Mary, Conceived Without Sin, You DID Know

Raise your hand if you have ever heard the song "Mary, Did You Know?" within the precincts of a Catholic church.  I can't see you, but I know you're out there.  My hand is also up.  Somehow, because this song mentions the Mother of God, it has become a Christmas tradition in some parishes.  But although the gentleman who wrote "Mary, Did You Know?" clearly means well, this song is both musically inappropriate for Mass and subversive of the Catholic faith.

From a musical standpoint, "Mary, Did You Know?" is basically a pop song, and although the Mass has been saturated with such for a couple of generations now, the fact remains that it is not sacred music suited for use at Mass.  But even more objectionable, from the Catholic point of view, is the lyrical content.  

"Mary, Did You Know?" is based on some abysmally erroneous assumptions.  To begin with, it is supposed that Mary does not know that her holy Infant is the Son of God.  Some saints -- for instance, St. Alphonsus Liguori, bishop and Doctor of the Church -- are of the opinion that even before the Annunciation, Mary had a profound understanding of prophecies and Scriptures concerning the promised Messiah.  But even without such an understanding, it would have taken a high degree of inattention on Mary's part to the message of Gabriel and the inspired greeting of her cousin Elizabeth for her to labor under ignorance of her Son's divinity.  It is further supposed that Mary does not know that her Son will suffer for the redemption of mankind.  This would have required her to utterly gloss over the prophecies of holy Simeon concerning her Son as God's salvation, a sign of contradiction, and concerning the sword of sorrow that would pierce her own soul.  The idea of the Mother of God not being in possession of the most critical facts about her divine Son, particularly in view of explicit revelations received by her, is absurd on its face.

But there is an even more blatant error in the lyrics of "Mary, Did You Know?" that ought to induce in every Catholic a sharp intake of breath.  It is a defined dogma of the Catholic faith that the Mother of God was conceived without original sin.  On December 8, 1854, in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful. 

Contrast this with the following lyrics from "Mary, Did You Know?":

Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Whereas Catholics accept as revealed truth that Mary was free from sin from the instant of her conception by virtue of the anticipated merits of Jesus' suffering and death on the Cross, the foregoing is based on the assumption that Mary was under the sway of sin at the time she gave birth to the Christ Child, and that she would remain so until His Sacrifice of redemption.  In short, it is a flat denial of the Immaculate Conception.  As such -- and for this reason alone -- it should never be sung in a Catholic church, or find any place in any Catholic liturgy, and Catholics should not embrace it.

Perhaps a fitting way to honor today's feast of the Immaculate Conception -- in addition to fulfilling our obligation to attend Mass -- would be to defend the dogma which this feast celebrates by doing what we can to see that "Mary, Did You Know?" remains unheard in our parishes during this and every Christmas season.

Is Passing Cooties a Necessary Expression of Ecclesial Communion?

The last post featured a discussion about hand-holding at Mass as forced intimacy.  Now the question arises whether hand-holding is a necessary component/expression of communion -- that is, ecclesial communion (cf. paragraphs 946 et seq. of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) -- with our fellow Catholics.

In arriving at an answer to this question, a few salient facts need to be recognized.  Firstly, the Church does not instruct us to hold hands during Mass.  Secondly, at least some of our shepherds, exercising their legitimate teaching and governing authority, are discouraging the practice. Thirdly, non-Catholics and even some who are not baptized often attend Mass and get swept up into the hand-holding; in what sense can we truthfully express "communion" in the sense it is here meant with those who are objectively and by definition not in ecclesial communion?  Fourthly, why, if hand-holding is essential, is it not done in every Catholic rite?  Fifthly -- and perhaps most significantly -- the practice only dates back to about the 1970s.  If hand-holding is indispensable to our sense of ecclesial communion, why did it take until about 40 years ago for us to start doing it?

Hand-holding is totally unnecessary.  We are already one, not only with each other at Mass, but also with the Holy Souls in Purgatory and all the blessed in heaven, and all who will ever attain heaven, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ and partakers of the one Eucharist.  In fact, here is a secret: where everyone at Mass is really focused on God, and giving Him the worship that He is due, without diverting their attention to their neighbors, the whole community aspect takes care of itself -- and in a much deeper and satisfying way than the superficial, pop-psychology group-therapy ice-breakers that have crept uninvited into the liturgy.  God even occasionally grants us a feeling of the love-communion between ourselves and the rest of the congregation, even though we do not know them: a taste of the Communion of Saints. This is true even in -- perhaps one could say especially in -- the allegedly stodgy, hide-bound, chauvinistic Traditional Latin Mass, where there is no room for the touchy-feely infestations that have plagued the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  Here is a fulfillment of the Scriptural promise that if we seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice, the rest will be added unto us.


But we short-circuit this promise when we do our own thing at Mass and try to do "communion" on our own.  This makes hand-holding not only unnecessary, but worse than unnecessary.  It is a distraction that diverts our attention away from the Eucharist that is the true source of our Christian unity, and even causes us to believe that the Eucharist is not sufficient.  It leads us away from a true understanding of our Catholic faith, and toward a distaste of that which is authentically Catholic and therefore really calculated to bring us closer to God.

Even though hand-holding only started the ecclesiastical equivalent of thirty seconds ago, there are many who ascribe all kinds of imaginary meaning to the practice, and would feel deprived of a sense of communion if they couldn't engage in it.  That a false significance, unsupported by any legitimate authority, has attached to this innovation in so short a time itself shows its perniciousness.  Authority is critical in the Church, even more than in the arena of the civil law, where binding precedent must always be consulted before a legal determination is made; the acceptance and embrace of traditions of men ought to be completely foreign to the Catholic mind.  Yet here is a classic example of an artificial tradition in action, to the detriment of true faith.  This false tradition can't be done away with too soon.

Why Priests are Fathers

St. John Bosco and his boys, to whom he was a true father. A mystic from childhood, Don Bosco ministered particularly to boys because of the insight he received regarding the spiritual dangers faced by boys.

One of the many objections to the Catholic Church that Protestants often raise is that we call priests "Father."  In support of this objection, they cite Matthew 23:9, in which Jesus says: "And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, Who is in heaven."

