Why So Silent?

Despite occasional reminders from someone who shall remain unnamed (yet is a dear friend), I have resisted returning to publishing on this blog for … um, nearly 1500 days. Why? The reasons are difficult to explain. I have come up with three. Some probably had more influence than others, and maybe they worked together. My bet is the last one is the biggest culprit. Preservation of Sanity. The mass amounts of web news I was consuming threatened my sanity. I essentially had to give up on media for a while. Rather than use the news to simply inform me, I allowed it to disturb my peace. Fasting from media included many blogs, which caused me to wonder if my own blog was guilty of robbing peace from other people. I promise to be always cognizant of the power of God and His Eternal Mercy in future blog posts. October 11. That date changed our lives. Nearly three years ago my sisters daughter died. The simple fact of the matter is I stopped caring about a lot of things (not just blogging). If it wasn’t directly related to my family, I didn’t care about it. People say that writing about our grief is therapeutic, and it is. I did write about it. But I wrote it in a journal and not online. Laziness. I am a lazy person. My father is able to work from the wee hours of the morning to the late hours of night. He is a veritable whirlwind of productivity! I am not. I have taken Chesterton’s ‘holy idleness’ and made a vice out of it. Yes, I have inertia and my creative powers have sat idle for a very long time. They are resisting with the weight of a mountain to my attempts at stirring them. I will win. Because in addition to being lazy I’m stubborn. And there you have it, *eyebrow raise*, I will do better.

Pet Peeve..... Grrrrrr

Pet peeve: People who show up at Mass like they’re going to the mall.

Really? The Absolute Existence, the One Who is responsible for there being something rather than nothing wants to be with you so ardently that He made Himself FOOD and you couldn’t put on a nice pair of pants? Or, ladies, a dress or a skirt?

Even really good Catholics are guilty of this. And I’m not talking about a couple of one off instances where you’re traveling, or whatever. Everyone has those times when life just happens and you end up at Mass in jeans or shorts. But I’m talking about those people who show up like that every Sunday. What kind of message does it send to kids when mom and dad dress nicer to go to work or out to eat then they do to go to Mass?

People complain how there is no reverence left in Catholic Churches and I wonder why they are surprised. If we don’t prepare ourselves outwardly how can we be prepared inwardly. That’s why we kneel –to show with our bodies reverence for what is happening in front of us. So putting on nice clothes for Mass shows outwardly that the place we are in is a holy place. A place of reverence. And what is happening there is something special.

OK… I’m done.

Abortion & Contraception

A discussion I had recently brought me to the realization that liberals seem to link the fight against abortion with the idea of restricting all forms of birth control. I’ve never believed that to be the case and I’ve been fighting/praying for the unborn for a while now.

Morally I am 100% against birth control. It is a moral evil and has led to many social ills such as a divorce rate of 50%, explosion of single parent homes, increase in risky behaviors that has led to an increase in sexually transmitted dieses… I could go on … but contraception isn’t something that’s ever going away so whatever.

POLITICALLY … the state does not have the right to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. So… assuming that the method of birth control does not end the existence of an already fertilized zygote (which is the most logical point to declare the beginning of life –it is the moment when a unique sequence of DNA comes into existence), the state doesn’t have the right to pass legislation against contraception. People are free to choose to use it or choose to not use it … end of story.

Abortion is a different matter entirely.

Each of us has the right to do whatever we want so long as it does not impinge upon the basic rights of others… such as the right to live. Abortion ends the life of a unique human person. To say that a woman should have the right to abort her baby only leads to insane conclusions which have been reached by Leftist thinkers such as Peter Singer … (read the Justifying Infanticide and Non-Voluntary Euthanasia section: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1993----.htm) or this interview http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51963 … My favorite quote, after being asked if he would kill a disabled baby, ”yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole. Many people find this shocking, yet they support a woman’s right to have an abortion.” Sick, but hey, at least he’s intellectually honest.

And this is not some farfetched notion that will never be acted on in real life…. check out these links to women who killed their children after giving birth. The first one is of a woman who will not even be charged because the umbilical cord was not cut:

http://www2.wsls.com/sls/news/local/lynchburg/article/mother_wont_be_charged_with_babys_death_because_of_law_loophole/68659/#comments

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/mother-says-she-suffocated-newborn

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_497837.html

http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/crime/Woman-admits-she-suffocated-newborn

Someone I care about very much, but disagree with completely, said “I think most liberals believe abortion is a horrible thing.” Well … here are a few questions I have on that comment: Why do they support something that is a horrible thing? What makes abortion horrible? Why do all liberals ignore the gigantic human rights violation of brutally killing innocent children, in ways we wouldn’t kill our worst enemies, but lose their minds over keeping known terrorists in Guantanamo? Why is it abortion if a 7 month pregnant woman walks into a clinic of her own free will but it’s prosecuted as murder if someone kills her (and the baby) in an accident or crime? Where is the logic of doctors fighting to keep preemies alive, but on another floor of the hospital work to end the life of ‘fetuses’ of the same gestational age?

