Parenting: Kids and Brats!

If a child’s will was never contradicted from the day of his birth to, let’s say, age seven, he would not only be a brat but he would be positively evil. His presence would be an intolerable burden to others. Such is human nature when left to itself. At an infant’s baptism, the dark blemish of Original Sin is removed but the scar remains. And that scar is that the child suffers from the illusion that the world revolves him. Every child is born a brat! Soon enough the child will come to realize through his parents that some of his impulses and desires don’t always lead to good things. This is where the art of parental love and discipline comes in. This is where good kids are made and brats are unmade.

Some would say parental love and discipline is a lost art. As time passes, as our culture becomes more secular and with each younger generation, parents seem to struggle more with maintaining the right balance of love and discipline. For instance, I hear parents say, “I never used to talk to my parents the way my children talk to me.” And they scratch their heads and wonder what could be cause of the discrepancy. Curiously enough, the Oompa Loompa song in the movie, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, got it right:

“Who do you blame when your kid is a brat
Pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat?
Blaming the kids is a lion of shame
You know exactly who's to blame:
The mother and the father!

If you're not spoiled then you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Oompa Loompa doompadee dah.”

The fact is, today’s parents are not doing what their parents and grandparents used to do; that is, taking the time and making the sacrifice to discipline their children. Instead, they spend their parenting years yelling at their kids out of frustration. If there is any area where a weak theological formation has the most impact, it is in the area of parenting. For instance, many Catholic institutions in recent decades have downplayed the doctrines of divine authority, sin, punishment and hell. Eventually, this translated into a weakening of parental authority, a failure to understand a child’s bad behavior (i.e. sin), a failure to stop that bad behavior (punishment) and a failure to foresee the long term consequences of bad behavior (hell). When Christ came to this earth, he not only saved the soul but he also saved parenting. To be sure, he inspired a kind of parenting not unlike his Father’s; one that is balanced with love and discipline.

I have heard some parents say, “I am not my kid’s friend but rather his parent.” And what is more common now days are parents trying to be a friend to their children while forgetting that they are parents. Indeed, they have been given an authority from God to use for disciplinary reasons. One reason, among many, is to instill virtue and build character in their children so that society doesn’t have to do it. But if we are to take God the Father has a model to imitate, we would do well to remember that parents ought to be both an authority figure to be obeyed and a friend to be confided in. If a parent’s authority is the only thing that children are exposed to, then you can hardly expect them to talk to you about their problems. And if you, as a parent, are just a friend to your kids, then you can hardly expect them to listen to you. Like God, you have to be a parent and a friend.

I found that a good balance is to be that source of authority for my children when discipline is warranted while, at the same time, showing them they have a friend in their dad. They should know at any given moment that you are willing to use your parental authority to correct an injustice or a wrong that was committed. They should also know that they are not just your subjects or subordinates but that they have been given a God-given dignity that is equal to yours. What is just as important, children need to know that they are God’s first and yours second; that they have been entrusted to you as gifts from the Lord. Hence, when they grow up and realize we, as their parents, have real limitations and flaws, they will understand that we are just an image of the Real Thing. Indeed, the real parent is God.

But all this is well and good in the abstract. What about some practical tips? How do the parents of today differ from those of yesterday? Where is that balance between being an authority figure and being a friend? Take it for what it is worth, but here are seven observations that might be helpful:

1. Make sure you communicate to your children on a daily basis that it is good that they exist; that they are special and that no one can replace them. When they wake up in the morning, show them that you’re happy that they woke up. Other hand, teach them that the world will go on without them. Yes, they are special, but they are not the center of the universe. Indeed, as our Lord said, he who is last will be first; that is, by being a servant to all and considerate of all we will be blessed by God.

2. Try not to discipline your children with anger. Parents too often do this. They inadvertently teach their kids not to do wrong- not because it is wrong –but because it makes mommy and daddy mad. But what will they do in the absence of your anger. We must teach them with a calm but resolute demeanor that they should do good and avoid evil for its own sake and for the sake of pleasing God. The effect will hopefully be that they will do the right thing when no one is looking. Your anger, therefore, shouldn’t be the reason why they avoid doing evil.

3. When you tell your kids to do something and they do not do it, you do your kids a disservice by letting it slide. How many parents give directives without any real expectation that their children will comply? Action ought to reinforce our words. Quite often, we are tired and don’t feel like getting up and ensuring that our children obey. When you issue a directive to a child, he or she should know you expect it to be complied with and that there will be consequences if they are not complied with.

4. Children ought to know that there are “effective” consequences for their actions. Parental discipline is the primary means through which children connect the dots between the two. When a child has done wrong make sure that the consequence will inconvenience them; they should feel the pinch. Yelling and complaining is not a form of discipline. Kids have a wonderful capacity to tune that out. Some children need just a little discipline while others need parents to administer a shock to their system. Whatever the consequence, it should be immediate, concrete and unpleasant. St. Padre Pio once ran a lady out of the confessional booth before she finished her confession. She came back the next day and asked the saintly priest why he treated her in such a rude and aggressive manner, he said while she was talking, he had a vision of her three sons in hell and that her relaxed parenting was a contributing factor.

5. Occasionally, explain why they should do chores, why they should follow directions and why they should be respectful to others. All of these things will not only foster virtue but they will prepare them for their careers. Give them the bigger picture as to why you say the things you say and do the things you do.

6. The mother and father should always be on the same page. When one is offended by the child, the other parent should show that he or she is offended too. This way a child will not pit one parent against another. Parents’ acting as one usually serves as a good incentive to behave. On the other hand, I have seen the sad results of parents who undermine each other in their discipline. It is never good.

7. Parenting is an imperfect science because parents themselves are imperfect. Sometimes we will come down too hard on them and other times we are just plain inconsistent. Let them know, especially when you’ve done wrong, that you are not perfect and that you need to be forgiven too. Humility not only goes a long way with God but it also goes a long way with your children. Yes, sometimes we should apologize even to our children.

God's Chisel Upon the Soul

Reposting for Lent and for new Sky View readers:

Excerpts from the book, “Spirituality of the Old Testament,” by Paul Marie de la Croix


Preface:

How does God purify his servants? How does he chisel away our imperfections? Answer: Much like a sculptor chisels away the irregularities of his sculpture. Sometimes he uses the hard medal of a chisel so as to deliver the hard blows of adversity; sometimes he employs delicate measures with the soft brush of inconvenience. Whatever the instrument, whatever method, the Father’s purpose is always to conform his servants into the image of his Son.


Spirituality of the Old Testament:

God uses “the life imposed upon his servants to bring about their profound purification. The Bible proves this very clearly.”

“The usual instrument of purification that God holds in His hand is life itself. Life, that is, the whole combination of situations that must be faced day by day, with all the consequent obligations. Nothing purifies men as well as life itself, if they are able to accept it and live it as it occurs. By nature it is unforeseeable and cannot be covered by any formula. It is real and must really be lived. It is all-inclusive and takes the whole man, shaping him on every plane. No one can ever view it as a mere spectator, for sooner or later it involves even those who have refused to commit themselves.

“Life uses and intermingles every rhythm; often a sudden event transforms it in an instant. This forces men to adopt a new pace and to overcome difficulties which show them their inner most selves and purify them to their very core. No man, however prudent and wise, can ever arrange his life just as he pleases. On the contrary, it is life which, day by day traversing strange regions, must ‘lead you where you would not go.’ And always, mysteriously, invisibly, God is the weaver of life’s fabric, the artist who places each tiny item in accord with His infinitely wise pattern. How then, can men venture to judge what is best for them or decide what they require? Only life brings the answer, moment by moment. How can we fail to see that it is a royal road, a safe road? It is the chief means God uses to purify His servants…

“Life was likewise the chisel that sculptured the prophets’ souls, as it exposed them to scorn, hostility, hatred and vengeance. It led them to persecution and to martyrdom. Thus, we have seen that God uses life as the supreme instrument of purification…

“May God help us never to belittle the often intolerable burden of suffering and illnesses, or the still heavier burden of trials that touch souls in their dearest affections, in their reputation or their honor. We should not be deaf to their cries, which are recorded in the bible and often show desperate anguish.”

Indeed, life is God's chisel which reveals our innerself in times of crisis and, at the same time, is the very instrument he uses to bring about a better version of ourselves!

