Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 337

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Why I Pray to Mary

When Protestants hear that I went to Bob Jones University, but am now a Catholic (after they pick up their jaw from the floor) they ask me whether I "really believe all that Catholic stuff."



What they mean is that they think maybe I became a Catholic because I like stained glass windows and organ music and lighting candles and all that stuff. Or maybe I became a Catholic because I'm rebelling against BJU (wot at my age?) or that I had some sort of weird fizz pop in my brain that made me do something crazy, and that they hope it is nothing more than an eccentricity like if I had taken an interest in Native American folklore and started attending pow wows with a full feather head dress.



They could probably accept all that with a shake of the head and, "Well, he did go off and live in England for twenty five years, and that was sort of dumb to start with...I mean they don't even have good dentists in England!" But what really rocks the boat is when they ask in a conspiratorial whisper (as they look over their shoulders to see if anyone might over hear them) "Do you really pray to Mary?"



I've stopped beating around the bush and say, "Why sure I pray to Mary!" Then I explain that by 'pray' I mean I ask her for something. I don't worship Mary or adore Mary. But I ask her to pray with me and for me. I pray to Mary because in my experience she really is close to Jesus. There's a bond between them which is just as close and real and intimate as the bond between any mother and her child.



If it is a female I'm talking to and I know they are a mother I say, "You know you have a bond with your children that nobody else can really understand. Isn't that true?" They almost always nod knowingly. "Well, it's the same between Mary and Jesus, but even more so because she was a perfect mother and he was a perfect son."



"Whaddya mean perfect??" The Bible says "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Mary was a sinner too. "Well, technically that's right. But she was a redeemed sinner. By virtue of her son's death on the cross, we believe God saved her from original sin, and preserved her from sin ever after that. That's why we think she's perfect--not perfect like Jesus is perfect--because he is the Son of God--but perfect like we will be perfect one day--perfectly restored, healed and forgiven."



"So you really pray to Mary? But she's not God."



"That's right, and we don't believe she's God either. That would be a blasphemy. We do believe that she is the highest of all created beings though. See, she was the Mother of God."



"Looky here. God does not have a Mother."



"You're right again. That's what we believe too. God the Father does not have a Mother, but God the Son does, doesn't he? You do believe that Jesus is God in human form don't you?"



"I guess."



"Well, Mary was his mother right?"



"Uh huh."



"So that makes Mary the Mother of God. Not the Mother of God the Father. The mother of God the Son."



"You're just being tricky."



"Not really. I'm just explaining what we really believe. So if she is so close to Jesus, then we ask her to pray for us. See, when you think about it, you wouldn't have Jesus without Mary would you?"



"Well..."



"So if you can't have Jesus without Mary, then you can't have Jesus without Mary."



"You're talking in riddles."



"Not really. I just mean that historically you never could have had Jesus without Mary, so why do you Protestants think you can have Jesus without Mary now? We Catholics wonder why you all get so hung up on this. Jesus said, "Behold your Mother." Why are you so hard hearted? Don't you love your Mother? See, praying to Mary is also just a way to spend time with my Mother."



"You're kidding me right?"



"No."



"Listen, do you want a piece of pie? Let me get you a piece of this cherry pie right here that Aunt Sally made. It is so good..."

Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing

Take a moment to consider this: Jesus Christ went through every stage of human life and the holy rosary helps you connect with him at every stage of your life.





Think about it. The Annunciation is the moment of his conception. It was a perfect conception; perfect in love, perfect in unity, perfect in power and purity. Our own conception may have been less than the best. Maybe at that very first moment of life we were somehow tainted with lust or drunkenness or inability to love fully or some human flaw in the circumstances or in our parents. It might have left a wound or an empty place in our lives. The mystery of the Annunciation can be the point in the Rosary where we connect with that greater grace which will heal that broken-ness. 




The Visitation is the time when Christ was in the womb of the Blessed Mother. It was a time for him of perfect bliss, perfect love and growth in perfection because he had a perfect Mother. In our own lives those nine months may have been stressful for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we weren't really wanted. Maybe mother was sick. Maybe there was stress in the family. That stress can be communicated and maybe those nine months for us were a time when a foundation of fear or stress or lack of love were established. Praying the second joyful mystery helps to bring God's perfect love into our lives.




