II believed sickness was precisely the time to ask some of the hardest questions in life, diving deeper into your own spiritual life.

He explains this in his letter on the World Day of the Sick in 2005.

The annual celebration of the World Day of the Sick offers everyone a possibility of understanding better the importance of pastoral health care. In our time, marked by a culture imbued with secularism, some have at times been tempted not to recognize the full value of this pastoral context.

They think that human destiny is played out in other fields. Instead, it is precisely in times of sickness that the need to find adequate responses to the ultimate questions about human life is the most pressing: questions on the meaning of pain, suffering and death itself, considered not only as an enigma that is hard to face, but a mystery in which Christ incorporates our lives in himself, opening them to a new and definitive birth for the life that will never end.

When we are sick, we are always faced with the possibility of death. This can be a scary thought, but for the Christian, it should also include thoughts of hope.

In Christ lies the hope of true, full health; the salvation that he brings is the true response to the ultimate questions about man. There is no contradiction between earthly health and eternal salvation, since the Lord died for the integral salvation of the human person and of all humanity.

Jesus is the answer to sickness, suffering and death. He alone can offer us peace during times of uncertainty and grant us a glimpse of the glory that is to come.

In conforming us to the mystery of the crucified and Risen Christ, the Holy Spirit opens us from this moment to the joy that will culminate in our beatific encounter with the Redeemer. In fact, the human being does not only aspire to physical or spiritual well-being, but to a “health” that is expressed in total harmony with God, with self and with humanity. This goal can only be reached through the mystery of the passion, death and Resurrection of Christ.

If we find ourselves sick or in great pain, let us not forget our spiritual health and unite ourselves to Jesus on the cross, who provides for us all the answers we could ever need

Archbishop Viganò Plans: for a New World Order must be ‘unmasked, understood, and revealed’ ‘The idea of plans for a New World Order under which countries and ordinary citizens saw their identity taken away by a powerful elite might have seemed absurd until a few years ago’ Archb

Archbishop Viganò Plans: for a New World Order must be ‘unmasked, understood, and revealed’

‘The idea of plans for a New World Order under which countries and ordinary citizens saw their identity taken away by a powerful elite might have seemed absurd until a few years ago’

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò speaks at the Rome Life Forum in May 2018.

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

May 14, 2020 (Veritasliberabitvos) – On May 8, three Cardinals and nine Bishops, together with many doctors, journalists, lawyers, thinkers, and professionals from all over the world launched an appeal to raise public awareness among people, governments, scientists, and the media about the serious dangers to individual freedom caused during the spread of Covid-19.

These dangers have been felt more severely in some countries than others, but the attention of Catholics and people of good will must be drawn everywhere so that we can all understand together what is happening: if we all consider only the health side of the epidemic – and fail to understand its social, economic, political, and religious implications – we will be on the way to a future in which governments and the Church hierarchy will be drawn down by powers which think there is no higher authority than themselves and whose purpose is very unclear.

The idea of plans for a New World Order under which countries and ordinary citizens saw their identity taken away by a powerful elite might have seemed absurd until a few years ago. Now these very plans are being stated and indeed pushed as good for society and for individuals. These plans as promoted by international groupings must be unmasked, understood, and revealed. In ordinary times such would be the task of the media, to make each of us aware of what is happening so that we can speak out against it as individual believers and members of a community.

This is the purpose of the Appeal: to break the media silence we are seeing, especially in terms of the lack of any discussion of individual freedoms and rights. These are now being censored and controlled. We also wish to ask members of the scientific community to discuss these matters without pressure being applied by economic or ideological interests, and to remind governments of their responsibility for the good of all.

The Appeal has certainly raised a certain amount of discussion and debate. In Germany, many Bishops have simply spoken of “conspiracy theories,” and have completely failed to refute any of our claims. They have thus climbed onto the bandwagon of current ideology. During a recent interview with the German Catholic weekly magazine Die Tagespost, Cardinal Müller (one of the signatories of the Appeal) courageously notes that “the modern trend is to consider anyone who thinks things in a different way as a conspiracy theorist.”

He also says:

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Those who fail to distinguish between the suitability and danger of globalization deny reality. Pope Francis has spoken out against states and international bodies imposing abortion in poor countries as a form of neo-colonialism and denying them aid if they refuse to implement this. When Alberto Fujimori was the president of Peru, I spoke to many women and men who had been sterilized unknowingly and who had been tricked with large sums of money and promises about healthcare and a better life. Is this some sort of conspiracy theory? The same must be said about accusations of conspiracy theories concerning discussions of vaccinating seven billion people, even though the vaccine has not been properly tested yet and basic rights may be denied to any who refuse the vaccine. Nobody can be forced to believe that a couple of billionaire benefactors have the best plans for improving things around the world simply because they have been able to accumulate such huge sums of money.

