Jewish school forced to forfeit semi-final game

The New York Times recently carried a story concerning The Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish school in Houston, Texas, whose basketball team recently had to forfeit their State semi-final game because it was scheduled for this past Friday evening, the Sabbath:

The school filed an appeal to change the time of the game with the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or Tapps, the group that organizes the tournament. On Monday morning, representatives of the school were notified that the association’s nine-member executive board had rejected the appeal.

In response to the unfortunate - and, to me, unreasonable - decision, Rabbi Harry Sinoff said, "The sacred mission will trump excellence in the secular world."

I commend Rabbi Sinoff for his words, backed up by his actions, as well as many of the school's oppossing teams, many of whom, we are told, "agreed to change the time of their games to avoid conflicts with the Sabbath."

The students, too, are to be commended who have the attitude of, as one of their fathers said, "when there are bad calls, you just move on."

The TAPPS should be ashamed.

Does contraception reduce "unwanted" pregnancies?

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, James Taranto traces the history of "the pill," and notes that after the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 1960 "the marriage rate declined and the illegitimacy rate skyrocketed," evidence to which Charles Murray pointed in the same publication.  Before 1960, the illegitimate birth rate was about 2% of white births; by 2008, it was 44%.  The rates, says Murray, are higher for black births.

Taranto counters the claim that contraception decreases unwanted pregnancy:

The usual criticism we've heard is that it is absurd to suggest a causal link between birth-control advances and illegitimacy because, after all, birth control prevents pregnancy, and giving birth out of wedlock entails pregnancy. By that logic, though, illegitimacy rates should have remained low, or even declined further, after the inception of the pill. The Santorum argument may be counterintuitive, but the counterargument flies in the face of the facts.

It is this reality that Taranto says is often thought of today as "downright unthinkable." Be sure to read his entire article.

What will the persecution look like?

Standing on his head provides Father Dwight Longenecker many good insights, especially his recent thoughts of what the increasing persecution of the Church in the United States of America will look like:

There will be no martial law or military in the streets. That would appear to be so un-American! The officers who enforce the mandate will be lawyers in suits bearing legal documents. The battles will be in the courtroom. The penalties will seem just to the majority of people because we are in a democracy and those who disobey the law need to be punished, for it is the law of the land, and after all, if they had not done anything wrong they would not need to worry about anything!

To disobey the Mandate will seem so obstinate and unreasonable, for the State will not seek to close down any churches. Instead it will support the churches. Clergy training will be paid by the state. The church buildings will be maintained by a church tax which will be called the "tithe". Clergy will remain in their posts. Their dignity will be respected. All they will need to do is sign certain documents which ensure their safety and their freedom of worship in return for acknowledging the authority of the State (in civil matters only of course) These documents will be worded in such a way that a conscience clause will be admitted. The State will control the church "insofar as the law of God allows."

Be sure to read his entire post.

Stupid laws

If I may say so, one of the greatest difficulties of our Republic is the proliferation of regulations of various sorts and the retaining of laws that are no longer pertinent.

Writing in the Quincy Herald-Whig, Steve Eighinger offers a sampling of ridiculous laws, State by State (Montana through Wyoming).

For example, a few of my favorites:

• In North Dakota it is illegal to fall asleep with your shoes on (who knows why or what business that is of legislators), while in South Dakota it is illegal to fall asleep in a cheese factory.
• Whistling underwater (I'm not quite sure how that's done) is against the law in Vermont.
• Birds, in Utah, have the right-of-way on the highways.

Mr. Eighinger covered the first half of the Union is a piece I missed earlier and cannot now locate on the web.

One of my favorite stupid laws comes from California, where it is illegal to set a mouse trap without a hunting license.

Saintly sarcasm

For though I grant that God loves a cheerful giver, still I have no doubt that He loved Tobias and holy Job too.  Now it is true that both of them bore their calamities bravely and patiently, but neither of them, so far as I know, was exactly jumping with joy or clapping their hands out of happiness. 

- Saint Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ

When is a bluff a bluff?

Earlier this week President Obama spoke with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldburg about the tense situation presently in the Middle East between Israel and Iran.

The President told Goldburg, "I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff."

