Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 20

The Benedictine Option

(Photo: us.fotolia.com | vermontalm)

The Benedictine Option | Dr. Randall B. Smith | Catholic World Report

Making Catholic hospitals and schools widely available again in a society in desperate need of both is how Catholics can once again become a cultural force.

Rod Dreher has suggested something he calls “The Benedict Option” as a response to the decline in religious faith and practice — and in the face of the increasing hostility toward them — in contemporary culture. The question he believes Christians must ask themselves in our current setting is, “What must the church do in order to live and witness faithfully as a minority in a culture in which we were once the majority?”

“As we try to determine which forms of community, which institutions and which ways of life can answer that question,” writes Dreher, “we should draw on the wisdom of St. Benedict and his Rule. We should innovate ways to adapt it to forms of non-monastic living in the world.” Among the Benedictine principles he believes should help inform this recovery-of-the-old-in-the-new way of life he is suggesting would be things like order, prayer and work, community, stability, balance, and hospitality.

Dreher has insisted repeatedly that he is not advocating a strategy of “retreat” or “disengagement” with the world. Rather, the term “Benedict Option” symbolizes what he describes as “a historically-conscious, antimodernist return to roots, an undertaking that occurs with the awareness that Christians have to cultivate a sense of separation, of living as ... ‘resident aliens’ in a ‘Christian colony,’ in order to be faithful to our calling.”

C. S. Lewis once described something similar in Mere Christianity when he called upon Christians to realize that they live in “Enemy-occupied territory.” “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” The “Enemy,” however, as Lewis makes clear by capitalizing the title, is on his view the Devil, not primarily the culture-at-large, nor (God help us) our non-Christian neighbors.

The story of salvation history is the story of a fallen people in a fallen world to whom a Savior has come to redeem both them and through them all of creation. We are called to be instruments of God’s grace and a leaven in society, not enemies of our neighbors and instruments of their condemnation.

The Question and a Suggestion

A question that has bedeviled Christians from the very beginning is how to be in the world but not of it. So too, how to distinguish “the world” as the very good thing God created for us from “the world” that we have “subjected to vanity” and in whose pattern St. Paul warns us we are not to be conformed? How can Christians serve as a leaven in society without merely becoming one with it — without becoming salt that has lost its flavor, worth nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot?

Dreher’s answer is that we must pay greater attention to forming Christians prepared to live out Christianity in this alien cultural territory, and doing that requires embedding them within communities and institutions dedicated to that sort of formation. “The Benedict Option,” he says, “is about forming communities that teach us and help us to live in such a way that our entire lives are witnesses to the transforming power of the Gospel.”

I have no problem with any of this — in fact I’m rather a fan, in much the same way I’ve always been a fan of monasticism ever since I discovered the great Catholic tradition in college. So I have no criticisms to offer — although I would sound a warning gleaned from the history of monasticism about “intentional communities,” including (perhaps especially) “religious” ones that, while preserving their own autonomy, do not remain firmly tethered to the Church and the authority of the successors of the apostles, the bishops. The history of monasticism suggests that, without an anchor to something firm, most of these institutions lose their way rather quickly. It is not without reason that there is an old historian’s dictum that says: “The history of monasticism is the history of the reform of monasticism.” The monastic life looks pleasant enough, and it was never meant to be overly burdensome, like the life of the anchorites in the desert. But as professor of mine once remarked about the Benedictine Rule: “No, it’s not hard — unless you actually do it.”

So I have no criticisms — really — but I do have a suggestion, one gleaned from the history of monasticism.

If those proposing “the Benedict Option” are not advocating a “retreat” or “disengagement from” the culture, as I take them at their word they are not, then perhaps they might take another bit of guidance from medieval Benedictine practice about how as an institution (and not merely as individuals) a group can serve as a powerful leaven in society.

If we look back at history, two things that characterized monasteries changed European society perhaps more than any others: monasteries were centers of learning and centers of hospitality.

Continue reading at www.catholicworldreport.com.

