Lin Wilder's Blog, page 5

Jubilee, Hope and A Couple of Movies

illustration of a golden laurel wreath 25 yearsJubilee, hope and a couple of movies

Does the phrase read like a series of non sequitors? Jubilee, hope and a couple of movies? Assuming that’s a yes, let’s work backward to integrate them, beginning with “a couple of movies.”

Until I met my husband, I had neither heard of nor watched Frank Capra���s classic film, It���s A Wonderful Life. From the very first moments of the movie, I was hooked. In fact, each Christmas season, we watch it at least once, sometimes twice, despite being able to practically recite the dialogue along with Jimmy Stewart, Henry Travers (Clarence) and Donna Reed. One would think that after seeing a movie over almost thirty times, it would lose its effect. But it never does.

Why?

From the first scene. we enter a world of clarity. The black and white of the filming operates metaphorically: the decisions of ordinary people in an ���average��� American town for good or evil profoundly affect everyone- even the entire world. Despite its total absence of overt religiousity, It���s A Wonderful Life portrays the consequences of virtue and vice, pride and humility���of good and evil. Sometimes subtly, and occasionally, dramatically. Always, my heart swells with the messages offered by this beautifully written and acted film.

The second movie is almost It’s A Wonderful Life’s antithesis: Average Joe. This film fits its title–average, meaning mediocre. The screenplay, direction, storyline and acting are mostly inferior. And yet, I liked it well enough to write about it here.

Why?

Because it tells the true story of an ordinary man and woman. Neither of whom lives a life that others want to imitate, until the coach refused to stop praying after each game on the fifty-yard line. And suddenly, all us “average Joes” wake up to the difference we can make if…

���This is a great time to be alive,��� Kennedy said. ���God has something to say. It���s everyday Americans who can make a difference just by standing up and showing up.���  

Denise shared that they are both amazed at how God has used them. ���Joe and I look at each other every day and say, ���Do you realize there���s a movie coming out about our lives?��� Our lives are like a jigsaw puzzle with 500 pieces dumped all over, and God put them together in such a surprising way.��� 

The Real Coach Kennedy

Hope

The word hope, when used in conversation, often connotes a passive, inert emotion. When asked if we think we can accomplish something, our answer, “I hope so!” implies a lack of control over the outcome. And we’re right, because hope is neither passive nor inert, it is combative and doesn’t come from us but from God.

On the first day of this month, we lit the first candle on the advent wreath: the one signifying hope. The apostle of the Gentiles explained why on that three-week-ago Sunday.

“But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ���Abba, Father.��� Now you are no longer a slave but God���s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.” Galations 4:4-8

The last sentences warrant repeating: “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s only child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.”

But, we protest,

“My son was killed by a drunk driver last week.”

“My eighteen-year-old daughter overdosed on heroin last Christmas.”

“They found a mass on my liver and think it may be cancerous.”

In his sixty-five page book On Hope, Pope Francis addresses those in too much pain to be consoled. Rachel, he writes, teaches us about “hope lived in tears.”

The prophet Jeremiah refers to Rachel as he addresses the Israelites in exile, trying to console them with words full of emotion and poetry; that is, he takes up Rachel���s lament, but offers hope: ���Thus says the Lord: ���A voice is heard in Ramah, / lamentation and bitter weeping. / Rachel is weeping for her children; / she refuses to be comforted for her children, / because they are not…In the face of the tragedy of the loss of her children, a mother cannot accept words or gestures of consolation, which are always inadequate, never capable of alleviating the pain of a wound that cannot and does not want to be healed, a pain proportionate to her love.

On Hope

Jubilee

If there’s a consistent theme of the Holy Father’s almost twelve-year papacy, it’s hope. His wonderful phrase, “combative hope,” evokes Mary on this fourth Sunday of Advent. “Full of Grace is fully aware of precisely whom she is carrying in her own body: how else can we refer to her seventy-odd year life on earth but as one filled with combative hope? Is there another human who fits the pope’s explanation of his phrase?

“This spiritual hope is much more than mere optimism. It is not full of fan-fare, nor is it afraid of silence. Rather, it penetrates deep down within us, like sap in winter roots. Hope is certain, and it is the Father of Truth who gives it to us. Hope discerns between good and evil. It does not worship at the altar of success: falling into optimism; nor is it content with failure: wallowing in pessimism. Because hope discerns between good and evil, it is called to do combat. Yet it fights without anxiety or illusion, with the assurance of one who knows that he pursues a sure goal���”

Just so, this coming Tuesday evening at 7pm CST, the Holy Doors will open to inaugurate Jubilee 2025: Pilgrims of Hope. Although Pope Francis declared a 2015-2016 an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, I didn’t bother to learn the meaning of jubilee. Because of my recent read of several Johnathan Cahn’s books however, I have some understanding of the immensely rich tradition of Jubilee years in the Jewish and Catholic traditions. And a smidgen of the extraordinary blessings available for those awake enough to seek them.

The word itself derives from the Hebrew, ‘jobrel’ meaning a ram’s horn, the method by which the jubilee years were communicated. They were years of rejoicing because of universal pardon, freedom from slavey, forgiveness of debt and restoration of land to the rightful owners. EWTN provides a detailed explanation of the opening of the Holy Doors, here.

My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches. For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ���door��� (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as ���our hope��� (1 Tim 1:1).

Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt. Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God���s word helps us find reasons for that hope. Taking it as our guide, let us return to the message that the Apostle Paul wished to communicate to the Christians of Rome.

Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Yeat 2025

Even if you’re not a dog person.

Or you dislike small animals.

Or you really dislike this pope, these sixteen minutes are worth your time…promise.

The post Jubilee, Hope and A Couple of Movies appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

Did You Not Hear?

gesture and emotion concept Did you not hear?

We’re halfway through Advent. In the liturgical readings, the prophet Isaiah seems to shout from the rooftops:

Do you not know
or have you not heard?
The LORD is the eternal God,
creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint nor grow weary,
and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
He gives strength to the fainting;
for the weak he makes vigor abound.
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.

