Evangelization

I really feel we are missing an opportunity here in the Church.  Or maybe put a better way, we may not be reading the signs of the time right.  

 

With all the news recently inside and outside the Church;  the Paris bombings, the Holy Father's visit here and to Africa, the shooting at Planned Parenthood, and the upcoming beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, there seems to be a bending over backwards in the Church to talk about mercy, forgiveness, and understanding, and yes, that is good and necessary.

However, at the same time, there needs to be something else in addition to all that.  We need evangelization!  Evangelization means to "preach the Gospel".   The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, and He has saved us from our sins, and in Him, we can live triumphantly in this life, and forever with Him in the next.   Jesus founded a Church as the means and the goal of that divine life that can live within us thanks to Him.  There is no hope for individuals, nor for humanity as a whole, without Christ and His Church. 

Why are we not looking at the world as it is, and see that it is crying out for an authentic religion and authentic humanity?   Jesus is the perfect Man; fully God, and fully human, without sin.   It is crying out for a faith that is credible.  Jesus is the Logos, the Eternal Word of God.   It is crying out for something that can unite and give hope to humanity.  Jesus is Savior.   It is crying out for peace.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  It is crying out for life, truth, and love.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  It is crying out for a leadership.   Jesus is the King of Kings.

Yes, this is the time to be talking about Jesus and the one Church He founded.  We need to respect people of all faiths, and no faith, but we must proclaim louder than ever that only in Jesus Christ will anyone's life find fulfillment.   There is no hope for any of us, nor for the entire human race, other than in Jesus Christ.

 

We need to remember this, I think, above all about Jesus.  He professed to be God.  ("The Father and I are one."  (John 10:30)  No other founder, or leader of any other world religion, professed to be God.  This is critical, and makes Christianity unique among all religions. 

No, we cannot force anyone to convert.  No, we must allow freedom of religion, something Christians have had to fight for a lot recently in our country, and it would be wrong for us to deny that right to any follower of any other religion.  We cannot follow the examples from other countries where people are being forced to convert to Islam.

However, there is only one religion that can give hope to the human race, and that is Christianity lived in its fullness without error in the Catholic Church.   We need to live it, and talk about it, more than ever now.  It is time now to show Her glory, both by seeking to understand Her if we do not, and then explaining Her teachings, and living them in our own lives, so that each of us reflect the splendor of Christ and His Church, and therefore, make Him and Her attractive for the world to see, a world that desperately needs to see once again the face of the authentically human, the authentically holy, and the authentically sacred.

 

Saint Joseph, Light of Patriarchs and Diligent Protector of Christ, be our light in this time of darkness and help lead us to the Light of the world, Jesus.

 

 

 

 

 

Reflections on events this week

Our Holy Father was in Africa this week, and one day while he was there, he visited a parish called Saint Joseph the Worker in the slums of Kenya. (The name got my attention obviously.)   There was also the tragedy in Colorado this week.  I feel I would like to speak on them both, and strangely enough, I can connect them, as well as make a connection between this tragedy and the one in Paris.

(On a personal note, I also came home one day this week and found a man and a young girl, no more than 10 years old, who I presume was his daughter, sifting through the dumpsters behind my complex.  This, too, in addition to the Pope's visit to Africa, got me thinking about the poor.)

I condemn the killings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado the other day.  While the motives of the killer remain unclear, the acts are wrong, and it is never appropriate to respond to violence of any type, both to the born and unborn, with violence.   Yes, "violence begets violence", but that is in the natural order.  Christians are called to respond to violence supernaturally with the grace of the Prince of Peace, to be "channels of peace", as the popular hymn of Saint Francis exhorts us to.  In the litany to him, we discover Saint Joseph is "most patient" and "most prudent".   One can get frustrated with what goes on inside Planned Parenthood clinics, but instead of responding as this man did, we need to respond with those aforementioned virtues of Saint Joseph and all the saints who imitated Our Lord so well.

To say that anyone in the pro-life movement would welcome this development is not logical.  With all the undercover videos that have recently been released, there was momentum, at minimum, for investigations into this organization, and possible defunding of them.   This tragedy will certainly slow the momentum on that. 

