Charity in Truth

It's here! It'shereitshereits here here HERE. It has arrived!!!

You can download a Word file of the encyclical from Thom Peters.

Or scroll through Rocco's version.

FirstThings is steadily digesting it.

And it gets better...

An adult faith

Expressing oneself against the Magisterium of the Church is presented as a sort of ‘courage’, whereas in fact not much courage is needed because one can be certain of receiving public praise. Instead, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if it contradicts the 'order' of today’s world. Paul calls this non-conformism an ‘adult faith’. --His Holiness Pope BXVI

Read the rest of the quote here.

This woman could learn much from St. Paul's non-conformism.

Maafa21

The enslavement of the African people that began two centuries ago was known in Swahili as the Maafa. It continues into the 21st century in the form we know today: eugenics. This film exposes the racist origins of Planned Parenthood, its use of the U.N. as a vehicle for genocide, and the civil rights movement's self-destructive cooperation with the move to legalize abortion.

Watch the trailers; they provide sufficient summary of the content to convince you the purchase will be worth it. This movie has come to fruition at a very important moment in our nation's history, when our first Black president is promoting the very policies that were the envy of the Third Reich.

Hypocrisy squared

Nod raises a fair question:

I asked why there seemed to be a disproportionate number of Republican politicos in recent times with fidelity issues. The response was that the numbers were probably equal, but that there was a disproportionate reporting on Republicans vs. Democrats. For better or worse, Republican social conservatives have positioned themselves as the party of traditional morality and ethics. The liberal wing of the Democrats eschew traditional morality, but they are the first to yell "hypocrite" and rub social conservatives' noses in it when they stumble.

So if you have moral standards in political life, you'll be skewered with them if you fail to live up to them even once, but if you profess none, then all things are tolerated?

Personally I think liberals are getting back at conservatives for the Clinton scandal, as if the ubiquity of infidelity means we should abandon any expectation of virtuous behavior. Gee, I wonder whose purposes that would serve?

on Fatherhood

CERC shares this sage wisdom.

Stupefying

is not the word I would have chosen.

Deacon shares this quote:

"Women should be able to mourn the loss of an aborted fetus without having to confess anything. God, unlike what the liturgy states, also rejoices that women facing unplanned pregnancies have the freedom to carefully choose the best option - birth, adoption or abortion - for themselves and their families."

When is abortion the best option for the child being killed?

God help the Episcopalians.

Fisher of men

Since my good friend Mark has celebrated St. Thomas More over at Vivere, it's incumbent on me to share with you some thoughts on that great patron of my home parish, St. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Cardinal-designate in pectore (Henry offed his head before the Pope could put a red hat on it). Like our dear present pontiff, Fisher was a professor by trade and did much to make Cambridge the foremost university in Europe, a fact the agnostics who roam there now presumably take for granted (and one the Reformation purposefully neglects).

He was a gentle ascete, by all accounts, and made fasting and modest mortifications a regular part of his prayer life, typically dining on broth. He read Scripture fastidiously (a fact the sola-scripturians choose to ignore) believing like Jerome that it was there one genuinely met Jesus. He kept the chancery spartan, only doing the extent demanded by court protocol of the day, and gave alms regularly. In other words, he's a man every bishop today would do well to emulate. So he was nothing like the men who occupied the Holy See at that time, a fact the Anglicans also chose to ignore in their protestations.

It was this quiet asceticism that prepared Fisher for the via crucis that led to his death. He was the sole, solitary, and only member of the episcopal fraternity who did not yield to the king's absurd demand. In order to generate a smear campaign against Fisher, Henry went to extraordinary lengths to find some dirt, any dirt, that besmudged the saint's record; in the end, the tyrant king sort of implied that the bishop had consorted with a witch. To this, the elegant fops who occupied the other dioceses in England made no objection, in spite of the fact that they knew the man's virtue plainly (and probably envied his grace).

Though his comrade in the Tower would meet the scaffold second, Fisher was told by his inquisitors that the heroic lawyer had already perished for want of incriminating himself-- this as an attempt to coerce Fisher to make a confession. Thus, he went to his execution fully believing he was truly the only man in England to uphold the magisterium of the Church. He sang the Te Deum all the way to his death, which as we know was the day he finally embraced the Lord he loved so well.

