Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 66

Catholic Women Priests: Can There Be a Discussion?

Rose Marie Dunn Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath kneel before Patricia Fresen, center, during a ceremony in November 2007 "ordaining" them into a group called the Roman Catholic Womenpriests at a St. Louis synagogue called Central Reform Congregation. (CNS photo/Karen Elshout)

Catholic Women Priests: Can There Be a Discussion? | Fr Dwight Longenecker | CWR

Those Catholics who are seeking and hoping to "ordain" women are working within a hermeneutic of revolution

Eleven years ago Christine Mayr Lumetzberger was excommunicated because she attempted to be ordained as a Catholic priest. A mischievous and misleading article by British journalist Peter Stanford entitled “Meet the Female Priest Defying Catholicism for her Faith" recounts her story. 

Ms. Lumetzberger says she knew from childhood she was called to be a priest. She joined a convent, but after leaving to marry a divorced man, she decided to become a priest. In 2002 she joined six other women on a boat on the Danube and was “ordained”. A few years later she claims to have been consecrated as a bishop. She refuses to name the bishops who consecrated her, no mention is made of her formation or training to be a priest, much less a bishop, but Stanford makes it clear that Lumetzberger is a brave pioneer—a woman of faith who has defied the “celibate men who…give no explanation of why these laws should be followed except fear.”

Stanford’s sentimental and shallow tribute to Lumetzberger gives the usual self-righteous arguments for women priests combined with zero theological rationale or evidence of any knowledge of the Church’s real reasons for rejecting female ordination. Instead we are given a soft image of a “serene” and “softly spoken” woman who helps the poor and has a smiling “mumsy” image.

Despite the clear teachings of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis ruling out the ordination of women, Catholics of a certain strain still press for the innovation and insist that more discussion is needed, more dialogue is required and yet more listening is necessary.

Is, in fact, more discussion necessary—or is the matter settled?

The Anglican Story

To understand the women’s ordination debate in the Catholic Church it is instructive to see the issue in the wider ecumenical context.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

A weekly guide to practicing Eucharistic adoration with a missionary perspective, just in time for the New Year

SAN FRANCISCO, December 9, 2014 – Have you ever struggled to stay focused at Eucharistic Adoration? Or needed direction or encouragement to attend adoration on a regular basis? Fr. Florian Racine offers the faithful a practical guide to Eucharistic adoration in his new book, Could You Not Watch with Me One Hour? How to Cultivate a Deeper Relationship with the Lord through Eucharistic Adoration, now available from Ignatius Press. This beautiful formation guide on Eucharistic adoration will help people to practice it in all its depth, and with a missionary perspective.

The author invites us on a journey of faith, in fifty-two stages – as many as the weeks in a year – a perfect guide to use as the New Year begins in a few weeks. He starts by showing how the Word of God is made present in the Eucharist, and then he invites us to mature in faith and to be transformed by a greater communion with Christ.

God has made himself particularly close to mankind in Jesus his Son. The redemptive Incarnation of his Son is how God reconciles mankind with himself. The memorial of the Passover of Christ is therefore at the heart of our relationship with God. In the Blessed Sacrament, the resurrected Jesus is really present and acting; he draws all mankind into his filial relationship with the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thus, following the plan of God, Catholics put the Eucharist at the heart of their lives, and take time to adore Jesus in the Holy Sacrament. The adorer wants to abide within the dynamic life of the Eucharist, just as he desires that the Eucharist transform his whole life. Adoration and Eucharistic life transform believers into the image of Christ, and this book will help the faithful participate more fully in the Eucharistic life.

Fr. Larry Richards, author of Be a Man!, praises Could You Not Watch with Me One Hour, saying, “Eucharistic adoration is the most important devotion of our time, and Fr. Florian Racine offers us great insight and practical ideas in helping our adoration of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist bear much fruit! Give Jesus one hour and change your life! I encourage anyone who wants to grow more in love with prayer with Jesus to read this book!”

“These reflections are profound, but gently pastoral; sweeping, yet accessible. This is guidance and advice that is practical, realistic, and inspiring that covers topics from simple humility to bold spiritual warfare, from spiritual dryness to moments of flooding grace. Centered on scripture and punctuated with insights from saints, popes, and the wisdom of the Church across the ages, they provide a powerful exposition of him who is exposed before us in adoration,” says Daniel P. Guernsey, editor of Adoration: Eucharistic Texts and Prayers throughout Church History.

Devin Schadt, author of Joseph's Way: Prayer of Faith, explains, “Fr. Florian imparts to us a mine of Eucharistic truths, a volume saturated with the wisdom of the saints, which guide, prompt and compel us to re-discover the ‘Prisoner of Love’ who awaits us in the tabernacle – in  the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Like John the Baptist, Fr. Florian directs our hearts toward the hidden and often unrecognized Messiah, who waits for each of us to discover his true presence.”

About the Author:

Fr. Florian Racine is a priest in the Diocese of Frejus-Toulon, France, and the moderator of the Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist, a clerical association erected by Bishop Dominique Rey in 2007. He is now rector of the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene church in Saint-Maximin, France.
 
