Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 277

Prayers requested ...

... for thirteen-year-old Jessica, who collapsed suddenly yesterday, has inoperable bleeding on her brain, and is on a ventilator. Barring a miracle, her death appears imminent.

UPDATE (6:50 Pacific, Oct. 11): From a friend of Jessica's family who live in Spokane, Washington: "Jessica died today at 2 p.m.  Her parish priest celebrated a Mass with the family before she died, and she had been anointed the day before.  Please continue to pray."

"O Creator, in the depth of your wisdom You lovingly govern all men and distribute what is good for each one. Now give rest to the soul of your servant, Jessica, for she has placed her hope in You, our Creator, our Maker, and our God. With the saints, O Christ, give rest to your servant where there is no pain, sorrow, or mourning, but life everlasting. Amen."

October 27th Assisi meeting will not contain inter-religious prayers

From EWTN News/CNA:

This month's meeting of world religious leaders in Assisi will downplay prayer as a feature of the event and will not contain inter-religious prayers.
 
"The emphasis this time is on pilgrimage and not on prayer," said Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, to EWTN News. He is also a key organizer of the Oct. 27 event in the birthplace of St. Francis.
 
"In fact, from what I understand of the program, and it's still being worked on, is that prayer is going to be out, if not very minimal."

This year's Assisi gathering is entitled "Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace," and is being convened to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first World Day for Peace, held by Pope John Paul II in 1986.

That summit came under fire from some Catholic groups who claimed it unwittingly blurred the distinctions between Catholicism and other religions.

Cardinal Turkson, who was in Assisi in 1986 along with two other African priests, said he understands why the event drew criticism. He recalled how "they were given some room in the city hall" to pray while "some non-Catholics appeared to have been given a church." It was such incidents, he said, that "drew this sort of criticism."

This time there will be no inter-religious prayer, the Vatican has already confirmed.

Read the entire report.

"Mother Teresa of Calcutta—A Personal Portrait: 50 Inspiring Stories Never Before Told"

New and now available from Ignatius Press:

Mother Teresa of Calcutta—A Personal Portrait: 50 Inspiring Stories Never Before Told

by Fr. Leo Maasburg

• Also available in Electronic Book Format

Mother Teresa's life sounds like a legend. The Albanian girl who entered an Irish order to go to India as a missionary and became an "Angel of the Poor" for countless people. She was greatly revered by Christians as well as Muslims, Hindus and unbelievers, as she brought the message of Christian love for one's neighbor from the slums of Calcutta to the whole world.

Fr. Leo Maasburg was there as her close companion for many years, traveling with her throughout the world and was witness to countless miracles and incredible little-known occurrences. In this personal portrait of the beloved nun, he presents fifty amazing stories about her that most people have never heard, wonderful and delightful stories about miracles, small and great, that he was privileged to experience at Mother Teresa's side. Stories of how, without a penny to her name, she started an orphanage in Spain, and at the same time saved a declining railroad company from ruin, and so many more.

They all tell of her limitless trust in God's love, of the way the power of faith can move mountains, and of hope that can never die. These stories reveal a humorous, gifted, wise and arresting woman who has a message of real hope for our time. It's the life story of one of the most important women of the 20th century as it's never been told before.

"Mother Teresa's daily life, as described by Msgr. Maasburg, can be put in two powerful words: holy daring. The mysterious language spoken between God and the saints is the firm belief that everything, absolutely everything, is a message of His love. Do I need to say more: tolle, lege."
- Alice von Hildebrand, Author, The Privilege of Being a Woman

"Msgr. Leo Maasburg gives us such great insight into this very human and very holy saint. Read this book!"
- Fr. Larry Richards, Author, Be a Man!

"With her "ammunition"-Miraculous Medals of the Blessed Virgin Mary she handed out-and determination to change the world one person at a time, Mother Teresa became an icon for charitable work in the latter part of the 20th century. Maasburg, an Austrian priest, came along for the ride as Mother Teresa's confessor and translator. His 50 stories ramble across several continents and through the decades, when this woman truly seemed to perform one miracle after another to get what she wanted and to build the Sisters of Charity into a worldwide organization. The stories of her ministry in the Soviet Union during the 1988 earthquakes in Armenia will be new to readers of the history of this amazing nun. "Mother Teresa was a missionary through and through who saw God's omnipotence and love of Jesus at work in everything and everyone," Maasburg writes. She stood down the popes of the church and even the Sandinista rebel leaders in Nicaragua as she built a religious family that consisted of five congregations and 592 houses. This is a book for readers who want an intimate portrait of a saint in the Catholic Church."
- Publishers Weekly

Fr. Leo Maasburg, born 1948 in Graz, Austria, studied law, political science, theology, canon law and missiology in Innsbruck, Oxford and Rome. In 1982, in Fatima, he was ordained a priest. He was a close friend of Mother Teresa for many years, as her spiritual advisor, translator, and her confessor. He travelled with her in India, Rome, and on many journeys ranging from Moscow, to Cuba to New York. Since 2005 he has been National Director of the Pontifical Missionary Societies in Austria.