Hardships and Sonships

Detail from "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (1669) by Rembrandt [WikiArt.org]

Hardships and Sonships | Carl E. Olson | On the Readings for March 6, 2016, the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Many people today believe God wishes to deny them happiness, fulfillment, and love. The Gospel reading of the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son offers a very different perspective.

Readings:
Jos 5:9a, 10-12
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
2 Cor 5:17-21
Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

“How could a loving God send people to hell?” 

It’s a question I’ve heard many times from people who balk at the claims of the Catholic Church because they believe she worships a supernatural despot intent on punishment, not love. Years ago the founder the local  “Freethinkers and Atheists’ Society” sent me a letter filled with angry attacks on the Christian God. “It must be comforting,” he wrote, “thinking that you’re going to heaven where you can look down at the billions of souls screaming and writhing in pain … consumed by flame for all of eternity, but never dying; all this courtesy of your all-compassionate and loving friend Jesus. . . ."

"Do you find this condemnation the act of a moral god?" he asked, "Why would such a creature bother creating an entire system where the vast majority of his creation will spend all eternity burning in flames?”

Sadly, this is the case for many people who, for various reasons, believe God wishes to deny them happiness, fulfillment, and love. Today’s Gospel reading of the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son offers a very different perspective, which flows from the knowledge the Son has of both His Father and man’s fallen, sinful state. Seemingly simple, the parable is rich with meaning and conviction, for it captures the tension and love at the heart of human relationships while illuminating the difficulty we sometimes face in correctly understanding the mercy, justice, and love of our Heavenly Father. 

Part of the great power of Jesus’ story of the father and his two sons is how it brilliantly captures the viewpoint of each of the three men without ever losing any moral clarity. And I think that most readers can relate in some way to the desires of each man, even while recognizing that some of those desires are sinful and others are holy. For instance, we know what it is like to be rebellious and to think that God is hindering us from enjoying our lives on our terms. This is what the Catechism calls “the fascination of illusory freedom,” (CCC 1439) the belief that we can find meaning, joy, and peace apart from God. 

We also know what it is like to begrudge the joy of others, as the brother does, understanding our relationship with God in purely legalistic terms while failing to the embrace the sonship given to us in baptism. In his encyclical Dives in Misericordia, Pope John Paul II highlighted what this parable teaches about the dignity of the son who dwells in the father’s house. He points out that when the one son leaves, his greatest loss is not material, but the loss of familial life—the “tragedy of lost dignity, the awareness of squandered sonship” (par 5). Yet the son who never left had also squandered his sonship, having failed to see himself as a son first, not just an heir to material possessions. 

The prodigal son, upon recognizing how far he had fallen and how he had wasted his life—his very being—on sinful pleasures, rediscovers his sonship, paradoxically, by recognizing that he is not worthy to be called a son: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” His brother’s failure is shown not just in his anger at the feast prepared by the father, but by his refusal to address as “Father” the one who gave him life.  

Many who believe that God desires to punish them have confused the alienation caused by their rejection of God with divine anger. In exercising their free will, they miss that their freedom is a gift of love given by a merciful Father. He will not force anyone to come home; He will not make anyone embrace the gift of sonship. But He does wait, longing for the return of every lost soul “to the bosom of his family, which is the Church.” (CCC 1439).

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 18, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The four things keeping millennials from finding God, according to Fr. Spitzer

Detail from the cover of "Finding True Happiness," by Robert Spitzer, S.J. (Cover design by John Herreid)

The four things keeping millennials from finding God, according to Fr. Spitzer | Connor Malloy | CWR

“We need some radical surgery, we don’t need Band-Aids.”

When he’s not lecturing around the world, giving interviews, producing documentaries, appearing on his EWTN show, developing curricula, chairing boards, and deepening his own spiritual life as a Jesuit priest, Father Robert Spitzer can be found writing his latest book out of his Magis Center office on the Christ Cathedral campus in the Diocese of Orange.

The former president of Gonzaga University (1998-2009), Father Spitzer launched the Magis Center with the stated mission “to restore, reconstruct, and revitalize belief in God, the transcendent dignity of every human person, the significance of virtue, the higher levels of happiness, love, and freedom, and the real presence of Jesus Christ.” Father Spitzer has breathed new life into Catholic apologetics, utilizing his grasp of science, philosophy, and the Catholic intellectual tradition to lift the veil imposed on modern society by secularism and the dictatorship of relativism.