The Issue: Liberty or Birth Control?

Many Catholics and even conservative media commentators have stressed the point in recent days that HHS mandate imposed on Catholic institutions is really about religious liberty and not about contraception. This is only half true. Actually, it is about both religious liberty and birth control. Since the mandate, it has been about religious liberty. But since 1968, when Pope Paul VI published his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, it has been about the Church’s response to the widespread use of contraception. Nevertheless, the public is apt to see that the battle between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church is about religious liberty. No doubt, that is what it is. But what lies underneath the surface has been going on for forty-plus years.

Keep in mind that it is a biblical truth that “man is punished by the very things through which he sins.” (Wisdom 11:16) To impress upon his children valuable moral and spiritual lessons, God’s chastening hand- as a loving Father -has been known to use the “very things through which people sin” to discipline or punish his people. Unfortunately, the notion that God punishes sinners as an act of fatherly love has fallen into disuse among Catholics. As such, we would do well to reintroduce this revealed truth into our discussion. It just may help us to bring down the blessings of God upon this situation.

For instance, with regard to his own Church, does God not hold us- his baptized sons and daughters –to a higher standard than the rest of humanity? St. Peter, our first pope, would have us believe that, in fact, he does: “For it is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God…” (I Peter 4:17) Yet, there is virtually no talk whatsoever about how Catholics- both clergy and laity –may have contributed to this injustice leveled against the Church. An examination of conscience as a body of believers is missing in this whole national debate. No doubt, the mandate needs to be vigorously opposed and publicly exposed as a grave injustice. But there are deeper issues at play.

The Catholic Church has never been as prophetic as she has in 1968 when she warned the world of the moral evils of contraception. Pope Paul VI said there would be a general lowering of morality, an objectification of women, increased marital infidelity, increased promiscuity and an occasion for the State to manipulate the means of procreation. In recent years, cohabitation has skyrocketed, marriage rates have been decreasing, the legalization of same-sex marriage is well underway and several countries will suffer from a demographic winter, the likes of which we have never seen (i.e. the social pyramid being top-heavy with the elderly and the younger tax paying/working population being half the size). These are all the bitter fruits of contraception.


As you can see, the sin of the contraception is of monumental importance for Western Civilization. Yet, barely a word is breathed about it in those venues the Church readily possesses to educate church-going Catholics. From all the years I attended Sunday Mass I only heard the word "contraception" or "birth control" mentioned (in passing…ever so quickly) from the pulpit two or three times. And as far as high profile church documents are concerned, there hasn't been any sense of urgency to communicate to married couples that they should consider having more children. Italy, the backyard of the Vatican, has a suicidal birthrate of 1.2 percent. Keep in mind that demographers say that anything below 1.6 percent is all but impossible to reverse. But I have yet to see a major encyclical or ecclesiastical document in recent years sounding the alarm that Europe is really! truly! (without exaggeration) dying of old age. There will be major cultural ramifications because of this.

I confess, I do not understand why this is not a major theme at the Vatican and among the Catholic hierarchy in general. I am perplexed over the deafening silence on such an important matter. Other countries such as Japan, Korea, Russia and China are facing a rapidly aging as well. To be sure, America is not far behind.

This brings us to a rhetorical and yet serious question: If the Magisterium of the Church, if bishops of dioceses, if pastors of parishes and if lay catechists hardly ever talk about the importance of being open to life with each and every sexual act, can contraception really be that bad? If it is never mentioned from the pulpit out of fear of displeasing the congregation, is it really that serious of a sin? Well-formed Catholics will say yes. Nevertheless, actions speak louder than words and words speak louder than documents. Yes, the moral truth about being open to life is is on paper. Yes, it is in our Catholic Catechism. But that fact that those who represent the Church hardly ever preach or teach about it speaks volumes to the average man or woman in the pew. If I, as a father of five children, simply distribute a pamphlet of household rules without the verbal and disciplinary reinforcement, can I really expect my children to be law or rule abiding? I don’t think so! People may doubt what you say (if you say it), but they’ll always believe what you do!

Can it be that because the Church (and here I refer to individual Catholics) no longer tells the world how to behave with regard to contraception, the world is now telling the Church what to do with contraception? I believe so. As Catholics became more silent and timid about the issue of contraception- because they sought to spare feelings and avoid giving offense –the world became more vocal about it and more determined to advance sexual license.

Ironically, the State today has little regard for our feelings. Indeed, President Obama and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, are not showing the slightest concern about who they might offend with this HHS mandate. And why should they? We no longer excommunicate those “Catholics” who are publicly scandalous, we no longer publicly rebuke obstinate sinners and we rarely preach about specific sins (most notably from the pulpit); most especially the sin of contraception.

Again, it is a biblical truth that “man is punished by the very things through which he sins.” (Wisdom 11:16) Our sin is one of omission; that of silence. At the very least the Church has been quiet and reluctant about addressing sin and its consequences. Whenever this happens, we can expect the world to grow more confident and more intolerant of truth and virtue.

The Great Liberal Death Wish

“The efforts that men make to bring about their own happiness, their own ease of life, their own self-indulgence, will in due course produce the opposite, leading me to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that human beings cannot live and operate in this world without some concept of a being greater than themselves, and of a purpose which transcends their own egotistic or greedy desires.”


“It's not true that the German holocaust was simply a war crime, as it was judged to be at Nuremberg. In point of fact, it was based upon a perfectly coherent, legally enacted decree approved and operated by the German medical profession before the Nazis took over power. In other words, from the point of view of the Guinness Book of Records you can say that in our mad world it takes about thirty years to transform a war crime into a compassionate act.”

- Malcom Muggeridge, The Great Liberal Death Wish 1979


Introduction:

Malcom Muggeridge, renowned journalist from England, friend of Mother Theresa and convert to the Catholic Church, wrote an article entitled, “The Great Liberal Death Wish.” Originally published in Imprimis, the monthly journal at Hillsdale College in May of 1979, Muggeridge set out to tell his own story about how he came to discover that the worldview he held so dearly was nothing but a death wish. He, like so many other progressives in the early to mid-twentieth century, was of the belief that a perfect socialistic society could be created here on earth; that is, without God’s help. What escaped him at the time, and what he later came to realize was that “Unless the LORD build the house,they labor in vain who build.” (Psalm 1127:1)

Malcom recalled his childhood years overhearing his father, who was a professed Christian, at his home in England talking to his political cronies about a kingdom of heaven on earth. Their discussions centered around how they could plan the perfect society. Of course, to carry this out, a powerful government is needed. This was his baptism, as he called it, into what he would later know as a great liberal death wish. With this worldview, he nothing but admiration for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations at the end of World War I. Indeed, many Westerners were brimming with optimism. To use Muggeridge’s own words, there was an “almost insane outburst of expectations.” Mankind had finally arrived and World War I was the war to end all wars. That was the prevailing thought anyway.

Malcom Muggeridge eventually attended Cambridge University, and a Christian College in India. Upon earning his degrees, he returned home to England to teach elementary school. After acquiring some teaching experience at the elementary school level he headed off to teach at the University of Cairo in Egypt. It was at this point he said “it was there that the dreadful infection of journalism got into my system.” This is when he learned how to “group think.” He started writing articles about the Egyptian people and what they wanted (although he had never talked an Egyptian before) and how they were supposedly clamoring for democracy. It was then he was asked to join the editorial staff of the Guardian. Before he would write on any given subject, he would ask his managers and peers, “What is our line?” That is to say, what position was he expected to take. It was through that prism he would report the "news."

Eventually, he made his way back to England. The Great Depression had hit his country pretty hard. By then he was enamored with the great liberal death wish; that is, the notion that through Socialism (or Communism), paradise can be had on earth. With his progressive, unsuspecting eyes, he looked towards the Soviet Union for the answer. He was “fully prepared to see in the Soviet regime the answer to all our troubles.” To his great elation, the Guardian sent him to Moscow as a correspondent. Shortly after he arrived in Russia, the first wave of disillusionment hit him. What he found was an “appalling tyranny, in which the only thing that mattered, the only reality, was power.”

