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In Troubled Times, a Priest Must Pray and Conform His Heart to God

In times like these, when Church reform is so urgent, priests must refocus and re-center their lives more clearly than ever. Through prayer and study every priest must guard his heart and, in so doing be more empowered to help God’s people do the same.

Two images come to mind, one of prayer and the other of study, but both summon the priest to guard his heart and center his mind on God and what God teaches.

The first image is from the Book of Leviticus:

The fire on the altar shall be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add wood to the fire, arrange the burnt offering on it, and burn the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continually; it must not go out, it must not go out! (Leviticus 6:12-13)

The fire referred to here is the one on the altar before the ancient Temple or Tent of Meeting, but for our purposes it is an image of prayer. The prayer of the priest for himself and his people is a fire that must never go out. Prayer, as a conversation with God, must not end. Every morning the priest is to add wood to this fire of prayer; he is to offer a sacrifice of praise and beg God on behalf of His people.

As priests, we are directed to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, sometimes called the “breviary,” or the “office.” We are also called to spend time before God in quiet prayer and attentiveness, so that hearing what He says we can then offer His teaching to the faithful.

The text here is emphatic: this fire (of prayer) must not go out; it must never be extinguished. A priest who stops praying is dangerous to himself and others.

Encourage your priests to pray. Say to him, “Father, I am counting on your prayers for me.” Be specific in your gentle reminder to him: “Father, when you pray the office, please remember me.” “Father, in your Holy Hour and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, please remember my family.” In so doing you remind him of his obligation to pray and that you are presuming he is doing so.

Priests must pray. This is a fire that must never be extinguished!

The second image is one of prayerful study and careful teaching.

In his treatise, The Book of the Pastoral Rule, Pope Saint Gregory the Great applies details from the Old Testament priesthood to the priests of the New Covenant. In one reflection, he remarks on the details of the breastplate of the high priest and what they signify.

In effect, Pope Gregory instructs the priest to guard his heart, keeping it safe from the poison of false doctrine and from misplaced affections, wherein he fears man more than God and desires the approval of man more than speaking the truth. In one section he writes,

Thus, it was assigned by the divine Voice that on the breast of Aaron, the vestment of judgment should be closely bound by bands (Exodus 28:15, 28). This was so that the heart of the priest would not possess fluctuating thoughts, but be bound by reason alone. Nor should he consider indiscreet or unnecessary thoughts (Pastoral Rule Part II.2).

Note the use of the word “bands.” At the root of the meaning of the word “religion” is the same concept. The Latin root of the word religion speaks of being bound closely to or embraced by God (re (again) + ligare (to bind)). Thus, the virtue of religion binds one’s heart, mind, and soul to God. We are held tightly by Him in an embrace of love and truth.

The bands of the high priest’s breastplate warn him not to waiver, wander, or be carried off from the love and truth of God. We are not to be enamored of the world or its lies; neither should we embrace or cling to them. The priest is to cling to God and be held close by Him, not wandering off in all different directions. Being held close by God, the priest’s own beating heart begins to synchronize with the heart of God. Cor ad cor loquitur (Heart speaks to heart). Gradually the priest’s heart will become much like God’s, loving the things and people of God with proper and ordered affection and wanting only what God wants.

Further, being held fast by God will also preserve the priest from what Gregory calls indiscreet or unnecessary thoughts. Indiscreet matters are those into which we ought not to delve or pry. The priest should properly seek to know only those things he needs to know. He should also remember that there are many things he cannot fully know, many of the deep mysteries of God about which he must humbly admit he knows little.

As for “unnecessary thoughts,” this surely refers to the thousands of trifling things that often occupy the minds of many people throughout the day: sports, celebrities, or the minutia of popular culture. We can think too much of frivolous things and not enough about glorious, edifying, and lasting ones.

Pope St. Gregory continues,

… It was strictly added that the names of the twelve patriarchs should also be depicted (Exodus 28:29). For to carry always the inscribed fathers on the breast is to meditate on the life of the ancients without interruption … to consider unceasingly the footsteps of the Saints.

Yes, every priest should be deeply rooted in the wisdom of the saints and in the ancient and lasting truth revealed by God in Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition. To be a true Christian is to be deeply rooted in these things, always going back to that which is ancient and proposing it ever anew. The truths of God are non nova sed nove (not new things but understood newly).

