JH - Athos gives Witness

Road to Holy Cross Abbey

Journey Home with Jeffry Hendrix. This must be what they mean by "must watch TV."

GKC - Why Be Catholic

Dale Ahlquist writing of G. K. Chesterton (of course) says,

(W)hen we have our days of doubt, when we are confused by the incessant attacks and the personal disappointments, it is a good exercise to sit down and make a list of all the things that prove that the Catholic faith is true.

• The Church is the only consistent defender of morality and virtue. It defends marriage and the family. It defends children and babies and the unborn. It defends the poor. It defends peace and human dignity. It defends order and it also defends freedom. It defends the body and the mind and the soul.
  
• The Church is the only institution in history that has continually survived its own defeats. Chesterton even maintains that it has survived its own death. Several times in history the Church seemed to be done and destroyed. But it is still here. It has survived its own death, says Chesterton, "because it had a God who knew his way out of the grave."
  
• The history of Christianity is the history of the Catholic Church. The Church has not only carried the faith through history, it has carried the whole culture. The monasteries preserved the texts of the ancient world, keeping open our only windows to the past. When iconoclasts were smashing statues, Catholics preserved the art of sculpture. Catholic artists even brought sculpture inside paintings, giving them depth and dimension. They wrote music that we can still sing. The castles built in the medieval times are now museums or ruins. The Cathedrals built at the same time are still being used for their original purpose.
  
• All other Christian sects are a reaction against or a splitting off from the Catholic Church. They are always something less than the Catholic Church, never anything more. They lack something, whether it be a pope or a priest or a pronouncement. Whatever partial truth they cling to is something that they have received from the Catholic Church, whether it be the Bible or baptism or "bringing in the sheaves."
• History's greatest people, the saints, are Catholic ... Read all.

Man or Rabbit? C.S. Lewis

Why do we not only NOT press the questions that C.S. Lewis presents here but we bury further our heads in the sand, is it so we won't have to come to terms with our humanity?

But still—for intellectual honour has sunk very low in our age—I hear someone whimpering on with his question - “Will it help me? Will it make me happy? Do you really think I’d be better if I became a Christian?” Well, if you must have it, my answer is “Yes.” But I don’t like giving an answer at all at this stage. Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you. Either that’s true or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal “sell” on record. Isn’t it obviously the job of every man (that is a man and not a rabbit) to try to find out which, and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug? Faced with such an issue, can you really remain wholly absorbed in your own blessed “moral development”?

Read this very relevant chapter by C.S. Lewis from God in the Dock

150 Reasons

Dave Armstrong's interesting and thought-provoking piece of apologetics: One Hundred Fifty Reasons I'm Catholic - And You Should Be Too!

I would love to think it would only take, oh, 75 reasons for most persons. But from my experience, 300 wouldn't turn many to Mother Church. Sigh.

Mary - Mother of the Son

While recovering sight in my left eye with its recently reattached retina, I am reading Mark Shea's first volume in his Marian trilogy, Mary – Mother of the Son. I cannot speak highly enough about it.

Shea deals with the usual criticisms and misunderstandings between Catholics and Protestants regarding Our Lady (from the uber-Catholic haters like Jack Chick to the mildly disdainful Evangelicals). Then he really goes to work on the "pseudo-knowledge" sorts like Dan Brown who see all Christian faith as a derivative of pagan religions and conspiracies keeping this Gnosis from us by the "evil" Catholic Church.

Shea does all of the above not with a caustic defensiveness, but with a Chestertonian wit and brimming faith which, by definition, has sought understanding and found it in Mother Church's patrimony.

So Mary, Mother of the Son is not merely a defense of Marian devotion. It is an excellent little book that helps move converts and wannabee converts from the road-map learning of catechesis to the more mature, Spirit-led faith seeking understanding realms of mystagogy.

Thumbs up!

St Augustine & the Sacraments

Many Protestant Christians like to claim and quote from Saint Augustine. Fine and dandy. Dave Armstrong has compiled something helpful in the following: St. Augustine's Acceptance of the Seven Catholic Sacraments.

Catholicism - Faith and Reason

Just as Benedict XVI releases his new Encyclical CARITAS IN VERITATE (and which Elizabeth Scalia, 'The Anchoress', juxtaposes neatly with Pixar's great little Partly Cloudy), I think it is important for Catholics to remind themselves of something.

Protestants do not connect all the dots that we do as Catholic Christians. We see the Holy Father bring forth an invaluable letter of instruction for the faithful in the world. We also see the inevitable plethora of commenting about it by this and that authority in the Catholic press constellation. Protestant Christians furrow their brows and wonder, "Why do they (Catholics) give so much importance to what that old guy in fancy white robes writes?" They may even add, "It just isn't faithful to Jesus our Lord to make old Pope Benedict so important."

