St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

From Fr. Alban Goodier’s Spiritual Excellence:

…We should be confident that no good deed we ever do is wasted. It is true we may fail in our immediate object; we may not always gain the good effect we intended. We may work for a conversion, and our friend may die without any sign of having once ever given the matter a thought. We may give alms and find we have only been encouraging a wastrel. We may labor to exhaustion in teaching a child, and the child may turn out nothing but a shame to his instructors.

Still, none of these covers the whole matter. A good deed done is like a stone that is dropped in deep water; the circles of waves continue to move out from that center, on and on, long after the stone has settled at the bottom.

The week off was great. I thought and I prayed and I received guidance form the most unlikely sources. I’ll spare you the details of the journey and just share the two basic conclusions I’ve reached.

1. Posting here is going to be sparse for a while. There are three reasons for this. One — I don’t have much to say about much of anything right now. Two — I’ve decided to make 2009 the Year I Become Serious About Writing. And three — I’m still thinking about the direction I want to take this blog.

2. The Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast will enter an extended hiatus. What it comes down to is time. I estimate it takes about 7 hours of work to make a 30-minute podcast. That is far, far, far more time than I ever expected. Also, I don’t particularly like podcasting — which makes it all the more difficult. But I’m not sure I want to give it up just yet. I have some ideas for how to keep it going but I’m no ready to say anything just yet.

You know, I think I’m going to take a break. I need to spend some time thinking about what I want to do in 2009 — personally, as well as with this apostolate. I’ll be back on Sunday, January 4.

Have a happy New Year.

It’s been a good six months. This Apostolate has taken off to a much better start than I either hoped or expected. I’ve written a lot since July: averaging 555 words a day, I’ve written over 100,000 words, which is the length of a standard novel. Based on the number of hits as well as reader feedback, here are some of the posts that I think would qualify as the best of 2008. Happy reading!

• Praying the Rosary with Small Children
• Reason vs. Emotion in the Spiritual Life
• What to do about Spiritual Sloth?
• Rule of Life
• Friday, a Day of Penance
• Tuesdays with St. Thomas: Divine Providence (especially for the comments)
• What is the Liturgy of the Hours? (the beginning of a series of posts on the Divine Office)
• How to Practice Poverty Today
• God and Happiness: A Reflection
• The Standard of Satan: Pride (which isn’t a post, but an excerpt from Fr. John Hardon; it did bring over 10,000 visitors, however!)
• Overwhelmed by Catholic Literature? This Post is for You!

If we think about Christian morality in terms of rules and laws, we think about it incorrectly. Christian morality’s key term is “restoration.” Christ came to restore us, to heal us, and to raise us to a new level.

Thus original sin is one of the cornerstone doctrines of Catholic morality. If we don’t believe we’ve been infected by sin’s poison, then it’s hard, if not impossible, to believe we need healing and restoration.

So what is original sin?

When God created our first parents, he gave them blessings on three levels. He gave them the supernatural blessing of sanctifying grace, or friendship with Himself; he gave them the preternatural (or superhuman) blessings of integrity and immortality; and he gave them the natural blessings of an enlightened intellect and strong will. These were gifts from God, grace he gave them.

We call Adam and Eve’s sin a fall. What did they fall from? They fell from God’s grace. They lost the gifts God had given them: intimate friendship with him, integrity, immortality, an enlightened intellect, and a strong will. They were left with un-graced human nature — powerless to know, love, and serve God.

Through baptism, we are cleansed from the stain of original sin. Sanctifying grace is restored to our souls; we are given faith, hope, and love — the virtues necessary to know and seek God with our whole being. We are even given the seed of eternal life, as Scripture calls it, which will fully blossom in the age to come. Integrity is not restored. What’s integrity?

Integrity is the word the Church uses to speak of the harmony between our mind and our bodies, between our reason and our passions. Adam and Eve enjoyed possessed integrity. If they wanted to fast, their bodies did not revolt and crave food. 

We, on the other hand, have a lack of integrity. Our intellects and bodies are at odds with one another. My mind says, “Time to pray,” and my body says, “Time to sleep.” My reason says, “Be chaste,” but my passions says, “Look at her legs!”

Why did God not restore our integrity?

For two reasons, I think. First, because he wants us to be humble — he wants us to remember that we are creatures dependent upon his goodness, mercy, and love. If we didn’t have to wage this moral war, we’d quickly forget about him. 

The second reason flows from the first. In his infinite wisdom, just as God made the Christ’s the source of salvation, he made our lack of integrity our road to holiness.  “You cannot be my disciple,” Jesus tells us, “unless you pick up your cross.” What is our cross? Ourselves — our faults, our failings, our weaknesses. These are the things we must fight — daily, weekly, monthly, yearly — with great patience. 

