Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 214
June 12, 2012
Prof. Tracey Rowland awarded The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
Prof. Tracey Rowland, Dean and Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute (Melbourne), was honored with the The Officer's Cross of the order of Merit by the Polish Ambassador to Australia, His 
Excellency Professor Andrzej Jaroszynski. The Order of Merit is the highest honour Poland gives to a non-citizen. The Archdiocese of Melbourne website reports:
"I feel very privileged and very honoured to be here with you and to share my joy that Professor Tracey Rowland has been recognised with the highest distinction given to foreign nationals by the Polish Government," Ambassador Jaroszynski said. "It is not often that theologians are recognised by this distinction."
The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) is a Polish order awarded to those who have rendered great service to the Polish nation. It was created in 1974, and is granted to foreigners or Poles resident abroad.
In accepting the award, Professor Rowland, who is Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne Campus, thanked those present, who included Bishop Peter Elliott, Dr George Luk, Consul-General of Poland, Religious, members of the faculty, students and friends, and expressed her gratitude for the award.
In her speech, Prof. Rowland praised Poland's cultural and artistic achievements, noted the country's defense of Western culture, and highighted the legacy of the country's most famous son:
June 11, 2012
Media Alert: "UnPlanned" Author Abby Johnson "Exposes the Lie"
EVENT: UnPlanned Author Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood® abortion clinic, will host a one-time-only webcast featuring other former abortion-industry workers who will blow the whistle on the organization and the industry – and 
discuss a plan for real change.
WHEN: 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT, 5 p.m. PT) tonight – Monday, June 11, 2012.
WHERE: Online at http://exposingthelie.com/ – RSVPs encouraged.
ABOUT THE WEBCAST: During this one-time-only webcast, Johnson and other former abortion-industry workers will discuss:
• How workers are the weak link in the abortion business, and how their unique knowledge and experience provides a road map for how to close down abortion facilities from the inside …
• Why people go to work in the abortion industry — and what can be done to help them experience conversions and quit their jobs …
• The growing number of abortion workers who feel betrayed and want out — and what is already being done to assist them …
• The brand-new ministry that is being launched to help many more abortion workers find hope and healing — and share the truth about what they experienced inside Planned Parenthood and other abortion operations …
• And how YOU can help make this a reality!
ABOUT THE BOOK: In UnPlanned, Johnson tells the dramatic story of the journey that unfolded as a result of a fateful day in September 2009 when a co-worker asked her for help with a patient in the Planned Parenthood® clinic she ran – how she literally “crossed the fence” from Planned Parenthood® leader to an advocate fighting for women in crisis – and the lives of their unborn babies. Ignatius Press published the Catholic edition of UnPlanned.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Abby Johnson is a convert to Catholicism who left her job as director of a Planned Parenthood® clinic in Texas to join the Pro Life movement – after assisting in an abortion procedure.
For more information, to request a review copy of UnPlanned or schedule an interview with Abby Johnson, please contact Kevin Wandra of The Maximus Group at (678) 990-9032 or KWandra@MaximusMG.com.
The Holy Eucharist: Central Sacrament Pre-figured in the First Passover
Recently posted on the Homiletic & Pastoral Review site:
Christ’s institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist was, and is, the single, greatest gift he left to his Church. For, it is the fulfillment of his promise to truly be always among us: “And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time” (Mt 28:20). While there are, indeed, multiple and varied presences of Christ, such as: when two or three are gathered in his name; when the People of God gather to celebrate the Liturgy; when Sacred Scripture—the Word—is proclaimed; or when the priest acts in Persona Christi while administering and officiating at any of the Sacraments, etc. The abiding Eucharistic presence of Christ, with the fullness of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is truly singular in its reality, intensity, substance and fullness.
