Dear Rev. Know it all;
I am worried. My next door neighbor who is a member of the First Church of the Separated Brethren with Signs and Wonders Following says that I should not allow my children to dress up and go trick or treating on Halloween. It will lead them into occult practices and they will end up demon-possessed and burning in hell. Is this true?
Yours sincerely, Mrs. Holly Weyan
Dear Holly,
I suspect that forbidding trick-or-treating to children might have the opposite effect. I've met your neighbor's children and believe me I've been tempted to reach for the Holy Water a few times. Remember that forbidden fruit is sweetest. Children tend to develop a morbid interest in the things that their parents forbid most vehemently. Instead of saying no and hiding in the basement waiting for the apocalypse, perhaps you can encourage your children to dress as super-heroes and even saints.
Halloween is a way to laugh at our own fears. It is a sort of whistling past the cemetery. I would not forbid moderate Halloweenieness (Yes, a new word. You heard it here first.) to children. I would forbid it to adults. Halloween has become an adult holiday, with all the attendant debauchery and drunkenness. An unhealthy fixation on things occult seems to be growing, not on the part of children but on the part of parents and older siblings. It is as if parents are refusing to grow up. I hold myself and my fellow clergy responsible, in part. There is a natural awareness of and hunger for supernatural reality. The modern church, in it's wholesale neglect of supernatural reality has sent people elsewhere for explanations of the invisible dimension of their lives.
I think it is far more dangerous for adults and older teens to focus on the morbid and occult movies costume parties and what is up with the current popularity of sex vampires? We Catholics are the possessors of supernatural realities: resurrection, and spiritual warfare and the casting out of demons. These thing really happen in the Catholic faith. It may sound odd, but compared to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the idea that vampires drink blood seems a demonic parody. We have the real thing. Hollywood is just mocking us.
In the past few decades, many have tried to reduce the faith to a sort of self help movement of meetings and committees and snazzy ceremonies. The pastor of St. Odillo's in Berwyn, Illinois makes the point that the struggle in the church is not between so called liberals and conservatives. It is between those who believe in supernatural reality and those who don't. We have neglected supernatural things at our own peril. The result appears to be that Halloween, once a harmless night for children to indulge in harmless fantasy and high fructose treats is fast becoming a sort of a "pagan Christmas." The message of the real Christmas is, "Be not afraid!" as the angels said to the shepherds. The message of the new paganized Halloween is, "Be afraid, be very afraid!"
This bathing in terror is really dangerous for children and adults alike. So my suggestion is that you let your kids trick or treat and laugh at the fake stuff, making sure they know it's fake. Let me suggest a simple rule of thumb. If it gives you a bit of a fright and then makes you laugh it's probably okay. If it leaves you quaking with fear and causes nightmares it is best avoided all together.
Grown ups should act like grown ups and make it a children's holiday once again. And don't be the kind that passes out apples and granola bars. Pop for the good stuff, like Almond Joys and Reese's peanut butter cups. This year I think I'm going to dress up as a priest.
Yours,
Rev. Know-it-all
PS As for the scary movies, "Abbot and Costello meet the Werewolf" is probably okay. All the dreck that's coming out of Hollywood now, I would keep off limits to children. If you think it will give them nightmares don't let them watch it. And certainly don't let them watch anything you haven't seen it first.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
How can a loving God allow suffering?
Dear Rev. Know it all;
I am currently taking a course titled “Providence, Suffering and Freedom,” and have recently come across the issue of innocent suffering. This is a very hard subject to understand and so far the nature of God has come into question. If God is all powerful, all loving, and just, how can he allow innocent suffering. Assertions that God is not all powerful have been made because God would not allow his creation to be harmed if he is all powerful and all loving. I am asking what the Catholic Church's position is on the issue of innocent suffering and the all powerful nature of God.
Yours,
Miss E. Rable
Dear Miss Rable,
I am always curious how anyone can walk into a Catholic church and ask such a question? We believe in redemptive suffering. In a Catholic church the center piece above the altar is usually a crucifix, not a cross, but a crucifix. A cross is two pieces of wood or some other material. A crucifix has a representation of Christ crucified. I am not supposed to say Mass unless there is a crucifix on or close to the altar, because I am offering the Holy SACRIFICE of the Mass.
I suppose part of the problem is that in our more enlightened times, we try not to have a crucifix as visibly displayed as we once did. Now we celebrate the Lord’s supper, the Eucharistic meal, the Table of the Lord, the Lord’s Banquet and so on. Bishop Annibale Bugnini, the architect of the current form of the Roman Liturgy, is said to have presented a new and improved Roman Missal (Mass Book) to Pope Paul VI. Paul studied it and said he couldn’t publish it. The word “sacrifice” was nowhere to be found in the new text. He sent it back and said try again. Thus was the sacrificial character of the Mass preserved and the promise of Christ to Peter proved true once again. The gates of Hell had not prevailed. It was Bishop Bugnini’s stated intention to create a Mass in which a Protestant would find nothing offensive. A real Protestant finds the idea of the Mass as a true sacrifice incomprehensible. Luther and Calvin rejected the idea that Mass was a sacrifice, Christ “having died once for all,” as one reads in the letter to the Hebrews, 10th Chapter, 10th verse.
Catholicism has always read that passage differently. “Once for all” can just as well mean that the one sacrifice of Calvary continues throughout all history made available not by the sacrifices of the old law but by the eternal and timeless sacrifice of the Mass. St Paul says elsewhere that “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” (Colossians 1:24) What could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Only that Christ did not offer himself in the twenty-first century in your neighborhood. Mass extends the one eternal sacrifice to every place and time that will receive it. Mass allows me to unite my sufferings with His for love of the world and for the hope of its salvation. Jesus said “what I have done and greater still shall you do.” (John 14:12) Because I am a Christian, I do what He did. What did He do? He redeemed the world by His suffering. Why suffering? We are fallen people who live in a fallen world.
Don’t forget that unfortunate incident in the Garden of Eden, the rebellion through which sin entered the world. One of the basic premises is that the innocent suffer. That any one is innocent is an assumption. St. Paul says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) I don’t know a single soul in this world who isn’t born a self-centered son of his mother. If God’s only requirement is completely selfless love, well, count me out. My sufferings are well deserved. But God works all thing to the good! (Romans the 8th chapter) In this fallen world God allows suffering to become the price of love. Love is not just the warm fuzzy feeling that the modern world believes it to be. True love is always sacrificial. True love says that I will do the best for you, without counting the cost to me. I will bear your sorrows and share your burdens. If by being weak I can make you strong so be it. If by being ill I can make you well, so be it. If by being broken I can make you whole, so be it. Love, true love, is always and only what we give away. Christ suffered and died for our sins, and risen, He invites us to become what He is. He invites us to join Him in the work of redemption, to join in Love’s sacrifice..
The premise you are discussing is a classic. “If God is all powerful and all loving, how can He allow or even cause suffering?” Some people like Calvin, Luther and the Muslims deny that God is all loving. He loves only the chosen. The rest He hates. There are those like Rabbi Klinghoffer, author of the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” who deny that God is all powerful. Then there are those who, when faced with the apparent contradiction, say there is no God. You would think that these three are the only possibilities. The message of the Gospel brings up another possibility altogether. The all powerful God, for the sake of Love, becomes powerless in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve told this story a thousand times before but, for me, it answered the question that you are asking.
When I was much younger I had been assigned to a very poor parish. The windows were in very bad repair. Summer and winter the wind whistled through the cracks. We might just as well have held services outside. One summer morning I was saying Mass and the fruit flies were hovering around the chalice. In my mind I said to the Lord, “I believe that this is no longer bread and wine, but has become Your body and blood, but couldn’t You convince the fruit flies of this great miracle for just a moment?” Then I heard that little voice that sometimes speaks in our imagination. “When My hands were nailed to the wood of the cross, I couldn’t even brush the flies from My face.” I was thunderstruck. I could almost not continue the Mass.
