Archive for the ‘Fundamental Theology’ Category

The Call to Celibacy

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Celibacy is a special vocation to live life without sexual intercourse and to integrate one’s sexuality completely into one’s life — into all that one does and says.

All of us are called to live an integrated life, expressing our masculinity or femininity in who we are as human persons, but so often we make the error of thinking that only priests and bishops, monks and nuns are called to celibacy. It is thought of as a “religious vocation.”

We make another error, I think, when we fail to see that all of us are called to integrate our sexuality into all we do as men or women, as masculine or feminine, when we compartmentalize our sexuality from our daily lives.

Not only are priests, bishops and religious called to celibacy but so too are single men and women. Their’s is a special vocation.

All our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are called by God to celibacy and a healthy integration of their sexuality into their lives and relationships. God gives them a special vocation, and special graces. Do we treat them as people in that way? Do we recognize their struggle to express their masculinity or femininity in a healthy celibate way, a special struggle, a difficult one, and for so many a silent one?

As anyone knows who tries to live a chaste life — celibate or married — it is not easy. Our sexuality touches our core. To integrate it completely into who we are is a journey of faith and a journey into our minds, hearts and bodies.

Let us pray for all our brothers and sisters called to the celibate state of life. Let us pray for all of us married folk who together with them are called to holiness of life which includes a healthy regard for our sexuality and its integration into our whole lives.

Posted in Ethics and Morality, Fundamental Theology, General Interest, Human Development and Life | 2 Comments »

The Wiles of the Devil

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Nowadays we tend not to want to speak of the devil and his deceptions. Many current (and erroneous) theologies would have us believe that the person of the devil does not exist, that he is a medieval artifact, and perhaps there is evil in the world but not Satan.

Well, Satan exists and he is very much at work.

I think one of the devil’s great deceptions has been and continues to be the belief that he doesn’t exist.

Scripture tells us that Satan is the Father of Lies. His lies seem very convincing. He is adept at striking at where we are most vulnerable. He loves to leave us disturbed, frightened, confused. He enters into shame and amplifies it greatly. He can take our effort to be loving and holy and try to disrupt it by confusion. He always is putting doubt into our minds for that is where he strikes — in our minds, casting doubt that subsequently disrupts our hearts and generates shame and fear. His entry points are our senses. He will use our eyes, ears, noses, hands and tongues as well as our imaginations and memories as avenues into our minds to cast that doubt that creates that confusion that generates  shame and guilt and fear.

Just look  at the story of Adam and Eve to see all of this played out in clarity. God put that story into the Bible for a reason: to give us Satan’s play book so we do not have to succumb to his temptations and deceptions.

“Know yourself!” said some philosopher whose name I cannot immediately recall. Know where you are most vulnerable, where the sources of your shame may be, and be close to God in those aspects of your lives. Pray ardently to God when you find you are exposed in your frailty. Jesus will come to you in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus has defeated the devil once for all. He reassures us that Satan has no real power over those who have been reborn in baptism and bask in the light of the Resurrection.

Love is greater than death.  Mercy is stronger than sin. Satan is no match for God’s grace. There is no need for fear.

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Modern Idols

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

I am off to a short retreat for the diaconate community. Earlier today I was praying the Office of Readings. The scripture reading was of the Ten Commandments and the patristic reading was from St. Ambrose and his discussion of the transcendence of God.

In the scripture, the first commandment is the lengthiest, “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me…” and then it goes on to emphasize and elaborate.

Is it not true that the first commandment is still the most oft broken of all commandments?  It was true during the history of the Israelites. We don’t usually want to admit this but do we not live as if other things are more important than God? We give our energy, time, admiration, awe and wonder to someone or something other than God?

God is both immanent and transcendent.  In other words, God is present in the intricacies of our daily lives; he can be recognized in his creation. How often though do we forget his utter transcendence, his infinite otherness, his incomprehensibility?

God alone must we adore.

Who or what do you find yourself adoring in your daily life?

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The Case for Humility

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Great reading from St. Irenaeus in the Office today. He makes the case for humility. An excerpt, my English translation:

“He commands us to follow him, not because he has need of our service, but to give us salvation. To follow the Lord, in fact, is to participate in salvation, just as to follow the light means to be surrounded and infused with brightness/clarity….

“And so it is with our service to God; it adds nothing to God, and on the other hand, God does not have need of the service of men; to those though that serve him and follow  him, he gives life, incorruptibility and eternal glory. He apportions his benefits to those who serve him because they serve him….