While the accidents of bread and wine remain, the substance is completely transformed into the Second Person of the Trinity. Holy Mother Church refers to this supernatural process—whereby our gifts of bread and wine are wholly transformed into the true presence of Christ—as Transubstantiation. Thus, while the appearance of bread and wine remain, the substance has been wholly and completely transformed into the very substance of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. This occurs during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, specifically during the priest’s prayer of consecration, and immediately following the Epiclesis. Regarding the wholly unique presence of Christ, contained within the pre-eminent sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say: “The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as ‘the perfection of the spiritual life, and the end to which all sacraments tend.’ In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ, is truly, really, and substantially contained.’ This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence, as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present” (CCC §1374).
Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” refers to the Eucharist as the source from which all the Church’s activity originates, and the summit toward which all the Church’s activity is directed. Based on this essential teaching of the Council, which reiterated 2000 years of Church teaching on the Eucharist, we can come to understand that the Eucharist truly is the “central Sacrament” in the sense that the Eucharist is “the end to which all sacraments tend.” This truth fleshes out the reality that each of the other Sacraments, while possessing a specific purpose in their own right, ultimately serve the greater purpose of leading souls to full participation in the Eucharistic banquet. This is nothing short of a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, where we will participate in God’s own divine life.
Read the entire essay, written by Jayson M. Brunelle, M.Ed., C.A.G.S.
It’s Time to Remember What Men Have Forgotten
It’s Time to Remember What Men Have Forgotten | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report
Three basic truths we must remember if we are to remain free.
The following address was given at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally held in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday, June 8, 2012.
Good afternoon!
One of my heroes is the great Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who spent decades recording the horrors and history of Communism until his death four years ago. In 1983, he gave an address that began with this statement:
More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”
The Communist revolution was, of course, a violent and bloody one. Like the French Revolution, which took place in the late 1700s, it was openly opposed to belief in God and Christianity. While the leaders of those respective revolutions directly attacked belief in God, their paths to power, tyranny, and terror were made easier because so many men had forgotten God.
The American Revolution is often compared to the French Revolution. In fact, when I was in high school, the two were presented as twins, as if they were essentially the same in character and intent. But they were not.
While the leaders of the French Revolution savagely attacked tradition and order, the American founders were deeply concerned to preserve and respect the rich tradition inherited from the Magna Carta (1215) and the English Bill of Rights (1689). And while the French revolutionaries sought to violently overthrow Christianity and to establish a secular religion with a secular calendar, the American colonists sought independence from Britain in order to peacefully govern themselves as free men.
Many of the American founders were Christians; all of them recognized the transcendent and rational basis for authentic freedom.
Which is why the Declaration of Independence stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence also refers, in the opening paragraph, to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.” This past January, Pope Benedict XVI met with American bishops in Rome. During that meeting, he made the following remark about the founding of the United States and its founding documents:
At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.
We could spend hours, I think, considering the many important points raised by the Pope in his statement. I want to highlight just three points, especially in light of the HHS mandate, which is a direct assault on religious freedom, political freedom, and the deeply held, principled beliefs of millions of Americans.
The first point is this: True freedom is a gift from God. This is true of religious freedom, political freedom, and every other authentic freedom enjoyed by humans.
What we believe about freedom says a lot about what we believe about truth, goodness, the meaning of life, the origin of our existence, and the purpose of our time here on earth.
