Nov 25 Homily: Death & Priesthood

This last Sunday afternoon, I had the pleasure to take a little hike through Nelson’s Ledges down near Garrettsville with a few brother seminarians.

• During the car ride down there we were talking about the blessing of living in Ohio and being able to experience all of the seasons.
• Now in the latter third of the month of November, this change in seasons became apparent as we commenced on our hike:
• winter is fast approaching, the chill is setting in, darkness is coming earlier, the sun is seen less, the trees are going barren, the grass is turning to stubble if it isn’t already covered with an inch or seven of snow…nature is dying.

It is very appropriate that Holy Mother Church gives us these apocalyptic readings from Revelations and the Gospels, now in the month of the November, in these last days of the liturgical year when nature is dying.

• The readings that remind us, that there is an end to all of this…death comes for nature and it comes for all of us. And with death comes judgment. Both are inescapable.
• We are reminded, therefore, that we ought to be prepared for death.
• In fact, as Christians, dying, dying to self, dying to our self-indulgent selfishness, is part of our way of life.
• We are to live for our eternal goal, rejecting anything that distracts or takes us away from heaven. In fact, dying to self frees us for selfless love in imitation of our Lord.

This time of year reminds me of those months when I first began considering entering the seminary about eight years ago.

• And during this time, I was prompted to ask myself what I found particularly attractive about the priesthood—what part of priestly identity spoke to me—what about the priests in my life beckoned me to desire to imitate them?

• And this may sound somewhat morbid—but one of the aspects of priestly identity that spoke to me was the priest’s serenity about death and dying.
• Death--that which most men fear and spend their lives fleeing from and distracting themselves from, priests seemed to have conquered this greatest of fears.

It was as if they had experienced death themselves, that they’d traveled off into the unknown and carried back some mysterious answer that underlied everything they said and did.

• It wasn’t merely that they dressed in black clerical clothes or a cassock—but that they embodied in some way, the truth about death.
• I came to realize that it wasn’t that the priest embraces death, but that he embraces Christ.
• He embraces Christ not merely as an idea or philosophy, but the priest’s soul encounters Christ, says “Yes” to Christ, and teaches the rest of us that neither death, nor the dying to self that every Christian is called to is a cause for fear.
• The priests which attracted me to consider entering seminary, and I’m sure of this, had a profound relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and in embracing Christ who selflessly lived out the Father’s will, who died and rose from death, the priest finds freedom from death with Christ.

Brothers, these days to come will undoubtedly require each of us to die. If in the course of our formation there is not a growing detachment from worldly things—from luxuries, comforts and self-indulgences, we may need to renew our commitment to the spiritual life.

• Moreover and more immediately, Thanksgiving break may be only a short six days, but it can have its fare share of temptations and pitfalls:
• the devil has come upon us with a great fury for he knows his time is short.
• There will be friends home from college particularly of the female persuasion, there will be a lack of reverend father rectors ensuring that we are at daily mass, there will be little fraternal accountability from your seminary brothers,
• therefore it will require a great deal of dying, self-mastery, self-discipline.

From a real relationship with the crucified-and-risen Christ the priest becomes a man of Hope.

• The priest in union with Christ is a man of hope—and from that union comes an unshakeable trust that God keeps his promise to raise those who die with Christ.
• The priest bears the crucified within him and shares his God given hope with those in need of it.
• True hope in the face of death, of crumbling empires, earthquakes, famines, and plagues isn’t mere optimism that life continues after death, but a conviction and trust and surrender to God whether we are facing our mortal end or being called to conversion.

As we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus we truly proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes in glory. May this Eucharist renew in us the freedom of the sons of God—freedom from the fear of death and all selfishness. ****END****

· For the needs of the Church, for our Holy Father and the Bishops, and Christians everywhere may be strengthened in faith, hope, and love, especially for Christians undergoing persecution.

· That the testimony of love offered by the Saints, may fortify Christians in their service to God and neighbor, imitating Christ who came not to be served but to serve.

· That our president-elect and all civic leaders may work to promote laws and establish authentic justice in accord with the dignity and respect owed to all human persons.

