Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 21

St. Giuseppe Moscati and the Vocation of the Laity

Left: Giuseppe Moscati in undated photo (Wikipedia); right: Bedroom of St. Giuseppe Moscati, including the chair in which he died at age 47 (© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro/Wikipedia)

St. Giuseppe Moscati and the Vocation of the Laity | KV Turley | Catholic World Report

The life of Giuseppe Moscati was, in many ways, a fusion of the secular and the spiritual, of the professional scientist and the believer, of the earthly and of that which belongs to another realm.

On 14 April 1927, the following passage appeared in the newspaper Il Mattino:

On few occasions has Naples witnessed a spectacle so impressive in its boundless sorrow, which goes to show how much affection, esteem and admiration had been won by the man who was able to turn his profession into a very noble apostolate…with the aid of his teaching, to lavish his unparalleled goodness on all who were suffering, and who was able to demonstrate how, marvellously, religion and science can be reconciled.

Those were the words of a secular newspaper about a man who belonged very much to this world by virtue of how he lived and the profession he practiced, but whose life also spoke of a very different world. The life of Giuseppe Moscati was, in many ways, a fusion of the secular and the spiritual, of the professional scientist and the believer, of the earthly and of that which belongs to another realm. In his life, however, there was no dichotomy to be found; it was of a whole that, eventually, grew into holiness. The crowds that bid Giuseppe Moscati farewell that April day in 1927 recognised this quality; soon the wider world would come to recognize it too.

Many in the English-speaking world, I suspect, will not have heard of Moscati. The publication by Ignatius Press of Saint Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor of the Poor by Antonio Tripodoro will help introduce him to a wider, English-speaking audience. The book is an English translation of the original Italian text published in 2004. It is a relatively short book (under 200 pages), but it tells its story well, in an understated and yet inspiring fashion, with just the right amount of fact, detail, and anecdote to allow for the saint to emerge from its pages.

In many respects, the life of the man who was to become a saint is unremarkable. It could be summed up in a few lines: he was devoted to his family and his friends, he was an excellent practitioner of his chosen profession of medicine, and he lived and died devoutly. One feels that that is where the subject of the biography would have preferred matters to rest. All his life, no matter how influential or important in the eyes of the world he became, he was nothing if not self-effacing—one of the qualities that one notices in the biographies of saints. They shun the limelight; their eyes are upon another light, one the world has difficulty seeing. So it was with Moscati.

That said, saints rarely live alone.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

New: "The Ultimate Catholic Quiz: 100 Questions Most Catholics Can't Answer" by Karl Keating

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Ultimate Catholic Quiz: 100 Questions Most Catholics Can't Answer

by Karl Keating

This book offers a fun and challenging way to see how well you know Catholic teachings, practices, and history. Karl Keating, best-selling author and founder of Catholic Answers, presents a multiple-choice quiz with 100 questions about a wide variety of subjects connected with Catholicism.

Each of the 100 intriguing questions gives five possible answers. Only one of the answers is completely correct. The book is laid out in an easy-to-read format with the question and five possible answers on one page, and the analysis of each of the five answers, noting the correct one, on the next page. The questions, and the possible answers, are written with thought, precision, and sometimes a little humor to make for engaging reading.

The quiz does not pretend to be comprehensive, but the questions cover multiple areas—doctrines, morals, and customs, as well as historical events and personalities— and should provide your mind and soul with a good workout. This book will be useful for individual or group study.

Karl Keating is the Founder and President of Catholic Answers. He is a well-known Catholic speaker and apologist, and is the best-selling author of several books, including Catholicism and Fundamentalism, What Catholics Really Believe, and Controversies: High-Level Catholic Apologetics.

"Every Catholic family needs this book. It possesses the rare combination of being entertaining and even fun to read, while at the same time being challenging and educational."
— Tim Staples, Author, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines

"In The Ultimate Catholic Quiz, Karl Keating's drollery is on display in equal measure with his deft knack for teaching the faith and making it fun. My family had a jolly time getting some answers right, some wrong (and learning as a result), and snickering over hilarious fake answers in this multiple choice bonanza. As was said by a) Augustine, b) a Mysterious Voice in Augustine's Garden, c) the Confessions, d) me, e) all of the above: 'Take and read.'"
— Mark Shea, Author, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition

"Everybody enjoys a challenge, and Karl Keating has created an excellent and challenging quiz that both Catholics and non-Catholics will enjoy. More than a mere test of knowledge, The Ultimate Catholic Quiz explains not only which answers are correct—but why they are correct, making it an outstanding opportunity to learn!"
— Jimmy Akin, Author, The Fathers Know Best: Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church

"Karl Keating is the godfather of Catholic apologetics. He wrote this book the same way he talks—straight-talk Catholicism—and he doesn't mince words."
— Jesse Romero, Author, Catholics, Wake Up!