Education and Witness

I recently had an e-mail discussion with a couple of friends about how some bishops seem enamored with the idea of "education" (as in "educating the laity"), to the point of obscuring and even discouraging a vibrant witness to the gospel. One friend, who has worked in a chancellery and for parishes (and has witnessed the good, the bad, and the heretical), wrote:

I think the emphasis on education ... betrays a gnostic tendency I encountered all too often in working for the church, to wit: the goal of the Church's work is to impart "enlightenment/gnosis/awareness," not salvation from sin and death. It also shows an unwillingness to get down and dirty and into the nitty-gritty of people's lives.  Rather than confront suffering and sin head on, it is much more comfortable to sit in a well-apportioned room and have high-minded dialogues about "process," "renewal," and (you know it's coming) "collaboration."  Sts. Peter and Paul would puke.

And the other friend mentioned this passage from Pope Paul VI's 1975 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi ("On Evangelization In The Modern World"):

Without repeating everything that we have already mentioned, it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word.[68] It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity. (par. 41)

If you've never read Evangelii Nuntiandi, consider doing so sometime as it is a really excellent and helpful document, an often overlooked and underappreciated precursor to the "new evangelization" emphasized by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

On Ignatius Insight:

• Can Catholics Be Evangelists? An interview with Russell Shaw
• We Are All Called To Be Evangelizers | by Fr. C. John McCloskey, III, and Russell Shaw
• Evangelization 101: A Short Guide to Sharing the Gospel | Carl E. Olson
• Evangelization & Imperialism | Carl E. Olson
• Evangelizing With Love, Beauty and Reason | Joseph Pearce
• The History and Purpose of Apologetics | An Interview with Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
• Love Alone is Believable: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Apologetics | Fr. John R. Cihak
• "Be A Catholic Apologist--Without Apology" | Carl E. Olson

Yes, Steve Jobs, R.I.P., was an innovating genius. But...

As everyone knows, Apple, Inc.'s co-founder and technological innovator Steve Jobs died last week; his funeral was this past Friday.

I never, of course, met Steve Jobs and, truth be told, I rarely followed his comings and goings too closely, with a couple of exceptions, as when he was famously rehired by Apple in 1996 (after being fired by the company over a decade earlier). But, like so many others, my life has been affected and influenced by technology and tools (and toys) that he helped develop, create, and promote. I first worked on an Apple computer in 1985 as a sophomore in high school, and since then I've owned at least a dozen Macs; in fact, I've never owned any computer other than a Mac, and anytime I have to use a non-Mac (a rare event), I am reminded again of the ease and elegance of Apple products. And that, of course, includes iPods and iPhones, which are used daily in the Olson home.

This post, for example, is being typed on a MacBook. In other words, my credentials as an Apple geek/devotee/brainwashed loyalist are fairly solid, if not spectacular or unique. But, then, the fact that iMac, iPods, iPads, iThis, and iThat are so widely used and are such a part of the landscape and roomscape of our lives is due, in significant part, to Jobs' vision and drive. It's not surprising at all that the death of this mercurial and complex man, who was in the prime of his life, has captured the attention of tens of millions. And so you can read, to take a couple of examples, these glowing, even rapturous, eulogistic words:

The tragic death of Steve Jobs at 56 is the first event that has ever forced this hyperactive industry to sit still, pipe down, and think about what matters. Nearly everyone in the technology world is moved by his death, as we were all moved by his life. ... Steve Jobs had a genius for seeing what was good and refining, repackaging and reselling it with dazzling panache. He knew what engineering was for, he understood elegance and he made machines that were works of art. We miss him already.

And:

Contrary to myth, he was never an engineering genius like, say, Steve Wozniak. But where his real talent lay — as a technology impresario — was of far greater importance, and infinitely rarer. As in the early days of Apple, Jobs by the turn of the new century was exhibiting almost perfect vision not just for what the marketplace wanted in new consumer products, but what it would want once it saw them. Here in Silicon Valley, we tend to throw around terms like "visionary" with abandon. But more than anyone in the Valley's history, Steve Jobs deserved the title.

And, finally:

"It would not be overstating things to say that Steve Jobs is my generation's Thomas Edison," said Deacon Kandra, a blogger at Patheos.com. "As one observer put it, he knew what the world wanted before the world knew that it wanted it. If you have an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod, or anything remotely resembling them, you can thank Steve Jobs. If your world has been transformed by the ability to hear a symphony, send a letter, pay a bill, deposit a check, read a book and then buy theater tickets on something smaller than a cigarette case … you can thank Steve Jobs. And: You can thank Joanne Schiebel." There have been 54 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. We will never know have many of these lost children were other Steve Jobs.