Read entire passage

The prophet’s words, “Did you not know or have you not heard?” invoke the hauntingly mystical poetry of Jessica Powers. Specifically, “Child, have none told you? God is in your soul! That line, that stunning, arresting line is from a poem by Jessica Powers.

Remember the Hallmark cards of decades ago? I loved those cards with Powers’ poems as message. But, far from God, I read her verses superficially: They were lovely and tender but just nice sentiments.

That is how I remembered Jessica Powers until the homilist at The Monastery of the Risen Christ preached about her on the thirtieth anniversary of her death. I was transfixed and enlightened by Camaldolese Benedictine monk, Father Stephen Coffey’s tribute. Powers lived most of her life as a Carmelite nun, “Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit”, dying at the age of eighty-three, after she’d written over three hundred poems. Most of them deeply spiritual, evoking holiness from the ordinary, like this one:

Look at the Chickadee

I take my lesson from the chickadee
who in the storm
receives a special fire to keep him warm,
who in the dearth of a December day
can make the seed of a dead weed his stay,
so simple and so small,
and yet the hardiest hunter of them all.

The world is winter now and I who go
loving no venture half so much as snow,
in this white blinding desert have been sent
a most concise and charming argument.
To those who seek to flout austerity,
who have a doubt of God���s solicitude
for even the most trivial of His brood,
to those whose minds are chilled with misery
I have this brief audacious word to say:
look at the chickadee,
that small perennial singer of the earth,
who makes the week of a December day
the pivot of his mirth. .

Invasion of Grace

Hearing her mystical poems fread rom the lips of the monk during his homily thit morning evoked a visceral reaction.

POW! ….recalling my blindness and ignorance of Him, His works and love for each human soul. And me.

Child, have none told you? God is in your soul!

Invasion of grace, [Embedded in the phrase is his excellent homiy] is Bishop Robert Barron’s phrase, I use it here because it’s such a perfect description of conversion. Whether converting from decades of atheism like me or from lassitude, there is no better description for that moment: Abruptly, mere words take on momentous urgency and indeed, kindle—set on fire—our hearts and souls invading us with something other.

Speaking of lassitude, I’ve recently returned to prescribed “time with Jesus.” Not praying the rosary, litanies, chaplet or any of the many beautifully powerful prayers that have leaped into each day but just being with Him for a prescribed time each day.

Like most of my best ideas, this one wasn’t mine bit rather taken from Grace Abruzzo’s “Know’ Rest for the Weary. Reading her piece transformed a nudge to “Do this!” My post-conversion years with Regnum Christi required my promise to spend at least fifteen minutes of silent prayer daily. But then we left the east coast and the memory of the promise faded.

Our rosaries, chaplets, litanies and Liturgy of the Hours are good and holy, but they’re not enough, are they? Those prayer are one -way, talk, talk, talk -hence may preclude our missing a whispered request, consoloation or hearing a gentle adjustment to the day’s to-do list. Or just being…

In today���s Gospel, Jesus says: ���Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.���

I will be honest���while these words can sound comforting, there were times when I thought them also a bit of a joke���the not-so-funny kind. What part of ���take up your cross daily��� is restful? Or ���be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect?��� Or ���go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature?��� Saint resumes are rarely short.

Yet over the years, I���ve come to see what I could not earlier: the yoke is the rest. To allow ourselves to be yoked to Jesus���to labor only with Him and for Him���is the ultimate rest. What does this mean?

In the bible, we first hear of rest on the seventh day of creation when God rests. And God calls His people also to rest, a rest that is not merely physical, but a call to relationship. God rests on the seventh day and asks us to do likewise, to make a space for celebrating and deepening our relationship with Him, apart from our daily work

Know Rest for the Weary

It’s now almost the very first thing I do–that mostlly wordless fifteen minutes with Him. I know if not then. I’ll let the day slip away.

Time given to Christ is never time lost, but is rather time gained, so that our relationships and indeed our whole life may become more profoundly human.

Dies Domini

Today is Gaudete Sunday

The penititential colors of the liturgical altars and vestments lighten to an ethereal light rose.

Why?

The event that turned the world upside down 2025 years ago nears. “Gaudete,” Latin for rejoice!!

Saint Paul exhorts us:

���Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again:

Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.���

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.

I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
SOMEONE IS HIDDEN IN THIS DARK WITH ME.

Someone is Hidden in This Dark With Me– Jessica Powers

The post Did You Not Hear? appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

Advent: Its Wholly Counter-Cultural Reality

2.Advent. Red Advent candles stand on a wooden floorAdvent: It’s Wholly Counter-Cultural Reality

Quietly competing with the banal and boring commercialism of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays extended sales is another invitation. But it cannot be heard outside in the streets or while listening to babble. Instead we must silence all the shouts of the marketplace to listen to another voice…more like a whisper. This is a different kind of celebration –quieter, more intimate…a refuge. Lighting our Advent candles in hope, not naive optimism but the Hope that derives from faith.

I know, the pressure to buy, buy, BUY! is palpable…whether a new tree, more and better decorations, or new clothes. The inhenent busyness of explicit promises “This year, I’ll have cards done and gifts bought by the second week in December!”

Or maybe Christmas evokes memories and images that sadden or anger at all that Christmas signifies And so, we lash out at those closest to us, ignoring the fact that anger and rage provide fuel to our demonic enemies.

But if we reject all that trash and recollect ourselves, we can hear the whispered command:

“Don’t waste these precious days!“

It’s Advent

Advent: it’s wholly counter-cultural reality is conveyed by the penitential colors of the liturgical churches. Enter a Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Lutheran or Oriental Orthodox daily or Sunday service and the Lenten-like vestments of priests and altars bring us to a different world. When we listen to the readings, our minds can’t help but quiet while we consider what is happening. Especially if we decide to engage in the penitential practices.

Penitiential practices.

You mean fasting?

It’s almost Christmas, why should we fast?

Our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters began their preparation for receiving the Christ Child on November 16th, the day after the feast of Saint Philip. Fasting from meat, fish, oil and dairy products, the “little Lent” can empty minds, hearts and bellies sufficiently to behold the miracle unfolding before us. Some sugges that our Roman church restore the ancient practice of the advent fasting, penance and almsgiving.