To request review copies or an interview with Anthony Ryan,
Director of Sales and Marketing for Ignatius Press, please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press, (239)867-4180 or rose@ignatius.com

Catholic Radio Launches in Los Angeles

Catholic Radio Launches in Los Angeles | Jim Graves | CWR

After a long absence, Catholic programming enters the country’s largest radio market.

Los Angeles welcomed the return of English-speaking Catholic radio on November 17, when Archbishop Jose Gomez “flipped the switch” to turn on KHJ AM 930, broadcasting Catholic programming to a market of 15 million for the first time in more than a decade. The station is owned and operated by Immaculate Heart Radio (IHR), and features such programs as Right Here Right Now with Patrick Madrid, Catholic Answers Live, and The Terry and Jesse Show. IHR has a station in San Diego, KCEO AM 1000, which, combined with the Los Angeles station, gives the network coverage from Oxnard to the Mexican border.

At the November 17 launch, Archbishop Gomez called KHJ “a beautiful blessing for our mission,” and said, “Catholic radio is truly a gift from God. It is another way that God uses to speak to us.”

“Our launch has gone great. We’re off to a good start,” said Doug Sherman, founder and CEO of IHR. “Right now, our focus is to build audience, which we’re doing through billboard advertisements, articles in local papers, and, at the parish level, through the Knights of Columbus. We’re also hoping that people active on the radio dial will find us.”

IHR purchased KHJ for $10 million, funded by cash donations, pledges, and low-interest loans from friends of IHR. IHR had intended to purchase a smaller station, but opted for KHJ instead when it became available. Sherman was excited to enter the LA market, he noted, as it is the biggest in the United States.

“It’s an important way to spread the Catholic faith,” he said.

In attendance at the station’s launch party were several Catholic celebrities, including former professional baseball player Mike Sweeney.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"Crapulous Cowards and Quarrel": A review of "The Ball and the Cross"

by John Herreid | IPNovels.com

I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument.”
—G. K. Chesterton

As I write, a lot of Catholics are worried about the ongoing tussling about pastoral issues in the Church. Others are worried about what seems to be a growing partisan divide in America between those with differing political views.

I’m worried about this as well—mostly because many people have decided that differences of opinion are so great that they must avoid the contamination of being friends with those who disagree with them, only engaging their opponents in angry online quarrels.

So it’s an opportune time to revisit G. K. Chesterton’s rollicking, rousing fantasy, The Ball and the Cross.  Now in a new edition by Chesterton Press, The Ball and the Cross is the story of a Jacobite Catholic from Scotland, MacIan, and a brawny atheist named Turnbull. Their argument begins with the memorable words “Stand up and fight, you crapulous coward!”, uttered by MacIan as he smashes through the window of Turnbull’s bookshop, The Atheist. They’re both convinced of the rightness of their causes and want to back up their arguments not merely with words—but with swords.

The trouble is that society at large has ceased to care about these sorts of debates and would rather they both be silenced. Or at least have their swords taken from them. So begins an adventure that ranges across landscapes and through ideas. As MacIan and Turnbull try to escape from police pursuit so that they may engage in a duel to the death with one another, they begin to find another obstacle arising: friendship.

The two begin, gruffly, to acknowledge admiration for one another. But they also both feel strongly enough about their respective causes that they would die defending it. Can there be any compromise? Can there be friendship?

We can only look to Chesterton himself for the answer. ...

Continue reading at IPNovels.com.

Francis, women, and Candida Moss' truth problem

A young woman holds a sign as Pope Francis greets the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Nov. 12. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Francis, women, and Candida Moss' truth problem | Carl E. Olson | CWR blog

A professor of New Testament at Notre Dame apparently values self-promotion and sensationalism over facts and orthodoxy

No one should be surprised that the L.A. Times would run a piece critical of the Church's supposedly unenlightened and backward teachings about women. It's par for the progressive, secular course. But a recent op-ed, "Pope Francis' woman problem" (Dec. 7) is a bit more interesting, as it is co-authored by two theologians, one of whom, Candida Moss, is professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Moss, from what I can tell, is something of a Catholic Bart Ehrman, intent on two apparent goals: undermining and attacking the tradition she claims to adhere to (Ehrman, it should be noted, is a former Evangelical who now identifies as an "agnostic"), while garnering as much publicity and fame (and income) as can be snapped up.

Actually, she may be more akin to Dan Brown than Ehrman, but suffice to say, Moss likes to take umbrage with the Church when the Church fails to agree with her, and therefore has plenty of material to mine, undermine, and misrepresent. For instance, take the opening lines of the L.A. Times piece:

At first, it was easy to overlook. With all of his statements about caring for the poor, the disabled and immigrants, and all the fanfare surrounding his famous “Who am I to judge?” proclamation, Pope Francis seemed like a breath of fresh air for a
church stuck resolutely in the past. The fact that he never commented on the long­standing marginalization of women in the Catholic Church, and asserted quite plainly that there would be no ordination of women, did nothing to dampen progressive enthusiasm for the new pope. There has been a hopeful sense that he would get around to it eventually.

You know what they say about assumptions, right? Well, they are on full display here:

1). The Church is "stuck in the past," which means, obviously, that the Church's teaching about women is wrong. Period. No need to argue it. No need to even describe what the Church actually teaches. Which is convenient, since Moss and her co-author, Joel Baden, professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University, don't seem to know what the Church or Pope Francis actually say about women.

