Catholic Carnival 117: St. Joseph the Worker

Catholic Carnival 117: St Joseph the Worker is posted at 50 Days After.

Make sure you don’t miss Providentialism, NFP, and Contraception at Fructis Ventri.

And thanks to My Domestic Church for blogging about my own dilemma regarding my daughter’s First Communion this Sunday (only growing up Protestant, I didn’t have the generational angle thrown in) in this post here.

My contribution to the Carnival was here.

Sign of Grace, Sign of Glory

“The sign of the cross makes kings of all those reborn in Christ and the anointing of the Spirit consecrates them as priests” (Pope Leo the Great).

This month’s The Catholic Answer had a fascinating article on the Sign of the Cross by Bert Ghezzi who wrote Sign of the Cross: Recovering the Power of the Ancient Prayer. I haven’t read the book so i can’t say if it’s worth your money or not but do try to find a copy of The Catholic Answer to read the article. In the article he outlines six reasons to make the Sign of the Cross and suggests a practice of making the Sign of the Cross six times during morning prayer.

As a mini-creed to profess your faith in God.

To remember that you died with Christ in baptism.

To declare that you belong to Christ and will obey Him.

As a remembrance to embrace the suffering that comes your way and to pick up your cross and follow Jesus.

As a defense against the devil and a positive statement for the Kingdom of God.

To crucify your flesh and imitate Christ.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2157 : The Christian begins his day, his prayers, his activities with the Sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The baptized person dedicates the day to the glory of God and call on the Savior’s grace, which lets him act in the Spirit as a child of the Father. The Sign of the Cross strengthens us in temptations and difficulties.

The Themes Of The Liturgy Of The Hours

Since we have so thoroughly covered the topic of The Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office/Opus Dei yesterday, I would like to add one more post about the general theme of each of the periods of prayer throughout the day. Our Creator made us with a need for change but yet with a craving for constancy. He created a world with seasons and cycles and patterns to sustain us. The Church has imitated our Creator in the Liturgy. Just as we remember the entire plan of salvation in each and every Mass, the Liturgical year does the same. It is marked out with times of Feast and Fasting and throughout the year but always with an eye to telling the story of God's love and care for us and his provision for us in our weakness. The Liturgical Day has a similar overview and I would like to share it here.

I would like to take credit for this information but I cannot. The text that follows came from a now defunct website. I have no idea who the author is. Thankfully I made a copy of the contents of the website before it disappeared into the cyber-ether. I have used this text often to explain to others something of the Liturgy of the Hours and I wish I could thank the authors personally.

I Stopped Saying The Breviary And Started Reading The Bible

This post cost me $200 to write so read it carefully.  (Yes, I was precisely THAT driven to say this and to make sure I did it as accurately and thoroughly as possible.)

I hear and see it repeatedly. It’s expressed in many different ways in the stories of those who have converted to Protestant traditions from the Catholic Church. “In 40 years of attending Catholic Churches, I never heard the Gospel preached…” from “Never Knew Jesus” (as an er….amusing?….aside, I couldn’t find the conversion story that I most recently saw that in and ended up Yahoo’ing the phrase and my choices were practically endless!) When an ex-Catholic clergyman is writing the conversion story it usually sounds more like this “I stopped saying the Breviary (the Roman Catholic Church’s official prayer for clergy) and the Rosary and began to pray using parts of the Bible itself.” From the “Testimony of a Former Irish Priest” First not every person who claims to be an ex-Catholic Priest is, in fact, an ex-Catholic Priest.