· For all those who have fallen away from the Church, that they may be attentive to the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and return to the practice of the Faith.

· For an increase in vocations to the priesthood and the religious life and for all those who serve as missionaries.

· For safety for all travelers over the Thanksgiving Holiday, for purity for all college students, and for all families experiencing division

· For all those who have died, especially among our families, friends, and benefactors, for all those whose names are written in the Book of the names of the Dead, for those priests of the Diocese of Cleveland who died on this date… and for all those who died in service to the Church. We pray to the Lord.

Study Finds Catholic Colleges Have Little Positive Impact on Faith, Values

from Cardinal Newman Society

Study Finds Catholic Colleges Have Little Positive Impact on Faith, Values

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A groundbreaking survey of Catholic college students published by The Cardinal Newman Society’s (CNS) Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education finds that most students on Catholic campuses reject key Catholic moral values and tenets of the faith, and significant numbers engage in pre-marital sexuality activity and the viewing of pornography.

The study was released in the wake of Tuesday’s presidential election, just as many commentators are looking for reasons why the Catholic vote broke the way it did in such large numbers for a pro-abortion candidate.

It is the only known nationally representative survey of students at Catholic colleges and universities. CNS released a report five years ago, drawing on data from 38 Catholic colleges collected by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute. That study found that students’ support for Catholic teaching on abortion, gay marriage and other issues declined over four years at a Catholic institution.

For the current study, CNS commissioned QEV Analytics, which conducted an analysis of the Catholic vote for Crisis magazine prior to the 2000 presidential election, to conduct the random survey of current and recent students at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities, all between the ages of 18 and 29. QEV President Steven Wagner, a former researcher for the U.S. Information Agency, has conducted studies for several federal agencies and the National Center on Additional and Substance Abuse (CASA).

“Most respondents say that the experience of attending a Catholic institution made no difference in their support for the Catholic Church or its teaching or their participation in Catholic Sacraments,” Wagner writes in his report.

Key findings clearly demonstrate that large numbers of students at Catholic colleges and universities are in clear conflict with the Catholic Church:

• Nearly 1 in 5 knew another student who had or paid for an abortion.
• 46% of current and recent students—and 50% of females—said they engaged in sex outside of marriage.
• 84% said they had friends who engaged in premarital sex.
• 60% agreed strongly or somewhat that abortion should be legal.
• 60% agreed strongly or somewhat that premarital sex is not a sin.
• 78% disagreed strongly or somewhat that using a condom to prevent pregnancy was a serious sin.
• 57% agreed strongly or somewhat that same-sex “marriage” should be legal.
• 57% said the experience of attending a Catholic college or university had no effect on their participation in Mass and the sacrament of reconciliation.
• 54% of respondents said that their experience of attending a Catholic college or university had no effect on their support for the teachings of the Catholic Church.
• 56% said their experience had no effect on their respect for the Pope and bishops.

In April 2008 Pope Benedict XVI, recognizing the reality on many Catholic campuses, told Catholic college presidents gathered at The Catholic University of America that the Catholic faith must permeate all aspects of Catholic campus life.

“Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools?” the Holy Father asked the college presidents. “Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold. From this perspective one can recognize that the contemporary ‘crisis of truth’ is rooted in a ‘crisis of faith’.”

The entire CNS study, “Behaviors and Beliefs of Current and Recent Students at U.S. Catholic Colleges,” is available online at www.CatholicHigherEd.org.

CNS commissioned the study as part of its Love & Responsibility program to encourage Catholic values on life, love and marriage on Catholic campuses.

Liturgical Norms: Our Keys to Spiritual Nourishment, Evangelization and Unity

Great article "Liturgical Norms: Our Keys to Spiritual Nourishment, Evangelization and Unity" from www.catholicexchange.com (source)

Recent decades have spawned an “anything goes” mentality in our culture. Like cancer spreading through the body, this mentality has spread into every corner of our culture doing damage. This “anything goes” mentality is dangerous because it can lead us to ignore moral laws and consequences for our actions.