More meanwhile was told that Fisher had broken down and made his confession. Consequently, he went under the axe fully believing that no member of the episcopate had stayed faithful to Christ or His Vicar. Imagine what a happy meeting they had in heaven!

Pray that our Bishops act with clear moral resolve in defense of the Truth in the face of our current tyrants: moral relativism and the Culture of Death.

Father's Day to-do list

1. Send your dad a card or visit

2. Pray for Pope Benedict and his intentions

3. Pray to St. Joseph

4. Pray the Our Father and thank God repeatedly

5. Thank a priest

CORPUS CHRISTI SUNDAY

Today was a wonderful day.

I adored my wife in the Eucharist, celebrated a Baptism, and visited a young man with Autism in whose life I am making a difference.

What a gift to know God as intimately as we do in the Mass!

The deacon today spelled out the meaning of Adoration.

Adore Jesus
Deepen your prayer
Order your life
Respond to God's will
Accept the Cross
Thank Him
Invest in your faith
Open your heart
Never cease

Just as God gave manna in the desert, so too we have our food for the journey home. We're asked to make Jesus present in the way we conduct ourselves. All the time we can be doing more to adore Jesus daily.

When we unite ourselves to Christ in the sacrament, we learn more about Him. The more we know Him, the more readily we recognize Him in our midst. The more we recognize Him, the more familiar He becomes. The more familiar he becomes, the more we are wooed by Him. The more we are wooed by Him, the more we yield to Him. The more we yield to Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we desire what He desires. The more we desire what He desires, the more we become like Him.

How sweet to know the Lord, to desire Him, to yearn for His kiss in the Eucharist!

It is appropriate to remember in this regard the different meanings of the word "adoration" in the Greek and Latin languages. The Greek word proskýnesis means the act of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure and by whose law we agree to abide.

The Latin word adoratio, on the other hand, denotes the physical contact — the kiss, the embrace — which is implicit in the idea of love. The aspect of submission foresees a relationship of union because the one to whom we submit is Love. Indeed, in the Eucharist, worship must become union: union with the living Lord and then with his Mystical Body.
--His Loveliness Papst Benedikt

Year of the Priest: discover anew

Being a follower of Jesus Christ is not just one among many different aspects of your daily life. Being a Christian is who you are. Period. And being a Christian means your life has a mission. It means striving every day to be a better follower, to become more like Jesus in your thoughts and actions.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld once said that, "God calls all the souls he has created to love him with their whole being. . . . But he does not ask all souls to show their love by the same works, to climb to heaven by the same ladder, to achieve goodness in the same way. What sort of work, then must I do? Which is my road to heaven?"4

God expects big things from each of us. That's why he made us. To love him and to serve one another, and to play our personal part in bringing about the kingdom of love. So you have to ask yourselves the same questions that Blessed Charles asked himself. What does God want you to be doing? How does he want you to follow Christ?

Now, how do you go about finding the answers to these questions? By talking to God, humbly and honestly, in prayer. By getting to know Christ better through daily reading and praying over the Gospels. By opening yourself up to the graces he gives us in the sacraments. "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." It's not about you choosing what you want to do with your life. It's about discovering how God wants to use your life to spread the good news of his love and his kingdom.

--Abp. Chaput

Each day we are called to conversion, but we are called to it in a very particular way during this year, in union with all those who have received the gift of priestly ordination. Conversion to what? It is conversion to be ever more authentically that which we already are, conversion to our ecclesial identity of which our ministry is a necessary consequence, so that a renewed and joyous awareness of our 'being' will determine our 'acting,' or rather will create the space allowing Christ the Good Shepherd to live in us and to act through us.

Our spirituality must be nothing other than the spirituality of Christ himself, the one and only Supreme High Priest of the New Testament.

In this year, which the Holy Father has providentially announced, we will seek together to concentrate on the identity of Christ the Son of God, in communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who became man in the virginal womb of Mary, and on his mission to reveal the Father and His wondrous plan of salvation. This mission of Christ carries with it the building up of the Church: behold the Good Shepherd (Cf. Jn. 19:1-21) who gives his life for the Church (Cf. Eph. 5: 25).

Yes, conversion every day of our lives so that Christ’s manner of life may be the manner of life made ever more manifest in each one of us.