We have heard the same sort of thing from Archbishop Athanasius Schneider: “It is amazing that the Church, politics, and media establishment have all tried to discredit – in line with mainstream trends – the anxiety expressed in the Appeal with their knock-out argument of a conspiracy theory so that any further debate is immediately killed stone dead. I remember the same sort of reaction and language under the Soviet dictatorship, when dissidents and critics of the main ideology and political regime were accused of complicity with ‘conspiracy theories’ in the capitalist west (here).”

It should also be said that the Appeal, leaving aside those criticisms which have only been made by those who wish to whitewash the countless incongruities in the things we can all see with our own eyes, has been supported by important laymen and women, and many eminent representatives of the worlds of science and the media. Robert Francis Kennedy Jr has spoken in favor of the Appeal. In less than one week the Appeal has gathered almost 40,000 signatures, and is now being read in the East.

It is clear that there is a deep fracture among the Hierarchy, and the Appeal has let us all see this. Proof of this can be seen in the clearly globalist basis for the Pray for Humanity Day set up by the Committee for Brotherly Fraternity in the United Arab Emirates to ask for an end to the pandemic, to which the Holy See immediately gave its approval.

This trend, recently ratified in the Abu Dhabi Declaration, clearly draws its inspiration from the relativist ideology behind masonic thought. As such it has absolutely nothing Catholic in it, and it is extremely worrying that the Church has allowed itself to be used as “Outreach” by the New World Order (which is absolutely and utterly anti-Catholic).

BY MSGR. CHARLES POPE : It Is The Decision of the Holy Spirit and Us – A Teaching on the Catholicity of the Early Church

 

 

The first readings at daily Mass this week recount the Council of Jerusalem, which scholars generally date to around 50 A.D. It was a pivotal moment in the history of the Church, because it would set forth an identity for Her that was independent of the culture of Judaism per se and would open wide the door of inculturation to the Gentiles. This surely had a significant effect on evangelization in the early Church.

Catholic ecclesiology is evident in this first council in that we have a very Catholic model of how a matter of significant pastoral practice and doctrine is properly dealt with. What we see here is the same model that the Catholic Church has continued to use right up to the present day. In this and all subsequent ecumenical councils, there is a gathering of the bishops, presided over by the Pope, that considers and may even debate a matter. In the event that consensus cannot be reached, the Pope resolves the debate. Once a decision is reached, it is considered binding and a letter is issued to the whole Church.

All of these elements are seen in this first council of the Church in Jerusalem, although in seminal form. Let’s consider this council, beginning with some background.