This is the first of a two-part interview with Father Spitzer about his work at the Magis Center, as well as about his Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence quartet of books, two of which (Finding True Happiness and The Soul’s Upward Yearning) have been published by Ignatius Press and one of which (God So Loved the World) is now available for pre-order.

CWR: In less than one year we’ve seen an entire series emerge from you, the Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence series—a quartet of volumes on mankind’s relationship with the divine. Is the sense of urgency intentional?

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ: I think it is very intentional. It comes from my own intuitions teaching college students, originally. Then, when I saw the Pew survey and other surveys that tended to verify it, I became extremely concerned. The Pew Research surveys, both 2012 and 2015 surveys plus the 2010 survey of millennials, are all pointing to one thing: that millennials are becoming unbelievers—a category the Pew Forum calls “nones”—at about a rate of 1 additional percent per year. So that’s a rate of acceleration. About 11 years ago, we were at about a rate of 25 percent among millennials; today we’re at about 36 percent. If this keeps up, we’ll be at 50 percent or more unbelievers in just 15 years. And there’s no reason to suggest that it won’t keep up. So yes, the sense of urgency is there. If we don’t turn it around and soon, it’s going to really become an epidemic.

The other thing that’s really clear is that this has a lot to do with what’s going on in education—or should I say “mis-education”—starting not just in high school and in college, but also in seventh or eighth grade, where the kids are already online, looking at the Science Channel, getting a certain view of reality. Now, much of the Science Channel is great and I love it, but much of it has that hint of the pure Darwinian viewpoint, the materialistic viewpoint, a viewpoint that’s exceeding agnostic, a viewpoint that’s undermining the faith even in times of suffering. These are the kinds of things that need to be redressed in a hurry. Frankly, morality—as Pope Benedict pointed out many times—has become relativistic among young people. They are so convinced it’s all a mere matter of opinion…. But there are signs of hope, things we can use that God has given us. I think we have an interesting opportunity but, unfortunately, in the midst of an almost pandemic crisis.

CWR: Are there specific things that you see as blocking millennials from experiencing the divine in their lives?

Father Spitzer: I think it’s four basic factors that are coming into play. They are searching for authentic happiness. I think they would go up to transcendent happiness if they weren’t blocked, but here are the blocks that I see.

The number-one block, and the one that is definitely part of the whole propaganda scheme of many of the secular materialist people in our culture, is faith and science. The basic syllogism is this: faith and science are contradictory, science is truth, therefore faith must be false, a fantasy. This is, of course, not true, but it’s been propagated by the media and certain very vocal champions of science. I would say that 20-25 percent of our young people believe that cultural myth.

The second thing that is going on is the old “crutch argument” that was put together by Freud and Feuerbach a long time ago, but which has now reached the level of a huge cultural myth: that religion is reducible solely to human individual thinking. “We have suffering to contend with, feelings of darkness, we are restless and not at peace. So what do we do? We invent God. And we make God a very, very nice and benevolent God who protects us from suffering, darkness, emptiness, and death.” This is completely unfounded. No one ever invented a God who was nice—this came from Jesus! In the history of religions, gods are really capricious and mean, but starting with Israel and Christianity we begin to see who God is. But the problem with young people is that they get chided into it: “Oh dear, I see you are believing in a crutch. Little Johnny here has naively turned to religion, I’m so sorry to hear that…” Any kind of chiding which makes our kids look unintelligent and uncourageous is exceedingly difficult for them to deal with if they don’t have really good rational arguments and defenses. C.S. Lewis saw this in the 1940s, but it has made its resurgence today with social media and people like Richard Dawkins, a media darling, and now the kids are really up against it. I’m working with a high schooler now who literally gives me 15 questions a day; he is getting chided so much. Other kids are just throwing that Nietzschean-Freudian accusation against them and they’re falling prey to it at a fairly significant rate.