Catholicism for Protestants is a massive hookwinking, bait-and-switch scheme. Remove the pure, New Testament faith that each and every generation has access to, and replace it with this vast conspiracy of hierarchy, power, and mumbo-jumbo.

And, the truth be told, often Catholics have been too gullible and, sorry to say, ignorant of Catholic truth. All it takes, for example, is one beautiful, young, sincere Evangelical coed who asks, "Where is the Pope mentioned in the Baa-bull?" and young Joe Catholic may even discard the patrimony of the Church for good (or in this case, bad).

Catholicism is a vital (that is, living) mixture of faith and reason - and I mean reason. It consists of a near-never ending string of therefores: a is true, and b is true; therefore c must also be true. And if c is true and d is true, it follows, therefore, that e is also true ...

So, it is with admiration that I lift up Lydia McGrew's excellent post at What's Wrong with the World regarding evidence for the historicity of the New Testament. I have heard a similar (and better) examination for the historicity of the New Testament documents given by the president of Christendom College, Timothy T. O'Donnell, STD, KGCHS. But this is one of those starting points that shows first things about which Protestants and Catholics must agree.

And, by the way, the beginning of the papacy is found in St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16, when Our Lord appoints St Peter the first Pope. Benedict XVI is our 266th.

UPDATE: Father Robert Barron's first impressions on Caritas in Veritate here.

2 Cheers for Independence Day

Some strong and necessary words from Archbishop Chaput

Ahtos links to a good interview of Archbishop Chaput.

While I think others may get caught up with the 'politics' what interests me is his sharp understanding of how;

American Catholics need to realize that many in the current generation haven’t just been "assimilated" into the American culture, but have in fact been "absorbed and bleached and digested by it," Archbishop Chaput asserted.

If this realization doesn’t happen, the coming generations will continue on the same path and "a real Catholic presence in American life will continue to weaken and disappear," said Chaput.

Lets play connect the dots with another link from Chronicles of Atlantis on an interview of Dinesh D'Souza. We might conclude that there is a paradox or that both can't be right about the strength (or weakness) of Catholicism or Christianity, at least in the West.

So HERE is another dot from René Girard as he speaks of Christianity's great loss of ground (in more ways than one) over the last few centuries by way of relativism and a modern liberalization of Christian thought with a near total dismissal of dogma. These people, in fact whole congregations, may claim a Christian label but they will be like chaff tossed to and fro when they come to realize the crucial reason for the dogma.

So Christianity, as D'Souza says, may be the fastest growing religion in the world, yet we can safely say that it is not 'performing' at that pace in the West. I think Girard would agree with Chaput that we need to be people girding ourselves up with the Real Presence so we have something to pass on to the next generation.

Nihilism as 'Being' in Nothingness - Are You Still Confused?

Tips all the way round. First to Athos' post Nihil who tips to Daniel Mitsui's post A Creature of the Depths

NIHILISM The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

Read it HERE

I have pulled out a few excerpts to hopefully wet your apetite to read this article.

Nihilism has error for its root, and error can be conquered only by Truth. Most of the criticism of Nihilism is not directed to this root at all, and the reason for this--as we shall see--is that Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and pervasive, has entered so thoroughly and so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men living today, that there is no longer any "front" on which it may be fought; and those who think they are fighting it are most often using its own weapons, which they in effect turn against themselves.

The whole food of Christian Truth, however, is accessible only to faith; and the chief obstacle to such faith is not logic, as the facile modern view has it, but another and opposed faith. We have seen indeed, that logic cannot deny absolute truth without denying itself, the logic that sets itself up against the Christian Revelation is merely the servant of another "revelation," of a false "absolute truth": namely Nihilism.

The first stage of Nihilism, which is Liberalism, is born of the errors of taking our diseased eye for a sound one, of mistaking its impaired vision for a view of the true world, and thus of discharging the physician of the soul, the Church, whose ministrations are not needed by a "healthy" man. In the second stage, Realism, the disease, no longer attended by the necessary physician, begins to grow; vision is narrowed; distant objects, already obscure enough in the "natural" state of impaired vision, become invisible; only the nearest objects are seen distinctly, and the patient becomes convinced no others exist. In the third stage, Vitalism, infection leads to inflammation; even the nearest objects become dim and distorted and there are hallucinations. In the fourth stage, the Nihilism of Destruction, blindness ensues and the disease spreads to the rest of the body, effecting agony, convulsions, and death.