41 recently added e-books, from Ignatius Press
The following Ignatius Press books are now available in electronic book format (prc for kindle; epub for nook, ipad):
• For Greater Glory: The True Story of Christiada by Ruben Quezada
• Holy Men and Women: From the Middle Ages and Beyond by Pope Benedict XVI
• Dogma and Preaching (2nd Edition) by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Benedict XVI's Reform by Nicola Bux
• The Voice of the Church by Fr. Michael Lang
• Exodus (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible) by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
• Real Love (2nd edition) by Mary Beth Bonacci
• The True Icon by Paul Badde
• Saints Are Not Sad by Frank Sheed
• My Brother the Pope by Georg Ratzinger and Michael Heseman
• To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed
• Christianity and Democracy by Jacques Maritain
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (Ignatius Critical Edition) by Oscar Wilde
• We Have Found Mercy by Christoph Cardinal Schoeborn
• The Joyful Beggar: A Novel of St. Francis of Assisi by Louis de Wohl
• Shadows and Images by Meriol Trevor
• In Memory of Me: Meditations On The Roman Canon by Milton Walsh
• Life Out of Death by Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book by Fr. Patrick Peyton
• They Followed His Call by Adrienne von Speyr
• Three Women and the Lord by Adrienne von Speyr
• My Early Years by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Mission of the Prophets by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Mystery of Death by Adrienne von Speyr
• Mary in the Redemption by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Passion From Within by Adrienne von Speyr
• Lumina and New Lumina by Adrienne von Speyr
• Light and Images by Adrienne von Speyr
• Man Before God by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Letter to the Ephesians by Adrienne von Speyr
• John, Vol. 1: The Word Becomes Flesh by Adrienne von Speyr
• John, Vol. 2: The Discourses of Controversy by Adrienne von Speyr
• John, Vol. 3: The Farewell Discourses by Adrienne von Speyr
• John, Vol. 4: The Birth of the Church by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Holy Mass by by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Letter to the Colossians by Adrienne von Speyr
• Elijah by Adrienne von Speyr
• Handmaid of the Lord by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Gates of Eternal Life by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Countenance of the Father by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Cross: Word and Sacrament by Adrienne von Speyr
Here are many more electronic books from Ignatius Press.
June 10, 2012
Know Him in the Breaking of Bread
Know Him in the Breaking of Bread | Fr. Francis Randolph | From Know Him in the Breaking of Bread: A Guide To The Mass
The First Mass
In the evening of the first day of the week, two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And one came up beside them and began to explain the Scriptures that told of Jesus the Christ, how he was destined to suffer and rise again. And as he spoke, the hearts of the disciples burned within them; they were stirred 
and enlightened by the new explanation of scriptural words they had heard so many times before. But it was not until they sat together, and he took bread and broke it, that they recognized that the person actually present with them was the same Jesus about whom they had been speaking (Lk 24:13-35).
From that day till this, Christians have met to hear the Scriptures explained and to know Jesus in the breaking of bread. These three elements are the essence of the Mass: Christians come together and discern the spirit of Jesus in each other. They listen to the Word of God, and their hearts burn within them as they hear it. And in the breaking of bread they recognize Jesus himself actually present, given for them.
The coming together is vital; it is only in the Church that the Mass can take place. This does not mean necessarily in a special church building, though that helps. Nor does it mean that many people are necessarily gathered on any particular occasion, though that is desirable. It means that the Mass is celebrated within the unity of the One Church, that the celebration is not a private, exclusive affair but is in conscious union with the Church throughout the world. One of the most moving descriptions of the Mass I have read is by the American Jesuit Walter Ciszek, who was a prisoner in the old Soviet Union. He managed to slip away into the forest with only one companion and celebrated Mass quietly and secretly, using a tree stump as an altar. And in so doing he was far from alone; he was one with millions of Catholics all over the world. The whole Church came into the heart of that forest; Christ was made present among a people who were unaware of his existence. That lonely Mass was very much the expression of Christians coming together, uniting in the one sacrifice. [1]
Listening to the Word of God is vital; unless we have heard about Jesus, how can we love him? There may be only a brief, whispered passage from the Gospel, or there may be a long, drawn-out sequence of readings, but in one way or other the message of Scripture must be proclaimed. The Church first expressed her faith in the words of the Bible, and the long centuries of developing tradition have deepened and enhanced those words. We do not hear them alone but within the Church that gave birth to them, and even now, even after they have been spoken so many, many times, they are still capable of awakening our hearts to burn within us.