There’s a third problem with the more affectively-oriented kids, the heart kids: the seeming irreconcilability of suffering with God. They’ve been taught that God is a loving God, but when they come into their critical consciousness, they see the earthquakes, diseases, friends suffering, their suffering—the failure to address this question head-on is a really vexing thing for these kids. They believe that love and suffering are opposites. And Christianity has this incredible history of the reconciliation between love and suffering. Martin D’Arcy, C.S. Lewis have written wonderful works, but we need a contemporary re-interpretation of this and we need to get it out there as quickly as possible so they can see that love and suffering are not incompatible, that many times suffering leads us to love; suffering frees us from our narcissism, as Paul tells us in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. But the kids don’t have the ammo.

I’m not blaming the Church. I’ll just simply say we haven’t done any apologetics in a concerted fashion since Vatican II. I don’t know why. I’m still trying to figure this out myself—why did apologetics became a bad word, why did it become a reflection of some kind of inauthenticity of faith? We’ve somehow drifted into a Kierkegaardianism—we have to take a leap of faith across an infinite chasm. But I’ve never thought that at all! I luckily had great teachers who believed reason and faith came from the same source, with God never intending us to jump over an infinite chasm. We build a bridge over 99 percent of the chasm and then we jump, with the bridge constructed out of all the clues He has left us in nature, in the universe, in proofs of God, in miracles, in Jesus’s own life, and everything from the Shroud of Turin to near-death experiences. But you have to make the information known. And what has happened is we have now built up this incredible and wonderful curriculum from the bishops for high schools…with almost no apologetics built into it at all. They’re not addressing the faith and science question, they’re not addressing the question of the crutch argument, they’re not addressing the question of the reality of Jesus, they’re not addressing the question of suffering on any level that’s significant enough for students to be reinforced in their faith. If apologetics has to precede catechesis in order to engage kids both analytically and affectively, and if we are doing a great job on the second level but not on the first level, then we are building statues with clay feet.

The fourth problem is what I call “the Jesus doubt.” Even though there have been the likes of John P. Meier, Raymond Brown, and N.T. Wright, our kids don’t know they have crushed the Jesus de-mythologizers. So the History Channel (which does play good things) goes out and interviews these de-mythologizers…and these kids are uncritical: they don’t know the difference between a good or bad scholar. The kids hear this stuff—they hear Jesus was just a political guy or didn’t really rise from the dead.

But we have one other problem. It’s what I call perennial distraction by new media, by the Internet. These kids, even though they’re intrigued—“There’s a game to play, a website I got to go to.” Continual distraction. We are entertaining ourselves to death and I’m not sure if there’s the depth to ask the questions with all the multitasking. So when you combine the four problems, plus the continual distraction, they are in a tough situation.

We need some radical surgery, we don’t need Band-Aids. We’ve got to change our viewpoint.

CWR: It seems apologetics now is more about defending the Church’s positions on social issues than about clarifying her theological tenets.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Three Reasons I Enjoyed "Risen"

Three Reasons I Enjoyed "Risen" | Nick Olszyk | CWR

Director Kevin Reynolds understands that evidence does not automatically equal faith and gives Clavius (and the audience) times to ponder what the mysterious events involving Jesus of Nazareth really mean.

MPAA Rating: PG-13
USCCB Rating: A-III
Reel Rating: (4 out of 5 reels):

Risen begins as a proto-detective story about a first-century Sherlock Holmes investigating the claims of Resurrection hours after its supposed happening. It’s a fascinating premise, so it’s a bit a jolt when the puzzle is solved less than an hour into its screen time. Yet it is even more surprising that the story becomes more interesting, not less. As a piece of craftsmanship, there are some flaws, but as a theological narrative and history mystery there is much to glean, as Bishop Barron has noted. Like the evidence itself, it lingers, even after acceptance.

There are three reasons in particular why I enjoyed Risen.