2). Francis has indeed said quite a bit about women, as Michael Bradley of Ethika Politika readily demonstrates. Anyone who has followed the many (many!) public utterances of the Holy Father knows he had said much about the role and place of women in the Church, society, etc. But, of course, the authors are fixated on "the long­standing marginalization of women in the Catholic Church," which, again, simply assumes that such is an established fact.

3). And that is apparently founded on the fact—this one an actual fact, not a "fact" fact—that the Pope has not yet signed off on the Moss-Baden Plan for Progressive Faith Communities and begun ordaining women. The line—"There has been a hopeful sense that he would get around to it eventually"—tells me everything I need to know: that Moss and Co. not only think they are right (of course), but that the Pope will (of course) follow suit. I'm not sure which is more revealing: the lack of theological knowledge when it comes to this particular matter or the surplus of progressive hubris about the same.

Remarkably, the piece goes downhill after that opening paragraph, probably because once the authors courageously threw themselves over the cliff of their progressive assumptions, there was only one direction to go. For instance:

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

Catholicism’s Latin American Problem

People hold crosses while standing behind a statue of Christ during a re-enactment of the Crucifixion April 18 near Monterrey, Mexico. (CNS photo/Daniel Becerril, Reuters)

Catholicism’s Latin American Problem | Dr. Samuel Gregg | CWR

Those interested in reviving Catholicism’s saliency in everyday life in Latin America should consider how they can make Christ front-and-center of their social outreach

It’s hardly surprising that the election of Latin America’s Pope Francis has focused more attention on Latin American Catholicism since the debates about liberation theology which shook global Christianity in the 1970s and 1980s. The sad irony, however, is that this renewed attention is highlighting something long known to many Catholics but which non-Catholics are now becoming more cognizant: that Latin America’s identity as a “Catholic continent” is fading and has been doing so for some time.

By that I don’t mean that most Latin Americans no longer identify as Catholic. That’s still the case. Indeed, in many countries south of the Rio Grande, it remains overwhelming true. But what’s clear is that Catholicism’s ability to shape Latin America’s religious context is in decline, or, from another perspective, faces some significant competitors: and not just from Evangelicals but also agnosticism and atheism.

Two recent surveys of religion in Latin America have underscored this point. The more noticed survey, conducted by Pew, illustrated that the percentage of people identifying as Catholic in almost every Latin American country has fallen significantly. And even among those who identify as Catholic, significant numbers describe themselves as being at odds with Church teaching on some key faith and morals questions. Indeed, 60 percent of converts to Evangelicalism say that one reason they left the Catholic Church was that they were looking for more assertive teaching on moral questions. This matters in societies in which, as the Pew survey indicates, most people say they adhere to what would be conventionally called conservative positions on all the usual hot-button issues.

It is true, the survey notes, that regular Mass-goers in Latin America cleave much more closely to Church teaching than those Catholics who don’t. That pattern is more-or-less universal in global Catholicism. It’s also the case that the practicing rate of Latin American Catholics puts your average Western European country to shame. That said, the survey also states that Evangelicals are generally more committed to a life of prayer, regular worship, and other church-based activities than even church-going Catholics.

One reason we can have some confidence that the Pew survey presents a relatively accurate picture of Catholic Latin America is that the results track very closely with another less-noticed survey of religion in America, released in April this year by the Latinobarómetro Corporation, one of the continent’s most respected survey organizations.

To give one example, the Latinobarómetro survey suggests that fewer than half of Hondurans today (47 percent) are Catholic. That’s down from 76 percent in 1995.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace

 

Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward | Two excerpts fromCradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery 

First excerpt, from the Introduction: 

Glorious above all the other Christmas companions of Christ is the Blessed Maiden who gave Him human birth. At the Matins of Christmas Day, the Church cries out: 'Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, whose womb abideth intact, hath this day given birth to the Saviour of the world." [38]

Each day of the octave, in the Canon of the Mass, the Latin Church venerates the 'inviolate virginity' that 'brought the Saviour into this world' and dedicates the whole of the eighth day to the divine motherhood--in the old rite in the content of the prayers and in the new rite in name as well as content. [39] Our Lady's conceiving and carrying of God the Son in her virginal womb are remembered throughout Advent, especially during the week of the O antiphons and, in the novus ordo Missae, on the fourth Sunday. 

The Immaculate Conception is celebrated on the eighth of December as the first, preredemptive flowering of the grace for whose restoration Christ was born and crucified in the flesh. In the liturgical books of the Greek Church, the Mother of God is seemingly omnipresent on every day of the liturgical year, [40] but during the twelve days of Christmas, she receives special honours in canticles of outstanding praise, and on the second day she has a feast all of her own, the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos, instituted after the Council of Ephesus in 431. On this second day of the Byzantine Christmas, the Mother of God appears before the Church as the Mystical Vine carrying in the branches of her arms 'the bunch of grapes that was never husbanded'. In the ecstasy of love she sings to her Child, 'Thou art my fruit, thou art my life; from thee have I learned that I remain what I was. Thou art my God: for seeing the seal of my virginity unbroken, I proclaim thee to be the unchangeable Word, now made incarnate.' [41] 

Footnotes: 

[38] Fifth responsory.
[39] In the novus ordo of the West, the first of January is called the 'Solemnity of Mary; the Mother of God'. In the Missal of 1962 it is called, as it had been for many centuries, the 'Circumcision of Our Lord' because of the passage read as the Gospel. However, both the Collect and the Postcommunion place most emphasis on the divine motherhood of our Lady.
[40] See S. Eustratiadès, Theotokarion (Chennevières-sur-Marne, 1931), and J. Ledit, Marie dans la liturgie de Byzance (Paris, 1976). 
[41] Menaion, p. 292. 


