Log on to: www.ninedaysthatchangedtheworld.com
It is a trailer for an upcoming movie on June 2-10, 1979, the nine days when Pope John Paul II went back to his native Poland, and the beginning of the end of the Iron Curtain and communist reign in Poland.
Very well done.
I am reading the Pastoral Letter of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled, Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan. I would recommend this to all married couples and indeed to all members of the Church.
There is one section I would like to quote for your reflection. It is taken from Part One, Chapter Two of the letter under the heading, “Male-Female C0mplementarity is Essential to Marriage.”
“Marriage,…. is a unique communion of persons. In their intimate union as male and female, the spouses are called to exist for each other. Just as Genesis describes Eve as a helper for Adam, we can see that in marriage, a husband and wife are meant to help each other through self-giving. “In the ‘unity of the two,’ man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together,’ but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other.’“
“This communion of persons has the potential to bring forth human life and thus to produce the family, which is itself another kind of communion of persons and which is the origin and foundation of society. It is precisely this difference between man and woman that makes possible this unique communion of persons, the unique partnership of life and love that is marriage. A man and woman united in marriage as husband and wife serve as a symbol of both life and love in a way that no other relationship of human persons can.”
There is the heart of marital spirituality….. to mutually exist one for the other. Our very existence becomes totally other-centered, for the good of our spouse, and in doing so, have that compete gift of self be transformed into new life.
Pope Paul VI was prophetic in Humanae Vitae, when he reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that the unitive end (self-giving without reserve) must never be separated from the procreative end (open to new life) of marriage.
O how far so many of we married folk have to go in living this sacrament to the full!
“These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.” — G.K. Chesterton, 1928
I was visiting a parish today and one of my brother deacons was the homilist. As you know, today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and Deacon John began with an engaging recalling of his boyhood experiences with a sheep herd, a delightful story of a newly appointed bishop, and then skillfully, sincerely, honestly, lovingly and very effectively preached on the world-wide scandal in the Church of priests and bishops who have neglected their flocks and scattered their sheep because of their sexual perpetration of minors.
Deacon John, I commend you for what you did today in speaking the truth with love. You exercised your prophetic ministry as deacon. In that one hour, you evidently lived the three-fold munera of the diaconate: Servant of Charity, Servant of Liturgy, and Servant of the Word.
Bless you!
I’d like to quote Herbert Vorgrimler in his book, Sacramental Theology, (pg. 27o):
“… all that a deacon does is done as a member of the hierarchy, of the clerus; whether married or not, the deacon makes it clear that the liturgy must have concrete consequences in the world with all its needs, and that work in the world that is done in the spirit of charity has a spiritual dimension. Sacramental ordination asks for and effects in deacons the grace to perform this service.” (Italics are author’s)
Vorgrimler says that all we do is done as a member of the hierarchy. It is so tempting at times to compartmentalize our lives as deacons — “diaconate ministry” from “occupational responsibilities” from “family responsibilities”. If we fall into that trap, we betray our identities and we fragment our vocations, doing harm to all three aspects of our lives.
There are profound implications here for diaconal spirituality when it becomes identified with marital spirituality, as it is for most deacons. The richness of this has only begun to be explored by the theologians (at least in contrast to the vast writings and thought on Holy Orders and celibacy).
To be a married deacon is in some way a calling to more fully and deeply understood marital spirituality. A call to the diaconate after marriage can only be well understood if it is seen as a divine call to a form of marital spirituality that not only plummets the mysterious depths of our relationship with our wives but arises from its foundation. Our marriages are transformed and necessarily are called to new heights. After ordination, we love and communicate and give ourselves to our wives as clerics, as deacons, as Icons of Jesus the Servant.
How then does the grace of ordination affect our wives, for we are in marriage no longer two, but one?
Try to wrap your mind around this. A lot to apprehend and appreciate. A lot for which to be grateful. A great source for meditation and prayer.
“Be not the greatest, unless in your greatness you are the servant of all.” — Bishop John M. Quinn, August 22, 2009
“Prayer is the cup for drinking the grace of the Holy Spirit from the abundant fountain of delight, the Blessed Trinity.” — St. Bonaventure, OFM
I have been nominated for the Cannon Ball Catholic Blog Awards for the Best Under Appreciated Blog. This annual competiton is sponsored by the blog, The Crescat.
