Carl Anderson: The Abortion Albatross

Abortion has been an albatross around the Democratic Party’s neck since at least 1980,
helping to keep it out of the White House for all but eight of the last 28 years.

Will 2008 be any different?

Once again, the Democrats have tied their fortunes to abortion rights, hoping to compensate with a historic outreach effort to Catholic voters. But this may simply lend empirical support to Einstein’s adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Let’s start at the end of the 1970s, when the abortion lobby’s influence over the Democratic Party grew quickly in the decade following Roe v. Wade. That influence doomed the candidacy of a strongly pro-life Sargent Shriver in 1976, and produced a platform plank that year that opposed any effort to overturn Roe.

When it became clear that pro-life candidates would lose financial support and even become targets in Democratic primaries unless they switched sides, most of them did. But the party paid a heavy price.

Catholics, once among the most reliable members of the Democratic coalition, took a hike in 1980 and gave Jimmy Carter only 42 percent of their votes. Putting pro-choice Catholic Geraldine Ferraro on the 1984 ticket only accelerated the erosion, leaving Democrats with just 39 percent of Catholics.

By 1988, Joe Biden and Dick Gephardt became the last of the big-name Catholics in the party to flip to pro-choice. Over the intervening two decades, the party has held fast to an uncompromising stance in favor of abortion rights, and only once – in 1996 – has the Democratic presidential candidate’s share of the Catholic vote exceeded 50 percent.

Bill Clinton, who understood Americans’ discomfort with abortion better than most in his party, engineered the inclusion of a platform plank stating that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” a departure from the abortion-as-a-public-good posture of abortion rights advocates. Clinton connected just enough with Catholic Democrats to bring them briefly back to the fold.

But it didn’t last.

Putting John Kerry, a pro-choice Catholic, at the top of the ticket in 2004 actually made matters worse, since it gave the abortion issue a higher profile during the campaign.

Now Barack Obama, the most uncompromising supporter of abortion rights since Michael Dukakis, has picked a pro-choice Catholic as his running mate. Upon arriving in Denver for the nominating convention, Joe Biden quickly discovered that the city’s archbishop had declared him persona non grata in the Communion line at Sunday Mass.

When Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mangled Catholic teaching on abortion on “Meet the Press” they earned a swift and public rebuke from America’s bishops. And so the Obama-Biden ticket will carry the same burden as every Democratic ticket of the past three decades.

Polling data seem to indicate on-again, off-again support for Obama among Catholics – pollster John Zogby tracked his support among Catholics at 47 percent in July, then down to 36 percent in August, and now back up to 45 percent as of Monday (Oct. 6), just 2 points behind John McCain.

The 2008 party platform is not exactly designed to win over pro-life Catholics: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Pro-life apologists for the party, led by “God’s Politics” author Jim Wallis and joined lately by Catholic law professors Doug Kmeic and Nicholas Cafardi, have tried to portray the abortion plank as a “reaching out” to pro-lifers, based on a sentence saying the party “recognizes” that social policies can help “reduce the need for abortions.” Many serious Catholics would argue there’s never a “need” for any abortion.

Kmeic conceded that the Democratic plank “still falls short of the Catholic ideal,” a remarkable understatement. The fiercely pro-abortion Catholic Frances Kissling more accurately called the plank “a slap in the face to Kmeic’s Catholic ideal.”

For Catholic Democrats, there’s a line in Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that sums it up nicely:

“Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

(Carl Anderson is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization.)

Keeping Informed on Life Issues

Tom Grenchik, the Executive Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the
United States Catholic Conference, and his staff, have a resourceful website. His office ably assists those who want to be informed and involved.

October is Respect Life Month (as well as Breast Cancer Awareness month) and there are 3 weeks until the Presidential election. I therefore, think it’s important to review some fundamental teachings about the human person, the right to life, and our Catholic faith.

Justin Cardinal Rigali’s October letter for Respect Life Month

The consistent, clear teaching of the Church on life

On the Fundamental Right to Life

The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul IIs 1995 encyclical offering us what the Church has consistently taught with regard to life issues.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion

Read the Life Insight newsletter

Get involved

The Knights of Columbus have a number pro life activities through the year so make a connection with them to see how you can be of service.

Also, The National Catholic Bioethics Center

The Catholic Information Service has XX booklets that explore some of these pertinent life issues. The text of the booklets are given here in pdf format but you can also get a hardcopy of the booklet by emailing Michele at cis@kofc.org.

