From The Crossroads Initiative:

The Pentecost novena in honor of the Holy Spirit is the oldest of all novenas since it was first made at the direction of Our Lord Himself when He sent His apostles back to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. It is still the only novena officially prescribed by the Church. Addressed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, it is a powerful plea for the light and strength and love so sorely needed by every Christian.

The Novena begins on the day after the Solemnity of the Ascension, Friday of the 6th Week of Easter, even if the Solemnity of the Ascension is transferred to the 7th Sunday.

Go >here< for the Novena

From the Archdiocese of Washington:

The President’s disclosure that he now accepts so-called “Gay marriage” has received a good bit of political analysis. I am no political prognosticator and this is not a political blog. But when the President invokes Christ and the “golden rule,” to justify his decision, now I think we have something to discuss on a blog like this.

We have discussed at great length the problem with homosexual “marriage” before HERE,  HERE HERE, and HERE) there is no reason restate it all again. Just click through to read those sorts of articles. Further I make reference in this post to Scripture’s consistent teaching forbidding Homosexual acts. I do not set forth all the Scriptures here but you can read what I have set forth more fully here: Biblical Teaching on Homosexual Activity

In this post however lets consider the problematic appeal of the President to Jesus to affirm Gay “marriage.” Specifically Mr Obama said to ABC News:

…In the end the values that I care most deeply about and she [Michele] cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me….[1]

It is a common problem today that people often present simplistic portraits of Jesus Christ to support a variety of agendas. And the portraits of Jesus are not only simplistic, they are incomplete (usually intentionally so), and fail to accept that Jesus cannot be reduced to a simple sentence or two.

I would argue this is what the President is doing here. As if to say, “Jesus, was basically a nice and affirming person, who spoke of Love,  and so beautifully and taught us to do unto to others as we would have them do to us. “Surely,” the thinking goes, “this Jesus would affirm and rejoice over two Gay people getting “married.”” It is as if this were all Jesus was or said, “Love…Do unto others”. Never mind that he had some pretty high standards when it came to sexuality (Matt 5:27-30; Matt 15:19; Mk 10:11; Rev 22:15; Rev 21:8) Never mind that he told his apostles he had other things to teach them and would send his Holy Spirit, and never mind that His Holy Spirit inspired the Epistles writers like Paul to speak clearly in the ancient Biblical tradition about the sinfulness of homosexual activity, fornication, and adultery [2]  “Never mind all that,” says the modern world, and our President, “I chose the Jesus who said only, ‘God is love, and be kind to one another.’”

And this is the textbook definition of heresy, to pick or choose. The English word derives from the Greek word hairesis, meaning to chose.

The essence of orthodoxy is in the balance [3, 4] and maintaining the tensions inherent in Jesus and the Christian message.  The essence of heresy is to pick and choose. And, as author Ross Douthat has ably demonstrated in his book Bad Religion – How we became a nation of heretics, there is a lot of heresy being peddled today. Heresy picks one, or perhaps several teachings, and emphasizes them in exclusion to other teachings which balance and complete them. And to be fair, as Douthat points out, heresy is not just a problem on the left side of the political or theological aisle. The right does it as well (e.g. prosperity gospel, easy justification for war etc).

The modern tendency on the left, from which the President speaks has been to reduce Jesus to a rather harmless hippie who went about talking about love and inclusion and healed people. Gone from this harmless and politically correct  Jesus are volumes of verses that help complete the picture: a Messiah who claimed authority in our lives, who spoke quite clearly of sin, yes even sexual sin, and who warned repeatedly of the coming judgment, and the reality not only heaven, but of hell.

But Jesus is not either of these descriptions alone, he is both. Orthodoxy is in the balance, not choosing one or the other or tipping in one direction.

In a masterful description, Ross Douthot shows the paradoxes and the necessary balances about Jesus and the faith with which true orthodoxy must wrestle and hold in tension:

Christianity is a paradoxical religion because the Jew of Nazareth is a paradoxical character. No figure in history or fiction contains as many multitudes as the New Testament’s Jesus. He’s a celibate ascetic who enjoys dining with publicans and changing water into wine at weddings. He’s an apocalyptic prophet one moment, a wise ethicist the next. He’s a fierce critic of Jewish religious law who insists that he’s actually fulfilling rather than subverting it. He preaches a reversal of every social hierarchy while deliberately avoiding explicitly political claims. He promises to set parents against children and then disallows divorce; he consorts with prostitutes while denouncing even lustful thoughts. He makes wild claims about his own relationship to God, and perhaps his own divinity, without displaying any of the usual signs of megalomania or madness. He can be egalitarian and hierarchical, gentle and impatient, extraordinarily charitable and extraordinarily judgmental. He sets impossible standards and then forgives the worst of sinners. He blesses the peacemakers and then promises that he’s brought not peace but the sword. He’s superhuman one moment; the next he’s weeping. And of course the accounts of his resurrection only heighten these paradoxes, by introducing a post-crucifixion Jesus who is somehow neither a resuscitated body nor a flitting ghost but something even stranger still—a being at once fleshly and supernatural, recognizable and transfigured, bearing the wounds of the crucifixion even as he passes easily through walls. (Kindle Edition Loc. 3005-16)