The breaking of bread is the apex of the Mass. In the Consecration of bread and wine and the sharing of that Blessed Sacrament among the faithful, we know Jesus himself, directly, without intermediary. Still it is within the Church alone that we find him, for the Church herself is actually constituted by the sharing of Holy Communion. It is in receiving the Body of Jesus Christ that we become his Body, the Universal Church. That is why St. Paul warns of the risks at stake if we try to partake of that Body without recognizing the Body, if we imagine that we can receive Communion without desiring to be part of that Body which is the Church (1 Cor 11:29). Jesus Christ is not a tame lion; we approach him at our peril if we defy him; but if we come in love, open to his Word, recognizing his Body, then we shall be loved and welcomed indeed. We cannot impose conditions on him; we come to him to learn, to listen, to follow his guidance. And his message is always the same, the message of his love for us, his love for all our fellow creatures.
The Discipline of Secrecy
For some centuries after Pentecost, the Church remained very silent about the Mass. It was above all the "secret", the "mystery", the one thing known to initiated Christians that was on no account to be divulged to those outside the Church. Those prepar- ing for baptism knew that some great secret was to come, but it was not revealed to them until after they had been baptized. The union between God and his people was too personal, too intimate to display in public to a cynical and unsympathetic world. As a result, our knowledge about early Christian worship has to be gleaned from hints and allusions, tantalizing comments like "the initiated will know what I am talking about", and ambiguous references that even now can puzzle the commentator. Paintings and graffiti in the catacombs help to fill out the picture, but it remains true that we do not really know what Liturgy in "the early Church" was like.
St. Justin Martyr
This makes it rather a surprise to find one author who tears the veil of secrecy. The martyr St. Justin, in about A.D. 150, wrote a book called the Apologia, which is a simple explanation of what Christians believe and what they do, intended to persuade the emperor and other hostile powers to let Christians live in peace. In the course of this Apology, he describes the Mass and explains briefly what it means. It had not yet come to its modern form, of course, but the basic elements are recognizable. The faithful meet on Sunday, and the "memoirs of the apostles" or the writings of the prophets are read for as long as time permits. Then the priest explains the readings and exhorts the people. They rise then and pray in common for themselves and for all men everywhere, so that they may be recognized to be good, loyal citizens. At the end of the prayers, they salute each other with a kiss. Then bread and a cup of water mixed with wine are brought to the priest; he offers them, giving thanks. All present give their assent in the word "Amen". Then the deacons distribute the Eucharist and carry it away to those who are absent. The congregation does not disperse before a collection has been taken.
As well as describing the actions of the Mass, St. Justin gives away the central secret of what it means: "We do not receive these things as if it were common bread and common drink, but just as Jesus Christ our Savior was made flesh through the Word of God, possessing flesh and blood to rescue us, in the same way the nourishment over which thanks have been given through the prayer of the Word who was with God, and which feeds our own body and blood as it is transformed, we have been taught to identify as the body and blood of that same Jesus who was made flesh." For this reason, he goes on to say, only those who are full members of the Church may receive the Eucharist.
My own copy of Justin formerly belonged to a Protestant college, and someone has written in a neat eighteenth-century hand "Is not this a little like transubstantiation?" It is indeed: St. Justin in the second century is saying, in a slightly convoluted and undeveloped way, exactly what the Catholic Church has been teaching ever since. The basic structure of Justin's Mass is still recognizable: the coming together as members of one Church, the reading and explanation of Scripture, the prayer of the faithful, the sign of peace, and the offering and breaking of bread, which the faithful receive as the Body of Christ. The collection also is a familiar element! [2]
After the conversion of the Empire, there was no further need for secrecy in a world where everyone knew what the Christian faith was about. But now arose the opposite problem: since everyone knew the truth, there was no reason to write it down! As a result, systematic writings about the Mass are not found until it first came to be doubted, many centuries later. It is the great medieval theologians, particularly St. Thomas, who first explored the meaning of the Mass in depth, not because the ideas were new in their time, but because it was only in their time that anyone had begun to question them.
