Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 307

March for Life

Crescat has some nice comments and personal photos of the March for Life here. For a few more of my own photos--including some of my kids--go to my Facebook page. The Anchoress rants here about the biased press and asks "250 people camping in a park gets thousands of articles and huge coverage but half a million marching on the nation's capital is virtually ignored." Nice collection of photos here.

Newman and Littlemore

Go here to download the text of my sermon preached at Choral Evensong at Mount Calvary Church on Sunday evening.

The Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter

I have just been to one of the most exciting, historic, sad and nostalgic and happy day of my life for many years.



This morning I witnessed Fr Jeffrey Steenson, Ordinary in waiting, receive nearly fifty people into full communion with the Catholic Church. The priests and people of Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore are now Catholics!



Mount Calvary has a long and venerable tradition within the Episcopal Church. It was the first church to be built according to Anglo Catholic principles in the 1800s and it's first pastor, Fr. Curtis, travelled to England and was received into the  Catholic faith by Cardinal Newman himself.



Today their journey is complete, and a new journey begins. My prayer for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter is that both the Anglican Churches will stop being so stressy about the whole thing. Let them bid a fond farewell to the Anglo Catholics. Let them hand over some of the many churches they don't really need.



Then let the Anglican tradition live in communion with the See of Peter. Let them be united, not absorbed, and let them live in peace.



I'm excited by the Ordinariate and wish Fr Catania and his people and the new Ordinary and all others every blessing and success.

Sublimity or Sanctity?

If you are a convert to the Catholic faith from Lutheranism of Anglicanism or any other form of tasteful religion, then you will have to deal with Catholic kitsch. What are we to do with the trashy trinkets, the horrid holy cards, the sappy statues? How do you put up with the banal hymns, bad preaching and sentimental religiosity?





You have to correct your expectations. You thought sanctity and sublimity were the same thing, and while what is true is also beautiful, we sometimes have to re-assess our own opinions about beauty. There is a beauty that transcends matters of fine art and good taste.




Being a Catholic means having our pre-conceptions blown away. It's all much bigger than you thought. Being a Catholics is learning to see the beauty of holiness. Sanctity and sublimity are not always the same thing.




A good illustration of this is St Therese of Lisieux. Anyone with taste and learning who has first read her book will probably not find it to their taste. It is a schoolgirl's account of growing up in a very pious household in nineteenth century France. It is not only unremarkable, but it is sentimental, sweet and not only girly, but frenchy girly. Then you see the popular images of the simpering saint of Lisieux with her ruby lips pouting in a pious smile--the upturned gaze, the cross and the roses. "Give me break!" said my tasteful Anglican soul.




But there was something else there--something I missed. There was a beauty that lurked beneath and behind and below and in and through all the sentimentality and tackiness. It was the beauty of sanctity--and that sanctity was a mystery of divine light made incarnate by God's grace in a very ordinary little girl.




This is the beauty of the saints. Very few of them are sublime, and even the ones who seem sublime--when you really get to know them--are gritty and real. This is the deeper beauty: the beauty of the reality of the Catholic faith.




It's true we have tacky music and bad hymns. But we have Palestrina and Mozart and Byrd as well. We do have plastic glow in the dark rosaries and those night lights you plug in with the Blessed Mother. But we also have the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo and Carravagio. It's true we have brutal churches that look like a cross between a space ship and a parking garage, but we also have Chartres and St Mark's Venice and Chartres and Mont St Michel.




This is the authenticity of the Catholic faith. It is universal. It has room for the peasant and the aristocrat, hoi polloi and high falutin', the learned and the ignorant, the tasteful and the tacky, the sinner and the saint.

Patroness of this Blog

I credit my conversion to the Catholic faith, my miraculous ordination to the Catholic priesthood and my preservation in the faith to St Therese of Lisieux.



I am re-reading the best book on Therese--The Hidden Face by Ida Gorres, and I am remembering my own meeting with Therese in 1987 on my pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The story is told here. Time and again her presence has been known in my life. At my ordination two friends gave me beautiful images of Therese and another friend gave me a first class relic.



Do people wonder about spirituality and religion? The two are not separate. They come together in the lives of the saints. Benedict XVI says that Sacred Scripture can only be interpreted through the lives of the saints. The same is true of the whole riddle of religion. It is in the lives of the saints that we see spirituality and religion incarnated in one inexplicable experience.



Read the lives of the saints. Meet the saints. Live with the saints. Pray with the saints. You will soon come to see that you cannot have spirituality without religion and you cannot have religion without spirituality. If you would have one you must have the other, and as you have both you will understand the saints. You will understand the Scriptures. You will understand the Church.



You will understand your destiny.



I have gone off track. I only meant to say that from this day St Therese is the patroness of this blog. Officially.



And I am going to expect some miracles little sister!

Spirituality and Religion 2

What is the relationship between spirituality and religion?



Spirituality is subjective. The Catholic Religion is objective.



Spirituality is the genius. Religion is the discipline.



Spirituality is the heart. Religion is the mind and body.



Spirituality is the vine. Religion is the trellis.



Spirituality is the music. Religion is the notes on the page and the practice.



Spirituality is the drama. Religion is the script.



Spirituality is the cuisine. Religion is the cookbook.



Spirituality is making love. Religion is the marriage.



Spirituality is the paycheck. Religion is the work.



Spirituality is the free fall. Religion is the parachute.



Spirituality is the quest. Religion is the map.



Spirituality is the climb. Religion is the ladder.



Spirituality is the grace. Religion is the law.



Spirituality is the inspiration. Religion is the perspiration.



Spirituality is the question. Religion is the answer.