The curious thing was that Muggeridge had witnessed how so many journalists, lawyers and even clergymen from the liberal intelligentsia that were utterly naïve about the brutality and misery under the Soviet regime. He even asked himself “how people, in their own country ardent for equality, bitter opponents of capital punishment and all for more humane treatment of people in prison, supporters, in fact, of every good cause, should in the USSR prostrate themselves before a regime ruled over brutally and oppressively and arbitrarily by a privileged party oligarchy?”

Not much as changed. The same strain of gullibility can be found in those Americans who subscribe to secular-liberalism in 2012. They simply cannot connect the dots between the moral values politicians hold and the oppressive policies that are sure to follow. But well-formed Christians can make this connection. They have not compartmentalized the world into tiny unrelated fragments. Morality and spirituality matters! And what is more, it has a profound effect in the political and economic world. Muggeridge was beginning to see this. He continues his thought:

“The thing that impressed me, and the thing that touched off my awareness of the great liberal death wish, my sense that western man was, as it were, sleep-walking into his own ruin, was the extraordinary performance of the liberal intelligentsia, who, in those days, flocked to Moscow like pilgrims to Mecca. And they were one and all utterly delighted and excited by what they saw there. Clergymen walked serenely and happily through the anti-god museums, politicians claimed that no system of society could possibly be more equitable and just, lawyers admired Soviet justice, and economists praised the Soviet economy. They all wrote articles in this sense which we resident journalists knew were completely nonsensical.”

It wasn’t until after World War II that Malcom Muggeridge began to see the great liberal death wish for what it really was. Finally, he rid himself of every last vestige of Socialism, Communism and every kind of Godless ideology which clung to him. He no longer believed the myth that progress can be had without God. In the place of his old beliefs, his new life in Christ was to grow over the years. More and more he would learn to appreciate Divine Providence and the purpose it assigns to every single individual.




The Great Liberal Death Wish: The Conclusion

Here, I provide what remains in his Imprimis article. It is an inspiring and insightful account of how the City of God will ultimately prevail over the great liberal death wish:

“[W]hen in 1945 I found myself a civilian again, I tried to sort out my thoughts about the great wave of optimism that followed the Second World War - for me, a repeat performance. It was then that I came to realize how, in the name of progress and compassion, the most terrible things were going to be done, preparing the way for the great humane holocaust, about which I have spoken. There was, it seemed to me, a built in propensity in this liberal world-view whereby the opposite of what was intended came to pass. Take the case of education. Education was the great mumbo--jumbo of progress, the assumption being that educating people would make them grow better and better, more and more objective and intelligent. Actually, as more and more money is spent on education, illiteracy is increasing.

Now I want to try to get to grips with this strange state of affairs. Let's look again at the humane holocaust. What happened in Germany was that long before the Nazis got into power, a great propaganda was undertaken to sterilize people who were considered to be useless or a liability to society, and after that to introduce what they called "mercy killing." This happened long before the Nazis set up their extermination camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere, and was based upon the highest humanitarian considerations. You see what I'm getting at? On a basis of liberal-humanism, there is no creature in the universe greater than man, and the future of the human race rests only with human beings themselves, which leads infallibly to some sort of suicidal situation. It's to me quite clear that that is so, the evidence is on every hand. The efforts that men make to bring about their own happiness, their own ease of life, their own self-indulgence, will in due course produce the opposite, leading me to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that human beings cannot live and operate in this world without some concept of a being greater than themselves, and of a purpose which transcends their own egotistic or greedy desires.

Once you eliminate the notion of a God, a creator, once you eliminate the notion that the creator has a purpose for us, and that life consists essentially in fulfilling that purpose, then you are bound, as Pascal points out, to induce the megalomania of which we've seen so many manifestations in our time - in the crazy dictators, as in the lunacies of people who are rich, or who consider themselves to be important or celebrated in the western world. Alternatively, human beings relapse into mere carnality, into being animals. I see this process going on irresistibly, of which the holocaust is only just one example.

If you envisage men as being only men, you are bound to see human society, not in Christian terms as a family, but as a factory--farm in which the only consideration that matters is the well--being of the livestock and the prosperity or productivity of the enterprise. That's where you land yourself. And it is in that situation that western man is increasingly finding himself.

First of all, the fact that we can't work out the liberal dream in practical terms is not bad news, but good news. Because if you could work it out, life would be too banal, too tenth-rate to be worth bothering about.

This is that the most perfect and beautiful expressions of man's spiritual aspirations come, not from the liberal dream in any of its manifestations, but from people in the forced labor camps of the USSR.

He cites case after case of people who, like Solzhenitsyn, say that enlightenment came to them in the forced labor camps. They understood what freedom was when they had lost their freedom, they understood what the purpose of life was when they seemed to have no future. They say, moreover, that when it's a question of choosing whether to save your soul or your body, the man who chooses to save his soul gathers strength thereby to go on living, whereas the man who chooses to save his body at the expense of his soul loses both body and soul. In other words, fulfilling exactly what our Lord said, that he who hates his life in this world shall keep his life for all eternity, as those who love their lives in this world will assuredly lose them. Now, that's where I see the light in our darkness.

In contradistinction, this is the liberal death wish, holding out the fallacious and ultimately destructive hope that we can construct a happy, fulfilled life in terms of our physical and material needs, and in the moral and intellectual dimensions of our mortality.

I feel so strongly at the end of my life that nothing can happen to us in any circumstances that is not part of God's purpose for us. Therefore, we have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, except that we should rebel against His purpose, that we should fail to detect it and fail to establish some sort of relationship with Him and His divine will. On that basis, there can be no black despair, no throwing in of our hand. We can watch the institutions and social structures of our time collapse - and I think you who are young are fated to watch them collapse - and we can reckon with what seems like an irresistibly growing power of materialism and materialist societies. But, it will not happen that that is the end of the story. As St. Augustine said - and I love to think of it when he received the news in Carthage that Rome had been sacked: Well, if that's happened, it's a great catastrophe, but we must never forget that the earthly cities that men build they destroy, but there is also the City of God which men didn't build and can't destroy. And he devoted the next seventeen years of his life to working out the relationship between the earthly city and the City of God - the earthly city where we live for a short time, and the City of God whose citizens we are for all eternity.

You know, it's a funny thing, but when you're old, as I am, there are all sorts of extremely pleasant things that happen to you. One of them is, you realize that history is nonsense, but I won't go into that now. The pleasantest thing of all is that you wake up in the night at about, say, three a.m., and you find that you are half in and half out of your battered old carcass. And it seems quite a toss-up whether you go back and resume full occupancy of your mortal body, or make off toward the bright glow you see in the sky, the lights of the City of God. In this limbo between life and death, you know beyond any shadow of doubt that, as an infinitesimal particle of God's creation, you are a participant in God's purpose for His creation, and that that purpose is loving and not hating, is creative and not destructive, is everlasting and not temporal, is universal and not particular. With this certainty comes an extraordinary sense of comfort and joy.

Nothing that happens in this world need shake that feeling; all the happenings in this world, including the most terrible disasters and suffering, will be seen in eternity as in some mysterious way a blessing, as a part of God's love. We ourselves are part of that love, we belong to that scene, and only in so far as we belong to that scene does our existence here have any reality or any worth. All the rest is fantasy - -whether the fantasy of power which we see in the authoritarian states around us, or the fantasy of the great liberal death wish in terms of affluence and self-indulgence. The essential feature, and necessity of life is to know reality, which means knowing God. Otherwise our mortal existence is, as Saint Teresa of Avila said, no more than a night in a second--class hotel.”

Everyday is Father's Day

Recently I attended an annual father-daughter dance with my two daughters at a local school. I always appreciate such events because it reminds me just how important fathers are to their daughters. I got to talking to another dad that I’ve known for five years or so. He’s married with two children. Within the last two or three years him and his wife have been more involved in parish ministries. To be sure, the two of them have taken their faith more seriously. But he is a traveling man and as most men do, he’ll let his wife run the household spiritual activities.

I asked him if he initiated prayer in the evenings when he is home. He answered in the negative. I then asked him if he initiates conversation about Christ at home with his two children. Again, he answered in the negative. Incidentally, he went on to tell me that his family decided to go to the Stations of the Cross devotion on the first Friday of Lent at our local parish. His son, the oldest child, put up a little fuss, claiming that they had gone to Mass the previous Sunday. For him, the practice of the Catholic Faith was a once-a-week deal.