Now that we again live in a pagan society that is hostile to the Church, like that of the ancient Roman Empire, it might seem a good idea to practice the discipline of secrecy again, but since the secret has been so widely published for so long it would be absurd to try to conceal it. All the same I often feel uneasy about the way in which the Mass is televised, filming the actual Consecration and the moment of Communion, as if the cameras were intruding on something too intimate for the public gaze. I am hoping at least that readers of this book will be sympathetic, will be trying to come to love our Lord, if they are not yet fully communicating members of his Catholic Church. In explaining what we mean when we talk of the presence of Jesus Christ, of transubstantiation, of the mystical union of Holy Communion, I am aware that I am treading on very delicate ground. I hope and trust that I am keeping firmly within the mainline tradition of the Church, to whose judgment everything I say is submitted.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Walter Ciszek, He Leadeth Me (San Francisco: Ignatius Press; 1995), 37.
[2] Justin, Apologia Prima, 97-98; most accessible in Henry Bettenson,Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963), section VII, iv.
Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:
• Benedict and the Eucharist: On the Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis | Carl E. Olson
• For "Many" or For "All"? | From God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Foreword to U.M. Lang's Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Music and Liturgy | From The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer | From The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• The Meaning and Purpose of the Year of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• The Doctrine (and the Defense) of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• Walking To Heaven Backward | Interview with Father Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory
• Rite and Liturgy | Denis Crouan, STD
• The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, OP
• The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.
• Liturgy, Catechesis, and Conversion | Barbara Morgan
• Understanding The Hierarchy of Truths | Douglas Bushman, STL
• The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Spirituality | Mark Brumley
• Eucharistic Adoration: Reviving An Ancient Tradition | Valerie Schmalz
Fr. Francis Randolph studied Classics and Theology in Oxford and Rome. He has traveled widely, and worked as a parish priest, hospital and military chaplain, and six years as a university chaplain. He currently works in a busy parish in central England. He is also the author of Pardon and Peace: A Sinner's Guide to Confession.
June 9, 2012
“The Biggest Distortion of All”
“The Biggest Distortion of All” | Catholic World Report | Ann Carey
Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo responds to distortions about the CDF assessment of the LCWR.
Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo has issued a letter, “Reality check: The LCWR, CDF and the doctrinal assessment” (Catholic Chronicle, June 8, 2012), responding to public “distortions and misrepresentations of the facts” related to the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Bishop Blair’s letter comes in response to an avalanche of highly critical and often grossly erroneous reports and articles about the assessment that have appeared in the mass media.
Bishop Blair was appointed by the Vatican in 2008 as the apostolic delegate to conduct the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR for the CDF. This year he was appointed to assist Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle in overseeing the renewal of the LCWR.
“The biggest distortion of all is the claim that the CDF and the bishops are attacking or criticizing the life and work of our Catholic sisters in the United States,” Bishop Blair wrote. He went on to explain that the CDF action concerns only the LCWR, and while LCWR members lead most of the religious sisters in this country, “that does not mean that criticism of the LCWR is aimed at all the member religious communities, much less all sisters.”
The word “investigation” is often used to characterize the CDF assessment, Bishop Blair noted, but he explained that word implies an attempt to uncover unknown matters. In this case, he said, the doctrinal assessment was “an appraisal of materials which are readily available to anyone who cares to read them on the LCWR website and in other LCWR published resources. The assessment was carried out in dialogue with the LCWR leadership, both in writing and face-to-face, over several months.”
Bishop Blair went on to explain that the “fundamental question” posed by the CDF to the LCWR leaders was why the “LCWR constantly provides a one-sided platform—without challenge or any opposing view—to speakers who take a negative and critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the Church’s teaching office.”
He cited these examples:
The Covenants and the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for June 10, 2012, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ | Carl E. Olson
Readings:
• Ex 24:3-9
• Ps 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18
• Heb 9:11-15
• Mk 14:12-16, 22-26
It is difficult to choose the most ridiculous statement in Dan Brown’s novel, Angels & Demons, but I’ll choose this one, uttered by the “hero,” Robert Langdon: “The practice of ‘god-eating’—that is, Holy Communion—was borrowed from the Aztecs.”
