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blog finished

2011-11-21T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have apostasied from the Roman Catholic faith, and joined the cause of the Lutheran Reformation. I have resumed blogging at my original site:

www.theologyofandrew.blogspot.com

I'm sorry for those of you who are hurt, but in fairness, I was a convert anyway, so the scales are just being balanced. In the end it's really the Baptists who have lost out thus far in my confessional vagrancy.

Henri Nouwen of the Day

2011-04-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I've been doing quite well, had alot of work done for our campus ministries and the Newman Club this year. I've just been accepted at McMaster University in Hamilton, for an MA in History. My focus will be British Catholic history ie. Recusants! And to think it all started with this blog.

I remember my first Lent and how my mother bought me a devotion book from the only Catholic author she knew 'was a Christian', the late Father Henri Nouwen (who is highly popular amongst Evangelicals). Since that first Lent I have tried to incorporate Nouwen each year in some way to my Lenten devotions. I read in his book this morning:

"Be sure that God will truly fulfill all your needs... It will help you not to expect that fulfillment from people who you already know are incapable of giving it."

(He always had those awesome Vatican II-era hippy vestments, righteous!)

All Quiet On the Blogging Front

2011-02-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry to the 2 people who follow this blog, that there hasn't been more posts. I'm currently blogging at this new location, as the peritus for our University's Newman Club, answering questions on Roman Catholicism. We've had some interesting questions so far, feel free to drop by and ask some:
http://brockcatholic.blogspot.com/

If you have a question, just click "Ask the Catholics!"

St. Joseph before work

2011-01-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

I'm about to head out for my work shift today, and need to cultivate more devotion to St. Joseph and understanding the gift of work.

Scriptural Reflection

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord, and not for yourselves. Remember that the Lord will reward you; you will receive what he has kept for his people. For Christ is the real master you serve. - Colossians 3:23-24

Prayer to St. Joseph

St. Joseph, by the work of your hands
and the sweat of your brow,
you supported Jesus and Mary,
and had the Son of God as your fellow worker.

Teach me to work as you did,
with patience and perseverance, for God and
for those whom God has given me to support.
Teach me to see in my fellow workers
the Christ who desires to be in them,
that I may always be charitable and forbearing
towards all.

Grant me to look upon work
with the eyes of faith,
so that I shall recognize in it
my share in God’s own creative activity
and in Christ’s work of our redemption,
and so take pride in it.

When it is pleasant and productive,
remind me to give thanks to God for it.
And when it is burdensome,
teach me to offer it to God,
in reparation for my sins
and the sins of the world.

Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

2011-01-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

As everyone now knows, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has been erected with Blessed John Henry Newman as patron, by order of his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. It has as its ordinary, Fr. Keith Newton, who -to put it quite crudely- will now function as a bishop in all but name (pectoral cross, confirmation, mitre, crossier, votes on episcopal councils, etc).

I am excited, but the most exciting part will be when ordinariates are erected in North America (God willing) and elsewhere. I would love to join (though I don't know if I'm allowed), or at least to go to one for the sacraments just to have that English Catholic feel. I'm with Taylor Marshall in hoping that they use the Old Sarum Rite (medieval English Latin liturgy), but that's probably pushing it, as they want the BCP, which would be wonderful.

I've been reading news about this thing for 4 hours and while I find Fr. Keith a little short tempered in the Q & A sessions, he is under alot of stress and the English are that way as I remember. In any case, I will be praying for them all as I drive to Oakville today to see my old Baptist pastor and talk theology over dinner.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us
Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us

Existential Crisis and Recusants outside England

2011-01-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

I don't think anyone reads this blog anymore but here it is anyway.

I've been slowly driven into lunacy by my applications for grad school. Today there was this horrific fiasco wherein for a good 3 hours, I thought I wasn't going to be able to apply at all because of a professor. During that time period I got in a huge fight with my father who blamed me for everything and said that I was throwing away my whole future. Strangely the thing I was most angry about was that religious orders no longer accept sort of 'walk-in' members. If it had been the 13th century, I would've just joined the Dominicans as they were walking by.

Anyway, by some miracle it was all solved and appears (at least for today) that all will be well. However I had a long existential crisis for a while. I felt like failure might've been my chance to really become a saint. To flee from all things worldly. To smash my computer, pick up a habit, and just kiss the world goodbye. Become a hermit of St. Catharines and rid myself of excess weight and vice. In some ways it could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I was thinking about the Recusants after 1688 and how some people just left England forever and tried to survive in Belgium gradually selling their jewelry, etc. Perhaps if they were rich nobles in comfort and toleration back home, their souls would've been in peril.

I dunno. I'm just going to school to get my peices of paper. Then perhaps, I will have the courage to reject the faith of my parents (ie. faith in education, titles, wealth, etc) and become poor, and save my soul.

I was strangely comfortable with my life in shambles, however there is one thing I do love, and that is learning. I was truly sad today because for a minute I thought, I won't be able to learn anymore for classes. Learning is like the oxygen of my soul, as is history. Who knows what I'd be without it.

In any case, I'm in safety again, slacking off, already sinking back into vice, apathy, and ingratitude. Comfort is the chief tool of the devil methinks.

Lord have mercy.

It wasn't until 1871 that Roman Catholics could attend Cambridge or Oxford, when the Test Act was repealed. The Test Act

Tolkien on Our Lady

2011-01-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

"...beautiful devotion to Our Lady...has been God's way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions, and also of warming and colouring our hard, bitter, religion" - J.R.R Tolkien

Your throne, O God, endures for ever and ever.
Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity;
7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.
From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honour;
at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. -Psalm 45:6-9

Judas and Repentance

2011-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

The wonderful medieval hagiography "The Voyage of St. Brendan" has an amazing account of how right before they reach paradise, they find a rock in the middle of the stormy sea, and on it sits Judas Iscariot the betrayer. He explains that this is his vacation from Hell which God mercifully allows him on good friday each year (I think I got it right, but I'm working from memory).

Matthew 27:3-5
"When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself."

From a Thomistic/Catholic perspective, Judas had everything necessary. He was contrite, he confessed, and he rendered satisfaction and reparations. There was really nothing lacking (though one might argue he should've gone to Peter or another apostle, as he confessed to 'outside' authorities).

I've been trying to understand the story and have always at least known that he Judas was probably sent to Hell for suicide if nothing else. However his betrayal of Christ is always seen as the main reason for his guilt (even though other gospels say it was Satan in him).

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe O.P. seems hopeful that Judas will make it to heaven, and others have echoed his sentiment. I went to the Fathers for their commentaries and found some interesting stuff.

Pope St. Leo the Great writes:
"When he says, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood, he persists in his wicked treachery, seeing that amid the last struggles of death he believed not Jesus to be the Son of God, but merely man of our rank; for had he not thus denied His omnipotence, he would have obtained His mercy."

Origen also has an illuminating commentary:

"...sorrow being made too abundant might swallow up the sorrower. Something like this took place in Judas, who after his repentance did not preserve his own heart, but received that more abundant sorrow supplied to him by the Devil, who sought to swallow him up, as it follows, And he went out, and hanged himself.

But had he desired and looked for place and time for repentance, he would perhaps have found Him who has said, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Or, perhaps, he desired to die before his Master on His way to death, and to meet Him with a disembodied spirit, that by confession and deprecation he might obtain mercy; and did not see that it is not fitting that a servant of God should dismiss himself from life, but should wait God's sentence."

Two observations I wish to make are:

We must learn from Judas not to be consumed with our own sorrow for sins, and our own iniquity as this leads us inward, rather than to Christ who gives us salvation. Just as Judas should've turned to the apostles not the chief priests for his confession, or to Christ directly.

Secondly, that perhaps if Origen is right, if we make it to glory, we will be greeted by St. Judas. Wouldn't that be a wonderful image of how "where sin abounded grace abounded all the more"?

Ample Helpings of Augustinian Grace

2011-01-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

"Driven out of paradise by you and exiled in a distant land, I cannot return by myself unless you, O Lord, come to meet me in my wandering. My return is based on hope in your mercy during all of my earthly life.

My only hope, the only source of confidence, and the only solid promise is your mercy." - St. Augustine, Doctor of Grace

I have switched my daily devotions from Bl. Cardinal Newman to St. Augustine. It is like switching from Deuteronomy to Romans. From Law to Gospel.

I think this will make it a better year. Moral obligation is not something I need to be reminded of. I have Luther, Kant, and a childhood of "Decision Theology" going around in the blender of my heart always, and I need ample helpings of grace if I am ever to leave the rocky shores of despair and presumption for the land of Christian hope. I feel like this sheep between the cliffs of Presumption/Anti-nomian Protestantism and Despair/Moralistic Catholicism.

This little rock is the Bible, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Pope Benedict XVI.

Book Recommendation & English Monasticism

2011-01-04T18:17:00.000-08:00

Over the last few days I have been in the process of applying for graduate studies in History (Masters), and have been choosing my specific focus and areas of interest. I'm hoping to write on English recusants from the reign of the godly James II to the 45 (ie. 1684-1745). I found a wonderful book on the topic by Gabriel Glickman "The English Catholic Community, 1688-1745: Politics, Culture, and Ideology" on the period. It does a great job at showing the diversity of English Catholics and their contribution to political and intellectual culture.

I claim no brilliance on my part, but am fascinated that as I read many of the ideas of the Tory Roman Catholics I find that I too had already interpretted English history and political theory in the way that they had. It was like when I read Newman for the first time and realized I had been going through exactly the same thing.

It is nice to feel like one has company on such journies. I have been attending to the sacraments more often in this vacation time and going to the Latin mass oratory more frequently. I am constantly led to repent of all my manifest failures, a great deal of which have made their way to this blog. I apologize for the hard things I have said of any Catholic groups (including the Latin mass-ers).

While I am going on to study in History I am quite fascinated by reading the stories of Anglican and Protestant converts who ended up becoming Jesuit priests or Benedictine monks and how they wrote on English History.

I think the deepest longing in my heart would be to join a traditional monastery or live a religious life. Though there are many vices and problems both spiritual and temporal for me to face before such a path would open up, however one can always hope.

Every time I see a habit I get suddenly jealous. Though if a woman were ever to love me and desire marriage I suppose that would be good too. I think it would be fascinating however to follow a sort of new St. Benedict or St. Dominic, or St. Francis into another wave of religious life in our post-modern world, which would effect change without becoming either purely worldly or cloistered.

Sabbath & Work

2011-01-02T05:45:00.000-08:00

I work at a grocery store where most of us know each other quite well and are friends. Not infrequently do I get asked to work on a Sunday or a Saturday evening when I'm supposed to go to Church, with no other option to fulfill my obligation.

I then have this sort of Thomistic breakdown over the phone, because to love my neighbour (the Second Greatest commandment) and to bear their burdens (Gal. 6:2) we fulfill the "law of Christ" (Ga.6:2).

BUT

On the contrary I answer that ... To love the Lord your God is the Greatest Commandment. But is keeping the Sabbath holy intrinsically a part of that first group of commandments about loving God, or is it a secondary commandment about loving yourself. As Christ said: the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath.

...

Anyway, I decided not to go to work, and go to mass instead, as I went to confession yesterday (took me 5 hours and 3 trips into town to find a church that actually had it where it was advertised. Welcome to the Diocese of St. Catharines), and so I want to go to receive Holy Communion.

But if anyone has a solution or thought on my predicament and thinks I should have gone to help my brethren before going to the altar (as another parable of Christ teaches), let me know.

The English Church & Icons

2011-01-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted as much as I've wanted to lately, but I had a great Christmas, 3 days with Holy Communion and no mortal sin! It was amazing. I've been enjoying the Rosary, Meister Eckhart, my grandpa's King James Bible (Psalms especially), as well as some John Duns Scotus, and Aquinas.

This morning I went to mass... but it was an Italian mass (I didn't know till it started). It had me thinking though as I stumbled through, using the Latin responses (they sounded more Italian than English), I was thinking about the first English Catholics and how they had to encounter the faith.

The Venerable Bede, St. Augustine of Canterbury, and St. Gregory the Great are some of my heroes and I was reading again today about the conversion of the Kingdom of Kent, and thought about how strange it must've been for these Anglish pagans to see the Roman monks sent by the Pope to evangelize them. St. Bede describes it thus:

"they came furnished with Divine, not with magic virtue, bearing a silver cross for their banner, and the image of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board; and singing the litany, they offered up their prayers to the Lord for the eternal salvation both of themselves and of those to whom they were come." - Ecclesiastical History of the British Isles / England Chapter XXV

I also was reminded of how important images were for people. St. Gregory described them as the biblia pauperum - the bible of the poor, and he attacked one iconoclastic bishop by saying:

"Tell us brother, have you ever heard of any other bishop anywhere who did the like? This, if nothing else, should have given you pause. Do you despise your brothers and think that you alone are holy and wise?"

Pope St. Gregory, did not mince words. I was given a penance of adding holy images to the exterior of my computer and I was thinking about how they can still be a bible for the spiritually poor (like myself). The Orthodox say when Satan tempts you with evil images, it is best to turn your eyes to holy ones.

Now all I need is a crucifix for my wall.

May Christ - the Icon and Image of the invisible God - be born in all of our hearts this new year, and speak to us amidst the confusing languages and ways of the world.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T05:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, I've had a great Christmas eve, starting with a 7am confession and Latin mass (which all the Recusants heard) and finished with a Midnight mass in our Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria with our new bishop celebrating. His sermon was on the light of Christ and how when it enters us it dispels all darkness. I sat with my friend German/Germaine and was thinking alot about Meister Eckhart's doctrine of the birth of the eternal Word in the heart. I am thankful that God as he was incarnated from the Virgin Mary, and was born, has not left us there, but is constantly born in our hearts, and constantly descending on our altars in the most Blessed Sacrament. God is indeed with us.

Merry Christmas! Multi Benedicti mi amici!

Meister Eckhart

2010-12-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

A Dominican I've been reading lately is Master Eckhart and his Counsels on Discernment. He writes with such a trust in God, it reminds me of St. Catherine of Sienna.

"the greater and the morethe sins are, still immeasurably more is God glad and ready to forgive them...as godly repentance lifts itself up to God, sins vanish into God's abyss, faster than it takes me to shut my eyes, and so they become utterly nothing, as if they had never happened, if repentance is complete." -Counsel 13

"For however great your love for him may be, of this you are sure: his love for you is greater beyond measure, and his trust in you is incomparably more. For he is Trust himself; one should be sure of this with him, and they are all sure of it who love him." - Counsel 15

Yes, you could in a short time with great resolution turn away from all sin with a true disgust for it, and with equal resolution betake yourself to God, so that even if you had committed all the sins that have ever been done since the days of Adam and will ever be done, all that would be completely forgiven you and its punishment remitted, so that if you were to die this moment you would come into the presence of God. This is true penitence, and it comes, particularly and most perfectly, from what our Lord Jesus Christ suffered so fruitfully in his perfect penitence." - Counsel 16

"God never goes far off. He is always close at hand, and even if he cannot remain under your roof, still he goes no farther away than outside the door, where he stands." - Counsel 17

***

I'm so glad I found this man again. My friend Sam who is quite a mystic himself loves Eckhart and Teilhard and in speaking with him, I came back to the German Master. He has a great way of preaching confidence in God, but also emphasizing love rather than simply faith, and thus steers clear of Luther and goes straight in line with St. Augustine.

Portrait of an Artist

2010-12-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

My friend Danny Fast (who is an artist) found out that I was famous (If you search "English Recusants" I am on the second page of google images), and decided to do some art for the blog. He did a sketch of me today with charcoal in the same pose and style as the blessed Cardinal Newman, and I decided that his picture looked more like Eric Gill (the artist who worked on Westminster Cathedral), and after finding out that Gill was quite a sinner in the sexual realm even though he professed the Roman Catholic religion, I thought it was fitting to place myself somewhere between the saint and sinner, both in a sense quasi-Recusants like myself. Anyway, the scan that I did of the sketch really doesn't do it justice, but here it is:

I also found I looked like Chesterton in this picture:

Note: Alot of people would say Gill was a horrific totally unCatholic man for the things he did. While admitting he was indeed a sinner, I feel more in line with the Rector of Westminster Cathedral who merely says he was shocked with the inconsistencies in his life and says a prayer for his soul everytime he sees the art he did.

Blackfriars, St. Thomas, and my Vocation

2010-12-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

While I was interested in the Jesuits before, and have largely come to doubt a calling to the priesthood, I've still felt a calling to teach and most especially to preach, and thus have been looking at the Order of Preachers. I've considered becoming a third order Dominican, as I considered (and consider) becoming a third order Franciscan.

In any case, my parents (Evangelical Anabaptists) are going to Oxford next year to take apologetics courses at Wycliffe Hall, they've suggested I come along and study at Oxford, so now I'm looking into going to Blackfriars to study philosophy or theology with an emphasis in history in either field. Readers please pray for my discernment in this area, and whether my vocation is in the Order of Preachers (either as a consecrated brother, or a priest, or as a third order) or in the Secular realm, or elsewhere.

May you all have a Merry Christmas.

(Right now I'm reading Chesterton's book on St. Thomas and I can't think of anything better to post than quotes of his).