The latter quote, coming as it does from a Catholic newspaper that I read and much admire (and have written for over the years), is a bit disconcerting. There is the fascinating and arguable point, for instance, that Jobs really did not begin to touch Edison in terms of long-lasting, world-changing technological achievement. More importantly, even if every single one of those 54 million murdered children was born with Down's Syndrome, or without legs, or without eyesight, it wouldn't change the fact that each of them was created in the likeness and image of a loving and merciful Creator. Yes, I understand the point being made, but there is a fine line between giving credit where credit is due, and simply overdoing it.

Anyhow, the "but..." in this post's headline comes courtesy of Blessed John Paul II and his second encyclical, Dives in misericordia (November 1980), on God, "who is rich in mercy".

In the tenth section of that document, "An Image of Our Generation", John Paul II reflected on technological progress, scientific innovation, and man's creative activity. "Today's young people, especially," he wrote, "know that the progress of science and technology can produce not only new material goods but also a wider sharing in knowledge. The extraordinary progress made in the field of information and data processing, for instance, will increase man's creative capacity and provide access to the intellectual and cultural riches of other peoples. New communications techniques will encourage greater participation in events and a wider exchange of ideas."

It is a good summary, I think, of what Steve Jobs and Apple have done. There is, however, an important "but"—a word of caution:

But side by side with all this, or rather as part of it, there are also the difficulties that appear whenever there is growth. There is unease and a sense of powerlessness regarding the profound response that man knows that he must give. The picture of the world today also contains shadows and imbalances that are not always merely superficial.

John Paul II then quoted from the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes (which he helped write), from the Second Vatican Council, and concluded:

Towards the end of the introductory exposition we read: ". . .in the face of modern developments there is a growing body of men who are asking the most fundamental of all questions or are glimpsing them with a keener insight: What is man? What is the meaning of suffering, evil, death, which have not been eliminated by all this progress? What is the purpose of these achievements, purchased at so high a price?"

What is man? What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of death? The Big Questions! In other words, technology and related tools are morally neutral, so the deeper questions include, "For what end should this technology be used? How so? And what does our use of technology say about our understanding of man and his proper ends?"

It just so happens that Steve Jobs, despite being famously private, did address these questions in a very public way in 2005, when he gave the commencement address at Stanford University. In that address, he spoke with humor and directness about being an adopted child, attending college for a short while, and making tough choices about what to do with his life. He also spoke about the shock and pain of being fired, at the age of thirty, by the very company he co-founded, saying:

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

And then he spoke of battling pancreatic cancer and coming to grips with his mortality:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ...

Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

This is both revealing and, dare I say, a bit stunning. Why? Because Jobs, staring death in the face, sought comfort in a flood of clichés and Hallmark card-like platitudes that are as surprisingly vapid as they are relentlessly secular (I know, that's redundant):

• "Don't lose faith" (in what? in whom?)
• "Find what you love" (like your high school career counseler always said!)
• "Love what you do! Don't settle!" (does that also apply to empty clichés?)
• "Follow your heart..." (perfect for Hallmark)
• "Live your own life" (as if I have a choice!)
• "Listen to your inner voice" (because you told me to?)
• "Follow your heart and intuition" (even if it tells me to do bad things?)

And that doesn't even get us to Jobs' concluding bit of advice (taken from The Whole Earth Catalog): "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Presumably, it seems, until one dies, at which point hunger and foolishness cease? Many people find this amazing and inspiring; I think it is ultimately empty and quite depressing.

Andy Crouch, in a January 2011 article, "The Gospel of Steve Jobs", wrote that Jobs' "most singular quality has been his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope." Referring to Jobs' commencement address, Crouch wrote, "This is the gospel of a secular age. It has the great virtue of being based only on what we can all perceive—it requires neither revelation nor dogma. And it promises nothing it cannot deliver—since all that is promised is the opportunity to live your own unique life, a hope that is manifestly realizable since it is offered by one who has so spectacularly succeeded by following his own 'inner voice, heart and intuition.'"

Jobs was apparently raised in a Lutheran home, but embraced Buddhism in adulthood. Is that the reason he said, "Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking"? Regardless of the exact reason, it is a strikingly small and wrongheaded remark for a number of reasons. Historically, the technology that Jobs helped develop and further was made possible because of philosophical and theological beliefs that are distinctly Christian (see my essay, "Dark Ages and Secularist Rages"); personal computers and iPods exist today because of dogmatic beliefs about God, creation, the orderly nature of reality, and so forth. (Put another way, there's a reason that modern technology did not originate in India or come from Buddhists.) Logically, it is more than a little contradictory to scorn "living with the results of other people's thinking" when Jobs spent his entire working life seeking to have as many people as possible living with the results of his thinking. Besides, it's not as if Apple was created ex nihilo, without any reliance on the thinking and work of previous inventors, engineers, and innovators.