A few years ago, I reinstituted bread and water fasts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. And recently a nine-day bread and water fast. {Actually, eight and a half]. And so I can attest to the lengthy list of fasting’s beneficial physical and spritiual effects. But the poet Rumi speaks to its essence

There’s a hidden sweetness
in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed
full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly
are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song
comes out of the fire…

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages. READ MORE

That is after all, what we seek, isn’t it?

Jesus’s table.

Adventus: Coming, arrival.

The Office Readings for Wednesday of the first week of Advent, features an excerpt from a sermone of Saint Bernard, abbott. The saint writes of the third coming of Christ. “We know that the coming of the Lord is threefold: the third coming is between the other two and it is not visible in the way they are. At his first coming the Lord was seen on earth and lived among men, who saw him and hated him. At his last coming All flesh shall see the salvation of our God, and They shall look on him whom they have pierced. In the middle, the hidden coming, only the chosen see him, and they see him within themselves; and so their souls are saved. The first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in spirit and power, and the final coming will be in glory and majesty,” writes the saint.

What is the “middle coming in spirit and power?”

Saint Bernard explains, “This middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last. At the first, Christ was our redemption; at the last, he will become manifest as our life; but in this middle way he is our rest and our consolation.  If you think that I am inventing what I am saying about the middle coming, listen to the Lord himself: If anyone loves me, he will keep my words, and the Father will love him, and we shall come to him.…”

So much conspires against our finding this “middle coming.” Influencers compete for our attention and much more. To buy stuff, yes, of course, but inside the church to sell their opinion…about well everything. Recent Vatican decisions have exacerbated the anti-pope frenzy to persuade Catholics of their ‘rightwous disobedience.‘

If these men are right, is this response of theirs proper?

Can disobedience be righteous?

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word….”

When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your
spirit should, an ugly metal
statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it to some illusion
and lose your power.

But even if you’ve lost all
will and control, they come
back when you fast,
like soldiers appearing out
of the ground, pennants
flying above them.

A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages.

Rumi

The post Advent: Its Wholly Counter-Cultural Reality appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

A Nation Founded on Thanksgiving: America

Poster map of USA-That Texas seems to dominate the other states is accidental, I’m sure.A nation founded on thanksgiving.

Only because of Edward Winslow’s letter do we know of the first American thanksgiving turkey dinner in 1621. Mayflower passenger Winslow, was the leader of the Plymouth colony and would later serve three tems as governor of Massachusetts. Certifying the astoundingly friendly alliance beteen the Indianss and English colonists, Winslow wrote:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others.

How to Tell the Thanksgiving Story

In his book, If You Can Keep It, author Eric Metaxes presents the miraculous series of events leading up to the alliance. The importance of the Indian Squanto to the starving settlers is well-known. But not the facts of his kidnapping as a boy in 1608 by English traders and subsequent return years later on another English ship. Metaxes writes:

���One day in the spring of 1621 a local native walked out of the woods to greet them. Somehow he actually spoke perfect English; and as it happened, he had grown up on the very land where they had settled. Because of this, he knew everything there was to know about how to survive there. He knew and showed them the best way to plant corn and squash so that they would thrive in that environment. He knew and showed them how to find fish and lobsters and eels there. He knew and showed them much that they couldn���t have known themselves. And because his tribe had perished, he had little better to do than help these suffering strangers. So the Pilgrims adopted him. And Squanto helped them immeasurably, likely saving their lives and almost certainly making it possible for them to continue there on this foreign soil.

Could this all have been happenstance?���

In 1789, while our staunchest ally, France, began a rtwelve-year-evolution that would decimate the church and kill close to a million people, America’s first president wrote a Thanksgiving proclamation. to his fellow Americans.

Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations

President, George Washington established a day of national thanksgiving in 1789. The first American president seeks to lead his fellow citizens in gratitude and a request “to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed���to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord���To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us���and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best…” READ MORE

Presidents Adams and Madison continued the tradition of a day of reflection and thanks to the Supreme Being. It was, however, President Lincoln who established an annual day of thanksgiving in the year, 1863.

Can anyone think of a less opportune time to declare a national holiday than in the middle of a war? Specifically a war between Americans? A war with twice the number of total US deaths than in the Vietnam war? Over 40% of the population?

And yet, that is precisely what President Abraham Lincoln did. His words are sobering, even awe-inspiring:

October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States
A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

More than 600 proclamations

That a nation founded in gratitude: America is fact when we ponder the more than 600 Thanksgiving presidential proclamtions. The long line of American leaders take time to express their gratitude on behalf of Americans. Weak, strong, effective and not, sinners all of them praise and thank our Creator.

All of which brings to mind Saint Paul’s exhortation about thanksgiving with unease:

Rejoice always.

In all things give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Thessolonians 5

Unease?

For me, you betcha. Too many things happen for which I don’t rejoice. All too frequently, I neglect to give thanks because I don’t trust that this is the will of God for me. It’s quite clear, isn’t it, that Saint Paul isn’t suggesting but rather ommanding? And so I trust that hardened resolve with willful intent and recollection restores everything.

Last week, I wrote of the new movie, Bonhoeffer. In that article, I mentioned that I was reading Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship for the third time. In this slow and careful read, sections I’d glossed over before, seem to shimmer and flash. Like this one:

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. …. we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for the Christ stands between us…
His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce all self-assertion, and quietly suffer in the face of hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate. But nowhere will that peace be more manifest than where they meet the wicked in peace and are ready to suffer at their hands. The peacemakers will carry the cross with their Lord, for it was on the cross that peace was made. Now that they are partners in Christ���s work of reconciliation, they are called the sons of God as he is the Son of God.
 

The Cost of Discipleship

Image courtesy of Father Boniface Hicks: Happy Thanksgiving

The post A Nation Founded on Thanksgiving: America appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

The Movie: Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Spy, Assassin

The movie Bonhoeffer: pastor, spy assassin

The passion of Christ strengthens him to overcome the sins of others by forgiving them. He becomes the bearer of other men���s burdens������Bear ye one another���s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ��� (Gal. 6.2). As Christ bears our burdens, so ought we to bear the burdens of our fellow-men. The law of Christ, which it is our duty to fulfil, is the bearing of the cross. My brother���s burden which I must bear is not only his outward lot, his natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally his sin. And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share. Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian���s duty to bear.