"Only one tale told of his captivity shows him merely in anger; and that shows him angrier than he ever was before or after. It struck the imagination of his own time for more important reasons; but it has an interest that is psychological as well as moral. For once in his life, for the first time and the last, Thomas of Aquino was really hors de lui; riding a storm outside that tower of intellect and contemplation in which he commonly lived. And that was when his brothers introduced into his room some specially gorgeous and painted courtesan, with the idea of surprising him by a sudden temptation, or at least involving him in a scandal. His anger was justified, even by less strict moral standards than his own; for the meanness was even worse than the foulness of the expedient. Even on the lowest grounds, he knew his brothers knew, and they knew that he knew, that it was an insult to him as a gentleman to suppose that he would break his pledge upon so base a provocation; and he had behind him a far more terrible sensibility; all that huge ambition of humility which was to him the voice of God out of heaven. In this one flash alone we see that huge unwieldy figure in an attitude of activity, or even animation; and he was very animated indeed. He sprang from his seat and snatched a brand out of the fire,
and stood brandishing it like a flaming sword. The woman not unnaturally shrieked and fled, which was all that he wanted; but it is quaint to think of what she must have thought of that madman of monstrous stature juggling with flames and apparently threatening to burn down the house. All he did, however, was to stride after her
to the door and bang and bar it behind her; and then, with a sort of impulse of violent ritual, he rammed the burning brand into the door, blackening and blistering it with one big black sign of the cross. Then he returned, and dropped it again into the fire; and sat down on that seat of sedentary scholarship, that chair of philosophy, that secret throne of contemplation, from which he never rose again." - G.K. Chesterton "Saint Thomas Aquinas" (the dumb ox)

I also pray this season, that God will give me the grace and righteousness of Christ within me to conform to his will nad practice what I feel called to preach.

St. Dominic ; St. Thomas Aquinas ; St. Catherine of Sienna ; all holy blackfriars! Pray for me that God would lead me to my true vocation and give me the grace and virtue to follow Christ in the Order of Preachers and to make me an example of his gospel in word and deed until he take me home or come again.

Amen.

Chesterton on Aristotelian Christianity

2010-12-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

In a word, St. Thomas was making Christendom more Christian
in making it more Aristotelian. This is not a paradox but a
plain truism, which can only be missed by those who may know
what is meant by an Aristotelian, but have simply forgotten
what is meant by a Christian. As compared with a Jew,
a Moslem, a Buddhist, a Deist, or most obvious alternatives,
a Christian means a man who believes that deity or sanctity
has attached to matter or entered the world of the senses.
Some modern writers, missing this simple point, have even talked
as if the acceptance of Aristotle was a sort of concession
to the Arabs; like a Modernist vicar making a concession to
the Agnostics. They might as well say that the Crusades were
a concession to the Arabs as say that Aquinas rescuing Aristotle
from Averrhoes was a concession to the Arabs. The Crusaders
wanted to recover the place where the body of Christ had been,
because they believed, rightly or wrongly, that it was a
Christian place. St. Thomas wanted to recover what was in essence
the body of Christ itself; the sanctified body of the Son of Man
which had become a miraculous medium between heaven and earth.
And he wanted the body, and all its senses, because he believed,
rightly or wrongly, that it was a Christian thing. It might be
a humbler or homelier thing than the Platonic mind; that is why
it was Christian. St. Thomas was, if you will, taking the lower
road when he walked in the steps of Aristotle. So was God,
when He worked in the workshop of Joseph.

Final Exams, Chesterton, and the Troubles during Christmas

2010-12-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

"I can only express the hope, and indeed the confidence, that those
who regard me as the heretic will hardly blame me for expressing my
own convictions, and certainly not for expressing my hero's convictions." - G.K. Chesterton writing on St. Thomas Aquinas

Christmas is a terrible time at the Cottrill house. It is the beginning of a seasonal return to what I like to call "the Troubles". Battles over the perpetual virginity of Mary, the alleged 'pagan' origin of Christmas, and the liturgical calendar in general. For this reason, and for their hardness towards my frequent explanations, I have practically banned my parents from Midnight Mass, the debates in the car ride home after our bishop grants us an indulgence or something, usually almost leads us into a Christmas car wreck. Chesterton's quotation reminded me of that.

They are even worse after this years temporary reversion to Anglicanism, which brought them so much joy.

Today I am still surviving off of the stress of completing a final essay, and going to my last exam. Though after that, who knows what will happen, freedom usually leads me to all sorts of moral and spiritual evils. I can only hope that Christ will give me his Spirit this Christmas, and keep me in his grace, which I spurn so frequently.

I need to take comfort in the promises of Sacred Scripture if I wish to survive the season. It will be the opening battle in another year of spiritual combat, and I pray the Lord give me strength.

"because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain" - 1 Corinthians 15:58

The Beggar: Three Thoughts

2010-12-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

1. I read this quotation on Renaissance Humanist Philosophy today and was amazed:

"Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophized on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature" - Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy

I was fascinated by that phrase that medievals thought on their knees.

2. It reminds me of another quotation I read from Monsignor Giussani: "Existence expresses itself, as ultimate ideal, in begging. The real protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man's heart, and man's heart that begs for Christ."

My heart is begging for Christ today, and I am about ready to get to my knees and repent tomorrow.

3. My friend Margaret told me a story about an Eastern European Archbishop who was quite ill, and during a revolt, a group of youth burst into his palace in the middle of the night, demanding to see him. The aging archbishop was brought to them despite his assistants' protest, and the youths told him that God was Dead. The archbishop then handed them some money, which confused them. He clarified by saying 'I have always felt sorry for orphans'.

Durant Quotation

2010-12-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

I found this interesting, for both it's historical insight (which I'm not sure I completely agree with or not) and for its source (Will Durant, American born of French-Canadian ancestory, and who partially trained for to be a Jesuit before eventually becoming a renowned american historian and agnostic):

"Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a "conflict between science and religion." Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and-after some hesitation- the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization." - Will & Ariel Durant "The Story of Civilization"

(Yes I found this on Wikipedia, but that has no bearing on the interesting template that this quote is)

I'm also excited a little disappointed that the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (tomorrow Dec. 8) is one that I've been waiting for for a long time, and probably won't be able to celebrate, as I have a big exam.

Feast of St. Edmund Campion

2010-12-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

Today as I should have remembered is the feast of St. Edmund Campion who was martyred this day in 1581 (I was only reminded by http://trailofflowers.blogspot.com/2010/12/feast-of-saint-edmund-campion.html). I feel less like a real Catholic many many times because I'm so bad with Calendars and geography. For the English Roman Catholics, these things were extremely important. Alas, unlike the brilliant convert Campion, much of Protestantism still lingers within me.

As my patron, I've told the story of St. Edmund Campion many times before, but today, his feast is a day to recollect for me on my conversion, my failures as a Roman Catholic, and what I have to do next in my journey.

I found it very reassuring however that when I was researching for an essay on English Catholicism today, I found this sentence on English Recusants:

"...a Catholic attending a Protestant service might carry a rosary in her pocket and recite Latin prayer throughout the service, thus ritually separating herself from the Protestants with whom she shared the church..."

Now I got really excited when I read this, because I've DONE THAT BEFORE! My parents made me go to an Anabaptist service at Southridge church in our town where a woman baptized as an infant was re-baptized, and I sat with my rosary in my pocket praying it the whole time (I can't remember if I prayed the Rosary in Latin back then as I do now). Anyway, it makes me hopeful about my Roman Catholic identity which I am sometimes paranoid about (due to ongoing baptismal scruples).

Another example of how Recusants distanced themselves was by making an especial Catholic place. In my room I have my Rosaries, statue of St. Francis, and picture of Pope John Paul II.

In any case, I want to spend our first day of winter (it snowed today for the first time of the year) and the feast of St. Edmund Campion in prayer. Off for a walk and a Rosary.

Grow in Silence

2010-11-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

"And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?" - 1 Kings 19:11-13

A Vocation is a divine calling, it is what God has designed and called you to do with your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtOvt7d490&NR=1&feature=fvwp

I was watching this video on vocations to the priesthood, and they made one really good point I thought: Vocations - like trees, and babies in utero - grow in silence.

Blaise Pascal said that: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone"

Another guy names Pascal said this: "Human beings can't bear silence.It would mean that they would bear themselves." -Pascal Mercier.

I think the Pascals are right, I need more silence in my life. I'm going to go for a walk and pray the rosary (in silence).

Musings on the Creed (2)

2010-11-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

"I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried." - Apostles Creed

"God has no son" - Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

When people tell me 'all Jews, Muslims, and Christians worship the same God' I tend to cringe. The idiocy behind this claim is three-fold. First, it perceives the deity alone to be the essence of a religion. Wrong. In almost every case of religious tension it is the human authority the diety has left that causes the strife. You see this in Islam, and Christianity. All the fights are essentially over who has the right to interpret and declare orthodoxy. Second error, it is factually incorrect. Orthodox Christians are Trinitarians, or 'monothreeists' rather than 'monotheists', they admit a plurality of persons in the Godhead: Jesus Christ IS God for Christians and thus "our Lord" as the creed states. This is entirely anti-thetical to Judaism and Islam. Finally, the error only looks at the Substance of God, and not the Actions of God. It is tantamount to saying 'James and I are both humans, therefore we're the same'. While we might share a Substance (we both have Human Natures), we have almost none of the same actions or qualities which define us. Twins might be alike genetically, but what they choose to do in life, makes them separate people.

Jesus is said by Traditional Christianity to have a divine and human nature. That is, from eternity past, God the Son has existed in a loving communion with his Father and Spirit. However when he became man, he assumed a human nature, that is, he took up flesh and a human spirit, and was then completely man, and completely God. A good analogy are the children of Irish parents who were born in the United States. By their birth they are Americans, but because of their parentage, they are also granted Irish citizenship. When we misunderstand the two natures of Christ (human and divine) we come to all sorts of errors. Last night at work, a Mormon was laughing at the idea of the Trinity because in St. Matthew's gospel Jesus says that the son of man (himself) does not know the hour or the day when he will be sent back to earth. I explained that as a human person, Christ had no divine knowledge, he did not know all, and the only prophetic enlightenment he had, came from the filling of the Holy Ghost/Spirit just like any of us could receive. He didn't know how to respond then. The Church Catholic fought and defined Christ's person for some 800 years. It would be foolish to dismiss all of their work as idle talk.

Why does this matter:

To say God is unitary like post-Christian Judaism and Islam do, is to say that God is not loving. Love implies a relationship between two things. If God is one lone person outside time and space, he could not love. He existed for 'eternity past' without any other being, thus how could he be loving? On the contrary, Christianity says, that God is a loving communion within himself. He is three persons bound by one substance, as three members of a family could all share the common substance of humanity. Therefore, creation itself can be explained as an overflowing of divine love. And the apostle says himself that 'we love because he first loved us'.

Finally, Christianity counters Islam and Judaism by putting for the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. If he were merely God, he could not act on behalf of humanity, and were he only man, he could not have had a sacrifice of infinite worth. However because Jesus was the 'God-man', he was able to offer up his life in sacrifice for the sins of the world on behalf of humanity. And as God, this offering was infinitely meritorious and on the behalf of all men. Likewise, because he was true man, he atoned for the sins of all men. This is why the fathers (condemning the errors of Calvin before he was even born) declared that Christ died for all those whose nature he assumed (that is to say, human nature). To say Christ did not die for some, would then to be saying that these people are not human.

While all of the creed is important, these article on Jesus Christ is of paramount importance, for it affirms what is unique about Christianity, condemns almost all of our current modern errors, and puts forth the only hope of the world.

Musings on the Creed (1)

2010-11-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

"I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds, for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated." - G.K. Chesterton "Autobiography" 1936

I decided to write some basic thoughts about each article of the Creed - the oldest comprehensive confession of Christian faith, in an effort to briefly explain the tenants of my religion. The ancient tradition is that each of the twelve lines of the apostles creed was held by the twelve apostles who used the creed to evangelize the world and sum up their faith.

The first line is thus in English:

"I believe in God the Father Almighty creator of Heaven and Earth"

This is the basic point of theism. It is only reasonable that when we look around us, we question -as St. Augustine did in his confessions- "who made me?"

It is a point of natural reason that everything has a cause. Something caused the world as we know it, both physical (in our bodies) and ideal (in our minds). This something would have to possess certain traits in order for the whole thing to fit together logically. This God would have to be outside time and space, as otherwise he himself would require a cause (as the foolish question goes: 'who created God'? makes no sense if God exists outside time and space).

Lets just think about this for a minute however. If we say that something outside of time and space created everything (as nothing comes from nothing), we are at a loss. How can you say something that you can't identify with any of your five senses, and which possesses no physical traits be said to exist. For modern man, the closest comparison might be that I would say an idea exists, even though I can't see it or touch it. Or perhaps one might say God exists like the meaning of a word exists. We can see letters, but to attribute meaning to them in certain combinations is not really measurable, and yet the meaning exists.

So as Christians we confess that as confusing as the idea of God may be, it makes more sense to say "something caused everything that exists for some reason" rather than the opposite atheistic claim that "nothing exploded into everything for no reason".

The last part of the creed expresses not so much the "what" which was answered earlier, so much as the why. "The Father" is the first title of God. Christians use this title for God not because he has a penis, but to express his reason for creation. What possible reason could this infinite spiritual being, freed from all constrictions of time and space, have for creating? Why create in the first place? It doesn't make sense except for one reason. Love. The sheer overflowing life and love of God poured out into the creation of the universe. It's a theory, but it's the only one I've ever heard which works.

For Saint George!

2010-11-23T22:12:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I had to write an essay on the witches of Pendle Hill and I was frantic and desperate. It's 4000 words and due at 9am wednesday (in less than 8 hours). I was super stressed tonight and decided to just take late penalties and hand it in Wednesday night. However I became extremely worried I still wouldn't finish it in that time. After I got home from work, I was more stressed than I'd been all year long. I almost cried and I almost went straight to bed. But I remembered St. Escriva's "Esto Vir!"/Be a Man, and I decided I would try to get 1000 words done in 3-4 hours.

I sat down in my chair with my computer and said "Saint George pray for me!" not knowing what else to pray. In 2 hours, I got 1500 words written for my essay, an astonishing feat. I'm now more than halfway done (I had already finished 1000 words this afternoon), and have a clear path to follow, and 4 hours tomorrow to complete it with only a 3% late penalty.

This probably seemed like a stupid story to you, not really that remarkable, not that exciting, but for me - It was a miracle. It turned my worst day of the year, into a hopeful attitude about tomorrow.

Thanks be to God for the intercession of St. George (the Patron of England).

One last note is that in a recent episode of "The Tudors", King Henry VIII leads a battle charge to capture the French city of Boulogne, and he cries "For England, for King Henry, for Saint George!"

Recusant Relationships & Religious Life

2010-11-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

Another week, another failed attempt in the dating world. Then my friend Lance, told me that I have to ask out a girl this week whom I'd talked with him about, "or else". He is a violent guy, but the 3000 mile distance makes me feel safe.

I'm getting really frustrated about things. I talked to Br. Rauol who is now our main chaplain, about celibacy, etc. He - as everyone does - tells me I should follow God's calling. The problem mainly is that God hasn't called me to anything. The last call I got was to be a Baptist/Calvinist minister when I was in England and back home in Canada for a bit. Since I've learned that I was an Arian at that time, it makes me wary of trusting any divine claims.

One fellow recusant, the English former Master of the Dominicans (Order of Preachers) says this:

"Celibacy is not just a matter of not having sex. It is a way of admiring a person for their humanity, maybe even for their beauty."- Fr. Timothy Radcliffe O.P.

I would like to look at girls and see their humanity and beauty, and feel no disordered desires, and have no machinations about how I might win them like St. George storming the dragon and sweeping the damsel off her feet. Although this proves difficult.

Perhaps I will end up a Dominican/Jesuit/Benedictine/(insert religious order here) brother after all. Although this new plan makes me laugh because of the words of yet another Recusant Dominican (a convert as well):

"whatever plans you may formulate be sure of one thing, God will frustrate them!" - Ian Hislop

Englishmen and Pelagianism

2010-11-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

I bought a book at Fatima Shrine in Lewiston, New York, called 'Lead Kindly Light' which is a daily devotional featuring the works of the Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman. What I've found is a funny paradox.

He has an almost Pelagian approach to Christian life which seems to come from his Anglicanism and that period, and when he becomes Catholic, an Augustinian approach to spirituality.

I think it's because as an Anglican he was trying so hard to come near Roman Catholic soteriology and to avoid Luther at all costs (read his Anglican work on Justification - Richard Hooker would burn him at the stake), that he goes WAY beyond Augustine and espouses a semi-pelagian fusion of the orders of grace and nature.

As a Roman Catholic who has walked in the footsteps of Newman I find the most important distinction between us and Protestantism is this (and I think they'd agree):

In late Luther and especially in Calvin we see salvation as an act removed from the individual entirely. Salvation becomes something that happened, not something that happens. Which led to the anti-sacramentalism and double predestination of the Reformed Tradition (moreso Beza and Zwingli's faults than Calvin). Thus grace is declared to be a disposition in God, not an infusion, we have not received "grace upon grace" as St. John teaches, we have received "grace". period/full stop. (or we have not)

Roman Catholic teaching has no problem with what Ratzinger/Papa Benny calls the "in nobis (In us) nature of salvation. For this we need baptism to wash our souls, Holy Communion to nourish us spiritually, and reconciliation to rid sin from our souls.

Christ has died, but he has also risen, and therefore `let us walk in the newness of life` as the apostolic exhortation goes (Rom. 6:4). And thank God Anglo-Catholicism and Confessional Lutheranism retain a great deal of this understanding.