I sincerely hope he isn't bluffing, but I daresay His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, might disagree with that statement.

Writing on his blog, The Gospel in the Digital Age, His Eminence recently said (with my emphases):

When the President announced on January 20^th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain — a shock to me, since he had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity, and that he considered the protection of conscience a sacred duty — not only you, but men and women of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest.

If a person says he will do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care and then very deliberately chooses to blatantly impede the good work of the Church in health care, I think it could sufficiently be called a bluff.

To resemble Christ

Toward the beginning of his meditations on The Sadness of Christ, the one-time Lord Chancellor of England, Saint Thomas More, said: "Alas, how different we are from Christ, though we call ourselves Christians."

Holy Mother Church gives us each year this penitential season of Lent precisely because of the truth of More's observation, because we are not always clear reflections of him who is the Light of the World (cf. John 8:12).  He who is the Light Himself says to us, "You are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14).  But it often happens that because of our sin our light is diminished to varying degrees.

If we consider our souls as old lanterns, with a candle in the center surrounded by four panes of glass.

On the day of our Baptism, the flame of faith was entrusted to us - symbolized by the Baptismal candle lit from the Paschal Candle - when the priest or deacon said: "Parents and godparents, this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly.  Keep the flame of faith alive in his heart."  How brightly does this flame burn within you?  Do you seek to stir it up (cf. II Timothy 1:6)?

If the panes of glass in the lantern are kept clean, the light from the candle shines brightly forth illuminating all around it, but if the panes are covered with soot, light is dimmed and what was once illumined is covered in darkness.  So it is with us.

If our sin is allowed to cover the panes of our soul, the flame of faith entrusted to us cannot shine forth and illumine our life or the lives of those around us.  But if we allow the Lord to wipe our panes clean with the words of absolution, our light - His Light - shines brightly through us as our lives resemble ever more closely the life of Jesus Christ.

How are we, then, to conform our lives to His?  We do so by following the wisdom of the great Saints who spent much time and prayer contemplating the Crucified One.

Saint Francis of Assisi once prayed:

My Lord Jesus Christ, I beg thee to grant me two graces before my death: first, that for the rest of my life I may experience in my soul and in my body, as much as possible, the same pain that you suffered, O sweet Jesus, during the time of thy most cruel Passion; and second, that I may feel in my heart, as much as possible, the same love which inflamed thee, the Son of God, and led thee to suffer thy passion gladly for us sinners.

And his spiritual sister, Saint Clare of Assisi wrote of Blessed Agnes of Prague:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead Itself
through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
which God Himself has reserved
from the beginning
for those who love Him.

In the Cross, then, we are to see not only what we are but also what we are called to be: other Christs who bear his name worthily so that in the end we can say with Saint Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).

We must not run from the Cross; rather, we must embrace it and not count the cost.  Let each of us, then, bear in mind and heart these words of Saint John Vianney: "O my God, I prefer to die loving you than to live a single instant without loving you.... I love you, my divine Savior, because you were crucified for us ... because you have me crucified for you."

Papal Prayer Intentions for March

Please join your prayers to the prayer intentions of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI for the month of March 2012:

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

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

Another Hobbit video

A little over two months ago, the good folks at The Hobbit Blog - the official blog of the forthcoming movies The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again - posted their fifth Production Video, On Location.

At the time, we were promised a subsequent video, which was finally released today: Production Video, On Location (Part 2).

Enjoy! Amidst the troubling news of the day we need something to lift our spirits.

Senate votes against religious freedom

The Senate of the United States of American voted this morning on the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act introduced by Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO).  Regrettably, but perhaps not unexpectedly, the bill failed by a vote of 51-48.

Among those who voted against the legislation were 13 Catholics, even though the Act would have allowed Catholic institutions to continue their operations without violating their faith.

The Catholic Advocate has a list of the 24 Catholic Senators and how they voted.

Cardinal George: "We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack"

Writing in his column in the Catholic New World, His Emincence Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, recently considered the implications of the mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services, if it is not rescinded:

What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down.

None of these four options are helpful, but they do achieve the Administration's aim to remove faithful Catholics from public life.