To think that the hand that set the stars to spinning couldn’t even lift itself to swipe the flies from His face. If Jesus is who we claim Him to be, the visible image of the invisible God, (Colossians 1:15) then the all powerful became powerless for love of us. “What wondrous love is this oh, my soul!” as the old song tells it. When the Bible says that God loves us, it does not mean that we are just the passive recipients of a shallow emotion. It means that He wants us really and truly to be His sons and daughters. We want Him to make it all better. He wants to make us like Himself, capable of infinite and perfect love. In this sad and broken world suffering is the price of love. If you cannot understand that, you have never really loved anyone but yourself.
Yours,
Rev. Know-it-all
I am currently taking a course titled “Providence, Suffering and Freedom,” and have recently come across the issue of innocent suffering. This is a very hard subject to understand and so far the nature of God has come into question. If God is all powerful, all loving, and just, how can he allow innocent suffering. Assertions that God is not all powerful have been made because God would not allow his creation to be harmed if he is all powerful and all loving. I am asking what the Catholic Church's position is on the issue of innocent suffering and the all powerful nature of God.
Yours,
Miss E. Rable
Dear Miss Rable,
I am always curious how anyone can walk into a Catholic church and ask such a question? We believe in redemptive suffering. In a Catholic church the center piece above the altar is usually a crucifix, not a cross, but a crucifix. A cross is two pieces of wood or some other material. A crucifix has a representation of Christ crucified. I am not supposed to say Mass unless there is a crucifix on or close to the altar, because I am offering the Holy SACRIFICE of the Mass.
I suppose part of the problem is that in our more enlightened times, we try not to have a crucifix as visibly displayed as we once did. Now we celebrate the Lord’s supper, the Eucharistic meal, the Table of the Lord, the Lord’s Banquet and so on. Bishop Annibale Bugnini, the architect of the current form of the Roman Liturgy, is said to have presented a new and improved Roman Missal (Mass Book) to Pope Paul VI. Paul studied it and said he couldn’t publish it. The word “sacrifice” was nowhere to be found in the new text. He sent it back and said try again. Thus was the sacrificial character of the Mass preserved and the promise of Christ to Peter proved true once again. The gates of Hell had not prevailed. It was Bishop Bugnini’s stated intention to create a Mass in which a Protestant would find nothing offensive. A real Protestant finds the idea of the Mass as a true sacrifice incomprehensible. Luther and Calvin rejected the idea that Mass was a sacrifice, Christ “having died once for all,” as one reads in the letter to the Hebrews, 10th Chapter, 10th verse.
Catholicism has always read that passage differently. “Once for all” can just as well mean that the one sacrifice of Calvary continues throughout all history made available not by the sacrifices of the old law but by the eternal and timeless sacrifice of the Mass. St Paul says elsewhere that “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” (Colossians 1:24) What could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Only that Christ did not offer himself in the twenty-first century in your neighborhood. Mass extends the one eternal sacrifice to every place and time that will receive it. Mass allows me to unite my sufferings with His for love of the world and for the hope of its salvation. Jesus said “what I have done and greater still shall you do.” (John 14:12) Because I am a Christian, I do what He did. What did He do? He redeemed the world by His suffering. Why suffering? We are fallen people who live in a fallen world.
Don’t forget that unfortunate incident in the Garden of Eden, the rebellion through which sin entered the world. One of the basic premises is that the innocent suffer. That any one is innocent is an assumption. St. Paul says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) I don’t know a single soul in this world who isn’t born a self-centered son of his mother. If God’s only requirement is completely selfless love, well, count me out. My sufferings are well deserved. But God works all thing to the good! (Romans the 8th chapter) In this fallen world God allows suffering to become the price of love. Love is not just the warm fuzzy feeling that the modern world believes it to be. True love is always sacrificial. True love says that I will do the best for you, without counting the cost to me. I will bear your sorrows and share your burdens. If by being weak I can make you strong so be it. If by being ill I can make you well, so be it. If by being broken I can make you whole, so be it. Love, true love, is always and only what we give away. Christ suffered and died for our sins, and risen, He invites us to become what He is. He invites us to join Him in the work of redemption, to join in Love’s sacrifice..
The premise you are discussing is a classic. “If God is all powerful and all loving, how can He allow or even cause suffering?” Some people like Calvin, Luther and the Muslims deny that God is all loving. He loves only the chosen. The rest He hates. There are those like Rabbi Klinghoffer, author of the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” who deny that God is all powerful. Then there are those who, when faced with the apparent contradiction, say there is no God. You would think that these three are the only possibilities. The message of the Gospel brings up another possibility altogether. The all powerful God, for the sake of Love, becomes powerless in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve told this story a thousand times before but, for me, it answered the question that you are asking.
When I was much younger I had been assigned to a very poor parish. The windows were in very bad repair. Summer and winter the wind whistled through the cracks. We might just as well have held services outside. One summer morning I was saying Mass and the fruit flies were hovering around the chalice. In my mind I said to the Lord, “I believe that this is no longer bread and wine, but has become Your body and blood, but couldn’t You convince the fruit flies of this great miracle for just a moment?” Then I heard that little voice that sometimes speaks in our imagination. “When My hands were nailed to the wood of the cross, I couldn’t even brush the flies from My face.” I was thunderstruck. I could almost not continue the Mass.
To think that the hand that set the stars to spinning couldn’t even lift itself to swipe the flies from His face. If Jesus is who we claim Him to be, the visible image of the invisible God, (Colossians 1:15) then the all powerful became powerless for love of us. “What wondrous love is this oh, my soul!” as the old song tells it. When the Bible says that God loves us, it does not mean that we are just the passive recipients of a shallow emotion. It means that He wants us really and truly to be His sons and daughters. We want Him to make it all better. He wants to make us like Himself, capable of infinite and perfect love. In this sad and broken world suffering is the price of love. If you cannot understand that, you have never really loved anyone but yourself.
Yours,
Rev. Know-it-all
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Isn't the Catholic view of marriage and morality just outmoded?
Dear Rev. Know it all;
Why are you so intolerant? I was infuriated by your last article. You make these blanket statements that just aren’t universally true. There are a lot of fine people who live together for a while before marriage and have very successful marriages. I lived with my husband before marriage and we have been married for almost thirty years. We have a son who lives in Seattle and is involved in environmental causes and we have a daughter who is employed at the UN, also in environmental issues. We are quite proud of them. Your insistence on traditional Catholic teaching regarding marriage and birth control certainly don’t resonate in my life. I’m glad my children are doing something to undo the damage that spiraling population has caused the world’s environment, no thanks to Catholic “Tradition.”
Connie Cubinage
Dear Connie,
Why do you think that children cause pollution? Machines cause pollution. There are quite a few countries that have successfully limited their population, the United States, China, Russia, for instance. These are also the countries that have caused the most ecological damage. As machines replace people, carbon emissions replace air. Children are biological beings who are part of the planet’s life cycle. Human beings are, in effect, biodegradable, if they live simple lives. We are born and live and die. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. It is the fast paced, do-it- now disposable consumerist society that is trashing the world. I am sure that your little gems return to see you at least twice a year. How much pollution do they cause as they jet back to the old home stead? Do they drive SUV’s to the airport and, on the way, pick up a designer coffee in a large Styrofoam cup? I imagine they are important people in a hurry. If they lived upstairs they could visit the old folks without all the pollution. No, babies aren’t ruining the earth. We consumerists are.
How nice that your rejection of tradition has worked out so well for you. I wonder how well it’s worked out for the world you inhabit. Wasn’t one of the first questions, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Excuse me. I should have said “sibling” instead of “brother.”) Our generation defied moral restrictions without concern for how it affected the world we live in. We had our rights, after all. Our concern about the pollution of the physical environment was laudable, but we have caused a kind of moral pollution which our narcissism makes us unable to perceive. I, too, am an aging ex-hippie. I remember when we said groovy and meant it, but I have changed because I am old enough now to see the harm we have done. We have filled the world with loneliness. There is a saying, “Home is where you’re safe.”