Due to my familiarity with the father, I told him outright that it was his responsibility to initiate family prayers to God, conversation about Christ and the Faith and even to teach (informally or formally) his children about the importance about living the Gospel during the week. I then added: "If you do not groom out of your son the notion his faith is only a once-a-week thing, then you will loose him to the world when he goes to college."

I can’t tell you how many relatives and friends of mine lamented that their kids no longer attended Mass once they got into college. And in almost every single case, these disillusioned parents had developed the habit of confining their spiritual activity or the expression of their faith to Sunday Mass (with an occasional prayer before they went to bed). But somewhere along the way their religion became routine. It was no longer a way of thinking and living. Rather, their Catholicism was something they did on a weekly basis.

What many parents did not realize- especially those who were parents in the mid-twentieth century -was that they came from an era or generation that was favorable to Christianity. Perhaps in the 1940’s and 1950’s going through the routine of religious practice was sustainable up to a point. After all, even Hollywood still assume a respectful posture towards the Christian religion during that time period. But that kind of automated religious practice (one more out of habit than real devotion) was no match for the tidal wave the Sexual-Cultural Revolution created. Is it any wonder why so many priests and religious left their vocations in the late 1960’s? And is it any wonder why there was a precipitous drop in Mass attendance in the years to follow?

No. Children instinctively know that a spiritual cause which requires the commitment and sacrifice of maintaining high moral standards, such as the Catholic Faith requires, can be intelligible only if there is an ongoing relationship with Christ during the week. The participation of the Mass presupposes this relationship. If the home is devoid a Christian culture in the home where Christ is an honored guest- nay, not just an honor guest but the King of the Household -then I am afraid even the small sacrifice of getting up on a Sunday morning will not seem worth it for the "once-a-week Catholic” once he or she comes of age.

This is where the father comes in. Scripture should be enough to prove this point but I will just mention that there are credible studies out that show the impact a father has on his children’s spirituality, morality and even sexuality. A Swedish study (within the last ten years) showed that when fathers attend church (with or without the mother) on Sunday’s while their children are young, 44 percent of those children will follow suit in their adulthood years. Whereas when mothers attended church (with or without the father) while their children were young, only about 5-6 percent of children kept the faith in their adulthood years.

A father’s impact on the individual child is considerable. His role images God the Father. On the other hand, the mother has a great impact on the unity and relationships between family members. Her role images the Holy Spirit who binds the Father and the Son together in love. No doubt, both gifts overlap. But I do believe it is a great error to say that a father’s gifts are interchangeable with a mother’s gifts; as if neither are unique.

In the book of Genesis, we find that God breathed life into Adam directly. But Eve inherited the essence of her life from God but only through Adam. The same applied to the divine law. God had given his law to Adam before Eve was created and once Eve was created it was his responsibility to communicate that law to Eve; which he ended up doing because Eve recited the law when the Serpent tempted her.

From this precedent, a tradition developed where the father would serve as a kind of high priest of the family. Years later, St. Paul told St. Titus that a wife should be under the guidance of her husband so that the “word of God may not be discredited.” (2:5) Because this is so politically incorrect, there are, unfortunately, few commentaries on this. But why would the word of God be discredited in such a case? Herein lies the reason why so many families, and even the Church, are not as strong as they can be. The life-giving power of fatherhood- both supernatural/priesthood and natural/families –is no longer understood even among Christians. In fact, it is considered a threat when any emphasis is given to it.

Take, for instance, what St. Paul says in I Corinthians: “I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you. But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ.” (I Corinthians 11:2-3) To verbally cite this revealed truth in the words St. Paul would make many cringe. Why? Because headship and authority of the father is simply deemed to be a threat…even to the best of Christians. Yet, this interdependence between God and Christ, between Christ and man, and finally between man and woman is a God-given order or link through which God communicates himself to humanity. Disrupt this order and you begin to breakdown the Christian religion.

You see, the father is the primary mediator between God and his family. Political correctness, egalitarianism or even envy cannot undo this design. As Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI taught within the last century, the father is the head of the family and the mother is the heart. The father governs but the mother reigns. With that said, when the father is missing in action; when he does not lead the family to God; when he does not prepare his children for the world and most importantly, when he does not prepare his family for eternity, then he creates a void that is very! very! difficult to fill. God can undoubtedly communicate his grace to children through a single-mom. Although this works as the exception, it does not work as a rule.

In any case, the father’s role as the spiritual leader of the family is almost sacramental in nature; it is that powerful! Every day is father’s day. Every day is yet one more opportunity for the father of the family take up his responsibility as the high priest of the household. It is he who must make Christ relevant during the week for his family. He must become the gateway through which his children will enter the world; a world that has become unfriendly to its Redeemer. A degree in theology is not required for this sacred vocation. All it takes is two things: time and love. The rest will follow.

Raising Our Eyes and Our Hopes

The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, 1881

By: Father Charles Arminjon
Sophia Institute Press

“Reading this book was on of the greatest graces of my life.”

-St. Therese of Lisieux


Preface: If Christians are to attract souls to Christ, even amid the personal, social and political problems each day brings, they have to be a people of hope. And one of the best ways to inspire hope within us is to frequently meditate on heaven, our final destiny. Even when the Roman empire was falling in the fourth and fifth centuries, the early Christians were looking ahead to the kingdom of heaven while pagans were looking behind, longing for the glory days of Rome. When we consider in depth what heaven is- and the joys it will bestow on the souls who choose to go there -sacrifices become easier and suffering is made more bearable. We hold back less and give more. In fact, it is even true to say that we love with greater intensity when we consider that heaven is love's reward.

Fr. Charles Arminjon is one of the most articulate on this subject. He provides insights for meditation; a kind of meditation which is desperately needed. After all, how often do we read or hear about heaven?


Excerpt: The Mysteries of the Future Life:

Our destiny is an enigma, which reason alone cannot explain; but faith elevates our thoughts, strengthens our courage, and inflames our hope.

It tells us: have no fear; you are not wandering along some lost and uncertain path. Beyond our mortal years, there is a new life, of which the present one is only a representation and an image. On this earth, we are travelers; but, beyond the stars and all space, our heritage and native land is found up above.

Pilgrims and exiles, we now live under tents; in the world to come, the Lord will build us permanent dwelling-places.

The fool, who has no understanding of our destiny and our hopes, accuses the Creator of injustice, pointing out signs of imperfection in the designs of divine wisdom. He is like a savage or an inhabitant of a remote island who one day goes into one of our building yards. There he sees stones scattered about, material lying on top of one another, work men carving metals, and cutting away marble; and in the spectacle presented by this activity, he sees only a picture of confusion and ruin. He does not know that the apparent disorder will, one day, engender an order of admirable perfection.

In the same way, we err in our judgments on the conduct of God toward men; we see nothing more than a pointless harshness in the mystery of suffering; we bear the burden of life without courage or dignity, because we do not know how to raise our eyes and our hopes above the limited sights and perspectives of the present life, and because we do not reflect upon their destiny and end.

Our destiny of the possession of God and eternal life; to live in that abode from which all evil is absent and where we enjoy a multitude and abundance of every good, a place that is commonly called heaven.

Heaven: this is the torch before which the vivid appeal of earthly things fades, the light that, by transforming our judgments, make us cherish poverty, sickness, and the insignificance of our state of life as a good, and makes us regard riches, the glamour of honors, the favor and praise of the world as an evil. The thought and expectation of heaven impelled Paul to face the most arduous labors and the most formidable perils, giving him a superabundance of joy amidst his sufferings and afflictions. The thought of heaven enkindled a holy thirst for martyrdom among the confessors and made the indifferent to worldly honors and comforts.

When the beheld the royal pomp and the magnificence of courts, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, Anthony and their life were filled with aversion and, with disdain in their hearts, they exclaimed: Earth, how vile you appear to me when I contemplate heaven!

Consider the traveler who returns from distant lands, bathed in perspiration and exhausted by his long journey. He walks painfully, bent over with fatigue and leaning upon his stick, but, once he reaches the summit of the hill, and discerns, far away in the distance, at the farthest horizon and merged with the clouds, the steeple of his hamlet, the roof that saw his birth and the trees that shaded his childhood games- at once all weariness fades away and, finding again the vigor of his youth, he runs as if on wings.