However, the Aztec civilization didn’t develop until the thirteenth century in present-day Mexico, quite a distance from Palestine. Which means Dan Brown—er, Robert Langdon—was only off by 1,200 years and 7,700 miles. Not that I’m surprised, for Brown doesn’t seem to know much of anything about the Old Testament roots of the New Testament.
Unfortunately, even some Christians are equally unaware of the deep and significant relationship. Yet, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen” (par. 129). When this lights shines upon today’s readings, we can see more clearly the Old Testament roots and the biblical logic of the belief that the Holy Eucharist is the true Body, Blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. Here are some of key features defined in that light:
• The prophet Moses was directed by God to lead the people of Israel out of slavery and he was given the Law in person by God on Mount Sinai. Jesus is the new Moses, who is not only sent by God to save his people from slavery to sin, but is God, the Incarnate Word. As author of the Law, he is able to perfectly fulfill the Law (Mt 5:17-18).
• Moses was also the mediator between God and the people. He spoke directly to God and, today’s reading from Exodus states, he “related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,” establishing a covenant between God and and the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus, being both God and man, is the perfect and everlasting mediator between God and all men. By his life, death, and Resurrection he established the new and everlasting covenant between God and the new Israel, the Church, which is signified by the twelve apostles.
• Moses’ work as mediator was also priestly. Having erected, as part of the covenantal ceremony, an altar and the twelve pillars representing the twelve tribes, he had the young men offer sacrifices “as peace offerings to the LORD.” Half of the blood of the sacrificed bulls was placed in bowls; the other half thrown on the altar. These actions sealed the covenant between God and the people; it was, in essence, a sacred oath of fidelity and familial love.
As the Epistle to the Hebrews explains in great detail, Christ is the new and everlasting high priest. Rather than offering goats and bulls as sacrifices, Christ shed his own blood. “For this reason,” the author writes, “he is a mediator of a new covenant.” While the sacrifices of the old covenant cleansed the people of their sins, the sacrifice on the Cross makes it possible for man to share in the divine life of God, transformed by the eternal Spirit through the work of the Son.
• The Israelites were freed from Egypt through the Passover and the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, whose blood was smeared on the doorposts and whose flesh was consumed (Ex 12). The Passover, for the Jews, was and is the great saving event in the history of Israel. “For Jews,” the Catechism says, “it is the Passover of history, tending toward the future; for Christians, it is the Passover fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Christ…” (par. 1096). Jesus is the Lamb of God who blood is shed on the Cross and who flesh and blood is given in the Eucharist.
When Jesus, at the Last Supper, took the bread and wine, he drew together as only he could all of those many historical, religious, and spiritual elements. In giving the consecrated bread and wine to his disciples, he brought to completion the promises given to Moses. He fulfilled the incomplete work of the old covenant. He gives us his most holy Body and Blood.
(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the June 14, 2009, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
June 8, 2012
The HHS Mandate and Wily Providence
The HHS Mandate and Wily Providence | Benjamin Wiker | Catholic World Report
With contraception, the Obama administration thought it had found a chink in the American Church's moral armor. It was wrong.
While it is certainly right to lament the fact the Obama administration is attempting to force Catholic institutions, through the Health and Human Services mandate, to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization, there is a bright side to all this. It may very well be a wily act of divine providence, a case of God using hostile secular powers to effect much-desired goals of the Church itself.
In saying this, I don’t mean to undermine the gravity of the situation. The HHS mandate is an egregious violation of the Church’s moral doctrines, of the proper relationship of church and state, and of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. If it is an act of divine providence, it is one of those divine goads—like the Church being forced to clean out child molesters among its shepherds by the onslaughts of the secular press—that we wish could have been avoided by doing the right thing to begin with.
So, what seems providential about this whole mess? The HHS mandate has had the happy effect of forcing the bishops (and priests under them) to do something that they’ve sadly neglected to do for the last half-century: defend the Church’s teaching against contraception. They have been vocal enough against abortion, but about contraception, the near-silence has been deafening.
