Teaching & Living the Faith – Page 5

Catholics understanding the Book of Revelation and the Rapture

The rapture came and went…and this guy got caught up in it. Good for him. The rest of us will meander along…but in case you want to join the others in the rapture, the actual date is now October 21. So I am told. But what time should people be ready? Harold Camping, founder of Family Radio and rapture prophet. Camping might be ready for the rapture as he’s now recovering from a stroke. The 89 year old prophet of doom-and-gloom-Christian-style alters his guaranteed prediction of Judgement Day every so often.

In case you’re interested, we’re having a 3 presentations on the Book of Revelation, the Catholic teaching on the belief of the Second Coming Christ and what the rapture means. Brother Leo Checkai, OP, is going to lead us through the theology and visions as found in the Revelation and giving a strategy to read and understand this famous and mysterious final book of the Bible. Come for the class at Saint Catherine of Siena Church at 6:30 on June 29, July 6 and 13. The church is located at 411 East 68th Street, NYC.

photo taken from In Caritate Non Ficta by Philip Gerard Johnson: this pic is a hoot….

The True Meaning of Marriage

Posted on his blog today, The Gospel in the Digital Age, Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan wrote a piece on meaning of marriage and family according to natural reason and Catholic belief. His Excellency makes several and crucial points that require our clear attention. A sound-bite understanding of these important issues is insufficient for us.

The stampede is on. Our elected senators who have stood courageous in their refusal to capitulate on the state’s presumption to redefine marriage are reporting unrelenting pressure to cave-in.

The media, mainly sympathetic to this rush to tamper with a definition as old as human reason and ordered good, reports annoyance on the part of some senators that those in defense of traditional marriage just don’t see the light, as we persist in opposing this enlightened, progressive, cause.

Continue reading The True Meaning of Marriage

Society is built upon gift of self and a well-formed conscience tells Croats, us

I am very glad that the first engagement of my visit should
be with you, representing as you do key sectors of Croatian society and the
Diplomatic Corps. My cordial greetings go to each of you personally and
also to the important communities to which you belong: religious, political,
academic and cultural, the world of the arts, finance and sport. I thank
Archbishop Puljic and Professor Zurak for the kind words they have addressed to
me, and I thank the musicians who have welcomed me in the universal language of
music. This dimension of universality, characteristic of art and culture,
is particularly appropriate for Christianity and the Catholic Church. Christ is fully human, and whatever is human finds in him and in his word the
fullness of life and meaning.

Continue reading Society is built upon gift of self and a well-formed conscience tells Croats, us

Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology, NEW book by Father Edward Oakes

Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Eerdmans, 2011) is due to be released in July. If you pre-order now, there is a discount on Amazon.

Father Oakes utilizes a wide range of works taken from Scripture, theology and literature to explore the questions on the lordship of Jesus Christ. He’s attentive to the Magisterium. The concern is to know what the we, as Christians, believe and teach about who Jesus Christ is, and why. In this book the author is wants to answer this question: what does it mean for an infinite God to become man?

The title of this book is taken from a poem of Jesuit Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe.” There the poet says:

“This air, by life’s law,

My lung must draw and draw

Now but to breathe its praise,

Minds me in many ways

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity

Dwindled to infancy

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk, and all the rest

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race.”

Infinity Dwindled to Infancy has three parts: the data, the history and the teaching on the identity and work of Christ. The work carries an Imprimatur from Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago and the Nihil obstat from Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, theologian for the US Conference of Bishops.

Father Edward T. Oakes, SJ, is a professor of systematic theologian teaching at Mundelein Seminary. He is a member of the some time meeting of the Dulles Colloquium (a theological discussion group that was organized by Father Richard J. Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles) and he is a member of the ecumenical theological discussion group Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Oakes is a frequent writer for First Things and several other periodicals. Oakes is the author of Pattern of Redemption and a co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs Von Balthasar. There are several translations done by Father Oakes of Balthasar to note.