Tonight at mass, Fr. Peter used a great example. He told a story of a woman whose son died and donated his heart to a Methodist preacher, she asked the man if she could put her head next to his chest and hear her son`s heart beating. For our spiritual father, this was an image of the kingship and salvation of Christ. That our sinful hearts are transplanted with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and as Christ beats within us, others can hear it.

In any case, there`s my random thoughts on this week. (Deo Gratias I got confession and Eucharist tonight). So watch out for Bl. Newman`s early soteriology, he is a brilliant historian and patrologist though, just not the best on spirituality I`ve found.

Immaculate Mary

2010-11-13T19:33:00.000-08:00

I just read a brilliant summary of Bl. John Duns Scotus theology of the Immaculate Conception. It is a beautiful dogma, along with the Franciscan theology of the Incarnation. I am warmed to the heart to think of the love of God and Mary's compassion towards sinful souls like myself. I've put a rosary on the post of my bed, and always think about taking up the rosary as taking up Mary's hand. A friend noted how odd he felt Marian devotion was, and how he could never get over it. I still have issues about soteriology sometimes as a Catholic, but I am thankful that in the area of Marian devotion, the Lord has given me great peace. I'm going to pray a rosary before bed, and plan when I'm going to confession this week.

“Holy ever-virgin Mother of God, happy, blessed,
glorious and noble, untouched and pure Mary,
Immaculate, chosen and beloved by God, endowed
with singular sanctity and worthy of all praise, who
are the mediator for the whole world when faced
with danger, hear, hear, hear us, Holy Mary. Pray
and intercede for us for we trust and we know for
certain that you can obtain everything that you wish
from your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Omnipotent God, King of All Ages, Who lives with
the Father and the Holy Spirit without end. Amen” - Book of Cerne ca. A.D. 850 (attributed to bishop Æthelwold)

"Hail, thou glory of this middle-world!
The purest woman throughout all the earth.
Of those that were from immemorial time
How rightly art thou named by all endowed
With gifts of speech! All mortals throughout earth
Declare full blithe of heart that thou art bride
Of Him that ruleth the empyral sphere.
So too, the highest in the heaven’s above,
The thanes of Christ, proclaim aloud and sing,
That thou by might of holiness art queen
Of the hosts of glory, of the ranks of men
On earth ’neath heaven, and of hell’s habitants,
For thou alone of all the race of men
With noble aspiration didst resolve
To bring thy maidenhood unto the Lord,
To offer it in all thy sinlessness" - Cynewulf "Dream of the Rood"

Pope Benedict XVI in Spain

2010-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

I read this article today, and was sad. Especially after Pope Benedict's unexpectedly well received visit to Britain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/world/europe/07pope.html

13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarists, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, for a total of 6,832 victims died in the Spanish Civil War. Papa Benny is right, it's happening again...

God rest their souls, and forgive me for every harsh word I have ever uttered against our Church and the True Religion.

Don't Read: Just another Complaint about Confession

2010-11-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

‎'peccatum meum notum facio tibi et iniquitatem meam non abscondo dixi confitebor scelus meum Domino'-Vulg. Ps. XXXI.V

"I have acknowledged my sin to thee, and my injustice I have not concealed. I said I will confess against my self my injustice to the Lord" - Douay-Rheims

I tried to ask the priest for confession tonight after mass. Every time my Peruvian friends ask, the cleric caves. Maybe they know that the Latinos are aware of canon law, and think us Anglos aren't so knowledgeable. In any case, I was yet again told 'come Saturday' - the day I am sure to work every week.

Maybe I should drive to Hamilton (45 min away) to the priest in jail for molestation, he'd probably hear my confession, and be lenient. It seems that if you want an absolution in this diocese, you have to do it on Saturday.

Although I suppose there is some solace in knowing that if I die, on the last day, I can just tell God that it was Fr. (insert any non-Latin Mass priest in Canada's name)'s fault.

It's not as if I'm asking for a Reformation here, it's a pretty petty request that priests actually hear confessions on a different day. Here's my plan. Next time they ordain a priest give him monday, then the next guy to ordain, give him tuesday, and so on, until we have a priest for every day. Then they don't even have to listen to them more than one day! Oh what a wonderful world that would be.

As it stands, I read today that 3/4 of Catholics in America and the UK do not confess even a single time per year. While previously, I'd always side with the first estate, today I'm wondering if it has to do with their attitude towards the necessity (or lack thereof) of the sacrament, rather than the laity.

Lord have mercy...

tl;dr - Andrew complained about Confession again.

Esto Vir - Be a Man

2010-11-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

Papa Benny and Russia Patriarch Face Off

http://www.prescottorthodox.org/2010/10/why-orthodox-men-love-church/?ref=nf

My friend who is an Anglican Priest posted this article on the Greeks / The Orthodox Church and how they don't have issues with the loss of men in the pews - or rather, they have men not in the pews... but in attendance (those Orthodox stand for their services, it's crazy).

I have been studying Russian Politics and history this semester for the first time in depth, and it is horrifying. Russian Patriarchs on the payroll of the KGB, etc, and the Orthodox Church openly colluding with Putin's totalitarianism.

BUT! I must say look at this difference. Our Church (Roman/Latin Rite Catholic Church) has faced the scandal of clerical homosexual child abuse. I'm not going to try to rate each scandal, or try to say 'our's isn't REALLY a scandal' etc. But lets just look at the basic facts. The Orthodox Church fails, because it is too manly, it has masculine virtues and masculine vices. The Catholic Church fails for having feminine virtues and feminine vices. (Although we still have those Eastern Catholic Churches we picked up, which seem to be pretty similar to the Orthodox).

This is a very simplistic surface observation. I know of no man more manly than Pope Benedict XVI. He is my ultimate hero. Look at God's (soon to be) go-to guy downing this beer like a Champion:

Now I've seen some FSSP guys who are really Catholic men, but at an unterrifying english-mass parish, there just aren't any of these folks or their message.

As I sit writing this I am an overweight effeminate fail. I could be a blood-thirsty Russian mobster, and both would be bad. However, I think that the evil one's plan for Westerners like myself is to form the worst of vices in the eyes of their culture. We need new St. Brendan's, St. Benedict's, and St. Peter's. We need the Sons of Thunder calling down holy fire upon the earth. We need to fail in that extreme, the other side of the virtue, not the one we're currently on.

I guess I'm just trying to say, I need to be that way, and am imputing it to my communion perhaps.

So like all good blog posts, after this, I will try to reform myself, get up at 5am and go to the scariest of Latin mass parishes for morning confession, and hopefully man up and do my penance without complaint.

I like the Poles (unlike most of my Anglo predecessors) they just made the world's largest Jesus, with a golden crown. It reminds me of some of the last earthly words of Christ "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" Mt. 28:18

I need to add these three images to my fledgling devotional life: Christ Ruler of the Universe, Mary "Our Captain, Queen of War" (Orthodox) / Our Lady of Victory (Catholic), and Mary Destroyer of all Heresies.

Just as a side observation: don't you readers find it annoying that the moral of every post is => Andrew needs to change ? It annoys me. One day...

(In case you were wondering the Anglican Communion fails because Rowan won't man up and kick out the heretics, and the other Protestants aren't a Church so they can only fail at an individual level)

Feast of the 40 Martyrs Of England and Wales

2010-10-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

So today is THE feast day for recusants of course, and providence in a twist of irony has made it my most busy day of the semester, leaving me unable to write anything of note.

Though perhaps the martyrs were praying for me today, as I had a nightmarish morning and was dismissed from seminar after getting sick, crying, and earning the mercy of my professor. I hope there is some intercession left for me, as I now go to give a talk on Sin and Grace for our Newman Club, followed by a Russian Politics midterm that I've barely studied for.

40 Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us.

Here are some photos I stole from another blog concerning the occasion of the canonization of the Martyrs in 1970, as well as a memorial.

The Terrible Grace of the Almighty

2010-10-23T16:24:00.001-07:00

(This is something I just wrote, after I found myself saved from a sin by the grace of God, now I'm home alone, and clinging to my crucifix. Grace hurts sometimes)

I finished half of my essay, I'd accomplished my goal for the day.
It was my time to relax. The rosary hung around my neck,
and I had kissed the image of Christ like a lover, begging
for help all through the night. I had finished now.
I didn't need him anymore. The God turned idol still hung
upon me as I paced towards my den of sin. I looked at the
places where after long strife, I indulged in the pleasures
of the flesh.

Disgust.

What had happened? Never in my life, had I truly seen what
I did. Never before had I realized that my pleasure palace
was actually a landfill, a mass grave, a wasteland.

I looked back to my saviour. This is what I had asked for,
so many prayers, so many times, a defeat and hatred of sin.

Never before had Lucifer called my bluff, never before had
he failed to answer my dark prayers, seeking always the
disordered joys of lust, gluttony, and selfishness. I felt
for the first time, truly alone. The devils door was locked
and I shakily turned around to see the giant crucifix looking
down upon me. A sinner, caught, saved from his sin. An act
of grace that left me feeling only the emptiness, the loneliness.

Is this perfect contrition? To truly see what you've done, and
utterly abhor it? To take no pleasure in the taboo places where
you used to wander. Perhaps I have finally understood, that
when Christ speaks of the poor in spirit, he meant me. Perhaps
while I felt all of my 'white guilt', my shame at the richness
around me, I was in actuality the poorest of men. Most
embarrassing to think that all this time, I looked down on my
superiors.

So here I am, at 7:13 on a Saturday night. My work for the day
finished. My God hanging from the tree, and looking down upon
my sin-sick soul. In his mercy, he has shown me how empty all
my vanity has been. The question now remains: do I have the
strength to face the overwhelming grace of God. Can I pass this
night realizing that at long last, it is I and Thou, it is Jesus
and Andrew Peter Edmund Campion C-ttrill. There is just the two
of us, me - caught in the act, christ - catching me with his grace.

So here we sit. the rosary hanging from my neck. Grandpa's bible
on the night stand. An empty bag of chips, a photoshopped woman on
the screen who holds no appeal to me. The filthy pagan relics of a
life now spurned. And then there is Christ, always Him, looking
down with the saddest eyes, all the problems of the world, stirring.
There is the Virgin, hanging with her eyes upon her son. Me, her
newest gift, hardly a son at all to be given. A rebel, who must lay
down his arms.

Iesu Christe! miserere mei peccatoris! For truly no pauper you visited
in your sojourn here, was ever as poor as I am in spirit, no man so
sinful as I. No man who ever needed you more, and esteemed you less.

Wilde said, every Saint has a past, every sinner has a future.

As the tears stream, I pray this is the end of my past, and tonight
is the first night of my future.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Book of Eli

2010-10-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

I just watched this movie.

It's about a world where there is only one King James Bible left, and everyone in the world free to interpret it however they wish.

So basically, it's about the day Baptists rule the world. And if you haven't realized already, yes this makes it the scariest horror film I've ever seen.

Feast of St. Edward the Confessor

2010-10-13T11:45:00.001-07:00

Today (Oct 13) is the feast of St. Edward the Confessor for Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

St. Edward was not a king as most of us imagine medieval royalty. He lived a very tough life in Normandy and England, and was controlled mostly by Earl Godwin, arguably the most powerful man in the realm. He had all the Earldoms but Mercia, and he forced his daughter upon St. Edward who had already vowed to remain a chaste penitent. Understandably so, St. Edward is remembered as the patron of difficult marriages.

After his death, the English crown was disputed and the Norman invasion occurred in 1066.

Edward the Confessor to me is the reminder of someone who faced such incredible struggles and pressures, and turned to God to find solace, trusting in the kingdom of Christ rather than his own kingdom of England.

St. Thomas on the Virtue of Penance (or Repentance)

2010-10-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

"... no sin of a wayfarer can be such as that [unforgivable], because his will is flexible to good and evil. Wherefore to say that in this life there is any sin of which one cannot repent, is erroneous, first, because this would destroy free-will, secondly, because this would be derogatory to the power of grace, whereby the heart of any sinner whatsoever can be moved to repent...It is also erroneous to say that any sin cannot be pardoned through true Penance. First, because this is contrary to Divine mercy, of which it is written (Joel 2:13) that God is "gracious and merciful, patient, and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil"; for, in a manner, God would be overcome by man, if man wished a sin to be blotted out, which God were unwilling to blot out. Secondly, because this would be derogatory to the power of Christ's Passion, through which Penance produces its effect, as do the other sacraments, since it is written (1 John 2:2): "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."

Therefore we must say simply that, in this life, every sin can be blotted out by true Penance." - St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae on Penance)

Saint Thomas has helped me understand Catholicism perhaps more than anyone else. As the 'prime' doctor of the Church, I have learned there is a reason behind it. Very few Catholic authors get to the heart of the matter when you look at contrition, the forgiveness of sins, etc, after the Reformation, because they are worried of mis-speaking. Thomas on the other hand seems to clearly put the grace of God at the front of things, saying that the virtue of Penance is all that is required for the forgiveness of sins. Obviously he would say that the Sacrament of Penance finishes this process, giving objective assurance, and helping mete out the satisfaction necessary for sins, however he is clear that there is no case in which a repentant/penitent person seeking forgiveness is rejected by God.

For Aquinas, it has to do with the inner virtue. It is no dead faith which animates this plea for mercy, it is the grace of God at work within the sinner drawing them to call upon God's mercy.

At a personal level - as a very terrible sinner - this teaching is helpful, because I do feel in my heart that I want to repent of my sins and turn to God, and for Aquinas, this heart-faith, this inner turning to Christ is what virtue, and the Christian life is all about.

And of course, this is all the gift of God's grace.

Sin

2010-10-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

alienated, lost, abandoned, forsaken, cursed, banished, helpless, disgusting, dirty, rotting, filthy, pariah, hopeless, unworthy, hated, useless, trash, destitute, coward, traitor, despised, wretched

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

infelix ego homo

Unhappy man that I am

quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius

Who will liberate me from the body of this death?

gratia Dei per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum

The grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord

"Be Reconciled to God"

2010-10-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

I have followed the apostolic exhortation of St. Paul this week almost to the point of clerical annoyance.

I've been to Reconciliation 3 times (Sat, Thu, tonight) and despite the annoyance of the priest, it has been so good for my soul.

I feel so empty (in a good way), my soul feels like a cleaned room.

Tonight I was called and told that I didn't have to come into work this evening, and so I rushed to confession. I feel like I am in a shower of God's grace and I'm so thankful. Tomorrow I get to recieve Our Lord with my friend and I'm NOT going to screw it up tonight.

The sacraments are so wonderful that I feel like a child at Christmas around them. It embarrassed someone in our group the other day when I almost jumped for joy at the chance to receive the Eucharist.

I am not saying any of this to sound holy, a holy person wouldn't have needed reconciliation 3 times in a single week. I'm a troubled child of God, but I am quite joyful today, I feel like St. Therese of Lisieux, a victim of God's mercy.

There is nothing like knowing God's grace courses through your soul, even though you can never deserve or merit it. Jesus is awesome.

Our Lady of the Rosary

2010-10-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today God granted me the gift of being able to be reconciled and recieve the Eucharist at Fatima Shrine in New York State with some members of our University's Newman Club.

It was a beautiful day, and the American priests are SO MUCH BETTER than the Canadian ones, and it was a blessing to hear the great sermon on the victory of Le Panto and the ongoing spiritual struggle we have.

I also got a book of devotions by Blessed John Henry Newman which I hope to make regular use of.

I also am excited that next week we should be starting our volunteer work with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which I get to write my French History Essay on (hopefully).

The Rosary has meant so much to me in the last year and a half. It has taught me so much about being like Christ, so much about Mary, and given me alot of peace and strength. I can't find the words to describe how my relationship with Our Lady has grown through it, but I will say that I have a rosary next to my bed, and that it has been for me a constant catechism for me.

Canadian Pro-Life Students Arrested

2010-10-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100402.html

Shame on Canada.

St. Jean de Brebeuf, and all Canadian Saints pray for us.

St. Philip Howard

2010-10-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kindred Spirit's comment I was able to read up on St. Philip Howard and some other Recusants.

I thought one story was so great I had to post it here:

"He had petitioned the Queen as he lay dying to allow him to see his beloved wife and his son, who had been born after his imprisonment. The Queen responded that if "If he will but once attend the Protestant Service, he shall not only see his wife and children, but be restored to his honors and estates with every mark of my royal favor." To this, Saint Philip replied, "Tell Her Majesty, if my religion be the cause for which I suffer, sorry I am that I have but one life to lose." He refused and died alone in the Tower. He was immediately acclaimed as a Catholic Martyr."

Two More Days

2010-09-30T18:52:00.001-07:00

"Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you." - Papa Benny 16

I'm so excited, on Saturday I get to go to Confession and receive the Eucharist for the first time in probably 7 or 8 weeks due to work. I'm a little scared because it's been a bad few months, but I'm constantly reading so much about the Eucharist it makes you ache after a while, and it will be nice to live in a state of grace for at least a few hours.

Something funny happened on the way to the (Intellectual) Forum

2010-09-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today I was waiting for class to start and discovered from another girl in class that I had read all the wrong papers for our seminar. She kindly offered me her notes and helped me to get through the seminar alright. I knew this girl was a Catholic, for she'd said in another previous class "I'm a Catholic, I go to mass and receive the Eucharist, but I don't believe or support all that the Catholic Church stands for... I don't believe all the Church teaches but I believe the Catholic faith".