The Cost of Discipleship

Until reading Eric Metaxes’ tome, Bonhoeffer:Pastot, Spy, Martyr, I knew only Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s name and the barest of facts about his tragically short life. But Metaxes’ respect, admiration and love for his subject leap off the pages and into our hearts. And compelled me to read Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, not just once but now three times. More on that is a bit but first the movie.

The movie: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin was released last Tuesday and of course was a must see for me. The author offers intruiging background in a recent interview.

In the first of a two-part interview with Dr. James Dobson, Eric Metaxes remarks about the enormous influence of young Dietrich’s parents: famed psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer and his devoutly Christian mother on Dietrich’s character. Speaking about the book that galvanized the Angel Studios movie, the author suggests that young Dietrich’s decsion to become a pastor and study theology came as a surprise to this literate and accomplished family. But, Metaxes tells Dobson, it was an event that happened in 1933 that changed everything for the aspiring theologian. Bonheffer traveled to New York City to study. There he met a fellow student, Frank Fisher, who invited him to attend services at his African-American church in Harlem. tt’s there, in that church, watching the faces of men and women and listening to their voics sing out their joy in Christ., that young Bonhoeffer sees genuine faith …and the cost of discipleship.

The cost of discipleship

Four years ago, Director/Producer Todd Komarnicki, refused the project, believing it too complex a story to recreate in film. But unfolding events and prayer changed his mind. He explained to Newsweek that ���Political courage has essentially disappeared in 2023. We live in a time where to open your mouth, let alone your heart, will unleash a trap door beneath our feet,..

Social media hasn���t made us bolder with our opinions but has caused us to shape them to fit our notion of the crowd. We love to pile on, but we dare not stand out. There has never been a better time to show the world that courage is not a luxury or a fad; it is a necessity if society is to keep from destroying itself.���

Komarnicki’s decision to highlight that 1933 event in his film is nothing short of brilliant. We see young Dietrich’s heart, soul and psyche captured by the profound faith of these African-Americans. Bonhoeffer’s prowess with classical music jjoltd and expands when he encounters black American jazz, gospel and blues. Then, upon experiencing the violence of racial hatred in America’s capital, we hear young Dietrich murmur his gratitude that such a terrible thing doesn’t exist at home.

Until, of course, it does, and at a level never before seen in the world.

Unfortunately, there’s no need to explain why Angel Studios offers free tickets to anti-semites, is there? But the fact of it makes me wonder: are/were there people who take the studio at their word?

All of which brings me to my third read of The Cost of Discipleship. I normally don’t reread books. But there are a few, like this one, that could be read 100 times and never plumb the depths of the writing. The ninety-year-old words pierce my complacency.

���The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. How could the call immediately evoke obedience? The story is a stumbling-block for the natural reason��� Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God, but omits Christ as the living Son. And a Christianity of that kind is nothing more or less than the end of discipleship. In such a religion there is trust in God, but no following of Christ���.Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing. It may be the ideal way. It may even lead to martyrdom, but it is devoid of all promise. Jesus will certainly reject it���.���

The Cost of Discipleship

In this re-read,

I’m reminded of Karl Rahner. Bonhoeffer’s frequent and reverent allusions to Martin Luther in The Cost of Discipleship could be disconcerting to Catholics. But as I read Bonhoeffer’s view of Catholic sixteenth-century-Catholicism, I recall my then spiritual director, Father Paul McCollum’s introduction to another German, controversial Jesuit: Karl Rahner. Father Paul’s reply to my list of questions about my still new Catholic faith was to lend me his copy of Rahner���s��Foundations of the Christian Faith.. Although the text is dense, I was mesmermized. For in it, Rahner declares that Martin Luther and the rise of Protestantism were necessary, even essential. The Catholic Church had strayed too far from Jesus. The Protestants brought the Catholics back to Christ. It’s radical, provocative material: the kind that reaps many enemies. Like that of our Holy Father, Pope Francis.

Here’s one more quote of Bonhoeffer’s that is eerily relevant in this post-election celebration. They function as warning and admonition.

���This commandment, that we should love our enemies and forgo revenge will grow even more urgent in the holy struggle which lies before us and in which we partly have already been engaged for years. In it love and hate engage in mortal combat. It is the urgent duty of every Christian soul to prepare itself for it. The time is coming when the confession of the living God will incur not only the hatred and the fury of the world, for on the whole it has come to that already, but complete ostracism from ���human society,��� as they call it. The Christians will be hounded from place to place, subjected to physical assault, maltreatment and death of every kind. We are approaching an age of widespread persecution. Therein lies the true significance of all the movements and conflicts of our age. Our adversaries seek to root out the Christian Church and the Christian faith because they cannot live side by side with us, because they see in every word we utter and every deed we do, even when they are not specifically directed against them, a condemnation of their own words and deeds. They are not far wrong.
Catholics and Bonhoeffer: Cheap Grace

Happy New Year!

Today we end the Christian liturgical year with the Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe

Almost 100 years ago, in 1925, Pope Pius XI wrote Quas Pimas (In the First.) Concerned about the growing domination of communism and its axiomatic atheism, the Pope writes:

������manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ������

Just a few moments of reflection about the world state of the world in 1925 compels us to stop. To think about the world of 100 years ago. Consider these facts.

The first world war caused the deaths world-wide of 16 million people,The 2018 plague infected one out of every three people and killed at least��50 million��people.And then came a global depression,.

In his timeless encyclical, Pope Pius Xl exhorts us: ������if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.���

Let us renew our Baptismal promises, And take up our weapons of obedience, faith and love.

The post The Movie: Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Spy, Assassin appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

Priests, Prophets and Kings: Really?

Used by permission copyright 2020 Jeff Haynie

Priests, Prophets and Kings, Really?

With the sacrament of baptism, we become priests, prophets and kings. We know this.

Or do we?

Since baptism happened to most of us a very long ago, reviewing this most precious of sacraments is apt.