Catholic Sexual Ethics

Understanding Stem Cell Research

The Child: Begotten not Manmade

There is an order of Catholic sisters whose vocation is work on life issues. The Sisters of Life founded by Cardinal John O’Connor in 1991 in NYC is a vibrant community dedicated to “the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of every human life. Like all religious communities, [they] take the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience … [and] also are consecrated under a special, fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.

Abbot Primate’s Address to Pope Benedict XVI

As you know, the Benedictine Abbots and Abbesses met in Rome in September. and there was a meeting of the Benedictines with the Holy Father. I posted the Holy Father’s address already and now I am offering the Abbot Primate’s address for your consideration. I am most grateful to Father Abbot Primate Notker for sharing the English translation of his remarks.

Address of the Abbot Primate on the Occasion of the Audience with the Holy Father on 20^th September 2008, at Castelgandolfo

Holy Father,

Every four years we, the Benedictine Abbots, come to Rome to celebrate our International Congress. We reflect on the impact of Saint Benedict’s spiritual patrimony on the world of today, we discuss our common project, that is, Sant’Anselmo as a monastic and academic entity. We have also invited representatives of the ‘Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum’, of the Orthodox Churches and of the Anglican Benedictines. Today, we have come to Castelgandolfo to greet you, to listen to your words and to receive your blessing. We come to you with the greatest sense of esteem and gratitude.

One of your great desires is the rebirth of a Christian Europe on the basis of Saint Benedict’s principles. We hope that our monasteries may be spritiual and cultural centres which will strongly influence their surroundings. Many people, both young and grown-up, come to our monasteries and join us in prayer and in the liturgy. The welcoming of guests in our monasteries and retreat houses, or the welcoming of students in our schools is our contribution towards the Church’s witness and a deepening of the Faith.

This is true not only in Europe but all over the world. 150.000 young people are being educated in our schools. To help this work, we have established a network among those responsible in order more effectively to develop our Benedictine profile.

Already for centuries Benedictine monasteries have been growing outside of Europe, as
you will have noticed in Brazil. Today, in an era of globalisation, Saint Benedict’s message is spreading throuhghout the world. Every year more than four new foundations are made, in Eastern Europe and as far away as Kazakhstan. Shortly, there will be a new foundation in Cuba. The official Church in China has sent a group of young priests to Sankt Ottilien to be formed as Benedictines with a view to starting a community in this country so dear to your heart.

We have no reason to be dissatisfied. In some parts of the world, such as Asia and Africa, there are many vocations, and even in Europe they are not lacking. But some communities have been waiting for years for new members and do not know what the future holds. For this reason some houses will be forced to close. Where there are no children and there is no faith the seed-ground for vocations does not exist.

Sant’Anselmo with its Pontifical Athenaeum and Pontifical College plays a particular role. In the last century, Sant’Anselmo was the unifying centre of formation, of contact and of common life for the many monastic observances and nations. At this time of globalisation Sant’Anselmo has become even more important in furthering the unity of the Confederation. For this reason we are grateful to you for having finally clarified the issue of the ownwership of Sant’Anselmo, by granting us officially the free use of the property. With the Pontifical Liturgical Institute we make a special contribution to the Universal Church.

In recent years there has been a growing interest among many laypeople anxious to conduct their lives in accordance with the spirit of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Always attached to a specific monastic community, they try to witness in the world that, only be being rooted in God can they develop the fulness of a truly human life. We have already celebrated one World Congress of Oblates where experiences were shared on an international level and new courage and zeal built up. At present we are preparing the second such Congress.

I should not like to conclude without mentioning our sisters, that is our Benedictine nuns and sisters. They bear witness in a special way in the heart of the Church to the contemplative element and to service of the poor. Their number is double that of the monks but they live a more hidden life than the monks. Together we try to carry on the precious patrimony of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict, the Patron of Europe, but who in the future, like Abraham, may come to be called ‘the Father of many peoples’.

Holy Father, once again we thank you for this generous meeting and humbly ask your paternal blessing.

+Notker Wolf OSB

Abbot Primate

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

One of the things that distinguishes my day is an attempt to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. Of course, my day is punctuated with praying the Divine Office and the Mass but there are times where I find myself praying the Angelus and the ejaculatory prayer–one liners given by the Church to focus my attention, for example Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam or Saint Joseph, pray for us. The acknowledgement of the Spirit in my life is known pivotally in the fact of the Incarnation: the point in history that that God’s love can’t be kept to Himself that He sends the eternal Word to become man, Jesus born of the virgin Mary.