First, because of the “detective”. He is Roman tribune Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), Pilate’s “enforcer” who squashes any Judean dissent with violent retribution. A weathered veteran of many wars, he freely admits in a moment of rare vulnerability that all he wants is “peace…a day without death.” When Pilate asks him to supervise the crucifixion of three criminals, he carries out the task with all the zeal of notarizing an envelope. Yet, only days later, there is a rumor that one of these men has risen from the dead. “We must have a body,” Pilate sneers. Clavius goes to great lengths to find it: interviewing disciples, visiting the site, and even digging up graves. The answer seems easy at first, but a keen eye and cool intellect leads him to into places that question the “official story” and reveal something extraordinary.

Secondly, the gritty realism.

Continue reading on CWR's The Dispatch.

Msgr. William Smith on Catholic teaching about "emergency contraception"

Editor's note: The following is from Monsignor William Smith's Modern Moral Problems: Trustworthy Answers to Your Tough Questions (Ignatius Press, 2015). Monsignor Smith, who died in 2009, for many years wrote a regular column for Homiletic & Pastoral Review. This particular question-and-answer appeared in the March 2004 edition of HPR; it appears on pages 147-151 of Modern Moral Problems.

Emergency Contraception

Question: Various bills and regulations propose to mandate “emergency contraception”. Not all Catholic responses to this movement seem to say the same thing. How does this stand?

Answer: I agree with your uncertainty: not all Catholic responses are the same response to this challenge. What I take to be the clearest and best response is that of Dr. Eugene F. Diamond: “The Ovulation or Pregnancy Approach in Cases of Rape?” [18] Indeed, Dr. Diamond writes in response to and presents a critique of Drs. Ronald Hamel and Michael Panicola’s “Emergency Contraception and Sexual Assault”. [19]

A first problem is terminology, i.e., the very expression “emergency contraception” seems to beg the question that needs to be answered. Is this simply a question of contraception or does it risk abortion and is called “emergency contraception” to distract attention away from the abortion problem? Once this is called “contraception”, the public relations effort is probably lost.

Some of the general public will give some space for Catholic institutions and Catholic individuals to distance themselves from any participation in abortion procedures and abortifacients. However, the same general public is not so willing to allow or acknowledge Catholic reluctance about contraception. Thus, by calling this “emergency contraception”, the impression is given and taken that the only point at issue is “contraception” when, of course, the crucial point at issue is the risk of abortion and abortion consequences.

In the conventional terms of the 1950s, when the term contraception meant diaphragms, the case for self-defense against rape was and remained a defensible opinion. This was the reported advice of the German bishops to German women in post-war Berlin, then occupied by the Red Army, an army not known for good manners. However, during the “Nuns in the Congo” case in the early ’60s and the rapes in Bosnia in the early ’90s, the contraceptive in question was no longer a simple barrier method to prevent conception, but rather the birth control pill—at first called an anti-ovulant or anovulant.

This is and remains the problem. The pill is not simply or only a chemical method of preventing ovulation. All commercially available birth control pills marketed in the United States have some abortifacient properties. This element raises some moral questions that simply did not exist in the post-war Berlin context.

To approach this dilemma today, some Catholic authors speak of a “Pregnancy Approach” while others speak of an “Ovulation Approach” in the aftercare of rape victims. An example of the former is the Hamel and Panicola article in Health Progress cited above; an example of the latter is Peter Cataldo in Catholic Health Care Ethics. [20]

In the pregnancy approach, only a pregnancy test is given. If a woman has been raped while pregnant, the need for post-rape hormone therapy is moot, indeed counterproductive. If she is not pregnant, this approach presumes the emergency contraceptives will only prevent ovulation, sperm migration, or sperm conception—these are seen as selfdefensive contraceptives in this context. However, multiple-dose oral contraceptives can also have the effect of disturbing the receptivity of the endometrium, which does not prevent conception but prevents implantation and is thus in effect abortifacient.

Continue reading on CWR's The Dispatch.

Should Catholics Evangelize?

An inspiring new book, Catholic Street Evangelization: Stories of Conversion and Witness, answers an important question: should Catholics evangelize? And how can they effectively share their faith with others? This book begins with the inspiring story of the Editor, Steve Dawson – his dramatic conversion to Catholicism as a young man and his founding of St. Paul Street Evangelization, an international apostolate that has grown to hundreds of teams in seven countries in just a few years.
 