The Nihilist rejection of Christian faith and institutions, then, is the result, not so much of a loss of faith in them and in their divine origin, as of rebellion against the authority they represent and the obedience they command.

But if "rebellion" is all the "natural man" may know today, why is it that the "natural man" of the Renaissance or the Enlightenment seemed to know much more, and thought himself to be a much nobler being. "They took too much for granted," is the usual answer, and lived on Christian capital without knowing it; today we are bankrupt, and know it." Contemporary man, in a word, is "disillusioned." But, strictly speaking, one must be "disillusioned" of an illusion: if men have fallen way, not from illusion, but from truth--and this is indeed the case--then profounder reasoning is required to explain their present "plight."

If you need a visual aid to help make sense out of this "nihilism" then check this out:



And here is an opinion which I think is more prevalent than what we would like to admit.

I'm a Christian and Nihilist and I say why must we be oppressed to accept what is unacceptable: and I have the answer for once just as Nihilism and Christianity does: We live in a world, where false beliefs become radical realities, and what is considered unsafe we make safe. Oppression is omission of freedom, we will not be dumbed down, fuck the political system now and then, they run our futures if we have any futures left due to their political incense.

Dismantling nihilism in our age where it is so rampant will take more than prayer - not to say that prayer is not a good place to start. I can't help but think that we need more help in maturing and understanding our faith through knowledge and reason supported by reasonable and responsible accountability in and through the Church as well as public life.

I couldn't let a Franciscan Feast Day go by without a post

September 23rd was our memorial of a simple friar and Saint - Padre Pio. I know of no better way to give tribute than to share this great post by By Monsignor Arthur Burton Calkins Padre Pio Priest and Victim. Thank you Father Mark for posting this great and thoughtful Catholic insight and vision.

Our being laid claim to and taken seriously as a PERSON

...Christianity has shed the light of love over humanity and in this light the unique worth of every individual person is made manifest. Without this light the general principles of human rights could not have been formulated, principles that are normative indeed for us, even though in practice they are frequently trodden underfoot... In vain we shall search the world before Christ for this kind of outlook of man on his fellow man... In none of these will we find the kind of respect for the person of one's neighbor that can only be established as a principle for the first time by the Christian revelation. For God, in his boundless involvement, has indeed always the individual in mind (though all in community are just as much his preoccupation); and as he moves toward the individual, so he lights up his unique dignity as a person. But should the source of God's gracious involvement fall into oblivion, then sooner or later the face of the person will become indistinct, and he will sink back once more into mere anonymity.

Because, however, the most significant thing in life that can happen to our neighbor is his being laid claim to and taken seriously as a person, an event that leaves on him the most lasting impression, a state that constitutes for him the source of the greatest happiness he can know on earth, in this above all lies the credibility of the Church, and the success of the mission of Christianity.
-- Hans Urs von Balthasar, pg 54-55.

I Don't Get It

It's puzzling to me. My background is Evangelical Protestantism. I spent 20+ years as an United Methodist pastor. I visit my family in the Midwest, but it's still puzzling. What I mean is this: nearly all of those whom I left for full communion with the Catholic Church - which for 1,500 some odd years was the only Church in the West (not counting the schism with the East) - love and believe in Jesus Christ. But they have no use for the "one holy Catholic and apostolic Church."

Nearly all of them seem to boil the Christian faith down to a sincere kind of "hunch" set of criteria which, ipso facto, includes the denial of the Catholic Church. Never mind that everything that they love most about the Christian faith came directly from and as a result of the unwavering protection of the dogmas, doctrines, and tenets by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church for those 1,500 years prior to the "Reformation" (and on to this present moment). They set great store in the individual conscience as a trustworthy guide and stand by their pastor so long as (a) he doesn't commit an egregious act like shop-lifting or adultery and (b) he strokes their egos sufficiently.

The scapegoating of the Catholic Church is a given: it goes without saying that papal authority and the grasping, power-hoarding princes of the Church are evil. But is it obvious that Our Lord came to found a Church, an ekklesia, large enough to serve all the world's peoples, and not just our little flock with its quaint Midwestern quirkiness and pot-luck suppers?

No. It's not obvious.

And that makes me sad, sad because whereas I, too, believe the Catholic Church is filled with sinners, by definition, I believe that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, One in three, Blessed Trinity, established a single Church for ALL peoples of the world. Christ did not come to found a Fellowship here and there, a Brethren hither and yon, that couldn't possibly dispense sufficient grace for all of God's children on earth.