I suspect that Jobs was, to a large extent, simply parroting the prevailing wisdom of the day, which mistakes dogmas for imprisonment, when exactly the opposite is the case. "The vice of the modern notion of mental progress", wrote Chesterton in Heretics, "is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas." And:

The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus.

Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.

I suppose some readers might say, "Hey, give me a break! Steve Jobs was not a philosopher or theologian; you are reading too much into his remarks." But I think that would be an insult to the sincerity and seriousness of Jobs; I do think he intended to impart a clear and understandable view of life and death, and, frankly, it is one that falls well short of the truth about who man really is and what he is meant to be: a child of God sharing in the divine life and perfect love of the Triune God.

Don't get me wrong: I fully recognize that Jobs was an innovating genius when it comes to technology and material things. But his perspective of the bigger picture was seriously lacking. I would go even further and say that his view, taken to its logical end, is quite contrary to the truth as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, my pastor gave a wonderful homily (as usual), in which he spoke about the wealth of information that we have at our fingertips because of computers and the internet. He said:

We have all this information; now what do we do with it?  How do we handle it, what does it mean for us, where does it take us, and what information is truly important for us to pay attention to?

So I wish to point out to you the advice that was given by the wisest person who ever lived on the face of the earth, when she was talking to just a couple of ordinary, everyday guys at a wedding about 2,000 years ago:  "Do whatever He tells you."  And we know what He says.  We find it in Scripture, in the faith that comes to us in the Church.  We find it in the Liturgy and even in our personal prayer. 

We have an over-abundance of information today but there is not an over-abundance of wisdom to tell us how to use the information we have.  Blessed are we to be disciples of a Master Who can show us and help us to live in genuine wisdom, act as people of virtue, and love with our whole heart, mind, and soul, both Him as well as our neighbor.  Through the prayers of His most blessed Mother, whose birthday we continue to celebrate, may He save us both now and forever.  Amen

Amen, amen.

Here are the ten greatest Catholic intellectuals in American history...

... according to a survey of "top Catholic commentators, editors and scholars" conducted by Benedictine College's Gregorian Institute. Tom Hoopes, Vice President of College Relations and writer in residence at Benedictine College (Atchison, Kansas), writes:

 Since future categories in the Hall of Fame will recognize novelists and bishops of dioceses, nominees such as Flannery O'Connor and Archbishops James Gibbons and Charles Chaput are not included here. The work of those represented here mainly concerns the world of ideas and academic scholarship.

The Catholic Hall of Fame's Greatest American Catholic intellectuals, in the order of their birth:

   1. Orestes Brownson (1803–1876)
   2. John Courtney Murray (1904-1967)
   3. John Senior (1923-1999)
   4. Avery Dulles (1918-2008)
   5. James Schall (1928-)
   6. Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)
   7. Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009)
   8. Mary Anne Glendon (1938-)
   9. George Weigel (1951-)
  10. Robert P. George (1955-)

The inspiration for the hall of fame is the mural at Benedictine College's St. Benedict's Hall. When students walk into our major academic building, they pass through a depiction of the greatest Catholics of all time in various disciplines painted on the walls.

Read the entire post on the Gregorian Institute's site. Funny to think that just this morning I was e-mailing with Fr. James Schall about some important issues related to an essay (as he writes often for Ignatius Insight) and college football (as he's a big fan). I've read essays and columns by all of these intellectuals, but have read most deeply from works by Cardinal Dulles, Fr. Schall, Fr. Neuhaus, Weigel, and George. However, I've been reading more of Brownson lately, and am continually impressed by his writing and thinking. And John Senior's book, The Restoration of Christian Culture, is a fantastic and challenging work.

Ignatius Press, of course, has published some books by Fr. Schall, Ralph McInerny's novel, The Red Hat, Avery Cardinal Dulles' excellent History of Apologetics, and also carries several books by George Weigel, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Mary Anne Glendon's Traditions in Turmoil, and Cardinal Dulles' Magisterium (the latter two published by Sapientia Press).

A Glimpse Into the Soul of Newman

A Glimpse Into the Soul of Newman | By Fr. Zeno, O.F.M., Cap. | An excerpt from "The Soul of Newman" (Chapter Twelve), from John Henry Newman: His Inner Life | Ignatius Insight

What we have described of the distinctive traits in Newman's portrait, have been considered especially from the natural viewpoint. But the natural man in him formed a unity with the supernatural. We may even assert that the supernatural purified and elevated the natural in such a way that the supernatural could reign supreme.