In the same way, when our constancy weakens and we no longer feel equal to the sacrifices that the law of God requires of us, let us life our eyes and turn our thoughts and hearts toward our heavenly homeland…

The Burden of Grace

Fr. Louis Chardon in his book, The Cross of Jesus, went on to point out a peculiar burden our Lord had carried during the thirty-three years of his earthly life. That burden quite simply was hiding his identity; that is, the constant restraint of not revealing his glory to his people. His divinity- in all of its majesty -was bottled up in his human appearance.

In Hebrews it states that God is a consuming fire. As such, the full expression of Jesus’ divinity must have been forever burning and pressing up against the limits of his humanity. The prophet Jeremiah had a taste of this holy burning seeking to be released when he said: “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

This is the kind of grace that hurts; the kind of grace that seeks to be fully realized. For Christ's followers, grace can cause suffering and can be a kind of holocaust that is pleasing to God. Like the prophet Jeremiah, the restraints weighed heavy on our Lord Jesus. He eagerly anticipated a transfigured universe whereby his glory, contained within human limits before his resurrection, could be fully revealed. He said, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Even when others were encumbered with limitations, even when their God-given potential was not realized, Christ groaned. In the Gospel of Mark, such an expression was given when he healed the deaf man. "He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man's ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, 'Ephphatha!' (that is, 'Be opened!')."

Not only Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is said to groan within us. He too seeks to bring about our full potential in Christ. As St. Paul said, "In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings." (Romans 8:26) This is the burden of grace; that burning desire of God to see his children purged from every stain of sin so that grace can be fully realized within us. In St. Louis de Montfort’s consecration prayer to Jesus through Mary, he invokes the Holy Spirit to from Jesus Christ in his soul: “O Holy Spirit, give me great devotion to Mary…so that by her You may truly form in me Jesus Christ, great and mighty, unto the fullness of His perfect age. Amen.”

For reasons only God knows, during his thirty three years on earth Jesus had to conceal his glory. It was like wearing a mask. Among doubters and critics, I am sure there was a temptation of sorts to reveal his divine identity. And even among those who were sincerely in search of God, out of the love and respect for their holy desire, the temptation to show himself as God, so as to remove any doubts, must have been a desire burning within the heart of Christ. But to those chosen few, Our Lord did take off his mask so as to confirm his Divine Sonship.

One such time was on Mt. Tabor. Jesus invited St. Peter, St. James and St. John up the mountain with him just weeks before his Passion. “While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.” For a moment, the three Apostles had a glimpse of his glory. But St. John the Evangelist was given yet another opportunity. Years after our Lord’s ascension into heaven he appeared to St. John, his beloved disciple. In the book of Revelation our Lord’s “mask” was to come off and stay off. The Apostle had written the following about his appearance: “The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like polished brass refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing water.”

In restraining the full splendor of his glory before his resurrection, Jesus was able to identify with those whose full potential had yet to be realized. In the spiritual order, the Saints possessed the grace and burning desire to be with Christ in heaven. For those who had a vision of heaven like St. Paul and little Jacinta at Fatima, their earthly pilgrimage became a burden for them because they knew how good eternal happiness was and how good they could be in heaven. However, as long as they lived on earth, they could not be who they truly were.

And yet there are those people in the ordinary walk of life whose full potential is checked by limitations or misfortune. It may be a crippled man who wants to walk; the infertile couple who wants a baby of their own; or an unemployed person who wants to be given a chance to work. In all of these cases, there is a mystical but real affinity with our Lord’s Incarnation and the earthly limitations he took upon himself. He too did not actualize his full potential because of the mission that God the Father had given him.

There will come a day for all of us that the gifts and ability God has given us will come to light. In the meantime, however, we must peacefully and trustingly accept the Lord’s timing as to when that day will be.

The Transfiguration

Tradition has it that the transfiguration of Christ on Mt. Tabor transpired forty days before his Passion. Evidently, the Lord wanted at least three of his Apostles- Peter, James and John –to experience his glory before they had to drink the chalice of his suffering. St. Peter would later recount his heavenly experience in his Second Letter when he wrote, “For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, 'This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.' We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.”

Sometimes the Lord guarantees victory before he permits defeats. He might inspire us with an unshakable certitude to take on a mission for his sake and then allow circumstances to contradict that mission. On Mount Tabor, the divinity of Jesus was revealed before his humanity was crucified. Later, in the Upper Room, he would give his resurrected flesh to his Apostles in the form of the Eucharist the night before his death on the Cross and three days before he had actually risen from the dead.

In tasting the goodness of the Lord at the altar, strength is given to us for the trials that are inevitably associated with doing his will. In the Imitation of Christ our Lord speaks to his disciple. He says, “My son, that good and delightful affection, which you sometimes perceive, is the effect of present grace and a certain foretaste of your heavenly country, but you must not rely too much upon it, because it comes and goes.” And this delightful affection and the foretaste of our heavenly country is chiefly to be found in prayer and in meditation. It is, in a real sense, food for the journey and strength for adversity.

To be sure, it was only after an arduous climb up Mt. Tabor and only after the world had fallen asleep that our Lord would give three of his Apostles a glimpse of his glory. But in doing so, Jesus would not stand alone. Moses and Elijah, two prophets who represented the Old Testament and who also experienced the presence of God on Mt. Sinai, stood beside our Lord to give their testimony of support. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke makes reference to these two men as speaking to Jesus about his “exodus,” that is, his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. And who is better qualified to talk about such an exodus than Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land and Elijah who was assumed into heaven on a chariot?

After our Lord’s face had shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light, a bright cloud appeared and the voice of God was heard. It was as if God the Father had bequeathed his authority for the second time (the first time at the river Jordan) to Jesus by saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” This, it would seem, is reminiscent of Psalm 2 when God said in even greater detail, “You are my son; today I am your father. Only ask it of me, and I will make your inheritance the nations, your possession the ends of the earth.”
However, conferring the inheritance of the nations and the power to teach with divine authority did not only issue from the Father to the Son, but it also passed from Moses and Elijah- two of the greatest Old Testament prophets –to St. Peter and the Apostles. Indeed, by "making disciples of all the nations" through the preaching ministry of his Church, Jesus Christ would take back what once belonged to his Father, namely, the world! As the prophet Isaiah said, "In days to come, the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it..."

Every apostle must be equal to his mission. Hence, the work of being God’s mouthpiece to the nations would require spiritual transformation; especially for these frail fishermen. And the symbolic value of the transfiguration of Christ on Mt. Tabor suggests that real transformation can only take place on a mountain of prayer and meditation. When speaking of the soul in contemplation, Cornelius A Lapide, a sixteenth century priest and professor of Scripture, wrote:

“She [the soul] is raised above herself, and is lifted up to God in heaven, where she learns and sees that all the things of earth are fragile and worthless, so that from her lofty height she looks down upon them as fit only for children. She perceives that the true riches, honors and pleasures are nowhere but in heaven.”

Without the foretaste of heaven in prayer and meditation and without eagerly anticipating eternal happiness with God, we will inevitably wince from sacrifice and the price we must pay in bringing souls to Christ. The meditation of heaven inspires a farsightedness that is needed not only for living out the life of Christ on a day to day basis, but also for the challenging work God has called us to do.

No doubt, while St. Peter was crucified upside down in Rome- while St. James was dragged to his death in Jerusalem -and while St. John was in exile on the island of Patmos, recalling this heavenly vision of our Lord on Mt. Tabor was probably of great consolation to them. And although we may not enjoy the vision of the Transfiguration in the way the Apostles did, God will certainly not fail to give us a taste of that heavenly sweetness in prayer and meditation in proportion to our faith. This is God's way of giving us a sneakpeak of eternity so that we might be encouraged to hold nothing back!

The Logical Conclusion: Infanticide

You may have read about the February edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics. In an article entitled, “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argued in favor of infanticide. “What we call ‘after-birth abortion’’ they wrote, “killing a newborn – should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” The paper maintains that infants lack those properties required for the right to life to be assigned to them. In the absence of these properties, their worth is dependent upon the value a mother or anyone else may or may not assign to that individual. In other words, a new born baby is not a person, only a potential person.