In the first place, I can't help noticing that this objection is often brought to me by the same people who accuse my Church of being a "Church of rules"; it's hard to imagine a pickier or more artificial rule than one designed to make me scrupulous about giving a term of respect and endearment to my parish priest.  In the second place, to cite Scripture in support of the objection is to misuse it.  Read in context, Matthew 23:9 is part of a denunciation of the hypocritical scribes and pharisees who love to lord it over everyone else, keep their subjects firmly under their thumbs by means of unreasonable demands, and bask in the glow of human respect.  Jesus is not forbidding His disciples literally to call anyone "Father"; rather, He is warning them not to follow in the footsteps of the Pharisees, whose path leads to hell.  In the third place, this question of calling priests "Father" involves supernatural realities of which both Protestants and Catholics have lost sight in our times.

Perhaps, for purposes of being struck by these realities, it helps to be at an age when one is older than most newly ordained priests.  For example, the baby-faced young priest who celebrated the Mass I attended this morning is probably 27 or 28, though, like most young people nowadays, he looks to me to be about twelve. Naturally speaking, it would be impossible for him to be my father, because I am so much older than he is.  But supernaturally speaking, he can be my father, and in fact is.  Just as my natural father must answer to God for my well-being, this young father is responsible before God for the care of my soul.  I could do no better at this point than to quote Frs. Rumble and Carty, the famous "radio priests" of the 1930s and '40s, on this very question:

In a purely spiritual sense a priest does all for the life of grace in a soul that ordinary parents do for the natural life of the children God gives them.  It is the priest who gives spiritual life to souls at the baptismal font.  He educates those brought forth to life in Christ by their baptismal rebirth; he teaches, warns, corrects and advises his spiritual children, and nourishes them with the bread of life in the Sacraments.  When souls go out of this world to meet God, it is the priest who is at their death-beds, soothing their last hours, allaying their fears, and consoling them as no others could do.  Having no family, the priest belongs to every family: and all in  his parish, men, women and children, love him and venerate him, and look up to him as their spiritual guide and friend, summing up everything in that term of supreme respect and reverence -- "Father."  Catholics rightly, therefore, call the priest "father," not to the exclusion of their Father in heaven, but as a manifestation on earth of the supreme Fatherhood of God in the spiritual order, even as an earthly parent is a similar manifestation of that same Fatherhood in the natural order.

Radio Replies, Volume III, section 304.

This is one of the paradoxes that is a hallmark of the supernatural: what is impossible in the natural order is possible in the supernatural order.  The jar that this paradox gives people operating in the purely natural realm should not be avoided: it is salutary, and the opportunity for a teaching moment.  A priest who looks to me like a high school kid is nevertheless my spiritual father; and I am his daughter in the supernatural order, even though I am much older than he is.  Therefore, despite the absurdity on a purely natural level, it is fitting and proper for me to call him "Father."  In fact, I submit that we ought to go further than that: not only should we call a priest "Father," but priests ought to get back into the habit of calling the faithful "sons" and "daughters," precisely to underscore, in this age of modernism and rationalism, this supernatural relationship with our shepherds.

Perhaps this will also do something toward restoring the lost esteem and dignity of priests in the eyes of their flocks, and hence their authority; and of helping priests themselves to live up to the same.

Why the Extraordinary Form Is Better

I know that for what follows, I am going to be solemnly apprised of the validity of the Novus Ordo Mass, and the fact that I am opinionated, and that I have no business holding that one form of the Mass is superior to another, and that I lack charity, and that I think I am more Catholic than the Pope, etc., etc.  Oh well.  Whatever.  Let not the apostles of "tolerance" rush to judgment.  I'm not a sedevacantist, and I have deliberately refrained from attending SSPX Masses, and I don't think the Novus Ordo is invalid.  But I do think it is not as good as the Mass we tried to shelve 40 years ago.

WHY I THINK MASS IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM IS BETTER THAN THE NOVUS ORDO

1. The Extraordinary Form Is Better Equipped to Focus the Mind on God.  The single biggest way that the Extraordinary Rite of Mass focuses the mind on God is by the priest facing God and not the congregation.  I have heard it argued that versus populum is of older vintage than ad orientem; however, if that is true, once you have attended a Mass in which the priest faces ad orientem, it is easy to understand why versus populum was previously abandoned.  In the ad orientem posture, the priest faces God.  He faces in the same direction as the congregation, thereby underscoring the unity of purpose between the priest and the faithful.  Another way in which the Extraordinary Rite focuses the mind more on God is by the fact that the Rite is celebrated in Latin and not in the vernacular.  This brings home to us the fact that the words spoken are the voice of the Church, and that they are addressed, not to us, but to God.  These reminders that we are not the center of worship are healthy, and help us to direct our minds where they should be directed during Mass.  (And yes, I realize that the Novus Ordo may also be celebrated in Latin and ad orientem, but let's face it: how often is that done?  The Extraordinary Form of Mass, on the other hand, is always done this way.)

2. The Extraordinary Form Sheds More Light on Truths of the Faith. One could go on meditating on the Mass until the end of time, and still not unpack all of its significance; but I find that there are some truths that the Extraordinary Rite makes more obvious.   One is the awesome dignity of the priesthood.  Another is the fact that the Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary.  Mass in the Extraordinary Form teaches me that the priest is not just any old guy doing a job, but a man specially selected and set apart in order to perform the Holy Sacrifice.  I can tell this by the fact that he is facing God, as I am, but he is permitted to approach the altar and to stand in the breach, as it were, between God and myself, obtaining God's pardon and grace for me.  I can also tell this by the fact that the priest does most of the praying and performs most of the external actions, while I sit, stand or kneel quietly.  This teaches me both the futility and the needlessness of relying purely on my own efforts to win salvation: futile, because I am powerless, and needless, because in that moment, God has appointed a minister to do for me what I cannot do for myself.  And all of this teaches me that the Mass is none other than the Sacrifice of Calvary.  The priest is alter Christus: Christ, in the person of the priest, entering the Holy of Holies, offering His own Self to secure redemption, as Paul says in Chapter 9 of the Epistle to the Hebrews.  The Holy Sacrifice itself is offered in silence: this teaches me that I am in the presence of Mystery.  This silence is not the muteness of ignorance, nor the silence of an empty church; it is the expectant hush falling over Calvary as the Savior breathes his last.  This moment is so solemn that when the priest first approaches the altar at the beginning of Mass, he does so in stages, begging mercy and the forgiveness both of his own sins and those of the people.  The penitential right is not slopped or rushed through, but dwelt upon, to make us understand our own sinfulness and nothingness before the stupendous mystery in which we are about to enter.