1. Bring in the Gentiles! Just prior to ascending, the Lord gave the Apostles the great commission: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit(Matt 28:19). The Gentiles were now to be summoned and included in the ranks of discipleship and of the Church.
2. The Church was mighty slowin beginning any outreach to the Gentiles. While it is true that on the day of Pentecost people from every nation heard Peter’s sermon, and more than 3000 converted, they were all Jews (Acts 2). In fact, there seems little evidence of the Church moving far from Jerusalem let alone to all the nations.
3. Perhaps as a swift kick in the pants,the Lord allowed a persecution to break out in Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7). This caused the gospel to begin a northward trek, into Samaria at least. Samaritans, however, are not usually considered Gentiles, because they were a group that had intermarried with Jews in the 8th century B.C. There was also the baptism of an Ethiopian official, but he, too, was a Jew.
4. Fifteen Years? The timeline of Acts is a bit speculative. However, if we study it carefully and compare it to some of what Paul says (especially in Galatians), it would seem that it was between 12 and 15 years before the baptism of the first Gentile took place! If this is true, then another nudge or push from the Lord was surely needed. There was strong racial animosity between Jews and Gentiles, which may explain the slow response to Jesus’ commission. Although it may explain it, it does not excuse it. However, the Lord does not fail to guide His Church.
5. Time for another kick in the pants.This time the Lord goes to Peter, who was praying on a rooftop in Joppa, and by means of a vision teaches him that he should not call unclean what God calls clean. The Lord then sends to Peter an entourage from Cornelius, a high Roman military official seeking baptism. Cornelius, of course, is a Gentile. The entourage requests that Peter accompany them to meet Cornelius at Cesarea. At first, he is reluctant, but then recalling the vision (the kick in the pants) that God gave him, Peter decides to go. In Cesarea, he does something unthinkable: Peter, a Jew, enters the house of a Gentile. He has learned his lesson and as the first Pope has been guided by God to do what is right and just. After a conversation with Cornelius and the whole household as well as signs from the Holy Spirit, Peter baptizes them. Praise the Lord! It was about time. (All of this is detailed in Acts 10.)
6. Many are not happy with what Peter has doneand they confront him about it. Peter explains his vision and also the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, insisting that this is how it is going to be. While it is true that these early Christians felt freer to question Peter than we would the Pope today, it is also a fact that what Peter has done is binding even if some of them don’t like it; what Peter has done will stand. Once Peter has answered them definitively, they reluctantly assent and declare somewhat cynically, “God has granted life giving repentance even to the Gentiles!” (Acts 11:18)
7. Trouble is brewing. The mission to the Gentiles is finally open, but that does not mean that the trouble is over. As Paul, Barnabas, and others begin to bring in large numbers of Gentile converts, some among the Jewish Christians begin to object that they are not like Jews and insist that the Gentiles must be circumcised and follow the whole of Jewish Law—not just the moral precepts but also the cultural norms, kosher diet, purification rites, etc. (That is where we picked up the story in yesterday’s Mass.)
8. The Council of Jerusalem– Luke, a master of understatement, says, “Because there arose no little dissension and debate …” (Acts 15:2) it was decided to ask the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem to gather and consider the matter. So the Apostles and some presbyters (priests) with them meet. Of course Peter is there as is James, who was especially prominent in Jerusalem among the Apostles and would later become bishop there. Once again, Luke rather humorously understates the matter by saying, “After much debate, Peter arose” (Acts 15:7).

Peter arises to settle the matter because, it would seem, the Apostles themselves were divided. Had not Peter received this charge from the Lord? The Lord had prophesied, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to sift you all like wheat but I have prayed for you Peter, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers (Luke 22:31-32). Peter now fulfills this text, as he will again in the future and as will every Pope after him. Peter clearly dismisses any notion that the Gentiles should be made to take up the whole burden of Jewish customs. Paul and Barnabas rise to support this. Then James (who it seems may have felt otherwise) rises to assent to the decision and asks that a letter be sent forth to all the Churches explaining the decision. He also asks for and obtains a few concessions.

So there it is, the first council of the Church. That council, like all the Church-wide councils that would follow, was a gathering of the bishops in the presence of Peter, who worked to unite them. At a council a decision is made and a decree binding on the whole Church is sent out—very Catholic, actually. We have kept this biblical model ever since that first council. Our Protestant brethren have departed from it because they have no pope to settle things when there is disagreement. They have split into tens of thousands of denominations and factions. When no one is pope, everyone is pope.

A final thought: Notice how the decree to the Churches is worded: It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us (Acts 15:28). In the end, we trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in matters of faith and morals. We trust that decrees and doctrines that issue forth from councils of the bishops with the Pope are inspired by and authored by the Holy Spirit Himself. There it is right in Scripture, the affirmation that when the Church speaks solemnly in this way, it is not just the bishops and the Pope speaking as men, it is the Holy Spirit speaking with them.

The Church—Catholic from the start!

Metaphysics and Theology Randall Smith

 

Inotice when teaching the works of Christian thinkers such as Athanasius, Augustine, and Hildegard of Bingen that something often mystifying to students is the metaphysical aspects of their thought.  They have trouble grasping that God is not a being, but rather the Creator of All Being.

They have a similar difficulty understanding that evil is a privation of Being, so that when a creature turns away from God, he or she turns away from the Source of its very Being.  Turning away in this way would be like a sunflower turning away from the sun.  The sun would not need to send a solar flare to kill the sunflower as punishment.  Without the sun, the sunflower would simply wither and die.

There is no setting any earthly good or any combination of earthly goods, no matter how vast or wonderful, over against God, because God is the Source of All Goodness.  It would be like choosing a few golden eggs of various types and sizes over the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Now it is true, metaphysics is often difficult to wrap your mind around, so there are legitimate reasons my students would have trouble understanding the metaphysical underpinnings of these great theologians.  But there may also be something else lurking, something more troubling.

Proclaiming that God is the Creator of All Being nails down the claim that the stories about “the Lord” are not just “stories” – stories about some divine figure in mythic time or in imaginative literature, such as the stories about Zeus or Apollo or Marduk or Odin.  No, this is the God of the Real World, not just the God of imagination or of my subjective feelings about the world.