The view that infants are non-persons leads to the old pagan practice of dispensing with them if desired. In fact, Minerva and Giubilini have argued that the next logical step beyond abortion is infanticide. Indeed, the killing of an infant, if unwanted, is morally justified. According to these two academic philosophers, the baby possesses no intrinsic value of its own. If the child were to become a burden, for instance, his or her value would be negligible. They even go so far as to say that if their parents decided to kill them when they were newborns, they would not be harmed because they did not reach personhood status yet.

Peter Singer, Australian philosopher and professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, had long argued for justification of infanticide during the first month of an infant’s life. But as Professor Robert George said, who happens to be a colleague of Peter Singer at Princeton, Singer’s view on infanticide is going mainstream. Scary, isn’t it?

If we but press the abortion-rights position to its logical conclusion, infanticide naturally follows. Christians, however, know that life begins at conception. But when the negation of life’s beginning gains currency among the medical profession or even in academia, then both the beginning and end to life becomes arbitrary. Such as fallacy will, sooner or later, translate into policy.

Yet, if we take a step back with a bird’s eye view of history and biblical theology, we should not be surprised about the growing phenomenon of infanticide and its attempt to justify it. History demonstrates that when God’s divine authority is rejected, innocence and moral purity end up being despised. In recent U.S. history, for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court forbade prayer in 1962 and then bible reading in 1963 in public schools. One cannot argue that God was welcomed any longer in our schools. Today a teacher or even a student cannot mention his name without causing a stir. In any case, a decade later the same U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973.

First, the one true God must be cast out or dethroned, then babies can become fair game. That is the sequence played out through history.

The first recorded episode of mass infanticide in the bible is to be found at the beginning of the book of Exodus. After four hundred years in Egypt, the Hebrews were multiplying and growing strong. But Ramses I, the new Egyptian pharaoh, saw this as a threat to his power and hence refused to acknowledge what Joseph did for the nation of Egypt. Better put, the new pharaoh turned his back on God who, through Joseph, saved Egypt from a great famine. In order to deal with this perceived threat, Ramses ordered the midwives to kill the male Hebrew infants by throwing them into the Nile River. Later, when Moses was to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, God punished the Egyptians by turning the waters of this same river to blood. As the book of Wisdom states, “[T]he perennial river was troubled with impure blood as a rebuke to the decree for the slaying of infants…”(Wisdom 11:6-7)

Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why the Lord instituted the ritual of circumcision through Abraham. Circumcision meant that babies were to belong to God’s covenant too; not just adults. It was God’s way of saying to the Hebrews- who happened to be surrounded by a Gentile people who killed their young –that children out to be accorded human dignity.

Through the ancient pagan world, infanticide and even child-sacrifices were universally practiced. After forty years in the desert, the people of God, upon entering into the Promised Land, found the Canaanites, who were the natives, offering child-sacrifices to their false gods. Indeed, false gods demand innocent blood. Again, in the book of Wisdom, it reads as follows:

“For while they celebrate either child-slaying sacrifices or clandestine mysteries, or frenzied carousals in unheard-of rites, They no longer safeguard either lives or pure wedlock; but each either waylays and kills his neighbor, or aggrieves him by adultery. And all is confusion-blood and murder, theft and guile, corruption, faithlessness, turmoil, perjury…” (Wisdom 14:23-25)

Sadly, in the centuries to come, the nation of Israel fell away from the worship of Yahweh and became mired in the worship of false gods. The Israelites got too comfortable and eventually they wanted to be like their neighbors. The Second Book of Kings recounts this sad tale of rejecting God’s divine authority only to end up sacrificing the most innocent among them:

“They immolated their sons and daughters by fire, practiced fortune-telling and divination, and sold themselves into evil doing in the LORD'S sight, provoking him till, in his great anger against Israel, the LORD put them away out of his sight.” (II Kings 17:17-18)

And finally, when we come to the first century, when Christ walked the earth, the practice of infanticide was alive and well. In 1 B.C., a man by the name of Hilarion had written to his pregnant wife, Alis. In the letter he wrote: “I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, as soon as I receive payment I shall send it to you. If you are delivered of a child [before I come home], if it is a boy keep it, if a girl discard it…” (The Rise of Christianity, Stark) Christians called this baby-exposure and they condemned it outright. Seneca, a Roman philosopher and a consultant to the Roman emperor Nero, causally wrote about the discarding of abnormal children. He said, “We drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal. Yet it is not anger, but reason that separates the harmful from the sound.” This is the world that Christ saved us from.

When the angel Gabriel announced the coming of both St. John the Baptist and the Messiah to St. Zechariah in the Temple, he said they would “turn the hearts of fathers toward children.” This was to fulfill what the prophet Malachi wrote about the coming of Christ who would “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their
fathers.” (Malachi 3:24) This implies something very interesting and that which concerns us. The implication is that father’s hearts were not turned toward their children; that there was a kind of apathy or indifference towards them. And to be sure, that apathy was manifested in the heartless practice of infanticide and ritual of child-sacrifice.

It all seems so barbaric but this is the logical consequence of rejecting the Fatherhood of God and his gift to the world, his Son Jesus. From the bounty of their love for one another grace was communicated to parents and all those who have been given authority over others.

One thing for sure: The unbaptized world was cruel. It ceases to love as it should. For in the absence of God’s fatherly love, all authority becomes cold and heartless. Indeed, the first victims are invariably the innocent; namely, precious little babies. This is why the New Evangelization is so important today. It must boldly re-introduce the love God the Father has for his Son and how, through the Holy Spirit, we participate in that love.

A Lesbian Woman: Denied at the Altar

The Catholic News Agency reported that in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., a lesbian woman, who had introduced her partner to the pastor of St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, MD, just prior to her mother’s funeral, was denied Communion. Predictably, she was outraged.

Evidently, in order to assauge tensions in the aftermath, one monsignor “explained that this means the priest must know that the person’s sin is grave, that it is manifest – or well-known – and that the individual in question is obstinate in his or her sin before denying the sacrament. That generally means that the priest ‘would need to meet with them privately,’ he said." An auxiliary bishop of the same diocese even wrote to the lesbian woman apologizing for the pastoral insensitivity. Imagine that! What a departure from the New Testament and patristic pastoral standards [patristic i.e. Church Fathers] .

Unfortunately, the message the Archdiocese is sending out to the community is a confusing one. Enter Fr. William Byrne, secretary for pastoral ministry and social concerns for the Archdiocese of Washington. He issued a statement in the days to follow. As CNA reported, “He explained that priests have ‘an obligation to make sure that the sacraments are respected.’ In the case that a person is in a state of mortal sin, he or she should not receive Holy Communion.”

Amen to Father Byrne! But herein lies the problem; and I have written about this extensively. The mixed messages from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. is an epidemic throughout the Catholic Church in the West. To be of one voice, preaching one Gospel, and using the same pastoral standard, is essential in expressing the unity of the Church. The absolute neccesity of this unity and oneness is articulated time and time again throughout the whole New Testament. But why? Why was it inculcated and driven into the minds of the early Christians? The answer is this: Without unity of doctrine, unity of mesasge and uniformity of action, the communication of truth is less effective. It does not take hold as it ought to. The same applies to parents. We all know that when a mother and a father take different and contradictory parental approaches to their children it causes problems. As it pertains to the spiritual fathers of the Church, it is no different!

The monsignor featured in the CNA article put a stipulation on refusing the Holy Eucharist to obstinate sinners that is most difficult to apply in many cases; and that is the Eucharistic minister should meet with an obstinate sinner in private before they refuse Communion. It may be preferable in some cases, but in many instances it is hardly practical; especially when the Eucharistic minister is not expecting such a person to present him or herself to Communion. And dare I say such a pastoral standard is not always necessary or desirable if it means that the obstinate sinner will receive the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily.

If you recall, in I Cor. 11 St. Paul did not mince words when he said that such a person will eat and drink judgment upon himself (or in this case, upon herself). Therefore, the burden of proof is placed squarely on the once obstinate sinner to demonstrate that he or she is repentant and that such repentance is made known to the elders of the Church. It should not be the responsibility of the Eucharistic minister, be it a priest or lay person, to do investigative work. Indeed, until such repentance is at least communicated and demonstrated to the pastor of the church, a Eucharistic minister is duty bound to refuse Communion to obstinate sinners, lest they partake in their sins (the N.T. and Church Fathers makes this quite clear).