    
    


 

Second excerpt, from Chapter 3, "Mother and Maiden": 

As Mother of God, our Lady is without equal, surpassing by far all other created persons, whether angels or men. [37] After the human nature of the Son, no created entity is closer to the Trinity. According to St Thomas, Gabriel's words at the Annunciation, 'The Lord is with thee', express his recognition that the Jewish maiden is closer than he or any other angel is to the Three-Personed God:

She surpasses the angels in her familiarity with God. The angel indicated this when he said, 'The Lord is with thee', as if to say, 'I therefore show thee reverence, because thou art more familiar with God than I am, for the Lord is with thee. The Lord, the Father, is with thee, because thou and He have the same Son, something no angel or any other creature has. "And therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1: 35). The Lord, the Son, is with thee, in thy womb. "Rejoice and praise 0 thou habitation of Zion, for great is He that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel" (Is 12:6).' The Lord is therefore with the Blessed Virgin in a different way than He is with the angel, for He is with her as Son, but with the angel as Lord. 'The Lord, the Holy Spirit, is with thee, as in a temple.' Hence she is called 'the temple of the Lord', 'the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit', because she conceived by the Holy Spirit. 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee' (Lk 1:35). In this way, therefore. the Blessed Virgin is more familiar with God than the angel is, for the Lord Father, the Lord Son, the Lord Holy Spirit are with her, in other words, the whole Trinity. That is why we sing of her: 'Noble resting-place of the whole Trinity'. [38]

Our Lady is without compare in her objective dignity, and so it is fitting that she should be unrivalled in her subjective sanctity. To prepare her for the task of being Mother to the Son, both physically and spiritually, God the Father bestows upon her an incomparable plenitude of sanctifying grace, the, infused virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

St Thomas argues as follows. The nearer something is to any kind of source, the more it shares in the effects of that source. The part of the lawn nearest to the sprinkler will be greener than the more remote parts. Now Christ is the source (grace, as author in His Divinity and as instrument in His humanity, and the Blessed Virgin is closer to Him than ant other creature is, because it was from her that He received His human nature. 'It was therefore necessary for her to receive from Christ a plenitude of grace greater than that anyone else.’ [39] 

Even from her conception, she was full of grace. By the anticipated merits of her Son, she was preserved from all stain of Original Sin in the first moment of her conception. Now Original Sin is the privation of sanctifying grace. If, therefore, our Lady was preserved from that privation, if she lacked the lack of grace, she was–putting it positively–endowed in the first moment of her existence with the overflowing fulness of the redeeming grace of her Son. She never lacked grace nor did she ever lose it. By a special privilege she was free from all personal sin, mortal and venial, even from the inclination to sin. All men are sinners, says St Augustine, 'except the Holy Virgin Mary, whom, for the sake of the honour of the Lord, I want to exclude altogether from any talk of sin'. [40]

When, then, we contemplate all the actions that make up our Lady's motherhood, ('Welcome in womb and breast,/ Birth, milk, and all the rest'), [41] we should remember that these humble human realities are endowed, through Mary's supernatural perfections, with a spiritual beauty surpassing that of any other mother in human history. 'And she brought forth her first-born son and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn' (Lk 2:7). 

St Luke's words, by their very simplicity and sobriety, convey something of the supernatural refinement of maternal affection in our Lady's heart. She shows her Son and God that precious virtue which the Middle Ages (including St Thomas) named as 'courtesy' (curialitas), the delicacy of a loving intelligence, the opposite of that crass lack of perception in the man without charity. [42]

These gestures, which other mothers do instinctively and which express their natural love in its.most natural aspects, are done by Mary under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For these gestures express a love that is not only motherly but virginal, a divine love for her God who is giving Himself to her in the weakness, the littleness of the Little One, handed over totally to His Mother. Under the movement of the Gifts of Fear, Piety, and Counsel, Mary carries out these actions in a divine way. It is with a chaste and loving fear, in perfect abandonment to the Father's will, that she clasps her Child to her heart, to warm the tiny and tender limbs of the only Son of the Father.... No mother has clasped her baby to her heart with more tenderness than Mary; no mother has had more delicacy and respect for the frailry of her baby. [43]

Footnotes: 

[37] 'It is impossible for a pure creature to be raised to a higher degree. By the grace of her motherhood, she exhausts, so to speak, the very possibility of a higher elevation' (Charles de Koninck, Ego sapientia: La sagesse qui est Marie[Montreal, 1943], p. 39).

[38] In salutationem angelicam, a. 1.