This very brief prayer is well used by the members of the ecclesial movement Communion & Liberation. We maintain a tradition of concluding our prayer with this keen reminder and request that the Holy Spirit, Who is already present, to allow us to grasp the meaning of God becoming man.

Here are the notes from Father Luigi Giussani’s remarks at the Spiritual Retreat of the Memores Domini, La Thuile, Italy, 2 August 2001

Forgive me if I too come explicitly into your meeting. Because, if the sacrifice of not coming to be with you is united with the joy of being Christ’s, of being His, with a little of this confidence, of this hope-which was born in the heart and which fidelity to the life of the Church has magnified enormously and caused to become adult, mature-then it is not inconceivable that I might talk with you for a few minutes.

I wanted all the Memores Domini [the group of consecrated lay men & women] to know that there is a formula, an ejaculatory prayer-as all the Church’s tradition calls it-a formula that sums up everything we have tried to believe, express, and communicate, because it is the formula that summarizes all of Christian dogma as the Church has always lived it: Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam (Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary).

You will have been struck by lots of things; but guilt is never uprooted from our conscience, the affirmation of the truth is never renewed, if the whole soul does not try to make happen what the cry of the Christian tradition has us say over and over. Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam is the synthesis of everything the liturgical year tells us, it is the synthesis of everything the memory of Christian life tells us.

Because everything, everything comes from the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God who gives the possibility of being struck positively, and even fervidly, by vocation, by the grace of God in life-because vocation is the grace of God in life. It is through the Spirit that every man, like every being, enters into a vast design, as vast as the Father conceived it.

Who knows if the Spirit will grant me still to have a living relationship with you, or better, that the living relationship with you-which will not cease for all of eternity-may still have some direct operative implications in the life of this world.

Veni per Mariam indicates, synthesizes, the finger pointing to everything, everything that our human eye can let us see and that the consciousness can readily understand. Because Our Lady is the synthesis of all humanity… not only of humanity but also of everything that creation brings with it from all eternity, for all eternity. From all eternity everything is the Father’s; in the Mystery every thing was born, every speck of dust, even the grain of sand on the earth, every thought and every feeling man has. Mary synthetically expresses this link between the Mystery and the things the Mystery Himself created (this is why the Holy Spirit is called Redeemer and Savior), because Our Lady is the only possibility of synthesis, in man’s heart, of everything that happens, has happened and will happen, which is faith, which unfolds a hope, and hope makes us live the aurora of the eternal. It makes us live the aurora of the eternal!

Who knows, who knows if the Lord and Our Lady will give me more health and will renew again the energy to communicate things to you, according to an experience that, with time, grows greater and greater, ever greater and greater!

May Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam be a connection that may arouse more quickly in your heart adherence, a certitude of hope, and a beginning of a vision of what the Lord will do for us as the final reward of our life.

Ciao! Until we meet again!

Pius XII, Pope and Servant of God: 50th anniversary of death

In Your wise providence, O God, You wished Your servant Pius XII to be counted one of the Popes. Please number him also among the company of Your saintly Pontiffs, we beg You, since he ruled as Vicar on earth of Your only Son. This we ask through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Born: March 2, 1876

Ordained Bishop: May 13, 1917

Elected Pope: March 2, 1939

Dies: October 9, 1958

To note, Religious Teachers Filippini Sister Margherita Marchione recently published another
book on Pope Pius; this one is entitled, Pius XII: The Truth Will Set You Free (Paulist Press) with a prologue written by Cardinal Tarsicio Bertone, the Secretary of State to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

Today, Pope Benedict celebrated the Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of Pope Pius and then visited the tomb in the Vatican grotto.