The same principle applies to the other mysteries of the rosary. This is the theme and method of my book Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing. This has been by far the most popular of all my books, with people from around the world writing to me to say how it has changed their lives. They tell me how they have got extra copies to give to others, and it has been a surprising and joyful thing to see how it has been used by God.




Bl. John Paul II said that the rosary connects with every stage of human life, and so it is. In a mysterious way we identify and put our imperfect lives into the perfect life of love between Christ and his mother. It is no mistake that we call the events of the rosary 'mysteries' for they work in the world and work on us in a mysterious way--because a mystery is something that can be experienced even if it cannot be explained.

A Secret Language

A Secret Language



We wrestle with the mystery of words,

hammering from the vast inchoate

universe, the pointed spears and sharp swords

with which we marshal the inarticulate

chaos of the soul. With precision

we discuss, dissect and delineate;

then define and decide. Each decision

is set in stone—not open to debate.



But beneath the dogma something rebels.

We sense lost treasure buried in a field,

or secret meanings glimmering like jewels

in the dark caverns of the soul. They yield

their bright reward only to those who mine

with the pick and spade of symbol and sign.

In this underground struggle we soon learn:

only the work and liturgy of art

can unlock the secret language of the heart.

Individualism and Institutions

Do you feel a bit of tension between your "isolationist" instincts and membership in a universal Church, and between your "minimal government" instincts and membership in a hierarchical Church -- that is, assuming that these instincts are general feelings?...asks a reader in the combox.




This is a very interesting question, and one which reminds me what a joy it is to be a Catholic.  I feel sure that it is a universal instinct in the human heart to desire two contradictory things. On the one hand we long to belong. We long to fit in with 'the system' and have our place in the 'inner circle'. There is something in the human heart which wants to be part of the gang, the club, the group, the elite, the 'in' group. 




On the other hand, like Groucho Marx, we wouldn't want to belong to any club who would have us as a member. We want to be subversive. We want to be isolationist and give a digital salute to the 'insiders' and the 'elite'. There is something in us which wants to be a monk, an Amish farmer, an anti-establishment pure sort of soul who 'marches to a different drummer', ploughs our own furrow and wears the white plume of our own noble way in the world--never compromising our values for a place at high table, and never selling our birthright for a mess of pottage.




In spiritual terms we want to be both Benedictines and Franciscans. The Benedictines--who are so part of the establishment--so quiet and balanced and calm and integrated and scholarly and un-radical. But we also want to be wild and crazy and prophetic and do something radical for God like grow a long beard and live in holy poverty and preach to the sultan and the birds and have stigmata and stand barefoot in the snow.




The brilliance, therefore in being a Catholic is that you can have it all. When you join the Catholic Church you belong to the greatest, oldest and most venerable of all establishments. I mean to say, here is a worldwide, organized, institution that has been around since the Roman Empire. Here you belong to the establishment of establishments. You fit into the club. You belong to the gang. You fit into the family. You're part of a hierarchy for goodness sake, and what can be more established and solid and permanent and 'respectable' than that? As a Catholic you belong to the great, big, old one. You're not alone. You're a part of the great army, the kingdom of God.




But at the same time you belong to the most subversive, maddening, crazy and unpredictable group the world has ever seen. If you are a faithful Catholic you belong to the group of radicals who undermine the ways of this world and are always at odds with the power struggles, the greed, the violence, the lust of this world. You stand firm for justice in the face of cruelty and greed. You stand for purity in a world of lust and for weakness in the world of power. You will die a martyr in the face of a cruel tyrant with all his armies of the establishment arrayed against you. You will stand with the prophets and radicals and rebels of the world as a proud Catholic--refusing to submit to the idiocy, violence, and mindless mendacity of the powers of hell which are made manifest in the establishments of this world.




So as a Catholic you belong, but you don't belong. You are in the club, but it is a club of rebels. You belong to the family of subversives and the coterie of prophets. You are one of the elite band of John the Baptists who are a voice crying in the wilderness.




Isolation and Individualism in the Catholic Church are counted by Inclusion and Co-inherence. In the Church all things hold together. There all the opposites unite and complement one another but never contradict. This is where all things are affirmed and nothing good is denied. Here you can be the member of an institution and be a joyful individualist at the same time.




This is something dappled and glory be to God for dappled things.