“The glory of man consists in persevering in his service. While God has need for nothing, man has need of communion with God.” — St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Lib IV, 13

Attention Deacons! Just in case we start having an ego problem. We are merely the messengers. God gives salvation to his people. We help others follow.

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Wisdom of God in Creation

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

It is interesting that we end the current stretch of Ordinary time in the Office of Readings with St. Anthanasius writing about the Wisdom of God. His explanation of Wisdom, as revealed in the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 8: 1-5, 12-36) is a wonderful treatise on how God has revealed himself in the created order. The medieval theologians were quick to point out that we can come to know that God exists just from thinking and reasoning about the natural world. We may not know much about God from natural philosophy, but we can only come to conclude he exists if we honestly think about all that is around us. Revelation, especially in the person of Jesus Christ, brings us a fullness of understanding.

Here is an excerpt from St. Anthanasius’ Discourses Against the Arians (Disc. 2, 78. 81-82; PG 26, 311.319) my translation to English:

“The Wisdom of God manifested himself and the Father through his own image, impressed on all created things. Because of this fact, one can say Wisdom was created. Consequently, that same Wisdom, who is the Word, became flesh, as St. John affirmed. He destroyed death and freed all humankind; he clearly manifested himself, and by means of himself he manifested the Father, from whence comes his words:  I wish ‘that they come to know you, the one true God, and he whom he has sent, Jesus Christ.’ (John 17:3)”

God is not created. God did not create his divine Son or the Holy Spirit.  The Trinity exists from all eternity. “To be” is in the very nature of God. Yet, as St. Anthanasius says, God has left his image in his creation.  We recognize his Wisdom in all he created. In that sense, the divine image is created; his Wisdom came to be. His divine Son, Jesus Christ did take on human flesh, become a man, took our human nature. In his divine person, Jesus the Wisdom of God is uncreated and eternal; in his human nature, he took on all our characteristics, except sin.

In short, God’s presence, his Wisdom which is imprinted on all he has created, should remind us of just how beautiful our world really is; how marvelous is all of creation; how much we need to care for and be good stewards of the natural world.

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The Rise of Paganism in Western Culture

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

I have been thinking a bit about the increasingly obvious presence of paganism in our culture. Buddhists, Wiccans, and New Age philosophies seem to be catching the attention and souls of many. One hears so often of “mindfulness.” When listening to speakers on this topic they invariably refer to Eastern pagan religions as their sources.

I am left wondering, “Doesn’t anyone read the Christian writers anymore, writers who for centuries have developed and described and explained everything that these others are now trying to explain as if it were something new?”

Our Christian forefathers have written about all of this and done so convincingly and fully. These include Augustine, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola in the more distant past; Thomas Merton, Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen and others of recent vintage. Yet so many today look outside our Christian faith tradition for what can be found within it.

At the core is a real spiritual battle that can only be described as self-rejection. This is fertile ground for the devil to work his devices powerfully.

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Here lies the core of my spiritual struggle: the struggle against self-rejection, self-contempt, and self-loathing. It is a very fierce battle because the world and its demons conspire to make me think about myself as worthless, useless, and negligible. Many consumerist economies stay afloat by manipulating the low self-esteem of their consumers and by creating spiritual expectations through material means. As long as I am kept “small,” I can easily be seduced to buy things, meet people, or go places that promise a radical change in self-concept even though they are totally incapable of bringing this about.” –The Return of the Prodigal Son, pg 107.

That last sentence is key. Being kept small sets us up to be seduce by the evil one, and misled into paganistic practice. Think of the temptation in the Garden of Eden. The devil made Adam and Eve believe they were “small” and they could become “like God” if they would only disobey God who had already revealed to them that they were great in his eyes, i.e., his beloved son and daughter made in his image and likeness.

As Nouwen alludes, much of paganism seems to promise spiritual rewards from material entities.

That which is limited cannot given what it is not in itself. Materialism is ultimately corrupt for matter is subject to limitation, only to be redeemed by God.  Our human bodies will be transformed one day, and all of creation renewed, but only because of divine intervention through the life, death and resurrection of his Son Jesus, and not because of any inherent attribute or quality matter has of its own.

Those of us ordained to preach must preach the immeasurable dignity that is ours as sons and daughters of God. We need preach that our smallness is swallowed up in our divine adoption, that our dignity is immense in God’s sight.