Again, I ask, why did St. Paul instruct St. Timothy to reprimand sinners publicly? Why did he publish the names of blasphemers? Why did St. John, the darling of the Apostles, cast a public light on the “evil nonsense” Diotrophes was disseminating about him and other worthy pastors? Why did he instruct, in his Second Letter, not to receive in her house those who are so progressive so as to not remain in the teachings of Christ? Indeed, even said to do so would be to be a partaker in their sins. And lastly, why did Our Lord himself publicly rebuke obstinate sinners if speaking to them privately was the most important way to go? As Pope St. Gregory the Great said, public sins should be dealt with publicly and private sins should be addressed privately.

And as for Pope St. Leo the Great (400’s), he once wrote to a bishop that he who does not share in the Church's discipline cannot share in her communion. This has been the guiding pastoral norm for centuries. To be sure, it has worked well for the Church, preserving her unity and the coherence of her preaching. Sadly, however, it has been abandoned by many clergy members in recent years. The pastoral requirement to meet with the obstinate sinner in private is a “recent” practice taken to an extreme. We, the Church, have practiced diplomacy to a fault! Indeed, it is the status quo and one which has often been a pretext for non-action.

The clergy and laity alike should be more concerned about the lesbian woman’s soul over than her feelings. Now, of course, being that she felt judged, she vowed to do everything in her power to remove the priest from St. John Neumann’s church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This "Dictatorship of Relativism," this intolerance of secular-liberalism, is running roughshod over the Church. Indeed, timidity, indecision and conflicting messages are the reasons why the Dictatorship of Relativism is alive and well in America. And I tell you, it will not be effectively resisted if Catholics- both clergy and laity –will not be vigilant and courageous custodians of the Holy Eucharist.

To deny Communion to a soul who has not demonstrated repentance for her sins is not only a sacred duty, but an act of charity. Keep in mind the woman involved introduced her lesbian partner to the priest just minutes before the funeral Mass for her mother. In response, the priest asked her not to present herself for Communion. The priest did his duty. We, as a Church, must do ours by speaking with one voice in support of such an ancient pastoral practice.

The Mystery of Iniquity and Social Problems

The Mystery of Iniquity, 1944

By: Father Paul Furfey
Former Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology
at the Catholic University of America


Excerpt:

"Since in societies the State is best able to coerce, there follows a drift towards State regimentation with its logical culmination in the totalitarian State. Once materialism is granted as a premise, totalitarianism follows as a necessary conclusion.

Catholic social thought is dominated by the fact that man is destined for heaven. Society itself or the problems of society cannot be understood without taking this fact into account...We are to reproduce here as perfectly as we can the life of the blessed in heaven. The latter is our true life; heaven is our fatherland. On this earth we ought, like homesick exiles in a strange environment, strive to practice the type of common life by which our fatherland is characterized.

Nevertheless, the mystery of iniquity is at work. It's activities does not usually appear on the surface of events; rather, it operates through secondary causes. Therefore, when one traces the causes of social problems, one finds that the immediate reasons for these problems are quite natural and understandable by human reason. It is only by following the chain of causation back far enough that one is led to suspect the workings of the Evil One.

The Catholic approach on social problems must take both natural and the supernatural factors into account. Catholics must be concerned with natural factors underlying the evils of society and to meet these they must use natural methods suggested by experience. For this reason the Church favors social legislation, effective law enforcement, public health activities, efficient social work, and other up-to-date methods of meeting social problems. In this respect Catholic social teaching shows a strong but superficial resemblance to the thought of non-Catholic writers.

But mark this difference carefully!

Whereas these techniques are the sole solution of the unbelieving sociologist for all social problems, in the eyes of the Catholic they are only a sort of symptomatic treatment. The Catholic sees deeper and realizes that far beneath the immediate causes the mystery of iniquity is at work and that his real solution is to attack the latter. The unbelieving social scientist is like a physician who gives a sedative to a patient suffering from a brain tumor and does nothing more. The Catholic, on the other hand, is like a physician who gives the sedative indeed but then proceeds to the difficult and delicate operation which brings a permanent cure.

Only the Catholic has a fundamental remedy for social problems, for only the Catholic diagnosis the basic cause, which is the mystery of iniquity. To attack this he must use supernatural means. Therefore he must rely on such methods as prayer, the sacraments and the practice of the Christian virtues.

We Catholics have a precious possession in our doctrine of the mystery of iniquity. In it we have the key to the solution of many problems which torture our weary world. Realizing as we do that the mystery of iniquity is the basic cause of these problems, we can attack them at their source by the use of supernatural means. Herein lies the hope of victory.

On the other hand, unbelievers have the devices of human prudence on which to rely, and these are bound to fail. They might as well try to sink a battleship with spit balls as to attack the great problems of society with such puny means. When we cast to the winds all the mean counsels of of a purely worldly prudence, when we accept quite literally with childlike faith these precious revealed truths, and when we put aside all concern for the opinion of materialists, then we shall begin to make progress against the mystery of iniquity. Until that day we shall only be marking time."

Prayer is the light of the soul

A beautiful piece by St. John Chrysostom on prayer.

"There is nothing more worthwhile than to pray to God and to converse with him, for prayer unites us with God as his companions. As our bodily eyes are illuminated by seeing the light, so in contemplating God our soul is illuminated by him. Of course the prayer I have in mind is no matter of routine, it is deliberate and earnest. It is not tied down to a fixed timetable; rather it is a state which endures by night and day.

Our soul should be directed in God, not merely when we suddenly think of prayer, but even when we are concerned with something else. If we are looking after the poor, if we are busy in some other way, or if we are doing any type of good work, we should season our actions with the desire and the remembrance of God. Through this salt of the love of God we can all become a sweet dish for the Lord. If we are generous in giving time to prayer, we will experience its benefits throughout our life.

Prayer is the light of the soul, giving us true knowledge of God. It is a link mediating between God and man. By prayer the soul is borne up to heaven and in a marvellous way embraces the Lord. This meeting is like that of an infant crying on its mother, and seeking the best of milk. The soul longs for its own needs and what it receives is better than anything to be seen in the world.

Prayer is a precious way of communicating with God, it gladdens the soul and gives repose to its affections. You should not think of prayer as being a matter of words. It is a desire for God, an indescribable devotion, not of human origin, but the gift of God's grace. As Saint Paul says: we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

Anyone who receives from the Lord the gift of this type of prayer possesses a richness that is not to be taken from him, a heavenly food filling up the soul. Once he has tasted this food, he is set alight by an eternal desire for the Lord, the fiercest of fires lighting up his soul.

To set about this prayer, paint the house of your soul with modesty and lowliness and make it splendid with the light of justice. Adorn it with the beaten gold of good works and, for walls and stones, embellish it assiduously with faith and generosity. Above all, place prayer on top of this house as its roof so that the complete building may be ready for the Lord. Thus he will be received in a splendid royal house and by grace his image will already be settled in your soul.

A reading from the homilies of St John Chrysostom (Hom 6 on Prayer)

Prayer

Give us the grace, Lord, to continue the works of penitence we have begun so that the Lenten observance we have taken upon ourselves may be accomplished in sincerity of heart.

The Samaritan Woman: A Soul in Search for Rest

Living the sensual life, or as some say- “living in the fast lane,” is, no doubt, exciting. I had a taste of it myself in college. Thankfully for me it was a temporary phase. But for a lot of people, the lifestyle of partying and sleeping around begins in college but never ends. Perhaps, this is why there are so many restless souls; never quite content with the spouse they married, the partner they are with or the job they have. Having been disillusioned so many times with the choices they made, they are continually led to believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Like a bird in flight without a nest these souls live for the next exciting night or a pleasurable moment. But in the interim, that is, between episodes of fun and frolicking, life becomes monotonous and wearisome. Indeed, living the wildlife, even if it is only on Friday and Saturday nights, does not lend itself to a happy and well-ordered life during the week. This brings us to the Samaritan woman at the well.