Call Me Amish

I don't often stray into politics on this blog because, quite frankly, I'm not much interested in it. My ancestry is Mennonite and Amish and their pacifism and isolationism is written pretty deep in my genetic code. That is to say, we want to mind our own business and believe that less government we have the better. We have a deep distrust of 'the system'. If the politicians and wheeler dealers aren't exactly persecuting us at the moment--it's not long before they will be.



We distrust 'the system' and we especially distrust anybody who thinks 'the system'--any system--will be able to really fix what is wrong with the world. This means we distrust any kind of ideology--either to the Right or to the Left. Ideologies are most often false religions. Ideologies are for people with too much pride or too few brains, or too little courage to actually take a religion (any religion) seriously and follow it to it's proper conclusion. Instead they jump on the bandwagon of some shallow ideology (and all  ideologies are shallow) and seek some sort of economic or social or political solution.



History shows it doesn't work, and the reason it doesn't work is because there is a fault at the very heart of every ideology. An ideology has as its basic premise that its main idea is 'right' and everybody else is 'wrong'. At the root of every ideology, therefore, is hubris--pride--the assumption that the idea (and me and all my comrades who ascribe to it) are right and must use these ideas to change the world. What then results is that the ideologues do attempt to change the world, and because they don't have much time to do it (because they will all be in their graves within 60 years) they force their agenda on others, and this inevitably results in the loss of civil and human rights--and often in the slaughter of millions. This from the ideologues who most often standing up for 'the poor' or 'the masses' or 'the people'. When they find that 'the people' don't actually want their brave new world they kill them or lock them up.



The ideologue then (like the Left wing in US and UK) ends up being more corrupt, venal and violent and intolerant than the right--because they never thought they would be and very often are blind to the very corruption they propagate.



So, I'm not right wing or left wing, but I do claim to be a conservative Catholic. This is simply because I want to 'conserve' what is good from the past rather than throw it out in the name of the latest ideology. I realize everything from the past isn't necessarily the best, but I'd rather have the devil I know than the devil I don't. I'm conservative because I can see what is behind me better than I can see what's in front of me. I can learn easily from the past, but I can never learn from the future because it isn't here yet. This is also why I distrust any ideological politician (of either right or left) who promises me some great new future.



I'm also conservative and Catholic because I believe in the doctrine of original sin. That is to say, Man is created in God's image and is good, but that image is wounded by sin. This core truth is often neglected or denied by ideologues--especially when thinking about themselves. The typical ideologue does not believe in original sin--especially he does not believe that he has original sin. Nevertheless, he usually believes in the total depravity of his enemy. Conservatives Catholics believe in original sin, but we also believe in the possibility of redemption. Therefore we are pessimistic about mankind, but optimistic about man.



Finally, I distrust ideologues because they are blind to their own failings and the weaknesses of their ideology. They have to be, or they would not be ideologues. I am therefore, also distrustful of all Catholics or Christians or religious people of any stripe who turn their religion into an ideology. Run from the Christians who demand total, unthinking loyalty. Run from the Christians who see opponents as enemies. Run from Christians who build little fortresses of faith for themselves and their comrades, for the only thing worse than an ideology is a religion that has become an ideology, for then they will kill and persecute not just believing in their good cause, but believing that they are doing God's will.

New Translation - 2

Here is the second letter to my parish about the new translation:




++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++




Dear Brothers and Sisters,



One of the things that sets us apart from our Protestant brothers and sisters is that we worship God liturgically. This means we use set forms and given words for our worship. When I was a Protestant I heard criticisms of liturgical worship--"Those Catholics just pray in vain repetition. They don't know what they're saying. They just parrot the words." Others would say, "How can you have a heart to heart relationship with Jesus when all you do is read words out of a book and call that prayer?"



Although the comments were often phrased negatively, the folks were asking a good question. Why do we read words out of a book and not pray 'directly from the heart"?



In fact Catholics are encouraged to have a personal relationship with Jesus and intimate prayer in a personal way is encouraged. The saints talked happily with Jesus and Mary in prayer and it is a good and wonderful thing to take our burdens and prayers and praises directly to Christ in a heartfelt way in our own words. So Catholics don't prohibit that kind of prayer. It's just that in public we use our shared words of worship, not our own private petitions.