Douthat goes on to conclude:

The boast of Christian orthodoxy, as codified by the councils of the early Church and expounded in the Creeds, has always been its fidelity to the whole of Jesus…..[Where heresy says which one] Both, says orthodoxy….The goal of the great heresies, on the other hand, has often been to extract from the tensions of the gospel narratives a more consistent, streamlined, and noncontradictory Jesus. (Ibid).

Indeed a remarkable passage, even if I might quibble with a few words (e.g. the standards of Jesus moral vision are not “impossible” with grace). I would highly recommend the book and will be commenting on it some more in days ahead.

Disclaimer! - In saying the President is exemplifying heresy (i.e. pick and chose Christianity), I am alleging material heresy,  but I am not call him a heretic. It is not my role or in my competency to to declare someone a formal heretic.

But the President is clearly proclaiming a very partial and thus reconstructed Christ. The real Christ is, as Douthat ably notes, far more complicated and far less vague than the President would have us think. And there is far more to his teaching than the “Golden Rule.”

Another form of heresy common today is to pick and chose Scripture. The usual approach, especially in terms of homosexuality and sexual matters in general, is to reduce the entire New Testament to the verbal utterances of Jesus alone, a kind of “red letter” reductionism. This of course, denies the inspiration of the entire New Testament and, in effect, says that Acts, all the Epistles, and Revelation are not the Word of God, are not inspired, and may safely be ignored.

But this is heresy since we cannot pick and choose the books of the Bible, we cannot tear out pages, or cross out lines. Orthodoxy is to accept the whole of the Sacred Text, and to consider its claims with reference to the whole of Scripture and in keeping with its trajectory. For a Catholic, of course this is done in union with the Magisterium and Sacred Tradition.

Many supporters of homosexual behavior adopt this heresy by saying, “Jesus never said a word about or against Homosexuality.” True, but he also never said a word about a lot of things: drinking to excess, beating one’s wife, he never forbade ethnic humor, or said people should wear clothes, He never declared how big and how much money should be spent on the military etc, whether Government should provide welfare etc. Since Jesus did not say out of his own mouth we cannot beat our wives then it must be okay to beat them? Of course not. An argument from silence is very poor and unhelpful.

Further it is heresy to say divine revelation closed with the ascension of Jesus. Rather it continues unto the death of the last apostle. The Epistles are every bit the Word of the Lord, and authored by the Same Holy Spirit as are the Gospels. We cannot pick and choose what we like.

To be clear, the reading of Scripture is not a purely mechanistic endeavor. For example, merely pulling proof texts out of thin air, and out of context is wrong, for that too is often heresy – picking one thing, forgetting the rest.

Rather, Scripture is to be read in a way which respects the overall trajectory of the Scriptures as God leads his people through stages to Christ. Therefore certain things are operative early in Scripture (e.g. certain feasts, dietary laws and punitive measures) that later fall away or are fulfilled. Thus Passover is fulfilled and subsumed into the Eucharist, Jesus cancels dietary laws by declaring all foods clean, the application of stoning and other severe punishments are curtailed etc. But all these organic developments take place in Scripture itself, and can be observed there.

However, there ARE teachings (notably the Divine Moral Law) that remain unchanged and are continuously articulated at every stage of Biblical revelation. They do not undergo change or fall away.

Regarding sexuality, at no stage in the Old Testament all the way through to the end of the New Testament, is fornication or adultery affirmed. The same is true for homosexual acts. At no stage, anywhere in Sacred Scripture are homosexual acts or fornication, or adultery ever affirmed, nor are these acts described as anything but sinful (e.g. Leviticus 18: 22; Lev 20:13; Gen 19; 1 Corinthians 6-9; 1 Tim 1:8-11; Rom 1:19ff, inter al).

Thus orthodoxy, which holds to the whole and does not pick and choose Scripture, must in every way accept and announce that these are sinful acts, sinful enough to exclude one from the Kingdom if they are not repented of (e.g. 1 Cor 6:9).

Simply ushering in a “Jesus is love” argument cannot override texts like these. For the same Scripture which says, God is love, also contains these teachings forbidding extra-marital sex and a host of other moral teachings. The Biblical record sees no essential conflict in saying both “God is love” and “Fornication, Adultery, and Homosexual acts are sinfully wrong.” Thus neither should we have a problem. Orthodoxy says “both.”  Heresy says, “there is tension here and I am going to resolve it by picking the concept I like and excluding the other.”