This is typical Canadian Catholicism (although I found out she was from Germany). I wanted to respond that the Catholic faith teaches obedience to the Church in all matters of faith and morals and so she wasn't 'really' a Catholic if she denied even a single De Fide dogma. Three of us were talking after class - the Catholic girl, a Confessional Lutheran involved in our pro-life club, and I. I was embarrassed by this Catholic girl who referred to the priest's homily as a 'eulogy' and said she didn't attend masses that didn't have bands, and that she hated the organ. The confessional girl and I were a little awkward, as we tended to feel oppositely.

Afterwards I felt annoyed at this girl, and how she represented our Church. But then I got to thinking about St. Robert Bellarmine's axiom: "Charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved".

I was thinking about this girl and how Protestant my way of going about things is. I always end up going the 'conservative' route, always worried about doctrinal purity, and having a sort of 'unless you're in, then you're out'. Whereas Catholicism says the opposite, all baptized people are children of God, and whether they are loyal children of the Church is a separate issue. I thought about the charity the girl showed me in truly saving me today by sharing her notes with me - a person who had not treated her well in the past (due to her heterodoxy). She had charity, and was just being honest about her faith, she probably has not read nearly as much theology as I have, and I shouldn't hold her to the same standard. After all, Catholicism makes a HUGE distinction between knowing sin, and sin in ignorance.

In any case, I proved that while I might've known the Catholic faith better, she practiced it better than I (with her charity, and my judgment). Hopefully in the future, I can follow the apostle's exhortation more closely and not only be a hearer of the law, but a doer.

* and the Confessional Lutheran girl beat me by quoting the Athanasian Creed, and me saying that the "incomprehensible" part was simply Protestant dissection of faith and reason. .... until she told me it was the Athanasian Creed... I got pwned there.

Recusant List

2010-09-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've been gone for an inordinate amount of time. Mostly to be honest, has been due to the stupid fact that Blogger hasn't worked well and every time I go to post it deletes it.

I'm still Catholic, no real religious changes. Been doing ALOT of Newman Club stuff, and serving at the altar for every other sunday at Campus Mass (which has been terrifying, I definately know I'm not called to the priesthood, I'm too terrified of doing anything to disturb the sacredness of the Mass).

For the beatification of Cardinal Newman I got to give a short speech at Mass about him, and ever since then I've wanted to assemble a Recusant Calendar of sorts. Once I list each person I want to remember, I can come up with their 'feast day' (some have one, some don't).

Here is my tentative list so far of my heroes of the Recusancy.

St. Thomas More - July 6
St. John Fisher - July 6
St. Edmund Campion - December 1 (as well Oct. 25, one of the Forty Martyrs)
40 Martyrs of England and Wales - October 25
Mary Tudor/ Mary I - November 17
St. Margaret Clitherow - March 26 (as well as Oct. 25)
Cardinal Reginald Pole - November 17
Edmund Bonner - September 5
Mary Queen of Scots - February 7
James II - September 16
Gerard Manley Hopkins - June 8
Cardinal Newman - October 9 (conversion & Feast Day)
Cardinal Manning - January 14
Lord Acton - June 19
Francis Thompson - November 13
Robert Hugh Benson - October 19
G.K. Chesterton - June 14
Ronald Knox - August 24
Evelyn Waugh - April 10
Graham Greene - April 3
Malcolm Muggeridge - November 14
Lord Longford - August 3

What Would St. Augustine Do?

2010-08-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today was the feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, a day I try not to let slip by. (ok, let's be honest, I've only been RC for a year and a half and my confessor reminded me today).

So after confession, I ran into an old friend who is a LONG time lapsed Catholic. He invited me out tomorrow night during the time I normally go to Mass, as I work during the day. So. What would Augustine do? Go out with the friend as I'm his only practicing Christian friend (let alone Catholic friend), and miss mass. Or go to Mass and see him some other time.

Augustine would probably tell me to invite him to Mass. I don't think that'd go over well. Although tomorrow is the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist. I doubt it would go over that badly.

The Blessed Virgin and Gracious Catholicism

2010-08-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a friend tonight after another fairly Pelagian homily at our Cathedral. I think it must be because I was raised Protestant, or because I just like St. Augustine, but I absolutely despise these sermons that consist of "Try harder, if it isn't working, it's because you just aren't trying hard enough". It's a total contradiction to Galatians and all of Pauline theology.

I was thinking about what a "Catholic" way to combat this problem would be, as all my previous methods have been Augustinian or Pseudo-Protestant. But, then I remembered something Papa Benny said. The Immaculate Conception shows us not how great Mary was on her own, but how great God is in his grace. The whole reason Our Lady was the holiest of purely human creatures, was because God preserved her from original sin and constantly gave her the grace to avoid sin. Previous to the Immaculate Conception, it would be easy to say that Mary was sinless by her own cooperation and had to fight against her natural inclinations as a sinful human. BUT post-1854, that option is no longer open to us. Mary was holy because she said to God "let it be done to me" NOT "let me do". She was the passive object receiving the action, not the active doer. She was moved by grace, which enabled her to freely cooperate, she did not cooperate and thus merit grace. This is why I think if there were more devotion to the Immaculate Conception, there would be less Pelagianism.

Prayer of King Henry VI

2010-08-17T05:34:00.001-07:00

"Lord Jesus Christ, you have created me, redeemed me and destined me to that which now I am. You know what you will do with me: do with me then according to your will and your mercy. You alone are all-knowing and all-wise, beyond man's understanding. You, Lord, know what things are good for me, a poor sinner. Let it be done to me according to your pleasure, as seems good in the eyes of your majesty. Amen"

King Henry VI was known as a pious man, but one unfit for the stresses of ruling. He was allegedly killed in the Tower, while kneeling in prayer, and was informally viewed as a saint by the English people after his death. In fact, English Catholics used to put on his hat and invoke his intercession in cure of migraines.

...he also went insane for another while, and lost the kingdom, etc, etc, you can read about it all in Shakespeare...

A Recusant Prayer

2010-08-16T19:53:00.001-07:00

Jesu, Son of David, have mercy on me, and of thy great pity and charity remember me among the whelps that expect and beg under thy table for one crumb of grace from thee. O Lord my God, let thy truth, and not the blindness of my own ignorance, speak to me. Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth, or at least desirth to hear thee. - Dame Gertrude More, d. 1633

Umbris Ad Lux (Christi)

2010-08-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more" - Dante Alighieri (Canto 1, Divine Comedy: Inferno)

I've been doing very badly in my spiritual life recently, for many personal reasons that I won't bore you with here. But the other day I was talking to someone about why they were a Christian. One woman said she had never been afraid of Hell and never became a Christian because she wanted to go to Heaven, but primarily was a Christian because it felt true and made sense of her life. I realized that I am not that kind of person. I am the man of imperfect contrition. I'm the one in the crowd that Christ warns 'unless you surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees' and then cling to him because of my weakness. I'm the one in the church who Jonathan Edwards would've looked at when he warned that I was on the precipice of Hell hanging by a thread, and so to flee to Christ. That's me.

I find when life goes well, my religion fizzles out. In boldness occassionally I pray: Lord take away my comfort. In this life perhaps for us weaker brethren, comfort and obedience are mutually exclusive.

Today -ex nihil- out of nothing, I woke up and realized I had no obligations today, I started laughing and evil sounding laugh and was thinking about all the laziness and indulgence I could get away with. Then I looked up and saw the plate of Papa JPII that I have on my wall, the shrine to St. Francis of Assisi, and the Crucifix, and realized what I'd done. I immediately felt to guilty to go to God (which I know is theologically an error). So I began praying my rosary. Actually I began singing/chanting my rosary in Latin.

I was once told that in Catholic theology, when you leave a state of grace, it is as if you are at home and Christ has walked out the door and is waiting there. If that is the Christology of grave sin, then my Mariology of grave sin is that it is at this point where Mary kicks down the door and asks you to invite Christ back in, and the sad look in her eyes just gets you, and you have no choice. (if a Presbyterian reads this, this will be where he rends his garments and exclaims that I have made the ultimate Moses out of Christ, and added a goddess to replace him)

In any case, this was what I felt like today. I finished my rosary, confident that someone was praying for me. But then I was overwhelmed by the love of Jesus, and how everyone that loves, is really only expressing his great love, the love he and the Father share. That Our Lady is merely a reflection of what God would pour into all of us if we would let him. I thought of living in a lawless plain, and in the storms coming to a giant stone crucifix and gathering about the foot of the cross, sheltering myself and gathering a fire. That's my life out of grace, I can still cling to the cross, and the angels and saints wander about this plain in disguise.

I then opened my mother's bible to read a beautiful passage of messianic prophecy from that ancient divine, Isaiah:

"Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly." - Isaiah 32:1-4

I love that passage, all scripture speaks of him!

It would seem that in summation, all of this could be summed up as : umbris ad lux - from the shadows to the light (of Christ)

It is from the darkness of life, from the trials, from the recognition of my sin, that I turn to God. May I never forsake him.

(epilogue: So then I felt quite good, and picked two flowers from our garden and put them infront of my statue of Francis, and an image of Mary, and thought 'oh man, all the pagan warnings are going off in my head right now, this must mean I'm actually acting like a normal Catholic')

Southern Ontario Church History

2010-08-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a historical commentary on Southern Ontario for my Dad's charter flight service, and I'm frustrated because all the cool history I find out about, I'm not allowed to include, because it's controversial and people won't want to hear it.

I learned about how Toronto was called 'little Belfast' and how the Orange Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order) had massive control of the politics of the city, and that every Mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman until the 1950s. This didn't go well with the huge Irish Catholic population, and the two had mini-wars.

I also learned out - totally by accident - about a man that reminded me of myself.

Sir Allan Napier MacNab, who was Prime Minister of Upper Canada in the 1850s (think Cardinal Newman, re-establishment of Catholic Hierarchy in England, and Anglo-Catholicism rising to popularity). Anyway, he was raised Anglican, but had a deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism. His parish priest (Anglican) was so angry that he showed up in the dying man's room when the Catholic bishop of Hamilton had left the house, and claimed he had made MacNab reconvert to Anglicanism. People just couldn't believe he would go Roman.

When all the Church of England dignataries showed up for the funeral they were horrified to see that the Roman Catholic clergy were already there performing the ceremony. They say that as his family, the Bishop, and the priests walked one way together (mind you, a very small group), the Protestant politicians and clerics and the vast majority of the mourners went the other way, refusing to even attend a Catholic funeral.

One historian wrote: as his relatives fought over his possessions, the English and Roman churches fought over his body and soul.

Definately reminds me of me.

Sir Allan Napier MacNab, pray for me, another convert who has from time to time wavered from the efforts of Anglican clerics.

Prayer Meme

2010-07-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by the honourable Kindred Spirit in a form of interweb chain lettering/blogging, and am glad because it makes me feel like a real Catholic to be asked this.

"Originating in Great Britain at Mac's blog address at http://mulier-fortis.blogspot.com/, there is a prayer meme making the rounds of this virtual world
...
"Name your three favourite prayers, and explain why they're your favourites. Then tag five bloggers - give them a link, and then go and tell them they have been tagged. Finally, tell the person who tagged you that you've completed the meme. The Liturgy and the Sacraments are off limits here. I'm more interested in people's favourite devotional prayers."

I really wanted to put "Introibo ad altare Dei" but that's a part of the liturgy.

Ok, here we go:

3 favourite personal prayers:

1. Act of Hope:
"O God, I hope with complete trust that you will give me, through the merits of Jesus Christ, all necessary grace in this world and everlasting life in the world to come, for this is what you have promised and you always keep your promises".

2. St. Augustine's Prayer (my friend gave me a card with this on it and I carry it in my wallet and pray it whenever I get the chance):
"God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; turn our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life to your honor and glory."

3. Prayer attributed to Martin Luther: (From the Movie "Luther")
"I am yours, save me"

Not the best picks, but by and large I mostly pray the Rosary, some part of the Liturgy, or just 'free-style'. I had two great Jesuit prayer cards but when I turned Anglican again I got rid of them.

I'm tagging:

Devin Rose: http://www.devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/
Fred: http://ressourcement.blogspot.com/
ok.. I only have two Catholic blogger friends...

Poverty as Richness

2010-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

"God cannot fill what is full. He can only fill emptiness, deep poverty, and your "Yes" is the beginning of being or becoming empty. It is not how much we really "have" to give, but how empty we are, so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live his life in us." — Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Sin makes me feel full. Whether by Gluttony or by selfish impure sins of lust. I need to be empty for God to fill me. I need to have a spare bedroom in my heart and soul to allow Christ to dwell there. I need to go to confession to save Christ from drowning in that formerly empty room which I have now filled with my sin.

I received the Eucharist 3 times in 48 hours, and I had never felt so strong against sin. But of course, I eventually failed. I think I am just going to take the plunge and go with the Latin massers / Traditionalists, as they're the only one's offering daily confession and mass. I'm also reading Meister Eckhart O.P, such a great preacher.

I need to feel empty again so that God can fill me. I think I am just beginning to understand in some tiny way, the implications of the vow of poverty.

A Vocation Question

2010-07-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

(just so the reader knows, I have broken up with my Episcopal girlfriend, and am now determined to either marry a Catholic girl who wants lots of babies / is faithful to Church teaching, or to enter religious life, or to be a single laymen in some sort of secular vocation).

After my whole reversion to Anglicanism and then return to Rome, and my time with the Toronto Jesuits, I think I am not called to be a priest. In any case, I am an exceptionally sinful human being, and don't really have a great holiness or personal witness. But deep within me there is this great desire and thirst for such a life. I saw this video today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEn3ngvXZhg&feature=related

I thought: man I wish I could live like that. There truly is no nobler life.

I guess my question is:

Is it possible to have a deep spiritual desire for a vocation like that, and have it not be your vocation?

Should I rather just pray for those religious orders, and people discerning and within them, rather than always wonder if I should be in them?

I remember the story of St. Therese of Lisieux's parents both wanting to enter religious life, and their priest told them rather that they were to have children, all of whom entered religious life and one of whom is a saint and doctor of the church. Perhaps the longing I feel is the same longing all Catholics feel for an opportunity to give everything for their faith.

I've also considered lay religious organizations, like the tertiary Franciscans / Secular Franciscan Order, that is composed of married and celibate, lay and clerical people living in the spirit of St. Francis.

Anyway, I'm going to Confession and Mass now.

Graham Greene on Peace & Despair

2010-07-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm finding that the Catholicism that makes me feel at peace is that of the English (and of what I can find, the Canadian) Tradition - as I've posted many times before on - and even more specifically, the Catholicism of novelists. Evelyn Waugh, Michael D. O'Brian, and Graham Greene. They called the period leading up to the First World War and all the way to the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Literary Revival. These authors (many of whom were converts) I find to be inspiring because they are so real. My favourite right now is Graham Greene, whose book I am reading "The Heart of the Matter". It was once said that while other religious novelists were writers of faith, that Greene was a writer of doubt.

I was talking with a Catholic friend who suffers from severe scruples (I on the other hand seem to just frequently commit serious sins, and thus don't have to worry about being scrupulous). Anyway, my friend and I both agreed that the main problem we have with Catholic faith is how idealistic it is. What we meant by that was: everything in Catholicism is measured by ideals, the real lives of everyday Catholics, repeated faillure, doubt, frustration, are not to be found in any of the 'official' sources of the Church. For this reason, authors like Greene who deal with these issues have a special place in my heart (and I hope in the Sacred Heart of Our Lord as well.)

Here is one passage I enjoyed from the novel I'm reading. It's about a police officer who is in a state of frustration and unease over the way his life is going. He is a Catholic convert and his wife is quite devout, but he no longer loves her and doesn't know how to resolve things, and she offers to just leave and go to South Africa.

"... she said, 'if I go away, you'll have your peace.'

'You haven't any conception,' he accused her, 'of what peace means.' It was as if she had spoken slightingly of a woman he loved. For he dreamed of peace by day and night. Once in sleep it had appeared to him... by day he tried to win a few moments of its company ... Peace seemed to him the most beautiful word in the language: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you: O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace. In the Mass he pressed his fingers against his eyes to keep the tears of longing in.

...

He had always been prepared to accept the responsibility for his actions, and he had alwasy been half aware too, from the time he made his terrible private vow that she should be happy, how far this action might carry him. Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute faillure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation." - Graham Greene "The Heart of the Matter" 61-62

***

One month since my last confession, anywhere from 60-75 various mortal sins. Last night I was praying my Rosary in the Cathedral before Mass, and at one point when I reached "...ora pro nobis peccatoribus..." 'pray for us sinners', I realized that at least in my almost constant dwelling outside a state of grace, I can still pray the Ave Maria with great honesty. St. Francis remarked after he threw off his clothes and handed them to his father infront of the Bishop, that he could now truly pray "Our Father". On the contrary, in all my sin, I can now at least truly pray "us sinners" with authenticity.

By some blessing of providence, I found another church that has reconciliation Monday nights, and I have the day off. I'm anxious for reconciliation, and I know the feelings Greene describes about peace and despair. Malcolm Muggeridge (another Catholic convert) described his friend Graham Greene by saying he was "a Jekyll and Hyde character, who has not succeeded in fusing the two sides of himself into any kind of harmony."

The Death of the Oxford Movement

2010-07-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

The time of death was July 10, 2010. In 1833 John Keble started a movement with his Assize sermon "National Apostasy" defending the Church of England as a part of the Catholic Church.