3. The Extraordinary Form Is Less Susceptible to Liturgical Abuses.  How can a priest improvise Latin nowadays?  No doubt it was done in the past; but at least the faithful (those not conversant in Latin) did not need to be contaminated by it.  And since the priest is not facing the people, and there is not an army of laity in the sanctuary, there is no room for the carnival atmosphere that too often pervades the Novus Ordo Mass. 

4. The Extraordinary Form Sheds More Light on the Reality of the Communion of Saints.  There is no touchy-feely stuff in the Extraordinary Rite; no hand-holding (yuck); no forced intimacy with our neighbors in the pews (double yuck); yet there is a greater sense of unity with the whole Church, Triumphant, Suffering and Militant, in this rite.  The fact that the priest and the faithful are all facing in the same direction underscores the unity of purpose and intention in this solemn act of public worship.  Plus, the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is the Mass -- admittedly with some changes -- that has nourished centuries of saints.  It sheds light on their words.  When St. Faustina describes her mystical experiences during Mass, or when Dietrich von Hildebrand explicates the opening prayer at the very beginning of the Mass (Introibo ad altare Dei) -- now I understand what they're talking about.

5. The Extraordinary Form Is Hated and Despised by All the Right People.  Take it away, Michael Voris.

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

The Mass in the Extraordinary Form is a precious treasure that we were foolish ever to try to change or throw away. I hope that one day the Extraordinary Rite will become the Ordinary Rite, and eventually displace the Novus Ordo entirely.  Until that day comes...I'll continue to attend the Extraordinary Rite whenever I can, and tough it out whenever I can't. 

Easter

It behooved Christ to rise again, for five reasons. First of all; for the commendation of Divine Justice, to which it belongs to exalt them who humble themselves for God's sake, according to Lk. 1:52: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble." Consequently, because Christ humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross, from love and obedience to God, it behooved Him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection; hence it is said in His Person (Psalm 138:2): "Thou hast known," i.e. approved, "my sitting down," i.e. My humiliation and Passion, "and my rising up," i.e. My glorification in the resurrection; as the gloss expounds.

Secondly, for our instruction in the faith, since our belief in Christ's Godhead is confirmed by His rising again, because, according to 2 Cor. 13:4, "although He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God." And therefore it is written (1 Corinthians 15:14): "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and our [Vulg.: 'your'] faith is also vain": and (Psalm 29:10): "What profit is there in my blood?" that is, in the shedding of My blood, "while I go down," as by various degrees of evils, "into corruption?" As though He were to answer: "None. 'For if I do not at once rise again but My body be corrupted, I shall preach to no one, I shall gain no one,'" as the gloss expounds.

Thirdly, for the raising of our hope, since through seeing Christ, who is our head, rise again, we hope that we likewise shall rise again. Hence it is written (1 Corinthians 15:12): "Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead?" And (Job 19:25,27): "I know," that is with certainty of faith, "that my Redeemer," i.e. Christ, "liveth," having risen from the dead; "and" therefore "in the last day I shall rise out of the earth . . . this my hope is laid up in my bosom."

Fourthly, to set in order the lives of the faithful: according to Rm. 6:4: "As Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life": and further on; "Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more; so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive to God."

Fifthly, in order to complete the work of our salvation: because, just as for this reason did He endure evil things in dying that He might deliver us from evil, so was He glorified in rising again in order to advance us towards good things; according to Rm. 4:25: "He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification."

Summa Theologica, III, Q. 53, Art. 1

December 8th: Feast of the Immaculate Conception

From Ineffabilis Deus (Bl. Pius IX, 1854):

The Fathers and writers of the Church, well versed in the heavenly Scriptures, had nothing more at heart than to vie with one another in preaching and teaching in many wonderful ways the Virgin's supreme sanctity, dignity, and immunity from all stain of sin, and her renowned victory over the most foul enemy of the human race. This they did in the books they wrote to explain the Scriptures, to vindicate the dogmas, and to instruct the faithful. These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced His merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind -- words by which He crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, "I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed" [Genesis 3:15] -- taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That His most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with Him and through Him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.

This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as well as the unspeakable abundance and greatness of all heavenly graces, virtues and privileges -- these the Fathers beheld in that ark of Noah, which was built by divine command and escaped entirely safe and sound from the common shipwreck of the whole world;[cf. Genesis 6:9] in the ladder which Jacob saw reaching from the earth to heaven, by whose rungs the angels of God ascended and descended, and on whose top the Lord himself leaned [cf. Genesis 28:12] in that bush which Moses saw in the holy place burning on all sides, which was not consumed or injured in any way but grew green and blossomed beautifully; [cf. Exodus 3:2] in that impregnable tower before the enemy, from which hung a thousand bucklers and all the armor of the strong; [cf. Song of Songs 4:4] in that garden enclosed on all sides, which cannot be violated or corrupted by any deceitful plots; [cf. Song of Songs 4:12] as in that resplendent city of God, which has its foundations on the holy mountains; [cf. Psalm 87:1] in that most august temple of God, which, radiant with divine splendors, is full of the glory of God; [cf. Isaiah 6:1-4] and in very many other biblical types of this kind. In such allusions the Fathers taught that the exalted dignity of the Mother of God, her spotless innocence and her sanctity unstained by any fault, had been prophesied in a wonderful manner.

In like manner did they use the words of the prophets to describe this wondrous abundance of divine gifts and the original innocence of the Virgin of whom Jesus was born. They celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built, and as that Queen who, abounding in delights and leaning on her Beloved, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, entirely perfect, beautiful, most dear to God and never stained with the least blemish.

When the Fathers and writers of the Church meditated on the fact that the most Blessed Virgin was, in the name and by order of God Himself, proclaimed full of grace [cf. Luke 1:28] by the Angel Gabriel when he announced her most sublime dignity of Mother of God, they thought that this singular and solemn salutation, never heard before, showed that the Mother of God is the seat of all divine graces and is adorned with all gifts of the Holy Spirit. To them Mary is an almost infinite treasury, an inexhaustible abyss of these gifts, to such an extent that she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction. Hence she was worthy to hear Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaim: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."[Luke 1:42]

...

Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God Himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life -- not of death -- the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root.

As if these splendid eulogies and tributes were not sufficient, the Fathers proclaimed with particular and definite statements that when one treats of sin, the holy Virgin Mary is not even to be mentioned; for to her more grace was given than was necessary to conquer sin completely. They also declared that the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity; that she was chosen before the ages, prepared for Himself by the Most High, foretold by God when He said to the serpent, "I will put enmities between you and the woman."[Genesis 3:15] -- unmistakable evidence that she crushed the poisonous head of the serpent. And hence they affirmed that the Blessed Virgin was, through grace, entirely free from every stain of sin, and from all corruption of body, soul and mind; that she was always united with God and joined to Him by an eternal covenant; that she was never in darkness but always in light; and that, therefore, she was entirely a fit habitation for Christ, not because of the state of her body, but because of her original grace.

...

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through His Son, that He would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

Hence, if anyone shall dare -- which God forbid! -- to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

...

Let all the children of the Catholic Church, who are so very dear to us, hear these words of ours. With a still more ardent zeal for piety, religion and love, let them continue to venerate, invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived without original sin. Let them fly with utter confidence to this most sweet Mother of mercy and grace in all dangers, difficulties, needs, doubts and fears. Under her guidance, under her patronage, under her kindness and protection, nothing is to be feared; nothing is hopeless. Because, while bearing toward us a truly motherly affection and having in her care the work of our salvation, she is solicitous about the whole human race. And since she has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth, and is exalted above all the choirs of angels and saints, and even stands at the right hand of her only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, she presents our petitions in a most efficacious manner. What she asks, she obtains. Her pleas can never be unheard.

Given at St. Peter's in Rome, the eighth day of December, 1854, in the eighth year of our pontificate.

Pius IX

By the way:

Been to Mass yet???

Infallibility, However Much It Hurts

One of the comments to this piece of Fr. Z's about Francis Cardinal Stafford stepping down as Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary (not the Big House) led me to read The Year of the Peirasmòs - 1968 by Cardinal Stafford. It was published on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, and deals with the howls of dissent from within the Church that greeted Pope Paul VI's encyclical in 1968.

Cardinal Stafford describes his experiences in 1968 as a priest who, having seen through his ministry "the bitter fruits of the estrangement of men and women," and of the separation of the unitive and procreative aspects of sexuality, dissented from the dissenters. "The summer of 1968," he recalls, "is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Πειρασμός [peirasmòs, in Greek, "trial," "test," "temptation"] for many.

As I read, I was struck by a few lines (emphasis added):

...the Papal Commission sent its recommendations to the Pope. The majority advised that the Church’s teaching on contraception be changed in light of new circumstances. Cardinal Shehan [archbishop of Baltimore] was part of that majority. Even before the encyclical had been signed and issued, his vote had been made public although not on his initiative.

As we know, the Pope decided otherwise.

This is not the first I had heard of the findings of the papal commission, but it is the first time I have received this fact with such force. Here is a striking proof that the Church is not purely a human invention, and that therefore her visible head on earth cannot err in matters of faith and morals. If she were, then no doubt the Pope would have bowed to the papal commission's recommendations, and swung into line with increasingly vocal and strident public opinion on the subject of birth control. But instead, he stuck to the Truth, in spite of the cost -- and the cost was indeed appalling, as Cardinal Stafford describes.

Yet the harm done was not the product of the Pope's teaching, but of the actions of those who refused to listen to him. Cardinal Stafford describes the ruptures within the clergy resulting from the preference on the part of many for their own opinions over the teachings of the Magisterium. And today we are reaping the bitter fruits of the Sexual Revolution: abortion raised to the level of a constitutionally guaranteed right; burgeoning illegitimacy; the tidal wave of crime and other social pathologies stemming from fatherless families; the appalling degradation of women; the destruction of marriage as an institution that protects children.

Nevertheless, the loss is not total, thanks to a Pope who -- despite his faults and mistakes -- stood by the Truth, so that his prodigal sons and daughters would at least have a beacon to light their way back home once they came to their senses. The moment of Humanae Vitae's publication ranks with Clement VII's decision not to grant Henry VIII his hard-fought-for divorce from Catherine of Aragon, even though so many prominent persons were in favor of it, and even though he knew it would be the excuse for England to enter into schism. Moments like these prove that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, and that however close to the edge of the abyss He may allow her to go, He will never let her fall in.

This is the reason the Pope is infallible on questions of faith and morals: not for his own personal aggrandizement in the eyes of the world (of which Paul VI enjoyed precisely none on this occasion), but so that Faith and Truth may be preserved inviolate.

Novena to the Holy Spirit

Why do Catholics make novenas? Because after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Apostles and the Blessed Mother waited in the Upper Room and prayed for nine days for the coming of the Holy Spirit. When we make a novena -- nine days of prayer for a particular intention -- we make an act of perseverance in prayer, and we honor and commemorate the original Novena: the infant Church's nine days of prayer between the Ascension and Pentecost.

Novena Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

V. Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created,

R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.

O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Your faithful, grant that by that same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Alternatives to Sacramental Confession

For those of you who would rather eat a bucket of bugs than confess your sins to a priest, consider the story of Rebecca Hancock of Jacksonville, Florida, whose church is threatening to take up the matter of her illicit sex life with the congregation.

Hancock, who has been having sex with a man to whom she is not married, left Grace Community Church because the church "harassed" her over the illicit relationship. Although Hancock is no longer a member of the church, the church has advised her in writing that they are bound to broadcast her sins to the congregation. Citing Matthew 18, the church states that it been left "with no other choice but to carry out the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ" and "tell it to the church." The pastor of Grace Community Church has declined comment, but some other local pastors defend this practice on the grounds that the Bible says to punish persistent sinners.

This story does not state explicitly whether Hancock was sinning secretly or openly and notoriously, though one gets the impression that the authorities at Grace Community Church were threatening to disclose something that was not widely known. But set aside for the moment the fact that Rebecca Hancock's activities are no longer private, now that she has told them to the media. Set aside, too, the fact that she apparently continues in a sexual relationship with a man to whom she is not married, although it might pay the church authorities to ask themselves whether their methods did not serve to make her dig her heels in.