The orthodox approach accepts the tension and sees a Christ who loves sinners (us) and holds them close, but who also summons us to repentance and a life that is increasingly free from sin and conformed to the truth by his grace .

I don’t know how the President will fare politically, but he has flunked theology and is, if you ask me (and even if you don’t) refashioned Jesus for his own purpose.

As for comments, I would rather not debate the whole Gay Marriage issue and/or the sinfulness of homosexuality. We’ve done that here before and the Church teaching is clear and is not going to change. I am most interested in comments that zero in on the problem of heresy – pick and choose Christianity and how it relates not only to this issue but others as well. But you decide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ol8rB4Rp8

From Archdiocese of Washington:

As a pastor I get asked every now and then, “Why are there not more miracles in our day, like there were in the Bible?” I suppose there are two answers we could explore.

One of the answers must surely be that we do not really expect miracles.

Another answer is that when they do happen we often dismiss them by rationalizing them, or chalking them up to coincidence or to some unknown reason that scientists will surely be able to explain some day.

The bottom line is that we are not living in an age of faith. And faith is to miracles as cause is to effect.

Many say, “If I saw miracles I would believe.” But the biblical answer is, unless you believe, you will not see miracles.

Consider and excerpt of the first reading from Monday of this week:

At Lystra there was a crippled man, lame from birth, who had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking, who looked intently at him, saw that he had the faith to be healed, and called out in a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet.” He jumped up and began to walk about. Acts 14:7-10

Note that Paul was able to heal the crippled man because he saw he had the faith to be healed. Faith precedes miracles. There are many places in the Scriptures where faith and miracles are linked:

1. When Jesus had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. (Matt 9:28-29
2. “O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” …Jesus rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mk 9:19-29)
3. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive [the Demon] out?” He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt 17:19-20
4. Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” (Lk 18:42)
5. Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment. (Matt 9:22)
6. Jesus could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mk 6:5-6)
7. Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matt 15:28)
8. “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:52
9. Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19)

And on and on the quotes could go.

The key point is that faith is the essential ingredient for miracles. There must be faith not only on the part of the one who works it, but even more so on the part of the one who receives the miracle. For it may sometimes happen that the one through whom the miracle is accomplished, has only poor faith, but the one receiving it has the faith to be healed, and thus God grants it.

Of this I have (to my shame) been a witness.  But, I will say I have grown. For on some occasions in my priesthood God has worked miraculous cures when I was sent to anoint the sick or to pray over and with people.

1. On one occasion, many years ago I was sent to anoint a man near death. He was filled with cancer, in the pancreas, liver and bone. No hope said the doctors. His daughter sent me with the confident expectation that I could heal him. But, truthfully, I went more with the intention of giving “last rites” in order to prepare him for death. But God was not defeated by me, the faith of that man and his daughter prevailed. The next day his vitals changed and the surprised doctors found no trace of cancer in subsequent scans. He lived on another ten years and I always called him Lazarus.
2. On other occasion a few years ago, I was summoned early one morning to the hospital. The doctors had announced a certain end for a parishioner and her tearful relatives were gathered in a death watch. The decision had been reached to pull the breathing tube, and the doctors offered no hope and were “sure” the woman would die in moments after the tube was pulled. But this woman had surprised us before. And by now, I had learned my lesson, that God was in charge, no matter what the doctors said. And I told that family just before I anointed her, not to be so sure what would happen or when, that God was in charge, and that people don’t necessarily go right away even when the doctors say so. And when I finished the anointing, I prayed, “Lord, If you want to, you can heal her, I know you can” and the Amens murmured among the family.” Next morning, Mrs. J was up for breakfast, issuing orders to family and stating that hospital food was disagreeable to her.
3. And I want also to give God the glory for the many miracles he has worked in terms of spiritual healing, healings in my own life and soul, healing in the lives of many I have known. Deliverance from anxiety and depression, deliverance from anger and addiction; the sudden and miraculous capacity to forgive, or to let go of crippling grief; the gradual healing to go from serious sins to freedom, to go from tepidity to deeper and deeper love of God. Yes, I walked along side of many who exhibit miraculous healing, of this same healing I too am a witness. And the healing defies any rational explanation.

Yes, even a little faith, mustard seed faith. Just the faith that says, “Father Pope, will you pray for me?” Or, “Father I will pray for you.” Faith the size of a mustard seed. If I take one step God takes two. The miracles are many.

The gift to be sought – Perhaps in times like these where we often do not expect miracles or dismiss them too easily when they occur, the gift to be sought is the gift of the fear of the Lord.