For context, here is some background to the Woman at the Well story: In the first century, Palestine was divided up into the northern region of Galilee, where Nazareth was located, and the southern region of Judea, where the city of Jerusalem was situated. However, in between the northern and southern region of Palestine was Samaria. Approximately one thousand years before Christ, the Assyrians conquered ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel. These ten northern tribes (also known as the 10 lost tribes) became intermingled with the Assyrians later to be known as the Samaritans: half Jewish and half Syrian. Now, these Samaritans worshipped Yahweh, the true God, but they also worshipped other gods as well. With that, they fell into the errors and superstitions of paganism. The Jews and the Samaritans, as can be garnered from the Gospel of John chapter 4, were rivals. Needless to say, they didn’t like each other very much. For that reason they stayed cleared from one another. During their travels from Judea and Galilee, the Jews would go around Samaria but the Lord refused to play that game.

One day, passing through Samaria, Jesus sat down at Jacob’s well where he would eventually introduce himself to the Samaritan woman. As Bishop Fulton Sheen would say in his television program, Life is Worth Living, one would think that our Lord and this sinful woman had little in common. But they did share two loves: A love for water and a love for their common father, Jacob the Patriarch. As the story goes, a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." After an incredulous and somewhat condescending response from the Samaritan, the Lord appealed to her thirst for water only to lead her to a more important topic: the salvation of her soul. Jesus claimed to have another kind of water to offer- heavenly water which quenches the thirst of the human spirit. He said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Before he could offer this water to her (the water he referred to was undoubtedly an allusion to the Holy Spirit), he had to provoke a confession out of her. To be sure, before the remedy could be applied and take effect, her sin had to be laid bare. After the Samaritan woman asked for the above mentioned water, Jesus instructed her to first go and bring back her husband. Of course, she didn’t have a husband; the man she was with at the time was only a "lover." In fact, our Lord knew that she had five husbands in the past.

Like many today, the Samaritan woman had gone from one lover to another; sacrificing a lifetime of peace and joy for periodic moments of pleasure. Of course, one thing that gets in the way of such a lifestyle is children. Since abortion and infanticide were common in ancient times, it is not unreasonable to think that she might have resorted to such measures. In any case, our Lord came to relieve this soul from "looking for love in all wrong places." Indeed, the Samaritan woman had grown weary and confused. Having been the object of men’s lust and used for all of the wrong reasons, the burden of her sins kept her from knowing the truth about God, morality and her own dignity. In her spiritual darkness, she simply gravitated towards men who would manipulate her. St. Paul would later give an apt description of this kind of servility:

“But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered…irreligious…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them. For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.” (II Timothy 3:1-7)

Can it not be said that the Samaritan woman was “weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth?” Religious confusion begets sexual turmoil and a life of restlessness. After she discussed the religious differences between the Jews and the Samaritans and where they worshipped, Jesus responded by getting straight to the point: “You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews.” But worshipping what the Jews understood would cease to be confined to a place or a race. Our Lord then said, “True worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”

This theological truth is the answer to her plight; her plight of restless wandering from lover to lover. The Messiah, in just a few short years, would transform her body from an object of men's lust to the temple of the Holy Spirit. Illumined with his grace, she would come to know her own dignity as a woman of God and also learn what real sacrificial love is; the kind that last forever. Indeed, before she could discover the truth of romantic love, she had to first encounter divine love.

As the Samaritan woman walked away from the well, and in reminiscing of her encounter with Christ in the years to come, I cannot help but think she experienced similar sentiments to that of St. Augustine. Upon his conversion, he prayed the following: "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you...You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you...You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more."

Jesus came to Jacob’s well in Samaria in order to give a woman rest. What he did for her he also does for men and women in our day. Following in the foot steps of our Lord, we cannot apply the remedy without turning from the sin. Only by turning from sin and turning towards the face of Christ can the soul be free.


____________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript: One of the few laymen given the title, "Father of the Church" was St. Justin Martyr, a Christian philosopher and native of Samaria. Martyred in 165 A.D. in Rome and likely born before the turn of the century, St. Justin, no doubt, benefited from the faith and the evangelization of the Samaritan woman. It was from Samaria that the title "Savior of the World" was given to Jesus. And it was in this region that St. Justin- a restless wanderer in search for truth -was inspired by the witness of those Christians who greeted their execution (meted out by the Roman government) with courage and a smile. He would later say that this is why he became a Christian.

The Future of Freedom

The Future of Freedom, 1938
By Douglas Jerrold

“Even if mankind had no soul to save, it would still be true that the Christian civilization had saved his body. The Christian society is not merely a free society, it is the only free society which has ever endured...”

"It is not a coincidence but a consequence that, wherever the basic Christian institutions have been destroyed, so the powers and responsibilities of governments, even in Christian countries, have had to be increased until today the tasks of government, and the funds required to discharge them, are alike so great as to tax their utmost limits the resources of the richest peoples in the world."

Preface: Douglas Jerrold was a Catholic-political author from England. He maintained liberty is a stern discipline. For that reason, when liberty turns to license, when there is no check to our quests for pleasure, it is then that the political powers will be is poised to grow while true liberty diminishes. He warned long before the Sexual Revolution that preaching unbridled promiscuity is quite effective in ushering in a totalitarian state. After all, who else but a State vested with power can clean up the social debris?


Excerpt: Future of Freedom

The first point, therefore, for Christians to remember about politics is that the Christian civilization, now openly challenged all over the world, is founded on two revolutionary assertions, which have had as their secular consequence a unique series of political experiments. Our civilization is rooted in the teachings of Christ and thus, for practicing Christians, it enjoys peculiar authority, but even if it were not so, we should still be wise to spend a little time in thinking about those characteristics which distinguish the Christian civilization from all other civilizations, in asking ourselves whether we should be doing wisely to change it so as to deprive it of these characteristics. It has changed the face of the world. It is responsible for material progress on a scale unknown to any previous civilization. It has created possibilities of happiness unknown to any previous civilization.

The bases of Christian civilization are the freedom of man within a closed moral order, and the autonomy of secular power, subject to the prior rights of the family. This balance of institutions derives neither from human wisdom nor from the mysteries of religious contemplation, but from specific dogmas of Christianity. The primacy of the spiritual in the world order derives from the teaching that all men are equal before God. Man’s claim to freedom rests, not on his intelligence, as fools believe, nor his claims on the good nature of those more intelligent than himself, as knaves pretend, but on his first duty to serve God with his heart, mind and soul. The doctrine that the rights of the family are absolute as against the rights of the State derives from the second commandment of the Christian dispensation, which imposes on man, as the price of salvation, the fulfillment of social obligations. These obligations cannot be freely fulfilled in a society which places the State above the family, and so removes from man his direct and personal responsibility for the preseveration and well-being, from generation to generation, of the society to which he belongs...

Even if mankind had no soul to save, it would still be true that the Christian civilization had saved his body. The Christian society is not merely a free society, it is the only free society which has ever endured. It is not a coincidence but a consequence that, wherever the basic Christian institutions have been destroyed, so the powers and responsibilities of governments, even in Christian countries, have had to be increased until today the tasks of government, and the funds required to discharge them, are alike so great as to tax their utmost limits the resources of the richest peoples in the world. The end of this process is seen in the final necessity imposed upon Governments which have destroyed all the institutions of a free society, to appropriate all the resources of their country to maintain their organization, and destroy all the rights of personality in order to maintain their authority…

Christian civilization is based on freedom and responsibilities, and having been so based for thousand years, there is, in every heir to that civilization, the urge to express himself in freedom of action. A man free to know, love and serve God; a man taught that he has an immortal soul and is only a little lower than the angels; that it is God’s will that, when he has worked out his salvation, he shall be crowned with honor and glory, such a man will not be content with a political regime which does not allow him say “Bo” to a goose, or even to a Commissar. If we go too far along the road to slavery, one of two things must happen. Either man’s political master must seek to cure him of the belief in his divine destiny, and to reduce him spiritually as well as politically to the animal level, or man will demand from his political mentors a field for the free expression of his personality in action.

The attack on the Church and the free family, on the Church sovereign in its own sphere and the family with rights antecedent to those of the State, is necessary to the positive state, because it is built on the denial of those rights of the human personality which the Christian state holds sacred…

I only wish in this chapter to emphasize that our historic Christian civilization is different in kind, by reason of its obedience to certain commands of Christ, from all the civilizations which have preceded it, and that the challenge of the new, twentieth-century conception of the State must be resisted if this civilization is to be preserved.