"This book is a fun way to learn more about the Catholic faith. It's great for parties, families, and small groups, as well as personal study."
— Trent Horn, Author, Answering Atheism

Confirmation and Evangelization

A 2014 photo of the late Cardinal Francis E. George blessing a boy during confirmation at St Clement Church in Chicago. (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)

Confirmation and Evangelization | Bishop Robert Barron | CWR's The Dispatch

It is sometimes said that Confirmation is a sacrament in search of a theology; in fact, it provides strength for the baptized to defend and spreads the faith.

Just a few days ago, I had the enormous privilege of performing my first confirmation as a bishop. It took place at Holy Cross Parish in Moor Park, California, a large, bustling, and bi-lingual parish in my pastoral region. I told the confirmandi - and I meant it - that I would keep them in my heart for the rest of my life, for we were connected by an unbreakable bond. In preparation for this moment, I was, of course, obliged to craft a homily, and that exercise compelled me to do some serious studying and praying around the meaning of this great Sacrament.

It is sometimes said that Confirmation is a sacrament in search of a theology. It is indeed true that most Catholics could probably give at least a decent account of the significance of Baptism, Eucharist, Confession, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick, but they might balk when asked to explain the meaning of Confirmation. Perhaps they would be tempted to say it is the Catholic version of a Bar Mitzvah, but this would not even come close to an accurate theological description.

A survey of the most recent theologizing about Confirmation - the Documents of Vatican II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the 1983 Code of Canon Law, etc. - reveals that this is the sacrament of strengthening, as the term itself ("confirmare" in Latin) suggests. First, it strengthens baptized people in their relationship with the Lord Jesus and then it further strengthens them in their capacity to defend and spread the faith. The roots of it, of course, are in the great day of Pentecost when, through the descent of the Holy Spirit, eleven timorous and largely uneducated men became fearless evangelists, ready and able to spread the Gospel far and wide. Keep in mind that to proclaim Jesus publicly in that time and place was to take one's life in one's hand - and the disciples knew it. And yet, on the very day of Pentecost, they spoke out in the Temple and in the public squares of Jerusalem. With the exception of John, they all went to their deaths boldly announcing the Word. I told those I confirmed that they are, in a certain sense, successors of those first men upon whom the Holy Spirit descended and that they have the same fundamental task. Their Confirmation, I further explained, is therefore not really for them; it is for the Church and the wider world.

Now what makes this transformation possible is the third person of the Holy Trinity, who comes bearing a variety of powers, which the Church calls the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These include wisdom, knowledge, understanding, fortitude, counsel, piety, and fear of the Lord. In order to understand these more fully, we must keep in mind their relationship to evangelization and apologetics, to spreading and defending the faith. As I have argued often, a dumbed-down, simplified Catholicism is not evangelically compelling. We have a smart tradition, marked by two thousand years of serious theologizing by some of the masters of Western thought: Origen, Augustine, Jerome, Anselm, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, and Joseph Ratzinger. If one is going to defend the Catholic faith, especially at a time when it is under assault by many in the secular culture, one had better possess (and cooperate with) the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

In order to be an effective evangelist, one also needs the spiritual gift of fortitude or courage. Will the defense of the faith stir up opposition?

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Is it up to the Supreme Court to save religious liberty?

A woman stands in front of flowers outside the Supreme Court building in Washington Feb. 14, the day after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (CNS photo/Carlos Barria, Reuters)

Is it up to the Supreme Court to save religious liberty? | Erasmus More | CWR's The Dispatch

Such is the state of American society and of religious liberty in American society that the US government is not not embarrassed to persecute the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Following the death of Justice Scalia, will the Supreme Court reverse what has been its recent record of protecting religious liberty? After its two gay-marriage decisions in the last three years, with their deepening implications for religious freedom, many Americans of faith may not sufficiently appreciate that in the last five years, the Supreme Court has issued two decisions, one unanimous, that have turned back the Obama administration’s attempts to undercut the ability of religious people to live according to their convictions. Now, however, with the Court having set March 23rd as the date to hear oral arguments in the case of the Obama administration versus the Little Sisters of the Poor, everything could change.