At its heart, the fear of the Lord is the awareness of the wonderful things God is always doing in our life from moment to moment. It is the gift of wonder and awe before the displayed majesty of our God, and a desire not to offend him out of love and respect.

And frankly, one way we might offend against his glory is to walk right past the glories he is doingfrom moment to moment, being ungrateful, unaware, and seeing as routine, the magnificence of what he does. The color purple, the magnificent stars, the quirky yet wonderful people in our life, indeed, our very own existence, all these and countless other wonders are on daily display. And seeing them for the miraculous gift they are begins to open our minds to the possibility of miracles too.

The gift of the fear of the Lord helps to increase our awareness of God and our faith in Him. And faith is the door to even greater miracles.

Are you ready for a miracle? The Lord has a related question for us: Do you believe that I can do this? (Matt 9:28)

It is true, God sometimes says no, and we have discussed that HERE before. But perhaps we ought also to check our attitude, and ask why we might be quick to presume he will say no or has said no. Scripture says, “Ye have not because ye ask not” (James 4:2). Why not ask with confidence and leave the answer up to God.

Why are there fewer miracles today? You tell me.

From Catholic Phoenix:

WARNING:  This is likely to annoy and/or offend anyone and/or everyone at some point.  Just thought I’d get that out of the way.

As a sacristan at my local parish, I enjoy a unique view of things.  Many weekends, you will find me doing my best to not interfere with Father’s work at the altar, thereby invalidating the Mass, or at least keeping my servers alert, attentive, and reverent in the performance of their duties.  Other weekends, I enjoy just being one of the regular folks, participating in the Mass with the balance of the lay faithful.

On occasion, I will venture out to other parishes, becoming a “Roamin’ Catholic.”  What I find out there sometimes sets my blood boiling, and at best leaves me scratching my head, and at its worst, leaves me poorly disposed to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist.  Below are just a few of my observations of a “typical” Sunday in the provinces:

I often find my problems begin at, well, the beginning.  Before the Mass has even started.  Unless it happens to be Good Friday, remember that Jesus is in the room!  When one and in fact, many, come in to prepare for Mass, please, keep your conversations with your neighbor, your husband, wife, children, whoever, to a dull roar.  Most are only in the church for that one hour (unless Father heads down a homiletic rabbit hole, then it could stretch to a whole hour and fifteen), and if folks are not going to spend that time in prayer prior to Mass, then it would be nice if they would respect their neighbor enough to sit in reflective silence (perhaps it might cause one to actually hear the voice of God).

During the processional hymn, please, sing already!  It’s terrible when the only voice you hear is your own, or the music director.  Do not worry about whether or not you can sound like a rock star, make a joyful noise unto the Lord!  Join the choirs of angels, and your voice will be fine.

While we are talking about music, let us walk down this path for a minute, and I promise to stay off it until the very end.  The music in Mass should help us join in the worship of God, not help one’s own voice andor instrument to be exalted (amplified?) above all else.   Guitars and drum sets have little or no place in the Mass.  Just saying.  Also, don’t want to hear Matt Maher, John Michael whoever, Bob Jones, Bob Denver, Steely Dan, or anyone singing their version of Psalms 1-150.  The Psalmist was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that should be enough.  There is a time for praise music.  Mass is not that place.

Hands.  Keep them to yourself.  Unless you are a ministerial priest (i.e., ordained priest or bishop), hands clasped in front of you, or at your side is what is appropriate.  You say there is nothing in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal that forbids waving and gesticulating?  You are right.  However, please show me where it says that you should do it.

When the priest or deacon says “The Lord be with you”, just say, “and also with you”, or after Advent 2011, “and with your spirit” or “et cum spiritu tuo”.  Keep your hands still!  It’s not appropriate!

Join in the prayers where appropriate- at the end of the OT and Epistle readings, say with conviction, “The Word of the Lord”, and after the Gospel, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ”!  Sing the responses to the Psalm!

Participate in the Mass!  During the Creed, when the priest says “by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man”, bow!  Not a little head nod, like you heard a bit of music you like, but really bow, in reverence.  Remember at Christmas we genuflect–give a good bow the other weeks of the year!

During the Offertory- again, keep your hands to yourself- you are not the priest!  You are not standing in persona Christi!  The priest’s orans position refers to Christ on the Cross.

Now my biggest one- the Our Father!  Here it comes!  This was inspired by my friend Amy, who posts recently on her blog about her own frustrations.  Father Z lent his own voice to the schola recently as well .  If you find you must hold hands with nary anyone who comes near you, make sure it’s okay with them.  Don’t grab my hand, or slap my arm with the dead-fish hand.  Please and thank you.  I understand that some priests invite everyone to hold hands during the Our Father.  I would probably not attend Mass again there should I experience such a thing.  Amy talks of germs and such, and just in general, her whole phobia of random strangers touching her.  I don’t have such issues, but what I do have issue with is when our focus is taken away from Christ, who is truly present before us, so that we can hold hands with our neighbor, not to mention the odd fellow who wants to come across the aisle.