As part of his considerations, Cardinal George distinguishes between the freedom of religion - as guaranteed by the First Ammendment - and the incorrect interpretation of that freedom as simply the freedom of worship:

The provision of health care should not demand “giving up” religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.

The Constitution does not guarantee a freedom of worship, but of religion, which encompasses the living of a moral life; religion, if it is authentic, shapes every aspect of an adherent's life.  It cannot simply be compartmentalized.

His Eminence also considers the charge that the Bishops are not respecting the so-called separation of Church and State:

The bishops would love to have the separation between church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church.

In the end, it should be remembered that "the bishops didn’t begin this dismaying conflict nor choose its timing. We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack."

Ethicists say babies aren't persons and be killed morally

From The Telegraph comes this frightening news of a recently published article titled "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?":

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

This is nothing more than infanticide.

According to the authors of the study, newborns are simply "potential persons": "Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life.’"

I wonder: Where will the final line be drawn by these so-called medical ethicists as to when a person is a person?  Others have attempted to make such a distinction before and I daresay it did not end well.  This not bode well for society.

Father Augustus Tolton Day?

Two Illinois State Senators - Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-16th) and John Sullivan (D-Rushville) - introduced today a resolution to designate April 24, 2012 as Father Augustus Tolton Day.  Father Tolton was ordained a priest on April 24, 1886.

I'm very happy about this and hope the resolution passes.

Should the priest "turn his back to the people" or to the Lord?

A Minor Friar recently noticed what others haven't quite yet picked up on:

Like many of the churches and chapels where I say Mass these days, a free-standing altar is set up in front of a tabernacle set centrally in the sanctuary. Thus, in order to offer the Mass versus populum, the priest must place himself in between the altar and the tabernacle. All of a sudden, even though I have offered Mass this way hundreds of times, from the Mass of my priestly ordination on Our Lady's birthday in 2007 down to today, I felt uncomfortable to find myself with my back to the Blessed Sacrament.

When the Mass is celebrated ad orientem, that is, to the East (even if only liturgically speaking), the priest and the people all face the same direction.  It is a profound sign of unity.  Some, though, do not like this and are offended that the priest would "turn his back to the people," as they incorrectly say.

A Minor Friar asks:

But isn't it more troubling for the priest to turn his back on the Presence of Christ in the tabernacle?

Hope in Ridgway, Illinois

Last night a tornado destroyed most of St. Joseph church in Ridgway, Illinois, in the Diocese of Belleville, yet hope remains:

Your eyes do not deceive you.  If you look through the rubble you can see the altar still intact and the tabernacle still present.

The storm system killed ten people yesterday in southern Illinois.  May they rest in peace.

Please keep all those whose lives have been so terribly shaken in your prayers, that the presence of the Eucharistic King in their midst will strengthen them for the days ahead.

Update:

Here's a picture of the church from a different angle:

The priest, thanks be to God, is unharmed.

Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest?

This is, perhaps, one of most frequently asked questions of priests.  It is certainly the question I am most asked on retreats and before communal penance services.

It is also a question that was asked of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI when he visited the Rebibbia District Prison in Rome last December 18th.  Given this season of Lent and its emphasis on penance and reconciliation I thought I would give you the Pope's answer, but first the question posed to him by Gianni:

I was taught that the Lord sees and reads inside us.  I wonder why is absolution delegated to priests?  If I asked for it on my knees alone in my room, turning to the Lord, would he absolve me?  Or would it be another kind of absolution?  What would be the difference?

And now, the Pope's answer, transcribed from my print edition of the 21 December 2011 issue of L'Osservatore Romano, since the link is broken on the web site of the Holy See:

