Paul Zalonski – Page 294

Humane Vitae is coming to life again

Several weeks ago Jennifer Fulwiler published a story in the National Catholic Register, “Father, We’re Ready for that Homily on Contraception Now” where she writes about a priest who dealt with Humane Vitae and the problems of contraception. Remember Humane Vitae from 1968? It was THAT encyclical written by the Servant of God Pope Paul VI that spoke about the beauty of human love and was roundly dismissed for for being out-of-touch with contemporary human experience. It is far from being draconian.

Well, one ought to read Humane Vitae without the ideological sunglasses and look around to see if Pope Paul was correct. Look at the Pope’s predictions and see if they are readily present in society today. Consider, though, the whole document to see if what the Pope is speaking of is germane to an authentic life of faith and beauty of human love. Sexuality and love are indeed beautiful gifts of God given to us for our happiness today leading us, God-willing, to full communio with the Trinity in the life to come.

Just for the record, two Dominican priests at the Church of Saint Catherine of Siena in New York City in recent weeks have spoken of Humane Vitae in homilies. They advocated a new reappraisal of the letter and a grasp on its truth. So, you do hear the words “Humane Vitae” publicly at Sunday Mass and Vespers.

Fulwiler’s article has a link to her priest’s homily.

New leadership for St Vincent de Paul Society

Catholics of a certain vintage remember the Saint Vincent de Paul Society –whose motto is “Seeking Charity and Justice– organizes people to respond to the human and spiritual needs of our neighbor. The Society is getting new life with a new leader. The Gospel is still changing people’s lives.

The board of directors elected John Foppe, 42, to be the new leader. Foppe takes on the work of an organization founded in Paris in 1833 by the layman Blessed Frédéric Ozanam who was moved by the poverty of his brothers and sisters and challenged by his Catholic faith. These lay Vincentians lived, and continue to live, the corporal and spiritual works of charity. What became the Saint Vincent de Paul Society was founded in St Louis, Missouri in 1845. Today, it is estimated that the Society numbers around 172,000 members in the USA organized in more than 4,500 conferences; but worldwide the numbers are more more dramatic.

John Foppe’s story can be read here.

For more information about the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, visit them here.

Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Louise de Marrilac and Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, pray for us.

Where do we get happiness?

In case you didn’t know it, there are levels of happiness. You also may not know that God wants us to be happy in this life. Period. Can we open our eyes to what true happiness is?

Four levels of happiness that we encounter in our experience:

happiness in a thing: I need a steak and a bourbon; I need that vacation

problem: short-termed pleasure: the flashy new toy
we are created more than a designer purse:
who’s measure do we use for happiness?
what do we really ask God for?

2. as persons we are more than comparative advantage, but we compare ourselves with others

a. problem: the “advantage” has a limitation; it’s effectiveness is not long-lasting nor does it account for the truth of who we really are as persons made in God’s own image

3. finding joy in a sincere gift of self … to a point

problem: when the person to whom our joy is directed leaves, then what happens? Was our serving really sincere? What are the motivations in looking for joy in serving?

4. union with God: the only place where we find true peace, love and happiness; the beloved rests with the lover;

we are restless until our hearts rest in the Lord
God thirsts for you to thirst for Him
what does it do to God when we thirst for a designer purse more than for God?
why does a created thing take the priority over the creator?

We are meant, by God, to be happy in this life and in the next. You may be asking yourself: What are the requirements for attaining true happiness?

Continue reading Where do we get happiness?