[39] Cf ST 3a q. 27, a. 5.

[40] De natura et gratia cap. 42, no. 36; PL 44:267.

[41] Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, 'The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe', The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W H. Gardner & N. H. Mackenzie, new ed. (London, 1970), p. 94.

[42] The anonymous author of the fourteenth-century poem Pearl calls our Lady 'the Queen of Courtesy': see Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, trans. J. R. R. Tolkien, new ed. (New York, 1980), p. 111. 'Great is the courtesy', says St Thomas, 'when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords invites us to His nuptials' (Sermo 1, pt. 3).

[43] M.-D. Philippe OP, Mystére de Marie: Croissance de la vie chréitienne (Nice, 1958), p. 145. According to the Revelations of St Bridget of Sweden, when the Blessed Mother saw her newborn Son shivering with cold, she 'took Him in her arms and pressed Him to her breast, and with her face and breast warmed Him with great gladness and tender motherly compassion': Revelationes , lib. 7, cap. 21; new ed., vol. 2 (Rome, 1628), p. 231. 

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:

• "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Excerpts from The Rosary: Chain of Hope | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
• "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary" | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• The Past Her Prelude: Marian Imagery in the Old Testament | Sandra Miesel
• The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero
• Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke
• Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis 

Advent/Marian Series (2004) by Carl E. Olson: 

• Mary's Gift of Self Points the Way (November 28, 2004)
• The Perfect Faith of the Blessed Virgin (December 5, 2004)
• Theotokos sums up all that Mary is (December 12, 2004)
• Holy Mary and the Death of Sin (December 19, 2004) 

Fr. John Saward (b. 1947) is a fellow of Greyfriars and associate lecturer of Blackfriars at the University of Oxford. He previously held the posts of Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the International Theological Institute, Gaming, Austria and Visiting Professor in Systematic Theology and Christology in the same Institute. Ordained as an Anglican clergyman in 1972, he and his family were received into the Catholic Church in 1979 at Campion Hall, Oxford. He is the author of several books, including The Way of the Lamb: The Spirit of Childhood and the End of the Age, Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery, Redeemer in the Womb, and The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity, and the Truth of Catholicism. He has also translated several works, including Hans Urs von Balthasar'sScandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus Against the Heresies. Fr. Saward also contributed an essay to John Paul the Great: Maker of the Post-Conciliar Church. 

"I never could see why anyone in this day and age should object to the Immaculate Conception..."

 

Mary, The Woman the World Loves | Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen | FromThe World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God 

Love Begins with a Dream 

Every person carries within his heart a blueprint of the one he loves. What seems to be "love at first sight" is actually the fulfillment of desire, the realization of a dream. Plato, sensing this, said that all knowledge is a recollection from a previous existence. This is not true as he states it, but it is true if one understands it to mean that we already have an ideal in us, one that is made by our thinking, our habits, our experiences, and our desires. Otherwise, how would we know immediately, on seeing persons or things, that we loved them? Before meeting certain people we already have a pattern and mold of what we like and what we do not like; certain persons fit into that pattern, others do not.

When we hear music for the first time, we either like or dislike it. We judge it by the music we already have heard in our own hearts. Jittery minds, which cannot long repose in one object of thought or in continuity of an ideal, love music that is distracting, excited, and jittery. Calm minds like calm music: the heart has its own secret melody, and one day, when the score is played, the heart answers: "This is it." So it is with love. A tiny architect works inside the human heart drawing sketches of the ideal love from the people it sees, from the books it reads, from its hopes and daydreams, in the fond hope that the eye may one day see the ideal and the hand touch it. Life becomes satisfying the moment the dream is seen walking, and the person appears as the incarnation of all that one loved. The liking is instantaneous—because, actually, it was there waiting for a long time. Some go through life without ever meeting what they call their ideal. This could be very disappointing, if the ideal never really existed. But the absolute ideal of every heart does exist, and it is God. All human love is an initiation into the Eternal. Some find the Ideal in substance without passing through the shadow.

God, too, has within Himself blueprints of everything in the universe. As the architect has in his mind a plan of the house before the house is built, so God has in His Mind an archetypal idea of every flower, bird, tree, springtime, and melody. There never was a brush touched to canvas or a chisel to marble without some great pre-existing idea. So, too, every atom and every rose is a realization and concretion of an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity. All creatures below man correspond to the pattern God has in His Mind. A tree is truly a tree because it corresponds to God's idea of a tree. A rose is a rose because it is God's idea of a rose wrapped up in chemicals and tints and life. But it is not so with persons. God has to have two pictures of us: one is what we are, and the other is what we ought to be. He has the model, and He has the reality: the blueprint and the edifice, the score of the music and the way we play it. God has to have these two pictures because in each and every one of us there is some disproportion and want of conformity between the original plan and the way we have worked it out. The image is blurred; the print is faded. For one thing, our personality is not complete in time; we need a renewed body. Then, too, our sins diminish our personality; our evil acts daub the canvas the Master Hand designed. Like unhatched eggs, some of us refuse to be warmed by the Divine Love, which is so necessary for incubation to a higher level. We are in constant need of repairs; our free acts do not coincide with the law of our being; we fall short of all God wants us to be. St. Paul tells us that we were predestined, before the foundations of the world were laid, to become the sons of God. But some of us will not fulfill that hope.