The real question is: is public disclosure of sins, or the threat of such disclosure, really a preferable alternative to sacramental confession? Consider the facts about confession:

1. Confession removes the burden of sins. Provided you have purpose of amendment, you can be certain that when the priest says, "I absolve you of your sins," those sins are gone.

2. Confession gives you the grace to avoid sin in the future. It drags sinful tendencies out by the roots. And most of all, for our present purposes:

3. What is revealed in confession is absolutely secret. Nothing you tell the priest in confession will ever be repeated, much less broadcast to every man, woman and child in the congregation. The priest cannot repeat what he hears in confession for any reason whatsoever. Not even to save a life. Not even to save Western Civilization. Not even to prevent a meteor from striking the earth. He cannot drag out your sins and set them before the whole congregation, even if you are confessing the same sins for the 4,785,983rd time.

Confession was instituted by God. Any other method of dealing with sin was invented by men, and is about as effective as man is himself. Which ain't saying much.

December 8th: Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Some of you are willing to accept that Mary needed a great deal of faith in order to carry out her mission as the mother of Jesus. And this is true. She ran the risk of being taken for a woman of loose morals who got pregnant out of wedlock, but she left it to God to inform Joseph of the divine origin of the infant she was carrying. She and Joseph had to run all over Bethlehem looking for lodgings when she was on the point of giving birth. She had to hear holy Simeon tell her that her Child would be a sign of the rise and fall of many in Israel, and that a sword would pierce her own soul. She had to fly into Egypt to save Jesus' life when Herod was out for His blood. She had to endure the agony of losing Him for three days when He was twelve, before finding Him in the temple. She had to meet Him, bruised and torn and bloody, on His way to Calvary, and stand beneath the Cross during His Passion. She had to endure the piercing of His Heart with the lance and His being taken down from the Cross, and the sealing of His Body in the tomb. Mary would have had to have an unbelievable and unparalleled faith in order to endure all of this perfectly, and to resign herself to God's will, no matter how much it pained her, and to depend entirely on God's providence through it all.

Some of you are willing to concede this. Some of you who are willing to concede this are also willing to admit that sin hinders us in the exercise of any virtue, including faith.

And yet you are not willing to concede that God must have given Mary an unparalleled grace in order to meet her need for unparalleled virtue in order to carry out her unique mission.

You know that God can do anything, and that God never gives us a mission without also giving us what we need to accomplish it. Why, then, can you not believe that, in anticipation of the merits of Christ's Passion, God preserved Mary from the least shadow of sin from the moment of her conception? Plus, it is ludicrous to think that the God who was so particular and demanding on the least details having to do with His temple, and the purity of His priests under the Old Law, and who could and who could not enter the Holy of Holies, would not also have insisted on the utmost purity for the living tabernacle of His Son, namely, the woman who was to carry Him for nine months, and then live with Him for the next 30 years.

Mary's purity is not due to her own merits. The Church has never taught that it is, and no orthodox Catholic believes it. We do believe that Mary never committed the least sin, and it was a special grace from God that made this possible. That is the doctrine that we celebrate today.

Which is, by the way, a holy day of obligation. So:

BEEN TO MASS YET?

Forgotten Prayers: Act of Contrition

Confession of our sins to a priest is the means that Christ instituted to forgive us and restore us to God's grace. John 20:19-23 says:

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Although only God can forgive sins, He also has the authority to delegate this power; here, He is clearly doing exactly that. It would not be possible for the Apostles or their successors to forgive or retain sins without knowing what the sins are; therefore, it must be necessary for them to hear confessions. As the picture below illustrates, the Church teaches us that it is Christ Himself Whom we encounter in the confessional, through His priest.

Naturally, to be forgiven for our sins, we must be sorry for them and resolve to avoid them in the future, so at the end of every confession, we make an Act of Contrition. (Probably doesn't hurt to make Acts of Contrition outside of Confession, either.)

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of Heaven, and the pains of Hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.

I don't find an exact translation of this Act of Contrition in Latin, but here is a slightly different one for Latin fans:

Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen.

Testimonies to the Communion of Saints

The Communion of Saints is one of the hardest doctrines for non-Catholics to accept -- even though everyone who recites the Apostle's Creed professes to believe in it. Being united with Christ, we are also united with each other in Christ. This union is not broken by death: if it were, this would be a pretty poor testament to the omnipotence of the God Who is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38).

And so, just as we ask others on earth to pray for us, we also ask the saints in Heaven to intercede for us. That the saints are able to hear our prayers and answer us presents no difficulties, because it is God who makes it possible. And, as St. Thomas More points out in his Dialogue Concerning Heresies, God demonstrates His approval of the practice of praying to the saints by working miracles through their intercession. With some exceptions (e.g., martyrs for the Faith, such as St. Thomas More), the Church requires miracles attributable to the intercession of candidates for sainthood as proof that these candidates are actually in Heaven before she will canonize them. They must be miracles of the highest order (such as a complete and instantaneous cure from an extremely grave and life-threatening illness, unexplainable by medical science); and they must withstand minute and relentless scrutiny in order to be passed as miracles. Although it is possible for individuals or groups within the Church to be taken in by frauds, it must be acknowledged that the Universal Church has been the greatest debunker of hoaxes and deceits in human history; she does not prop up fakes for veneration.

In her Diary, St. Faustina comments that the saints have God as their first Love, but they also bear a tender and heartfelt love for us. So we know that we may ask the saints for their intercession, and they will obtain for us what is for our good. But sometimes -- and perhaps more often than we think -- the saints take the initiative. Early in the life of this blog, I told the story of my own encounter with Bl. Margaret of Castello. Yesterday, The Redoubtable One posted the dramatic account of a Serbian abortionist whom St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom he had never before heard, visited in his dreams.

This put me in mind of a story from St. Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography (The Story of a Soul), where she recounts the intervention of a saint of whom she had thitherto taken very little notice:

The very next day -- it was May 10th -- just as the dawn was breaking, though before I was awake, I found myself walking in a gallery with our Mother. Without knowing how they got there, I suddenly saw three Carmelites in their mantles and long veils. I knew they had come from Heaven. Then I thought: "If only I could see the face of one of these Carmelites! I would be so happy!"