The word baptism means literally to be plunged into the water- which symbolizes our “burial into Christ’s death” from which we emerge as a new creature. It is the “gateway to life in the spirit” and effects the “birth of water and spirit without which no one can enter the Kingdom of God.” When baptized, each os is left with an indelible spirtual mark.

No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated. Through the sacrament, the Holy Spirit has marked us with the seal of eternal life…Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift. . . .We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift  because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath  because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God’s Lordship….”

Catechism

The only sacrament that the 2.6 billion Christians in the world agree on is baptism; it is universally recognized as valid.

Priests, prophets and kings, really?

I’ve phrased the rhetorical question because my days are flawed and ordinary, Replete with words or actions that bring me to confession, again.

And yet…

In the hour of need

Last Monday morning, the day before the election, I was at adoration. I wasn’t just praying but begging through the litany of the Precious Blood. “Precious Blood of Jesus, save us and the whole world, “over and over. And then I turned to the Liturgy of the Hours, intending to pray Morning Prayer. But I didn’t get past the Office of Readiings for Monday Week lll because part ll of psalm 50 ends with the words,

Call on me in the day of distress .

And I will free you and you shall honor me.

The psalmist’s words brought my fearful thoughts to a screeching halt. In the silence that felt more like an embrace, I closed my prayer book. And stared at Jesus in the monstrance in awe and wonder for the remainder of my Holy Hour.

Ever since my conversion to Catholic Christianity, my prayers are consistently for His Will. But prior to the election I begged that killing babies would not be the law of our land. Enshrined into our Constitution as a “fundamental right.” Or that imaginative, curious and/or confused youngsters would not be condemned to drugs and mutilation because he or she decided being the opposite. would fix every problem. I was begging too, that if four more years of the Democrats was the will of the American people, that I could calmly accept their decision as His Will.

That this man, Donald Trump, one so thoroughly castigated, persecuted and hated, won the 2024 presidential election, is nothing less than miracle. And amplifiees my conviction that you and I need to do more.

What?

I already go to Mass daily!

And pray three rosaries. every day.

And fast three days a week.

Do more?

Yep.

The hour of the laity

The phrase, “the hour of the laity” hit me with a whallop when I saw the video on Father Boniface Hicks’ website. Not from the content of the video but these five words. They are precisely what Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, the documents of Vatican ll boil down to.: we need to think, pray and act like priests, prophets and kings.

How?

Praying– begging– for the heroic virtue needed to engage in this battle for souls.

The hour of the laity expresses the main thrust of Pope Francis’ now fifteen-year papacy. Encyclicals like Fratelli Tutti and especially Fiducia Supplicans make us squirm in discomfort because thr Holy Father forces an examination of our cold hearts.

“Sixty years after the [Second Vatican] Council, we are still debating the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ while the real difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion,” Pope Francis told the cardinals and senior officials of the Roman Curia when he met them for the traditional exchange of Christmas greetings this morning, Dec. 21. “That is the difference. Only those who love can journey forward….

…whenever God calls us, he sends us on a journey, as he did with Abraham, with Moses, with the prophets and with all the Lord’s disciples. He sends us on a journey, draws us out of our comfort zones, our complacency about what we have already done, and in this way, he sets us free.”

Pope Francis to Curia–and us.

That’s the “more,” isn’t it?

Opening our hearts and minds to those who make us feel uncomfortable: whether because of ‘ideology’, age, or personality. Deciding to look past our natural repugnance to see a person created in the image and likeness of God. Even when it’s not convenient.

I remember a homily from my first spirtual director, Father Greg Brozonowicz not long after I’d become a Catholic Christian. Fr. Greg was imagining a conversation between the angels and Christ after his ascension. They had numerous questions but one primary one.

“Okay, you left eleven fishermen to evangelize the world. You must have been confident they would know what to do. But Jesus, they’re just men. Surely you’ve thought of the worst-case scenario.

After all, you created the universe Lord and must have thought of this.

What if they fail?

What’s your backup plan?”

The Lord replied, “I have no backup plan.’

The Letter to the Hebrews affirms that by his oblation, Christ “has made perfect those who are sanctified” (Hb 10:14) and we have seen that “to make perfect” also means, in the context, “to consecrate as priest”. With his oblation, Christ has consecrated as priests those who are sanctified. All Christians now enjoy priestly privileges that are even better privileges than those of the ancient High Priest himself, because they have the full right of entrance into the true Sanctuary, without any limit of time. …

The Beauty of the Priesthood

The post Priests, Prophets and Kings: Really? appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

The Heart-Brain Coherence: How’s Your Heart?

the lamp in the form of hearts in the silhouette of his headThe heart-brain coherence

Our medicalized culture has trained us to think of our hearts as an IED. It’s only a matter of time until the coronary arteries occlude and cause the big bang. Instead of enjoying a steak, we force ourselves to prefer chicken and fish. Since the worldwide primary cause of death is a cardiovascular event, that behavior isn’t entirely unreasonable. But could this fearful and mechanized view of our hearts deprive us of the extraordinary power that resides in the human heart? Power that our ancestors tapped into?

For centuries, folklore from every corner of the globe has held that a person���s psychological state can affect their physical health, sometimes suddenly and fatally. Apocryphal tales of death from fright or heartbreak abound, from the biblical account of Ananias and Sapphira both keeling over lifeless after being accused of lying to the Holy Spirit to Romeo and Juliet���s Lord Montague recounting how his wife���s ���grief of my son���s exile hath stopp���d her breath.���

Harvard Medicin e

Mid-last-century Harvard Medical School’s Chair of Physiology, Dr. Walter Cannon, was the first to give scientific credence to these phenomena. Dr. Cannon reviewed so-called “Voodoo deaths” and explained the sudden deaths of healthy young adults who believed themselves cursed by their tribal leaders. “Shocking emotional stess”, Cannon declared, “could precipitate “sympathico-adrenal complex:” consctriction of blood vessels, low hypotension, rapid heart rate and cardiac failure.

A few decades later, Dr. Herbert Benson, pioneered the integration of mind and body into medicine. Over five decades of Dr. Benson’s research empirically demonstrate the beneficial effects of the discipline of mind control and of practiced relaxation.