St. Gregory continues,

 [The breastplate] is fittingly called a “vestment of judgment” because the spiritual director should always discern between good and evil. … Concerning this it is written: “But you shall put on the breastplate of judgment, the doctrine and truth, which will be on Aaron’s breast … and [the priest shall] not add an element of human reasoning as he dispenses his judgments on behalf of God. … Otherwise, personal affections might get in the way of zealous correction …

Here Pope Gregory warns against the human tendency to compromise the truth or to engage in rationalization. We can add to the Word of God or subtract from it, but either way we render harm to the purity it should always have in our heart, in our mind, and on our lips.

Too many priests, preachers, and teachers get carried away with trendy notions or theological speculations that can begin to substitute for the true word of God. All the priest’s judgments about what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, should be deeply rooted in the wisdom and the truth of God. They should not be tainted by dubious opinions, trends, fashions, unbalanced notions, or even his own sinful inclinations and his desire to rationalize them.

The priest must also be aware of personal affections and preferences. Too often in human affairs, who said something becomes more important than what he said. St. Paul says, Test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil (1 Thess 5:21-22).

Pope St. Gregory concludes,

If one fearfully considers the One who presides over all things, then he will not direct his subjects without fear.

Fear is a very deep human problem. Too many priests, parents, teachers, and others in the Church fear human beings rather than God. God would have us simplify things in our life by fearing Him alone and then not having to fear thousands of others.

Yes, too many priests and other leaders cower before congregations and preach so vaguely and blandly that almost no one can remember what was said; their obfuscations disguise the Word of God more than they reveal it.

The first question every preacher and teacher should ask himself is this: What would God think of what I have said today? Unfortunately, too many of us who preach are more concerned with the opinions of men. The fear that a preacher should have is not whether his congregation is pleased, but rather whether God, who will judge him one day, is pleased. If he fears God, then he will direct his people with holy fear not out of a fear of man. He will have a proper and holy reverence for God, to whom we must one day be accountable for our office. May neither our silence nor our rash speech condemn us!

Pray for priests and encourage them to stay faithful to prayer and to the divine fonts of truth. May every priest pray and guard his heart and mind!

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Rock-a My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham – the Wisdom of an Old Spiritual

In times like these, you need a refuge, a place to rest.

There is an old African-American spiritual that says, “Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham. Oh, rock-a my soul!” At first glance its meaning may seem obscure, but it speaks to a deep tradition and a kind of spiritual strategy that has great wisdom.

Biblically, the “bosom of Abraham” referred to the place of rest in Sheol, where the righteous dead awaited the Messiah and Judgment Day. It is mentioned once: in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke16:22-23). In it, Lazarus is said to rest and abide in the bosom of Abraham awaiting the Messiah’s full redemption, while the rich man is in Gehenna, a place of torment.

More generally, though, the image of resting in the bosom of Abraham is rooted in that of a sick, frightened, or wounded child in the arms of his father. Most people can remember awakening from a bad dream when they were young and running into their parents’ bedroom for refuge.

Spiritually, Abraham is our father in faith; he also symbolizes the heavenly Father. The ancient Jews considered the bosom of Abraham a place of security, both in life and after death. Resting in the arms of Abraham meant being where the evil one could not reach and the just rested securely.

Christians, too, have taken this image of safety and rest in the arms of Abraham. It finds expression in the beautiful hymn “In Paradisum,” in which Christians are commended to the place (the bosom of Abraham) where Lazarus is poor no longer. One of the antiphons in the final commendation says, “May angels lead you to the bosom of Abraham.”

Then came this African-American spiritual that added a rocking motion to the beautiful rest in Abraham’s arms. The spiritual life is likened to the action of a father rhythmically rocking his child in his arms. The rocking is soothing and reassuring, and (if one is attuned to it) adds a necessary spiritual rhythm to life.

Yes, rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham. Oh, rock-a my soul. In a world of injustice and great darkness, we need the soothing rhythm of the Father’s love. We need to learn to dance and move to its rhythms and not be overcome with the tremors and evils of this world.

Consider the graceful dance in this video and seek to imitate its wisdom. Learn to move to the rhythm of the Father rocking us in His arms. Learn to move to the gentle and steady beat of God’s love as He holds us close.

Rock-a my soul …

Enjoy this video, featuring an interpretation of this beautiful and rhythmic spiritual. It is a graceful and exuberant dance showing security in God’s love and embrace.