I mentioned last week with the tragedy in Paris that I saw a connection between the loss of practice of the Catholic Faith and the conditions that make it more possible for tragedies like that to occur.  There is some truth to that, as well, with this tragedy, and the pro-life movement in general.  Specifically with this tragedy, have any of the shooters at Planned Parenthood clinics over the years been practicing Catholics?  No.  If they have been "religious", they have usually been self-professed "Christians", when in reality they are loners who read the Bible on their own, and don't look for authoritative teaching (such as the Magisterium) on it.   This is a real danger when the Bible is allowed to be interpreted by individuals, which is permitted in the Protestant world (I say this with all due respect to my Protestant brothers and sisters).  When we all become our own "magisterium", and interpret the Bible as we want to, the more unstable among us can come to the conclusion that the sin of abortion can be dealt with violently.

Now, moving away from this specific tragedy, and speaking of the pro-life movement in general, I would like to state something else.  I believe it is because the fullness of Catholic teaching (which includes teaching against all forms of birth control, in addition to teaching against abortion ) has not been embraced, and promoted by the pro-life movement, is one of the reasons why the movement, despite legal successes here and there, has generally not been successful since it really got going after the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.  The abortion laws on a national level pretty much remain the same as they were since then.  My feeling is that keeping the dialogue on the level of the personhood of the fetus, as opposed to also raising the prior issue of whether the sexual act that created the fetus is sacred or not, is hurting us.   If we looked at the sexual act as a sacred one, which cannot be tampered with by contraceptive devices, then the fruits of that would obviously be sacred too.  If we inject more of the fullness of Catholic truth into the whole pro-life discussion,  I think we would see better fruit.   I may be able to get more into this in future posts.

Whenever I see discussion on the abortion issue, I think of Blessed Mother Theresa.  She said that her order would take in ANY baby that was not wanted.   She laid it out there for everyone.   "Anyone, if you are thinking of aborting your baby, do not, I will take it!  "   Those were not her exact words, but that is the gist of her message.   That alone, in my opinion, is reason enough to give legal protection to the unborn. Mother Theresa knew that abortion was not the answer to helping the poor.  She spent her life ministering to, in her words, the "poorest of the poor".   She was a hero to me, as she is to many. 

I thought of the saint this week because of the aforementioned tragedy, and also the fact that Our Holy Father visited the poor this week in Africa.  He spoke of the need for basic rights to be respected for all people which includes (awful he even had to say this) " toilets, sewers, drains, refuse collection, electricity.."   Yet, it is interesting that he also noted a certain wisdom that can be found often in these poor neighborhoods.  He said they were able, in his words,  “to weave bonds of belonging and togetherness which convert overcrowding into an experience of community in which the walls of the ego are torn down and the barriers of selfishness overcome."

Now here is the connection between the Pope's words, and the tragedy in Colorado.

Think of these words: belonging, togetherness, experience of community.   Abortion does the opposite.  It divides, and most definitely does not unite.  People who are part of a strong community are not inclined to abort their child.  They know a support mechanism is in place.  At the same time, it seems to me any of the shooters at these clinics over the years definitely did not feel a sense of belonging to anything.  They were not part of any community.  They were loners.  People who are part of a strong community do not shoot people for their sins.   They try to encourage them to convert by other means.

The poor have something to teach us.  Mother Theresa, who ministered to them, has something to teach us.   Our Holy Father is calling the Church to be a Church of the poor for the poor.  Maybe if we heed his words, as well as the fullness of the Church's teaching, we can do better in the fight against abortion, see better fruit, and see less rotten fruit such as we regrettably saw this past week.

Joseph most strong, pray for us.

 

On refugees

There has been a lot of talk recently, in the aftermath of the tragedy in Paris, about refugees.  This blog does not have passionate feelings one way or the other on the issue.   I respect the opinions of those who feel, for security reasons, that his or her nation or state should not allow any Syrian refugees in.  I also respect the opinions of those who feel that that is not an option for a believing Christian, who is called to welcome the stranger and clothe the naked. To what extent we should continue, stop, or modify our welcome of refugees is a matter worthy of debate in these times.  All sides should be listened to.

Saint Joseph was a refugee.  He had to flee to Egypt to protect the life of his earthly son, the Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ.  I am sure he would urge people of today to try and find a way to welcome refugees, but I think he would also respect legitimate security concerns.  That is only me speaking, though, and my opinion on this is not to be taken as gospel truth.

However, this blog IS passionate about something else.  I am passionate about us being consistent in what we say, and what we do, on anything, not just this issue.  If we are going to welcome all refugees, and say we will not exclude anyone, than how do we square that with our liberal abortion laws that close the gates to life here on the unborn?  Are they not refugees, as well?   While we may rightly open our national borders to those fleeing persecution, it is entirely inconsistent of us, at the same time, to close our doors to the infants in the womb who would want to flee another type of persecution, namely death by the various means abortion is carried out. 