And yet, we race to credentialed strangers asking for chemical relief from anxiety, depression or grief. Oblivious to the fact that we choose these terrible afflicitons by our thoughts, actions and words.

How is your heart?

The English translation to the Persian greeting, “Hello, how are you?” is “How is your heart doing at this very moment? At this very breath?”

Head of Islamic Studies Omad Safi suggests that is what we mean when we say “How are you?” We mean to ask, “How is your heart?”

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. 

Omad Sufi

From grade school kids to retired, too many consider life with what Safi calls “the disease of busyness. And are constantly scrolling phones and devices for news of what’s happening to others.

We do this at great peril.

The Heart Math Institute

In the early nineties, Doc Childres began studying heart-brain coherence. Several decades of research has produced a far deeper understanding of the “brain-like” function of the heart. Where before the neural-humoral direction had assumed to reside in the brain, Childre and his team proves the opposite.

“…Stressful or depleting emotions such as frustration and overwhelm lead to increased disorder in the higher-level brain centers and autonomic nervous system. and which are reflected in the heart rhythms and adversely affects the functioning of virtually all bodily systems…We also observed that the heart acted as though it had a mind of its own and could significantly influence the way we perceive and respond in our daily interactions. In essence, it appeared that the heart could affect our awareness, perceptions and intelligence. Numerous studies have since shown that heart coherence is an optimal physiological state associated with increased cognitive function, self-regulatory capacity, emotional stability and resilience.” Science of the Heart

So that means what exactly?

That our moment by moment decision to master our emotions, reject the anger and fear constantly spewing out from “influencers” as “news,” matters. And train ourselves to focus on beauty and goodness. To ape Saint Paul’s exhortation to the Phillipians:

“In everything you do, act without grumbling or arguing. Prove yourselves innocent and straightforward. Children of God living in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation, among whom you shine like the light of the stars.

Our decision matters so so much in fact, that it might save our lives. Furthermore, deep down, we know the danger, we can feel it in our accelerated heart rates and bodily tension, the impulse to fight.

The measure with which we measure

In a recent piece, Father John Riccardo writes about our ���scandal and gossip loving culture.��� If we make the mistake of looking and/or listening, the tone of the speaker is often indignant, morally superior. As if this behavior is unthinkable, unique and worthy of condemnation, dangerously enticing us to do what we know we cannot: judge another.

Jesus warns us, ���The way you judge others is how you will be judged ��� the measure with which you measure out will be used to measure you��� (Matthew 7:2). Once again, just to be clear, we are to judge actions. Jesus tells us that we judge a tree by its fruits (cf. Mt 7:16). But we cannot judge interiors. I have no access to anyone���s interior. I don���t know the way in which a person might be crying out to God for help, even in the midst of their terrible choices. Sin is, after all, a power, a dominion, an authority that we are powerless to escape on our own, thus our need for a Rescuer to deliver us (cf. Col 1:13)

In your own way, you too must be a missionary, like the apostles and the first disciples of Jesus, who went forth to proclaim the love of God, to tell others that Christ is alive and worth knowing. Saint Therese experienced this as an essential part of her oblation to merciful Love: ���I wanted to give my Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls���. [227] That is your mission as well. Each of us must carry it out in his or her own way; you will come to see how you can be a missionary. Jesus deserves no less. If you accept the challenge, he will enlighten you, accompany you and strengthen you, and you will have an enriching experience that will bring you much happiness. It is not important whether you see immediate results; leave that to the Lord who works in the secret of our hearts. Keep experiencing the joy born of our efforts to share the love of Christ with others.

Dilexit Nos

The post The Heart-Brain Coherence: How’s Your Heart? appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

Purgatory, Prayer and CS Lewis

Cemetery graveyard with a big stone cross.Cemetery on cold november day. Purgatory, prayer and CS Lewis

Before Father Joe, I’d never thought of the souls in Purgatory as my brothers and sisters. In fact I didn’t think of them at all. But then I attended a November week of Masses in Half Moon Bay, California. They were celebrated by a newly ordained priest at Our Lady of the Pillar Church.. Clearly and radically orthodox, this young priest unabashedly delighted in practicing what I have learned is the “extraordinary liturgy.” Father Joe’s reverence and devotion seemed to light up the altar when he raised the Host.

Furthermore, Father Joe, (I never learned his last name) had a deep love and sympathy for the souls in Purgatory. His homiles were brief but instructive. These souls, he exhorted, are our “brothers and our sisters in Christ.” Now disembodied spirits, these souls suffer profound contrition for their sins and unimaginable pain from being separated from the God they yearn for. Unlike us, he explained, they are powerless to help themselves through prayer and penance.

“But,” he declared,”we can help them!”

Father Joe invited us to join him in prayer after Mass at the cemetary.

We did.

It’s been years since that day we followed Father Joe outside the church. Then, about half a mile down the block and up the hill to the cemetary. There were just five of us, John and I, another couple and the priest. But I recall clearly the sacred and mysterious beauty of the priest’s prayers and my awareness that we stood on holy ground. Ever since those first cemetary prayers with Father Joe, we’ve not missed the first eight days in each November, the month of the dead. Wherever we are living, we find a cemetary and then pray as we walk through the tombstones, confident in the heavenly help-indulgences-these souls are receiving.

Wait, isn’t Purgatory outmoded?

The concept of purgatory makes us stumble, individually and collectively. To the point that more than a few Catholics and Christians claim there���s just one destination for faithful souls: heaven. And hell? Well, ���surely a loving God wouldn���t create and damn anyone to hell.��� Hold that thought.

Although All Saints Day is considered uniquely Roman Catholic, a little research reveals that John Wesley-founder of the Methodist Church loved All Saints Day.

And purgatory?

For first-century Jews, purgatory was axiomatic. And was based on the Torah, specifically the Book of Maccabees: ���If he [Judas] had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the (dead. . . . Whereupon he made an atonement that they might be delivered from sin���; for this indicates that souls after death pass through an intermediate state in which they may by some intercession be saved from doom.���

Our Catholic catechism is clear. Purgatory���s not a matter of opinion, but fact:

���All who die in God���s grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification so as to attain the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name ���Purgatory��� to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. (Catechism 1030-1031).