You and I created an atmosphere in which no commitment was necessarily forever and then we had our 2.5 children. I feel so sorry for kids in their early twenties. So many of them seem so rootless. They don’t seem to feel very safe. They struggle trying to make a living that meets their expectations, the consumerist expectation with which we raised them. They struggle to establish some kind of meaningful existence. From us they learned to expect a life of absolute freedom and now they seem incapable of the limitations committed relationships require.
I know so many young people who have to have a place of their own, though they can’t afford it. They have to go away to school, though they haven’t the resources. They would never consider living at home while they establish themselves financially. They need their space, their privacy, their freedom. They get married and then they find they still need their space, their privacy, their freedom. They divorce and then they have to move back home because they are buried under a mountain of debt, because space, privacy and freedom are expensive. Meanwhile mom and dad would like some space, privacy and freedom in their declining years. We are not meant to live in space, privacy and freedom, at least as it is currently defined.
Another early statement about human nature reads, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We have taught our children that they have a right to leave any commitment, any relationship they please. Have you noticed that the first relationship they leave is usually us? By being lawless and calling it freedom we have created a climate that does not really value relationship. It may have worked out for you, just like that SUV and the Styrofoam cup of pricey coffee, but it isn’t working out so well for those who have to breathe your moral pollution. You see, we are all in this together. Just as I have to live with your mess in the physical world, I have to breathe the moral and spiritual pollution that baby boomer narcissism has created.
I had an Uncle Sylvester. No really, Sylvester. We were city people for centuries, but Sylvester married a girl who’d grown up on the farm. When the depression hit, they went back to the farm and pretty much made sure the rest of family could eat during the worst of it. Old Uncle Sylvester didn’t refuse to live in crowded conditions with his in-laws and they didn’t refuse to share their meager resources. After all, they were family. I ask you, where will you go to flee from the wrath to come? Home, as the poet says, is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.
The sexual revolution has made a world that is magnificently housed, but homeless none the less.
Yours, the
Rev. Know-it-all
Why are you so intolerant? I was infuriated by your last article. You make these blanket statements that just aren’t universally true. There are a lot of fine people who live together for a while before marriage and have very successful marriages. I lived with my husband before marriage and we have been married for almost thirty years. We have a son who lives in Seattle and is involved in environmental causes and we have a daughter who is employed at the UN, also in environmental issues. We are quite proud of them. Your insistence on traditional Catholic teaching regarding marriage and birth control certainly don’t resonate in my life. I’m glad my children are doing something to undo the damage that spiraling population has caused the world’s environment, no thanks to Catholic “Tradition.”
Connie Cubinage
Dear Connie,
Why do you think that children cause pollution? Machines cause pollution. There are quite a few countries that have successfully limited their population, the United States, China, Russia, for instance. These are also the countries that have caused the most ecological damage. As machines replace people, carbon emissions replace air. Children are biological beings who are part of the planet’s life cycle. Human beings are, in effect, biodegradable, if they live simple lives. We are born and live and die. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. It is the fast paced, do-it- now disposable consumerist society that is trashing the world. I am sure that your little gems return to see you at least twice a year. How much pollution do they cause as they jet back to the old home stead? Do they drive SUV’s to the airport and, on the way, pick up a designer coffee in a large Styrofoam cup? I imagine they are important people in a hurry. If they lived upstairs they could visit the old folks without all the pollution. No, babies aren’t ruining the earth. We consumerists are.
How nice that your rejection of tradition has worked out so well for you. I wonder how well it’s worked out for the world you inhabit. Wasn’t one of the first questions, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Excuse me. I should have said “sibling” instead of “brother.”) Our generation defied moral restrictions without concern for how it affected the world we live in. We had our rights, after all. Our concern about the pollution of the physical environment was laudable, but we have caused a kind of moral pollution which our narcissism makes us unable to perceive. I, too, am an aging ex-hippie. I remember when we said groovy and meant it, but I have changed because I am old enough now to see the harm we have done. We have filled the world with loneliness. There is a saying, “Home is where you’re safe.”
You and I created an atmosphere in which no commitment was necessarily forever and then we had our 2.5 children. I feel so sorry for kids in their early twenties. So many of them seem so rootless. They don’t seem to feel very safe. They struggle trying to make a living that meets their expectations, the consumerist expectation with which we raised them. They struggle to establish some kind of meaningful existence. From us they learned to expect a life of absolute freedom and now they seem incapable of the limitations committed relationships require.
I know so many young people who have to have a place of their own, though they can’t afford it. They have to go away to school, though they haven’t the resources. They would never consider living at home while they establish themselves financially. They need their space, their privacy, their freedom. They get married and then they find they still need their space, their privacy, their freedom. They divorce and then they have to move back home because they are buried under a mountain of debt, because space, privacy and freedom are expensive. Meanwhile mom and dad would like some space, privacy and freedom in their declining years. We are not meant to live in space, privacy and freedom, at least as it is currently defined.
Another early statement about human nature reads, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We have taught our children that they have a right to leave any commitment, any relationship they please. Have you noticed that the first relationship they leave is usually us? By being lawless and calling it freedom we have created a climate that does not really value relationship. It may have worked out for you, just like that SUV and the Styrofoam cup of pricey coffee, but it isn’t working out so well for those who have to breathe your moral pollution. You see, we are all in this together. Just as I have to live with your mess in the physical world, I have to breathe the moral and spiritual pollution that baby boomer narcissism has created.
I had an Uncle Sylvester. No really, Sylvester. We were city people for centuries, but Sylvester married a girl who’d grown up on the farm. When the depression hit, they went back to the farm and pretty much made sure the rest of family could eat during the worst of it. Old Uncle Sylvester didn’t refuse to live in crowded conditions with his in-laws and they didn’t refuse to share their meager resources. After all, they were family. I ask you, where will you go to flee from the wrath to come? Home, as the poet says, is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.
The sexual revolution has made a world that is magnificently housed, but homeless none the less.
Yours, the
Rev. Know-it-all
Monday, October 5, 2009
A rant on weddings...
Warning: THIS EPISODE OF THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE. IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE. THE REV. KNOW IT ALL IS NOT OPPOSED TO ALL WEDDING CELEBRATIONS. HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR WEDDING WHICH WAS A TRIUMPH OF PERSONAL SANCTITY AND GOOD TASTE. HE IS PROBABLY JUST HAVING A BAD DAY.
Dear Rev. Know it all,
I visited your church once and am thinking about having my wedding there. How long is your main aisle?
Mary O’Burne
Dear Mary,
I am often asked that question, and never quite understand it. Are brides curious about the length of the aisle because they think a longer aisle may give them a few more minutes to back out of the whole thing? Or, as I suspect, does a long aisle prolong the glorious promenade of which a young girl dreams as she thumbs through bridal magazine as she contemplates her special day, when all eyes focus on her as she approaches her enchanted prince and all the world thinks she’s gorgeous and knows that she has bagged her man just as surely as a Wisconsin bricklayer bags a deer and ties it onto the roof of his pick up truck? I have certainly seen a few grooms who look like a frightened deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Why is it that weddings cause people to spend so much time, energy and money? And more money. The average American wedding costs almost $29,000, according to “The Wedding Report”, a market research publication. $29,000!” Oh, by the by, the usual donation to the church is about $200.00. That $200 goes to the church, not to the priest. The usual gift to the priest is a hearty handclasp. The usual cost of the photographer is $2,000.00. All this tells me that the photographs are ten times more important than the grace of the sacrament, in most peoples’ estimation. The usual fee for the DJ is $1,500.00. I am consoled by this. It means that painful, occasionally obscene music loud enough to cause brain damage is only 7.5 times more important than the grace of the sacrament.