In his Autobiographical Writing we find a curious document consisting of only one page. He began to write it in 1812 as a schoolboy, and he finished it seventy-two years later. The first lines are a boyish expression of his joy at the coming holidays. Then he wrote down with long intermezzi where he was and what he did. The last entry tells us in a few words that he has been made a Cardinal. But there is one passage, the fifth and the longest, that gives a touching picture of his whole life:

And now in my rooms at Oriel College, a Tudor, a Parish Priest and Fellow, having suffered much, slowly advancing to what is good and holy, and led on by God's hand blindly, not knowing whither He is taking me. Even so, O Lord. September 7, 1829. Monday morning. 1/4 past 10. [103]

This is a summary of his supernatural life, his life in the invisible world, his life in God's presence, while he is led on by the Almighty and surrenders himself to His will, expressing his resignation in the biblical words: "Even so, O Lord", that is, "Do Thou with me whatever Thou wilst, I abandon myself to Thee." [104] These words could be used as the motto of his life. They arc the most profound explanation of his entire personality.

Whoever starts reading Newman will be struck by his intense awareness of the invisible world. He lived, so to speak, his doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and instruments of real things unseen. For him the world of sense was less real than the world of the spirit; from the time when he thought life might be a dream and he an angel [105] up to his old age this remained one of his great principles. Hence he scorned materialism with utter disgust and gave the impression that he attributed no reality at all to material phenomena. For him the outer world, whether in its beauty or its grandeur, was the manifold but transient garb of the one eternal Being, the voice of Him Who "worketh hitherto" [106] and had called him as well . This belief led him to the prayer "Even so, O Lord" and made him ask for the great gift of perfect obedience to God's will. [107]

We often come across passages in his works where he expresses this idea, the so-called sacramental principle. Thus meals and feasts, wine and bread, not only rejoice the heart of man and strengthen him, he said, but they mean much more: they create social feelings; they are tokens of good will and kindness; they are, he says, "of a sacramental nature". They are not an end in themselves. We do not enjoy them in solitude. They are intended to open our hearts toward each other in love. [108] Joys and pleasant things are also a manifestation of this sacramental principle. All that is bright and beautiful he sees as a figure and promise of what is to be. He declares that "it is God's unusual mode of dealing with us in mercy to send the shadow before the substance, that we may take comfort in what is to be, before it comes." [109] In a sermon preached in the year 1880, he remembered how he once climbed Vesuvius and saw the hot lava. There is something very awful in the lava, he said. It is very slow but very sure and very destructive. It is a kind of type of the Almighty. The lava comes; it may not come today, it may not come tomorrow, but in its slow course it is sure to come. So it is with God's judgments: they are just as sure, though they are just as slow. [110] These habitual thoughts of the transcendent reality of the invisible world declare the utter unworldliness which is so conspicuous in him. "All is vanity", he exclaimed in his last sermon as an Anglican. "And time and matter, and motion, and force, and the will of man, how vain are they all, except as instruments of the grace of God, blessing them and working with them! How vain are all our pains, our thought, our care, unless God uses them, unless God has inspired them! how worse than fruitless are they, unless directed to His glory, and given back to the Giver!" [111]

After all this we can easily understand how intensely Newman realized God's presence. From his earliest days he had become more and more aware of the fact that there were but two beings in the whole universe, he himself and God, Who had created him. Everything else vanished before the clear vision he had, first of his own existence, next of the presence of the Supreme Being, Who revealed Himself through his conscience. His conscience was God's representative. [112] Thus he heard God's voice in his heart when still a very small child. He obeyed, except for a short time when as a wayward boy he "loved to choose and see his path" and went astray. This voice resembled the pillar of the cloud, the kindly light that led him on. This voice was his great proof of God's existence, speaking louder than the voice of the visible world. [113]

The divine presence gave him a great trust in Providence, even in the most desperate circumstances. "Such is God's rule in Scripture, to dispense His blessings silently and secretly." God leads us forward by a way we know not of. So we should have faith in what we cannot see, "the Presence of the Eternal Son, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh". [114] Therefore he could write down this hopeful statement: "When we get to heaven, if we are worthy, we shall enjoy the sight of how, all our failures and disappointments, if borne well, have been for God's glory and our own salvation." [115] Therefore, too, he could trust in Providence after the three blows and the failures of the Via Media; when he was harassed by the Achilli trial; when he suffered from the deadlock in Catholic education; when he was misunderstood and suspected by Church authorities. He knew that Providence would fight for him and set things right, probably not in his lifetime, but most certainly when he had gone. So at the end of his life he could say in all truth: "I have lived a long life and can witness to His faithfulness. He is a true friend, and "the more you can trust Him, the more you will gain from Him." [116]

God's presence also intensified his love of prayer. Since the Almighty lived in his soul, he could not but converse with Him. He prayed not only when he felt the joy of heavenly consolations—which seems to have been not so very frequently—but when he felt indifferent and cold, or when his mind was wandering and distracted and affective prayer was almost impossible. His journal of retreats shows clearly how hard and difficult it often was. When he became older he even felt a loss of confidence in his prayers. [117] In spite of this, he never left off praying. In the solitude at Littlemore where God's presence could be felt, he had prepared himself for the great sacrifice by prayers combined with fasting and study. He prayed not only in church, near the Blessed Sacrament, and at set times but in all circumstances and all places, during his walks, at sickbeds, before decisions of consequence and even when writing letters. "No wish really means anything, which is not a prayer too", he declared. [118] He did not understand how religious men could have an aversion to prayer, nor how a priest could be bored when he had to be alone for a long time. [119] He was convinced that God's presence could never become a reality without a life of prayer. "Is anyone then desirous . . . of bringing Christ's presence home to his very heart . . . ? Let him pray", he said as an Anglican. And as a Catholic he asked: "Shed over me the sweetness of Thy presence lest I faint by the way." [120]