There is, actually, only one person in all humanity of whom God has one picture and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is His Own Mother. Most of us are a minus sign, in the sense that we do not fulfill the high hopes the Heavenly Father has for us. But Mary is the equal sign. The Ideal that God had of her, that she is, and in the flesh. The model and the copy are perfect; she is all that was foreseen, planned, and dreamed. The melody of her life is played just as it was written. Mary was thought, conceived, and planned as the equal sign between ideal and history, thought and reality, hope and realization.

That is why, through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to her the words of the Book of Proverbs. Because she is what God wanted us all to be, she speaks of herself as the Eternal blueprint in the Mind of God, the one whom God loved before she was a creature. She is even pictured as being with Him not only at creation but also before creation. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers—she is the world's first love.

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything, from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth. He had not yet made the earth, or the rivers, or the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me and that watcheth daily at my gates and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord" (Prov 8:22-35).

But God not only thought of her in eternity; He also had her in mind at the beginning of time. In the beginning of history, when the human race fell through the solicitation of a woman, God spoke to the Devil and said, "I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels" (Gen 3:15). God was saying that, if it was by a woman that man fell, it would be through a woman that God would be revenged. Whoever His Mother would be, she would certainly be blessed among women, and because God Himself chose her, He would see to it that all generations would call her blessed.

When God willed to become Man, He had to decide on the time of His coming, the country in which He would be born, the city in which He would be raised, the people, the race, the political and economic systems that would surround Him, the language He would speak, and the psychological attitudes with which He would come in contact as the Lord of History and the Savior of the World.

All these details would depend entirely on one factor: the woman who would be His Mother. To choose a mother is to choose a social position, a language, a city, an environment, a crisis, and a destiny.

His Mother was not like ours, whom we accepted as something historically fixed, which we could not change; He was born of a Mother whom He chose before He was born. It is the only instance in history where both the Son willed the Mother and the Mother willed the Son. And this is what the Creed means when it says "born of the Virgin Mary." She was called by God as Aaron was, and Our Lord was born not just of her flesh but also by her consent.

Before taking unto Himself a human nature, He consulted with the Woman, to ask her if she would give Him a man. The Manhood of Jesus was not stolen from humanity, as Prometheus stole fire from heaven; it was given as a gift.

The first man, Adam, was made from the slime of the earth. The first woman was made from a man in an ecstasy. The new Adam, Christ, comes from the new Eve, Mary, in an ecstasy of prayer and love of God and the fullness of freedom.

We should not be surprised that she is spoken of as a thought by God before the world was made. When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived—one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, "You know how it is; one tries to make one's Mummy just as nice as he can." When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make her a perfect Mother. 



       

     

 

God never does anything without exceeding preparation. The two great masterpieces of God are Creation of man and Re-creation or Redemption of man. Creation was made for unfallen men; His Mystical Body, for fallen men. Before making man, God made a garden of delights—as God alone knows how to make a garden beautiful. In that Paradise of Creation there were celebrated the first nuptials of man and woman. But man willed not to have blessings, except according to his lower nature. Not only did he lose his happiness; he even wounded his own mind and will. Then God planned the remaking or redeeming of man. But before doing so, he would make another Garden. This new one would be not of earth but of flesh; it would be a Garden over whose portals the name of sin would never be written—a Garden in which there would grow no weeds of rebellion to choke the growth of the flowers of grace—a Garden from which there would flow four rivers of redemption to the four corners of the earth—a Garden so pure that the Heavenly Father would not blush at sending His Own Son into it—and this "flesh-girt Paradise to be gardened by the Adam new" was Our Blessed Mother. As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of the Incarnation, and in her as a Garden were celebrated the first nuptials of God and man. The closer one gets to fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals He threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she. In the words of Lawrence Housman:

A garden bower in flower 
Grew waiting for God's hand: 

Where no man ever trod, 

This was the Gate of God. 

The first bower was red— 

Her lips which "welcome" said. 

The second bower was blue— 

Her eyes that let God through. 

The third bower was white— 

Her soul in God's sight. 

Three bowers of love 

Now Christ from heaven above.

This special purity of hers we call the Immaculate Conception. It is not the Virgin Birth. The word "immaculate" is taken from two Latin words meaning "not stained." "Conception" means that, at the first moment of her conception, the Blessed Mother in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, and in virtue of the anticipated merits of the Redemption of her Son, was preserved free from the stains of Original Sin.

I never could see why anyone in this day and age should object to the Immaculate Conception; all modern pagans believe that they are immaculately conceived. If there is no Original Sin, then everyone is immaculately conceived. Why do they shrink from allowing to Mary what they attribute to themselves? The doctrine of Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception are mutually exclusive. If Mary alone is the Immaculate Conception, then the rest of us must have Original Sin.