Christ is the way and the truth.  He is our light and our salvation.

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“Bilingual” Christianity

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I heard on a talk show this morning a guest saying that we Christians need to be “bilingual” in today’s world. 

He wasn’t referring to speaking a foreign language, even though I personally believe that is an increasingly important skill to have nowadays.

He was talking about Christians need to be able to dialogue with secularists and atheists about our faith. We need to use one language in worship and liturgy (the language of the Scriptures and theology) and another language when speaking to the broader culture, with those who do not have faith.

Seems to me St. Paul did just that with the Greeks. He had mixed success in the immediate moment. His speech in Athens almost got him killed, certainly misunderstood. But he persisted with the basic idea of making Christianity “hearable” to the pagan Greeks by speaking their language and using their conceptual constructs.

A challenge for those of us ordained and sent forth as bearers of the Word, heralds of the Gospel of Christ. Just as needed today as in the 1st Century. Seems to be especially true in the interface between faith and science; in the interface between moral teaching and the realities of modern life; and in the meeting of politics and religion.

Dinesh D’Souza has written a book entitled, Life After Death – The Evidence . I haven’t read it, but I am informed that in it he attempts to bridge the language gap between faith and science in dealing with what we know from physics and from our faith regarding eternal life.

I’ll see if I can get a copy and peruse it, reporting back later.

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The Manhattan Declaration

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

As you may have already read, a large contingent of Catholic bishops (including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York), evangelical leaders, Orthodox bishops and other religious leaders have signed and promulgated The Manhattan Declaration. It speaks to the sanctity of human life, the sanctity of marriage as a union of one man and one woman, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

The unfortunate effects of poorly formed consciences have led to an upswing of attacks on human life and a truly free human society, a freedom that can come only with a recognition of the common good and by orienting all we do toward that which is knowably good and in accord with objective truths.

So much of our world today bristles at the Church because it dares to proclaim that there are objective truths that are knowable and binding on all of humankind, not just Catholics. Truths that are not the creation of caprice or whim or personal construction, but known by us through full use of our reason and amplified by Divine Revelation.

You can read the Declaration at: http://manhattandeclaration.org

Thanks to parishioner Michelle for renewing my attention to this declaration.

Posted in Ethics and Morality, Fundamental Theology, Politics | No Comments »

The End Times — St. Fulgentius of Ruspe

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Today’s Office of Readings includes a section from the treatise entitled, “The Remission” written by St. Fulgentius of Ruspe.  He speaks of the end times for each of us personally.

Here is a snippet (my translation of the Italian):

“Grace first works, as divine gift, a renewed spiritual resurrection by means of an interior justification.  Then there will come a resurrection of the body that perfects our justified state. The final transformation will consist of glory. But this change will be definitive for eternity.

“It is through this that the faithful pass by successive transformations of justification, then resurrection and then glorification, for this remains unchangeable for eternity.

“The first change occurs here through illumination and conversion, that is from the passing from death to life, from sin to justification, from infidelity to faith, from evil acts to a holy manner of life. Those that are raised by this resurrection do not undergo a second death. These are those of whom the Apocalypse speaks: ‘Blessed and holy are those that take part in the first resurrection. Death no longer has power over them.’ (Ap. 20,6)

“In the same book it is said: ‘The victor will not be struck by a second death’ (Ap. 2,11). Therefore, just as the first resurrection consists of the conversion of heart, so to does the second death consists sin eternal torture.”

I like how he describes this process of conversion and glorification. In this life, we work to justify ourselves by faith and conversion from sin. We experience then, a sort of spiritual resurrection, as we celebrate in Baptism especially, and the sacraments of Penance and of the Sick. In the world to come we will experience the raising of our bodies on the last day, and the just will be glorified with God in heaven; the unjust will experience eternal death.

What a wonderful journey we are on!  Be not afraid!  As long as we keep ourselves in the race, God will see to it that we are awarded the victor’s prize!

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Pope Benedict on the End Times

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

As you know, we are in the last two weeks of the liturgical year. Today’s readings for Mass are all about the end times, and the homilies of today are centered on that.

Our Holy Father similarly took up this theme today in his Angelus address to the pilgrims in Rome. Here is an excerpt, my translation of the Italian original:

“..Saint Mark .. presents today part of Jesus’ discourse on the end times.  In this discourse, there is a phrase that strikes us because of its clarity: ‘The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.’ (Mk 13,31) Let us stop a while and reflect on this prophecy of Christ.