You must be thinking why is this guy so down on weddings? I am down on some weddings because I am very “up” on the sacrament of matrimony and really in favor of marriage. That’s why the modern method of marrying and the wedding industry make me crazy. They militate against marriage. Here is the heart of my complaint. IT IS STUPID TO SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE!!! I have known people who are still paying the credit card bills generated by the wedding years after the marriage is over.
The Modern Method of Marriage, a Reprise. The following is taken from my own experiences and things people have told me (outside of confession, you’ll be glad to know.) Here goes.
Remember, none of these things happened at your wedding, thank God and don’t think from reading this that I am down on marriage or even weddings. I love a wedding celebration when there is something to celebrate. Also, it is never too late to begin again by taking Christ and His gospel seriously.
PLEASE SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING.
Yours,
Rev. Know-it-all
P.S. Garden weddings. They look good in all the bridal magazines but they are just opportunities to feed biting insects and suffer from sunburn. It is however amusing to watch the bridesmaids sinking in the mud as they try, after a few margaritas to maneuver the newly laid sod in spiked heals. The bride is generally exhausted from not having slept for three weeks as she worries about the weather reports which are promising a 50 percent chance of typhoons and earthquakes that day. And destination weddings. Don’t get me started on Destination Weddings! You want to be married with just your closest friends on a beach in Maui. That means that Grandma can’t go because she hasn’t flown since the Hindenburg Disaster, and is thinking of cutting you out of the will, and all the friends and relatives who aren’t with you on the beach in Maui realize they aren’t very close to you after all. And I haven’t a clue how long the aisle is here at St. Dymphna’s.
Dear Rev. Know it all,
I visited your church once and am thinking about having my wedding there. How long is your main aisle?
Mary O’Burne
Dear Mary,
I am often asked that question, and never quite understand it. Are brides curious about the length of the aisle because they think a longer aisle may give them a few more minutes to back out of the whole thing? Or, as I suspect, does a long aisle prolong the glorious promenade of which a young girl dreams as she thumbs through bridal magazine as she contemplates her special day, when all eyes focus on her as she approaches her enchanted prince and all the world thinks she’s gorgeous and knows that she has bagged her man just as surely as a Wisconsin bricklayer bags a deer and ties it onto the roof of his pick up truck? I have certainly seen a few grooms who look like a frightened deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Why is it that weddings cause people to spend so much time, energy and money? And more money. The average American wedding costs almost $29,000, according to “The Wedding Report”, a market research publication. $29,000!” Oh, by the by, the usual donation to the church is about $200.00. That $200 goes to the church, not to the priest. The usual gift to the priest is a hearty handclasp. The usual cost of the photographer is $2,000.00. All this tells me that the photographs are ten times more important than the grace of the sacrament, in most peoples’ estimation. The usual fee for the DJ is $1,500.00. I am consoled by this. It means that painful, occasionally obscene music loud enough to cause brain damage is only 7.5 times more important than the grace of the sacrament.
You must be thinking why is this guy so down on weddings? I am down on some weddings because I am very “up” on the sacrament of matrimony and really in favor of marriage. That’s why the modern method of marrying and the wedding industry make me crazy. They militate against marriage. Here is the heart of my complaint. IT IS STUPID TO SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE!!! I have known people who are still paying the credit card bills generated by the wedding years after the marriage is over.
The Modern Method of Marriage, a Reprise. The following is taken from my own experiences and things people have told me (outside of confession, you’ll be glad to know.) Here goes.
A young man and a young woman meet and have a few dates. They go for a weekend at a bed and breakfast where they bed one another, and then have breakfast. If he isn’t too much of a jerk and she isn’t too picky, they are then an item. She goes to the doctor gets a prescription and goes on to a more permanent form of birth control. At some time during this stage, the uncomfortable meeting with the parents happens. Everyone is polite and “supportive.” Secretly the father of the young woman who knows exactly what’s going on, contemplates buying a gun and the mother of the young man begins gossiping with whomever will listen about how her little boy could do better. After a while, if things hold up, they begin to have the conversation about taking their relationship to the “next level” by which they mean shacking up, as we used to call it. Now, I think it’s called moving in together.
Mom and Dad buy housewarming gifts in an attempt to, once again, be supportive. They don’t want their little dears to hate them and besides, it’s what everyone is doing these days, so it can’t be wrong. They have vague thoughts about getting married at that point and mom explains to grandma and to friends at church that they are just doing it to save money for the wedding. At this stage an engagement ring may appear. At some point, when they think about getting the house and the kids, because that’s what you do, they decide to have the wedding.
They rent the hall and then go see the priest. He tells them there are four other weddings that day and they respond, “but we’ve rented the hall already.” Someone suggests a garden wedding if the church is occupied. The priest says we can’t do garden weddings. (More on this later.) The young couple begins to complain about how narrow-minded the Church is with all these rules and regulations. They eventually pick a date. Then the bottom drops out. It seems the groom is not Catholic. He was baptized in the First Reformed Church of the Druids, though he never practiced. This means there must be a dispensation for the marriage, another irritating Catholic invention, and the wedding date cannot be confirmed until the dispensation is received.
The bride goes back to her doctor, this time for a prescription for valium. Her mother joins her on this visit. Finally the dispensation is granted, The groom’s druid will do one of the readings at the wedding, the loans are taken out, the banns are published. Then there is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The best man comes to the rehearsal drunk out of his mind, the groom only slightly tipsy. The bride is furious at everyone for some reason known to her alone. Probably because the groom is far more interested in drinking and watching the football game on his hand held computer thing than he is in gazing lovingly into her eyes in anticipation of the great day. In fact they haven’t been, well... friendly in weeks. It is, after all, football season.
The special day comes, the best man is still drunk, the groom is hung over, no one knew about that interesting tattoo that the maid of honor had way low on her back, now revealed by the plunging back of her dress that is held up only by wishful thinking. Grandma, upon reading the logo of the maid of honor’s tattoo, has fainted. Somewhere in all this the vows are exchanged, and quite a few of the wedding party receive their first Holy Communion that day, however one of the ushers puts the host in his suit pocket not having a clue what it is. (This actually has happened to me twice.)
The pictures have been taken. The noise level in the church reaches that of an English soccer match after the riot has broken out. The children are jumping off the altar and the priest is scowling at everyone. Now on to the pictures in the forest preserve, a “must” at every wedding. There the wedding party is attacked by mosquitoes, one of the children falls into the lagoon and the bride is having a hard time smiling for the photos. The best man passes out. On to the reception.
The bride loses it because the shade of fuchsia in the floral center pieces clashes with the shade of fuchsia in the wedding party’s outfit. The groom adjourns to the bar where the game is on the television. The wedding dinner is served as music is played at a mind numbing volume. Grandma is better now. She has turned off her hearing aid. The priest is seated with the pious relatives in plaid suit coats and leaves shortly after the grace before meals.
The best man makes the toast which drones on about how he loves the groom and one begins to wonder. The college roommate/maid of honor does the same for the bride, going on for fifteen minutes about how she knew the bride would find eternal marital bliss the moment she met her in the third grade and they have been like sisters ever since. Then at some point, there is a video presentation of embarrassing photos not unlike the ones that are now shown at wakes.
The bar opens up again. The music reaches levels that cause blood to drip from some peoples’ nose and ears. The joyous event ends with the bride and groom being the last to leave the hall. They are slow to go up to the room they have rented in the hotel because nothing new or beautiful awaits them there. The groom promptly falls asleep, being heavily sedated already, and, as he snores away, with his shoes still on, our blushing bride, having shed her dress of virginal white, thinks back on this day, her special day, the most important day in her life, the day she has dreamt of since she was a little girl.
