Corpus Christianum

CORPUS CHRISTIANUM

We are looking for courageous souls who are willing to take up the standard of Christ the King! We invite you to review the association's statutes for more information about the organization and its obligations.

Ordination of Reverend Jason Stone June 5, 2010

The Most Reverend J Peter Sartain, Bishop of Joliet blesses soon to be Father Jason Stone

Ann and I were honored to have been invited to the ordination of 5 young men into the priesthood yesterday. 

There was a great outpouring of love, prayers and respect from families, friends and parishioners at The Cathedral of Saint Raymond Nonnatus in Joliet, IL for these young men.  We are friends with fellow SFO member Mary Stone who is Father Jason's mother.  Father Jason Stone has been assigned to the parish at the Cathedral serving with Father Brad Baker.  Please hold these newly ordained priest in your prayers.

The Church 2 step

The Great Evangelization by Fr. Robert Barron
The Church 2-step
Step 1 Hunker down - perservation
Step 2 Let loose the Light - let the light out

Relationships and the Big Picture

A follow-up to the video below about Cardinal George, here is an excerpt in an interview he did with NCR on his new book, The Difference God Makes.

There are two things with which we [as Americans and as American Catholics] have a hard time: relationships, and seeing the whole thing. We’re very good at individual choices, which often separate us, and we’re very good at specializations, which also separate us. If there are lacunae in the culture that is ours, which we all have to love, it’s a lack of appreciation for relationships that you can’t un-choose and that are constitutive of your identity, and also this ability to see the whole thing, to see it as global, to get outside the national parameters that define how we look at everything, ...

Not being able to speak to Cardinal George's book, but from the 4M's perspective this little quote provides a clue into what René Girard and mimetic theory is about: relationships and coming into contact with the big picture. Check out our side panel and make it a point TODAY to learn about this man and his theory. Isn't it about time you get acclimated to the big picture?

In 6 Months It'll Feel Normal

Okay. It's coming, it's more in keeping with ancient texts, it's our opportunity to show we're not fuddy-duddy sticks in the mud. Via New Advent here is what you need to know about the upcoming changes in the Mass.

What if...

... that image hovered over the skyline of our own souls.

3 questions you face during a Cursillo weekend:
Where do you spend your time?
Where do you spend your money?
And what do you think most about?

Prophet of the Future

For the record, Father Dwight Longenecker on similarities between the cultural meltdown of the fifth century, and today:

A friend who returned from a visit to France last week was enlivened by his experience of the new ecclesial communities there. He met members of the Community of the Beatitudes -- a mixed community of men and women, married and celibate, who live a life with apostolic work and evangelization, Carmelite spirituality, and beautiful liturgy.

He met members of Communion and Liberation, visited with monks from the Community of St. John, and heard about the work of the Emmanuel Community -- another Catholic community that lives a radical discipleship, working to renew the Catholic Church in France.

When I lived in England I got to meet the members of these new communities, plus many more, through my network in the Catholic Church and by traveling in Europe. In many ways, what is going on in the Catholic Church in Europe is reminiscent of events in Italy in the fifth century.

At that time, the great Roman Empire was crumbling under its own moral, financial, and cultural decay. The barbarians were invading unchecked, the infrastructure had broken down, the armies could not be paid, and the mighty glory of Rome was in tatters.

In the midst of this social decay, the young St. Benedict was sent from his patrician home to study in Rome. Within a year he was disgusted by the laziness, immorality, and despair of his fellow students. He dropped out of college and went to live as a hermit in Subiaco. Eventually he founded small communities of men and women living a simple life of prayer, work, and study. From those base communities the great monastic institutions grew, and from these centers of prayer, work, and learning there flowered the great civilization of medieval Christendom.

In our own time of societal decay, it is important to try to get into Benedict's mindset, first remembering several vital facts: First of all, Benedict was a layman. He saw a need and took the initiative to start his communities. While he did nothing contrary to the teachings of the Church, and did not rebel against the rightful authority, he also did not sit around waiting for a priest or bishop to give him a job. With the grace of his baptism he simply got on and did what he was called to do. Details in his famous rule suggest that Benedict was somewhat cautious in his relationship with priests and regarded them as necessary, but not necessarily trustworthy.