“The expression ‘the heavens and the earth’ is frequently found in the Bible to indicate the whole universe, the entire cosmos. Jesus declares that everything is destined to ‘pass away’. Not only the earth, but also the heavens that here he is using in a cosmic sense, not a synonym for God.  The Sacred Scriptures do not know ambiguity: all of creation is marked by a limit … there is no confusion between the creator and the created, but rather a clear difference. With such a clear distinction, Jesus affirms that his words ‘will not pass away’, that is, they exist as a part of God and thus they are eternal. Even though they are pronounced in the concreteness of earthly existence, they are prophetic words par excellence, as Jesus affirmed in another place, turning to the heavenly Father: ‘The words that you have given me I have given to them. They have accepted them and they truly know that I have come from you, and they have believed that you have sent me.’(John 17,8) In a famous parable, Christ compares himself to a sower of seeds and explains that the seed is the Word: those that hear it, accept it and bear fruit are part of the Reign of God, that is they live under its rule; the remain in the world, but are no longer of the world; they carry in themselves the seed of eternity, a principle of transformation that manifests itself already now in a good life, animated by charity, and in the end produces the resurrection of the body. Behold the power of the Word of Christ.”

I guess the point the pope is making (perhaps?) is that when we start reflecting on the end times, our own limited earthly life, we need remember that there is planted within us the seeds of eternity, the Word of God sent by the Father that never will be destroyed if we listen, accept and bear fruit as called to do.

How great is our dignity to be called sons and daughters of God!

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God as Father, and Mother?!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

His Holiness, Pope John Paul I had this to say on September 10, 1978 in his Angelus address to the people:

“We are the objects of undying love on the part of God. We know: he has always his eyes open on us, even when it seems to be dark. He is our father; even more his is our mother. He does not want to hurt us, He wants only to do good to us, to all of us. If children are ill, they have additional claim to be loved by their mother. And we too, if by chance we are sick with badness, on the wrong track, have yet another claim to be loved by the Lord.”

What is remarkable here is the image of God as mother.  We as Christians are not used to this imagery, even though the ancient Hebrews would occasionally use the image of a mother to describe God’s love for his people. I don’t know, but to my knowledge, no other pope in modern memory at least has ever referred to God as “our mother.”

Doing so does not detract from God’s being or doing. It doesn’t diminish what we know and believe regarding our Blessed Mother Mary.

God of course has no gender, for he is infinitely pure divine spirit.  

Over the course of salvation history, the ancient inspired writers of the scriptures have tended to use the imagery of fatherhood to depict God the Father and that of fire or wind or water or a dove to depict the Holy Spirit and the youthful man for Jesus. Yet the Old Testament does in places use the image of a mother to make a point about God’s fidelity and his love.

I can well imagine a number of eyes were raised and sighs groaned when Papa Luciani mentioned God as mother in this address. But you cannot dispute the point being made. God loves his people with a maternal tenderness and fidelity, just as he loves us as a father who loves his children. 

We are loved by our infinite God.

Posted in Fundamental Theology, Papa Luciani (Pope John Paul I), Popes | 2 Comments »

The Devil’s Fear

Friday, October 30th, 2009

I will be preaching the weekend of November 7-8 about the power of the mercy and grace and presence of God in our lives.  Been working on the homily the last couple of days.

I was surprised to see an article on the web about Msgr. John Esseff, who had been the exorcist for the diocese of Scranton. His comment that the devil is afraid of us struck me.  We are all to often afraid of the devil, and our own sin. But here is a man who apparently has directly confronted the devil and his testimony is that the devil is afraid of us.  Thus, we have no need to really fear evil, for good had conquered it completely.

Msgr. Esseff reminds us though that “we have to wake up to who we are.” Good point.  Too many of us are asleep, unconscious of the reality that we are adopted sons and daughters of the Lord.  We are made in the image and likeness of God, and with baptism, we are inundated, infinitely filled with the gift of the Spirit.

No wonder the devil fears us.

Let us be awake and alert to the power and presence of the love of God — his grace — within us and all the baptized.

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Saint of the Day Quote

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

January 2 is the feast day of Sts. Basil and Gregory. St. Basil, in his tract on the Holy Spirit, has a beautiful line about divine nature.

He wrote,  “As the Father is made visible in the Son, so is the Son made present in the Spirit.”

I think that is a wonderful way of understanding the Trinity.

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