It is disconcerting but true that this “anything goes” mentality has crept into some corners of the Church. This mentality has given birth, here and there, to “anything goes” Masses. These Masses ignore liturgical laws and are designed to attract us to the Church by “spicing up” the Mass or entertaining us. But the path to spice and entertainment at Mass is also the path to liturgical abuse. The playing of non-sacred music at Mass on Sunday, the emergence of “liturgical” dance, and the phenomena where lay people supplement homilies with their testimonies have all led to habitual abuses.

The intent may be good. Redemptionis Sacramentum (RS) 9 tells us “abuses are often based on ignorance, in that they involve a rejection of those elements whose deeper meaning are not understood…” As one who has occasionally queried the good-natured initiators of these non-liturgical efforts at Mass, I know that for the most part the stated intent of these efforts is to “enhance” the liturgy or to “evangelize.” But here comes some magnificent news — an umbrella under which we can unite. A reverent Mass, prayed in perfect accord with liturgical norms does evangelize!

Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has addressed the “Role of Liturgical Norms in the Eucharistic Celebration.” According to Cardinal Arinze: “Liturgical celebrations well carried out not only nourish the faith of practicing Catholics, but can also awaken the slumbering faith of the negligent, and attract people to the Church“ (Adoremus Bulletin Vol. XIV No.3 May 2008, p.3-4 (AB)).

When we follow the norms of the Mass, the Mass draws us away from earthly things and up towards the things of heaven. A Catholic Mass prayed in accord with liturgical norms is a majestic sight to behold and thus by its nature is a light for others. And we don’t have to add anything of our own making! Cardinal Arinze has assured us that the “celebrating community does not have to re-invent the sacred rites in every age” (AB).

RS 7 states “not infrequently, abuses are rooted in a false sense of liberty. Yet God has not granted us… a liberty, by which we may do what we wish, but a liberty by which we may do what is fitting and right.“ To ignore the norms of the Mass is to sow seeds of discord and division. To invent our own liturgies is to separate ourselves from Holy Mother Church and walk the path of disobedience. This path of disobedience may attract others for its novelty. But it cannot and will not attract others for its holiness. And we are called to be holy. We are called to be saints.

That is not to say we are to approach Mass with some stuffy air. The saints were not stuffy. They were loving, interesting, and independent people. But a deep humility and a profound obedience to the will of God and thus to Holy Mother Church and her authority permeated everything they were and did. If we truly want to pray the Mass with devotion, we can follow Saint Padre Pio who stated: “If you want to assist at Holy Mass… keep company with the Sorrowful Virgin at the foot of the Cross on Calvary.”

To properly pray the Mass, we must see ourselves as servants of the liturgy, not masters over it. We can effectively elevate our souls in prayer by approaching Mass with a loving heart toward God and Holy Mother Church and a humble obedience to her liturgical norms. From that love toward God and Holy Mother Church can flow a true and deep love for our friends in Christ. From the depth of that love can flow an authentic evangelization and enduring unity which will stand the test of time because it has been built on a firm foundation.

To deliberately attract our brothers and sisters in Christ to actions and gestures outside liturgical norms, and to present such actions and gestures as desirable, is to dress disobedience up in tempting garb. Drawing others toward our own disobedience is not love but deception. To practice such deception is to build on sand. When the novelties crumble, as novelties inevitably do, so too will the fruit of our efforts.

Liturgical norms are a gift. They are our carefully woven safety net. They protect us from falling into irreverence. Ignoring liturgical norms is like taking a knife to that net, and once the net is sliced there can be no end to just how far we can slide down the slippery slope of liturgical abuse.