Since then, the Anglican Church has allowed contraception, divorce, liberalism, women priests, and now women bishops (and arguably it tacitly supports Homosexual 'marriage').

It was a great dream. There is much to love about Anglicanism, alot of English Catholicism that it revived and preserved which the Roman Church in England had lost. But now it seems that the legacy of the Oxford Movement will be a Roman Catholic one, much like the legacy of C.S. Lewis is now largely R.C.

As a side note, I went to a beautiful and very Traditional Catholic Church in northern Ontario. If it wasn't 3 hours away, I'd go there. It is beautiful to see real latin-rite Catholicism functioning the way it should. So much of it was shared by the Oxford Movement and I think it quite true that Cardinal Newman was considered the absent father of the Second Vatican Council. If English-speaking Roman Catholicism nowadays could be what High Anglicanism was in 1833 (or 1928 for that matter), we'd be in business. The Spirit knows what he's doing though.

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for England and the Church of England. May the truth shine through for those currently searching amidst the fog of controversy and confusion. May the sceptered Isle once more become 'the most faithful child of the See of Peter'.

Travelling & Bad Catholics

2010-07-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to my first Catholic wedding. It's over 3 hours away and so it will be a LONG drive (the farthest I've ever driven... or is it furthest?).

I haven't been able to get to confession for a month, but reading Graham Greene has been helpful in reminding me that the Church bears sinners within her midst.

I was thinking the other day that while I reverence people like St. Francis, and Papa JP II and Benny 16, I'm more likely to be one of the other type of Catholics.

Oscar Wilde was a deathbed convert to Catholicism, and he wrote that 'the Catholic Church is only for saints and sinners, for respectable people the Established Church (CofE) will do'.

I think of Oscar Wilde, the Stuart Monarchs (James II and Bonnie Prince Charlie/Charles James Stuart), celebrity Catholics, and others. I will probably end up with these folks, the notorious Catholics.

It's funny though because once time passes enough the sinful Catholics - like Augustine of Hippo- become saints. I guess that's what we call the miracle of Purgatory.

In any case, I'm free on Monday so I should be able to get to reconciliation then. I have to leave for the long journey now.

Canadian Church History

2010-07-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Canada Day, in commemoration of our Dominion founded on July 1, 1867. I wanted to post something, but I couldn't think of anything.

Today I decided to read some Canadian Church History that I found quite interesting. It is from a book called "The sword of Saint Paul : a history of the Diocese of Saskatoon, 1933-1983" by Duncan F. Robertson (http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=1027450).

I was reading about Western Canadian Catholicism and thinking about how Roman Catholic Metis (Native tribe that was genetically of half-French, half-Indian) lived in the wilds and the forests, and still practiced their faith. As someone who can rarely find confession, etc, this interested me, and as most know, my primary devotion is the Rosary.

So it was interesting when I read about Bishop Albert Pascal O.M.I, and his mission work with these people on the frontier. In 1876 he wrote of their practices:

"Several among them faithfully recite twice the beads every Sunday, as well as on on Fridays and days of fast and abstinence. When away from the priest and buried in the solitude of the woods, they gather up all their religious pictures, with which they decorate a tee pee, which for the nonce is transformed into a chapel. There they assemble to pray, and sing hymns in their language."

It makes me feel connected to the Canadian tradition of praying the rosary, that has gone back hundreds of years even in our relatively new state, and it makes me again wish I had a vocation to priesthood as I think of how those Metis Catholics had hymns to sing, thanks to the Missionary Jesuits who translated them into the vernacular. In any case, I hope to be one of those proud laymen, faithfully praying the rosary my whole life. If I can do that, I will have carried on the tradition.

May God advance his Church in our country, and may God save the Queen.

Question on Contraception

2010-06-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Are Roman Catholics expected to never use contraception/artificial birth control in any circumstance whatsoever?

The only exceptions I've heard of are:

1. Health issues, where women's lives are at stake because of pregnancy.

2. With the permission of one's parish priest after showing that they are not opposed to having children (Nancy Pelosi had 5 kids and I believe claimed that after that she was allowed to use birth control).

The second proposition probably isn't true, but I'd heard it so I figured I'd ask for clarification.

I know so many Catholics who only have 1 or 2 kids but seem to be devout in all other areas, so I don't know if there are exceptions, or if that is just one of those things that everyone just constantly confesses, and still does anyway.

Lord Longford

2010-06-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've just learned of another recusant of sorts (a convert himself, from a family in the Irish Protestant Peerage - very rare indeed). Lord Longford

There are three articles / sermons / eulogies on him here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-64505/Controversial-peer-Lord-Longford-dies-aged-95.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/430115.stm

http://www.rcdow.org.uk/textonly/cardinal/default.asp?content_ref=202

As a British History major, I was fascinated by all these things, and by how connected he was with other British Politicians as well as British RCs.

I have to go back to work now, and I was a real jerk today. Reading about this great man only makes me feel worse. I waste my life in selfishness, laziness, and indulgence, but somewhere there is a deep pain, a longing, to be a saint. May God grant it for me, as he did Lord Longford.

Fascinating Document

2010-06-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

I was reading this blog and found a cool document from it:
http://catholicanarchy.org/?p=1686

here:
http://www.osjspm.org/majordoc_this_is_home_to_me.aspx

It's like Liberation theology in Appalachia.

The Recusant Returns

2010-06-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

Well. Like a character in Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited", after some life complications, and an ensuing attempted reversion to Anglicanism/Protestantism I've come back to Rome. My intellectual reasons / escape route from the Roman church fell apart, and God sent me a word that Pope Benedict XVI was my shepherd. Personal revelation is so embarrasing. I was thinking about it the other day. The reason I don't like Fatima or Lourdes, is because I wasn't there, it was PRIVATE revelation. But sitting in the break room at work and 'hearing' God tell me that Papa Benny is to be my shepherd, is intensely existential as an experience. I can't make anyone believe that it happened, or have them feel the significance, but personally, it was very convincing.

My Catholic chaplain gave me a book of St. Therese of Lisieux's prayers and reflections to help me find a gracious Catholicism (besides Hans Urs Von Balthasar). She is a Doctor of the Church and has been teaching me alot. Reading her today brought me to tears for about 5 minutes.

"Ever since I have been given the grace to understand also the love of the heart of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear from my heart. The remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my strength which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even more. When we cast our faults with entire filial confidence into the devouring fir of love, how would these not be consumed beyond return?"

"I cannot conceive of a greater immensity of love than the one that it has pleased you to pour out so lavishly on me, without any merit on my part"

The gentleness, and the childlike confidence of St. Therese gives me peace. I want this to be the Catholicism I pass onto others. The dogmatic declarations of Scholasticism and post-Reformation Thomism are fine for the theology student, but the heart of a saint is infinitely warmer and more inspiring than a system. As Papa Benny reminds us, our religion is primarily about a person, not a system.

It has been difficult being Catholic, and I now know what they speak of when they say "Catholic guilt". I know how Protestants could so easily evangelize us in the past with their gospel. But I am trying to find the path of gracious Catholicism, a joyful and hopeful Catholic faith.

At a personal note, I am struggling with my relationship, as my partner is not of the Roman confession. Artificial contraception, even views on abortion and the inerrancy of Scripture are sources of debate (my Baptist parents are pround that even though their son is a Catholic, he still has a Biblicist twinge).

I was despairing over the scenario and seemingly endless deadlock, about all the problems in my life that have come from Catholicism. A big 'proof' for me of the truth of the Roman claim, is that it is universally detested, it reminded me of Christ's claim that "if the world hates ye, remember that it hated me first" in St. John's Gospel (ch. 15). A huge portion of my problems would be solved if I were simply an Anglican. But I've realized that something of the Catholic spirit has permeated my soul. In moments of deep affection for Jesus, I kiss my little crucifix and tell him I love him. I will always make the sign of the cross when I am scared. And even in my temporary reversion to Anglicanism, when we almost got in a car accident, I began frantically muttering the Ave Maria in Latin.

I hope to love Jesus as best as I am able, and to have a childlike and possibly foolish hope that he will work out my seemingly impossible failings and problems into something for good. That is all I have. I hope to be a good Catholic, this is the struggle of my life, and may I die still in the struggle, or by God's grace, with a little peace and some victory.

There is no victory story, I should never have strayed, there is nothing glorious about my story. My Protestant friends are disappointed, my Anglican priest wants to meet up next week and probably either yell at me or try to re-convert me. My Catholic friends are confused over the whole situation. I have learned Christian humiliation, and hopefully I will learn from the experience that the story of my life is not one of my greatness, but of God's patient forbearance.

This picture was taken on a trip while I was a Baptist at Bible school and on an adventure in Ireland.

I was thinking about it today, and wondering if perhaps the Blessed Virgin hasn't been watching over me all this time. It's a comforting thought. Cardinal Newman said that while not every soul who is saved asked for the intercession of Mary, no soul was ever saved without it. May Our Lady always watch over this wandering sin-sick soul, and may the Sacred Heart of Jesus beat as the rhythm of my life.

Papa Benny 16, being Augustinian Again

2010-05-20T20:04:00.001-07:00

I love our Pope, because he is so Augustinian, and such a pastoral theologian.

"To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover. That's not easy, but the basic Yes, the conviction that God has created men, that he stands behind them, that they aren't simply negative, gives love a reference point that enables it to ground hope on the basis of faith."
— Pope Benedict XVI

Song for the Holy Father's Visit to England

2010-05-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently the prophet of doom Damian Thompson has hailed the 60s era folk-liturgies that have become the shame of Catholicism, will be celebrated during the Holy Father's visit.

They should sing this one, written by none other than Cardinal Archbishop Nicholas Wiseman, that goodly man who implemented the re-establishment of the Roman hierarchy in England, Scotland, and Wales in the 1850s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTBJgZcSvRY

A Cardinal, A Baptist, and Wikipedia

2010-05-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

http://romereturn.blogspot.com/2010/03/daniel-cardinal-dinardo-at-houston.html

The introduction of the Cardinal was literally, the professor reading Wikipedia, and even quoting direct lines from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_DiNardo

Today

2010-05-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to repent of everything, made an act of perfect contrition, and invoked the intercession of our Lady, I only hope I can find somewhere to confess soon. Lord have mercy on me for all my doubts and sins.

A Prayer for Today

2010-05-06T04:59:00.000-07:00

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow you soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.
-St. Therese of Lisieux

St. Therese on Justification

2010-05-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

"When comes the evening of life, I shall stand before Thee with empty hands,
because I do not ask Thee, My God, to take account of my works. All our works of
justice are blemished in Thine Eyes. I wish therefore to be robed with Thine own Justice, and to receive from Thy Love the everlasting gift of Thyself. I desire no other Throne, no other Crown but Thee, O my Beloved?" - St. Therese of Lisieux

Remember that Justice means Righteousness in Catholicism. So this makes the 2nd Doctor of the Church that has taught something akin to the imputed righteousness of Christ. Kind of odd as I thought that was anathema'd at Trent, but I'm sure there's a way around that.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux too emphasizes justification by Christ's righteousness not our own, but he does not use the robing/cloaking image here utilized by St. Therese. I know Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, and Cardinal Pole, and some other famous Augustinians shared these views. If there was a way to hold them, and still remain Catholic it would be very comforting. It would be nice if we could even read the doctors of the church without reaching what would later be defined as heretical.

Lord have mercy...

If anyone knows our way of getting round these quotes, please let me know. I sure would like Christ's righteousness, but if Peter has declared against it, then I have to submit.

St. Therese of Lisieux

2010-05-03T17:56:00.000-07:00

"Our Lord needs from us neither great deeds nor profound thoughts. Neither intelligence nor talents. He cherishes simplicity." - St. Therese of Lisieux

I read a short biography of St. Therese tonight and was absolutely amazed. I mean absolutely amazed. I can't even fathom ever having such a holy attitude... Before she died she said: "I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me."

Interestingly enough I could relate most to her parents. Her father wanted to be a priest and her mother wanted to be a nun, but they both decided they didn't have call and eventually had 9 children and wanted them to enter consecrated life. I was thinking about her parents and realized, if they hadn't been married, St. Therese would never have been born, and people like Mother Theresa wouldn't have had that inspiration from her story. Married people aren't generally saints, but it's good to remember that they're the ones who raise the saints.

Anyway, very great Saint.

Therese of Lisieux pray for me, that I might find some portion of the love you had for Jesus, by his grace. Amen.

Finally A Catholic Who Can Preach (Probably because he's an Convert)

2010-05-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

"How careful we must be not to reduce the atonement to simply speaking about the obedience of Christ as it is shown to us in His life and in His death. We must not fall into that danger of thinking more of the example of Christ, than of His sacrifice. That’s something of a temptation for some -- to think that if we simply imitate Christ, then that’s enough. Now, certainly it is true, that all which He did and suffered for us is an example which is important to copy. But if this is all there is to the Catholic faith, then it’s difficult to see why Christ’s life of perfect obedience should have been crowned by a death so bitter -- and why such importance is attached to that death... We must cling to the fact that Christ is “the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world,” and that by “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,” there was made “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” As we groan over the evil that is within us, we know the need we have for a true atonement -— not just a good example, but some eternal, Godly and forceful healing of our broken lives which have been maimed and crippled by sin." - Fr. Christopher G. Phillips (http://www.atonementonline.com/tracts/tracts004.html)

It seems like the only things we ever hear about in mass are: social justice, how awesome the Church is, abortion, and ethics... lots and lots and lots of ethics. But somewhere between the Moralism, ecclesiolatry, and Socialism, there is a glimmer of the gospel. Finally someone talking about Jesus, and not just Jesus as a great moral teacher, or a proto-marxist, but actually as the sacrifice for our sins. The reason God loves us. Our only mediator, saviour, and hope. Without Christ, Catholicism is just Aristotle for the people.

I went on 'pilgrimage' today to St. Joseph's Oratory, where Brother Andre resides, who will soon be canonized. The mass was a disgrace. I haven't been to an Anglican service less reverant. The priest made up half the liturgy, left out the profession of the creed, added extra musical numbers in random spots, and after the great amen after the consecration he decided to give a little speech about how nice the acoustics were in the room while our Lord sat on the altar.... Christ have mercy...

I'm so sick of Freewheeling liturgies like that. It makes me ashamed to be Catholic, I got almost visibly angry. But as the apostles said to our Lord, 'to whom shall we go?" Indeed there is nowhere outside the fold of Peter I know of with any certainty (I have alot of 'feelings' though).

Anyway, this Anglican use parish which had the above quoted sermon gives me hope, as well as the Book of Divine Worship, and the whole Anglican-Use and Anglican Ordinariate thing. I'm probably just biased, but to me, a homily should be about what God has done for us, before it can be at all about what we do for God. Otherwise we just become moralists. Kant could give us that without God. We need -as one Baptist said- to preach the bloody cross and the empty tomb. I think anyway... if I'm wrong and Catholicism does not agree, then I might have to go knocking on Rowan Williams' door, but I hope the Church that claims St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Thomas Aquinas, can begin to properly preach the gospel, or more specifically what Christ did "for us men and for our salvation", "according to the Scriptures" as the Creed says.

Here's a sign of hope for me: http://www.atonementonline.com/orderofmass/Rite1.html I need to find one of those churches...

St. Jerome for the Day

2010-04-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

"My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built! (Mt. 16:18) This is the house where alone the paschal lamb can be rightly eaten. (Ex. 12:22) This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails. (Gen. 7:23)" - St. Jerome, Letter to Pope Damasus (ca. A.D. 377)

But of course as the Protestants tell us... Papal supremacy was "invented" by Gregory the Great or Leo the Great hundreds of years later...

Indelibly Catholic

2010-04-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

All this Anglican frenzy of friends and opportunities was further compounded this weekend by an Anglican girl I'm friends with semi-asking if I wanted to start some sort of relationship. I thought to myself 'somehow by the end of the weekend, I will have 'reasoned' my way into the CofE (Church of England)'. Interestingly enough, the process began by me being unable to reason my way out of Catholicism, as the claims are so binding, the teachings of the saints and doctors so clear, there really is no way out of Rome. So then I started trying to reason my way out of reason a la Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling", but if I likewise found such a position untenable. I took a course in Islam, and while I am prejudiced as a Westerner, I have to say that 'logically' if you are going to disavow 'logic' Islam is a much better religion than Christianity. Christianity is inherently rational, and the bible doesn't have an origin like the Qu'ran (in the sense that there was disagreement and there are textual variants of the bible - not that I believe the Qu'ran is inspired).

I went for a walk today and prayed my rosary and was thinking about the sorrowful mysteries. About Christ's agony in the garden, his cross. I realized my agony was totally selfish and nothing compared to his, and that while he carried a real cross if my sufferings and trials were incarnated into a cross, it would be about as small as the one on my rosary. When I suddenly remembered St. Thomas More, I felt so much guilt. He had so much more to gain than I, and still he died as a martyr before renouncing the papacy. St. Edmund was offered the archbishopric of Canterbury for his conversion, and he accepted death over severing communion with Rome.

I repented, and thought it funny that even when I was considering the CofE - for all the wrong reasons - I was still thinking "well I hope I can still pray the rosary" or "I still want to believe in infused righteousness" or "I still need Confession". I guess I am unchangeably Catholic, a Roman through and through.

In all of this, I've realized that I'm nowhere near the level of holiness required for religious life. I told my Jesuit vocations director some of my doubts, and we're continuing, but honestly I don't think I'm mature enough yet. It's only taken a few waves to rock the boat, and if I'm to be an anchor, I'm going to need alot more strength, if that is my vocation after all.