They will stay an extra day at the hotel, but cannot afford the time or money to go on a honeymoon because on Monday they will both be back at work in order to pay off the colossal bill that their special day has incurred. For some reason, the bride is depressed. Perhaps she is realizing that the high point of her life is now past and the rest of it will be spent with the lump that is now snoring beside her with whom she has never really had a serious conversation, except about the proper shade of fuchsia for the floral centerpieces. So it is that we celebrate the marriage of Christ and His Church in these enlightened and tolerant times.
Remember, none of these things happened at your wedding, thank God and don’t think from reading this that I am down on marriage or even weddings. I love a wedding celebration when there is something to celebrate. Also, it is never too late to begin again by taking Christ and His gospel seriously.
PLEASE SPEND MORE TIME AND MONEY PREPARING FOR THE MARRIAGE THAN YOU DO PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING.
Yours,
Rev. Know-it-all
P.S. Garden weddings. They look good in all the bridal magazines but they are just opportunities to feed biting insects and suffer from sunburn. It is however amusing to watch the bridesmaids sinking in the mud as they try, after a few margaritas to maneuver the newly laid sod in spiked heals. The bride is generally exhausted from not having slept for three weeks as she worries about the weather reports which are promising a 50 percent chance of typhoons and earthquakes that day. And destination weddings. Don’t get me started on Destination Weddings! You want to be married with just your closest friends on a beach in Maui. That means that Grandma can’t go because she hasn’t flown since the Hindenburg Disaster, and is thinking of cutting you out of the will, and all the friends and relatives who aren’t with you on the beach in Maui realize they aren’t very close to you after all. And I haven’t a clue how long the aisle is here at St. Dymphna’s.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
What's with kneeling for communion?
Dear Rev. Know it all;
My wacky pastor has done it again! What dark age cave did they find him in? Now he’s allowing people to kneel at the Communion rail for Communion if they want. It slows the line down, for one thing and it’s just plain divisive. They stick out like sore thumbs. We should all be doing the same thing at Mass. I am sick of watching him try to drag us back into the darkness of the pre-Vatican II era.
Your thoughts please.
Stan Duhptal
Dear Stan,
You must know that I am a follower of the great American philosopher, Rodney King who said, “Can’t we all just get along?” I assume that since you say, “we should all, be doing the same thing at Mass,” that you are a liberal. What’s wrong with kneeling? People come to Mass wearing God knows what, and you’re upset about kneeling? I would much rather be upset about people who, living in a dream world actually think their legs are attractive and by wearing shorts, force the rest of us to endure the sad reminders of mortality that their bony knees have become. I am reminded of something my dear departed mother once said, “I suppose there’s really nothing wrong with nakedness. It’s just that so few people look good without their clothing on.”
Believe me. You are not nearly as attractive as you think you are. People schlepp into church these days in various states of undress, wearing their best sweat suits, T-shirts, ripped jeans and cut-offs. Some do so in the deluded belief that they are being fashionable, but most, I suspect because it is more comfortable. They would come to church in their flannel jammies if they could get away with it. It has always vexed the clergy that the front rows are empty in church. I think I could solve the problem simply by putting in two or three rows of lazy boy recliners in the front. That would pack them in! Where was I? Ah, yes. Kneeling for Communion.
As for your objection that it slows things down, well, we certainly don’t want that. God is very busy on Sunday mornings, and we wouldn’t want to take up His time needlessly. Really now. If I told you that I had invented a time machine and would able to take you back to actually witness Jesus dying on the Cross and rising from the tomb, I bet you’d be anxious to take me up on the offer. Unless you have a heart of stone, I imagine that you’d fall to your knees to see the sufferings of the Son of God and the glory of His Resurrection. Well, that is precisely what Mass is: a time machine that takes us back to Calvary. You might notice that if you weren’t in such a rush to get the whole thing over with.
As for sticking out like a sore thumb, have you never heard the definition of a fanatic? A fanatic is someone who loves Jesus more than you do. What does it matter standing or kneeling? If standing is the position by which you can most honor God, then by all means stand. If you believe that you can honor God best by kneeling, then kneel. One is not better than the other if done for the honor of God, and what does it matter to you, unless of course you do think that one is better than the other. If that is true, then do the better.
Difficult as ever,
Rev. Know-it-all
My wacky pastor has done it again! What dark age cave did they find him in? Now he’s allowing people to kneel at the Communion rail for Communion if they want. It slows the line down, for one thing and it’s just plain divisive. They stick out like sore thumbs. We should all be doing the same thing at Mass. I am sick of watching him try to drag us back into the darkness of the pre-Vatican II era.
Your thoughts please.
Stan Duhptal
Dear Stan,
You must know that I am a follower of the great American philosopher, Rodney King who said, “Can’t we all just get along?” I assume that since you say, “we should all, be doing the same thing at Mass,” that you are a liberal. What’s wrong with kneeling? People come to Mass wearing God knows what, and you’re upset about kneeling? I would much rather be upset about people who, living in a dream world actually think their legs are attractive and by wearing shorts, force the rest of us to endure the sad reminders of mortality that their bony knees have become. I am reminded of something my dear departed mother once said, “I suppose there’s really nothing wrong with nakedness. It’s just that so few people look good without their clothing on.”
Believe me. You are not nearly as attractive as you think you are. People schlepp into church these days in various states of undress, wearing their best sweat suits, T-shirts, ripped jeans and cut-offs. Some do so in the deluded belief that they are being fashionable, but most, I suspect because it is more comfortable. They would come to church in their flannel jammies if they could get away with it. It has always vexed the clergy that the front rows are empty in church. I think I could solve the problem simply by putting in two or three rows of lazy boy recliners in the front. That would pack them in! Where was I? Ah, yes. Kneeling for Communion.
As for your objection that it slows things down, well, we certainly don’t want that. God is very busy on Sunday mornings, and we wouldn’t want to take up His time needlessly. Really now. If I told you that I had invented a time machine and would able to take you back to actually witness Jesus dying on the Cross and rising from the tomb, I bet you’d be anxious to take me up on the offer. Unless you have a heart of stone, I imagine that you’d fall to your knees to see the sufferings of the Son of God and the glory of His Resurrection. Well, that is precisely what Mass is: a time machine that takes us back to Calvary. You might notice that if you weren’t in such a rush to get the whole thing over with.
As for sticking out like a sore thumb, have you never heard the definition of a fanatic? A fanatic is someone who loves Jesus more than you do. What does it matter standing or kneeling? If standing is the position by which you can most honor God, then by all means stand. If you believe that you can honor God best by kneeling, then kneel. One is not better than the other if done for the honor of God, and what does it matter to you, unless of course you do think that one is better than the other. If that is true, then do the better.
Difficult as ever,
Rev. Know-it-all
Monday, September 21, 2009
Aren't only Catholics saved?
Dear Rev. Know it all;
I am writing to ask about the Jews. (I am not, NOT, an anti-Semite) Jesus said, “he who hears you (Peter) hears Me, and he who hears Me hears the One who sent Me; and “nobody gets to the Father except through Me;” and plenty of other scripture quotes from Our Lord. Is it true then, as we have always believed, that the Jews therefore do not worship the same God as we do? How can they? I thought to say that they worship the same God as we do was considered heresy. Has this changed? Can something be heretical for so many years and then now is not heretical? And what about Muslims? Do we worship the same God as they do? I heard some preacher say we all worship the same God.
Thank you,
Otto B. Wanuvus
Dear Otto,
I am a little confused by the question. I don’t think it was ever considered heresy to believe that the Jews and Christians worship the same God. The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is, we believe the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. In fact there is a heresy called Marcionism that taught the God of the old Testament was a different God than that of the New Testament. To believe that we worship a different God than that of the Jews is thus a heresy.
Muslims are another matter, I had never read a Koran until Andy Rooney of Sixty Minutes told me to. He said, “Everyone should read this book. One third is beautiful, one third is inscrutable and one third is terrifying.” There are beautiful things about love and mercy in the Koran. Then there are sayings such as “ Do not be bedizened with the bedizenments of the bedizened.” Okay. I’ll try not to be bedizened at all! Then you have verses like Surah 4 verse 34 which says "Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great."