The Mass is not about “tweaking,” “enhancing” or “inventing” something on our own. The Mass is about receiving a loving gift from God. As Cardinal Arinze stated ”It is to be remembered that the Eucharistic Sacrifice and indeed the sacred liturgy as a whole are not something that we make or invent or put together on our own. They are gifts that we receive, keep, treasure, celebrate and for which we are grateful.” (AB)

The good news is that there is a cure for the “anything goes” mentality that has crept into some corners of our culture and our Church. This cure is Jesus Christ. The path that will take us to Him is the path of loving obedience to the teachings of Holy Mother Church. May we humble our one billion different opinions and embrace those teachings. Through that embrace, may we at last unite in peace on this precious path to Christ as “one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

The most common questions on liturgical norms (answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontirical Athenaeum) are addressed at: http://www.ewtn.com/library/Liturgy/LITURIND.HTM.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal for the United States can be found at http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/revmissalisromanien.shtml.

© Copyright 2008 Catholic Exchange

Cleveland nun to offer prayer at Democratic National Convention

According to Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Sr. Catherine Pinkerton, CSJ, an "86-year-old nun from Cleveland who works for a Catholic anti-poverty lobbying group has been selected to deliver the closing prayers one night during the Democratic National Convention." (source)

At the request of the Obama campaign, Sister agreed to "offer benediction" [*ugh*] as she "admires Barack Obama's 'vision of where we stand as a nation and where we stand among nations'" [*blinks* truly, Obama: "The Most anti-life candidate ever" possesses a truly admirable vision]

Coincidentally, as Sister makes plans to travel to Denver...

Rome, Aug 19, 2008 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The prefect of the Apostolic Signature, Archbishop Raymond Burke, said this week that [ALL and ANY] Catholics, especially politicians who publically defend abortion, should not receive Communion, and that ministers of Communion should be responsibly charitable in denying it to them if they ask for it, "until they have reformed their lives." (source)

This raises the question whether Catholic "lobbyists", such as Sister Pinkerton who pubically supports a Pro-Choice candidate who strongly supports abortion should have a nice talk with her bishop over her involvement in politics and encourage her as Archbishop Burke has stated, “to bear witness to our faith not only in private in our homes but also in our public lives with others in order to bear strong witness to Christ.”

Please pray for the Church as she continually strives to bear witness to the truth and value of human life, human dignity, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Latin Days are Here Again?

Adoremus Bulletin published a nice little piece by George Weigel entitled: "Latin Days are Here Again-- Pope Benedict wants to revive the Latin Mass in Roman Catholic Worship. But what exactly does that mean?" Thanks to Fr. O for pointing this out.

Is Pope Benedict XVI determined to restore the Latin Mass that many Roman Catholics thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history? The answer, in short, is both yes and no. But neither the “yes” nor the “no” quite fits the conventional speculations in several recent media reports following off-the-cuff remarks to a small Catholic association in Great Britain by a Vatican official. In unraveling this, it helps to begin at the beginning.

BXVI is wonderfully unconventional that way Catholicism is unconventional.

As he reminds us in his memoir, Salt of the Earth, the young Joseph Ratzinger was deeply influenced, both spiritually and intellectually, by the mid-20th-century movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church’s public worship — a movement that helped pave the way for the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Father Ratzinger was a peritus, a theological expert, at the council, and like many others, he welcomed the council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: here was a ratification of the liturgical reform movement he had long supported and a blueprint for further organic development of the celebration of Mass. In the immediate aftermath of Vatican II, however, Ratzinger became convinced that organic development had been jettisoned for revolution, the liturgical Jacobins being a cadre of academics determined to impose their view of a populist liturgy on the entire Catholic Church.

In the decades between Vatican II and his election as Benedict XVI, Ratzinger became a leader in what became known as “the reform of the reform”: a loosely knit international network of laity, bishops, priests and scholars, committed to returning the process of liturgical development in the Catholic Church to what they understood to be the authentic blueprint of Vatican II. Seeing a Gregorian chant CD from an obscure Spanish monastery rise to the top of the pop charts in the 1990s, they wondered why much of the Church had abandoned one of Catholicism’s classic musical forms. Finding congregations that seemed more interested in self-affirmation than worship, and priests given to making their personalities the center of the liturgical action, they asked whether the rush to create a kind of sacred circle in which the priest faces the people over the Eucharistic “table” might have something to do with the problem...