The land where the unborn live, the mother's womb, because of very liberal abortion laws, is far from the safe place that it should be.  In many ways, it is as unsafe as many places in the world are now, due to there being no legal protection for them in there.  We have to be their voice!  They have no one to cry out for them besides us.  They often are crying out for help and nobody is listening.  They are saying "Help me flee this land, danger is in the lurks!  I need to "cross over" to a safer place; please help!"  

Are we listening?

Abortion, as well as contraception, have led to very low birth rates across Europe, and because of this, governments have had to liberalize their immigration policies in order to keep up their economies because they simply do not have enough people to keep it going.  When that happens, there is naturally less screening of the character of people coming over the border.  I will not say that I know for sure that this happened here, that people of suspicious character and background got into France because of this, but it is worth thinking about.   It may be happening here in the United States, as well.  While bad economics is not the most important negative side effect of abortion (compared to its effect on our bodies, our souls, and our relationships), it is something worth noting.

Whenever we have a problem, we need to turn to the Lord and ask Him to help us solve it, not try to do it on our own, as we are learning the hard way what happens often when we do. The attitude of Saint Joseph was always for life, and that must be our attitude, as well.   The answer to a low population is to be more open to life, as God, the Author of Life, is.  This openness must exist in our own hearts, and in our own lands, which will not force as much to turn to other lands or other peoples to provide that life for us.   We need as, Saint John Paul II said, to foster a Culture of Life.  We need to encourage things like adoption and having large families.  We need to strongly discourage and ideally, stop, abortion and birth control.

Each of us was given the responsibility for life by God. We should not turn to others to do that job for us.  We cannot expect to continue aborting and contracepting, and then think we can turn to others to solve our problems that are directly or indirectly caused by those acts.  I believe France found that out the hard way, unfortunately, too late; I pray we here in the United States learn our lesson before it is too late.

Saint Joseph, Foster father of the Son of God, and diligent protector of Christ, pray for us.

 

Come to the altar!

Let me get right into it.

Do I believe there is a connection between the loss of the practice of the Catholic Faith in France and other places makes those places more subject to these kind of attacks?  Yes.

Do I believe, though, that anyone is responsible for this tragedy other than the terrorists who planned, coordinated, and/or executed these evil acts?  No, absolutely not.  

No one is responsible for these evil deeds other than those aforementioned individuals.  However, these acts, combined with 9/11, and other incidents of terrorism we have seen, should make us all look in the mirror and say, "What is it about the world now that is setting the conditions for these kinds of things to even be possible?"   I can say without any fear of being incorrect that the beauty of the Catholic Faith, and awesomeness of a life lived fully as a believing Catholic, are not seen as much today as they have been in the past, and as a result of that, Islam and other religions are filling that void, giving purpose and meaning to many in its absence.
I will state that while I absolutely do not believe that Catholics and all Christians are any better people than those who follow Islam, I will state, and this is in line with Church teaching, that Catholicism is a superior religion to Islam, and all other religions.  All religions have some degree of truth in them in their teaching, but only Catholicism has the fullness of Truth, and no falsehood in its teaching.  (Again, I am only talking and comparing the religions themselves, not the people who practice them. )  So, what is happening now is a superior religion being pushed aside for an inferior one, and we are seeing the fruits of that.
Therefore, if we are not living our Catholic Faith as fully as we can be, which really none of us are, then while we cannot and should not hold ourselves responsible for these evil acts, then we need to at least consider ourselves a small part of the problem why evil is spreading today, and change what we need to in us and in our lives to make us less culpable.

At Mass today, something extraordinary happened.   The priest said the words of Consecration and the bread and wine that was on the altar became the Body and Blood of Christ.  You may, say, extraordinary, but does not that happen every week, or even every day?  Yes, and that is one of the many things that make Catholicism what it is.  Every week, something supernatural happens.  Every day, on the altars of Catholic churches all over the word,  God becomes substantially present in a way He is not anywhere else.
The Mass is a representation of Our Lord's sacrificial offering for us on the Cross.  On the Cross, He gave us His Body and Blood for our salvation, and we are now eating and drinking the fruits of that Sacrifice. 
If God comes us to us this way, and we all believed that, we would any of us feel a need to kill ourselves to go to God as these terrorists did?   Receiving Christ in the Eucharist; Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, makes our days bearable. 
If God made the ultimate and only necessary sacrifice for our salvation, why would any of us feel a need to make a sacrifice of ourselves as these terrorists did?   As today's second reading from the letter to the Hebrews said, Christ offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.   We do not need to sacrifice ourselves to achieve perfection as these terrorists believed. 
If we believed as fully as we could, and more people believed the truths of the Catholic Faith, then there would be less people willing to do what we saw the other evening.