Chesterton wrote:

I could not understand why these romancers never took the trouble to find out a few elementary facts about the thing they denounced. The facts might easily have helped the denunciation, where the fictions discredited it. There were any number of real Catholic doctrines I should then have thought disgraceful to the Church . . . But the enemies of the Church never found these real rocks of offense. They never looked for them. They never looked for anything . . . Boundless freedom reigned; it was not treated as if it were a question of fact at all . . . It puzzled me very much, even at that early stage, to imagine why people bringing controversial charges against a powerful and prominent institution should thus neglect to test their own case, and should draw in this random way on their own imagination . . . I never dreamed that the Roman religion was true; but I knew that its accusers, for some reason or other, were curiously inaccurate.

I was welcomed into the Catholic Church, historically the Headwaters of God's grace in our world. I had to enter because I experienced Jesus' Real Presence in the Sacrifice of the Mass as no where else. I am hooked on Jesus. I just can't understand why others would rather scapegoat Mother Church than come home to where we all belong.

Only when a person has been touched by Christ and opened up by him

Apostolic Life

If the "apostolic" element is the place of movements in the Church, then the desire for the vita apostolica must be fundamental to her in all ages. The renunciation of property, of descendants, of any effort to impose one's own idea of the Church -- that is, obedience in following Christ -- have in all ages been regarded as the essential elements of the apostolic life, which cannot of course apply in the same way for all those participating in a movement but which are in varying ways points orienting each person's own life that are relevant for everyone. The apostolic life, in turn, is not an end in itself; rather, it creates freedom to serve. An apostolic life calls out for apostolic action: there is in the first place -- again, in varying fashion -- the proclamation of the Gospel as the missionary element. In following Christ, evangelizing always takes first place: evangelizare pauperibus - proclaiming the Gospel to the poor. Yet this never takes place through words alone: love, which constitutes its inner heart, both the center of its truth and the heart of its activity, has to be lived out and has in that sense to be a proclamation. Thus social service is always associated with the Gospel in some form or other. All this presupposes... a personal encounter with Christ at a deep level... Only when a person has been touched by Christ and opened up by him in his deepest heart can the other person also be touched in his heart; only in that case can reconciliation be effected in the Holy Spirit; only then can true community grow.

- Pope Benedict XVI Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, pp. 204-205.

(my emphasis)

Nicean Blues

[Tip: M. Shea, Love to be Catholic]

The Grace of Faith Transforms Our Reasoned Certitude

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox out of the Magnificat by way of the Doctors of the Catholic Church.

“Your faith has saved you”

We don’t, strictly speaking, lead people a certain way by proving that our religion is probable and then invite them to take a jump, which jump we call faith. No, we claim to establish more than a probability; we claim to establish a moral certainty. Moral certainty is not inescapably evident to the mind, like mathematical certainty, but it is certainly still; sufficient reason on which to base a decision that is to alter the whole of our lives and the whole of our attitude toward life – if we will let it have its way with us…In the process of making the act of faith, we attain certitude …

The office of grace is not to provide a substitute for our natural operations, but to perfect our natural operations. It is the same power that manifest itself at Cana of Galilee, turning water into wine. When we are confirmed , we resolve to be good soldiers of Christ, and the grace of the sacrament transforms that resolve into something stronger than our natural powers could ever achieve…The grace of faith is not a substitute for reasoned certitude; it transforms our reasoned certitude and elevates it to a supernatural level.

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox ( + 1957) was a British Catholic apologist and translator of the Bible.

Dawkins' Delusion

A physicist offers a rebuttal to the self-proclaimed "world's most prominent atheist," Richard Dawkins (mimetic theory would have something to say about ontological substantiation here - but that's another story). Edward Remler asks, "is 'the world's most prominent atheist' correct to assert that the existence of God is irrational? Only if he believes that the Fundamental Question of Philosophy is itself irrational, is our answer. The meaning of 'irrational' is flexible enough to allow a belief in the irrationality of the FQP; but this does not permit the 'irrationality of the existence of God' to be asserted as an authoritative truth. It is more aptly characterized as a religious faith of atheism ... The upshot of this is that it is simply foolish to assert that science and rationality support atheism."

Read the article here.

Sunday Night Live with Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Another good one. Can be dowloaded directly here on audio.

Pope Benedict's book, Scripture scholarship, the Historical/Critical method, devotion, and other stuff. Given to a large audience at EWTN's Family Celebration. Worth a listen!

Watch, Laugh, and Learn

For those who missed them, and don't like to go into "Scroll Down Purgatory" as far as the Black Family Vault at Gringotts Goblin Bank, here is the website for the superb catechetical series, That Catholic Show.

Another Great Journey Home Testimony

from a young hedonist turned priest. It may be up for a few more days. Go to EWTN's siteand pull down the Multimedia menu to Archived Video. Select Journey Home on the secondary menu on the right.