Pope Benedict’s homily can be read here. But a few things stand out in what the Pope said:

The war highlighted the love he felt for his “beloved Rome”, a love demonstrated by the intense charitable work he undertook in defense of the persecuted, without any distinction of religion, ethnicity, nationality or political leanings. When, once the city was occupied, he was repeatedly advised to leave the Vatican to safeguard himself, his answer was always the same and decisive: “I will not leave Rome and my place, even at the cost of my life” (cf Summarium, p. 186). His relatives and other witnesses refer furthermore to privations regarding food, heating, clothes and comfort, to which he subjected himself voluntarily in order to share in the extremely trying conditions suffered by the people due to the bombardments and consequences of war (cf A. Tornielli, Pio XII, Un uomo sul trono di Pietro). And how can we forget his Christmas radio message of December 1942? In a voice breaking with emotion he deplored the situation of the “the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline” (AAS, XXXV, 1943, p. 23), a clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews. He often acted secretly and silently because, in the light of the concrete realities of that complex historical moment, he saw that this was the only way to avoid the worst and save the largest possible number of Jews. His interventions, at the end of the war and at the time of his death, received numerous and unanimous expressions of gratitude from the highest authorities of the Jewish world, such as, for example, the Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir, who wrote: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with their victims”, ending emotionally: “We mourn a great servant of peace.”

AND

With the Encyclical Mystici Corporis, published on 29 June 1943, while war still raged, he described the spiritual and visible relationships that unite men to the Word Incarnate, and he proposed integrating into this point of view all the principle themes of ecclesiology, offering for the first time a dogmatic and theological synthesis that would provide the basis for the Conciliar Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium.

A few months later, on 20 September 1943, with the Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu he laid down the doctrinal norms for the study of Sacred Scripture, highlighting its importance and role in Christian life. This is a document that bears witness to a great opening to scientific research on the Biblical texts. How can we not remember this Encyclical, during the course of the work of this Synod that has as its own theme “The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church”? It is to the prophetic intuition of Pius XII that we owe the launch of a serious study of the characteristics of ancient historiography, in order to better understand the nature of the sacred books, without weakening or negating their historical value. The deeper study of the “literary genres”, whose intention is to better understand what the sacred author meant, was viewed with a certain suspicion prior to 1943, in part thanks to the abuse that had been made of it. The Encyclical recognized that it could be applied correctly, declaring its use legitimate not only for the study of the Old Testament, but also the New.

AND AND

…Mediator Dei, dedicated to the liturgy, published 20 November 1947. With this document, the Servant of God provided an impulse to the liturgical movement, insisting that “the chief element of divine worship must be interior. For – he writes – we must always live in Christ and give ourselves to Him completely, so that in Him, with Him and through Him the heavenly Father may be duly glorified. The sacred liturgy requires, however, that both of these elements be intimately linked with each another… Otherwise religion clearly amounts to mere formalism, without meaning and without content“.

May his memory be eternal!

New booklets from Catholic Information Service

I am happy to let you know of some recently published booklets concerning Catholic faith and Catholic life. These booklets reflect some of the work I did when I worked at the Catholic Information Service (CIS) at the Knights of Columbus. The booklets are free but you are asked to cover postage. You can email Michele at cis@kofc.org or call the CIS at 203-752-4267. Mention that you saw this ad on the Communio blog and that Paul Z. sent you.

Saint Benedict for Busy Parents

Saint Benedict for Busy Parents communicates the beautiful depth of the Rule of Saint Benedict to busy parents to help them in their vocation as mothers and fathers. Part of every parent’s responsibility is to teach the child about life and the faith. While the principles of the Rule of Saint Benedict is most often applied to those living in monasteries, the same principles provide a basic framework of practical spirituality for busy parents, indeed,, for all Christians in every age. Father Dwight Longenecker’s experience as a parent, priest, Benedictine Oblate and teacher shows the reader that God is at work to bring us to the abundant and full life that He promises to each of his sons and daughters.

Facing Relativism and the Challenge of Truth

Dr. Donald DeMarco wrote Facing Relativism and the Challenge of Truth, to examine the philosophy of relativism and the nature of Truth, putting them in their proper order. He shows how “unworkable on a practical level and creates immense and unnecessary stumbling blocks in the path of education, democracy, and the implementation of the natural law. In fact, it contributes, significantly, to the Culture of Death.” Among the various philosophers and theologians he discusses, DeMarco uses Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s insight to shed light on this subject.

Understanding Stem Cell Research: Controversy and Promise

Dominican Father Nicanor Austriaco, a Professor of Biology at Providence College, presents Understanding Stem Cell Research: Controversy and Promise in which he clearly deals with the controversial yet optimistic topic of stem cell research. The objective of this booklet is to outline the reasons for hope and promise in the stem cell research and the reasons of great concern, indeed, the immorality of human embryonic stem cell research. Father Austriaco expounds on why the Church is not opposed to all forms of stem cell research but is opposed to human embryonic stem research because it “attacks and undermines the dignity of the human person….” This booklet is intelligent, accessible and well-worth the time to read in order to clearly understand a significant moral question of our era.