Yes, you are asking me an important and true question.  I would say two things.  The first: naturally, if you kneel down and with true love for God pray that God forgives you, he forgives you.  It has always been the teaching of the Church that one, with true repentance - that is not only in order to avoid punishment, difficulty, but for love of the good, for love of God - asks for forgiveness, he is pardoned by God.  This is the first part.  If I honestly know that I have done evil, and if love for goodness, a desire for goodness is reborn within me, repentance for not having responded to this love, and I ask forgiveness of God, who is the Good, he gives it to me.  But there is a second element: sin is not only a "personal", individual thing between myself and God.  Sin always has a social dimension, a horizontal one.  With my personal sin, even if perhaps no one knows it, I have damaged the communion of the Church, I have sullied humanity.  And therefore this social, horizontal dimension of sin requires that it be absolved also at the local level of the human community, of the community of the Church, almost physically.  Thus, this second dimension of sin, which is not only against God but concerns the community too, demands the Sacrament, and the Sacrament is the great gift in which through confession, we can free ourselves from this thing and we can really receive forgivness in the sense of a full readmission to the community of the living Church, of the Body of Christ.  And so, in this sense, the necessary absolution by the priest, the Sacrament, is not an imposition - let us say - on the limits of God's goodness, but, on the contrary, it is an expression of the goodness of God because it shows me concretely, in the communion of the Church, I have received pardon and can start anew.  Thus, I would say, hold on to these two dimensions: the vertical one, with God, and the horizontal one, with the community of the Church and humanity.  The absolution of the priest, sacramental absolution, is necessary to really absolve me of this link with evil and to full reintegrate me into the will of God, into the vision of God, into his Church and to give me sacramental, almost bodily, certitude: God forgives me, he receives me into the community of his children.  I think that we must learn how to understand the Sacrament of Penance in this sense: as a possibility of finding again, almost physically, the goodness of the Lord, the certainty of reconciliation.

News round up (with brief comments)

• Judge rules Washington pharmacists cannot be forced to dispense contraception.  One wonders, then, how the federal government can force people to pay for it.
• Vandals in San Francisco deface Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday.  But anti-Catholicism doesn't really exist.
• Archaeologists strike gold in quest for Sheba's wealth.  It's amazing how often archeaology confirms Biblical texts.
• A 14-year old girl has received death threats because of her defense of marriage.  And we're the intolerant ones.
• A boy born with his heart outside his body has astonished doctors.  Doctors don't always know what they're talking about.
• Latest temperature data shows planet has not warmed for past 15 years.  But global warming/climate change is based on good science.  Here's another article on the same.

A not-so-witty tweet

Yesterday someone on Twitter (so far as I know, a complete stranger to me, @Witty_Witticist), included me in one of his tweets that read:

You suck.  Having a silly book and a costume is not a real job.

I can only suppose that the "silly book" is either the Bible or the Roman Missal and that the "costume" is either the Roman collar (whether in suit form or cassock) or the sacred vestments for Mass and other liturgical celebrations.

Perhaps without knowing it, he is, to be sure, quite right.  A silly book and a costume does not make a real job.  I could grab some silly book of jokes and dress in a monkey suit but that wouldn't mean I had a job.  That is, unless someone paid me to dress in a monkey suit and tell jokes.

But there is something that the Witty Witticist doesn't quite grasp regarding the very nature of the priesthood: it is not, in point of fact, a job, but a vocation.

A job is done during certain agreed upon hours during which certain agreed upon tasks are performed.

A vocation is a way of life.  The vocation of the priesthood - like the vocation of marriage - is not performed but lived, and not for certain hours of time but every moment of every day.

In this sense, the Witty Witticist is right: I do not have a job.  I have instead a vocation.  As it happens, the job I perform is to serve as Priest Secretary and Master of Ceremonies to the Bishop and the Associate Director of the Office for Vocations.  These assignments are not necessary to my life as a priest, but to live each day as one is.

Homily - Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday (2012)

Dear brothers and sisters,

How many times each day do we make the sign of the Cross?  We make it as we enter a church and sign ourselves with holy water. We make it at the beginning and the conclusion of the holy Mass and at other liturgies. We make it when we pray privately and before we before and after we eat. Why?

We do so because, as Saint Peter Damian teaches us, “it seems clear that the power of this sign will abolish all demonic claims upon human beings and the various items we need to use.”[1]

On the day of our Baptism, on the day we were incorporated into Christ Jesus and given a share in his life, the priest or deacon traced the Cross of our salvation on our foreheads and said, “I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his Cross.” The sign of the Cross is a visible and physical reminder to us of the words of the Apostle: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price” (I Corinthians 6:19-20).