In the Hosanna Tabor case (2012), a Lutheran elementary church and its school fired a teacher of religion and other classes because she had narcolepsy. The teacher had been on disability leave and had wanted to return to teaching, but the school decided that she was not ready to return. Invoking the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Obama administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued. The school defended itself by arguing that the teacher was one of its trained and designated “ministers,” and, therefore, its decision to terminate the teacher was protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court unanimously held for the school. The decision is the first time in our history that our highest court has ever recognized a “ministerial exception” in employment law. That exception had been the basis of rulings in lower federal court for decades. It took the Obama administration to attempt to extinguish it by overturning those rulings and law. The argument of the Obama administration was that the religion clauses of the First Amendment did not even apply! Instead, it argued that the case should have been addressed under freedom of association, a derivative right not mentioned in the text of the First Amendment but recognized by the Supreme Court. Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Roberts rebuked the Obama administration for its “extreme position” and for “the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.”

For a religious issue of comparable gravity, one would almost have to go back to American colonial times when some colonies prohibited Catholic priests altogether. If the federal government can prescribe who is and who is not a minister, it is difficult to imagine what the free exercise of religion might mean in this country. For, religion does not exist aside from its ministers. “How are they to hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14).

The issues and the arguments in the Hobby Lobby case (2014) were more complicated, but the decision of the Supreme Court upheld religious liberty again. Under Obamacare, the Obama administration had sought to force the arts and crafts store, Hobby Lobby, owned by Evangelical Christians, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a woodworking business owned by Mennonites, to provide contraceptive services to its employees. Both businesses, facing enormous and daily fines from the federal government, objected that such coercion violated their religious beliefs because certain contraceptives are abortifacients.

The Obama administration invoked federal jurisdiction pursuant to its own executive “mandate” issued by the Department of HHS pursuant to Obamacare that required all health plans nationwide to include contraceptive services.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The Doritos Commercial and the Revival of Voluntarism

Bishop Robert Barron | The Dispatch at CWR

Though the commercial is, of course, playful, it exaggerates something quite real—but NARAL insists the child in the womb should not be "humanized".

I'm sure by now you've heard about the absurd reaction of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) to the lighthearted Super Bowl commercial produced to advertise Doritos. In the thirty-second clip, a pregnant mother, undergoing an ultra-sound, is annoyed by her husband who is absent-mindedly munching Doritos while their baby's image is displayed on the screen. But as the father moves the corn chip, the baby in the womb moves with it; and when the mother throws the bag across the room, the child reacts so keenly and purposively that he decides this is the moment to be born.

Cute, funny, harmless, right? Oh not according to NARAL, who complained (and one is compelled here to stifle laughter) that the commercial dangerously "humanized" the fetus. We are tempted to ask, "What do you think was gestating in the womb? A monkey? A rabbit?"

It has, of course, long been established scientifically that even a conceptus (a fertilized ovum) is already in full possession of human DNA distinct from that of his parents. Moreover, the developing embryo has a heartbeat and her own circulatory system 22 days after conception; at 20 weeks, the baby in the womb is capable of hearing his mother's voice, and responding to light, music, and other external stimuli. So though the Doritos commercial is, of course, playful, it exaggerates something quite real.
Yet according to NARAL, the child in the womb should not be "humanized," lest the absolute right to murder that child at any stage of its pre-natal development should be denied. And mind you, that right, in our country, extends even to the moment when the baby is emerging from the womb (partial birth abortion), indeed to the time after his birth, since many states place no restrictions on the killing of a newborn who has miraculously survived the abortion procedure (cf. born alive legislation). For many people, the bottom line is this: all objective evidence to the contrary, the unborn are not human because defenders of abortion don't want them to be.