The result has been that a reported 90-plus percent of Catholics interpret the silence as consent, as a sign that the Church’s ban on birth control is really, more or less, like the Church’s tradition of having only altar boys. The former can be overcome just like the latter by cheerfully ignoring the prohibition, and doing as one pleases until the Church catches up.
There is little doubt that the Obama administration, in issuing the mandate, understood the situation quite well, and planned its strategy accordingly. The strategists knew the bishops have always been lukewarm in their defense of the Church’s prohibition against contraception. They also knew that the bishops were red-hot in their enthusiasm for national health-care. How likely was it that American bishops who couldn’t be prodded into a defense of the Church’s teaching against contraception would suddenly be galvanized into action by the state to defend this teaching, especially if delivered in the coveted national health-care package?
Growing in Love of the Lay Life: Evangelizing Martyrs
by Deacon James Keating | Homiletic & Pastoral Review
The Catholic laity are asked to give witness to Christ by way of obedience to objective truth. It takes a mind formed by love itself, Christ, to have the courage to preach the Gospel of Life.
The nature of priesthood invites a man to remain with Christ in his love for His Bride, the Church. The priesthood, then, renders a man available to the spousal mystery of Christ in and through the priest’s service to the Bishop’s mission. 1 This availability is ordered toward self-gift, especially as this donation is embodied in the Eucharistic mystery. The priest is eager to be an agent of communion between the laity and God by recounting Christ’s longing to save the Church by way of the Cross. Hence, both sacramentally and through his own interior communion with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the priest facilitates the laity’s reception of the mystery of Christ’s love, and their formation in bearing the fruit of such love, in the work of evangelizing and transforming culture. The priest stands ready to serve the laity’s essential mission of imbuing the culture with the mystery of the Eucharist, especially in the laity’s loving commitments to family, education, government, health care, business, and the arts.
The greatest failure of the post-Vatican II church is the failure to call forth and to form a laity engaged in the world politically, economically, culturally and socially, on faith’s terms rather than on the world’s terms. If … we paid less attention to ministries … and more on mission … then we might recapture the sense of what should be genuinely new as a result of the Council. 2
Do our seminaries sponsor sufficiently sustained thinking on the secular character of the laity? Do seminarians learn how to “listen to the Bride” in her need to preserve the communion she has with Christ, and her vocation to evangelizing all cultures and societies?
The Bride says: “Help me evangelize; help me instantiate the Eucharist in culture.” At worst, she may want to seek partial consolation by being “present” at worship for comfort, or escape her mission by naming herself Catholic, while only remaining a citizen of the American popular culture. To counteract these tendencies, a priest is charged to call the Church to her dignity, giving his life in service of her capacity to attain it. Like any spouse, he is called to suffer the conversion of his spouse. He is called to suffer in service to her; he is not called to cause suffering.
A vital part of the priest’s call to serve the spouse of Christ is to assist in re-establishing the interior life, within the laity, as the condition for strengthening the bonds between their secular character, and their summons to evangelize. Establishing this condition, will give the parishes what the Catechism of the Catholic Church §1708 describes as “life in the Spirit.”
Recent years in church ministry have seen efforts to accommodate the Gospel to the culture. This pastoral approach has failed. We know this because more and more laity are staying away from the Eucharist; 3 they no longer worship. We do not measure our fidelity to the Catholic faith by being “do-gooders,” and “running races for the cure,” or “helping out in soup kitchens.” Fidelity to Catholicism is expressed when the laity grasp the connection between what is given in the Eucharist, and what they give while embedded in culture. Have they received the sacred gift from the Eucharist, or have they simply chosen to be “ethical”? No one needs Christ to be simply ethical. Reason can reach truth, albeit with needed purification and virtue development. It is not sufficient to simply think ethically; he or she must possess a Catholic mind. A Catholic mind is one that thinks in prayer; it is a mind that gives birth to actions which flow from a deep participation in the gift of Christ’s own body and blood. A Catholic reasons by way of a liturgical mind, one imbued with the Paschal Mystery; it is a mind bearing its fruit in commitments to witnessing the Christ.
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