As they say in Chicago, “Vote early and vote often.”
To view nominations and to vote eventually, log on to The Crescat .
I will be counting on your votes!
“The servant of God cannot know how much patience and humility he has within himself as long as everything goes well for him. But when the time comes in which those who should do him justice do quite the opposite to him, he has only as much patience and humility as he has on that occasion and no more.” — St. Francis of Assisi
We would do well to recall this in our prayer. St. Francis couples patience with humility. In my short time of diaconate ministry, I have found that both virtues are hallmarks of a good deacon. We are not always well-received, nor well-understood. What may be ours in justice does not always come to us, yet in all things we are called to patience endurance and humble service.
One of the things that really bothers me in the field of contemporary healthcare has to do with Advanced Directives (AD) and their effect on the patient-professional relationship.
At face value, one might say, ADs are an expression of the desires of a patient regarding future healthcare interventions if and when the patient is unable to express those desires due to illness, injury or the natural process of death. They also give family members a clearer indication of a family member’s preferences or desires should the patient not be able to communicate them clearly in the moment.
The problem I have with them are these:
While patient consent to any medical procedure is sacrosanct, issuing future direction for feared situations may not be. Of great concern is the a good understanding of what motivates and develops patient consent. Similarly, patient directives as provided by ADs, are of great importance, but also of major significance is the process and motivation leading to those directives.
Secondly, medical personnel are not mere providers of services in a contractual sense. I get so frustrated with the current language prevalent in today’s medical world. Patients have become “customers” and we doctors, nurses, social workers and others are “providers of service.” The business mentality has infiltrated American medicine. Medical personnel have become individuals who provide a service that is “purchased” by our “customers.” This is a the great de-professionalization of healthcare. We no longer are as free as we once were, (and we are losing more and more of what freedom remains), to act in the best interests of our patients.
This sets up real moral and ethical problems. My patient may want me to perform or withhold certain interventions that clearly are not in the best interest of his or her health and life. My patient may believe they are paying for my assistance, and demand I comply with their wishes even though to do so would violate basic ethical or professional standards of care. No professional should be obligated to comply with such requests. To do so renders the medical professional a technician or a craftsperson, but not a person of profession.
The patient-professional relationship is a covenanted relationship, not a simple contractual one. It is based on a deep conviction that one is obligated to treat the person with respect and to act based on the spiritual/ethical bases for engagement of the individual.
I strongly suspect that if more doctors, nurses, social workers and others practiced their professions from covenanted commitments to their patients, these concerns would evaporate.
The problem in healthcare does not lie with the patients, as much as we would like to blame them. The problem is not that there are too many sick people that we can’t afford to treat. The problem is not that the elderly are consuming too many of our healthcare dollars in the end stages of life.
The problem is that we healthcare professionals have more and more abandoned our sacred covenant with the sick. We are caving into the power of the dollar. Not only are the sick endangered, but we give away our professionalism.
We have more than enough money to do this right. Just stop fighting a war or two.
But nowadays, with the paucity of good liberal arts education that includes philosophy and theology, and with the erosion of the experience of covenant in other areas of life, words like covenant are treated with scorn.
God help us!
“The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” — G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 5, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910
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.
Being rather computer ignorant (whereas my son is not) I hope I use the correct terminology when speaking “computerese.”
I’d like to draw your attention to the “RSS” subscribe option now available on this webpage. If you would like posts I make to this blog sent directly to your email account, sign up. It may be a quicker way for you to update yourselves as to what is going on here at “Catholic Faith and Reflections.”
Also, just a FYI, my web address may be changing in the future. If that in fact becomes an inevitability, I will apprise you all in advanced.
Blessings to you all, especially to all the parishioners of Holy Cross and Crucifixion parishes!
Deacon Bob
Today is the 83rd birthday of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict.
Ad multos annos!
May God strengthen the Bishop of Rome in his ministry as Shepherd of the Universal Church.
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” — G.K. Chesterton