Logically, a belief in heaven necessitates a corresponding belief in hell. But that is apparently not the case. A 2015 Pew Research study of 35,000 people found 72% of Americans believe there is a heaven. But less than 58% believe in hell. For increasing numbers of believers, the notion of hell-even of purgatory- does not conform to their notion of a loving God. Despite our weekly recitation of the Apostle���s Creed.

CS Lewis: The Great Divorce

CS Lewis lived and worked among atheists and agnostics- Oxford intellectuals- in nineteenth century England. A product of the enlightenment and the first world war, he was one of them. Until he wasn’t. After decades of struggling with his disbelief, Lewis became one of the great Christian apologists of the last century. For Lewis, hell, purgatory and heaven were no mere abstractions, they were dogma. In fact, one of his books, (pdf embedded here:)The Great Divorce is a most intriguing journey to the land of the dead. Only fifty-one pages, Lewis’ novel improves with each read. I’ve read it now three times.

The book begins in a dismal, wholly depressing place, appropriately called Gray Town. Our tour guide takes us on a bus ride which we soon realize is heading to heaven or maybe the foyer to heaven. We learn quickly of former earthly relationships between the ghost souls and the celestial spirits sent to persuade their friend, brother or spouse to make the seemingly trivial sacrifice necessary to enter heaven.

Although Lewis wrote and published The Great Divorce in 1945, the personalities of those who prefer to remain in purgatory or hell are distressingly familiar. Our own shadowy selves are mirrored by a few of the persons still hungering for fame or a perverted notion of love. Time after time, the notion of letting go of the lingering anger or ambition is simply too much and the ‘ghosts’ trudge back to the bus and Gray Town.

Lewis meets and is ‘mentored’ by Scottish fantasy writer George McDonald.

“But I don’t understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?”
“It depends on the way you’re using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand.”

(Here he smiled at me). “Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.”

I suppose he saw that I looked puzzled, for presently he spoke again.
“Son,” he said, “ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless, he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved….

“Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

CS Lewis The Great Divorce

.

The post Purgatory, Prayer and CS Lewis appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

The Struggle for Moral Survival

Photo: Signs and Wonders for Our Times

The struggle for moral survival

Karol Wojtyla’s {Saint Pope John Paul ll) early life was forged in a crucible. The phrase is no overstatement for the man born in 1920 Poland. By the age of twenty-one Karol was expert in the terror tactics of Nazi Germany. Upon “liberation” Wojtyla witnessed the inablity of the best of us to stay steadfast in the face of evil.

Pope John Paul ll’s biography by George Weigel, Witness to Hope is a tome: over 1000 pages. The book warrants our time and reflection.

Polish life between 1939 and 1945 had a bizarre, even surreal quality. It
was not a question of knowing whether you would be alive next year. Given the
arbitrary terror meted out by the occupiers, the question was whether you
would be alive tomorrow. The pressure was unrelenting: “they” could make as
many mistakes as “they” liked; you could make only one. Criminals once
thought that way; three months into the Occupation, virtually every Pole
thought like that. The official ration was clearly inadequate for survival, so
everyone was by necessity an outlaw, living on the black market. When news of
the French collapse before the Wehrmacht reached Poland, suicides took
place in Warsaw, Kraków, and the manor houses of the Polish intelligentsia.
There would be no help. There would be no spring. A seemingly endless win-
ter had set in. Poland was a nation under ice.

When Poland was “liberated” in 1945, the Yalta Conference ensured “communist totalitarianism spread over more than half of Europe and over other parts of the world. Yalta was a grave injustice, and no enduring peace could be built on that kind of foundation.”

Author George Weigel’s descriptive phrase for the Poland of Karol Wotjoyla’s early life, “the struggle for moral survival,” precisely fits 21st-century America.

Betrayals, the stuff of life

Witness to Hope isn’t a book one can breeze through. Only by reading the background story can we feel the embrace by the crucified Christ upon the young, talented, maybe brilliant, Karol Wotjoyla. Without a careful read of the first two hundred pages, it isn’t possible to glimpse the shock and horror that befell Poland after ‘liberation’ by the Allied forces.

He was a Polish patriot, but like his father before him, he was untouched by xenophobia. He knew the special cultural and intellectual connection between his country and the universal Church, even as he thought that his hard-pressed country might have something to offer the West that had betrayed it twice in six years. He had learned totalitarianism from inside. As he later said, “I participated in the great experience of my contemporaries—humiliation at the hands of evil.”

Yet he had found a path beyond humiliation and bitterness. It had led him to the altar, where he had pledged to spend himself in service to his people.

He was, his seminary confessor remembered, a man “who loved easily.”

Witness to Hope

There is an existential loneliness in each person that cannot be filled by spouse, parent, or another human being. Who has lived past the age of thirty and not been betrayed by a trusted confidante? Pondering the early life of the man born to be “great” in the eyes of the world reveals the imperative to embrace the suffering that comes to us. Although I’ve read and written before about Pope John Paul ll’s encyclicals, only now can I see the enormity of the grace poured upon Karol Wotjyla.

Grace that looked like a curse and abandonment.

Recently, I gave a very young friend about to marry, a copy of Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman as a gift for her bridal shower. Stein’s, (Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) writing cuts through our illusions like a sharp, swift sword.

The deepest longing of woman’s heart is to give herself lovingly, to belong to another, and to possess this other being completely. But this surrender becomes a perverted self-abandon and a form of slavery when it is given to another person and not to God; it is an unjustified demand which no human being can fulfill. Only God can welcome a person’s total surrender in such a way that one does not lose one’s soul in the process but wins it.

Essays on Woman

In our struggle for moral survival, it’s imperative that we rid ourselves of the lies and deceptions of the enemy. And that we refuse to play in a culture, more accurately, a world, that not only refuses to look and see evil, but that also demands the evil be renamed. The reality of the thing is obscured through use of mild, vague and indirect labels-euphemisms. Like “affair” for adultery or “reproductive justice” for murder. Or “cohabitation” for fornication.