I hope and pray this commentary is taken the right way.   I have respect and love all Muslims.  I respect and love my Protestant brothers and sisters.  I respect and love people of all faiths, and no faith. 
However, the answer to this problem is not in discarding Truth, and trying just to love one another.  We, rather, need to all seek and live the fullness of Truth like never before, and that fullness of Truth is found in the Catholic Church.  I invite all, in the words of Our Lord, to "Come and you will see!"
(John 1:39)

In closing, there is not a lot of tradition around Saint Joseph in praying for the deceased.  There is a lot of tradition around praying to him in advance for a happy death, but not around praying for those who have already died.  However, I am sure Joseph, during the killing of the Holy Innocents, prayed unceasingly for those many infants who died at the hand of Herod, which makes that tragedy at least as reprehensible as this one since it involved mostly young children.  Thus, one can conclude, he knew tragedy and prays for those who experience tragic deaths.  We can ask him to do the same today for those who died in this tragedy, so that they can be purified of their sins, and enter into the fullness of the Father's glory.

Joseph, patron of the dying and solace of the wretched, pray for us.

Praise the Lord, my soul

I am very fortunate where I live that I can walk to Mass.   It is a beautiful day here in Lowell, a day that the Lord has made!  I thought of that as I walked to the house of the Lord today.  Then, what I got in to His house, I found out, again, that He is pretty incredible!  Did we hear what the Psalmist said today? Check out all the things he said today that the Lord has done and continues to do.

-He keeps faith forever  (we may forget or give up on him, but He never does on us)
-He secures justice for the oppressed (in His Kingdom, all is right and just, and that Kingdom is here, inaugurated by Christ, and it will come to be all in all in due time)
-He gives food to the hungry  (again, in His Kingdom, all are fed and nourished; if we learn to trust in Him, we will never be dissatisfied)
-He sets captives free (when we abide with the Lord, no person or no thing of this world can chain us)
-He gives sight to the blind (being in a relationship with the Lord allows us to see things that we might not otherwise, we see how He is acting in our lives, in the world, and in the Church)
-He raises up those who were bowed down (kneeling, prostrating ourselves before Him in the Blessed Sacrament, and just being poor in spirit, will allow us to be raised up with Him into His glory, as Jesus was on the Cross)
-He loves the just (if we respect others, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and God what is God's, we will have the peace of His love ever in our hearts)
-He protects the strangers (those in this world whom no one knows, either because they are humble, and/or because others choose not to learn about them, are especially loved and protected by God)
-He sustains the fatherless and the widow (the Lord can make up for the absence of a father figure in our lives because He is the ultimate Father, our Heavenly Father)
-He thwarts the way of the wicked (in His Kingdom, the wicked do get punished; it may not seem that to be the case, but that is looking at things from an earthly perspective only; remember, His Kingdom, while unseen usually, is real and growing)
-He shall reign forever (He is the King who will never give up His throne, and all the baptized can share in that reign because through Baptism, we share in His victory over sin and death)

Wow, what a God!  There is no better response than what we said today at Mass for the Responsorial Psalm,  "Praise the Lord, my soul!"   Why don't we try saying that everyday?

Joseph, most just, pray for us.

Remembering the dead

Today, November 1, is the Solemnity of All Saints.  On this day, we celebrate the lives (which are still going on, and will forever) of the Saints who are already in Heaven.   This includes those both formally canonized, as well as all the non formally recognized souls who are also in Heaven.  Tomorrow, November 2, we commemorate All Souls Day, on which we pray for those who have died, but who are not yet in heaven.  They are in Purgatory, being purified of their sins and weaknesses, so they can enter in the glory of God.  In fact, Catholics are encouraged to pray for the dead with special intensity throughout the entire month of November.
Too often, we forget about our deceased.  Heck, we start to forget about people when they turn old, even before they die.  How many lonely souls sit in nursing homes these days with no one coming to visit them.  How often do older people or their "friends" consider assisted suicide so they can leave this world because so often, our last years of our life, instead of being filled with gratitude and thankfulness, are often filled with loneliness and sorrow ? Our society, which values staying and looking young, places no value on the elderly, who have so much wisdom and life experience to offer.
We do not think of the dead because we do not think of the afterlife.  We only focus on what is around us.  We focus on this world alone. We are so focused on the natural, we forget the supernatural.  We are so focused on life, we don't, as Saint Benedict says, "keep death daily before (our) eyes".  We focus on appearance, we forget or do not notice what is hidden.  