Divine Mercy: Jesus bending over our humanity

Divine Mercy is a not a mere theological datum. It is another way of calling God, of meeting and loving God and living in relation to others. But is Divine Mercy? Blessed John Paul II spoke of Divine Mercy in his canonization homily for Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska. She became a modern mirror for God’s tremendous love for all humanity. Saint Faustina reminds us that Mercy is crucial for everyone, just ask for the grace of Mercy. An excerpt:

What will the years ahead bring us? What will man’s
future on earth be like? We are not given to know. However, it is certain that
in addition to new progress there will unfortunately be no lack of painful
experiences. But the light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to
return to the world through Sr Faustina’s charism, will illumine the way for
the men and women of the third millennium.

However, as the Apostles once did,
today too humanity must welcome into the upper room of history the risen
Christ, who shows the wounds of his Crucifixion and repeats: Peace be
with you! Humanity must let itself be touched and pervaded by the Spirit given
to it by the risen Christ. It is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the heart,
pulls down the barriers that separate us from God and divide us from one
another, and at the same time, restores the joy of the Father’s love and of
fraternal unity.

Continue reading Divine Mercy: Jesus bending over our humanity

ExCons need Christian charity for conversion, new life

Programs for prisoner reentry into society is crucial in keeping people clean, working, and being a good citizens. “Do-good-ing” is not a Catholic principle. We have plenty of good people doing good all the time. In fact, my heart is really moved by those who don’t have a faith tradition to call their own and are motivated to act charitably toward those in need. Living a life of virtue and prayer are Catholic ways of proceeding. Showing mercy is what we are called to live in concrete ways. Helping the excon get on his or her feet again and walking with them is Jesus-inspired act.

Faith-based community projects, church-based communities of faith, Catholic groups like the Order of Malta and Catholic dioceses are among those who are doing good work to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith-based communities have compassion as part of their mission and many are facing compassion fatigue. Money and red-tape are real obstacles to living the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

“… I was in prison and visited me” (Matthew 25:36)

Continue reading ExCons need Christian charity for conversion, new life

Towards a ‘Cybertheology’ — Antonio Spadaro asks the right question

Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, the literature editor
the Italian bi-weekly journal La Civiltà Cattolica published an article
“Towards a ‘Cybertheology’?” which will appear in the January 1st issue.
Father Spadaro’s summary:

Lord of the universe.jpg

The intelligence of faith in the era of the Net – The
Internet has become part of everyday life for many people, and for this reason
it increasingly contributes to the construction of a religious identity of the
people of our time, affecting their ability to understand reality, and
therefore also to understand faith and their way of living it. The Net and the
culture of cyberspace pose new challenges to our ability to formulate and
listen to a symbolic language that speaks of possibility and of signs of
transcendence in our lives. Perhaps the time has arrived to consider the
possibility of a cybertheology also understood as the intelligence of faith in
the era of the Net. It would be the fruit of faith that releases from itself a
cognitive boost at a time in which the logic of the Net influences the way we
think, learn, communicate and live.

Seeking Christ’s face and body, a foreign concept to many Catholics

The authority of sacred Scripture should be authoritative enough, but in case Scripture fails your logic, the Church also says that Truth is identified and lived through and with sacred Tradition and the Magisterium. More clearly: the believing Catholic holds that Truth is revealed in three inter-related pillars: sacred Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. One can’t have one of the pillars without the others. To do so would mean that you are Protestant.