Using the words that the Church gives us helps our ordinary prayers to transcend our ordinary lives. It's kind of like writing a love letter to your beloved, but you also include a sonnet by Shakespeare. Shakespeare expresses your feelings in a much more exalted and beautiful way than you are able. So it is with liturgy. We use the words of worship given to us by the Church and this lifts our prayer to a higher level.



In addition to this, the words of worship in the liturgy unite us with all Catholics everywhere. These are not just my words, they are the words I share with all Catholics around the world and down through the ages. Through the liturgy my ordinary life is lifted up and I share in the communion of the saints.



Finally, when I pray using the words of the liturgy my prayer becomes something greater than I was capable of on my own. I am using the words of Scripture I didn't know myself. I am praying through the doctrines and mysteries that I only partially understand on my own. I am entering into new and deeper dimensions of my faith that, on my own, I was only partially able to glimpse.



The new translation of the liturgy will help all these aspects to come alive for us in a new way, and I hope as we move forward later this year that you will do so with anticipation and an open heart and mind.



Yr Pastor,

Fr Longenecker

Michelle and Maggie

"Let them eat cake..." Nigel Gardiner of the Daily Telegraph reports here on the free flowing spending habits of Michelle Obama. Seems she likes expensive holidays at the tax payers expense. All this while America is in recession, and the African Americans she and her husband pretend to champion are doing the best they can to keep their heads above water.



I like the comment of one of the readers of Gardiner's article, quoting Maggie Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

The Secret Conspiracy at the BBC

Guest blogger, Duane Mandible is a contributing editor to The Truth Hurts, a bi-monthly journal of politics, economics and opinion. He also contributes regularly to Freedom Monthly; Illuminations and The Sojourner. Duane is the author of Guns and Knives will Save Your Children's Lives. He is Vice President of the Sacred Society of St Philibustre, and enjoys hunting rattlesnakes, square dancing and watching re runs of comedy classics. He is unmarried.




I was dismayed, but not surprised to find that the British Broadcasting Company (known to millions as 'the BBC') are involved in a plot to undermine the Christian faith. The Daily Telegraph reports that the BBC are planning to remove the terms 'BC' and 'AD' from their history programs, thus undermining in a secret plan that is now been exposed, their hatred of the Christian faith.



Millions of schoolchildren have understood from time immemorial that the term 'BC' refers to the time 'before Christ' and that the term 'AD' means 'After the Death of Christ'. These terms were established by the scholars in the Middle Ages and only now are they under attack by the forces of darkness who run the BBC and other secular media empires. What the blinded 'scholars' at the BBC do not realize is that when the BBC was established by Lord Fauntleroy in the early part of the century the name was even then chosen as a secret way to eventually undermine the terms 'BC' and 'AD'.



Why else would they choose the term 'BBC" except as an attack on the more ancient term linked to Jesus Christ which was 'BC'? Their subtle plan is obvious. With just one letter's difference they hoped that the population would eventually equate 'BBC' with 'BC'. There was discussion at very high levels of British Society about changing the historical reference to 'BBC' and it would be explained that it meant 'Before the Birth of Christ' thus equating the two names--making in the popular mind the BBC to be a replacement for Christ himself. Unfortunately the copies of these important minutes from meetings at the highest level of British society have been destroyed--showing the extent to which the British 'royal family' will go to cover up their insidious activities.



Those who have read the works of Mr. David Icke will know that the British 'royal family' are actually the last remnants of an ancient race of 'reptilians' and that they are able to transmogrify at will to be transformed into horrifying mutants--half reptile and half human. This reptilian race who have come to earth from another planet and were the same as the ancient 'gods' called the nephilim have always been the sworn enemies of the true faith.



In scrapping the terms 'BC' and 'AD' altogether it would seem that the BBC have abandoned their earlier plan. This would seem, at first sight, to be a positive step forward. Better to have neutral terms than terms which equate the BBC with our Lord himself. However, what seems even more sinister in this whole unsavory affair is that the Vatican has now publicly opposed the move. This causes us to look more closely at what is really going on. Why does the Vatican step in to criticize the BBC? Who are the shadowy personalities behind this move? Do most people know that the 'Controller General' (a sinister title if ever there was one!) of the BBC is himself a 'Catholic'? Is this a move on part of the powerful Vatican Radio to  launch a publicity campaign to undermine and eventually takeover the BBC? During Bishop Ratzinger's 'papal visit' to the UK, did he meet with Her Majesty the Queen to plan a secret submission of the United Kingdom to the rule of the papacy?