And here, philosophically speaking, is the rub.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "How to Be Holy" by Peter Kreeft

Now available from Ignatius Press:

How to Be Holy: First Steps in Becoming a Saint

by Peter Kreeft

"Life, in the end, has only one tragedy: not to have been a saint."
– Léon Bloy

The ever-popular and prolific Peter Kreeft says that the most important question he has written about is how one becomes holy; or to put it another way, how one becomes a saint. This question is central to all the great religions, Kreeft demonstrates, for striving toward holiness, moving toward perfect love, is the whole purpose of life.

Kreeft admits that he is only a beginner on the climb to holiness, and it is to novices like him that he has written this engaging and encouraging book. Using the insights and experiences of saints and great spiritual writers throughout history, Kreeft shows what holiness is and how it can be achieved. He especially draws upon the spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. The core of Caussade's timeless gem is that God reveals himself to all of us through the daily events of our lives. The surest way toward spiritual growth, therefore, is by perceiving and accepting the merciful will of God in every situation.

Kreeft stresses the simplicity of his approach to holiness, which focuses mainly on the virtue of love. Sanctity is love, he asserts, and only that can give us what we all long for—deep and lasting joy.

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, is one of the most widely read Christian authors of our time. His many bestselling books cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include Practical Theology, Back to Virtue,Because God Is Real, You Can Understand the Bible, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, and A Summa of the Summa.

"Dr. Peter Kreeft takes his formidable knowledge of theology and translates it into practical advice that can help anyone advance in the spiritual life. No one does that better than Kreeft. How to Be Holy is a rare book that will help you bring both your head and your heart to a deeper practice of your faith."
— Jennifer Fulwiler, Author, Something Other Than God

"Anyone can benefit from the illuminating truth, timeless wisdom, and affable encouragement found on each page of How to Be Holy."
— Patrick Madrid, Radio host and Author, Why Be Catholic?

The Great Lent

(us.fotolia.com | rghenry)

The Great Lent | Dr. Thomas Howard | From Evangelical Is Not Enough

Lent, like Advent, is a time of penitence. Here we identify ourselves with the Lord's fast and ordeal in the wilderness, which He bore for us.

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Evangelical Is Not Enough.

Presently Lent arrives. This is the forty days leading up to Easter, which also recall the forty days of Christ's temptation in the wilderness. There is a telescoping of things here, since His temptation did not in actual fact immediately precede His Passion, but "liturgical time" is such that spiritual significance may override chronological exactness.

Lent, like Advent, is a time of penitence. Here we identify ourselves with the Lord's fast and ordeal in the wilderness, which He bore for us.

This raises a point worth noting in passing. There are some varieties of Protestant theology and spirituality that so stress "the finished work of Christ" and the fact that He accomplished everything, that they leave no room at all for any participation on our part. Such participation, encouraged by the ancient Church, does not mean that we mortals claim any of the merit that attaches to Christ's work, much less that we can by one thousandth particle add to His work. Nevertheless, the gospel teaches us that Christians are more than mere followers of Christ. We are His Body and are drawn, somehow, into His own sufferings. We are even "crucified" with Him.

My own tradition stressed this, but it was taught as a metaphor that meant only the putting to death of sin in our members. There was very little said about the sense in which Christ draws His Body into His very self-giving for the life of the world and makes them part of this mystery. Saint Paul uses extravagant language about his own filling up "that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." We had succinct enough explanations as to what he might have meant here, but these explanations allowed no room for any notion of our participating in Christ's offering. This was looked upon as heresy, violating the doctrine of grace in which all is done by God and nothing by us. We are recipients only. That the gracious donation of salvation by God could in any manner include His making us a part of it all, as He made the Virgin Mary an actual part of the process, and as Saint Paul seems to teach, was not the note struck.

The ancient Church, in its observance of Lent, once more asks us to move through the gospel with Christ Himself. The most obvious mark of Lent to a newcomer is the matter of fasting. I had own about this practice all my life. My Catholic playmates would give up chocolates or Coke or ice cream for Lent. I also knew that a few devout people in my own tradition of evangelicalism practiced fasting now and again for special purposes—a time of especially concentrated prayer, for example.

I myself thought of Lenten fasting and also of the old Catholic practice of refusing meat on Fridays as being legalistic, and perhaps even heretical, since it seemed to entail some notion of accruing merit. Since Christ had done all, why should we flagellate ourselves this way? Was it not a return to the weak and beggarly elements condemned by Saint Paul? Was it not to be guilty of the very thing that the apostle had a sailed the Galatian Christians for?