Concerning many in the Church (catechist, laity and ordained) is the lack of understanding of who Jesus is, and His place in our lives today. Many Catholics are functional agnostics; they have no concept of who Jesus is, why He is important, and what he has to do with the Church. No surprise to me since I contend that many of the ordained can’t adequately explain matters of Christology or Sotierology (the study of Chist and the study of salvation respectively) as is evidence in their praying the Mass, preaching, their practice of the sacraments in their own lives, and their teaching in other venues. I would also contend that many of the ecclesial problems we face today are the direct result of not really knowing who Jesus is, and how to conform ourselves to His Way. The Pslams, as one example, tell us to seek the face of the Lord (the Christian would understand this to mean, seek the face of Christ). As one consequence of not knowing Jesus is the denial that we are already saved –that salvation has already happened, that the hundredfold promised by the Lord is already fulfilled. Do you know that you are saved? Do act as though you are saved or are still persisting in your sinful ways?

In the recent English edition of the L’Osservatore Romano (7 April 2010), Lucetta Scardaffia’s article “The Shroud and secularization” makes a few good points to think about when asking the questions about who Jesus is and what we face today:

“It seems incredible, but many young people do not even know that Jesus existed historically: in various countries, including Italy, today the history of Christianity no longer forms part of the school curriculum, and this leads to an ignorance that is also the result of tendencies geared to make Christianity a religion like others, with no specificity, hence leading to considering Christ as a mythical being, almost as if he were a Greek, Roman or Orienal divinity.

In international milieus — even in organizations such as the United Nations– propaganda for a mistaken concept of multiculturalism has been spreading for decades: this is proposed as a panacea for every conflict, providing that all religions be considered absolutely equal, in other words that each waives all claim to truth.

Remembering that Christianity is born from the existence in history of a man, Jesus, who said he was the Son of God, is an obstacle to the seemingly irenic fabrication because it highlights the difference of Christianity in comparison with other religions. A God who becomes incarnate to save human beings, in fact is an absolute unicum [absolutely unique], difficult to standardize.

…

The history of the birth of the individual is also interwoven with the history of the theological and sacramental significance of the Body of Christ –with the history of the sacrifice of the altar, for which the Body becomes a monstrance.

Sin is in opposition to God’s infinite holiness

I went to confession the other day. I try to go once a month and for the most part I make that commitment. For some reason, it was a about 8 weeks since I darkened the confessional. I was leaving that afternoon for my hermitage day (spoken of in another blog post below) and Lent was fast approaching. Going to confession was awkward, lonely, fearful BUT intensely gratifying, freeing, and loving. Facing one’s sinful nature is NEVER easy; it is NEVER anything but a hassle, it is NEVER anything but embarassing but it is the only way I know how to be honest with myself in front of God. As an Opus Dei priest tells me when I see him occasionally for confession: you’ve got sin, I’ve got the grace for you to live … by the ministry of the Church. Of course, this priest is echoing the notion that I am not confessing my sinful self to him personally (I really don’t think he cares one-way-or-another truely in the best sense) but ipse Christus –to Christ Himself. I read the passage noted below from a rather famous spiritual treatise today and the last line from sacred Scripture struck me: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Do you have a clear understanding of mortal sin? Have you gone to confession? How is your struggle with sin going in the face of grace?

Only mortal sin is completely opposed to God; this opposition is so great that it separates the soul from God. However, every sin, even venial sin, and every fault and imperfection, is in opposition to God’s infinite holiness. Therefore Jesus offers the perfection of his heavenly Father as a norm for our Christian life, and engages us in an intense struggle against sin in order to destroy in us its deepest roots and even its slightest traces.

This is what Jesus teaches in these few short words: deny yourself. We must deny self with all its imperfect habits and inclinations; and we must do so continually. Such a task is fatiguing and painful, but it is indispensable if we wish to attain sanctity. Jesus says: The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few (Mt. 7:14).

In echo of Jesus, all the masters of the spiritual life insist strongly on detachment and self-renunciation as the indispensable foundation of the spiritual life. St. John of the cross offers a soul who is desirous of attaining union with God the harsh way of the “nothing”.

But first and foremost, it is Jesus, the divine Teacher, who has pointed out to us the absolute necessity of passing through this way: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself (Mt. 16:24).

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Divine Intimacy