And how about "Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage... if they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil-doers" (Surah 2:190–93).
Well, you may say that our Bible is full of smiting. There is a difference. The Bible is a record of God’s relationship to man. It acknowledges that God is trying to bring humanity along. Jesus was once asked why the Torah allowed divorce but He did not. He said that it was because of the hardness of our hearts that Moses allowed divorce, but it was not that way in the garden. (Mat. 19:3-9) In other words Jesus is here to restore the first condition of humanity. There are temporary arrangements on God’s part because of our weakness. There is nothing temporary in the Koran. It is the unalterable word of God (though Islamic feminists are working very hard to retranslate that particular verse. Good Luck!)
We believe that Jesus is the Word of God, God’s ultimate statement about His own nature. The Bible records human foibles as well as God’s response. It is as much about human sinfulness as it is about God’s holiness. The Koran however, is God’s unchanging and perfect word. It is not Mohammad who recommends the occasional wife beating or infidel slaying, it is God who commands it. There will never come a time when the rebellious wife should not be beaten. There will never come a time when the infidel should not be killed. God has spoken. Thus the question can be asked. Do we worship the same God that they do? I would say that to the extent that the Torah informs the Koran, we worship the same God. Muhammad seems to have included a lot of Jewish and Christian ideas in the Koran, though Muslims would hotly deny this. They believe that the Koran includes no ideas from other books. However, the God who demands slaughter, beating and vengeance as unchanging religious practice not the God that Jesus preached and whose Son He was, and so is not God.
I have known Muslims and like most of the ones I have known. They love their wives and children, obey the laws and cut their lawns. However, if you have a Muslim friend, he isn’t a very good Muslim. Again, allow me to quote the Koran: “You see many among them making friends with unbelievers. Evil is that to which their souls prompt them. They have incurred the wrath of God and shall endure eternal torment... You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians'" (Surah 5:80–82).
So what about all those people who aren’t us? Are they all doomed to hell? Let’s look at the Bible texts you mentioned. In your first reference I think you are referring to (Mat 10:40) “He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me.” You seem to be implying that you receive God only if you receive Peter, and hence receive the Church found on the Rock which is Peter. The “you” in the first text isn’t Peter. It is a plural pronoun (humas, in Greek) and thus seems to refer to all the disciples. The second text is John 14:6 “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'”, I believe that this text is one of the most misunderstood and misused texts in the Bible. Most people hear it as “Unless you accept Christ and join my Church you can’t go to heaven.” Look closely. The text doesn’t mention the Church or heaven. “No one comes to the FATHER except through Me (Jesus).” Most of us think that Jesus is prescribing the means of salvation in this text. He isn’t. He is prescribing the means of redemption. Well aren’t they the same thing? No, they aren’t!
If I am driving 80 miles an hour, one dark and stormy night, (which I would never do) and I am unaware that the bridge is out, I am doomed, no matter how blissfully ignorant I may be. If, however, before I plunge into the abyss, some kind soul flags me down and tells me the bridge is out, that person has become my savior. I go on to tell him that I am rushing to get back home to my family. How can I get across the torrent? That same kind soul gets in my car and shows me the way to get home. By doing this, he becomes my redeemer. “Redeem” means “to buy back.” In the ancient Greco-Roman world, if a person was caught by pirates, or captured in battle, he would be sold as a slave. If that person’s family knew his whereabouts and had the means, they would buy back their kinsman. This is what it means to redeem. It is to restore someone or something to its proper position.
So first, if we are living doomed lives, (and frankly who isn’t?) we need a savior. To this most would say, “My life isn’t doomed. I’m quite content, thank you very much!” I am reminded of a story. A fellow is driving down the I-90 and his wife calls him to tell him to watch out. There is a lunatic driving down the wrong side of the expressway. The husband responds, “One lunatic!?! I’ve seen about 50 of them driving right at me in just the past five minutes!” (For the humor impaired: the husband was the schlemiel, driving down the wrong side of the road. He thought the schlemazls coming at him were wrong. (Translation note: schlemiel = a hapless idiot. Schlemazl = his hapless victim.) No matter how content I am going south on the highway, if I think I am going north, I am still lost. Remember the verse from the song “ was lost but now am found”? We have got it all wrong. We are most certainly headed south, way south, if we live as our passions dictate. The Messiah interrupts our happy progress to hell by first telling us that we are in trouble. When we hear him and give him the steering wheel of our lives, (Is the analogy worn out yet?) He becomes our savior. But saved is not enough!
We need redemption. We need to be restored to our position in the family, the position of children of God that was offered to Adam in the garden, when he said “No thanks, I’d rather eat fruit.” God wants to make you a part of that relationship that was revealed by Jesus the Messiah. He taught us that God is love, and that we are called to be part of that relationship which is God. Jesus, the very heart of God, the visible image of the invisible God, is the only one worthy to be part of that family, that relationship. So how do I get there? By allowing God to conform me to Christ’s image. Unfortunately, this process of being made to look like Jesus involves nails and a cross. Adam’s sin has taught to me that love is a kind of narcissistic longing to have comfortable relationships. Jesus teaches from his cross that love is self sacrifice, a pouring out of life for the well being of others without thought of our own needs. Boy, am I far from that! I need a lot of redeeming. In order to enter into the fullness of life which is heaven, we have to come to the point where we are willing to lay down our lives as He was. ‘Til we get there, God will work on us if we let Him, but it is all about the relationship. Membership in an organization is not the requirement. Membership in the crucified Body of Christ is. I have met a lot of Catholics who are happy to belong to an organization, but not to the Church, as least the Church as God sees her.
So what does all this mean in reference to Jews and Muslims and pagans baptized and unbaptized? Jesus is the Torah fulfilled, the Torah come to life. He is the natural law of which St. Paul speaks in his introduction to the letter to the Romans. If God’s grace allows people to glimpse the vision of the Messiah in nature or the Law and to accept His Lordship in a way that is beyond their understanding, or ours, who am I to tell the Almighty that He can’t do that? It is safe to say that in His justice and His mercy He offers heaven to all men. How he does this is His business. He has offered it to me by means of the Church and the sacraments, especially the Body and Blood of His Son Jesus, present in the Eucharist. These, we believe, are His normal way of doing things. Heaven help me if I having been offered so great a gift, I do not accept it.
Rev. Know-it-all
I am writing to ask about the Jews. (I am not, NOT, an anti-Semite) Jesus said, “he who hears you (Peter) hears Me, and he who hears Me hears the One who sent Me; and “nobody gets to the Father except through Me;” and plenty of other scripture quotes from Our Lord. Is it true then, as we have always believed, that the Jews therefore do not worship the same God as we do? How can they? I thought to say that they worship the same God as we do was considered heresy. Has this changed? Can something be heretical for so many years and then now is not heretical? And what about Muslims? Do we worship the same God as they do? I heard some preacher say we all worship the same God.
Thank you,
Otto B. Wanuvus
Dear Otto,
I am a little confused by the question. I don’t think it was ever considered heresy to believe that the Jews and Christians worship the same God. The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is, we believe the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. In fact there is a heresy called Marcionism that taught the God of the old Testament was a different God than that of the New Testament. To believe that we worship a different God than that of the Jews is thus a heresy.
Muslims are another matter, I had never read a Koran until Andy Rooney of Sixty Minutes told me to. He said, “Everyone should read this book. One third is beautiful, one third is inscrutable and one third is terrifying.” There are beautiful things about love and mercy in the Koran. Then there are sayings such as “ Do not be bedizened with the bedizenments of the bedizened.” Okay. I’ll try not to be bedizened at all! Then you have verses like Surah 4 verse 34 which says "Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great."
And how about "Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage... if they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil-doers" (Surah 2:190–93).