--Congregation for the Clergy

The great Feast of Pentecost invites us to meditate on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Mary, a very close, privileged and indissoluble relationship. The Virgin of Nazareth was chosen in advance to become the Mother of the Redeemer through the power of the Holy Spirit: in her humility, she found favour in God's eyes (cf. Lk 1:30). In fact, in the New Testament we see that Mary's faith, so to speak, "attracts" the gift of the Holy Spirit. First of all in the conception of the Son of God, a mystery that the Archangel Gabriel himself explains in this way: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35). Immediately afterwards Mary went to help Elizabeth, and when she arrived and greeted her, the Holy Spirit caused the child to leap in the womb of her elderly kinswoman (cf. Lk 1:44); and the whole dialogue between the two mothers is inspired by God's Spirit, especially the Magnificat, the hymn of praise in which Mary expresses her innermost sentiments. The whole event of Jesus' birth and early childhood is guided almost tangibly by the Holy Spirit, although he is not always mentioned. Mary's heart, in perfect unison with the divine Son, is a temple of the Spirit of truth in which every word and every event are preserved in faith, hope and charity (cf. Lk 2:19, 51).

We may therefore be certain that the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the whole of his hidden life in Nazareth always found in his Mother's Immaculate Heart, a "hearth" ever alight with prayer and with constant attention to the voice of the Spirit. The events at the Wedding at Cana are an attestation of this unique harmony between the Mother and the Son in seeking God's will. In a situation laden with symbols of the Covenant, such as the wedding feast, the Virgin Mother intercedes and provokes, so to speak, a sign of superabundant grace: the "good wine" that refers to the mystery of Christ's Blood. This leads us directly to Calvary, where Mary stands beneath the Cross together with the other women and with the Apostle John. The Mother and the disciple receive spiritually the testament of Jesus: his last words and his last breath, in which he begins to pour out the Spirit; and they receive the silent cry of his Blood, poured out entirely for us (cf. Jn 19:25-34). Mary knew where that Blood came from: it had been formed within her by the power of the Holy Spirit and she knew that this same creative "power" was to raise Jesus, as he had promised.

Thus Mary's faith sustained that of the disciples until their encounter with the Risen Lord and continued to accompany them also after his Ascension into Heaven, as they waited for "[Baptism] in the Holy Spirit" (cf. Acts 1:5). At Pentecost the Virgin Mother appears anew as the Bride of the Spirit, for a universal motherhood of all those who are generated by God through faith in Christ. This is why, for all the generations, Mary is an image and model of the Church which together with the Spirit journeys through time, invoking Jesus' glorious return: "Come, Lord Jesus" (cf. Rv 22:17, 20).

Dear friends, let us too learn at the school of Mary to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to listen to his inspirations and to follow them with docility. He makes us grow in accordance with the fullness of Christ, in accordance with those good fruits which the Apostle Paul lists in his Letter to the Galatians: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22).

--His Holiness

HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY

Today was just wonderful: I held a newborn, visited with people who have been a meaningful part of my life, and went to Confession before Mass.

The theme of the day: love God more.

While we cannot comprehend even marginally well the Trinity as a concept, we are quite capable of loving God our Father, loving Jesus who died for us, and loving the Holy Spirit who is with us now and unto ages of ages. Because we know what LOVE is, we know God.

All we need to do is LOVE more. Cherish people and who they are and what they mean to you and spend time with people and reverence them and lovingly correct and console and love love love love love love love them.

Spend this week loving God more. This joyous peaceful lovingness-- this feeling of contentment-- is God. Not a theorem, nor a Prime Mover, neither an It nor substance nor Thou nor Supremacy nor anything but this heartbeating LOVE.

God is known, not something to know.

A line from the Gospel jumped out at me: "When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted." Something so apparent can be right in front of you and still you don't realize. Never ever underestimate the power of your own capacity to live in denial!

God is so OMNIomnious, we could actually not even notice his presence. Let's not neglect. Let's spend this week living out our awareness of the Trinity's Love in gratitude, obedience, trust, and most of all joy.