The Immaculate Conception does not imply that Mary needed no Redemption. She needed it as much as you and I do. She was redeemed in advance, by way of prevention, in both body and soul, in the first instant of conception. We receive the fruits of redemption in our soul at Baptism. The whole human race needs redemption. But Mary was de-solidarized and separated from that sin-laden humanity as a result of the merits of Our Lord's Cross being offered to her at the moment of her conception. If we exempted her from the need of redemption, we would also have to exempt her from membership in humanity. The Immaculate Conception, therefore, in no way implies that she needed no redemption. She did! Mary is the first effect of redemption, in the sense that it was applied to her at the moment of her conception and to us in another and diminished fashion only after our birth.

She had this privilege, not for her sake, but for His sake. That is why those who do not believe in the Divinity of Christ can see no reason for the special privilege accorded to Mary. If I did not believe in the Divinity of Our Lord—which God avert—I should see nothing but nonsense in any special reverence given to Mary above the other women on earth! But if she is the Mother of God, Who became Man, then she is unique, and then she stands out as the new Eve of Humanity—as He is the new Adam.

There had to be some such creature as Mary—otherwise God would have found no one in whom He could fittingly have taken His human origin. An honest politician seeking civic reforms looks about for honest assistants. The Son of God beginning a new creation searched for some of that Goodness which existed before sin took over. There would have been, in some minds, a doubt about the Power of God if He had not shown a special favor to the woman who was to be His Mother. Certainly what God gave to Eve, He would not refuse to His Own Mother.

Suppose that God in making over man did not also make over woman into a new Eve! What a howl of protest would have gone up! Christianity would have been denounced as are all male religions. Women would then have searched for a female religion! It would have been argued that woman was always the slave of man and even God intended her to be such, since He refused to make the new Eve as He made the new Adam.

Had there been no Immaculate Conception, then Christ would have been said to be less beautiful, for He would have taken His Body from one who was not humanly perfect! There ought to be an infinite separation between God and sin, but there would not have been if there was not one Woman who could crush the cobra's head.

If you were an artist, would you allow someone to prepare your canvas with daubs? Then why should God be expected to act differently when He prepares to unite to Himself a human nature like ours, in all things, save sin? But having lifted up one woman by preserving her from sin, and then having her freely ratify that gift at the Annunciation, God gave hope to our disturbed, neurotic, gauche, and weak humanity. Oh, yes! He is our Model, but He is also the Person of God! There ought to be, on the human level, Someone who would give humans hope, Someone who could lead us to Christ, Someone who would mediate between us and Christ as He mediates between us and the Father. One look at her, and we know that a human who is not good can become better; one prayer to her, and we know that, because she is without sin, we can become less sinful.

And that brings us back to the beginning. We have said that everyone carries within his heart a blueprint of his ideal love. The best of human loves, no matter how devoted they be, must end—and there is nothing perfect that ends. If there be anyone of whom it is possible to say, "This is the last embrace," then there is no perfect love. Hence some, ignoring the Divine, may try to have a multiplicity of loves make up for the ideal love; but this is like saying that to render a musical masterpiece one must play a dozen different violins.

Every man who pursues a maid, every maid who yearns to be courted, every bond of friendship in the universe, seeks a love that is not just her love or his love but something that overflows both her and him that is called "our love." Everyone is in love with an ideal love, a love that is so far beyond sex that sex is forgotten. We all love something more than we love. When that overflow ceases, love stops. As the poet puts it: "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more." That ideal love we see beyond all creature-love, to which we instinctively turn when flesh-love fails, is the same ideal that God had in His Heart from all eternity—the Lady whom He calls "Mother." She is the one whom every man loves when he loves a woman—whether he knows it or not. She is what every woman wants to be when she looks at herself. She is the woman whom every man marries in ideal when he takes a spouse; she is hidden as an ideal in the discontent of every woman with the carnal aggressiveness of man; she is the secret desire every woman has to be honored and fostered; she is the way every woman wants to command respect and love because of the beauty of her goodness of body and soul. And this blueprint love, whom God loved before the world was made, this Dream Woman before women were, is the one of whom every heart can say in its depth of depths: "She is the woman I love!" 

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts: 

• The Virtually Venerable Fulton J. Sheen | Charles F. Harvey
• Mary in Byzantine Doctrine and Devotion | Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.
• Fairest Daughter of the Father: On the Solemnity of the Assumption | Rev. Charles M. Mangan 
• The Blessed Virgin in the History of Christianity | John A. Hardon, S.J.
• "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke
• Excerpts from The Rosary: Chain of Hope | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
• The Past Her Prelude: Marian Imagery in the Old Testament | Sandra Miesel
• Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward
• The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero
• Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Born of the Virgin Mary | Paul Claudel
• Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) is considered by many to be the most influential Catholic of the 20th century in America. Millions of people watched his incredibly popular television series every week, "Life is Worth Living", and millions more listened to his radio program, "The Catholic Hour". Wherever he preached in public, standing-room-only crowds packed churches and halls to hear him. He had the same kind of charisma and holiness that attracts so many people to Pope John Paul II, who called Sheen "a loyal son of the Church." Learn more about Archbishop Sheen by reading his autobiography, Treasure In Clay, or visiting the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation website.