Well, you may say that our Bible is full of smiting. There is a difference. The Bible is a record of God’s relationship to man. It acknowledges that God is trying to bring humanity along. Jesus was once asked why the Torah allowed divorce but He did not. He said that it was because of the hardness of our hearts that Moses allowed divorce, but it was not that way in the garden. (Mat. 19:3-9) In other words Jesus is here to restore the first condition of humanity. There are temporary arrangements on God’s part because of our weakness. There is nothing temporary in the Koran. It is the unalterable word of God (though Islamic feminists are working very hard to retranslate that particular verse. Good Luck!)
We believe that Jesus is the Word of God, God’s ultimate statement about His own nature. The Bible records human foibles as well as God’s response. It is as much about human sinfulness as it is about God’s holiness. The Koran however, is God’s unchanging and perfect word. It is not Mohammad who recommends the occasional wife beating or infidel slaying, it is God who commands it. There will never come a time when the rebellious wife should not be beaten. There will never come a time when the infidel should not be killed. God has spoken. Thus the question can be asked. Do we worship the same God that they do? I would say that to the extent that the Torah informs the Koran, we worship the same God. Muhammad seems to have included a lot of Jewish and Christian ideas in the Koran, though Muslims would hotly deny this. They believe that the Koran includes no ideas from other books. However, the God who demands slaughter, beating and vengeance as unchanging religious practice not the God that Jesus preached and whose Son He was, and so is not God.
I have known Muslims and like most of the ones I have known. They love their wives and children, obey the laws and cut their lawns. However, if you have a Muslim friend, he isn’t a very good Muslim. Again, allow me to quote the Koran: “You see many among them making friends with unbelievers. Evil is that to which their souls prompt them. They have incurred the wrath of God and shall endure eternal torment... You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians'" (Surah 5:80–82).
So what about all those people who aren’t us? Are they all doomed to hell? Let’s look at the Bible texts you mentioned. In your first reference I think you are referring to (Mat 10:40) “He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me.” You seem to be implying that you receive God only if you receive Peter, and hence receive the Church found on the Rock which is Peter. The “you” in the first text isn’t Peter. It is a plural pronoun (humas, in Greek) and thus seems to refer to all the disciples. The second text is John 14:6 “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'”, I believe that this text is one of the most misunderstood and misused texts in the Bible. Most people hear it as “Unless you accept Christ and join my Church you can’t go to heaven.” Look closely. The text doesn’t mention the Church or heaven. “No one comes to the FATHER except through Me (Jesus).” Most of us think that Jesus is prescribing the means of salvation in this text. He isn’t. He is prescribing the means of redemption. Well aren’t they the same thing? No, they aren’t!
If I am driving 80 miles an hour, one dark and stormy night, (which I would never do) and I am unaware that the bridge is out, I am doomed, no matter how blissfully ignorant I may be. If, however, before I plunge into the abyss, some kind soul flags me down and tells me the bridge is out, that person has become my savior. I go on to tell him that I am rushing to get back home to my family. How can I get across the torrent? That same kind soul gets in my car and shows me the way to get home. By doing this, he becomes my redeemer. “Redeem” means “to buy back.” In the ancient Greco-Roman world, if a person was caught by pirates, or captured in battle, he would be sold as a slave. If that person’s family knew his whereabouts and had the means, they would buy back their kinsman. This is what it means to redeem. It is to restore someone or something to its proper position.
So first, if we are living doomed lives, (and frankly who isn’t?) we need a savior. To this most would say, “My life isn’t doomed. I’m quite content, thank you very much!” I am reminded of a story. A fellow is driving down the I-90 and his wife calls him to tell him to watch out. There is a lunatic driving down the wrong side of the expressway. The husband responds, “One lunatic!?! I’ve seen about 50 of them driving right at me in just the past five minutes!” (For the humor impaired: the husband was the schlemiel, driving down the wrong side of the road. He thought the schlemazls coming at him were wrong. (Translation note: schlemiel = a hapless idiot. Schlemazl = his hapless victim.) No matter how content I am going south on the highway, if I think I am going north, I am still lost. Remember the verse from the song “ was lost but now am found”? We have got it all wrong. We are most certainly headed south, way south, if we live as our passions dictate. The Messiah interrupts our happy progress to hell by first telling us that we are in trouble. When we hear him and give him the steering wheel of our lives, (Is the analogy worn out yet?) He becomes our savior. But saved is not enough!
We need redemption. We need to be restored to our position in the family, the position of children of God that was offered to Adam in the garden, when he said “No thanks, I’d rather eat fruit.” God wants to make you a part of that relationship that was revealed by Jesus the Messiah. He taught us that God is love, and that we are called to be part of that relationship which is God. Jesus, the very heart of God, the visible image of the invisible God, is the only one worthy to be part of that family, that relationship. So how do I get there? By allowing God to conform me to Christ’s image. Unfortunately, this process of being made to look like Jesus involves nails and a cross. Adam’s sin has taught to me that love is a kind of narcissistic longing to have comfortable relationships. Jesus teaches from his cross that love is self sacrifice, a pouring out of life for the well being of others without thought of our own needs. Boy, am I far from that! I need a lot of redeeming. In order to enter into the fullness of life which is heaven, we have to come to the point where we are willing to lay down our lives as He was. ‘Til we get there, God will work on us if we let Him, but it is all about the relationship. Membership in an organization is not the requirement. Membership in the crucified Body of Christ is. I have met a lot of Catholics who are happy to belong to an organization, but not to the Church, as least the Church as God sees her.
So what does all this mean in reference to Jews and Muslims and pagans baptized and unbaptized? Jesus is the Torah fulfilled, the Torah come to life. He is the natural law of which St. Paul speaks in his introduction to the letter to the Romans. If God’s grace allows people to glimpse the vision of the Messiah in nature or the Law and to accept His Lordship in a way that is beyond their understanding, or ours, who am I to tell the Almighty that He can’t do that? It is safe to say that in His justice and His mercy He offers heaven to all men. How he does this is His business. He has offered it to me by means of the Church and the sacraments, especially the Body and Blood of His Son Jesus, present in the Eucharist. These, we believe, are His normal way of doing things. Heaven help me if I having been offered so great a gift, I do not accept it.
Rev. Know-it-all
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Do you believe in miracles? part 2
Dear Rev. Know it all;
Is there incontrovertible evidence of miracles?
Yours,
Nan’ B. Levere
(Continued from last week….)
Miracles are all around us. The instantaneous growth of bone in a man crippled and oozing pus from an open wound seems impossible, but it happened. When I was a much younger man, a deacon in one of the Spanish speaking parishes of Chicago was injured in a car accident. His femur was crushed, leaving him without an intact leg bone. The parish prayer group prayed and he was healed. He walked and jumped. It was that simple. He never had difficulty walking on the leg for the rest of his life. Of course, the more sophisticated among us knew that it was just a case of hysteria, of uneducated enthusiasm. Such things don’t really happen.
I remember visiting a cousin of mine in Detroit a few years back. I mentioned that I wanted to pray at the tomb of the Venerable Solanus Casey. “You know, I was one of his miracles,” she told me. “When I was six, I had a mastoid bone infection. I was scheduled for surgery, but I was in so much pain before the surgery that my parents brought me to St. Bonaventure’s Priory in the middle of the night. Brother Solanus opened the door, invited us in and sat and talked with my parents while I played on the floor at his feet. Then he said, “Take her home. She’ll be fine. When they wheeled me into surgery the next day the doctor asked, ‘Why is this child here? There’s nothing wrong with her!’ And there has been anything wrong with my ear for the past 65 years.”
For more, read Fr. Paul Glynn’s book Healing Fire of Christ. It is an account of well documented miracles mostly from Lourdes and Fatima. He drones on and on to the point of tediousness.