Sts Thomas More and Edmund Campion, pray for me, a coward.

The English Tradition

2010-04-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

A reader commented on my devotion to the English Martyrs, and it was only then that it really hit me how big a part they have played in my faith. I always tell people that my decision to 'go Roman' was purely intellectual, but if I've learned anything from the Existentialists (there is a kernal of truth in every heresy), it is that we are whole beings, and I guess my emotions have followed my education.

I am a student of English history and while that makes me appreciate the Anglican tradition, I feel like there is an undercurrent all throughout English history. The story of Christ begins with St. Augustine of Canterbury - sent by the Pope!, St. Gregory the Great no less - and continues to make England the 'most obedient child of the see of Peter' I believe the Venerable Bede says.

St. Thomas Beckett died as a papal martyr, refusing to serve the king over Rome, as did St. Thomas More. Eventually one begins to see that England never saw itself as seperate from the jurisdiction of the Roman bishop.

Such learned and holy men like St. Edmund Campion, and St. Robert Southwell, as well as all the Tyburn martyrs (mostly Jesuits), inspire me and show how far people were willing to go for sometimes only 1 doctrine (in the Anglican communion's more conservative days). St. Margaret Clitherow likewise showed the same determination, as well as all the executed priests I had to study for my project on the Old Bailey courthouse, where Catholic priests were executed until 1701 and after that, received the 'merciful' Hanoverian sentence to life in prison.

As St. Thomas and the scholastics knew the obstinate denial of even one de fide dogma was a damnable offense. While there is room for invincible ignorance, etc, the English martyrs prove by their devotion and self-sacrifice that Papal Supremacy is such a doctrine (as the Apostles' martyrdom bore witness to the truth of the Resurrection).

The example of the English saints teach me another doctrine of the faith. By seeing the transformed life of those like the Venerable John Henry Newman, St. Aelred of Rivaulx, or the English Dominicans like Fr. McNabb, I am reminded that justification by infused grace which makes the person righteous, is not just a theory, but an empirically observable fact.

These two prime doctrines which have set Traditional Protestantism apart from the Roman Church, I feel, are best argued against by the life witness of the martyrs of the English tradition. While there are counter examples like John Donne, I feel that when reading G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Timothy Radcliffe O.P., the spirit of the English tradition is the spirit of the Roman Church, and that it is the Holy Spirit.

That might be a little triumphalistic or weak philosophically/theologically, but this is only a blog after all. I do not consider myself a part of the English tradition (I'm Canadian after all, and only half British, half German Anabaptist), but I am an avid follower of it. I love talking with Anglicans, and even seeing marxist English historians like E.P. Thompson pick up on it.

When the Venerable Cardinal wrote his great philosophical work "An Essay on the Grammar of Assent" he preferred to go in the school of the English philosophical tradition even if it was at discord with Catholic Realism. He employed it and sanctified it.

I need to remember to invoke the intercession of the English saints more often, and find some more female ones.

Thanks for reading, God bless.

Error has no rights

2010-04-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about why I remain Roman Catholic when there is a sort of appealing offer to join the Anglican Network in Canada (a conservative split group with many Anglo-Catholics). One reason is the idea of absolute truth.

Christ promised his disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes he will lead them into "all truth" (John 16:13).

While Protestants are more unified than Catholics generally credit them to be, I realized quite importantly today that any disagreement of faith is a direct contradiction to this promise. Pope Leo XIII said "...it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights." At some point, were I to be an Anglican, I would have to say error and truth have equal rights. That can't be the case.

Jesus said that the reason he came into the world was to bear witness to the truth, and "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." (John 18:37 KJV).

I like the idea of the Papacy, because we can always know what the truth is. Whether we are ready to be obedient to it, is another question altogether, but inevitably by the workings of grace we assent to the truth, and are at peace.

On a side note, I went to Fatima shrine today with my friend across the border and the way the priest said the mass, he just declared it, and he preached it. Methinks the Americans are more faithful to the liturgy than our freewheeling Canadian clerics. I got a book defending the Papacy by the late great Cardinal Hans Urs Von Balthasar, and so far his arguments are good.

Romans and Roman Catholicism

2010-04-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

I was at Fatima Shrine with a friend who is the RC chaplain at our school, and we were browsing the bookstore. I picked up a commentary on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans. It was the typical mix of Federal Vision & New Pauline Perspective / N.T. Wright stuff, which is fine - I don't have any knowledge of Greek so I can't argue on exegesis really. I just think its annoying because at key points in the text they just throw things in like "but Trent declared this...so the verse can't mean that". I laughed and asked my friend if Scott Hahn (a co-author of the book) knew the difference between a commentary and a catechism.

I feel very confused when I read Romans now, its almost funny if it wasn't so tragic. I can't even see the text. I can't say "oh so that's what St. Paul meant", I just see polemical impositions from the 16th or 20th centuries. I see Luther, Calvin, Trent/Augustine, Wright, and Hahn/Shepherd.

When I observe newcomers to the scriptures reading Romans I am amazed at how confused they are, and how little they get out of it. Coming from a Protestant background, this book is sort of seen as encompassing all of Christianity. When I was 16 I asked my mom if our church believed in Jesus or Paul because I had been taught - in quasi-Reformed style - that Jesus taught moral obligations to show people the impossibility of keeping the law, and Paul revealed the true nature of salvation, by faith alone.

As a Catholic, the situation is much more nuanced. It's like: faith alone IF it's with love... BUT also the sacraments should come in there somewhere... BUT if they don't then they can be received by desire... UNLESS you have imperfect contrition... BUT even perfect contrition is not incompatible with imperfect contrition, etc, etc.

In the end, I hope the Lord opens my eyes and helps me to read Romans, as well as the whole of the scriptures, but then again perhaps such a thing is impossible, and we Roman Catholics are right after all in saying that scripture can only be read in a Tradition.

Three Things that Are Helping Keep Me Roman Catholic

2010-04-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

"Reflect deeply on this. I cannot overemphasize its importance. Fix your eyes on the crucified and everything else will seem insignificant. Since Christ demonstrated his love by doing such amazing things and suffering so radically for us, how can your mere words be enough to please the Beloved? Do you know what it means to be truly spiritual? It means to become a slave to God. We are branded with the sign of the cross. It is the token we have given him our freedom. Now he can offer us as servants to the whole world, as he offers himself." - St. Teresa of Avila

The visible Church itself is the Lord's mystical body. The Church is the visible expression of Christ's grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society which is a sign. Any attempt at dualism here is the work of evil - as if one could play off the inward communion in grace with Christ against the juridical society of the Church, or vice versa. The Church therefore is not merely a means of salvation. It is Christ's salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this world.- Edward Schillebeeckx O.P.

"‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’" - Luke 10:16

Jesus Remember Me

2010-04-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

"A third time he [Pilate] said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?..." But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted." - Luke 23:22-24

"One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him... But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’" - Luke 23:39-43

Two things I noticed reading today that really struck me personally. The first is the phrase "and their voices prevailed". I was thinking about this with Pilate, the educated Roman governor, the sole voice of reason, speaking out to the implacable crowd, and giving in. I find this a good parallel for my conscience. It speaks out "Why?" and the irrational cries of my passions usurp it. And much like the original account, I find myself re-crucifying Christ in my heart.

The second thing is when the good thief on the cross says "we are getting wht we deserve". Tonight I had to study for an exam, but instead I foolishly wasted my time, and today in general I failed in many many ways. I was thinking, as I was feeling guilt tonight, "I am getting what I deserve". I want to be St. John the Divine, the beloved apostle. I want to be holy, to be a saint, to hate sin, and to follow Christ into the hardest spots. But frustratingly I find myself to be the thief on the cross. The one who has made every bad choice in life, save one. The only measure of holiness I have, the sliver, is to ask the Lord Jesus "Remember me".

My dad was watching college basketball the other night, and there was a clip where the star player had fallen and injured himself, it was bad enough that the team knew that this player would have to sit out the rest of the season. They were a small school and this was their big shot at the title, and as he lay there writhing in pain, he kept telling his coach he was sorry. His coach put his arms around him and told him that he loved him and that it was alright. It almost brought me to tears. The friendship these two men had and the care the coach had for the player, the fact that he was so sincere in spite of the player's faillure. It was a beautiful moment.

I always end up injurying myself, I always end up suffering from my own idiocy. Hopefully the Lord will still find in his sacred heart to embrace me in spite of all my faillures.

Jesus remember me. Iesu Memento Mei

On a slightly lighter note:
Today we had a club meeting for the Catholic ministries on campus, and the fellowship that occurred, the trust people had, and the charity people showed to each other, it was amazing. I don't use that word lightly. It was a beautiful moment when we all voiced our weaknesses and some of our fears, but we knew that together we could make it. It sounds so cheesy, and it's so impossible to explain, but it was the communion of the saints at work.

Thoughts from St. Cyprian

2010-04-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

"Hence, then, the one peaceful and trustworthy tranquillity, the one solid and firm and constant security, is this, for a man to withdraw from these eddies of a distracting world, and, anchored on the ground of the harbour of salvation, to lift his eyes from earth to heaven; and having been admitted to the gift of God, and being already very near to his God in mind, he may boast, that whatever in human affairs others esteem lofty and grand, lies altogether beneath his consciousness. He who is actually greater than the world can crave nothing, can desire nothing, from the world. How stable, how free from all shocks is that safeguard; how heavenly the protection in its perennial blessings,— to be loosed from the snares of this entangling world, and to be purged from earthly dregs, and fitted for the light of eternal immortality! He will see what crafty mischief of the foe that previously attacked us has been in progress against us. We are constrained to have more love for what we shall be, by being allowed to know and to condemn what we were. Neither for this purpose is it necessary to pay a price either in the way of bribery or of labour; so that man's elevation or dignity or power should be begotten in him with elaborate effort; but it is a gratuitous gift from God, and it is accessible to all. As the sun shines spontaneously, as the day gives light, as the fountain flows, as the shower yields moisture, so does the heavenly Spirit infuse itself into us. When the soul, in its gaze into heaven, has recognised its Author, it rises higher than the sun, and far transcends all this earthly power, and begins to be that which it believes itself to be." - St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistle 1.14)

Catholic Events Worse than the current Child-Abuse Scandals

2010-04-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

My parents and I had another sort of fight tonight, by which I mean, our local newspaper covered a story of a priest who served at my parish church and was now pleading guilty for child molestation, etc.

My dad was furious and did the usual Protestant thing of the Church is evil, etc. And asked me why I defend it. My response was equally bold, I said its because the church is the bride of Christ (unblemished), and that "the Catholic Church is the Kingdom of Christ on Earth". This didn't go over well. My dad kind of stormed off and dragged my mom with him.

They hate it when I cite worse things the Church has done and that I will stand by it no matter what (barring doctrinal contradiction). So I stated worse things imputable to the Catholic faith, and in the interest of education - lest we think we suffer the worst - I will remind everyone of a day not celebrated much anymore: St. Bartholomew's Day.

The St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre:
On August 23, 1572, French Catholics massacred over 5000 Huguenots (French Protestants). Higher estimates say 20 000 Protestants. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_massacre#Death_toll)

The severed head of the leader of the Huguenots was sent to the Pope as a gift, and when they heard the news in Rome, they rang Church bells in celebration. In fact, the Pope commissioned paintings of this event, because it was a work of divine providence (according to his Holiness).

The Spanish Armada:
The Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I in late 16th century England, even though it is doubtful she was ever a Catholic. This was the late medieval equivalent to painting a target on a ruler, and some say that it was much more like puttinga price on her head. The Pope then supported in 1588 the Spanish in their attempt to invade England and violently overthrow the Queen in order to re-institute Catholicism on the then half-Protestant nation.

Confessional Rumors:
All across Victorian England it was a generally accepted fact that Romish priests had sex with women in the confessional and that Catholic clergy used convents as brothels. There were stories of priests who allegedly ran away with women they had secretly converted and stolen from their husbands, and in general Catholicism was seen as a subversive and virtueless system of priestcraft that destroyed morality and true Christianity. It was illegal until 1829 in Britain.

...so ya. The Roman Church has seen and survived much darker days...

On a different note, I got my package from the Jesuits today and am totally excited by all the info. But for the first time in my life I feel pressured into a more Roman Catholic position because of my parents. When you get alienated that much by your family, and you're even considering priesthood, it kind of skews your options in favor of it, if only to escape home and have someone else take care of you (the Society).

New Reading: Dorothy Day

2010-04-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

I picked up the autobiography "From Union Square to Rome" by Dorothy Day. I - like other evangelicals - had only known her through quotes in Shane Claiborne books. As a Catholic I know now her through quotes in homilies. I'm excited about reading this book, more than the usual excitement over reading new books (it's the fear of the unexpected reversed / Hegelian anti-thesis to the fear of the unexpected). Anyway, since she always said "don't call me a saint" I figured I would show how history treats requests like that:

I find biographies really interesting because you can learn so much about how to live from reading the accounts of others' lives.

Perhaps she'll make me a Marxist in the end. As of now, I endorse Capitalism with as much hesitancy and fear as I endorse Dentistry. A necessary evil in our day and age.

St. Ignatius and Our Lady of Monserrat

2010-04-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting moment in the life of St. Ignatius Loyola, where he almost violently kills someone in defense of the perpetual virginity of Mary (St. Jerome would be proud), and then within days hangs up all of his sword and army equipment infront of an image of Our Lady of Monserrat, in what I perceive as a sort of spiritual surrender to God. It reminds me of the Newman quote where he writes that we are not merely civilians in need of a captain (Christ) but rebels who must lay down our arms.

I found an English translation of the hymn to Our Lady of Monserrat that is sung daily in the monastery:

"Rose of April, woman of the mountain,
star of Montserrat,
light up the catalan land
guide us to the sky
guide us to the sky

With a golden saw, the little angels sawed,
with a golden saw, those peaks,
to make your palace,
to make your palace.
Queen of the Sky, that the Séraphins took down
Queen of the Sky Give us a shelter in your blue coat,
in your blue coat.

Rose of April, woman of the mountain,
star of Montserrat,
light up the catalan land
guide us to the sky
guide us to the sky"

At the monastery, Ignatius confessed his sins before going off into a period of even greater conversion. I burst out laughing when I read in Catholic Encyclopedia the snide remark of the historian: "evidence tends to show that his own subsequent humble confessions of having been a great sinner should not be treated as pious exaggerations" (I want that on my gravestone).

The funny thing is the way I see -from albeit a very cursory glance at his life- him switch from one passion to the next. It's like Thomism in reverse. While that school teaches a man must subvert his passions to his reason, Ignatius seems to fall like Kierkegaard into the camp of Faith being the stongest passion. He was a very passionate man (and yet it was a passion for Christ). I think it's funny how he read about the saints and wanted to outdo them. I don't think that's pride necessarily as Holy Writ orders us to "provoke one another to love and good deeds" (Heb. 10:24).

I see in him a successful version of what I want to be. I told a friend the other day that I want to be a priest/Jesuit because I want to love the poor and completely follow Christ, not because I am doing that already. It's more a means to an end. Apparently that's not the 'right' answer to becoming a priest nowadays. Fr. McNabb's response that he took Holy Orders to 'save his soul' is now uncommon, but it really is how I feel.

May the example of Christ, Our Lady, and the saints provoke me to love.

Blessed Divine Mercy Sunday to all!

Celebrity Catholicism

2010-04-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

I found a book the other day at Chapters (crappy canadian version of Barnes and Noble) that had 9 different celebrities writing about their experience in Catholicism. Dan Akroyd's thoughts were interesting, he showed a knowledge of the Anglo-Catholic tradition (which his father converted out of to become RC near the end of his life). He was kind of a Spinozan Pantheist.

This combined with reading First Things at the Catholic centre yesterday, and thinking about Fr. R.J. Neuhaus, got me thinking about who the public face is in North American culture.

It was troubling. I remember the line from "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" where Adam Sandler says he's Jewish and didn't want to piss his mother off, to which Kevin James responded "I'm Catholic and I don't want to piss Mel Gibson off".

Then I read a quote from Madonna the other day on her views of Catholicism: "Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment". Now I am no defender of Madonna's lifestyle or new religion, and she has done some pretty sacraligious things over the years. But I still find it interesting that every time the Vatican condemns her she tries to plead that she still values Catholicism and the Christian message, etc. Usually celebrities just outright condemn the Church and move on. Anyway those are my thoughts, or at least that's what I've garnered from Wikipedia.

All of this is a little troubling. I guess Mother Teresa was a good Catholic public figure. For the first time I had the distinct thought that perhaps God could actually have a vocation for someone to be a famous good Catholic. That would be helpful, especially in North America. If Tony Blair would just stop sounding Anglican, we might have a prospect.

Looking to Christ

2010-04-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today I was fairly worried about all of my sin, and a very bad week in general. So I went to confession, I did everything right, and I believe in the sacrament, but I felt nothing. I then was kneeling in Mass wondering if this was all due to the scruples I have over the validity of my baptism, etc. I still felt nothing. Scripture was read. I said all the right words, and I even received the Lord in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But in the end I felt nothing really.

Now as a Thomist I don't go by feeling, I go by thinking. But I couldn't help but worry. It wasn't until I looked again at the image of the sacred heart of Jesus with the words "Jesus I trust in you" that I came to a revelation (which God has taught me many times, and probably will again in the future).