What Catholics Should Know About Islam

Providence College Professor of Theology, Dr. Sandra T. Keating, authored What Catholics Should Know About Islam. to help non-Muslims develop a basic overview of the origins of the religion of Islam and its early history. What this booklet offers the reader is a discussion on the central beliefs and practices of Muslims. Keating contextualizes her writing in recent statements made by the Roman Catholic Church concerning its relationship to Islam. The author puts forward what she understands to be fundamental in Islamic belief in contrast to Catholic doctrine.

The Child: Begotten, Not Manmade: Catholic Teaching on In Vitro Fertilization

Kathleen Curran Sweeney examines the realities of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process in The Child: Begotten, Not Manmade: Catholic Teaching on In Vitro Fertilization. The author takes the reader through the moral, theological and human issues, and the controversy that surround IVF. One can neither debate the pain of infertile couples who desire a child of their own nor resist the feelings of empathy for those who can’t bear children. The teaching of the Church is presented here in a clear fashion while reminding us of the need to respond with compassionate love.

For more than 60 years the Knights Columbus has developed an ongoing program to learn the Catholic faith. The Catholic Information Service (CIS) to provide free Catholic publications for parishes, schools, retreat houses, military installations, correctional facilities, legislatures, the medical community, and for individuals who request them. CIS asks that the reader cover the costs of postage. Topics cover many of the key matters of Christian doctrine and life.

Communion and Liberation’s School of Community

Communion and Liberation (CL), an ecclesial lay movement founded in Italy in 1954 by Msgr. Luigi Giussani, is currently present in 80 countries throughout the world and 100 cities in the United States. The name of the movement, Communion and Liberation, expresses the certainty that communion with Christ brings liberation of the human person.

The essence of the CL charism is twofold: 1) the proclamation that God became Man and the affirmation that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose again, is a present reality whose visible sign is communion – that is to say, the unity of a people led by the vicar of Christ – and 2) the awareness that it is only in Jesus Christ that the deepest needs of the human heart are fulfilled. CL’s mission is thus the education of its members toward Christian maturity and collaboration in the mission of the Church in all spheres of contemporary life.

Besides the invitation to prayer and regular practice of the sacraments, Communion and Liberation invites everyone to a weekly catechetical gesture called “School of Community.” School of Community aims at being a true school which, through the reading and discussion of texts, shapes in

its participants a clearer understanding of the nature of the Christian fact. The assigned texts come from the teachings of the Church or Msgr. Giussani’s writings. We are currently studying Is it Possible to Live this Way?: Faith by Msgr. Luigi Giussani in School of Community and we are studying Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi as part of our personal work.

There is more to the School of Community?

Presence that Moves: The constitutive factors of the School of Community

The beginning of an experience is the encounter with a human reality that is different. A School of Community that is detached from this would be an ideology or an abstraction.

In the School of Community, certainly we must talk about life, but in the light of the new experience that we have encountered. Otherwise we talk of life as we conceive it, how we feel about it, how it makes us react in natural terms, and in any case following a criterion that is not belonging. The School of Community is the main instrument of the new life, of the new way of pursuing the aim of the new “I”(i.e., a new understanding of who I am as God sees me).

The Leader

Everything depends on the one who leads the School of Community. If the one who leads is a presence, then intelligence and affectivity are moved in a different way. It’s the novelty that leads. If he gives a lesson, then he is not a presence, he doesn’t move. At best what he moves is a dialectic, a discussion, a series of thoughts. The following morning all of that line of thoughts is irrelevant to life.

The sign that the School of Community is led is that you come away from it changed.

The School of Community must be a development of the encounter. In it the whole life of the Movement is continually taken up again and surpassed.

Without existentiality (the link between the word and the reality of life) there is no School of Community. Only with this link is it the expression of an experience. If it doesn’t bring you to notice something that must change and, therefore, to desire to bring about this change, it is not School of Community.

How is the School of Community Done?

As prayer. Since the School of Community must reassume the phenomenon of the Movement in its development, remember that there is no search for the truth about Destiny without prayer. So the meeting must begin with prayer.

We need to pray during the meeting, as an attitude of the mind in the one asks questions and in the one who answers-an attitude of humility, happy and sure of what it brings. Prayer becomes the discovery of the need for the sacraments, in which the initial event once again becomes a presence.