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English Catholicism Conference

There is still time to register for the upcoming day conference on English Catholicism.

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, 3710 Augusta Road, Greenville, SC, will host EWTN personalities and authors Joanna Bogle, Joseph Pearce, and Fr. Dwight Longenecker on Saturday, January 21 from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm for a day conference on: "English Catholicism: Then & Now." Topics include: English Catholic life in the Middle Ages; Feasts and Seasons; Was Shakespeare Catholic?; the Importance of G.K. Chesterton, and more. Registration is just $15, and that includes lunch. Contact the church office at 864-422-1648 to sign up.

Call today!

CofE Priest Wants to be Bishop

The Guardian reports that the Dean of St Albans-- Dr Jeffrey John (pictured above) is thinking of suing the Church of England because he was not selected to be the Bishop of Southwark. He believes his rejection was due to his being a homosexual.



I doubt if this is the reason at all. I suspect it is because Dr John will be confused with the flamboyant entertainer Elton John-- another person who has sung in Anglican cathedrals and worn outrageous clothing--much like an Anglican Bishop.



Dr Elton John has denied having any relationship with the singer Jeffrey John even though they look remarkably similar and have the same last name. "Elton and I are not brothers." said the clergyman indignantly, "and no, I do not wear a wig."



The Rev'd. Humphrey Blytherington, Vicar of Great Snoring in the St Alban's diocese said, "Dr Jeffrey John is a wonderful man. I have enjoyed many of his records over the years, especially Candle in the Wind which I have often played at funerals." He continued, "I have no problem with bishops. Some of my best friends are bishops." The Rev'd. Lavinia Winkett, Priest in Charge of St Boadecia, commented, "It is an outrage that Jeffrey has been rejected from the Episcopate simply because of his sexuality. Why should he be rejected just because he wears sequin jackets and funny spectacles?"



Elton John was unavailable for comment.

Spiritual but not Religious?

What's all this "spiritual but not religious" claptrap? Saying you're spiritual but not religious is like saying you love food, but hate cooking. Let's take it further. You love food but hate cooking? That means you can't be bothered to learn to cook. You can't be bothered to study food and a meal and how it all fits togethers. You can't be bothered to read cookbooks and learn how to make a recipe. You're not willing to give it a try and burn something and be embarrassed. You're not willing to burn your fingers, make a mess and have to clean it up. You're not willing to invite friends, plan a dinner party, take a risk, spend some money and cook for them.



Why is that? Because you have known some bad cooks in your day? Because you were brought up on junk food? Because you have never had a cordon bleu five course meal? Because a chef once offended you in some way? Because you tried cooking from a cook book once and you failed? Because your friends think good food is snobbish? Because how can you eat a fine meal when there are hungry children in the world? Because some people eat better than you do and they understand fine food, and it makes you look bad? All of these and many more reasons can be given.



"Spiritual but not Religious?" This just means the person is too lazy to look beyond their adolescent bias. They are too lazy to learn what it means to be truly religious. They are too smug and shallow and immature to ever regard anything greater than themselves as greater than themselves.



"Spiritual but not Religious"? They have dismissed religion before they have even seriously considered it or studied it, and even if they have had a chance to consider it, what kind of religion have they been offered to consider? The state of Christianity in the United States is so dire, I'm not surprised any kid with half a brain rejects it. The culture encourages passivity and being a spectator. No wonder they reject religion for religion requires commitment and hard work and wonder and fear and self sacrifice and guts.



"Spiritual without Religion" is subjective Protestantism taken to it's logical end point. It's where individuals in a Protestant culture will end up, and given the starting point it makes sense. Some time ago a Protestant woman came to see me about her teenaged son who was a pretty smart kid who stopped going to church. He said to his parents, "I can love Jesus without going to church. Church doesn't matter."



"What can we say to him!?" they wailed. In fact, they didn't have an answer. The kid was right. If it is only about me and Jesus; if it is only about me and my "personal relationship with my Lord" what is the point of going to church?



We should be clear: "Spirituality without Religion" is not a product of atheism or agnosticism or secular humanism. It is the product of Protestantism, for that is subjective Protestantism's logical conclusion.



Every argument is a theological argument. So what is the underlying theological problem? A distrust of the physical world. Manichaeism. The belief that the physical world is either evil or it doesn't ultimately matter. Protestantism with its denial of the visible church and it's emphasis on eternal security and salvation by faith alone (therefore what you do doesn't matter) and it's often otherworldly Puritanical denial of this world and all that is 'worldly' is Manichean, and it is no mistake that the historians of the Protestant movement see their pre cursors as the Bogomils, Paulicians and Cathars.



"Spiritual but not Religious" is therefore a denial of all that is real and physical in God's interaction with the world. It is a denial of the importance of the physical world. It is a denial of the church, a denial of the sacraments, a denial of the incarnation, and is therefore a most noxious heresy.



No. Because the Lord Jesus Christ--the only begotten son of the Father--took human flesh he therefore sanctified the physical realm. Because he took human flesh; human flesh matters. Because he on physical matter; matter matters. My body matters for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. My Church matters. The physical church building matters. The One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church--the Catholic Church with all her institutions and history and paperwork and bureacracy and canon law and dogma--all of it matters. The incense and the candles and the books and the bells. They all matter.



The saints and their suffering matters. My rosary and my books of theology and my Infant of Prague and my plaster St Therese and my Our Lady of Lourdes--soiled and with a hole in her head because a nun from the convent where I got her dropped her once--that matters, and so does my starving neighbor and my friend with a headache and my child who needs a hug and a listening ear. They matter.



And so does the Blessed Sacrament which is the focus of the presence of God in the physical.



...and because of this I kneel to adore.