I often get really upset at the “passing of the peace”.  I understand the priest or deacon encourages us to share a sign of peace, but really, when the rest of Mass is disrupted by this glad-handing, coming across two, three, four rows and across the aisle again detracts from what comes next:  our reception of the Eucharist.  Keep it simple, keep it close, please.  Short range peace-passing only.

So, we’ve finally gotten through the Communion Rite (I will save my thoughts on EM’s for a later rant!), and now, Father has given the final blessing, the deacon has exhorted us to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord” (is that one or two alleluias at the Vigil? Inside joke, can’t help myself), and the exodus begins.  No sooner does the recessional pass, and people are killing themselves to get out the door, stumbling over those that might, oh, wait a minute for the music to end, to possibly say a prayer of thanksgiving for the privilege of worshiping God, and that He might protect our priests and bishops.  Once the music ends, the prayerful applause breaks out for the choir.  Why? For doing the job they volunteered for, or got paid for?  (Wait–this is a Catholic Church, so it’s definitely the job they volunteered for.)  They were there to worship God as well.  But please, after it’s all said and done, if you just have to get out of the pew, would you mind going the other way?  I’m just going to be a moment, but I’d like that moment, thank you.

So, that for the moment concludes my Mass rant.  Stay tuned next time, as we dig further into bad form during the worship of Our Lord.

Pax on all your houses.

From the Catholic Phoenix:

In a move already denounced by Catholic bishops & other leading religious conservatives, St. Sincerus University, the nation’s 84^th largest Catholic university, has invited Satan to deliver its commencement speech later this month. Also known as the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, &, more popularly, the Devil, Satan is a divisive figure among Catholics & other Christians. Several Catholic universities have upset religious conservatives in recent years by inviting controversial figures to deliver commencement speeches, as when the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s largest Catholic University, invited President Barack Obama, who supports a woman’s right to abortion, in 2009. The invitation to Satan by SSU president Fr. Thad Despereaux comes at a time when many Catholics are highly critical of the Obama administration’s attempts to reform health care, which some claim would force Catholic institutions to violate their Church’s teachings by providing contraceptives as part of their health insurance plans. Fr. Despereaux, in comments made to the Daily Sham, SSU’s student newspaper, said that having Satan on campus gives bold witness to a central Catholic principle that God can be found in all things. “The continuing politicization of the faith indicates just how important it is for us to build bridges,” Fr. Despereaux said. “Our whole mission as a university is to bring people together. Satan is badly misunderstood by many people, & we hope to show our graduates that stereotypes, & the hatred they engender, have no place on a Catholic campus. As Catholics we are to hate hate.”

On-campus reactions at SSU have been favorable, as faculty & students alike have applauded the university’s open-mindedness in issuing the invitation. Dr. Sophia Greengrass, Director of the university’s Wiccan Institute, called the invitation a brave attempt to promote the university’s academic integrity in the face of “fascist attempts by the male hierarchy to impose its limited & limiting dogmas,” while Declan Spencer, a Religious Studies major studying the mythical underpinnings of religious language, said he hoped to meet Satan & thank him for his contributions to world culture.  Some faculty, however, have questioned the wisdom of the invitation. “Satan doesn’t actually exist,” said Fr. Eddie Cheever, Professor of Early Christian Literature, “so it will be interesting to hear what he says. Or doesn’t say.” And Professor David Evans, known for his support of traditional Church teachings, said the invitation further reflects the administration’s attempts to distance itself from the Church.  “It does make sense, given the administration’s recent policies,” he said, noting Fr. Despereaux’s endorsement of Phallic Fridays, in which students erect large phallic sculptures around the SSU chapel, cover them with latex, & ironically sing hymns to the fertility god Priapus, as well as the popular Religion-less Lent, instituted last year, in which Catholic students were urged to give up prayer & mass attendance during Lent.

As of this afternoon, Satan has not publicly responded to the invitation, though Prof. Evans suggested that since he is already quite at home at SSU, there is little doubt that he will accept.

From St. Louis Review:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI wants the Catholic Church in America to be in the forefront of reviving Catholicism worldwide, the apostolic nuncio to the United States said in Columbus.

“The Church in the United States should lead the entire Church in the world” in a revitalization effort, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano said. “This is a great task, but you have the determination and the grace to do it. This I know is the vision of the Holy Father regarding the Church in the United States.”

The archbishop was speaking to an audience of seminarians and benefactors of the Pontifical College Josephinum at its annual rector’s dinner April 23. He called on the American Church to go beyond its mission of evangelizing the United States and “to be missionaries not only to the Third World, but especially to the countries of Europe.