Gratitude is a sincere gift of self

The saints
(Augustine, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Ignatius and Philip Neri) remind us of
something crucial in the spiritual life, indeed, our life right now: we need to
exercise the virtue of gratitude because of our dependence on God. Gratitude reminds that we are in need of grace but also to give of ourselves to another. Saint Thomas
Aquinas teaches that gratitude is closely connected to the cardinal virtue of
justice, by which we give what is due to others. But with gratitude there is actually a
holy exchange between two people. One person benefits from a good act of another but
also wants to repay the benefaction. Rahner spoke of giving alms at Mass as a way of being involved in the good works of the Church when giving personal time is not possible but no less important because while there is some sort of a bond among the pastor, the benefactor and beneficiary it is only made stronger because real faces are behind the dollar. Think of the times when we write a thank
you note, make a promise of a deeper connection in friendship, or even the
promise spiritual works of mercy. I frequently write, “know that you are in my
prayers” to remind me and the person I am writing that I may not be able to
give something material in return, but I can make a sacrifice of gratitude
before God on behalf of another because of friendship. Gratitude and justice is
rooted in charity, in love for another, because of the Other. I think of Blessed John Paul II’s insistence that we ought to make “a sincere gift of self.”

Saint Ignatius tells us that to be ungrateful is a sin. Imagine if we account for acts of ingratitude in our daily examination of conscience even in Confession. How is it that today I can make a sincere gift of myself? Lent is a time to recall the concrete times we’ve been grateful and made a promise to pray for another.

BC Jesuits get backbone in teaching theology

The Jesuit-run School of Theology and Ministry has had a priest on their faculty who’s refused to function as a Catholic until he gets an adequate explanation as to why women are not ordained as Catholic priests. He wrote to the Cardinal stating his position. John Shea, professor of pastoral care and counseling, now leaving his position because of dissent from Church teaching. Thanks be to God. The Jesuits have tolerated this act of scandal for too long. Shea’s work in the classroom and beyond is not in line with his role as a professor who trains men for priesthood and the laity for ministry. He’s not to pose his thinking as Catholic teaching nor is he asked by the Church to teach students for priesthood and ministry in dissenting theology. Recall: Saint Ignatius of Loyola asks an attitude of “thinking with the Church” not dissenting from the truth of Jesus Christ and His Church.

The Jesuits at BC and when Weston Jesuit School of Theology before subsumed into Boston College existed, have long accepted and promoted professors who not only challenge Church teaching but openly reject the teaching authority of the Church as a matter of pride. Thinking with the Church was no longer an accepted method of “doing” theology. When I was at WJST we had several Jesuits under investigation for their divergent teaching. Each one of them saw ecclesial investigation as a badge of honor; their investigation was act of imperialism by the Vatican. One Jesuit priest actually said that not dissent from the Church is a sin against the Holy Spirit and another said that the Society of Jesus is the loyal opposition to the Church. Really.

Good for BC, but I doubt the Jesuits are doing this because Father Shea is a dissenter and harming the formation of students.

The story’s here.

The Church in Ireland faces reality with her archbishop, Diarmuid Martin

The apostle of change for good in the Church in Ireland today is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, 66, the archbishop of Dublin. His Grace has a very tough job: healing the Church in Ireland following the devastating reality of sex abuse of children by the Catholic clergy. He acts according to his conscience and faith in Christ to open the doors to speaking about such heinous things; none of other bishops in Ireland have done so.

I was moved to tears for the children and for the Church when I watched this report. I’ve read parts of the Murphy Report but 60 Minutes brought it together. More than a whistleblower the Archbishop’s a Good Shepherd.

The CBS news journal 60 Minutes did a segment on Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, “The Archbishop of Dublin challenges the Church.”

His Grace has been a priest for nearly 43 years and a bishop for 13. He was educated by the Dominicans in Rome’s Angelicum. For several years he’s served the Church universal in the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and then as the Pope’s representative (called a nuncio) at the United Nations in Geneva. In 2003, John Paul elected Martin as the archbishop of Dublin.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Erroneous judgement –what does the Church teach

Many of say that conscience rights is under attack. And with good reason. Take for instance the US Senate’s recent rejection of conscience rights viz. President Obama’s healthcare fiasco. So, a reasonable question is what the understanding of the role of conscience in moral decision making?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 1790-93) states the following about erroneous judgement:

A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

Continue reading Erroneous judgement –what does the Church teach

“Building a New World”: exploring human and spiritual issues through film

“Building a New World” is new initiative Interdisciplinary Centre for Social Communications of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome, Italy) beginning today, Friday, 2 March.