I discovered that the ancient Church teaches just what the New Testament teaches on the point, namely, that fasting is a salutary thing for us to undertake. Jesus fasted and assumed that His followers would. "When ye fast," He said, not "if." Saint Paul both practiced it and taught it. It seems to constitute a reminder to u that our appetites are not all and that man shall not live by bread alone. Furthermore, if we may believe the universal testimony of Christians who do practice it, it also clarifies our spiritual vision somehow. Lastly, it is a token of the Christian's renunciation of the world. There is no thing that a Christian will insist he must have at all costs. Fasting supplies an elementary lesson here.

Lent asks us to ponder Christ's self-denial for us in the wilderness. It draws us near to the mystery of Christ's bearing temptation for us in His flesh, and of how in this Second Adam our flesh, which failed in Adam, now triumphs.

Lent also leads us slowly toward that most holy and dread of all events, the Passion of Christ. What Christian will want to arrive at Holy Week with his heart unexamined, full of foolishness, levity, and egoism? To those for whom any special observances hint of legalism or superstition one can only bear witness that the solemn sequence of Lent turns out to be something very different from one's private attempts at meditating on the Passion. To move through the disciplines in company with millions and millions of other believers allover the world is a profoundly instructive thing.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. The first time ashes were imposed on my forehead, I found a cacophony of voices inside me: "Come! Now you have betrayed your background! This is straight back to the Dark Ages. Fancy Saint Paul's doing this!"

I knew it was not so when the priest came along with the little pot of damp ashes and with his thumb smudged my forehead—my forehead, the very frontal and crown of my dignity as a human being!—and aid, "Remember, O man, that dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return."

I knew it was true. I would return to dust, like all men, but never before had mortality come home to me in this way. Oh, I had believed it spiritually. But surely we need not dramatize it this way....

Perhaps we should, says the Church. Perhaps it is good for our souls' health to recall that our salvation, far from papering over the grave, leads us through it and raises our very mortality to glory. We, like all men, must die. I felt the strongest inclination to wave the priest past as he approached me in the line of people kneeling at the rail. Not me—not me—like Agag coming forth delicately, hoping that the bitterness of death was past. Yes, you. Remember, O man....

I was beginning to learn that when we encounter some "spiritual" truth in our bodies, it is brought home to us. We can meditate on suffering all day long, for example, but let us have migraines, and we know something we could not have known through merely mulling over the doctrine of suffering. We can meditate on love all day long, but let us kiss the one we long for, and we know immediately something we could not have known if we had thought about love for a thousand years. Nay—our very salvation came to us in the body of the incarnate God. "O generous love! that He who smote/In Man for man the foe,/The double agony in Man/For man should undergo," says Cardinal Newman's hymn. The ashes effected something in me more than a smudge on my forehead. I had felt, if only for a moment, the thing that I wished most earnestly to be exempted from: death.

Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself

Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself | Brother Austin G. Murphy, O.S.B. | IgnatiusInsight.com

We still ask ourselves as Ash Wednesday approaches, "What am I doing for Lent? What am I giving up for Lent?" We can be grateful that the customs of giving up something for Lent and abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent have survived in our secular society. But, unfortunately, it is doubtful that many practice them with understanding. Many perform them in good faith and with a vague sense of their value, and this is commendable. But if these acts of self-denial were better understood, they could be practiced with greater profit. Otherwise, they run the risk of falling out of use.

A greater understanding of the practice of self-denial would naturally benefit those who customarily exercise it during Lent. Better comprehension of self-denial would also positively affect the way Christians live throughout the year. The importance of self-denial can be seen if we look specifically at fasting and use it as an example of self-denial in general. Indeed, fasting, for those who can practice it, is a crucial part of voluntary self-denial.

But since we live in a consumerist society, where self-indulgence rather than self-denial is the rule, any suggestion to fast will sound strange to many ears. It is bound to arouse the questions: Why is fasting important? Why must a Christian practice it? Using these questions as a framework, we can construct one explanation, among many possible ones, of the importance of self-denial.

To answer the question "Why must the Christian fast?" we should first note that fasting, in itself, is neither good nor bad, but is morally neutral. But fasting is good insofar as it achieves a good end. Its value lies in it being an effective means for attaining greater virtue. And because it is a means for gaining virtue– and every Christian ought to be striving to grow in virtue–there is good reason to fast.