“Christianity (in Europe) in some way has lost its strength and needs an example,” he said, noting “very positive signs of growth” in vocations to the priesthood and the religious life in the United States.

Archbishop Vigano said he especially wanted to direct his message to young people, particularly those studying for the priesthood at the Josephinum.

The institution has experienced substantial growth in recent years and currently has an enrollment of more than 180 men, its highest in 25 years. They represent 29 dioceses from all over the United States, including six that sent seminarians to the institution for the first time this year, and their ethnic and cultural backgrounds echo the diversity of the American Church as a whole.

The nuncio, who serves as the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States and is based in Washington, also serves as chancellor of the Josephinum.

“I’ve been taken by surprise since I arrived here … because everywhere that I’ve been, everything has been much beyond all of the imaginations and the expectations I had,” he said.

The archbishop spoke in general terms about the state of American Catholicism, but did not specifically mention in his 10-minute remarks the current tension between bishops and the federal government in connection with a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that most health plans cover the cost of contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can induce abortion.

“This particular moment for the Church in the United States is certainly a situation of great challenge,” he said. “Where there are challenges, there also is a moment of grace. The challenge is that we are put in a situation where we have to overcome the difficulties, and we know that the grace is always overwhelming and amazing for us.”

Archbishop Vigano noted that the Church throughout its history has experienced moments of great success and other times when people have thought it was going to disappear. He said this was nothing new, noting that St. Ambrose in the fourth century had compared the Church to the moon in the way it seems to become full, then almost slips from sight only to grow again.

“We are not to lose hope in a difficult moment, and at the same time, we have to be conscious that always we are challenged by the devil … who wants to destroy the Church,” he said.

He referred to the passage read at the previous Sunday’s Masses from the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus appears to His disciples just before His ascension and reminds them of all they have witnessed.

“This is a moment in which we can form young people with a great enthusiasm to be witnesses to the Gospel … to give witness of the fact our Lord has died, is risen and is alive,” he said.

Puet writes for the Catholic Times, Columbus diocesan newspaper.

From Zenit:

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 25, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Continuing with his reflection on prayer in the early life of the Church, Benedict XVI today at the general audience commented on the apostles’ discernment as they faced the problem of finding time to preach and serve.

Referring to the sixth chapter of Acts, the Pope spoke about the issue the apostles had to resolve regarding “the pastoral care of charity shown to those who were alone and in need of help and assistance.”

He said that what stands out in the face of this “pastoral emergency” is the apostles’ discernment.

“They are faced with the primary need to proclaim the Word of God according to the mandate of the Lord; but even though this is the primary demand placed upon the Church — they consider with equal seriousness the duty of charity and of justice.”

The Holy Father suggested two insights from the apostles’ reaction: “first, that from that moment in the Church, there is a ministry of charity. The Church must not only proclaim the Word, she must also make the Word, which is charity and truth, a reality. And the second point: these men [chosen to serve] were to be not only of good repute; they must be men filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom; that is, they cannot be only organizers who know how to ‘do’; they must ‘do so’ in the spirit of faith by the light of God, in wisdom of heart. Therefore, also their role — though primarily of a practical nature — is still a spiritual role. Charity and justice are not only social actions; rather, they are spiritual activities realized in the light of the Holy Spirit.”

Productivity

The Holy Father went on to note how the saints have taught of the importance of a “profound unity of life between prayer and action, between total love of God and love for the brethren.”

He said this is a “precious reminder for us today, habituated as we are to evaluate everything based upon the criteria of productivity and efficiency.”

The Pope reflected that this passage from Acts reminds us not only of the importance of work, but also of our need for God, “for His guidance, for His light, which gives us strength and hope.”

“Without daily prayer faithfully lived out,” he cautioned, “our activity becomes empty, it loses its deep soul, it is reduced to mere activism, which in the end leaves us unsatisfied.”

Pastors

The Bishop of Rome added that this lesson is particularly important for pastors, who should see “the primacy of prayer and of God’s Word” as their “first and most precious form of service paid to the flock entrusted to them.”

“If the lungs of prayer and the Word of God fail to nourish the breath of our spiritual life, we risk suffocating in the middle of a thousand daily cares: prayer is the breath of the soul and of life,” the Holy Father affirmed. “And there is another precious reminder that I would like to emphasize: in our relationship with God, in listening to His Word, in conversation with God, even when we find ourselves in the silence of a church or in our room, we are united in the Lord with so many brothers and sisters in faith, like an ensemble of instruments that, though retaining their individuality, offer to God one great symphony of intercession, of thanksgiving and of praise.”