In fact, I believe the Vatican 'attack' on the BBC is an old fashioned diversion tactic. It is designed to take our attention away from the fact that the Vatican is actually in favor of the change from 'BC' and 'AD' to 'BCE' and 'CE'. This is a favorite tactic of those involved in  conspiracies: say one thing publicly while privately advocating precisely the change you  are pretending to oppose.



We will soon discover that the Vatican has been behind the changes to 'BC' and 'AD' all along. The attempt to change 'BC' to 'BCE' and 'AD' to 'CE' is really an attempt to change the whole course of history. What does 'BCE' really mean? We are told it means 'Before the Christian Era'. I believe the Vatican, working with secret forces on the international level want it to mean 'Before the Catholic Era.' If this is so, the 'CE' will not stand for 'Common Era' but the ingenious and obviously simple 'Catholic Era'. With a simple change of letters, the BBC and the Vatican and the intelligentsia in our halls of academe will alter the minds and hearts of millions.



Such a plan will help to usher in the New World Order in which the powers of the Vatican will provide the anti-Christ religious leader who will give religious validation.



Happily we of the Sacred Society of St Filibustre are able to rise above such controversies and conspiracies. We are well aware that the Vatican is part of an international secret society made up of the world's leading Catholics politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Arnold Schwarzenneger combined with Freemasons, Bildenbergers, the Bush and Clinton clans, vegetarians and people who wear Birkenstocks.



We will continue our quiet ways of worship using the Western Ambrosianic Rite (non collegian) and watch with quiet satisfaction as the Lord of this World gathers his forces for the coming Apocalypse. Then all those who wear the buttoned maniple will be revealed for what they truly are--wolves in sheep's clothing--secret agents of the forces of darkness right here in our midst.

A New Translation?

Here follows the first of six pastoral letters to my parish. They were published last summer, but many thought they were a clear explanation and asked for wider circulation.




Dear Brothers and Sisters, 




On the first Sunday of Advent this year we will change over to using the new English translation of the Mass. My pastor's letters over the next few weeks will help to explain the background and the need for these changes. The letters will be available on the website, and eventually I will collect them and provide a printed copy for all parishioners who would like them.



First I should point out that what we are introducing is not a 'new Mass'. It is simply a new translation of the Mass that was revised after the second Vatican Council. That Mass was first compiled in Latin—the official language of the church—and the bishops of every different language group are responsible for their own translation of the Mass from Latin. The Mass we have been using for the last forty years or so was the first translation from Latin. On Advent Sunday we will start using a new translation of the same Mass.



Secondly, everyone should understand that this is not Fr Longenecker's idea! The new translation of the Mass has been worked on for many years by an international committee of linguists, historians, liturgical scholars, writers, theologians and bishops. The translation has gone through many revisions with experts being consulted across the whole English speaking world. Finally the new translation was approved by the Vatican and the Holy Father mandated that all English speaking countries should adopt the new translation on Advent Sunday of this year.



People will naturally have some questions: They will wonder why we need a new translation of the Mass in the first place. Wasn't what he had good enough? Why do we have to go through all the trouble to learn new words? Why can't we just go on doing what we've always done? What's the point of the new translation? I will try to answer these questions and more over the next few weeks in my pastor's letters.



First I would like to explain the process by which we will get used to the new translation: This summer my pastor's letters will help to explain the background and reasons for the new translation of the Mass. In the Fall we will have a series of homilies that remind us of the reasons and help prepare us for the change. This will lead into a couple of Sundays at which we will look at the changes and practice what to say at Mass. As we move through the next liturgical year we will also learn some new musical settings for the Mass. This sounds a bit daunting, but the changes for the congregation are really very few, I'm also committed to making the process as painless as possible, so I'm confident that everyone will adapt quickly.



Finally, I ask you to keep a positive attitude about the changes. I have had a look at the new translation and it really is very good! I hope the changes will give all of us a chance to deepen our understanding of the liturgy of the church and why we worship as we do as Catholics. Please read my letters with care, discuss them with your family and as we move into the changes go forward with confidence and optimism!



Yrs pastor,

Fr Longenecker