As if she had heard me, the tallest of these Saints advanced toward me. I fell on my knees, and then to my joy she raised her veil, or rather, cast it all about me. I recognized her at once; it was the Venerable Mother Anne of Jesus, the Foundress of Carmel in France. How lovely she was; there was an unearthly beauty about her face, and though the heavy veil enveloped us, it seemed transfused with a gentle light I cannot describe. It seemed to be shining from within, but it did not cast any rays.

She kissed me tenderly, and when I saw how much she loved me, I took courage and spoke to her. "Tell me, Mother, I beg of you, is God going to leave me here much longer? Will He come and fetch me soon?" She smiled most tenderly, and said, "Soon...yes, soon...I promise you."

"Answer me something more, Mother; does God want anything more from me than the little things I do for Him, and my desires? Is He pleased with me?" A new light seemed to suffuse her face at once, and her expression appeared to me incomparably more tender. "God asks no more of you," she said, "...and He is pleased with you; very, very pleased." She took my head between her hands, and I cannot possibly express how tender were the kisses that she showered on me. Gladness filled my heart, and remembering my Sisters, I was about to ask for favors for them too, but I awoke.

I cannot say how lighthearted I was! Several months have gone by since this wonderful dream, yet the heavenly charm of it has lost none of its freshness. I can still see her loving gaze, her loving smile; I still seem to feel the touch of all her kisses....On waking, I not only believed that Heaven existed, I knew it; and I knew too that it was full of souls who loved me as their own child. The impression of it all remains in my heart, made all the more dear by the fact that until then I had been, I will not say indifferent to the Venerable Mother Anne of Jesus, but forgetful of her unless she happened to be mentioned, which was not very often, and I had never invoked her aid.

Yet now I know and realize that at any rate she had never forgotten me; and this not only makes me love her all the more, but also increases my love for all the Blessed in Heaven.

Why the Catholic Faith Is Not for Wimps

Somewhere along the line, Christianity got reduced to a school of self-esteem, self-improvement therapy, founded by a granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing, protest-marching Jesus Who came to teach us all to make love, not war, laugh heartily, breathe deeply and recycle. A Jesus Who makes no demands on us. A Jesus Who shelters us from all tribulations. A Jesus Who makes us feel good (and if you don't, it's because you haven't got any faith).

And it's all crappola. Authentic Catholicism is about joy that can never be taken from us, and peace such as the world cannot give, but it hurts. Authentic Catholicism is about suffering. Authentic Catholicism is about struggle. It is a muscular, fire-breathing, armed-to-the-teeth, pull-no-punches faith -- the strength of the faltering, the comfort of the sorrowing, gentle to the weak, compassionate to the poor, but uncompromising with squeamishness and double-mindedness.

Was there ever a faith that that was harder on its most faithful adherents? Consider what good Catholics have endured down the ages:

Battles against Demons. Great saints withstand horrific attacks from Hell -- sometimes (as in the cases of, say, Curé of Ars and Padre Pio) physical attacks; and it is precisely because they are faithful that they are able to do so. We are all required to withstand temptation, however fierce, and we are given the means to do so; and even though it's never easy, we are never without the means to prevail. Today's post illustration is an early 16th-century tempera painting of St. Catherine of Siena being assaulted by devils. Hideous, horrible, frightful creatures coming at her from every side, clawing and grabbing and tugging her in all different directions -- but do you notice the serenity of her countenance?

Battles in Defense of the Truth. We tend to be protective of our favorite sins, and resent nothing so much as having them exposed for what they are. It therefore requires considerable courage to tell the truths that nobody wants to hear. Consider St. John the Baptist, who lost his head for telling King Herod the truth about his incestuous "marriage" to Herodias. Or St. Thomas More, who, after a long imprisonment, lost his head for speaking the truth and standing up for the Faith.

Battles Against the Odds. God sometimes asks us to do what seems to us impossible, and to trust in Him for His help, conquering both our fear and our self-will. Consider:
-- God told St. Joan of Arc, an uneducated peasant girl, to find the rightful King of France and restore him to his throne. This unlikeliest of generals personally led armies and accomplished her mission. And it cost her everything.
-- God called St. Joseph of Cupertino to be a priest, despite the fact that he was so (apparently) absent-minded and stupid as to be practically non-functional and hopeless in the world. There was only one passage in Scripture that St. Joseph could expound upon; miraculously, it was this verse he was asked to expound upon in his oral examination. Because of his performance in this examination, he was passed for ordination. But he had to suffer all kinds of indignities and humiliations to the end of his days.
-- St. John Vianney was a hopelessly poor student who worked hard for his failing grades in seminary; but he went on to become not only a priest, but the patron saint of parish priests. He spent decades pouring himself out daily, spending hours and hours in the confessional, living on a bare subsistence diet and a very few hours of sleep at night.
-- St. Gabriel Possenti, a young, frail Passionist monk, single-handedly drove a gang of marauders out of town with a pair of their own pistols. He had traded in the pleasures to which his youth was devoted for a life of austerity and sacrifice.

Battles against Our Own Evil Tendencies. No doubt about it: we are our own worst enemies. Sometimes the devil doesn't need to tempt us, because there's nothing he could do to us worse than what we do to ourselves. Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene her sins of dissolution, but admonished her to sin no more -- no easy proposition in the case of deeply-rooted sinful habits. But the saints do it. For love of God, St. Mary of Egypt gave up a seventeen-year career as a prostitute; St. Augustine gave up the concubine who had borne him an illegitimate son; St. Phillip Howard gave up womanizing and general dissolution at the court of Queen Elizabeth I; St. Gabriel Possenti gave up the wine, women and song that were leading him on a downward path.

Martyrdom. We must be prepared suffer everything, and even to die the most horrific death rather than deny the Faith. Every one of the Apostles was martyred. Most, if not all, the Popes from the time of Peter to the time of Constantine were martyred. Christians have been imprisoned, tortured, starved, abused, had their families broken up, had all their property confiscated, because they would not deny the faith. We are expected to undergo all of this if necessary, or suffer eternal damnation.

No other faith promises rewards as great as those promised by Christ; but was there ever a faith that was stricter and more demanding? The Faith is uncompromising with the Truth, because evil is uncompromising. Evil is a ruthless plague that calls for a stern remedy. Such a remedy is the Catholic Faith.