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On the Punishment of Complete Loss

In Mass for Monday of the 20th Week of the Year we read from the prophet Ezekiel. The reading warns of the possibility that moral conditions in the Church and the world can get so awful that God must take the strongest and most severe of measures.

Ezekiel experienced the coming disaster upon Israel very personally as a last warning to the people.

Thus the word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, by a sudden blow I am taking away from you the delight of your eyes …. That evening my wife died (Ez 24:15, 17).

Ezekiel wrote in the period just before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The loss of his wife was a portent of the coming disaster. God instructed him not to mourn but to turn to the people and say,

Thus says the Lord God: I will now desecrate my sanctuary, the stronghold of your pride, the delight of your eyes, the desire of your soul. The sons and daughters you left behind shall fall by the sword. Ezekiel shall be a sign for you: all that he did you shall do when it happens. … you shall rot away because of your sins and groan one to another.

As for you, son of man (Ezekiel) truly, on the day I take away from them their bulwark, their glorious joy, the delight of their eyes, the desire of their soul, and the pride of their hearts, their sons and daughters …. Thus you [are now] a sign to them, and they shall know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 24, selected verses).

The tragic moment for Judah came in 587 B.C. The Babylonians utterly destroyed Jerusalem. The Temple was burned, and the Ark of the Covenant was lost, never again to be found (until its fulfillment in the Blessed Mother Mary). One could not imagine a more unlikely or complete destruction. Why would God allow His glorious Temple to fall at the hands of an unbelieving nation?

God is not egocentric. He does not need buildings or holy cities to show His power. His most central work is to fashion a holy people and to draw each of us to holiness. God cares more about our holiness and salvation than His own external glory or buildings and shrines in His honor.

The terrible state of affairs of ancient Israel and Judah is well documented by the prophets. God’s own people had become depraved in many ways. There was idolatry, injustice, promiscuity, and a tendency to imitate the nations around them. Further, they had become incorrigible. God often described them has having necks of iron and foreheads of brass; He called them a rebellious house. Moreover, they made the presumption that God would never destroy His own temple or allow Jerusalem to fall.

There comes a time when warnings and minor punishments are no longer effective; only the most severe and widespread of losses will purge the evil. Surely this is evident in the smoking ruins of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Those who survived were taken to live in exile.

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps (Ps 137:1-2).

We should not delude ourselves into thinking that such a terrible event could only occur in the ancient world. We must consider that our condition can become so debased, so corrupted, that the only solution is the most severe of punishments, one so onerous that we cannot possibly return to our former ways, one that levels the very sources of our pride and many of our occasions for sin.

Today, we kill shocking numbers of children in the womb; no amount of preaching or teaching of medical truth seems capable of ending this shedding of innocent blood. Our families are collapsing; we are suffering the ravages of our sexual sins. In our national and international greed, we cannot seem to control our spending or ever say no to ourselves. We are saddling future generations with insurmountable debt. No matter the warnings, we don’t seem to be able to, or will not, stop. Many of the clergy have also become lost in sin; some even go about teaching error and misleading God’s people. There is indeed confusion and silence in the Church, where one would hope for clarity and words of sanity. Corruptio optimi pessima (The corruption of the best is the worst thing). Many of the faith are silent, weak, and divided, while the wicked and secular are fierce, committed, and focused.

All the while, in our affluence, we cannot imagine that a crushing end might come. Yet God said to the ancient, affluent city of Laodicea,

You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see (Revelation 3:17-18).

It becomes hard to see how God might bring us to conversion without the severest of blows.

Nevertheless, do not wish for this. Continue to pray for conversion! The alternative is almost too awful to imagine. Most of us are too comfortable to endure what might come. Saints, sinners, and everyone in between will suffer. Ezekiel was the first to suffer in the collapse of his times, even though he was one who tried to listen and to warn.

The message of this week’s readings from Ezekiel is clear: Pray, pray, pray. Be sober that God will not hesitate to inflict severe blows if necessary, so that He might save at least some, a remnant.

This song says,

Ne irascaris, Domine, satis (Be not angry, O Lord, enough)
et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae. (And remember our iniquities no longer)
Ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos. (Behold, see, we are all your people)
Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta. (Your Holy City is deserted)
Sion deserta facta est, (Sion is deserted)
Jerusalem desolata est (Jerusalem is destroyed)

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Costly Truth – A Homily for the 20th Sunday of the Year

In the Gospel this Sunday, we continue with Jesus’ great treatise on the Eucharist (John 6).