This book includes many moving stories of conversion and witness. The authors are ordinary Catholics who have come to love Christ so much that they now talk about Him with total strangers in public places—street corners, parks, and shopping areas. They aren’t theologians, nor are they highly trained apologists with Ambrosian rhetorical skills or Dale Carnegie slickness, yet their simple missionary efforts have yielded amazing results.
 
The book’s style is readable, accessible, and conversational. It illustrates the missionary calling of all baptized Christians, including Catholics. It reveals the joy and fulfillment that come to those who humbly yet boldly share the good news of God’s mercy with others.
 
“This book is a great reminder of the mission of the laity in evangelizing the world,” says the Most Reverend Allen Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit.
 
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, author of Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality, explains, “Dawson’s unique approach to sharing the Good News proves that it is not polemics but showing people the face of Christ that wins the day.”
 
Al Kresta, the President of CEO of Ave Maria Communications, says, “I love this book. I love these stories. This could be the most effective single volume at changing American Catholic attitudes about evangelization.”

“The young Catholics of St. Paul Street Evangelization have been remarkably successful in drawing to the Catholic faith people who had little interest in religion. In these pages are their stories: full of hope, full of joy, and full of success,” says Karl Keating, author of What Catholics Really Believe.
 
Dr. John Bergsma, Professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, says, “Pope St. John Paul II called for a New Evangelization, but who’s actually doing it? These people are. Read their stories, learn, and be encouraged.”

“These modern-day ‘apostles’ have undertaken the momentous task of teaching Catholics to step up and live out their calling,” says Steve Ray, author of Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church.
 
About the Author:
Steve Dawson is the founder and National Director of St. Paul Street Evangelization. He has been featured on EWTN Television and Radio, Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Connection, the Radio Maria Network, Sirius Satellite Radio, and Archangel Radio. He lives with his wife and two children in Bloomington, Indiana.
 
Steve Dawson, the Editor of Catholic Street Evangelization, is available for interviews about this book.
To request a review copy or an interview with Steve Dawson, please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or rose@ignatius.com
 
Product Facts:
Title: CATHOLIC STREET EVANGELIZATION
Stories of Conversion and Witness
Editor: Steve Dawson
Release Date: February 2016
Length: 184 pages
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-58617-988-5 • Softcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com

"Risen" and the Reality of the Resurrection

"Risen" and the Reality of the Resurrection |  Bishop Robert Barron

Certain scenes in the new movie starring Joseph Fiennes reminded me of debates that were fashionable in theological circles when I was doing my studies in the 1970's and 1980's.

[Editor's note: Spoiler alert!]

When I saw the coming attractions for the new film Risen—which deals with a Roman tribune searching for the body of Jesus after reports of the resurrection—I thought that it would leave the audience in suspense, intrigued but unsure whether these reports were justified or not. I was surprised and delighted to discover that the movie is, in fact, robustly Christian and substantially faithful to the Biblical account of what transpired after the death of Jesus.

My favorite scene shows tribune Clavius (played by the always convincing Joseph Fiennes) bursting into the Upper Room, intent upon arresting Jesus' most intimate followers. As he takes in the people in the room, he spies Jesus, at whose crucifixion he had presided and whose face in death he had closely examined. But was he seeing straight? Was this even possible? He slinks down to the ground, fascinated, incredulous, wondering, anguished. As I watched the scene unfold, the camera sweeping across the various faces, I was as puzzled as Clavius: was that really Jesus? It must indeed have been like that for the first witnesses of the Risen One, their confusion and disorientation hinted at in the Scriptures themselves: "They worshipped, but some doubted." Once Thomas enters the room, embraces his Lord and probes Jesus' wounds, all doubt, both for Clavius and for the viewer, appropriately enough, is removed.