From LifeSiteNews:

April 20, 2012 (thePublicDiscourse.com) – A great deal of public discussion has been sparked by the recent determination of the Department of Health and Human Services that it would, under the legal authority of the new health care law, require health insurance plans to cover the costs of hormonal contraception. Much of that discussion has focused on the nature and importance of religious freedom, since the directives would require some institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and universities, to provide health insurance coverage for things that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching. To a lesser extent, the HHS regulations have provoked some renewed discussion—at least among Catholics, but perhaps more generally among religious conservatives—about the morality of contraception itself, a topic that had seemed closed as a topic of genuine inquiry for the last generation.

The HHS directives should also give rise to another discussion, one that so far has not been undertaken: a discussion not of the legality of the mandates, nor of the morality of contraception, but of the physical costs of contraception, of the negative consequences it may have for the health and well-being of the women who use it. This aspect of the question has been all but totally ignored. For their part, the liberal partisans of the HHS mandates speak as if hormonal contraception is simply an unmitigated good, a clean gain, for women. Indeed, their argument suggests that such contraception is so unequivocally good that there can be no reasonable argument about the propriety of mandating its coverage as a health care benefit.

This assumption deserves to be challenged because it is untrue. That is, hormonal contraception carries certain physical costs in addition to the benefits touted by its proponents. Unless these costs are frankly acknowledged, American women will be in no position to make an informed choice about whether or not to use contraception. Yet presumably Americans of all ideological persuasions could agree that women should be in a position to choose or reject contraception based upon full knowledge of its potential physical consequences.

The popular view of contraception as an unmitigated good is based upon a naïve understanding of science’s ability to intervene in natural processes. Modern people are understandably impressed by science’s ability to manipulate nature, to divert it to courses more acceptable (or apparently more acceptable) to human well-being than it would take if left to itself. We are often more impressed, however, than would be justified on closer examination. It is, after all, impossible to interject technological control into any natural system without incurring some undesirable consequences. Liberals understand this very well when the issue is non-human natural systems—the “environment.” They can easily tell you the problems that are caused by cutting down trees, mining coal, or burning oil.

But a woman’s body is a natural system like any other. It is devised by nature—for a portion of the woman’s lifespan—to be capable of becoming pregnant, to be fertile. Medical science cannot simply turn that fertility on and off like a light switch. It is rather to be expected that suppression of fertility through the use of birth control pills will carry certain physical costs for the woman who does it. The evidence bears out this expectation. In discussing these consequences we divide them into two categories: health risks and costs to physical well-being.

The existing scientific literature suggests that the long-term use of birth control pills is associated with increased risk for certain serious, and potentially deadly, health problems. A 2009 Mayo Clinic study noted a doubling of the risk of breast cancer in women who had used birth control pills for more than eleven years. Similarly, another recent study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that longer duration of use of hormonal contraception, as well as earlier first age of use, increased risk of breast cancer. Specifically, the study found that women who started using birth control pills before age 18 were at 1.9 times the normal risk level for all forms of breast cancer, and that women 40 and younger were at a 4.2-fold increased risk of triple negative breast cancer, one of the worst forms, which accounts for between 10 and 17 percent of all breast cancer cases.

Some forms of hormonal birth control have also been associated with increased risk for blood clots. Yaz, which was for several years the top-selling birth control pill, was discovered to almost double the risk for blood clotting, which can be lethal. There were about ten deaths per year among Yaz users during the period from 2004 to 2008, although the actual number of fatalities may be higher. Finally, birth control pills are harmful for the cardiac health of women who suffer from atherosclerotic disease. Those who use birth control pills usually cannot know whether they are assuming this additional risk, since it is generally financially impractical to screen for atherosclerosis prior to the use of birth control.

While these problems are admittedly only risks and not certainties attending the use of birth control, it is also worth noting that they do not necessarily represent all of the risks involved. That is, birth control pills may in some cases be more perilous than we know. The aforementioned Yaz had been approved by the FDA and was in use for several years before its connection to blood clotting came to light. Similarly, the author of the aforementioned NIH study on birth control and breast cancer noted the “scarcity” of studies of this link, and hence the need for “further research” on it.

Birth control pills also tend to carry costs to physical well-being. Use of birth control pills is associated with an increased incidence of unpleasant things such as depression, mood swings, weight gain, impeded weight loss, headache, upper respiratory infection, sinusitis, nausea, menstrual cramps, acne, breast tenderness, vaginal candidiasis (commonly known as “yeast infection”), bacterial vaginitis, and urinary tract infection. Although normally not life-threatening, such physical ailments are certainly not insignificant to those who suffer them.

