Pope John Paul’s dire warnings applied not just to the economic sphere, but to the political as well: “As history demonstrates,” he wrote, “a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
If crossword puzzles can make us more positive, imagine the power to rewire our brains if we lift up our minds up to God in joy and gratitude. This past Lent, Father Russell Kovash, pastor of St. Joseph in Williston, ND gave a retreat on "Gratitude is the Virtue That Changes Us." He explained that praying a daily “rosary of gratitude” has dramatically changed his life. He first heard about it from his friend Patty Schneier whose spiritual director had recommended it.
“It is impossible in human terms to exaggerate the importance of being in a church or chapel before the Blessed Sacrament as often and for as long as our daily duties … allow. I very seldom repeat what I say. Let me repeat this sentence. It is impossible in human language to exaggerate the importance of being in a chapel or church before the Blessed Sacrament as often and for as long as our … duties allow. That sentence is the talisman of the highest sanctity.” —Father John Hardon
First, we must create an overhaul in the way we teach the faith to the next generation of disciples. Unfortunately, the vast majority of young people who make contact with the Catholic Church are in faith formation and sacramental preparation not our Catholic schools. While we must focus on implementing programs and curriculum that are academically challenging and spiritually vibrant in our Catholic schools, we must make an even greater effort to fight against the tide of failure in faith formation. Second and more specifically, make preparation for the Sacraments of Baptism, Penance, Holy Communion, Confirmation, and Marriage inspiring and somewhat rigorous endeavors. Challenge the candidates to take the next step in their faith lives while showing that these are not hoops one jumps through in order to obtain a trophy or have a graduation moment. Highlight and give witness to the momentous and life-altering nature of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
The more subtle and more likely path to losing freedom lay through a paradox: as people demanded more and more individual autonomy, they would also demand a powerful central government to ensure that their neighbors could not interfere with their cherished rights.
When you teach children that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He perished as a ransom for many, and that He rose from the dead, or if you dare to pass on to the next generation that God is a good God who creates order out of chaos and loves His children, you as a parent are tiptoeing on the threshold of abuse (or, as Richard Dawkins has put it, you are already explicitly guilty of such abuse). Any loving parent, they say, would wait until their children are adults before exposing them to any religious tenet whatsoever so that they can fully choose whether to be religious or not (though somehow I find it hard to believe that the Left would approve of the evangelization of my grown children). Remarkably, even the most basic of values, like taking responsibility for your own life, are being cast out the window with the bathwater.
The lesson we should take is that the Church of England’s demise was caused by putting the kingship of the individual above that of Christ. This wasn’t a gradual distortion, either, but a poison pill they swallowed at the moment they were founded...of putting an individual’s whims, or even the honest judgments of their conscience, at the top of the hierarchy was the cause of death.
And here and there one sees signs that the wake-up message is getting through. A more than ordinarily thoughtful Catholic friend, reacting to something I’d written, says this: “You are right that the laity can’t sit around and wait for ‘the Church’ – i.e., the clergy – to do something. I think the faith will be preserved by families joining together to form their children. That task will certainly involve the clergy – supportive and unsupportive alike – but it can’t wait for them.”
It’s not possible today to decide for or against Christianity without deciding for or against Newman, Péguy, Dante, Copernicus, Boethius, Christmas, birthdays, the Milan Cathedral, St. Thérèse, Chesterton, Mendel, Leonardo, Elgar’s Dream, the Summa, “Pied Beauty,” Flannery O’Connor, Georg Cantor, Allegri’s Miserere, “Silent Night,” St. Francis, the Sistine Chapel, the Pietà, the beautiful church down the street (if you are so fortunate), Thomas à Kempis – not to mention the abolition of slavery, the concept of natural rights, universities and hospitals, courtship, chaste love, esteem for mothers in households, esteem for childhood, and a free society on principle – to give a quirky and parochial list. But you get the point.