I specially appreciated this scene, not only because of its clever composition, but because it reminded me of debates that were fashionable in theological circles when I was doing my studies in the 1970's and 1980's. Scholars who were skeptical of the bodily facticity of Jesus' resurrection would pose the question, "What would someone outside of the circle of Jesus' disciples have seen had he been present at the tomb on Easter morning or in the Upper Room on Easter evening?" The implied answer to the query was "well, nothing." The academics posing the question were suggesting that what the Bible calls resurrection designated nothing that took place in the real world, nothing that an objective observer would notice or dispassionate historian recount, but rather an event within the subjectivity of those who remembered the Lord and loved him.

For example, the extremely influential and widely-read Belgian theologian Edward Schillebeeckx opined that, after the death of Jesus, his disciples, reeling in guilt from their cowardice and betrayal of their master, nevertheless felt forgiven by the Lord.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Addicted to Escape: A Review of Tim Power's "Medusa's Web"

Addicted to Escape: A Review of Tim Power's Medusa's Web | John Herreid | CWR's The Dispatch

Powers' new novel is a heady mix of Hollywood ghost story—describing long-lost neighborhoods and places as well as people—and an inventive revisionist take on familiar myths.

Fear is underrated by most people. Fearlessness is what gets lauded. But fear is an essential part of a healthy perspective on life. If we don't fear a hot stove, we may get burned; if we don't fear wild animals, we may end up like one of those sentimental wilderness lovers eaten by Alaskan bears.

But nowhere is fear more absent these days than in regard to spirituality. Current writers and filmmakers (with rare exceptions) depict demonic and occult themes as being fascinating topics for fiction, but with no bearing on reality. This means that many of their efforts come off as curiously lightweight, if not dangerously blasé. But apart from the seriousness of evil on a moral plane, this lack of regard for spiritual danger results in works that are often artistically inert.

This is what makes the works of Tim Powers stand out. As a believing Catholic, his fiction straddles the eerie line between the real and unreal. Most of his books involve the occult, and the message is always the same: here be dragons. Do not touch. In Powers’ novels the unknown chaos of the occult may be seductive at first, but it always exacts a price, and often consumes what is human about those who are attracted to it.

His newest novel, Medusa’s Web, is a heady mix of Hollywood ghost story—describing long-lost neighborhoods and places as well as people—and an inventive revisionist take on familiar myths. Powers’ historical research is, as always, impeccable. As when I’ve read his other books, I occasionally came across some factoid or another that seemed just too far-fetched. “Oh come on, Powers is making stuff up now,” I think, and pull up the web to search for the incident—which invariably really happened.

Powers is known for this. In constructing his novels, he becomes a human Wikipedia: stumbling across some interesting incident or person from history and then cross-referencing it with other events and people.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "Barely a Crime: A Novel" by Robert Ovies

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Barely a Crime: A Novel

by Robert Ovies

In this gripping thriller, two men from the Northern Irish underworld are recruited by an enigmatic stranger for a shadowy operation. Promising to make them very rich without involving them in theft or murder, the job seems too good to be true; in fact, it seems to be barely a crime.

When Crawl and Kieran discover the identity of the man who has hired them for the break-in of the century, they realize they might be involving themselves in a high-stakes technological breakthrough. And they devise a scheme for demanding a bigger payout. As the law of unintended consequences kicks in, so do life-and-death consequences, not only for themselves, not only for many others, but for the whole world.

Robert Ovies, a former advertising executive, is a Catholic deacon. He has a master's in social work, and with his wife he served as a mission worker on Arizona's Navajo Reservation. For ten years, they were live-in directors of a communal halfway house in the Detroit area. His first novel was The Rising.

"Based on an intriguing premise, Barely a Crime holds the reader from start to finish."
— Piers Paul Read, Author, The Death of a Pope

"Ovies paints a disturbingly compelling snapshot of a criminal underworld. With a strong narrative replete with startling twists and turns, a taut plot and believable characters, Barely a Crime is what all first-rate thrillers should be: terrifying, fast-paced and impossible to put down."
— Fiorella de Maria, Author, Do No Harm

"Robert Ovies is an excellent thriller writer. Barely a Crime moves at a cracking pace, has a complicated and ingenious plot and sustains tension through some hair-raising scenes. A gripping read, with a thoroughly scary scientific fantasy at its core."
— Lucy Beckett, Author, A Postcard from the Volcano