The reverence he desired in his prayers made him anxious about "wandering thoughts". This was especially the case in his Anglican period, probably under the influence of his book of meditations, written by Bishop Wilson, who called it a crime to indulge in distractions. [121] So Newman wished to achieve attention in prayers by humble and tedious practice. He thought it "a most irreverent and presumptuous judgment" to attribute lack of feeling and inattention "to the arbitrary coming and going of God's Holy Spirit". Neither could the length of Church prayers be a reason for not keeping one's mind fixed upon them. [122] But he softens his severe remarks on "wandering thoughts" by adding: "Inattention to our prayers . . . should not surprise or frighten us . . . unless we acquiesce in it." [123]





He had an immense confidence in the efficacy of prayer. He never undertook a work of importance without much previous prayer, and when he had done his best in all respects for any object or person, he left the rest to prayer, with great comfort. To hear that anyone had been praying for him and his interests touched him with deep gratitude, touched him more than anything else. High as were his intellectual gifts, they were absolutely secondary in his eyes compared with the gift of prayer, in the poor and ignorant as in others. Thus he could accept trials with great patience because they were left in God's hands by means of prayer. [124] In an eloquent way he tried to lead others to such confidence: "You can never have an idea of the worth and power of prayer, or of the great efficacy of your prayers . . . till you are in the unseen world. He does for us 'exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to power that worketh in us'." [125] Even when apparently there was no answer to his prayers, he was convinced of the truth of his words: "It is certainly wonderful", he wrote to Sister Maria Pia, "that no one of your or my own family has been converted, considering how many prayers have been offered for them but . . . your prayers most surely are not thrown away, not one of them is lost or fails." [126]

The above mainly concerns what spiritual authors call vocal prayer. But Newman was a man of mental prayer as well. He considered this kind of prayer a necessary part of his and, everyone's spiritual life. Without it we easily prefer the visible world to the invisible. His sermons, preached as an Anglican, often exhort his congregation to apply themselves to mental prayer, to meditation. One of the main lessons of the Grammar of Assent is the necessity of meditation, so that notional assent to religious truths might be changed into real assent and certitude. In an Anglican sermon he asked why we are not moved by the Passion of Our Lord. He answered that it is because we do not meditate: "We have stony hearts, hearts as hard as the Highways; the history of Christ makes no impression on them. And yet, if we would be saved, we must have tender, sensitive, living hearts; our hearts must be broken, must be broken up like ground, and dug, and watered, and tended, and cultivated, till they become as gardens, gardens of Eden, acceptable to our God, gardens in which the Lord God may walk and dwell; filled, not with briars and thorns, but with all sweet-smelling and useful plants, with heavenly trees and flowers. . . . And how is this to be effected, under God's grace, but by godly and practical meditation through the day?" [127] Of course, he knew that it is only by slow degrees that meditation is able to soften our hearts. It will be like the unfolding of leaves in the spring. But gradually it will bring us to deep feelings of love and gratitude, self-reproach, earnest repentance and an eager longing after a new heart. [128] He admitted, however, that meditation was not very easy: "We are what we are—Englishmen; and for us who are active in our habits and social in our tempers, fasting and meditation have no such great attractions, and are of no such easy observance." [129] Nevertheless, he asked his hearers, Englishmen as himself: "Is God habitually in our thoughts? Do we think of Him, and of His Son our Saviour, through the day? . . . When we do things in themselves right, do we lift up our minds to Him, and desire to promote His glory . . . to know His will more exactly . . . and aiming at fulfilling it more completely and abundantly? Do we wait on His grace to enlighten, renew, strengthen us? . . . We are always with ourselves and God. . . ." [130]

Words such as these prove the reality of Newman's faith and show the background of his beautiful, unshakeable mental balance. They also prove a certain inner experience of the invisible world and his Creator, a perception effected not only by means of his intellect but of his entire personality. This perception helped him to bear his failures and troubles and also the weaknesses and shortsightedness of some ecclesiastical authorities. Though God acted so mysteriously regarding his special talents, his faith prevented the slightest doubt. He never feared for the future as far as the Almighty was concerned because he knew that God's hand was over him and that he acted under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and the wonderworking Saint Philip. [131] He often experienced the reality of his good guardian angel. [132] That is why he could live in a wonderful stability and serenity of mind. While he was always extremely careful in his statements concerning secular matters, he spoke with a surprising boldness of speech about the dogmatic truths of revelation. Though he naturally shrank from troubles and difficulties, and though he could shudder at the pain his "sensitive skin" caused him, his faith conquered all, and unhesitatingly he followed the kindly light of God's will and God's revelation and became a Catholic.