Moreover, they are especially noteworthy to the extent that they bear negatively upon the supposed benefit of contraception: sexual freedom. Sometimes the proponents of contraception present it as preventing pregnancy, but anyone with elementary knowledge of biology knows that pregnancy can be prevented even more reliably by refraining from sexual intercourse. Contraception’s real benefit, then, at least as its advocates see it, is sexual freedom, the ability to enjoy sex without unwanted consequences. The side effects mentioned above, however, put a serious dent in the argument for this benefit. Obviously, a woman suffering from some or even one of the physically unpleasant consequences of birth control will not be able to enjoy sexual activity as much as she otherwise might. This is especially evident in the case of several of the ailments noted above, the ones (such as vaginitis, urinary tract infection, and vaginal candidiasis) that involve vaginal discomfort.

Indeed, one commonly found side-effect of hormonal birth control is a decrease in libido or sexual desire. Whether this arises independently or is itself caused by some of the other disorders and discomforts noted above is immaterial to the basic fact that contraception, which is promoted as a means to sexual happiness, can in fact diminish a woman’s sexual happiness. The promise of contraception is that women will be able to have sex whenever they want to, but a closer look reveals that it might well make you not want to very much. Put another way, its claim to be a pure benefit is compromised to the extent that it diminishes the enjoyment of that which it puts within such easy reach. Access to more apples is not a pure gain if a larger percentage of the apples are spoiled and taste bad.

We do not claim that these risky and unpleasant side-effects render contraception immoral. The morality of contraception depends on philosophic arguments we are not making here. Nor do we claim that the bad side-effects are so severe as to justify a ban on contraception on public health grounds. We merely hold that these side-effects are often ignored in our public discourse, but that a truly free decision of women to use or not use them—as well as a truly free decision of voters whether to use government to promote them—depends on a frank acknowledgement of their costs along with their alleged benefits.

From National Catholic Register:

I saw an 18 year old girl yesterday put air quotes on the word “love.” She was asked by her friend if she loved her boyfriend. And she shrugged, saying, “I guess I ‘love’ him whatever that means” with the air quotes.

You see, she wasn’t questioning her feelings for him. She was questioning the existence of love itself. And it just blew me away and I wondered what went wrong with this girl’s life. She’s sitting in the bleachers of her sister’s softball game on a beautiful day with car keys dangling from her fingers and an IPhone in her palm and she absolutely seems hopeless.

And I don’t think she’s alone. I think cynicism, ironic detachment, and hopelessness are prevalent in children today. It’s odd that a generation to whom has been given marvels of technological advancements, such widespread bitter unhappiness has resulted.

Plato said, “Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.” I think it’s safe to say, we’ve done the opposite of that.

I am raising four girls and a boy. And few things are more paramount in my mind than having them avoid the culture of cynicism that oppresses so many around them. This ironic detachment from anything scares the heck out of me.

I want kids that stop and point to a sunset. I want them to be assured that their Mom and Dad love each other and love them. I want them to be thankful to God because I don’t think you can be cynical and thankful at the same time. In short, I want to raise “Alleluia” kids in a “whatever” world.

I’ve never seen cynicism add to a person’s happiness. I think cynicism can temporarily protect you from terrible grief but it prohibits actual joy.

In this Youtube world where every kid has a camera, so many kids act like the cameras are always rolling. They don’t stand, they pose.

I’ve watched them dance at their school dances. They don’t dance with abandon. They dance to make fun of dancing in front of their friends videotaping them. They dance “the robot” to make fun of people who danced the robot or they dance like people did in the music video of the song to make fun of the video.

They say they like a movie because it was “sooooo bad” or “It’s awesome in a totally stupid way.”

They’re not living life, they’re commenting on it.

This ironic detachment is the pose of the powerless. It’s the shrug of surrender because it would look uncool to actually put your arms up in surrender, except if you were making fun of people surrendering.

I don’t know why this has happened but I think it has something to do with parents working so hard to provide material goodsfor their children and neglecting to pass on the things that really matter, like instilling a sense of wonder in the world and gratitude to God.

Yup. God comes into this. How could He not?

Kids are coming into a materialistic culture that calls itself spiritual but not religious which is a nice way of saying that you can do whatever you want and feel good about it. But that kind of God isn’t one that’s involved in your life. The kind of God who cheers your every decision isn’t a God who can call you out of yourself.

And what this bequeaths to our children is the logical extension of that kind of thinking which is that they are gods. And if everyone’s a god there is no god. And in a godless world, you don’t just get rid of all those cumbersome “thou shall nots.” You get rid of love too. Love is airquoted and reclassified as a Darwinian urge to fool us into procreating. And the continuance of love is put to a cost/benefit analysis. If there’s more pain associated with love at a particular moment, maybe it’s time to go elsewhere where it’ll feel better. But that’s not love. That’s self gratification.

Maybe the ability to watch whatever they want the instant they want or being able to listen to anything they want is perhaps a corrosive and terrible thing.

I don’t know all the reasons why but it seems to me that the world is sick with cynicism. The antidote, I think, is gratitude.