I realized that Karl Barth's criticism is true. Idolatry is really just trying to 'lay hands on God', tell God what he can do, where he can appear, etc. One of the criticisms of Catholicism is our canon law legalism, by which I mean: we limit God to the sacraments. This is a misunderstanding of Catholic theology, but an understandabe one. Hans Urs Von Balthasar retorted to Karl Barth that Protestants (Calvinists especially) do the exact same thing with their theology: "I believe so God has to accept me". This is a misunderstanding of Protestant theology. If Catholics turn sacraments into works meritting salvation, Protestants turn sola fide into the great work to merit salvation.

What I remembered today was the ultimate cause of my salvation: the Lord Jesus Christ my Redeemer. At the end of the day, I can have all the formulas and sacraments, I can know all the right words. Those are all great things, hallelujah for tham. But if I miss Christ, if I don't kneel before God in utter dependence on Christ, then I've missed what every theology and every rite was for: to make me look to Jesus.

As I contemplated all of this, and final judgment, I was reminded of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (God rest his soul) who was a Lutheran convert and wrote this about his response on the last day:

“When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers throughout my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my won. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of “justification by faith alone,” although I will thank God that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways - these and all other gifts received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will… look to Christ and Christ alone.” - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus "Death on a Friday"

He took the words right out of my mouth. As much as I detest existentialist metaphysics, I must say that in my Christian faith experience I can relate to Existentialism alot. This might be why I love the Rosary so much, it reminds me of Jesus my saviour, and Mary my model for trust in and service to him, it removes me from focusing on my weakness, and makes me look to God for strength.

Death

2010-04-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Tolkien says that it is what all literature is ultimately about.

I don't know if he's right, but I've been thinking about it, and Heidegger's philosophy that Man is a being-toward-death

"What doth it profit a man if he gain the world world and forfeit his soul" - Mk. 8:36

I wonder if I'll ever overcome the friday anxiousness over saturday confession.

Some Marian Prayers

2010-04-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

I know it annoys the Protestant readers, I'm sorry, but Marian devotion is a large part of Catholic spirituality, so I'm going to post stuff on it. I've sort of been trying to understand the catholic doctrine of Mary as mediatrix lately, and Newman has been helpful as usual. Currently I'm in grave sin and so these might reflect that reality (Our Lady obtain for me a good death). Marian devotion (mainly the rosary) in the last year for me has been the main change in my spiritual life.

"You will comfort me in my discouragements,
solace me in my fatigues,
raise me after my falls...
You will show me your Son,
my God and my all.
When my spirit within me is excited,
or relaxed,
or depressed,
when it loses its balance,
when it is restless and wayward,
when it is sick of what it has,
and hankers after what it has not,
when my eye is solicited with evil
and my mortal frame trembles
under the shadow of the tempter,
what will bring me to myself,
to peace and health,
but the cool breath
of the Immaculate..." -Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman

"I pray also that, at the end of my life,
you, Mother without compare,
Gate of Heaven and Advocate of sinners,
will protect me with your great piety and mercy.

and obtain for me,
through the blessed and glorious Passion of your Son
and through your own intercession,
received in hope,
the forgiveness of all my sins. "- St. Thomas Aquinas

First Year in Rome (shortened)

2010-04-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

I realized how long my last post was, and am going to try to be less wordy.

What has changed in my Christian life since becoming Roman Catholic 1 year ago?

Love - Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Mary, Pope Benedict, Scripture, and the Sacraments have all taught me this one supreme lesson: we love because he first loved us, we love because he is infinitely worth loving, we love by seeing others love Jesus (the saints), we love others by seeing Jesus in others. Love is the fulfillment of the law of Christ, love is the one necessary thing, "love is that without which no one can be saved, and with which no one can be lost" (St. Robert Bellarmine).

The Blessed Virgin Mary has shown me what loving Christ looks like, the Rosary has focuses my attention on the life of Christ rather than my own problems (or even merits). The saints inspire me and show me how to love Jesus, why I should give my whole heart and life to the service of Christ's kingdom on earth, which I believe to be the Roman Catholic Church, and in part everywhere Christ is proclaimed as Lord. In all the sacraments I encounter Christ, offering his gift of grace, offering his very self to me, a miserable sinner, but a much loved child of the Father.

It's ridiculously simple, it sounds trite and foolish, but that is what I've learned. There have been difficulties, and troubles, and continue to be. But when all else fails, I look to a crucifix, or I read the gospels, or I pray a rosary, and once again encounter the surpassing love and riches of Christ.

"Give me your love and your grace: this is enough for me." - St. Ignatius of Loyola

Loving God According to Rowan Williams and I

2010-03-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

"...which of us does "love" God? I remember, ages ago, talking to a young Chinese Marxist student, who amazed me by saying, "of course, priesthood [I had him I hoped to be ordained] is unrewarding, but you won't mind that, because you love God." I was amazed and rather appalled, because I couldn't imagine why he should think I loved God; as soon as he'd said it, I knew it wasn't true. After all, what was it to love God? The saints loved God: their whole lives revolved around God, they wept and laughed and danced for love of him. When St. John of the Cross was staying at a convent over Christmas, one of the sisters saw him, when he thought no one was looking, picking up the figure of the child Jesus from the crib. He hugged it close to his chest and then, with eyes closed, danced around the crib for a few minutes. Well, that, it seems, is love of God: a devotion that makes people more than a little dotty, that produces an all-pervading warmth and delight, an incommunicable gladness beyond all words. "My beloved is mine and I am his"; Jesu, the very thought is sweet; In that dear name all pleasures meet"...St. Aelred of Rievaulx on his deathbed murmuring "Christ, Christ, Christ" unceasingly; Francis of Assisi literally crying himself blind in his long vigils of prayer.

If this is loving God, most of us don't." - Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) "Loving God" in "A Ray of Darkness" p. 127

This is one of my favourite sermons of all time. Dr. Williams goes through the Catholic position and the Protestant position and notes how both fail to adequately describe the experience of loving God. He doesn't dogmatically state his views, in typical Anglican style, but rather talks about loving God as understanding him as "incomparably worthwhile". Almost a Thomistic understanding of knowing the kind of thing God is, even if not knowing exactly what he is, and then allowing our souls to ascend to the love of God by his grace. As the Angelic Doctor stated "To love God is something greater than to know him".

The Protestant/Calvinist/Lutheran position traditionally has been to say that humans can't love God. The Wesleyan/Catholic tradition has been to say humans can purely love God. A third way that modern Evangelicals and Roman Catholics alike have share is the idea of love as a choice.

Given the choice between Papist, Puritan, or Prelate, I'm going to have to side with the latter, and agree with Rowan Williams that love of God is something indescribable. It is mystical, but it comes from a choice we make long before the experience that prepares us for the reception of this grace.

There's so much in this sermon and I'm butchering it. Do yourself a favor, go out and buy a copy of Ray of Darkness. I don't agree with alot that Williams says, but much of what he says has formed my faith in that wonderful Anglo-Catholic tradition that harmonizes so well with both the fathers and Rome.

He borrows alot from Hans Urs Von Balthasar and I enjoy both of their understandings of love. They are both just within the Catholic tradition, but not in the mainstream of it.

Happy Passover

2010-03-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

If there are any Jews who read this blog (I doubt it), Happy Passover.

Passover was an interesting concept for me to grasp in order to understand the catholic doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice. An important and oft-neglected doctrine in this day and age.

Jews would slaughter the lamb and partake in it's flesh as a meal to celebrate the propitiation of sin and to partake in the sacrifice. As St. Paul mentions alludes to in his letter to the Corinthians, our participation in the Lord's table is our participation in his sacrifice.

"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 18Consider the people of Israel;* are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? 19What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. 21You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?" - 1 Corinthians 10: 16-22

Apparently Scott Hahn writes books on this sort of thing, so I'll stop there until I read some of them.

Shalom / Pax Tecum

Fr. Henri Nouwen offering the Sacrifice of the Mass to God the Father in Persona Christi

Rosary and Rushing Aroung

2010-03-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

I've been rushing around with work and school and a thousand (read 3) essays piling up. I haven't found much time for anything recently except the completion of vain and meaningless essays for school and sin. So it hasn't been a good start to holy week.

After a year of being Catholic (this saturday) I still find the most annoying thing in the Church is that there's never Confession anywhere. The Sacrament of Reconcilliation is like the Waldo in the Where's Waldo of Catholicism.

Anyway, aside from my griping about that, I only have one other gripe. The vocations director won't call or email me back about meeting to discuss priest stuff, and my dad is getting antsy with questions.

In all of this, the only peace I have (until I can locate another elusive confessional & priest) is Prayer / the Rosary.

As the saints say Marian devotion is "the safest, surest and swiftest path to a true and lasting commitment to Christ". I also read an amazing part of JPII's encyclical on Mary that I'll have to quote when I have more time.

Our Lady of Mercy, watch over me this week.

Death, Sparrows, Tooth Decay, and The Jesuits

2010-03-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've heard this story like 5 times in the last month and apparently read it last year in Medieval British history but had forgotten it. In A.D. 627, King Edwin was trying to decide whether to become a Christian or not, and so he conducted a little council wherein he asked all his advisors whether he should or not.

"Another of the king's chief men, approving of his words and exhortations, presently added: "The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he. is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." The other elders and king's councillors, by Divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect." - St. Bede the Venerable (Ecclesiastical History Bk. II)

I was thinking today that I feel (I usually never trust feelings) fairly certain that I want to enter the priesthood and that I want to meet with our vocations director tomorrow. I thought about my life, dying without children or a wife, and of a hundred years from now when no one will remember me. The only fear I had - honestly - was that I wouldn't be able to become a Jesuit. I'm planning -as of now- on becoming a religious priest (hopefuly SJ), but I thought about how fleeting life is, and how my only real passion is for Christ's kingdom (as terrible a sinner as I am, this is still my deep longing). If I can serve it as a layman, that's great, but I really feel that I want to give up everything. The reading today was from Philipians 3, and it was one of my favourite passages, St. Paul writes that he counts all as rubbish compared to knowing Christ, and that he counts it all as loss that he may be found in Him. That's what I thought: I only want to be found in Christ.

As I brushed my teeth tonight I noticed that a tooth my dentist pointed out 6 months ago looks pretty bad, and I figured it might be decaying. I wasn't worried. I thought 'i'm going to be a priest, who cares what I look like. Perhaps it'll be a form of penance and detachment from vanity.'. Like I said, I'm no saint, but I was actually finding joy in bad things.

All of this connects to a sermon I heard from an English Monsignor today on EWTN who only had one hand. He said that he wasn't sad about it, and that as far as he knew, having two hands doesn't make most people happy anyway. He had a chance to help manage a bank, but left it all and became a missionary priest. He eventually worked with Pope John Paul II. He talked about God bringing good out of every evil and grace out of every sin. It gave me alot of hope to hear someone speak with such faith. The more I think about it, we're all just sparrows in the great hall of life. Some of us don't have hands, some of us have rotten teeth, some of us have rotten souls. But only the last ailment is truly mortal. You can survive anything with the grace of Christ.

I don't know if tomorrow I'll resign myself to complaining or commit grave sins, but in this present moment, I'm grateful to God for the peaceful acceptance of his providence. There are days I am overwhelmed with love for God, and this is one of them. To him be Glory forever.

Weekend Musings

2010-03-21T13:46:00.001-07:00

I used this verse in a debate the other day and I found it interesting.

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord" - Ephesians 2:19-21

It's an interesting idea that Cardinal Newman suggested, that while the deposit of faith is the same, the 'unpacking' or development of doctrine is still happening. This verse struck me the other day. Mainly because it says that the Church is build upon apostles. Calvin said that meant 'apostolic teaching' by which he meant the Bible, by which he meant the Protestant canon. I personally think that it means apostolic succession, but I would say that wouldn't I. I like this verse though, as well as the preceding chapter.

On Ash Wednesday I met a deacon who is a professor of neuroscience at my university and he found out I was a convert and he told me a story about Mother Teresa. A reporter once asked her why she was Catholic, she said because she hadn't found a better religion yet.

Today I was driving to get my haircut and there was a brilliant English Monsignor who was preaching, and I really enjoyed his sermon, so I sat and listened to it for a while. By the time I walked up to the barber shop it was closing for the day. Typical Andrew haha. But I wasn't angry, it was worth it, I'll get my hair cut later.

I started reading Dietrich Von Hildebrand's book that a friend sent me the other day. It's about St. Francis (of Assisi's) message to laymen today. As a 20th century Philosopher von Hildebrand is fascinating and attacks relativism greatly. St. Francis' story was a big influence in his conversion to the Church. It's really great and I'm learning a ton about St. Francis. I have a picture of him and a small figure my mom got me in Assisi as devotional aids in my room, and it's embarrassing how little I knew about him until recently. When I read that he called his order the minores fratres 'lesser brethren', it immediately made me want to join, it felt like the religious order invented for me.

I'm really excited to go to Mass tonight again. I'm trying to figure out a Catholic definition of love, and I think I've almost got it. I think the locus classicus for understanding it is Jesus' statement in St. John's Gospel "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I feel like love might be defined in a Catholic sense as 'self-giving'. Christ gave himself for us to the Father on the Cross, to merit the grace which makes us able to be offered to the Father by Christ. Something like that maybe? The Evangeli-speak would be 'give your life to Christ'. That sort of thing.

Putting the Intellectum back into: Fides quarens intellectum

2010-03-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

I discussed with a friend the other day my "rationalism". Instead of trying to defend how I function, rather I wanted to try to explain it. When dealing with infidels, you cannot use the Bible. As an Evangelical we learned how 'historically accurate' the bible was. Indeed Homer's Illiad might be historically reliable, but this doesn't mean Apollo played a role in the fight. Rather than go this route, I tend to use Metaphysics in the Thomistic method, or go the route of the New Natural Law theorists, who put forth basic goods for human flourishing and argue how Catholic doctrine is in keeping with this. I believe in reason / common sense, because I believe humans are created in the image of God. If they were not, then obviously reason would be useless. If we are totally depraved as Protestants contend, it is likewise useless.

Much of my conversion was based on the reasonableness of Catholicism. History attests to Roman Catholic Ecclesiology, and Tradition is reasonably the most suitable interpreter in scriptural difficulties. To put it simply, Catholicism makes sense. I think a person's philosophy (epistemology) determines their theological views. Unbeknownst to me, a Political philosopher I encountered at Brock converted me from Protestant Nominalism to Aristotelian Thomism. This laid the groundwork for everything else.

I am not a Rationalist if by that word you mean one who believes in Reason alone, or seeks to eliminate religion. But rather I am someone who holds the Anselmic doctrine of faith seeking understanding. I believe in reason, which to most postmoderns makes me a Rationalist. I found a part of the Catholic Encyclopedia which explains my position best:

"The term Rationalism is perhaps not usually applied to the theological method of the Catholic Church. All forms of theological statement, however, and pre-eminently the dialectical form of Catholic theology, are rationalistic in the truest sense. Indeed, the claim of such Rationalism [Enlightenment Atheism] as is dealt with above is directly met by the counter claim of the Church: that it is at best but a mutilated and unreasonable Rationalism, not worthy of the name, while that of the Church is rationally complete, and integrated, moreover, with super-rational truth. In this sense Catholic theology presupposes the certain truths of natural reason as the preambula fidei, philosophy (the ancilla theologiæ) is employed in the defence of revealed truth (see APOLOGETICS), and the content of Divine revelation is treated and systematized in the categories of natural thought. This systematization is carried out both in dogmatic and moral theology. It is a process contemporaneous with the first attempt at a scientific statement of religious truth, comes to perfection of method in the works of such writers as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus, and is consistently employed and developed in the Schools."

While folks like Chesterton had to contend with Rationalism and thus fell towards the faith side of the equation, it was never Fideism which Kierkegaard and so many Protestants and postmoderns alike are fleeing to. In this day and age, the balance needs to swing back to rationality (in my opinion).

The Person of Jesus - The Subject of the Sacraments

2010-03-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

On my retreat this weekend I had a sort of mini revelation. I just wrote down on a piece of paper: 'Lex Christi est Persona Christi' (probably incorrect Latin) - The Law of Christ is the Person of Christ. After I made a few minor errors during Confession I felt like I had 'done it wrong' and then fears began coming up of Baptismal invalidity, etc. I then remembered St. Ignatius' important warning to discern between the voice of God and the lies of the Devil - Indeed, it's the Scriptural admonition to 'test the spirits'. I was reminded of the theology of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI where he constantly reminds us that the Truth is not a theory or a system, but a person. I remembered that the whole purpose of the sacrament of confession is the God-given grace of contrition - sorrow for one's sins. This isn't something I can conjure up on my own, it's not something that exists in words and formula. It is God's work and my cooperation in the soul. It is a matter of the theology of the heart. I remembered that I was repenting to Christ, not performing a ritual, and that it was as St. Augustine said "heart speaketh unto heart". As ridiculous as it sounds, I need to be reminded daily that God is a person, that Jesus is a friend to me. When I understand that, it becomes so simple, one's reason is amazed at the gap bridged between the unknowable divine essence, and a friend. It reminds me of the whole purpose of the sacrament and the priesthood. To make an invisible reality a visible sign. The most powerful image I remember when I think of this is the embrace between Robert Deniro and Jeremy Irons in "The Mission", when Robert Deniro has finally made peace with God and himself.