Although many of the Jewish listeners who hear Him speaking in the synagogue at Capernaum are grumbling and murmuring in protest at His insistence that they eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus does not back down. In fact, He “doubles down” and quite graphically teaches a very real (as opposed to symbolic) call to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Let’s examine Jesus’ teaching in four stages.

I. REALITY of the Eucharist – Jesus begins by insisting on its reality, saying, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Notice, therefore, that the bread is His flesh. The bread is not simply a symbol of His flesh, of His body, or of His life and teachings. It is not simply a way of remembering Him when He is gone. No, it is His flesh. Other scriptural passages also insist on the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the truth that it is His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

  • For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:23-25).
  • The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)
  • Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself (1 Cor 11:27-29).
  • When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:31, 35).

Thus, the Lord first teaches them of the reality of the Eucharist, of the bread and wine that He offers: it is in fact His Body and Blood.

II. REACTION – The Lord’s teaching provokes a strong reaction from His listeners: The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

This is one of the most difficult moments of Jesus’ public ministry. The scene is the synagogue at Capernaum, the town where Jesus worked some of His greatest miracles. You’d think he’d have a really supportive audience here!

As it turns out, you might say he had no “Amen corner.” The old spiritual was demonstrated that goes, “Way down yonder by myself and I couldn’t hear nobody pray.”

As we continue with this Gospel next week, we will see that their revulsion is so severe that many leave Him and no longer walk in His company.

I wonder if Jesus had this moment in mind when he said of Capernaum, And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to Heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Mat 11:23-24).

III. REINFORCEMENT – Jesus does not back down. Their rejection leads Him to reinforce His teaching: Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Yes, Jesus gets emphatic and uses the intensifier “Amen, Amen I say to you,” which is the Jewish equivalent of “Let me be perfectly clear.” He also switches His vocabulary from the polite word for “eat,” φαγεῖν (phagein), to τρώγων (trogon), which more graphically and almost impolitely speaks of gnawing on, crunching, or chewing His flesh.

Jesus wants to be very clear. His listeners now understand Him to speak literally, rather than metaphorically or symbolically. Jesus assures them that He expects to be understood literally. Why is He so emphatic? He wants to save us. He links the eating of His Body and Blood to eternal life: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. In order to be raised up and to make the journey to eternal life, we must be sustained and strengthened for the journey by eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

It is just like the manna that sustained the Israelites for forty years in the desert as they journeyed to the Promised Land. Had they not eaten, they would have died in the desert. So it is for us in the desert of this world. Without our manna, our Bread from Heaven, without the Body and Blood of the Lord to sustain us, we will not make it to the Promised Land of Heaven.

Jesus insists and says, “Unless you eat …” because otherwise the journey will be too long for you! For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. I am the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.

IV. REWARD of the Eucharist – Here Jesus’ words speak plainly of the reward in receiving the Eucharist: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever. Note that Jesus mentions three rewards:

Intimacy – The Eucharist is called Holy Communion because, by it, we grow into a deep, lasting union with Jesus. Our knowledge and experience of Him in our life becomes deeper and more real. We see and experience His power at work in our life.

Increase – We find that our life grows richer. Sin is put to death and graces come alive. We are more joyful, confident, and serene. We are less vain, angry, lustful, and distracted. Jesus in His Eucharistic indwelling of us produces these effects over time.

Immortality – Eternal life refers to the fullness of life more so than its length. We become more alive as we grow into Holy Communion with the Lord. This happens even now, though its fullest effects wait until Heaven. Don’t miss the “now-ness” of eternal! It begins now and grows deeper with each year. Heaven will see its full unfolding, but even now a growing experience of a fuller and fuller life is to be the normative experience of every Christian.

The Teaching of the Eucharist was costly for Jesus in many ways. Clearly it pointed to and flowed from His horrific passion and death, but even before that, He had much to suffer from the murmuring of many of His disciples. As we continue with this Gospel next week, we will see that many would no longer follow Him because of this teaching. It was, to be sure, a shocking—even graphic—teaching. Yet so critical was it to the Lord that we obtain the Eucharist, that He was willing to risk rejection and ultimately give up His life so that we could have it—a costly meal indeed!

https://youtu.be/3rQyl0tN3kg

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Love Endures All Things, as Seen in a Commercial

In his classic description of love, St. Paul says, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor 13:7).