This project is focused on film and the power film has in our lives. The premise is: a good film liberates, forms and calls us to a new way of seeing and engaging in reality. Therefore, the good people at the Gregorian are exploring how a good movie or documentary can invite people to greatness through the imagination and research how a poorly written movie with mediocre images can severely handicap one’s openness to the true, the beautiful and the good. Just think of the good Father Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” project is doing for those learning the Catholic faith for the first time or those renewing their faith; or how damaging “The Deputy” was to to the person of Pope Pius XII and the rest of the Church.

Jesuit Father Lloyd Baugh, a professor of film, told Vatican Radio that the initiative honors the 30th anniversary of the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Study. It is popular these days to get at human, theological and philosphical issues by the use of film. Friends of mine do it regularly in the schools in which they instruct young minds: Benedictine Father Bede Price teaches a theology and film course at his abbey’s Priory School (St Louis, MO) and Jesuit Father Edward Oakes does so at Mundelein Seminary (outside Chicago, IL). Father Baugh he teaches theology using film as the text for class: Christology through the “Jesus films,” moral issues through the “The Decalogue” of Kieslowski, interreligious dialogue through a whole series of films from different religious traditions and so on.

The current cycle of films starting today will be inaugurated by the Gregorian University Rector Jesuit Father Dumortier, Archbishop Claudio Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, of Jesuit Father Savarimuthu, director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Gregorian University, and Father Baugh.

The first film is “Welcome.” which focuses on a young Kurdish boy who attempts to illegally enter England, and in doing so encounters other people changing their vision of the world, and ultimately their lives. “Welcome” is a award 2009 winning film directed by Philippe Loiret.

Other films include

March 23: “Water” (2005 Deepa Mehta film) focuses on Asia and on “the right to Freedom” drawing attention to the tragic reality of millions of young girls in India who are promised in marriage to elderly men and widowed shortly thereafter, leaving them destitute for the rest of their lives.

April 20: “La Zona” (2007 Roderigo Pla film) dedicated to the “Americas” and to the “right to Justice”, highlighting the persistent and ever-growing disparity between rich and poor particualrly in Latin America.

May 4: “Son of Man” (2006 Mark Dornford May) looks at the plight of the African continent and its “right to Hope”. May directs a narrative of the Gospel and situating the contemporaneous of the biblical reality of a township outside of Cape Town. The desire for peace is continuously punctuated by violence. It is a look at how Jesus would respond to the human reality before his eyes and what he does to change people’s hearts.

Screenings are free and everyone is welcome. For more information visit: www.unigre.it

Prayer of Intercession

Lent is a perfect time to pray more intensely. It is a seen as a time for greater discipline that may also bear fruit in other times of the year. Yesterday’s reading of Scripture for Mass had us focus on penance. Today, the Church gives us good example of asking God for the things we need. Queen Esther is our liturgical protagonist (aside from God, that is) in interceding for others.

What is prayer of intercession? Well, prayer of intercession is known along side other types of prayer like blessing and adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise.

The Catechism teaches us that Jesus practiced intercessory prayer in praying to His Father for all of us. We believe this is what the Holy Spirit does for us and for the whole world. This type of prayer is practiced by priests especially when they offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and pray the Divine Office. The laity exercise the priesthood of the believers by virtue of the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation by offering a prayer for another. The saints do intercessory prayer in approaching the Throne of Grace when we ask them to.

Continue reading Prayer of Intercession

Pope Benedict’s prayer intentions for March 2012

As Queen Esther asked God for grace to follow Him more closely, so we do the same….

The Pope asks us to join him during the month of March in praying for women and for those face the trial of discrimination.

The general intention

That the whole world may recognize the contribution of women to the development of society.

The mission intention

That the Holy Spirit may grant perseverance to those who suffer discrimination, persecution or death for the name of Christ, particularly in Asia.