How is the School of Community Organized?

Ø First of all it is a school-a place and a method in which you learn.

Ø Learning means increasing your awareness of reality.

Ø Learning implies understanding the text and what it means, that is to say in its relationship to reality and in the reasons that it gives for making us understand how it is linked with reality.

Inevitably in order to understand you need to repeat (ripetere = petere ad = tending toward) to increase your attention. Repeating with attention is the same thing as seeing. When is it that you understand? In so far as you feel that the words you read and hear correspond with what you live.

In this way, reality, in so far as you face up to it, becomes an epiphany, a revelation of your awareness of belonging.

Four Points To Work On

An intelligent reading of the text, attentive to the way it relates to things, to the judgments it generates, to the reasons it gives.

Communication of your experience (everything can be brought in), in comparison with the text.

A culture that develops. Your motivations and criteria must spring up from within the nature of the experience and not from outside. The more you penetrate into the event that has made us grow, and the more you follow, the more intelligent you become.

The synthesis made by the leader. He communicates how his experience has developed during the event that is the School of Community.

The Communicative Result

The School of Community conceived and lived in this way gives rise to an affective impulse to communicate that has three aspects:

Witness and mission;
Attention to people’s needs, charity that expresses itself in an organic consistency of works;
Culture: the affective impulse to communicate inspires creativity, progress in judgment, logical discoveries, with all the necessary instruments that spring from these.

See more at www.clonline.us

No tiring of the Bible

Biblical commentaries:

Opening locked gates we didn’t know existed!

By Sister Genevieve Glen, OSB

Take out your Bible. Look at it. It’s not really so big, is it? You could read a bestseller that size during a week at the beach. Yet Jews and Christians have spent centuries studying and pondering the books that make up this one “book,” and still they discover new questions, new insights, new information.

God, being tricky, has given us a book full of open doors, mysterious holes and sudden surprises to keep us wondering, searching and asking.

There is no tiring of the Bible — unless we just skim across the surface.

The most common excuse for empty skimming is, “I don’t get it.” The Bible is not like the morning paper or your favorite cookbook or the latest tech manual. All those come from today’s world, speak today’s language and provide information you can grasp quickly.

The Bible comes from faraway places; it was written in Greek and Hebrew, and not even modern Greek and Hebrew; the ink dried centuries ago. Yet, because it is God’s word to us, it speaks to us even when we just sit down and read it attentively as part of the conversation with God we call prayer.

However, it says a great deal more to us if we make use of the maps left by other explorers, those who have spent a lifetime studying the intricacies of old manuscripts, the subtleties of the original languages, the literary, religious and cultural world that produced the various books of the Bibles. Their commentaries open up locked gates we didn’t even know existed.

Commentaries come in all shapes and sizes. Among the most interesting are commentaries that shed light on the cultures of the Bible.

Did you know, for example, that salt was used as a fire starter in Jesus’ day? When Jesus shows concern about salt that has lost its zing, he isn’t talking only about flavor but about the failure of old, tired salt to light the fire that makes us the “light of the world” — because, of course, fire from the sun, lamps or hearths was the only source of light in Jesus’ day.

It’s no surprise then that Jesus speaks of salt and light in the same Gospel passage (see John A. Pilch’s Cultural Dictionary of the Bible, Liturgical Press, 1999). Pilch’s fascinating books are only one example of the richness students of the history of culture can provide for us.

More demanding commentaries shed light on details of the historical or literal meaning of biblical texts so that we can get a firm grip on what the text actually says and sometimes on what the human author seems to have meant.

The late Sulpician Father Raymond Brown left us a magisterial commentary of this kind in The Death of the Messiah (Doubleday, 1994). After reading his account of the many possible meanings of the “cup” Jesus asks the Father to take away (Mark 14:36), you could spend all of Lent thinking about your answer to Jesus’ question, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” (Matthew 20:22).

Other commentaries explore what Christian tradition calls the “spiritual” meaning of biblical texts. These books, some as ancient as the first Christian centuries, some as recent as last week, are really extended homilies. They seek to connect the biblical texts with our spiritual growth and decisions in the midst of everyday life.

If you’ve ever been in love, read the fifth-century Sermon 147 “On the Incarnation” by St. Peter Chrysologus for an eye-opening reflection on Moses’ plea (Exodus 33:18) to see God’s “glory” (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 17, 1953).