I remember discovering this when I was in the 7th grade. A very pretty girl needed help carrying some heavy books; I had wanted to meet her and saw my chance. I gladly introduced myself and asked if I could help. Those were some heavy books, but I carried them gladly.

Love bears and endures all things. At that age it was just a crush or infatuation, but if even imperfect love can do that, how much more will love that is more mature and perfect gladly bear burdens and hardships?

Think about that as you view this amusing advertisement.

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A Grief Observed

I like many of you am grieving these days. I will not speak directly to it here, but I think you know why I am grieving.

I don’t do grief well. But I have learned to study it in others and thus find my way.

My father died more than 10 years ago, and except for essential papers related to his estate, I simply boxed up most of his papers and stored them in the attic of my rectory for future attention. At long last I am sorting through those boxes. Among his effects were also many papers of my mother’s, who died about two years before he passed away.

I discovered many things that moved me. As I read through the various papers, I was reminded that many of us never really know the pain and grief that others bear. In particular, I was struck by the poignant file that was simply labeled, “Mary Anne.” (A photo of my father and sister is at right).

My sister Mary Anne was tragically afflicted with mental illness from her earliest days. My parents knew there was trouble early on when she did not speak a word until she was well past two, and even then only at home. She had a pathological shyness that led her to shut down in the presence of others outside the home. The counselor at her elementary school spoke of Mary Anne as “disturbed” and insisted on psychiatric care for her by the time she was six.

Discretion and brevity limit what I intend to share here, but Mary Anne was deeply troubled. By age 13, she had to be hospitalized and spent the remainder of her life in 15 different mental hospitals and 6 different group homes. She was often able to visit with us and even stay over on weekend passes. She had stretches during which she was stable, but soon “the voices” would return, as would the dreams that afflicted her. Her psychotic episodes often led to running away, outbursts of violence, and attempts at suicide.

Through all of this, my parents fought very hard for her, and to be sure she got the care she needed. This often led them to various courts and generated much correspondence with insurance companies, state mental health officials, and private hospitals where she was confined. Indeed, during her lifetime my parents made many sacrifices for Mary Anne, both financial and personal, to ensure her care. At one point in the early 1970s, aware that Mary Anne felt isolated in the house with three brothers and desperately wanted a sister, my parents even went so far as to seek to adopt a baby girl.  They filed paperwork and came very close, but the plan ultimately fell through. The baby sister we never had …

Maryanne died in a fire in the winter of 1991 at the age of 30. She likely had a hand in that fire; she had set fires before when the “voices” told her to. I could see the pain on her face as her body lay in the casket and I wept when I saw her. The funeral director explained that there was little he could do since her skin had been singed in the fire. She had clearly been crying when she died—a grief observed.

My father wrote this on the frontispiece of her file:

Mary Anne Pope was our first child.
She led a tortured existence during a short life
and fought hard against great odds.
We remember her for her courage.

And as I read my own parents’ touching recollections of Mary Anne, I could not help but moved, too, by their own pain. Such a heavy grief punctuates each page. I give them great credit for the fact that they insulated the rest of us, their three sons, from the most of the dreadful details of poor Mary Anne’s struggle. They kept their pain largely to themselves and stayed available to us. It is true that there were episodes we had to know about, but as a young boy and teenager I saw in my parents only strength and stability when it came to this matter. I saw my father’s grief and pain for the first time as he wept, standing there at the funeral home looking at my sister—It was a grief observed.

After my sister’s death, my mother’s grief grew steadily worse, causing her struggle with alcohol to worsen as well; she became increasingly incapacitated. Her life ended tragically and suddenly on a cold February day. My father had looked away for only a brief moment, going into the kitchen to make a sandwich, and mom wandered out into a snowstorm. Incapacitated by alcohol and disoriented, she died of hypothermia. We found her body only after three days of searching, when the snow melted a bit. She had died almost a mile away, near the edge of the woods—In her death it was another a grief observed, it was her grief.

My father never quite forgave himself for letting her slip away. The open front door, a first sign of trouble; the searching on a dark, frigid, and stormy night; the steady awareness, “She’s gone.” Those memories haunted him. In the months that followed, he often wondered how he could go on when half of him was gone. He, too, was gone within two years. His congestive heart failure worsened and he died in 2007, literally and figuratively of a broken heart—a grief observed.