“Under these robes

is a California surfer.

Lin, everything you’ve done, I’ve done too, or thought about doing.”

Then Benedictine monk Brother Andrew spoke into my uncontrollable sobs, giving me time to collect myself. I was rehearsing the confession scheduled the following day. And halfway through my endless list, flattened by the weighty horror of speaking aloud my sins, I broke down.

Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” 
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” 

Mark 10: 46-52

When Bartimeus rose, he “threw off his cloak.” This small detail is significant.

This was a poor beggar- his cloak his only property. It kept him warm during the chill of the night. Throwing it aside rendered him capable of surrendering, receiving, emptying. We too are poor. But our poverty is not material.

We are weighed down by knowledge, Fr. Paul Scalia writes that St. Patrick wore a breastplate with a prayer against “Every knowledge that blinds the soul of man…”

Freedom from blindness requires poverty, the willingness to lose our wealth and supposed control. In the 19thcentury South, the financial benefits of slavery blinded men to the grave evil of that institution. Similarly, we have arranged comfortable, autonomous lives around Scientism, a false notion of freedom, and the contraceptive mentality.

We wear a heavy cloak, not easily thrown aside. We will regain our sight only when we are willing to divest ourselves of all that our “knowledge” has gained us. In short, our problem is not only one of the intellect but of the will. We must be willing to change our lives radically in order to see clearly.

The Knowledge That Blinds

The post The Struggle for Moral Survival appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.

Development versus Alteration: The crucial distinction

Development versus Alteration: The crucial distinction

Last Friday’s Office of Readings dealt with development versus alteration: the crucial distinction. Fifth-century monk, Saint Vincent of Lerins, writes enthusiastically of the development of doctrine.

Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.

Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.

The understanding, knowledge and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning and the same import.

The religion of souls should follow the law of development of bodies. Though bodies develop and unfold their component parts with the passing of the years, they always remain what they were.

From the first instruction by Saint Vincent of Lerins, priest

The crucial distinction between the two terms is deceptively simple. The temptation to just gloss over words without considering their complete meaning always lurks in the background. But that phrase seemed to shimmer in my memory and so I kept returning to the meditation written in the fifth century.

“Development means that each thing expands to be itself.

While alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing to another.”

Ours is an age of alteration.

The changing of one thing to another exists everywhere we turn: our food, language, bodies and all of nature. The following lists only a miniscule portion of the things we’ve changed from ‘one thing to another.’

Cardiologist William Davis unleashed an epidemic of controversy when he published his book, Wheat Belly in 2011. In opposition to the mantra of “healthy grains,” Davis declared a single slice of wheat toast is ten times more addictive than a Mars chocolate bar. The radical rise of American obesity is, at least in part, fueled by dwarf wheat introduced because of its resistance to insects and smaller size. Davis calls the genetically modified wheat, “Frankenwheat.”Monsanto’s experimentation with genetically modified seeds, soil and insecticides are well-known. The tobacco industry’s application of knowledge gained from enhancing the addictive elements of cigarettes to the food industry is becoming better known.When we decide an evil thing is desirable, we alter the intinsic evil by changing the name. Thus turning our backs on the integrity of words.Or by seeking the state’s endorsement. Think of the stunning “progress” of abortion as “safe but rare” under the Clinton administration to a 2024 Democratic presidential candidate claiming that abortion up though birth and faith are congruent.Saint Vincent’s caution presages the horrors of transgender ‘medcine.’ “ff, however, the human form were to turn into some shape that did not belong to its own nature, or even if something were added to the sum of its members or subtracted from it, the whole body would necessarily perish or become grotesque or at least be enfeebled….”Deeply invested in blindness

The phrase isn’t mine. But rather one of Bishop Robert Barron’s and aptly explains our culture of lies, deception and death. Remember the Gospel passage about the man who was blind from birth whom Jesus heals? It���s a long, detailed and unnerving Gospel passage that can be reread in its entirety here.

The passage is unnerving, because no one delights in the fact that the man can now see! On the contrary, people are incredulous, angry and fearful. The interrogation of the man’s parents by the religious officials would be comical, if weren’t so— awful.

Barron���s riveting explanation warrants our reflection, for this tale is timeless. And it speaks to each one of us. The blind man is not only restored to physical sight, but spiritual. When ���His being is rubbed into our sin-sick eyes, we begin properly to see.��� In reply to all the skeptics claiming that you cannot be the same guy, the man���s answer is translated as ���Yeah, it���s me.��� But Bishop Barron declares the blind man’s reply echoes Christ to Moses: Ego Eimi: I AM.

There are a lot of people in this sinful world deeply invested in blindness���That means their whole world, their way of making money, their whole political order, whatever it is, is predicated on the fact that most people are not spiritually awake. Most people are spiritually blind. And so they don���t want someone who has been liberated���They don���t want someone who sees���So I say to everyone who is on the spiritual journey who can say Ego Eimi, stay wide awake, be careful, for the devil is prowling, looking for someone to devour. You will be opposed,
Trust me.

I Was Blind and Now I see.

We know well the opposition, don’t we? We can see the rolled eyes, smirks and hear the sarcastic reply when we counter lies with the Gospel. And if we decide to join 40 Days for Life on the sidewalks of the abortion clinics [Planned Parenthood], we can’t help but wonder, “Will I be arrested?”

But yet when we keep our thoughts to ourselves because we fear being disliked or ridiculed, we can hear the internal admonition. “Your silence is assent.”

Our Mission

In these oh so strange and disturbing days, even those of us for whom our faith is a private thing, understand that souls are at stake. Hence we must look for ways to Speak Out!

But not just in words, with our actions:

Praying with newfound fervorFasting not just from food but criticism and judgement, especially for those deeply invested in blindness.Supremely confident in the power and mercy of Jesus.Demonstrating “combative hope” in each area of our life.

Because hope discerns between good and evil, it is called to do combat. Yet it fights without anxiety or illusion, with the assurance of one who knows that he pursues a sure goal…

Do We Know How to Pray?

The post Development versus Alteration: The crucial distinction appeared first on Lin Weeks Wilder.