Looking at the Church, we see Jesus Christ. Or should, anyway. If we do not see him, then there might be something wrong – with us. Perhaps we have gotten distracted by what some Catholics are getting up to. Perhaps we have gotten distracted by the situation of the Church in Germany or in China. Or perhaps we are just jaded and don’t see spiritual things any more. It is really good that we spare a thought and a prayer for our brothers and sisters in Germany and China. And perhaps, too, a thought and a prayer for wayward Catholics. They’re in grave peril. But so are we all. How many of us today realize that we are in a communion of grace and truth – the Church – in order to live with Christ, to live his life. He is the source of the beauty of the Church, and he gives it a real face.
We are rapidly saying farewell to the last generation in America that can remember what it was like to have musicians playing live, every weekend at a dance hall within walking distance or a short drive; or what it was like to be young, in love, doing all the fun things that your schoolmates were doing, plenty of them involving a lot of physical delight, but not requiring that you take off a stitch of clothing.
I would argue that the proper response is counter-intuitive: become more explicitly “religious,” not less. Make Catholicism a clear alternative to the culture, not just another option among many. When religions try to ape the culture, they always lose, because the culture can always do it better. But the culture can’t do religion better. In fact, no one can do religion better than the one true religion, Catholicism. So instead of trying to be “relevant” and culturally hip, go the other direction. Zig when everyone else is zagging.
1. I wish to speak to you about the most important and central teaching of our faith. What I share is “not too high for you.” It is not theology that is only meant for theologians and priests. This concerns the most important reality of our lives – the saving presence of our Lord. This is not a teaching that can be dumbed down or over simplified. This is a truth that we need to be clear and certain about. Be bold, then! Take up and read, drink in the truth, discuss and share it with others and allow Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, to conform you further to Himself and fulfill the deepest longings of your heart.
We spend 40 days preparing for Easter. We choose something to fast from; we put thought and effort into our prayer lives; we look for ways to give back to others in need. Then Easter arrives, and so many of us, myself included, are content to celebrate for the day and then go right back to our regular life, as though we have returned to Ordinary Time on Monday. But like Lent, Easter is a season. And the Church, in her wisdom, has more for us. More joy, more feasting, more life. Fifty days of it to be precise. Eastertide, or the Easter season, lasts from Easter itself until the feast of Pentecost. So how can we, as Catholic families, experience Easter as a season instead of just a single day? Here are a few ideas from my own family.
With Semitic hyperbole, Jesus says: “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Lk. 17:6) Our God-given faith, purified of error, is our most potent spiritual faculty. Fortified with God’s grace, it overcomes every obstacle to salvation. So, avoid spiritual poison. Confront faith difficulties. Hold fast to orthodox doctrinal definitions and external observances. Be attentive to liturgical seasons. A lifetime of disciplined practice makes perfect. Christ is risen in the flesh! Glorious Easter greetings.
A church which parades as Spiritual but not Religious ignores the offer of transformation. ‘The problem with the consumerist mentality is that it sticks with the desires you’ve got,’ Rowan Williams tells me. So the danger is you miss the possibility of being changed by what you find. ‘The church can go along with the market mentality and make people feel it’s meeting their needs. Or it can say, “Something utterly extraordinary has taken hold of us. Come and see”.’
Standing in the foreground of the entire gloomy nature of Good Friday is the remedy. The woman who anoints Jesus’ head with oil in Bethany is the overlooked answer (Mark 14:3-9). This scene takes place directly before Judas’ betrayal and serves as the opposite response to most of the flawed characters who surround the Lord’s death. Her example serves as the true vaccine for a world that too often looks at the masked other as a threat and views the opposing political operatives as sub-human.
Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s famous novel “The Brothers Karamazov” asks the fatal question: “Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions?“
Catholics in the United States – and here I mean both the clergy and the laity – too often demonstrate a complacency of mind more characteristic of an establishment church than a distinctive minority. This includes, by the way, a certain insecurity about “losing a culture” that was never really ours to begin with.