Anyway, all of this connected to a quote I found this morning from Papa Benny, so I thought I'd post it:

"Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you." - Pope Benedict XVI

Newman Club Retreat & Vocation

2010-03-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend we had a Newman Club retreat. It went alot better, I mostly shut up about contentious stuff so it worked out. Actually it was a great time. We had alot of time for reflection and prayer. I relearned alot of things, and had a great discussion with a Peruvian Catholic philosopher about the stuff I'm taking in my Existentialist class. I definately need to read more papa jpII (I want to pick up 'love and responsibility'). I found some more latent Calvinism that I had to root out (I'm not even joking) and how it effects my relationships with others, God, and in my reception of the Sacraments (i've kind of been a crypto-Jansenist perhaps).

Anyway, the biggest moment of the retreat was my continued 'mood/feeling/disposition' - I don't know if it's strong enough to be a calling. It usually happens most strongly when I'm praying the Rosary. We had a time of confession and adoration, and we - by some twist of fate - got to sing 2 hymns in Latin which were beautiful. It was basically the priest and I singing, and I had the feeling that I'm supposed to become a Jesuit. It was the weirdest thing, because lately I've been having alot of problems with the Society, and have been looking at other religious orders. But strangely enough, it's like I'm not even feeling a calling to the priesthood so much as a calling to be a Jesuit. Perhaps one would call this a 'calling' (remembering my reservations about the term) to the religious vocation of priesthood?

So that was basically it. I met some pretty young Catholic girls, but this didn't seem to make me change my feelings, or even want a different life. I have no idea. I talked to my priest about it and he said I should wait at least 5 years as I'm, 'a newly minted Catholic'. That's probably good advice.

Today we had time to start watching "the Black Robe" about the Canadian Jesuits who were missionaries (maybe it's all the movies that's doing it?) and martyrs to the Huron. We only got about 40 minutes in, but I felt so simultaneously inspired by it, and unworthy/unable to live such a heroic life. By God's grace perhaps I will.

The funny thing about vocations is that seemingly the only thing we say about them is "it's not just for priests and religious!". This goes on to the point that I began to wonder if priesthood is a vocation (I immediately realized the ridiculousness of such a quandry), but it goes to show you how much things change sometimes.

Pearls Before Swine: Magisterial Teaching & the Herd

2010-03-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

I've caused another fiasco in our Newman Club on campus (this time it was for something beyond informing them it wasn't "The Newmans Club" or that John Henry Newman was actually English and never established any clubs). No once again it seems Magisterial Teaching has been "offensive".

That to me, seems to be the problem with EVERY religion, in my arrogant opinion. That people do not listen to their authorities. The Enlightenment has been so successful in demolishing authority that we are stuck in this hyper-individual scenerio that just breeds relativism. This is normally where Catholic bloggers blame Luther. The problem with this is that Luther actually believed things. Lutherans following him actually adhered to the book of Concord. Catholics have been able to come to much agreement with Lutherans who follow their own authorities.

So Protestantism isn't the issue (though I would say Anabaptism/Baptists/Pentecostals are, and I would say they aren't truly Protestant). It's the fact that Biblical and Historic Christianity is dogmatic, it's based on authority, and you have to follow that authority. The other problem is that people are too lazy to investigate, so they follow the authority blindly, I do occasionally when it comes to things like Marian apparitions because I haven't investigated them (although it's a little different as the Church hasn't thrown their authority definitively behind any).

This is why I got angry with a Calvinist the other day who didn't know what active Reprobation was and didn't know the Calvinistic doctrine of infant baptism, etc. If you're going to give your soul to the gospel according to Geneva (or Rome, or Wittenburg), KNOW what they teach!

So ya. this is my frustration with my generation, open ignorance cloaking itself as tolerance cloaking itself as 'virtue' or 'love'. And as Papa Benny has just reminded us with "Caritas in Veritatem", the TRUTH is necessary for love.

Here are some true articles of historic Christian faith / Catholicism / Thomism being denied on campus almost daily:

-all people are born sinful, and that apart from God's grace they can in no way merit salvation on their own, and that apart from Christ, no person can be saved. (This was an issue because I said Ghandi was in Hell, because he rejected Christ. Everyone freaked out because of my "judgment". The issue is - and I KNOW this as a Protestant convert - Catholic soteriology states that the ONLY way works can be meritorious, is if they are linked to Christ's ultimately meritorious work of salvation. Thus to be outside Christ - as a rejection like that of Ghandi's would put a person - means that NO WORK has ANY merit in the eyes of God. As the Protestants love quoting, it is a Menstrual rag. (See Isaiah). So before God, all of Ghandi's 'good works' were filthy rags, because they were not Christ's works within him. Unless of course he secretly believed in Jesus, etc).

-one ultimate reality exists and humans by divine aid can access it. Postmodernism is not a heresy per se, RELATIVISM is a heresy. As my friend Lance says, the best Postmoderns are most Premodern. Postmodernism can be a great way to attack the heresy of Modernism (that man can understand the universe/nature without God), BUT must be enforced with the belief that, with God, we CAN have some understanding of Reality. This is Thomas, Anselm, Augustine, and all of traditional Dogmatic Realism. The Protestant Reformers were Nominalists which is another heresy (though as some Presbyterian ministers have pointed out, many in the Reformed community view those opinions of theirs as heretical and have a more Thomistic Realist stance).

-the Bible is to be understood as Literally true in many areas. Catholics never learned traditional Erasmian biblical interpretation but they seem to have learned the deadly historico-critical interpretation from someone (probably just English class). Their first claim is that the greatest mistake in exegesis is to understand something as 'literally true' (now the widespread denial of Transubstantiation makes more sense). It is true that sometimes the Bible is not speaking literally, but in certain areas it is. I actually can't think of a single passage or book of the bible that a Liberal Catholic could not come up with some kind of exegetical gymnastics to get out of: ex. Oh we all know that the gospel of John is unreliable, or that all the Old Testament was corrupted by Babylonian influence, etc. I've heard it all, and it's all crap. There I said it. I prefer Conservative Evangelical Exegesis to Liberal Catholic exegesis. This is why I listen to Chuck Swindoll, James MacDonald, and Alistair Begg on the radio. They're all great exegetes of the bible. Papa Benny of course is an amazing exegete himself.

So these are all the problems. In the end, I still haven't heard what my comment was that angered people. It might've been when someone angrily disagreed with Church teaching on divorce and re-marriage and asked if they were a bastard child and I might have told them "according to the Roman curia, you are" or something to that effect. Or it might've been when I told them that Ghandi -as far as we know- is in Hell. Or it might've been when I told them that infant baptism actually exists because babies are born sinful.

But hey, if they kick me out for teaching them their own doctrine, the Lutherans or Evangelical Anglicans would probably welcome me with open arms. (though it would be problematic as the only area I think they MIGHT be right which I'm obligated to believe they're wrong in (and I do in obedience to authority) is Concupiscence as actually being Sin. The famous line in Trent about "while St. Paul says it's sin....he's actually wrong', etc. But other than that I'm a Papist)

Newman or Aquinas

2010-03-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

I was sitting at my university doing Latin homework today when I overheard an interesting discussion. A girl and a guy were talking about Creation and the essay they were writing. The girl began talking about Aquinas' arguments for God's existence and she kept saying that he believed in the eternality of the universe (a belief Aristotle held, but which Aquinas opposed vehemently), it made me really annoyed - to the point that I almost got up and said something to her. But I waited patiently trying to understand that life would go on, and that all over the world people were misunderstanding the scholastics. At the end of their conversation, she said something to the effect of: 'but it's all ridiculous speculation anyway, your mind can't even wrap itself around the concepts, I'm just trying to get the paper done'.

As a converted Thomist I took great affrontery to such a claim - that the Thomistic 'proofs' for God were meaningless in everyday life. Though as I sat there it reminded me of another thinker who I respect equally (whether this is right ethically or not) to Aquinas, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.

He was a man of the people and as Catholic Encyclopedia says "a mystic not a skeptic". Even as a convert, he had no great love for the Scholastics and Medievals and indeed said very little about them. His most philosophical work was his essay usually called "Grammar of Assent" which took him 30 years to write. Now in Aquinas, Kant, and Heidegger, there is a complete phenomenology and ontology, a 'way of knowing' statements about belief and reason, etc.

Contrary to all of this, Newman set out what he believed to be - not the 'proper' or most logical way - but the real way people came to believe things. He argued that we actually have alot more faith than one might imagine, and that in all sorts of things we act using "Illative Sense" which bridges the gap between what we logically are certain of, and what we think is probably true and act on.

His whole point in "Grammar of Assent" (according to the summaries I've read) is that you don't need a volume on how to believe, because you already know how to do it.

This philosophy appeals to me greatly because it's something that everyone can understand. It's not removed to ivory towers and complex irrelevant discussions about Being and Time. It's a sort of everyman apologetics. I haven't read it yet - it will take a while. But I think perhaps I might end up switching my philosophical structure from 'pure'(?) Thomism to a sort of Thomistic Personalism which Newman and Papa JP II espoused.

Salve Regina

2010-03-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

"I went to see him (Chesterton) as he died. I asked to be alone with the dying man. There that great frame was in the heat of death, the great mind was getting ready, no doubt, in its own way, for the sight of God. It was Saturday, and I think that perhaps in another thousand years Gilbert Chesterton might be known as one of the sweetest singers to that ever-blessed daughter of Sion, Mary of Nazareth. I knew that the very finest qualities of The Crusaders was one of the endowments of his great heart, and then I remembered the song of the Crusaders, Salve Regina, which we Blackfriars sing every night to the Lady of our love. I said to Gilbert Chesterton: "You shall hear your mother's love song." And I sang to Gilbert Chesterton the Crusader's song: "Hail, Holy Queen!" - Fr. Vincent McNabb

I remember reading part of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's autobiography where he taught his prison guards how do sing the Salve Regina and they would sing it together - even though they didn't know what it was. It's a beautiful prayer - I think.

I was thinking about St. Louis de Montfort and how he argued that the person most devoted to Mary is most devoted to Christ, and how he said that Mary is not great because of anything she is in and of herself. She is great because she was the home, mother, and earthly teacher of Christ. Everything she does points to him, and so the quickest way to understand true Christian devotion, true emptiness of self and love for Jesus, is to look to Mary (through Mary?).

Cardinal Newman has a great line where he says that for Catholics, our beliefs don't contradict our belief in scripture, etc because we see no contradiction, only harmony. He writes 'they say we ought to be disturbed, but we aren't'. That's what I try to tell people when they question Catholic Mariology: when they ask 'why?' answer 'why not?'. It's the 'default' Christian position from Patristic times to the Reformation, and they saw no problem with it. Mother Teresa once was asked why she was Catholic and she replied that it was because she hadn't found a better religion yet. That's my general standpoint.

I want to learn how to sing the Salve Regina in Latin. I love it when we occasionally get to sing it in English for a recessional hymn.

Prayer

2010-03-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

The great thing about desperation and fear is that it brings you to prayer. I agree with St. Thomas (Aquinas) who said that sometimes God allows us to fall into minor sins so that we realize we need him and do not committ the greatest sin of pride. I am constantly reminded of how much I need God, and how true all those ugly looking pictures are, hung in every church in our parish, Jesus with rainbows shooting out of his chest with the words "Jesus I trust in you". Ugly pictures aside, that's a beautiful Catholic truth (and Protestant truth as it is their main point), that we must trust God with everything. I'm just rambling now.

"Godless Generation"

2010-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

I was reading about internet phenomena the other day, and I found out about the 'puppy-throwing marine' youtube video. For the sake of time I'll assume that title is descriptive enough. Anyway so this video got banned because a puppy dying was seen as offensive. Then I saw a video from a girl named 'angie the anti-theist' filming her abortion (she did it by pill). What does this say about our culture? That people think a puppy's life is more valuable and it's death is more offensive than the murder of a child.

The Vulgate quotes St. Peter speaking in the Spirit at Pentecost saying "salvamini a generatione ista prava" - Save yourselves from this perverse generation. Another translation says: "godless generation".

I was in my Existentialist philosophy class and after I asked if Sartre had any logical argument for Atheism and she replied 'no but it's just a generally accepted premise that he doesn't".

I was reading Karl Rahner's work on the Trinity and in it he was arguing against traditional Catholic theology. This is a man people apparently say is a 'hero' of the faith. The "textbook" theologians as he calls them, were the real heroes.

All of this has made me better understand this command to save ourselves from this godless generation. This is another reason I'd like to completely do so and maybe become a priest, to be completely removed from this culture's values and be a living image of Christ. What a job?! But how incredibly difficult...

Flee From Sin / Occasion to Sin

2010-02-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

"Have you sinned, my child? Do so no more,
but ask forgiveness for your past sins.
Flee from sin as from a snake;
for if you approach sin, it will bite you.
Its teeth are lion’s teeth,
and can destroy human lives." - Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 21:1-2

I came across an interesting theory/theology the other day. Fr. Vincent McNabb, an English Dominican, who lived at the time of Chesterton, argued that the Christian life is about avoiding sin, and for those who have not the heroic virtue to resist sin, then the Christian life is about avoiding the occasion to sin. Occasion to Sin is a very Catholic phrase that means putting yourself in a place to fall - actually I looked up the etymology and it comes from occidere which means 'to fall down'. So Fr. McNabb called Catholics to leave the city where more temptation was at hand.

This is reminiscent of the call in the New Testament out of Babylon:

"Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
‘Come out of her, my people,
so that you do not take part in her sins,
and so that you do not share in her plagues" - Revelation (Apocalypse) 18:4

Dom Vincent actually called London: Babylondon. Clever. I was struck by this theology because it is much akin to my desire to run away to a monastery. I was thinking about how it applies to what the philosopher sayeth (Aristotle), that moral character/virtue is based on habit. For most post-enlightenment ethicists -especially of the Protestant Moralist tradition (I'm looking at you Richard Baxter and your 18th century Anglican Brethren) - ethics has been seen as the attempt of the sturdy individual to overcome temptation personally and thus triumph over evil and suceed in Christian living. St. Thomas and Aristotle would argue that actually allowing yourself to be placed in the occasion to sin and then failing, makes you weaker morally. Thus every time you try to face the same temptations you're actually getting weaker.

SO, the argument is that such 'weak' Christians should live in an environment that provides the least occasions to sin. I, being one such weak Christian, think such an impoverished, celibate, and obedient life might be a good opportunity to build my moral muscles in order to face the world.

Thus, while many would consider such an option cowardly and 'running away' from the world, I'm reminded of the words of our Lord:

"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell." - Matthew 5:29-30

This passage beautifully echoes the teleological ethics of the Catholic system. Whereas many would say it is no virtue to run away because you aren't 'beating' the enemy vices, in Catholicism, what you do matters - not what you 'feel' like doing. If you're locked in a padded room and you feel like killing yourself (presumably after reading too much Nietzsche) but can't, then you will die without the mortal sin of murder/suicide on your soul. You will be saved. If you are given the option and fail, you will enter grave sin and be able to hope only in God's extra gratuitous mercy.

So there's my argument. It's the one Joseph used when he ran out of the house of Potiphar (semi)naked: run away, or in the King James: "flee from sin"

(I have a feeling the exact opposite argument could also be made so I'm ready for disagreement)

Random Musings: Vocation, Newman, Priesthood

2010-02-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

As I read the venerable Cardinal's spiritual autobiography, I cannot help but be swayed towards studying theology at the least, and entering the priesthood at the most.

Throughout Lent, I've been trying to pray for clarity in my vocation. This is difficult as I find God rarely speaks to me, or more accurately, I rarely discern his Providence until I look back in reflection. But as I read stories about the greatness of saints (in my opinion) of folks like Newman and anti-Nazi clerics and others in Germany inspired by his theology of conscience, I feel like there could be no greater honor than to give me life in the service of our Lord.

I don't know what I'll do with my life, but to phrase things this way I thought: 'what do I want my wikipedia page to say?' My first thought was: how many amazing Christians who have given their lives in labouring for Christ's Kingdom do not have wikipedia pages. I don't want one either. But if by the felicitous grace of God I one day have one, I want it to say Priest.

I am far too tempted to this life in favor of titles or glory in service of so great a thing as the Catholic Church. The only thing that helps me avoid this temptation to pride is the title Priest.

Contrary to what many Protestants think, Catholics (Orthodox, and Anglican as well) do not believe there to be a Catholic Priesthood, there is only the priesthood of Christ. To be a Catholic priest is to be one who offers himself to act in persona Christi to share in Christ's eternal priesthood, and to offer the same perfect sacrifice that only Christ could offer. In the same way that the only ministry is the sharing of the apostolic ministry, the only priesthood is the sharing of the priesthood of Christ.

So if you remember that you are a priest, it is not to remember that you are greater than someone else, but to remember that you are imitating someone else, namely, Jesus.

I'm uncertain, I'm still far too undisciplined for such a life. But if I could persevere to the level of holiness befitting to one of the servants of God, how awesome would life be?

At present, I am terrified to participate in the Mass at all because of my fear of upsetting the divine liturgy/screwing up (I remind myself of Luther, except far less holy than he). Luckily our assistant Chaplain forced me to do a reading the other day, and hillariously on the way back to my seat, I tripped once or twice (without falling face down though) and everyone was disappointed that such a potentially entertaining disaster was avoided.

Anyway, all this self-reflection is probably unhealthy, I should even consider the priesthood until I can actually successfully live the Christian life as a layman. God has given me a head and a bit of a heart, so I do theology and teach the faith wherever possible, he would have to move my hands if I were to become a priest.