And amazingly, herein lies the appeal of the Church. Where the Faith is strong, forceful, direct and undiluted, churches are packed; where it is sissified and emasculated, the pews are empty. Where the Church is confident and straightforward, and unafraid to call sin by its right name, the tide of malice in the world is stemmed. Surely, the rise of vice and immorality in the Western world is due in no small part to the moral confusion within the Catholic Church in recent decades.

Authentic Catholicism is not for wimps. But unlike the Alan Alda/Michael Kinsley variety, it does work every time it's tried.

More on the Fate of Aborted Babies

It has come to my attention that a miscarriage support group forum, Daily Strength, has latched onto my post from February of last year speculating about the fate of the souls of aborted babies. To a person, the correspondents on this thread have written me off as heartless, counter-Scriptural, and even anti-Catholic. I don't wish to intrude upon their forum, so I post my replies here, linked back from the original post, for anyone from Daily Strength who cares to read it.

1. I am sorry that you have missed what I actually said. I wish you would go back and read my post more carefully. I did not state that aborted babies go to Hell; nor did I state that the Church teaches that aborted babies go to Hell. In fact, when I wrote that post, I went to great pains to avoid being understood to say either of those things. The Church does not teach that unbaptized babies go to Hell. In fact, the passage I quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that we may hope for the salvation of unbaptized infants. Their fate, however, is uncertain in view of the necessity of Baptism (more on which later); and therefore, the Church commends them to the mercy of God, who loves these babies far, far more than any human or all humans put together could. It is worth noting that far greater minds than yours or mine in the history of Christianity (for example, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas) could not declare themselves certain of the salvation of unbaptized infants.

2. I am sorry that you did not notice that my own opinion -- uniformly vilified in your thread -- is actually inclined toward the view that unbaptized babies may go to heaven. I actually mustered several arguments in favor of that view, and against the proposition referred to at the beginning of the post that had originally prompted my thoughts on the subject. Please go back and read this. However, when all is said and done, however much I hope the souls of unbaptized babies enjoy the Beatific Vision, I cannot be absolutely certain that they do. The mercy of God may be trusted in, but not presumed upon. This is why the Church requires her children to baptize babies as soon as possible after birth; and I believe it is why God leaves us uncertain as to their fate if they die without Baptism.

3. If babies who die without Baptism do not go to heaven, it does not follow that they must go to Hell. In fact, the mercy of God runs counter to the idea of damnation for unbaptized infants. This is where the speculation regarding Limbo comes from -- a state in which the soul, though deprived of the supernatural happiness of Heaven, nevertheless enjoys perfect natural happiness. As I said in the original post, this is not a defined doctrine of the Church, but an attempt to reconcile the mercy of God with the necessity of Baptism. My own opinion (which I am accused of superimposing upon Catholic teaching) is that even if unbaptized babies are not in Heaven (though I sincerely hope they are), they are far happier where they are than anyone will ever be in this life.

4. Someone on your thread disputes the necessity of Baptism. Jesus Himself, who did nothing pointless, and everything with a view to teaching us and setting us an example, underwent Baptism. And in the Scriptures, we read:

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit....(Matthew 28:19)

As to infant Baptism, consider Acts 16:14-15, 27-33, where new disciples are described as being baptized with their entire households -- that would include men, women and infants. Infant Baptism -- which goes back to the beginning of the Church -- is not an addition to Scripture or an unlawful innovation.

5. One person in the thread who posted several entries professes to be a Catholic. I am very sorry to see that you do not assent to all of the Church's teachings, because there is no dichotomy between Christ and His Church ("He who hears you [said Jesus to His disciples and their successors] hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him Who sent me." -- Luke 10:16). I am also sorry that, for the sake of human respect, you feel the need to apologize for what you call the Church's "weird rules." "For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38.) Please understand that as Catholics, we are bound in conscience to believe all of the Church's doctrines, whether we understand them or not, whether we like them or not. You admit to not knowing all about your faith; but we all have a duty to inform ourselves about our faith, lest we run the risk of losing it. How can you be so sure I am misrepresenting the faith when you are uninformed about it yourself?

It appears that this post of mine about where aborted babies go has caused some pain and grief to some who have suffered the agony of miscarriage. I am sorry that this is so; however, it was not intended. I am especially sorry, because the pain was needless, as I did not say what I am taken to have said.

Just How Easy Is the Easy Yoke?

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

What exactly do these verses mean? Did not Christ come to liberate His people from the burdensome ceremonial laws and traditions of men so beloved of the Pharisees? How, then, can the Church be justified in making laws? In Dialogue Concerning Heresies (New York, Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2006, excellent rendition into modern English by Mary Gottschalk), St. Thomas More tackles – and lays flat – these questions. In Sir Thomas’ dialogue with “the messenger” – a young university student sent to him to receive counsel regarding the new religious ideas gripping Europe – he argues as follows (formatting and paragraph breaks are mine, and Scripture citations are omitted):

The laws of Christ’s Church…are made by Him Himself and His Holy Spirit, for the good order of His people; and they are not, in hardness and difficulty of keeping, anything like the laws of Moses. And of that I dare, of necessity, make you yourself the judge. For if you really think about it, I believe that if you were, at this age that you are now, to choose, you would rather be bound to many of the laws of Christ’s Church than to the circumcision one alone.

And as much comfort as we may think Christ called us to, the laws that have been made by His Church are not half as much trouble or difficult to keep as are His own – the ones that He Himself imposes in the Gospel – even if we set aside the [evangelical] counsels. It is, I feel, harder not to swear at all than not to swear falsely; to forbear every angry word than not to kill; to watch and pray continually than to do so on a few designated days.

And then what an anxiety and solicitude there is with the forbearing of every idle word! What a severe threat, from an earthly point of view, for a small matter! Almost never was such a distressing thing said to the Jews by Moses as is said to us by Christ in that statement alone, where he says that on Judgment Day we shall give an account of every idle word. And then what do you say about the forbidding of divorce, and the revoking of liberty to have several wives, where they had the liberty to wed as they pleased if they took a fancy to any that they came across in the war?...

Also, what comfort do you call this, that we are obliged – under pain of perpetual damnation – to suffer whatever kind of affliction and shameful death, whatever kind of martyrdom, for the profession of our faith? Do you believe that these ease-giving words of His easy yoke and light burden were not spoken as much to His Apostles as to you? And yet what ease did He call them to? Did He not call them to watching, fasting, praying, preaching, traveling, hunger, thirst, cold and heat, beatings, scourgings, imprisonment, painful and shameful death?