...And they reminded the entire Church that Vatican II had not mandated many of the things most Catholics thought it had decreed: for example, the elimination of Latin (and chant) from the liturgy and the free-standing altar behind which the priest faced the congregation...

...The overwhelming majority of Catholics throughout the world have welcomed the new form of the Mass that became normative in 1970, a Mass celebrated entirely in English (or Spanish or French or Polish, or whatever language the congregation speaks). Over time, the silly season in Catholic liturgy that peaked in the 1970s — “clown” Masses (with the priest vested as Bozo or somesuch), free-for-all prayers that ignored the prescribed rite, dreadful pop music, inept “liturgical dance”, a general lack of decorum — began to recede. A re-sacralization of Catholic worship became evident in many parishes. What Ratzinger and other specialists had called “the reform of the reform” was underway at the grass roots, and under its own steam....

...Some may find it ironic that the “old Latin Mass” that Benedict XVI has permitted is precisely the Mass as known by Pope John XXIII, hero of Catholic progressivism. But there is in fact something “progressive”, in the sense of reformist, about Benedict’s strategy here....

...Yes, the Mass of John XXIII is celebrated in Latin, and yes, it is often celebrated (although it need not be) with the priest and the congregation facing the same direction as they pray — looking together, as classic liturgical theology teaches, toward the return of Christ and the inauguration of the heavenly Jerusalem. But the pope’s point in making this form of liturgy more widely available is neither nostalgic nor retrograde. Rather, by encouraging the more widespread celebration of this classic form of the always-evolving Roman rite, Benedict XVI intends to create a kind of liturgical magnet, drawing the “reform of the reform” in the direction of greater reverence in the Catholic Church’s public worship. In doing so, the pope is also reminding the Church that, as Vatican II put it, the Mass is a moment of privileged participation in “that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle”. “Going to Mass”, in other words, is not something we do for ourselves, or something we make up ourselves; liturgical worship is our participation in something God is doing for us...

...And the net result, over time? Almost certainly not “Latin days are here again” in every Catholic parish but rather a more reverent, more prayerful celebration of Mass according to a reformed Missal of 1970 — and according to what the Second Vatican Council actually prescribed. (source)

So much for Filet O Fish on Lenten Fridays

McDonald's Restaurants Continue to Promote Homosexuality

August 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A press release from the American Family Association has given an update on the involvement of McDonald's in the promotion of homosexuality.

"Now we learn that McDonald's sponsors training for homosexuals on how to promote their agenda among corporations from the inside. Out & Equal™ Workplace Advocates is a national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace," the press release states.

"One of its primary purposes is to train employees how to aggressively promote homosexuality within the company they work for, all the way to the corporate boardroom. Part of last year's Out & Equal Summit in Washington, DC, (sponsored by McDonald's) was an organized march into congressional offices demanding same-sex marriage laws be passed."

"At the bottom of McDonald's half-page ad in the Out & Equal Summit booklet is this statement: 'From neighborhood to neighborhood, coast to coast and around the world, McDonald's is proud to celebrate diversity [The secular modern understanding of diversity is much different than the diversity celebrated within the Church--from our diversity we have unity in Christ. The Devil can only pervert and twist the truth. We are called to unity from our diversity, but it is not a unity of anything goes, but a unity in orthodoxy and orthopraxis] ,'" the press release concludes.

Christians are called "to be in the world, but not of it (cf. Rom 12:1-2)." This means that we must not engage in activities or behaviors contrary to the Gospel (sin). Christ ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, but he did not say that prostitution is good. We must always seek to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel. We must call into question our involvement with corporations and associations which promote values contrary to the Gospel: are our clothes, tvs, computers, iphones assembled by my child slaves, does our produce come from unjustly paid farm workers. Engaging in commerce is a moral act, and such an act needs to be made in accordance with truth, justice, and Faith. Should we engage in commerce with businesses which use profits to support immoral agendas?

CCC 2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,(Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10.) tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." (CDF, Persona humana 8.) They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

New Blog

New Gmail account = New Blog

This'll be a bit different from my previous blog at ferrumveritatis.livejournal.com which i may or may not update from this point on.