If miracles are all around us, you may well ask, why aren’t they more accepted? For one thing, miracles are not what most people are looking for. Miracles can be very inconvenient. If miracles are real, then God is real. If God is real, then He can make demands on our lives. I mentioned the great French author Emile Zola. Zola is famous for defending Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army falsely accused of treason in 1894. Emile Zola despised the French establishment and French Catholics, some of whom were anti-Semitic members of that establishment. France was torn apart by the defense that Zola presented in the press and Dreyfus’ subsequent exoneration assured Zola’s place in history.
Before his defense of Dreyfus, Zola had written a book called “Lourdes.” He had promised to tell the French people the true story of Lourdes. What he produced was probably one of the greatest lies in the history of literature, the “Da Vinci Code” of its day. In researching his novel “Lourdes,” Zola spent three weeks there. On the train to Lourdes, he got to know a very sick young woman named Marie LeMarchand . She had lupus, tuberculosis and festering sores on her legs and face. Zola had said to Dr. Boissariee, one of the attending physicians at Lourdes, that, “I only wanted to see a cut finger dipped in the water and come out cured.” Marie LeMarchand was immersed in the baths at Lourdes and was instantly healed, her lesions and sores disappeared and her skin was made new. Dr. Boissariee said to the distinguished Mr. Zola, “Ah, Monsieur Zola, behold the case of your dreams!” Zola replied, “ I don’t want to look at her. To me she is still ugly.” Zola witnessed three astonishing healings at Lourdes, but told Dr. Boissariee that if “I were to see all the sick at Lourdes healed, I would not believe in a miracle.” In his novel, he referred to another case he had witnessed; that of Marie Lebranchu who was in the final stages of tuberculosis. She, too, was instantly healed. Zola kept in touch with the Ms. Lebranchu for a long while after her healing, just to make sure her cure was permanent. It was. She lived for 26 more years. Yet, in his novel Zola portrays her as “La Grivotte,” dying on the train home. He lied and became rich and famous by doing so, Captain Dreyfus notwithstanding!
Zola well understood what I said above. Miracles can be very inconvenient. If Zola had given in to the truth he himself had witnessed and had bowed before God, he would have had to give up his mistress, Jeanne Rozerot, perhaps his wealth, and above all his hatred for the Christian religion, the hatred which defined his life and had made him famous, but Zola bowed to no one but Zola. He was instrumental in making France a secular country, and so at the beginning of the 21st century, France is no longer Catholic. Soon France will no longer exist at all. Within our lifetime we may see the Islamic Republic of France. The mullahs will root up the grape vines as they did in the Holy Land when they conquered it and suppressed Christianity. They will break the breath taking windows of Chartres and the Sainte Chappelle and deface the beautiful Gothic carvings just as they dynamited the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. La belle France will be only a rumor, a memory. I am reminded of what Jesus said in Matt. 11:20 and following:
The ruins of Capernaum, Bethsaida and Korazin have only recently come to light. The towns in which Jesus performed his greatest signs were buried for 15 centuries, even their locations unknown. Some of the greatest miracles of modern times have been performed in France. You do the math. The refusal to believe — the refusal, mind you — invites disaster. It always has and always will. Bon chance, Ma chère! We, in America, are not far behind you.
Rev. Know-it-all
Is there incontrovertible evidence of miracles?
Yours,
Nan’ B. Levere
(Continued from last week….)
Miracles are all around us. The instantaneous growth of bone in a man crippled and oozing pus from an open wound seems impossible, but it happened. When I was a much younger man, a deacon in one of the Spanish speaking parishes of Chicago was injured in a car accident. His femur was crushed, leaving him without an intact leg bone. The parish prayer group prayed and he was healed. He walked and jumped. It was that simple. He never had difficulty walking on the leg for the rest of his life. Of course, the more sophisticated among us knew that it was just a case of hysteria, of uneducated enthusiasm. Such things don’t really happen.
I remember visiting a cousin of mine in Detroit a few years back. I mentioned that I wanted to pray at the tomb of the Venerable Solanus Casey. “You know, I was one of his miracles,” she told me. “When I was six, I had a mastoid bone infection. I was scheduled for surgery, but I was in so much pain before the surgery that my parents brought me to St. Bonaventure’s Priory in the middle of the night. Brother Solanus opened the door, invited us in and sat and talked with my parents while I played on the floor at his feet. Then he said, “Take her home. She’ll be fine. When they wheeled me into surgery the next day the doctor asked, ‘Why is this child here? There’s nothing wrong with her!’ And there has been anything wrong with my ear for the past 65 years.”
For more, read Fr. Paul Glynn’s book Healing Fire of Christ. It is an account of well documented miracles mostly from Lourdes and Fatima. He drones on and on to the point of tediousness.
If miracles are all around us, you may well ask, why aren’t they more accepted? For one thing, miracles are not what most people are looking for. Miracles can be very inconvenient. If miracles are real, then God is real. If God is real, then He can make demands on our lives. I mentioned the great French author Emile Zola. Zola is famous for defending Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army falsely accused of treason in 1894. Emile Zola despised the French establishment and French Catholics, some of whom were anti-Semitic members of that establishment. France was torn apart by the defense that Zola presented in the press and Dreyfus’ subsequent exoneration assured Zola’s place in history.
Before his defense of Dreyfus, Zola had written a book called “Lourdes.” He had promised to tell the French people the true story of Lourdes. What he produced was probably one of the greatest lies in the history of literature, the “Da Vinci Code” of its day. In researching his novel “Lourdes,” Zola spent three weeks there. On the train to Lourdes, he got to know a very sick young woman named Marie LeMarchand . She had lupus, tuberculosis and festering sores on her legs and face. Zola had said to Dr. Boissariee, one of the attending physicians at Lourdes, that, “I only wanted to see a cut finger dipped in the water and come out cured.” Marie LeMarchand was immersed in the baths at Lourdes and was instantly healed, her lesions and sores disappeared and her skin was made new. Dr. Boissariee said to the distinguished Mr. Zola, “Ah, Monsieur Zola, behold the case of your dreams!” Zola replied, “ I don’t want to look at her. To me she is still ugly.” Zola witnessed three astonishing healings at Lourdes, but told Dr. Boissariee that if “I were to see all the sick at Lourdes healed, I would not believe in a miracle.” In his novel, he referred to another case he had witnessed; that of Marie Lebranchu who was in the final stages of tuberculosis. She, too, was instantly healed. Zola kept in touch with the Ms. Lebranchu for a long while after her healing, just to make sure her cure was permanent. It was. She lived for 26 more years. Yet, in his novel Zola portrays her as “La Grivotte,” dying on the train home. He lied and became rich and famous by doing so, Captain Dreyfus notwithstanding!
Zola well understood what I said above. Miracles can be very inconvenient. If Zola had given in to the truth he himself had witnessed and had bowed before God, he would have had to give up his mistress, Jeanne Rozerot, perhaps his wealth, and above all his hatred for the Christian religion, the hatred which defined his life and had made him famous, but Zola bowed to no one but Zola. He was instrumental in making France a secular country, and so at the beginning of the 21st century, France is no longer Catholic. Soon France will no longer exist at all. Within our lifetime we may see the Islamic Republic of France. The mullahs will root up the grape vines as they did in the Holy Land when they conquered it and suppressed Christianity. They will break the breath taking windows of Chartres and the Sainte Chappelle and deface the beautiful Gothic carvings just as they dynamited the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. La belle France will be only a rumor, a memory. I am reminded of what Jesus said in Matt. 11:20 and following:
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.
The ruins of Capernaum, Bethsaida and Korazin have only recently come to light. The towns in which Jesus performed his greatest signs were buried for 15 centuries, even their locations unknown. Some of the greatest miracles of modern times have been performed in France. You do the math. The refusal to believe — the refusal, mind you — invites disaster. It always has and always will. Bon chance, Ma chère! We, in America, are not far behind you.
Rev. Know-it-all
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