The word “disciple” means “learner.” To be faithful disciples, we must become lifelong learners of the Bible — and we are rich in teachers!

Benedictine Sister Genevieve Glen is a nun at the Abbey of Saint Walburga,
Virginia Dale, Colorado. She is a frequent contributor and assisting editor of Magnificat. This article appeared 4 February 2008. Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops.

1 Minute Monk, so listen carefully

Do you have a minute? Do you know how to live rightly? Do you want to know how to live as God wants us to live? Do you have a monk to help you with finding your way through
life? I do. There’s a monk who will help you in your search for God: One Minute Monk.

The search for meaning and substance in one’s life is perennial. Seeking God, quaerere Deum, is the first mark of the Rule of Saint Benedict: does the person truly seek God? Hence you might say that a basic impulse for those wanting to be monks and nuns, or as oblates and average people, is the desire of God. Pope Benedict spoke of the life of the monks and nuns in a speech he gave at the Collège des Bernardins: Meeting with representatives from the world of culture, 12 September 2008:

Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. It is sometimes said that they were “eschatologically” oriented. But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow. This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as [Benedictine Father] Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God). The longing for God, the desire for God, includes the love of learning, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions. Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language, to understand it in its construction and in the manner of its expression. Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language. Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word. It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up. Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola. The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man – a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God. But it also includes the formation of reason – education – through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself.

Abbot Placid is hosting One Minute Monk as a way to help us seek God and to live rightly. Abbot Placid is the religious superior of the monks at Belmont Abbey and Chancellor of Belmont Abbey College is presenting concrete ways for us to seek God by using technology to make the Rule of Saint Benedict accessible. He’s showing us the “signposts” for the path to God and for good living that Pope Benedict says God has already given to us. The Rule of Saint Benedict is timeless because its proposal corresponds to desires of our heart and One Minute Monk will help you understand these desires.

To order a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict visit this link.

In the Catholic press…

Our Lady of the Rosary

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary has been observed by the universal Church since 1716 when Pope Clement XI extended its observance, but the feast was in many respects a local feast since 1213 by some accounts. Regardless, we should take care to pray this feast because of the theology and beauty of Christ and the great Mother of God.

The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy says of the rosary: “Given the close relationship between Christ and Our Lady, the rosary can always be of assistance in giving prayer a Christological orientation, since it contains meditation of the Incarnation and the Redemption.” In another place it says: “The Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is one of the most excellent prayers to the Mother of God. Thus, ‘the Roman Pontiffs have repeatedly exhorted the faithful to the frequent recitation of this biblically inspired prayer which is centered on contemplation of the salvific events of Christ’s life, and their close association with the his Virgin Mother. The value and efficacy of this prayer have often been attested by saintly Bishops and those advanced in holiness of life.'”

And so we pray the Litany of Loreto and the Rosary today for the intentions of the New Evangelization and a greater awareness of our Christ’s work of salvation.

Litany of Loreto

V. Lord, have mercy.
R. Christ have mercy.

V. Lord have mercy. Christ hear us.
R. Christ graciously hear us.

God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us.
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Holy Virgin of Virgins, [etc.]

Mother of Christ,
Mother of divine grace,
Mother most pure,
Mother most chaste,
Mother inviolate,
Mother undefiled,
Mother most amiable,
Mother most admirable,
Mother of good Counsel,
Mother of our Creator,
Mother of our Savior,
Virgin most prudent,

Virgin most venerable,
Virgin most renowned,
Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful,
Virgin most faithful,
Mirror of justice,
Seat of wisdom,
Cause of our joy,
Spiritual vessel,
Vessel of honor,
Singular vessel of devotion,
Mystical rose,
Tower of David,
Tower of ivory,
House of gold,
Ark of the covenant,
Gate of heaven,
Morning star,
Health of the sick,
Refuge of sinners,
Comforter of the afflicted,
Help of Christians,
Queen of Angels,
Queen of Patriarchs,
Queen of Prophets,
Queen of Apostles,
Queen of Martyrs,
Queen of Confessors,
Queen of Virgins,
Queen of all Saints,
Queen conceived without original sin,
Queen assumed into heaven,
Queen of the most holy Rosary,
Queen of peace,

V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
R. Spare us, O Lord.

V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
R. Graciously hear us, O Lord.

V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord God, that we thy servants may enjoy perpetual health of mind and body, and by the glorious intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, may we be freed from present sorrow, and rejoice in eternal happiness. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.