"Barely a Crime is Christ-haunted in the same manner that the novels and stories of Flannery O'Connor are, and it is a gripping and cliff-hanging story, glowing with doom-laden gravitas in the gloom of sin and prideful passion."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Catholic Literary Giants

"From the very beginning this book will grab you by the lapel and drag you into a story of thrilling mystery, madness and thought-provoking grace. It weaves a tale of incremental depravity and redemption with characters who struggle to escape the impetus of their wounded past, and the fears, doubts and latent anger that has come to define them."
— Michael Richards, Author, Tobit's Dog

 

From Temptation to Transfiguration

Apse mosaic of the Transfiguration from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, 565-6. (Wikipedia)

From Temptation to Transfiguration | Carl E. Olson | On the Readings for Sunday, February 21st, 2016, the Second Sunday of Lent

Readings:
• Gn 15:5-12, 17-18
• Ps 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14
• Phil 3:17—4:1
• Lk 9:28b-36

What a difference a week makes! From temptation in the desert to Transfiguration on the mount; from supernatural battle with Satan to supernatural glory before the disciples. It is a striking contrast between the respective Gospel readings for last Sunday and today. But while the temptation in the desert is obviously Lenten—in fact, it is the inspiration and foundation of this season—why is the Transfiguration a part of the Sunday readings during Lent?

Of course, the actual time between the temptation in the desert, which preceded Jesus’ public ministry, and the stunning event on the mountain was about two years or so. But just a week prior to the Transfiguration, Jesus had asked the disciples, “Who do the multitudes say I am?” (Lk. 9:18). After Peter, the head apostle, made his famous declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16; Lk. 9:20), Jesus began to tell them that he would soon suffer many things, be rejected by the rulers, killed, and then “raised up on the third day” (Lk. 9:22). In Matthew’s account, the intrepid Peter, stunned by this revelation, rebuked Jesus, only to be rebuked, in turn, in no uncertain terms: “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matt. 16:23).

In sum, in the days leading up the Transfiguration, Jesus had directly confronted and demolished any false notions the disciples might have had about the nature of his mission. He strongly expressed the unwavering commitment he had to offering himself as a sacrifice for the world. His kingdom was not of this world, and he was not a political leader or a military warrior; he was not promising comfort and wealth. On the contrary, Jesus was promising a cross: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). 

We can only try to imagine how disorienting and confusing this had to be for the disciples. Suffering, rejection, and rapidly approaching death were not parts of their plan! In the midst of this confusion and anxiety, Jesus took Peter, John, and James, the inner circle of the disciples, up to the mountain to pray, ascending, as it were, toward the heavenly places. There, above the tumult of the world and an ominous future, Jesus revealed his glory and gave them a dazzling glimpse of their eternal calling.

But the glory witnessed by the three apostles was not just about the future. “The Transfiguration,” notes Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis in Fire of Mercy, Heart of the World (Ignatius Press, 2003), “is the experience of the fullness of divine Presence, action, communication, and glory now, in our very midst, in this world of passingness and disappointment.” It is about the fullness of life now—not ordinary, natural life, but extraordinary, supernatural life. The Transfiguration is about the gift of divine sonship, which comes from the Father, who says of Jesus, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, in considering whether it was fitting that Jesus should be transfigured, observed that since Jesus exhorted his disciples to follow the path of His sufferings, it was right for them to see his glory, to taste for a moment such eternal splendor so they might persevere. He wrote, in the third part of the Summa, “The adoption of the sons of God is through a certain conformity of image to the natural Son of God. Now this takes place in two ways: first, by the grace of the wayfarer, which is imperfect conformity; secondly, by glory, which is perfect conformity…”

Peter and the disciples had to learn that Jesus’ death was necessary so his life could be fully revealed and given to the world. “On Tabor, light pours forth from him,” writes Leiva-Merikakis, “on Calvary it will be blood.” A week ago we entered into the desert of Lent; today we get a glimpse of the glory given to every son and daughter of God—glory conforming us to the Son.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the February 28, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)