If we consider that he seems to have enjoyed only very seldom, if at all, the experiential perception of God's presence and the palpable certitude of his union with "the Lover of his Soul" which is bestowed on the mystics, his faith must have been great indeed. For mystics it is easier, at least in a sense, to be magnanimous and heroic. Newman's most intimate biographical writings, however, his most confidential letters, his most self-revealing sermons, do not contain a single passage that can be explained solely as a mystical experience in the strict sense of the word. We cannot suppose that he would have excluded such experience from the many things he wrote about his spiritual life. Of course, his life of pure faith was now and again brightened by great supernatural consolations. He wrote about "special visitations and comforts from the Spirit . . . yearnings after the life to come, or bright and pleasing gleams of God's eternal election". He thought about them and considered them a "choice encouragement to his soul". [133] He spoke about "a thick black veil" which is spread between this world and the next. Every now and then, however, "marvellous disclosures are made to us of what is behind it. . . . At times we seem to catch a glimpse of a Form which we shall hereafter see face to face. We approach, and in spite of the darkness, our hands, or our head, or our brow, or our lips become, as it were, sensible of the contact of something more than earthly. We know not where we are, but we have been bathing in water, and a voice tells us that it is blood. Or we have a mark signed upon our foreheads, and it spake of Calvary. Or we recollect a hand laid upon our heads, and surely it had the print of nails in it, and resembled His who with a touch gave sight to the blind and raised the dead." [134] This he taught in one of his sermons, convinced that "the spiritual heart may see Him even upon earth". [135] But all these statements can be explained quite apart from the mystical works of Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross.

There are even some positive proofs which seem to show that in his long life he seldom or never enjoyed God's presence in this mystical way. When a meditation had seemed very long to him he wrote down in his diary: "If an hour tries me, what will serving and adoring for ever in heaven?" [136] Is it possible that one who had real mystical experiences should say such a thing? Moreover, his diaries, his meditations and devotions, and the fact that the pages in the works of Saint John of the Cross in his study have never been cut, raise the same question. He himself seems to confirm this view explicitly when he prays: "The Saints . . . who keep close to Thee, see visions, and in many ways are brought into sensible perception of Thy presence. But to a sinner such as I am, what is left but to possess Thee without seeing Thee? . . . To live by faith is my necessity, from my present state of being and from my sin; but Thou hast pronounced a blessing on it. Thou hast said that I am more blessed if I believe on Thee, than if I saw Thee. . . . Enable me to believe as if I saw; let me have Thee always before me as if Thou wert always bodily and sensibly present." [137]

ENDNOTES:

[103] Aut. Wr., 5.
[104] See Mt 11:26, Authorised Version.
[105] Ap., 2.
[106] Jn 15:17.
[107] Car. C., A.10.11.; an account by Fr. Eaglesim, who lived with Newman during his later years. That Newman admitted the reality of material phenomenon is shown in Dr. Zeno, John Henry Newman, Our Way to Certitude, 60-63.
[108] Sub. D., 208-29.
[109] Par. Pl. S., 6:92.
[110] Card. C., A.43.8.
[111] Sub. D., 398.
[112] Par. Pl. S., 1:20-21.
[113] Gramm. 389ff.
[114] Pa. Pl. S., 4:257, 261, 265.
[115] Lett. D., 20:437.
[116] Cop. L., to Morris, Jan. 4, 1885.
[117] Aut. Wr., 222-48, passim, esp. 247.
[118] Pers. C., Ornsby, Jan. 16, 1879.
[119] Lett. D., 18:198.
[120] Par. Pl. S., 3:348; Med. 12: (3), 3.
[121] See Private Meditations, Devotions and Prayers , esp. the chapter "On Devotion and Prayer".
[122] Par. Pl. S., 1:142-43.
[123] Ibid., 145.
[124] Card. C., B.13.10.
[125] Pers. C., Gilberne, Oct. 10, 1876.
[126] Ibid.
[127] Par. Pl. S., 6:41-42.
[128] Ibid., 43, 40.
[129] Ibid., 4:475.
[130] Ibid., 7:212-13.
[131] Murray, 231.
[132] Ward, 2:346.
[133] Par. Pl. S., 2:226.
[134] Ibid., 5:10-11.
[135] Ibid., 4:242.
[136] Aut. Wr., 229.
[137] Med., 7: (2), 1, 2.

Fr. Zeno, O.F.M. Cap. is one of the world's foremost Newman scholars, obtained a Ph.D. in English language and literature and did his doctoral thesis on Newman's epistemology.