Isn’t the pro-abortion lobby actually saying that personhood depends on whether someone WANTS you or not? Consider the ramifications of that …

This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. Was Dachau or Auschwitz a political issue? Was the euthanizing of hundreds of disabled German citizens (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/disabled.html ) a political issue? The Nazi’s reasons for killing those people are remarkably similar to those used by the pro-abortion movement: “compassion” for the disabled –it’s not nice to let them live in suffering; Socially better to not have too many ‘unwanted’ people… in the end, supporting abortion only leads to death, death and more death.

Is Missing Mass a Mortal Sin?

Is missing Mass still a mortal sin?

The easy answer is yes –if by missing Mass you mean deliberate and willful negligence of your Sunday obligation. This includes taking trips you know will prevent you from attending Mass (when you have an option), sleeping in because “Sunday is my only off day”, skipping because of work, play or any other activity that is within your will to control. Situations that are beyond our control will always happen and we’re all smart enough to know what those entail… there’s no need to belabor the point.

So… Why is it a mortal sin? A mortal sin is an action that 1) Involves Grave Matter 2) Is done with full knowledge, and 3) Is done with full consent. We’ve established above what full knowledge and full consent would look like in the case of skipping Mass. But is it a grave matter?

Well, let’s look at it this way. God became Man. God. He who existed before all time. He who called time into being. He who had no beginning and will have no end. He whose size dwarfs the stars and in whose breast the universe is nestled. He who holds us in existence by a thought. God. He condescended to become what he created. He became man. But His humility knows no limits! Even though He created us and was now one of us, He was not close enough to us. NO. To be even closer to us, to enable us to unite ourselves to Him, He became food. He became bread. He became that which we eat and which nourishes our bodies.

This is the humility of God: To offer Himself to us under the unassuming appearance of bread. He offers Himself to us at every Mass. So, imagine telling Him, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather go camping.”

Walking away from God in order to indulge in a secular happiness is the definition of a mortal sin.

Monday morning song ...

Don Williams ... wrote this song just for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYVvxskfEKs

Have you ever heard something so shocking that, for days afterward, you couldn’t forget it? Recently an acquaintance said to me “it doesn’t matter what happens after we die.”

Really.

The comment wasn’t, “nothing happens” or “I’m generally a good person so I don’t have to worry”. No, he said “it doesn’t matter.”

What kind of world view does one have in order to believe this?

We can love life and beauty and stuff as much as we want but eventually we will die. I will die. You will die (assuming anyone is reading this). Death is inevitable.

So the question of what is waiting for us seems to me to be paramount –overriding all other concerns. Many people hold the belief, albeit naive, that heaven awaits anyone and everyone (except the most reprehensible cretins already condemned by the eternal judge of their own opinion). Other’s believe that nothing waits for us … which is a terrifying thought but at least they have thought about it and come to a conclusion.

We’ll assume the existence of life after death because … well, it’s my blog. And we’ll assume a Judeo-Christian vision of life after death. Each person will continue existing for an eternity after their last breath on this earth.

How long is eternity? How can we even begin to comprehend a never ending amount of time? Can we even use words like “amount” and “time”? Indulge in a thought experiment for a few minutes. Think about a man climbing to the top of Mt Everest to dig through the snow and find one single speck of dirt. Then, after climbing back down, he travels across the country, across the ocean and to the coast of California in order to drop that speck in the Ocean. Then he does it all over again, retracing his steps, until Mt Everest has been moved into the Pacific Ocean one speck by one speck. The time it would take to do that would not even used up one fraction of one second in eternity.

Each member of humanity shares the expectation of death. It’s the unavoidable destiny we begin traveling toward from the moment of our conception. Perhaps we should spend some time contemplating what exactly this destiny is. Is death our ultimate destiny –do we burst into existence, burn for a while and then unceremoniously flicker out? Or is death a gateway to a destiny that is something more, something beautiful, something transcendent?

Considering the news it is easy to lose hope. Lose sight of the fact that the Church is the eternal Bride of Christ and no amount of human failing can destroy her.
The Church is the Eternal Bride of Christ and no amount of human failing can destroy her.
I must remember those words. How do I know they’re true? Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity said so. And if I do not trust His words than what am I about? Why am I here? If I do not trust His words I have bigger issues than a scandal in the Church.
The focus should not be that The Church is plagued by scandals, but rather that the scandals do not destroy her! They have not destroyed her! For 2000 years human failings have been unable to topple the Church that Christ Jesus founded. It is on His foundation that the Church forms her roots. The storms of human wickedness cannot rip her from that foundation. Why? Because She is not a Church made of human hands. She is not ours to destroy. We cannot do it. God promised.
But the unbelievable reality of what they did… What were those men thinking? The flippant answer is, ‘they weren’t’. Perhaps a better answer is, ‘they were thinking more than they were praying.’ The Church, in all Her wisdom, has asked her sons to observe certain daily prayers for a reason. Can a person commit the sins that they did while remaining faithful to the rigors of priestly life? The Divine Office? Daily Sacrifice of the Mass? Frequent Confession? Observing purity of heart and mind (remember that chastity is abandoned in the mind before it is abandoned in the flesh).
Perhaps this scandal is calling us to arms. We’re in a war that many stopped fighting a long time ago –or never started. I guess what I keep coming back to is the question of what my reaction to all this should be? Despair? Or action? I choose action. Priests need prayers. Real prayers. Sacrifices offered up for their holiness.