The Divine Office, Liturgy of the Hours, and Breviaries

 Imagine if you will that all of the members of your family stopped at roughly the same points in their day and took time to read the same passages of Sacred Scripture together. Imagine if they were using the same passages of Sacred Scripture to guide their prayers. Would it bind you together? Would you be blessed by being able to share together your insights for the day? Would it be comforting to know that even if your brother in San Francisco couldn’t talk to you because you couldn’t get your satellite phone to work in the Amazon you were literally on the same page of Sacred Scripture. Of course you wouldn’t be limited to the schedule, you could always pray more and read more, but in the devotional life of your family there was always a common foundation what kind of spiritual life would that breathe into your family? That’s what the Divine Office is. Only the family is the Body of Christ…the Church. I blogged about Unity the other day and the Divine Office (also called Liturgy of the Hours) is another expression of that unity. Praying together, across the world, in this “prayer of the Church” Catholics not only express this common bond but our common prayer also builds it.

I have heard it dismissed as man-made. Perhaps. In that readings are selected and organized by members of the Church, it is man-made. It is however, hard for me to call something with so much scripture merely man-made. The observance of the Divine Office consitutes a literal fulfillment of the Psalm 119:164 “Seven times a day will I praise you.” Even the times of these seven prayers are set using scripture references and ancient Jewish culture as follows:

Why Am I Catholic

Well worth watching. Thank You Kindly to Shellie at Profound Gratitude.

Why Am I Catholic

Big….BIG posts coming…tomorrow I think. See you then.

What Does Not Believing In Visible Unity Mean To Doctrine?

In The Great Heresies Hilaire Belloc wrote this about heresy in general.

“The word [heresy] is derived from the Greek verb Haireo, which first mean “I grasp” or “I seize,” and then came to mean “I take away.” (pg. 2)

“The denial of a scheme wholesale is not heresy, and has not the creative power of heresy. It is of the essence of heresy that it leaves standing a great part of the structure it attacks. On this account it can appeal to believers andn continues to affect their lives through deflecting them from their original characters. Wherefore it is said of heresies they ‘they survive by the truths they retain.’” (pp. 3-4) 

And about Protestantism in particular he wrote:

The Protestant attack differed from the rest especially in this characteristic, that its attack did not consist in the promulgation of a new doctrine or of a new authority, that it made no concerted attempt at creating a counter-Church, but had for its principle the denial of unity. It was an effort to promote that state of mind in which a Church in the old sense of the word — that is, an infallible, united, teaching body, a Person speaking with Divine Authority–should be denied; not the doctrines it might happen to advance, but its very claim to advance them with unique authority. Thus, one Protestant may affirm, as do the English Puseyites, the truth of all the doctrines underlying the Mass — the Real Presence, the Sacrifice, the sacerdotal power of consecration, etc. another Protestant may affirm that all such conceptions are false, yet both Protestants are Protestant because they communicate in the fundamental conception that the Chruch is not a visible, definable and united personality, that there is no central infallible authority, and that therefore each is free to choose his own set of doctrines. (pg. 12)

So what if the Body of Christ isn’t ONE? If we aren’t united in a “visible, definable, and united personality”? Well first and probably most important we are going to be unable to effectively fulfill the Great Commission. Jesus said “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” John 17: 20-21

What else does it mean? I talk to a lot of Protestants in my life and I find that no matter who I am talking to or even if I am simply reading one of those anti-Catholic websites, there are some recurring themes. Mary, the Saints, and the Real Presence. There are others but for some reason these really set fire to the hair of our separated brothers and sisters. “BUT WHAT ABOUT MARY!?” they shriek.  I hear a lot about how we are worshipping Mary and the Saints and…I can hardly say it but I have heard it so often recently…the cracker. [sob] And no matter how often we Catholics say “We don’t worship Mary and the Saints.” They come back to it with a discussion the ten commandments and graven images and they might even tell you how we ELIMINATED one of the ten commandments. (Ho Kai Paulos did a very nice rebuttal of this common argument here. Thank you kindly.) Now part of the reason for these often vitriolic attacks on the Catholic faith is that when you take real worship, what Jesus said “Do this in memory of Me.” out of the picture, and begin to substitute other things and call it worship; then what Catholics do looks mighty suspect

Catholic Carnival #116: Pearls of Wisdom

Catholic Carnival #116 is up at Cause of Our Joy.  Congratulations to Edward at Marian Devotion who has been accepted into the seminary! Be sure to keep him in your prayers and stop by his blog to leave a congratulatory message. I recommend both a weekly Holy Hour (I find it essential to my spiritual life) and reading Holy Hour or Supermarket Sweep not necessarily with the same forcefulness but hopefully the more you read about the value of Adoration in the lives of your brothers and sisters, the more tempted you will be to adopt this practice yourself. Those were my two favorites go read the rest and see if I am right. Happy reading!