***update*** I stand corrected. According to the Holy Father, the Trinity is a substance:

Today we contemplate the Most Holy Trinity as it was made know to us by Jesus. He revealed to us that God is love “not in the unity of a single person, but in the Trinity of a single substance” (Preface): the Trinity is Creator and merciful Father; Only Begotten Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, dead and risen for us; it is finally the Holy Spirit, who moves everything, cosmos and history, toward the final recapitulation. Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is love and only love, most pure, infinite and eternal love. The Trinity does not live in a splendid solitude, but is rather inexhaustible font of life that unceasingly gives itself and communicates itself.

from BXVI's homily for Pentecost

Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today's solemnity Scripture tells us how the community must be, how we must be to receive the Holy Spirit. In his account of Pentecost the sacred author says that the disciples "were together in the same place." This "place" is the Cenacle, the "upper room," where Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples, where he appeared to them after his resurrection; that room that had become the "seat," so to speak, of the nascent Church (cf. Acts 1:13). Nevertheless, the intention in the Acts of the Apostles is more to indicate the interior attitude of the disciples than to insist on a physical place: "They all persevered in concord and prayer" (Acts 1:14). So, the concord of the disciples is the condition for the coming of the Holy Spirit; and prayer is the presupposition of concord.

This is also true for the Church today, dear brothers and sisters. It is true for us who are gathered together here. If we do not want Pentecost to be reduced to a mere ritual or to a suggestive commemoration, but that it be a real event of salvation, through a humble and silent listening to God's Word we must predispose ourselves to God's gift in religious openness. So that Pentecost renew itself in our time, perhaps there is need -- without taking anything away from God's freedom [to do as he pleases] -- for the Church to be less "preoccupied" with activities and more dedicated to prayer. Mary Most Holy, the Mother of the Church and Bride of the Holy Spirit, teaches us this. This year Pentecost occurs on the last day of May, when the Feast of the Visitation is customarily celebrated. This event was also a little "Pentecost," bringing forth joy and praise from the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary -- the one barren and the other a virgin -- who both became mothers by an extraordinary divine intervention (cf. Luke 1:41-45).

read the whole of it here

...but this is the best part:

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, where the Spirit of God enters, he chases out fear; he makes us know and feel that we are in the hands of an Omnipotence of love: whatever happens, his infinite love will not abandon us. The witness of the martyrs, the courage of the confessors, the intrepid élan of missionaries, the frankness of preachers, the example of all the saints -- some who were even adolescents and children -- demonstrate this. It is also demonstrated by the very existence of the Church, which, despite the limits and faults of men, continues to sail across the ocean of history, driven by the breath of God and animated by his purifying fire. With this faith and this joyous hope we repeat today, through Mary's intercession: "Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth!"

Happy (belated) Birthday!

In some ecclesial communities, Ordinary Time is known as the season of Pentecost (the portion prior to Lent being known as Epiphany). What does it mean to be in the time of Pentecost?

It means we are being who we have been called to be. "Those not busy being born are busy dying," said one famous caterwauler in his lyrics.

Pentecost was the moment when we became the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. It's sort of a new year...all over again. Now is when we put into effect all that Christmas and Easter taught us about our destiny. Now is when we render incarnate the Love of God in our living, moving, thinking, feeling, breathing selves.

The Holy Spirit came as a breath. The Gospel said that Jesus breathed on them. Remember the scene from Narnia? It's no coincidence that Lewis described Aslan's roar so powerfully. Foundations are shaken when Jesus breathes. Reversals happen. Tides are turned.

Remember the Spirit moving across the waters at the time of Creation? That happens again, each Pentecost. We are made into a new earth, born again of the waters of Baptism and the fire of Confirmation. So it's like a birthday, for the Church, for each one of us. It's a new beginning.

"Behold, I make all things new," says the Lord. Let's busy ourselves being born. Let's busy ourselves becoming new, every day a new Pentecost. Let's call on the Spirit to guide and direct our thoughts, footsteps, and hearts.

It's never too late to begin anew.

In many ways, Pentecost is the fulfillment of Divine Mercy Sunday. Every time we confess our sins, receive absolution, and make our penance, we are born again. We become new earth, ready to receive Jesus fully in the Eucharist. We become new clay, as though we were in Eden once more. We are rendered capable of rendering incarnate the One who is our destiny.

We were born specifically for this purpose: to make Jesus real, effective, present-- to be Jesus. What is our destiny? our destination? Only Him. This was revealed to us countless times: in the manger, in the Jordan, on the mountain, at the tomb.

Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of our salvation. Let's leap mountains, bound over hills, see how our God has come to meet us!