And that is hard to accept.  It is like the difference between saying that the bread and wine of the Eucharist symbolize Christ (so we can say “we feel his presence among us”) as opposed to saying “He is present – as present to us in this church, here and now, as He was in upper room to Peter, James, John, and Thomas, whether we feel it or not.

His actual presence does not depend upon my perception of His presence.  He was actually there in the church, bodily, whether I was aware of Him or not.

When we recognize that “the Lord” is the complete and continual cause of the Being of all that is, it is a fundamental category mistake to think of “the Lord” as though He were a “clockmaker” god who could create the universe, get it “ticking,” and then go away.  “If the sun and moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out,” wrote the poet William Blake.  The sun and moon cannot doubt, but if God ever did, then they and we would “immediately go out.”  If God were not imparting Being to His creation at every moment, it would cease to exist.

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The metaphysical dimension of theology tells us insistently that the Biblical stories are not just “stories” that do not touch upon the “really real.”  “The Lord” is not just the “house god” of the Israelites, He is the God of all times and places, of every cosmos and all of history, because He is the Creator of All from Nothing.

With metaphysics, when done properly, you run headlong into the hard brick wall of reality, like saying that the bread and wine really are the body and blood of Christ.  Or like saying that this flesh-and-blood man really was God incarnate, not just a “nice guy” who said some nice things.  He is the Word, through whom all things were made, become flesh.

If you can’t accept the possibility that Christ can be really present in the Eucharist, fine, but then we might wonder whether you think God could be really present in a human person. Was Jesus really God incarnate?  Or was he just that nice guy, maybe even a “holy” guy, but in the end, just a guy?

Because if Jesus was just a “good guy,” then in the end, he was simply swallowed up by an angry, meaningless universe, which is what is in store for us.  So the sooner we admit it, the better. Jesus is either the Word made flesh, or Marx was right, and Christianity is “the opiate of the masses.” Nietzsche called the bluff on living in that illusion.

In this vast universe – the universe we really have, the “really real,” with all its vastness and complexity, its good and its evil, its beauty and its horrors – is there a meaning that encompasses all of it, and yet cares for me, this little person in some corner of an obscure planet at the edge of an immense galaxy?  Who could possibly believe that?  Christians who recite the creed at least say they do.

If Christianity is just a nice story to make people feel better, the problem is that it will only make you “feel better” as long as you’re convinced it’s true, not merely imaginatively, but really, with the reality of a brick wall or an exploding sun – real enough to stand up against exploding galaxies, spreading pandemics, and murdering Nazis.  When something like a pandemic hits, you either believe in a God who has all things in His providential care, or you relegate “God” to that category in which you placed Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Yoda:  too good to be real.

The God of the Bible is not just a god, a “creator” in that Bible story, the way Zeus or Odin are characters in their stories.  He is the God who is the Creator of the universe’s story – the Creator of everything that has existence:  every quasar, every black hole, every galaxy, every quark, every neutrino, every cosmic force, and every person who ever lived.  As C.S. Lewis once said: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

 

Reflection 150: Avoiding the Trap of Human Opinion (reblogged)

Reflection 150: Avoiding the Trap of Human Opinion Does it matter what others think of you?  In other words, should you be concerned about the “opinions” of others?  Yes and no.  No, we should not be concerned in the sense that the only “opinion” that matters is that which is true.  And the Truth is that which is in the Mind of God.  And that Truth is not an opinion, it is the Truth.  So, no, we ought not worry about opinions that do not reflect the Mind of God.  However, we should be concerned about another’s opinion insofar as our love for them should draw us to help them arrive at the truth.  Some are obstinate and hold to their opinion over the truth no matter what.  This is beyond our control.  But others are open and if we see an open mind and heart, we should also be open to any way that God wants to use us to help them shed their erroneous views in exchange for that which is in the Mind of God (See Diary #763). Reflect, especially, upon the tendency you have to become overly concerned about what people think or say about you.  Do you allow this to influence you in an unhealthy way?  Do you allow it to affect your own choices and focus in life?  Remind yourself, this day, that all that matters is the truth.  What is in the Mind of God?  That’s what you should be concerned about.  Recommit yourself to that truth and you will experience an immense amount of freedom. Lord, I turn to You who are the one and only source of all Truth.  I seek to know and believe only that which resides in Your Mind.  I choose this Truth over all the opinions of the world, and I choose to let go of my own opinions, preferring only to embrace what You reveal.  Give me the grace to live always in the Truth.  Jesus, I trust in You