All these thoughts swept over me as I looked through this file labeled simply, “Mary Anne.” I too am grieving

There is an old spiritual that says, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows but Jesus.” And it is a mighty good thing that he does know. Sometimes the grief is too heavy even to share, even to put into words. But Jesus knows all about our troubles. There is a beautiful line in the Book of Revelation that refers to those who have died in the Lord: He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21:4-5)

For my brave parents and courageous sister, who all died in the Lord but who died with grief, I pray that this text has already been fulfilled, and that they now enjoy that everything is new—a grief observed no longer.

Requiescant in pace

I made this video on what would have been my parents 50th anniversary. I picked the song “Cold enough to snow,” since it spoke to my Father’s grief in losing mom on that snowy night.

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On the “Benefits” of Heresy

In times like these, filled with errors and a resurgence of heresies (old or recast as new), there is a cry that goes up among the faithful: “How long, O Lord?” We may wonder why the Lord permits such errors to flourish. St. Augustine pondered the question as well:

But that is precisely why divine providence permits so many heretics to come along with various errors; it’s so that when they taunt us and shower us with questions we do not know the answers to, we may at least in this way be shaken out of our mental sloth and start longing to become acquainted with the divine scriptures … many people are lazy to want to be taught, unless they are sort of awakened from their slumbers by heretics making a nuisance of themselves with their taunts, so that then they start feeling ashamed of their ignorance and begin to realize that they are being put in a dangerous position by this ignorance of theirs.

That is why the apostle too says: “There have to be many heresies, so that those who prove reliable may stand out among you” (1 Cor 11:19). Those who can teach well are the ones who prove reliable in God’s eyes. But they can only stand out among people when they teach… (Augustine, On Genesis, Book 1.2).

Yes, our detractors and dissenters provide us a gift, albeit in a strange package. Their scoffs and pronouncements that the Church is out of date and will eventually change to “catch up” to their newly minted “truths,” compels the orthodox to ponder again the ancient truths given by God and to do so more deeply.

In our own times, so beset with public dissent even from some in the clergy, there has also been a blossoming of Catholic teaching as never before. There is a magnificent array of books, videos, websites, podcasts, solid Catholic journalism, radio and television programming, and even new Catholic universities. Our teaching has become sharper and more apologetic, focused not simply on the “what” of faith but also the “why.”

As I look at younger adults, I think it is a small miracle that they even come to Mass. Where would they have gotten such an idea? Certainly not from our current culture! Although only a small percentage of them attend, the ones that do are far more intentional, devout, and knowledgeable in some ways than the generations that preceded them.

I grew up at the end of an era, in the 60s and 70s, when Mass attendance rode the wave of a cultural energy. Back then it was widely held that “decent people” went to Church. Politicians, community leaders, and business owners were all expected to manifest belief and membership, to include regular attendance at sacred services. It was part of one’s bona fides. We went to Church in much larger numbers in those halcyon days, but in many cases we did so mostly because we were expected to do so. It was not that we were particularly devout or spiritual or that we were theological giants. Rather, it was a certain box that needed to be checked off. Surely not all were attending Mass perfunctorily, but a lot of people were swept in by the current of culture. When the culture turned (not just against attendance but against belief altogether), the numbers began to ebb. The whole thing was thousands of miles wide but only two inches deep. It broke up quickly under the scorching sun in the desert of our discontent, starting in the late 1960s.

Those of us who still attend Mass today are more intentional. Few seem to expect us to attend. Indeed, our attendance often provokes scorn, eliciting questions such as, “You don’t really believe all that Catholic stuff, do you?” It is this very scorn, however, that can help to quicken our resolve and to be clearer about what we believe and why it makes sense. If you ask me, there is something deeper and richer about the faith of many Church-goers today. In many cases they have had to swim against the current to believe and to come to Mass each Sunday.

St. Augustine’s observation remains largely true. When you encounter heresy and error don’t just get mad. Instead, get smarter and more devout!

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Wuerl Record Webpage

For those looking for the “Wuerl Record” webpage, we have taken it down.  Our effort in posting it was not to minimize the information from the grand jury report, but to ensure that Cardinal Wuerl’s full record was treated fairly.  I can certainly understand the criticism, so we have taken it down.  Our taking down the site, similarly, isn’t an effort at not being transparent. We made a mistake; we’re acknowledging it. Moving forward, some of that information will be housed on our Media page.

Thanks and God Bless,

Ed McFadden
Secretary of Communications