Presuppositions of Darwinism

by Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. | Editorial | Homiletic & Pastoral Review | October 2011

In his textbook, Philosophical Psychology (FSSP, Elmhurst, PA 1999), Prof. D.Q. McInerny lists and evaluates the six presuppositions of Darwinist evolution. The first presupposition is that life came to be, the way it is on earth, through natural means; there is no need for divine intervention, such as we find in the Book of Genesis. The second element is that life arose from non-life. The claim is that, over millions of years, matter became more complex until, by some chance of volcanic activity or lightning, there was a sudden transformation to the organic state, the beginning of life.

The third element is the idea that all life we know on earth is to be traced back to that first primitive form of life. Once life had gained a foothold on earth, there was more complexification until animal life evolved from plant life. After that, the two kingdoms continued to develop over millions of years to produce the many species of plant and animal life, including man.

According to the fourth element in the theory, it all began with a simple cell that underwent changes. The multiplicity of species in plants and animals is explained by chance mutation. The mutations, they say, must be small so that the new entity can survive; the change is positive, and gives the new entity an advantage over what went before. It is more suitable to survive, and to propagate others like itself. The improved one survives, and its ancestors do not. The process went on for millions of years to produce all the life forms on earth.

The fifth element is natural selection, or the survival of the fittest. The mutated organisms, that have an enhanced capacity for survival, is what Darwin called natural selection. The fourth and fifth elements are the key to the explanation of why one species is formed into another. So the mutations are necessarily very small, with the process requiring an immense amount of time—millions, and perhaps billions, of years.

Read the entire editorial at HPRweb.com...

The first Episcopal church in the U.S. to become Catholic under...

... the guidelines established for the Anglican ordinariate by Pope Benedict XVI's in his 2007 Apostolic Letter "Summorum Pontificum" is St. Luke's, in Maryland:

"This truly is a historic moment," said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, who led Sunday's conversion Mass, which he called "a joyful moment of completion."

Fifty-eight of St. Luke's roughly 100 parishioners were confirmed at the applause-filled Mass, during which they were anointed by Wuerl — one by one, old and young, white and black.

Osita Okafor, a 56-year-old Nigerian immigrant, found himself first in line before Wuerl for the rite of reception. His reaction? "Oh, my God, I must be blessed." ...

The parish's conversion made international headlines when it was announced in June. After all, St. Luke's had been an Episcopal church for more than a century. But it wasn't too much of a leap for the parish, which for years had been part of Anglo-Catholicism, a movement that embraces various Catholic practices and theology but still treasures aspects of Anglican ritual, such as kneeling to receive Communion.

At the basilica, before the archbishop, parishioners stood for Communion. But at St. Luke's, they'll be allowed to kneel under the guidelines laid out by the Vatican in 2009 when it announced plans to create a special body that would let American Anglicans keep some of their traditions, including their married priests.

Read the entire Washington Post article, "Episcopal parish in Bladensburg converts to Roman Catholic Church" (Oct. 9, 2011). for more about the ordinariate, see the book, Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church: Reflections on Recent Developments (Ignatius Press, 2011), edited by Stephen Cavanaugh. Here is the Introduction:

"God has truly come to dwell among us in the Eucharist...

... He became flesh so that he might become bread. He gave himself to enter into the "fruit of the earth and the work of human hands"; thus he puts himself in our hands and into our hearts. God is not the great unknown, whom we can but dimly conceive. We need not fear, as heathen do, that he might be capricious and bloodthirsty or too far away and too great to hear men. He is there, and we always know where we can find him, where he allows himself to be found and is waiting for us. Today this should once more sink into our hearts: God is near. God knows us. God is waiting for us in Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Let us not leave him waiting in vain! Let us not, through distraction and lethargy, pass by the greatest and most important thing life offers us.

We should let ourselves be reminded, by today's reading [Deut 4:7], of the wonderful mystery kept close within the walls of our churches. Let us not pass it heedlessly by. Let us take time, in the course of the week, in passing, to go in and spend a moment with the Lord who is so near. During the day our churches should not be allowed to be dead houses, standing empty and seemingly useless. Jesus Christ's invitation is always being proffered from them. This sacred proximity to us is always alive in them. It is always calling us and inviting us in. This is what is lovely about Catholic churches, that within them there is, as it were, always worship, because the eucharistic presence of the Lord dwells always within them.

And a second thing: let us never forget that Sunday is the Lord's day. It is not an arbitrary decision of the Church, requiring us to attend Mass on Sunday. This is never a duty laid upon us from without; it is the royal privilege of the Christian to share in paschal fellowship with the Lord, in the Paschal Mystery. The Lord has made the first day of the week his own day, on which he comes to us, on which he spreads the table for us and invites us to share with him. We can see, in the Old Testament passage at which we are looking, that the Israelites saw in the presence of God, not a burden, but the basis of their pride and their joy. And indeed the Sunday fellowship with the Lord is not a burden, but a grace, a gift, which lights up the whole week, and we would be cheating ourselves if we withdrew from it.

— From  God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.