“In my beginning is my end. ... In my end is my beginning”

"St. John the Baptist" (c. 1600) by El Greco (WikiArt.org)

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for December 7, 2014, the Second Sunday of Advent | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Is 40:1-5, 9-11
• Ps 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
• 2 Pt 3:8-14
• Mk 1:1-8

“In my beginning is my end.” This line opens “East Coker,” the second section of T.S. Eliot’s poetic masterpiece, Four Quartets. It is followed by a haunting, elegiac reflection on the fragile and transitory nature of life as seen in the cycle of life and death in nature. What is the meaning of our short lives? What hope is man given in this passing world? In whom shall we trust for our salvation?

These questions are always with us, but gain in poignancy during Advent. While the entire liturgical year is ultimately oriented toward all that is heavenly and everlasting, Advent is especially focused on the end of our earthly lives. And, just as Eliot indicated, the beginning points to The End, a fact presented by St. Mark in his direct, urgent style: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” 

More than a heading or title, this is a bold proclamation of the good news and joyful tidings of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the inspired declaration that the man Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah, the anointed one. He has come to deliver his people from sin and death, and to establish the reign of God among men. This announcement is made within the Gospel of Mark by St. Peter, a Jew following in the footsteps of Jesus, (Mk 8:29), and by the centurion, a Gentile standing at the foot of the Cross. In this way, the universal nature of the new covenant is revealed and professed.

But the first announcement in Mark’s Gospel is from the lips of St. John the Baptist, the voice crying out in the desert. John is the last of the Old Testament prophets, but he is “more than a prophet” (Lk. 7:26), a mysterious figure whose strange physical appearance is coupled with a striking message: “I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Ritual cleansing with water was not new to the Jews, but this baptism in the Jordan River was clearly meant to be different. The Jordan River, of course, was significant in its symbolism. The forty years of exodus in the wilderness had ended many hundreds of years earlier when Joshua led the Israelites across the river and into the promised land (Josh. 3). The Messiah, John indicated, is going to call the people to enter through water into a new promised land, a new Zion, a new Jerusalem. 

This beginning, rooted in the Old Covenant, provides the grace and forgiveness necessary for the end, what is described by St. Peter as the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). But this end is already present in the beginning. In the words of Eliot, “Home is where one starts from.” Baptism brings us home; it destroys sin, restores the divine life of God, and makes man a son of God. For “just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water,” remarks the Catechism, “so the water of Baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 694). This is the comfort spoken of by Isaiah in today’s first reading; it is the peace, truth, justice, and salvation desired by the Psalmist. 

In listening to the cry of John the Baptist we hear the message of Advent: Prepare the way of the Lord by repenting of sin and embracing the divine life granted in baptism. Go to confession, spend additional time in prayer, and proclaim the Gospel in word and deed. By spending more time in prayer and contemplation, we open the way for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

“We must be still and still moving,” wrote Eliot of this spiritual purification, “Into another intensity/For a further union, a deeper communion.” And then we will recognize more deeply this truth, which concludes “East Coker”: “In my end is my beginning.”

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the December 7, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

You Better Watch Out—St. Nicholas is Coming to Town

You Better Watch Out—St. Nicholas is Coming to Town | Christopher B. Warner | CWR

The seldom-told stories of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker

Everyone loves jolly ol’ Saint Nicholas. There is something romantic and cozy about telling Santa stories around the crackling fire. He is an icon of the Christmas season. But not everyone agrees about the real Santa Claus. Some like to picture Santa as the early-19th century, pipe-smoking elf with a bucket full of coal for naughty boys who don’t eat their cauliflower. Others prefer Santa as an emasculated, overweight consumer who gets bossed around by Mrs. Claus and thus flees the North Pole once a year to relive the glory days. Then there is the wiry bishop who pulled Arius’ beard and punched him in the face for teaching heresy. Maybe they’re all the same guy. A 1,700-year-old hero can’t be expected to fit into just one old Santa suit. Our images of St. Nicholas seem to evolve or deteriorate based on the values of contemporary culture in different times and places.

In 1809, Washington Irving wrote Knickerbocker’s History of New York, a work of imaginative fiction that included several tales about a jolly, elfin Dutchman scampering down chimneys to bring gifts to children. The American image of Santa Claus was solidified during this time period. “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” a poem by Clement Clarke Moore published in 1823 and better known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” introduced the enduring image of Santa’s reindeer and sleigh and fixed the date of his visit to Christmas Eve. These are fun stories that make up an important part of our literary tradition and culture in America. However, stuffing chimney-hung stockings is an ancient tradition that pre-dates the American elf lore as well as the Dutch, who fill their children’s wooden clogs with gifts the night before St. Nicholas Day (December 6). Chucking gold into people’s wet socks is a custom started by a young man named Nicholas who lived in Asia Minor around 300 AD.

There are hundreds of stories about St. Nicholas of Myra. He was born in Lycia on the southwest coast of modern Turkey. His wealthy, pious parents, Theophanes and Nonna, read to him the Holy Scriptures and faithfully taught him his prayers, but apparently died while he was still young. His uncle, Bishop Nicholas of Patara, ordained young Nicholas and made him his personal assistant. The zealous youth proved himself an inspiring catechist in the Christian community and an obedient servant to his uncle. During these dutiful years he showed great kind-heartedness and generosity by distributing his inheritance to the poor.

During this time, the three grown daughters of a formerly rich inhabitant were in danger of being sold into slavery because of their father’s pennilessness.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.