The easiness of His yoke does not consist in bodily ease, nor does the lightness of His burden consist in the slackening of any bodily pain (unless we are so oblivious that whereas He Himself did not gain Heaven without pain, we expect to get there with play), but it consists in the sweetness of hope, whereby we experience in our pain a pleasant taste of Heaven. This is…not any delivering from the laws of the Church (or from any good civil laws, either) into a sorry liberty of slothful rest. For that would be not an easy yoke, but a pulling of the head out of the yoke. And it would be not a light burden, but all the burden removed, contrary to the words of both Saint Paul and Saint Peter…[who] do command of us obedience to our superiors and rulers, of the one kind and the other, in things not forbidden by God, even if the things are hard and distressing.

Something to think about!

Must Catholics Embrace Pacifism?

Blessed be the LORD, my rock,who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle...

Psalm 144:1

My last post on guns and spree killers prompted a comment -- from a reader who assumed the name of a World War II British fighter plane -- that included the following line:

I also find it hillarious that the "arm everyone" argument is posited on a Catholic blog. Somehow, I think Jesus would be against everyone being potentially lethal towards each other.

It is alleged, then, that my position on an armed populace is inconsistent with my Catholic Faith. So the question becomes: does the Catholic Church require her children to embrace pacifism? Does the Church, always and everywhere, and in all circumstances, condemn the use of force, and the instruments of force, and those who use force? Does the Church require us as individuals unilaterally to disarm in a dangerous world? If I had time, I could lay out a philosophical case, citing to Scripture and the Fathers and other authorities, appealing for help in such an undertaking to friends who are more learned, and whose minds are far less cluttered than mine.

But, being cluttered in mind, and burdened by my various quirks and interests, I thought first about those whom the Church venerates, objects of veneration being clues to the character of a person or an institution. There are in fact many saints who, for example, were soldiers: Ignatius of Loyola; Martin of Tours; and George, around whom many legends have sprung. Some of these saints gave up soldiering; Martin of Tours, who was a Roman officer in a ceremonial unit, actually refused to fight on religious grounds and was imprisoned for cowardice. But there are other saints who, while Christians, took up soldiering, or continued to soldier while being Christians, or wielded deadly force on some occasion or other, or who encouraged and even led combatants, even though they themselves may not have taken up arms. That the Church should encourage the veneration of such as these would seem to (a) rule out that their acts of violence -- never, by the way, wanton or unlawful -- made them sinners in the eyes of the Church, and (b) indicate that the Catholic position on the use of even lethal force is not quite as imagined. Witness:

St. Michael the Archangel: The prince of the heavenly host, who, upon the rebellion of the evil angels, drove them and Satan out of Heaven. St. Michael is venerated as the patron of policemen and soldiers; he is depicted wearing armor, bearing a sword and standing on the devil's head.

St. Maurice (?-c.287): soldier in the Roman army from Upper Egypt; member of a legion composed entirely of Christians. The entire legion was massacred for refusing -- NOT to fight -- but to offer sacrifices to idols. Canonized before the procedures and investigations instituted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

St. Agathus of Byzantium (?-c. 303): centurion in the imperial Roman Army, stationed in Thrace. He was martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian.

St. Louis IX of France (1214-1270): King of France, the son of Louis XIII and Blanche of Castille. Devoutly Christian, he instituted numerous legal and judicial reforms, built leper hospitals and aided the mendicant orders. He led two Crusades and died during the second one. He was canonized in 1297.

St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431): in obedience to visions from heaven, in which she was ordered to find the true King of France and help him to regain his throne, this uneducated peasant girl took up arms against England and did exactly that, personally leading armies and suffering serious wounds. The Bishop of Beauvais, an English sympathizer, had her tried (in an ecclesiastical court) and burned at the stake (by the secular authorities) for heresy. Her eloquence and wisdom under withering cross-examination was remarkable. In 1454, she was re-tried and acquitted. She was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.

St. John of Capistrano (1386-1456): Franciscan priest and miracle worker. John preached Crusade against the Turks after the fall of Constantinople, and, at the behest of Pope Callistus II, he led the Christian army of 70,000 to victory at the age of 70. He died in the field in October of 1456. Pope Alexander VIII canonized him in 1690.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619): Franciscan Capuchin friar, military chaplain. In 1601, Lawrence rallied the German princes against the superior Turkish foe and led the army into battle, carrying no weapon but a crucifix. The Turks lost. He was canonized in 1881 by Pope Leo XIII, and named a Doctor of the Church by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1959.

And then my personal favorite:

St. Gabriel Possenti (1838-1862): Passionist monk who died at age 24 of tuberculosis. When a band of marauding soldiers arrived in the town of Isola in Italy, Gabriel received permission to go to the aid of the villagers. Facing down a brigand who had seized a young girl, Gabriel seized the man's pistol, pointed it at him, and ordered him to let the girl go. When another soldier came up, Gabriel ordered him to hand over his pistol, which he took in his other hand. When their loot-laden companions approached, thinking a monk would not even know how to fire a gun, Gabriel took dead aim at a running lizard, and shot it. Result: the soldiers laid down their loot, put out the fires they had started, and split. Gabriel was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.

And as a point of interest, of the four American military chaplains who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor between World War II and Vietnam, 100% of these were Catholic priests -- and one has pending a cause for sainthood. True, military chaplains are not ordinary fighting men; but if it is true that, by being commissioned military officers and providing spiritual comfort to soldiers in the field, they are aiding and abetting that which is unqualifiedly sinful in the eyes of the Church, then one has to ask (a) why the priests themselves would bother to distinguish themselves in such service; and (b) why the Church would even permit them to be there, let alone (c) entertain a cause for sainthood among them.

I grant that this is not an erudite, learned discourse based on Holy Scripture or the Church Fathers. But it should at least serve to illustrate the doubtfulness of the proposition that my position on firearms is inconsistent with my Faith.

P.S. The stained glass window pictured above, showing the Blessed Mother and Infant Jesus surrounded by American paratroopers, is from the Catholic church in Sainte-Mère-Église, Normandy, France.