It is also important to understand the monastic relationship to culture. A monk sees the decaying culture and believes the only possible response is withdrawal. He despises any Christianity that compromises with the decadent society, and he does not think "dialogue" is either desirable or possible. He does not believe that prophetic imprecations and predictions of God's judgment on the immoral culture are useful. Like St. Anthony of the Desert and the first monks in Egypt, the traditional monk believes that withdrawal from the world is the only way to save the world.

The third thing to remember about Benedict is that he probably never anticipated the great resurrection of learning, culture, and spirituality that would flow from his decision to live simply in the Italian hills following a life of prayer, work, and study. In other words, he was faithful where he was with what he could do. Whether it came to something or not wasn't his to decide. The fact that his movement eventually produced phenomenal accomplishments in virtually every area of human achievement, was the foundation for a new civilization, and changed the world forever was not something he either anticipated or predicted ...

Read all …

Saruman Ring-maker @ ND

A must read.
Athos comes through again.

"…about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a cold sigh dissolved into nothing. …long years of death were suddenly revealed in [the body], and it shrank, and the shrivelled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull."

Saruman's death: Shippey suggests that Saruman represents a character 'eaten up inside' by his desires. —The Return of the King, p.363

Don't miss this link to Athos' link HERE

Whether this scenario is one that I Wun will face directly or not I don't know but we who are following in his shadow will certainly witness to the many deaths.

We must remember that responsibility is ours as we voted him into office and even after his 100-days we continue to swoon over him as if he truly were Saruman. The problem seems to me to be that we hold truths to be self-evident only in terms that are governmental and not religious. The Church claims truths and yet we (and that includes many clergy and bishops) seem to think that they are optional. How does a Church pray for unity and yet strives not to help its members come to unity in the most basic of truths?

God and Obama at ND

Jody Bottum via Amy Welborn's Via Media (more to come at First Things):

... (T)here's not much use in pretending that Catholic legal analysis isn't opposed to abortion. Do all the casuistry you want. Bring in the sharpest canon lawyers from Marquette, and the cleverest Catholic ward-heelers from Chicago, and the slipperiest Jesuits from Georgetown. Sit them all down and show them again the tape of Mario Cuomo's 1984 speech about abortion at Notre Dame--you remember, the famous "personally opposed, but publicly supportive" speech that has provided Catholic politicians with talking points for 25 years--and let them spin the president's May 17 visit to campus as hard as they can. Still, there's something peculiar about the honoring of Barack Obama with a Catholic law degree. Couldn't they have made it a degree in sociology or something? Ah, well, an honorary doctorate of law it is, and now the Catholic faithful are up in arms across the nation.


snip

(lots more - he walks through the various stages in the controversy and then -)

As it happens, they're wrong. Politics has very little to do with the mess. This isn't a fight about who won the last presidential election and how he's going to deal with abortion. It's a fight about culture--the culture of American Catholicism, and how Notre Dame, still living in a 1970s Catholic world, has suddenly awakened to find itself out of date.

The role of culture is what Fr. Jenkins at Notre Dame and many other presidents of Catholic colleges don't quite get, and their lack of culture is what makes them sometimes seem so un-Catholic--though the charge befuddles them whenever it is made. As perhaps it ought. They know very well that they are Catholics: They go to Mass, and they pray, and their faith is real, and their theology is sophisticated, and what right has a bunch of other Catholics to run around accusing them of failing to be Catholic?

But, in fact, they live in a different world from most American Catholics. Opposition to abortion doesn't stand at the center of Catholic theology. It doesn't even stand at the center of Catholic faith. It does stand, however, at the center of Catholic culture in this country. Opposition to abortion is the signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life. And those who--by inclination or politics--fail to grasp this fact will all eventually find themselves in the situation that Fr. Jenkins has now created for himself. Culturally out of touch, they rail that the antagonism must derive from politics. But it doesn't. It derives from the sense of the faithful that abortion is important. It derives from the feeling of many ordinary Catholics that the Church ought to stand for something in public life--and that something is opposition to abortion ...

Read all of Amy Welborn's God and Obama at Notre Dame.