And read this one too by Ask Sister Mary Martha who reminds us all that it is a faith journey and that one of the marks of humility is noting for ourselves and others where we were wrong and how.  

Purgatory: I Challenge Any Catholic To Show Me

Here are some of the remarks I heard today on the subject of purgatory.

1. The catholics invented it to discourage people from thinking “Ah well, I’m going to hell anyway, might as well give up on trying to do the right thing”.

2. it is nothing – doesnt exist – manmade concept of a middle heaven. some Catholic BS. its not in the Bible. I challenge any catholic to show me where it can be found in the Bible!!

3. Purgatory is An invention. The Bible tells us that there are only two places: heaven and hell. You will go into eternity into either one of these places. No one will ever be able to get out of hell.

You will notice that someone used some of my favorite words in the English language, “I challenge any Catholic to show me where it can be found in the Bible!!” It should be illegal to have so much fun so early in the week (it’s Monday when I’m typing this up but I have no idea when this will post.) Mr. I Challenge Any Catholic will win if he declares that I must produce the word ‘purgatory’ in the Bible; however, the concept like that of the Trinity, the Ascension, and the Incarnation which also do not have the exact word in the Bible is clearly outlined.

OK first let me outline how I will be using a couple of significant concepts and where, biblically, I come up with these ideas.

I Am Just Like Judas

Judas wanted the yoke of Roman slavery lifted. I’m sure he believed that freed from the oppression of the Romans, his life and the lives of his countrymen would be immeasurably improved. And why wouldn’t He think that’s what Jesus was going to do, after all what’s a Messiah for but to make your life better? I wonder if the Apostles ever sat in prison and played a 1st century version of David Letterman’s Top Ten titled “Our Top Ten Misconceptions of What We Thought the Messiah Was Gonna Do”? I am reasonably certain that before the crucifixion they were not thinking that prison time and repeated floggings were going to be in their future. Toss is running from the authorities and eventually martyrdom for most of them and I wonder if in their human moments they didn’t find some humor in it all.  I think Judas betrayed Jesus because he [Judas] was frustrated at Jesus slowness in moving to boot the Romans and take the throne. Of course Jesus had every intention of freeing Judas from slavery.  A slavery far worse than that of the Romans which was sin.

The Israelites had a different idea of being released from slavery than God did when they were called out from the land of Death (Egypt).  Once out of Egypt they lost no time in whining about the route. “What do you mean we are at the edge of the Red Sea and the entire Egyptian army is on our heels? Hello? Moses? What kind of opium are you smoking? Did you think this through?” They didn’t care for desert fare either. “What do you mean we are having manna again?” They complained about the leadership, they whined about not having water. In short their idea of being liberated from slavery was very different than God’s. God wanted to strip them of the vestiges of their old life to prepare them for life in the Promised Land.

And I’m not any different. Whenever we demand that God remove the earthly irritants instead of focusing on our liberation from slavery, we step right into the shoes of Judas.  Too often I hear preachers (link is just one example of a “prosperity gospel”-type message) and believers claim scriptures and demand that the Lord prosper their earthly kingdom.

“Whatever he does shall prosper” (Ps. 1:3). This includes everything: your family, your children, your marriage, your business, your ministry, your job, and your health. It means God intends what He says: everything shall prosper.

I am just like Judas each time, I focus on my earthly kingdom instead of God’s heavenly one. Lord, help me to pick up my cross and follow you. If my sickness, or humiliation, or bankruptcy or any other earthly difficulty will further the kingdom, give me Your Grace to bear it. Let it be done to me according to thy word.