We need days like today to remind us of the heavenly dimension of the Church. 

Yet, I experienced today even in the homily I heard, a tendency to downplay that transcendent dimension somewhat.  The priest spoke about the "saints around us" and how we are all called to be "saints".  While there is nothing wrong in and of itself mentioning that, the focus of today's celebration really should be the Saints in Heaven; how they lived, what we can learn from them, and how they can intercede for us, and how we should seek their intercession.

Can we not look to heaven for one day out of the year?   Do we have to keep our eyes on this present world all the time?

I really feel in the Church we need to do a better job of opening our eyes to the vertical dimension; to God, to heaven, to the Saints.   We have become, in a word, flat, because we are focused on the horizontal.   Our liturgies have become flat, our preaching has become flat, and as a result, our lives have become flat.  We have stopped trying to be Catholic and tried to be more like other churches who only speak of and focus on the present life.   I think, rather, we need to be more Catholic, to distinguish ourselves from those other churches, like that of preachers like Joel Osteen, who preach so often on what God can do for us in this life, but never ever talk about the afterlife.  Their churches, the sizes of basketball arenas, are filled every Sunday, while Catholic churches sit half empty every week.
You may say, well, is not his church thriving by focusing on this life, and being relevant? Should the Catholic Church not do the same?  Here is what I would say to that.   I believe a lot of Joel's and others' success is from ex-Catholics who left a Church that was trying to be the like world around it, which focused on the horizontal, on this life only.  In trying to be something it was not,  priests and lay ministers in the Church accommodated to what the focus of the contemporary world was; social justice, the environment, pop psychology and sociology, and it became no different from the world.  It became boring and irrelevant.  Not surprisingly, people felt they were not getting anything from it, they decided it was not necessary to go anymore, and so they stopped practicing their Faith
Yet, there was still a hole.  They filled it by going to other churches who did speak of salvation, of the need to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but afterwards, spoke only of this life with no more talk of death, judgment, heaven, purgatory, or hell.   They got a quick world on salvation, but then, since their salvation is "guaranteed", they went right back to focusing on the things of this world, along with the rest of society.
As a result of all this, so few today think much of the afterlife. We don't think about death, and when we do not think about death, we forget about those who are seemingly close to it, the elderly, as well as those who have already died.

The Church, today and tomorrow especially, cries about this injustice and says  "Do not forget your dead!"  

I remember with fondness my maternal grandfather who visited my grandmother every day after she was put in the nursing home with Alzheimer's.   It was very difficult for him to carry on a conversation with her because of her Alzheimer's.  Yet despite this, he went every morning, and stayed until later in the day, or the end of it, depending if my Mom could come and relieve him or not (which she usually did).   What a devotion and example of love he was for me.
I lived with him for several years, and sometimes, would take him to Church.   I remember one time we went to the Easter Vigil, and they had all the lights out, except for the candles everyone was holding.  He was deaf, and thought he had to talk loud for everyone to hear him lol.  He shouted out "They are going to burn the place down!"   People looked at us.  It was a little embarrassing, but I was still so glad he was with me.
I thought of him today as a few rows behind me at Mass, another older couple came in a few minutes before Mass started and were talking loudly.  I felt a little annoyed, as I was trying to prepare myself quietly for Mass.  However, something deeper came over me, and I felt that maybe God was speaking to me and others through them, so I said nothing.  It turns out they talked about some of the beautiful features of the Shrine; its stained glass windows, the beautiful altar, and a few other things.  They were drinking in the beauty of the Shrine,  and I believe, in doing so, a little of the beauty of God, and it reminded me to do the same (I have attached a picture of what they were looking at).  Why deprive them of that?  Why deprive our elderly of the good things we too often deprive them of these days?  After all, there is often no one to visit them, often no one to take them to Church, often not enough priests to come and say Mass for them regularly if they cannot travel , and often no one to pray for and with them.

We should take some time over these next few days, and this entire month, to remember and pray for our deceased family and friends.   I think of my grandparents and my uncle especially.  We should also remember those who we consider to be "close" or "closer" to death, namely our elderly, wherever they might be.  We also should think our own impending deaths.  It will come to each of us.  Are we ready for the afterlife?  If we have not been thinking about it much, we are probably not.  

Let's change that.

Saint Joseph, patron of the dying, pray for us.