Some people point out that fasting is not the most important thing and, therefore, they do not need to worry about it. Such reasoning displays a misunderstanding of our situation. But, since the excuse is common enough, some comments to refute it are worthwhile.

Doing Small Things Well

First, while it is true that fasting is not the most important thing in the world, this does not make fasting irrelevant or unimportant. There are, certainly, more urgent things to abstain from than food or drink, such as maliciousness, backbiting, grumbling, etc. But a person is mistaken to conclude that he therefore does not need to fast. He should not believe that he can ignore fasting and instead abstain in more important matters. Rather, fasting and avoiding those other vices go hand in hand. Fasting must accompany efforts to abstain in greater matters. For one thing, fasting teaches a person how to abstain in the first place.

Moreover, it is presumptuous for a person to try to practice the greater virtues without first paying attention to the smaller ones. As Our Lord says, "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much" [1] and so can be trusted with greater things. Therefore, if a person wants to be able to abstain in greater matters he must not neglect to abstain in smaller matters, such as through fasting.

Finally, there is a subtle form of pride present in the person who says that because something is not very important, he does not need to do it. Whoever makes such a claim implies that he does only important things. But the average person is rarely called to do very important things. Accordingly, each person is more likely to be judged on how he did the little, everyday things. Even when, rarely, a person is called to do a great work, how often does he fall short? All the more reason, then, for a person to make sure that he at least does the small things well. Furthermore, if he truly loves the Lord, he will gladly do anything–big or small–for him. So, in the end, saying that fasting is not the most important thing is not a good excuse for avoiding it.

What, then, is the reason for fasting?

Continue reading at www.IgnatiusInsight.com.

Why We Need Lent

Detail from “Christ in the Wilderness” (1872) by Ivan Kramskoy (WikiArt.org)

Why We Need Lent | Fr. George William Rutler | CWR

Lent is a small familiarity with the inexhaustible drama of redemption in which eternity transfigures mortality.

Editor's note: This essay appears in He Spoke to Us: Discerning God’s Will in People and Events, by Father George William Rutler. It was originally published in Crisis Magazine, March 1, 2001.

Lenten days bring two images immediately to mind, at least to my own idle mind. The first is of the bishops’ gathering that first established Lent in 325 during the great ecumenical council in the Turkish town of Isnik—then called Nicaea. Some of the bishops there had been mutilated in the persecutions of the emperors Maximin and Licinius. A dubious record says there were 318 bishops in all, but we do know that their fifth canon ordered a time of fasting and penance lasting forty days, which we now call Lent, presumably because Moses, Elijah, and Christ had fasted forty days. There are bishops maimed like those Nicaean bishops today in China, though our government and many corporations have not advertised them. When one of them, Ignatius Cardinal Kung, was released in 1985 after thirty years in prison, he was surprised to learn that the Church’s Friday meat abstinence had been changed. Evidently he did not think this an improvement. While his internment had been a perpetual Lent, he thought the mortifications of his brethren in the West had been sustaining him. In fact, it had been the other way around.

The bishops of Nicaea knew the consequences of mortification, the grief of it when inflicted, and the grace of it when voluntarily assumed. So they extended to forty days what first had been a penitential period of three days before Easter. The season was catechetical as well as penitential, preparing catechumens for baptism and collaterally instructing all the faithful. Over the years, the nature of the Lenten fasts and penances varied, and not until the seventh century in the West was Ash Wednesday added so that Lent might last the full forty days if Sundays were exempted. As early as the time of the Council of Nicaea, however, the Church in Jerusalem had kept Lent for eight five-day weeks. The word “Lent” comes from the Old English lencten, after the season of spring with its lengthening daylight. Christians, bringing to fulfillment an instinct of most religions, have known that some period of mortification as a “prayer of the senses” serves as a prelude to a spiritual rebirth.