The price of our redemption is the blood of Christ shed out of love for us upon the wood of the Cross.  Today, as we prepare to enter with fervent devotion into the holy and penitential season of Lent, this Cross is traced with ashes on our foreheads to remind us that we are indeed not our own.  The cross of ashes serves also to remind us of our own mortality, to remind us of our sins, and to express externally our internal sorrow.

Consequently, the ashes also remind us of the mercy of God who is gracious and merciful, “slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment” and who calls out to us, “return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning” (Joel 2:13, 12).

In these coming forty days we will seek to enter more fully into the Cross of our Lord, to take it up each day and to follow him who died for us.  This is a daunting and difficult task, to lay down our own will, to conform our lives to his and to reflect his love in everything we say and do.  As we contemplate the Cross, let us not shy away from it but seek to embrace it, because it “terrifies the devil, putting him to flight, that it may then invite the angels to approach us.”[2]  Let us take up this great insignia and strive to faithfully follow the one who bore it first for us.  Amen.

---

[1] Saint Peter Damian, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 12.  In Christian Eloquence: Contemporary Doctrinal Preaching.  C. Colt Anderson.  (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2005), 115-116.

[2] Saint Peter Damian, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 8.  In Christian Eloquence, 115-116. 

Homily - 21 February 2012

This evening I had the pleasure of celebrating Mass for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George at St. Michael Convent in Springfield.  I also joined them for dinner after Mass.  What follows is the homily I preached for them.

The Memorial of Saint Peter Damian

Dear Sisters,

On this day before Ash Wednesday it is a great work of Providence to celebrate this memorial of Saint Peter Damian, the Doctor of Reform and Renewal. The aim of his life and the aim of Lent is really the same for which we prayed just a few moments ago: “[T]hat, putting nothing before Christ and always ardent in the service of your Church, we may be led to the joys of eternal life.”[1]

The only way to attain the joys of eternal life is through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In his sermon for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Saint Peter Damian addressed the Cross, saying:

You are the salvation of a ruined world, you are the light set amid the darkness, medicine for the feeble, strength for the convalescing, a haven for those in danger, a place of refuge for those fleeing the jaws of death.  Through you the foreign wanderers pass on their way to become members of the household.[2]

While it is true that we have already passed through the Cross when we were baptized into the death of Christ, it is also true that we are in continual need of conversion (cf. Romans 6:3).  As such, we must be constantly passing through the Cross, as if we lived in the midst of it.  Is this not what the Lord intended when he said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23)?

Saint James reminds us today that we must strive to control our “passions that make war within your members” so as to daily “submit yourselves to God (James 4:1, 7).

Saint Clare, that wondrous woman of faith, teaches us to look at the Crucified Lord.  Her words echo well the words of Saint James.  “Look upon Him Who became contemptible for you,” she says, “and follow Him, making yourself contemptible in the world for Him.”[3]  She instructs us how to pray before the Crucifix:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!  Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!  Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!  And transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation!  So that you too may feel what His friends feel as the taste the hidden sweetness which God Himself has reserved from the beginning for those who love Him.[4]

This is a difficult task to undertake and to accomplish it we must rely on God’s grace and seek to set aside our own fears.  In this effort of being transformed ever more closely into the image of Christ we must heed the words of the Psalmist: “Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will support you” (Psalm 55:23).

Whatever cross the Lord has seen fit for us to bear, whatever penance we must undertake in these coming forty days, it is not too much for us to bear.  As Saint Peter Damian teaches, “For the sake of overcoming the devil our emperor presented us with the insignia of the cross; and lest it seem too heavy for us he first bore it himself.”[5]

As we enter into these days of Lent, let us look to the examples of the those of who have loved the Cross of our Lord before us and seek their intercession and guidance. 

---

[1] Roman Missal, Collect of the Day.

[2] Saint Peter Damian, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14.  In Christian Eloquence: Contemporary Doctrinal Preaching, C. Colt Anderson.  (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2005), 122.

[3] Saint Clare of Assisi, The Second Letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague, 19.  In Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, trans.  (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 197.

[4] Ibid., The Third Letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague, 12-14.  In Francis and Clare, 200.

[5] Saint Peter Damian, The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 11.  In Christian Eloquence, 119.