The second image that comes to mind when I think of Lent is that of the Church of Saint George in Velabro along the Roman Forum. Unlike the Church in Jerusalem, whose own altars fasted on the weekdays of Lent by forgoing the liturgy, the Church in Rome celebrated Mass every day of Lent and with special ceremony. At the end of their workday, the faithful would gather around the bishop of Rome and his deacons in procession to a church appointed for the day. The Church of Saint George was the station church for the first day after Ash Wednesday, and since Saint George is the patron of soldiers, the traditional gospel reading for that Thursday was about the centurion who asked Christ to heal his servant. To that church in the course of his tumultuous pontificate during the eleventh century, Pope Urban II brought a portion of the skull of the great martyr George. Others of his relics are entombed outside what is now the entrance to the Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

When I was living in Rome some years ago, it fell to my lot to preach each year at Saint George on the Lenten station day, beginning when I was a deacon. By then, George’s official status on the Church calendar had been reduced in the neuralgic spirit of the late 1960s, though he continues to be the most honored saint—except for Mary—in many Christian nations. And of course, like the Nicaean bishops in their endurance, the survivors of Soviet Russia have restored Saint George to their banners, and a new Church of Saint George the Mega-Martyr shines in the sun across Red Square from the sullen tomb of Lenin the Martyrer. Ostpolitik is gone, and Saint George remains.

Lenten lightweights

All this is by way of saying that Lent is not for the fey. That is because Christianity is not for them, either.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

We are called to be fishers of men

"Gennesaret fishing" (c. 1935) by Nicholas Roerich [WikiArt.org]

We are called to be fishers of men | Carl E. Olson | A Scriptural reflection on the Readings for Sunday, February 7, 2015

Readings:
Is 6:1-2a, 3-8
Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8
Lk 5:1-11

God initiates. Man responds. Jesus calls. Man answers.

Such is the dynamic relationship at the heart of salvation history and at the center of human existence. “Through an utterly free decision,” the Catechism explains, “God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men.” Today’s readings offer a challenging view of God’s revelation of Himself, His call to specific men, and His desire for all Christians to be “fishers of men.” 

Let’s take a brief look at three men caught up in the divine drama: the prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul, and Peter, the head of the Apostles and the first Pope. In many respects they were quite different from one another. Isaiah was likely from an upper-class family, was apparently well educated, and was married to a prophetess (Isa 8:3). Paul was also highly educated, the prize student of the great rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), and, prior to his conversion on the Damascus Road, a fervent enemy of the budding Church. Peter was certainly fervent as well, but was a fisherman and a blue-collar businessman. Yet, however different they were from one another, each man was called, in dramatic and personal fashion, to proclaim the Word of God in difficult, harrowing circumstances. 

Some seven centuries prior to Jesus and the apostles, the prophet Isaiah had a dazzling vision of the throne room of the Lord of hosts. Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, initiated contact with the prophet and called him to the task of proclaiming the glory of God and exhorting Israel and Judah to repent of their sins. Isaiah recognized and confessed his own sinful state: “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips…” 

As the Catechism says so well, “Faced with God’s fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance” (CCC 208). When man sees himself in the light of God’s holiness and recognizes his desperate plight, he can then admit his sinful state and be given the grace needed for the work of God. “See,” Isaiah was told by the seraphim, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Paul was also transformed and purified by a heavenly vision. Having held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen, the first martyr, the young Saul was intent on persecuting the Church in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas (Acts 7:58; 8:1-3). Then, while traveling to Damascus in search of more Christians to arrest, “a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him” (Acts 9:3). As he wrote to the church in Corinth, in today’s Epistle, “Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Whereas Isaiah’s sinful lips were purified by fire, Paul’s blinded eyes were healed by the prayer and hands of Ananias, a disciple of Jesus Christ.  

Paul eventually spent time with Peter (cf. Gal 1:18), whose life contained more than a few instances of dramatic response to God’s call. Luke’s account of the miraculous catch of fish sets the stage for one such moment; it begins with the note that the crowds following Jesus were eagerly “listening to the word of God.” Some of the early Church Fathers, such as Ambrose and Augustine, saw this event as both historical and metaphorical: the boat of Peter represents the Church in history, going forth to catch men through the guidance of Christ, the head of the Church. Peter, who would eventually be the Vicar of Christ (Matt 16:16-18), accepted by faith the command of Jesus. Upon witnessing the miracle he responded with the same humility as Isaiah and Paul: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Yet Jesus does not ask only Peter and the apostles to be fishers of men; He asks it of every son and daughter of God. 

God is calling. How will we answer? Jesus tells us to cast our nets. Will we?

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the February 4, 2007, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)