We can’t do follow this road without God’s grace. We receive his grace through the sacraments, which give us the spiritual strength to wage the Christian battle, but we still have to fight. God gives us the power to act, but we must act. It is difficult to act if we don’t know how to act. It’s like giving a man a car without teaching him how to use it. 

This is where the Church’s moral teachings fit into the spiritual life. They tell us how to act, and thereby tell us which battles we need to wage. The moral teachings are a standard of living — a standard that raises us up to God. This is why the Catechism begins its section on morality with the following: 

Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God (no. 1691).

Thus the Church’s moral teachings don’t give us an abstract ethic rooted in idealist “oughts” and “ought nots.” Nor is the Church’s moral teaching “traditional” in the sense that it’s the collective human wisdom from which we should not deviate. 

No, the Church’s moral teachings tell us what it means to become like God. Through his passion and death, Christ restored us; he healed us; he saved us. Through baptism and the other sacraments, these realities were and are communicated to us. The Church’s morality teaches us how to preserve the great gift we’ve been given. It teaches us how to live according to the dignity of God’s children.

No new episode today, unfortunately, but I will have one up next Sunday. In the meantime, I want to re-introduce the podcast to you.

For those who do not listen to the podcast . . . 

The Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast is a podcast that follows the life of Christ as outlined by St. Ignatius of Loyola (more or less) in the Spiritual Exercises and uses the Catechism of the Catholic Church as the primary interpretive guide for understanding the Gospels. The goal is to present the true identity of Christ by emphasizing his transcendent divinity, his real historical humanity, the integrity of his message, and his sacrificial death that dominates his life and doctrine, as it is understood by the Church he established.

Previous episodes treat John 1 (In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word became Flesh) and Luke 1.26-38 (the Annunciation to Mary). Topics we’ve discussed include the following:

• Jesus Christ’s eternal pre-existence.
• That Jesus is the only one who can reveal the Father.
• The full meaning of the Incarnation of the Son of God.
• The good angels.
• The Trinity.
• Mary’s divine motherhood and fullness of grace.
• Salvation history and the establishment of the Church.
• The virginal conception and Mary’s vow of virginity.

You can listen to the individual episodes right from the webpage. There is no need to have an iPod or MP3 player. You can also download them from the webpage; no need to sign up with iTune or Podcast Alley. But if you want, you can also subscribe to the podcast from various podcast outlet. I do my best to keep each episode around 30 minutes.

I hope you take some time to hop on over to the website and listen to an episode or two. Who knows, you might light it.

And for those of you who have been listening, here’s what I have planned for the next couple of months:

• The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
• The Birth of Jesus
• The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
• The Flight into Egypt
• Nazareth and the Hidden Life of the Holy Family
• The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

After that, we’ll enter into the the ministry of Christ, beginning with his baptism by John. It’s a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to it.

1 — Excerpt from my book on the Trinity

I pulled out the book I wrote on the Trinity and read bits and pieces here and there. It smacks of graduate-school prose. Here’s an excerpt:

The problem with Origen is that he leaned too much on Neo-Platonic philosophy — a philosophy that has its roots in Plato. He posited that the Father was the one, true God, wholly divine, and that along with the Father was a myriad of co-eternal rational spiritual beings. From all eternity the Father generated the Son to be the mediator between himself and these beings. The generation of the Son is an eternal act: the Son, for Origen, is eternal, without beginning or end, but the Son is God in a secondary sense.

Most of this is an adaption of Neo-Platonic philosophy into a Christian scheme, but Origen was not a philosopher, but a theologian, and so he had to account for the Holy Spirit. His teaching on the Spirit is very similar to that of the Son and is very biblical: the Spirit, from all eternity, is brought into being by the Father through the Son, and just like the Son, the Spirit is God in a secondary sense. 

Thus if we had to put a label on Origen’s error, it would be the label of subordinationism.

2 — Excerpt from a real grad paper

By way of comparison, here’s an actual excerpt from a real grad paper of mine (which was written about three year before the above excerpt). The title itself is enough to scare away any interested reader: “Aquinas on Sacra Doctrina: A Study of the First Question of the ‘Summa theologiae’“:

In article 1, St. Thomas argues that sacra doctrina exists. Thomas poses the question: “Whether it is necessary, besides the philosophical disciplines, to have another doctrina?  The foundation of Thomas’s argument in the response is the following: it is necessary for the salvation of humanity for there to be a doctrina revealed by God. Two points need to be made about this argument. First, it is an argument by way of final causality; Thomas presupposes the supernatural end of humanity and then argues that for humanity to reach this end, it must have a doctrina based on divine revelation. This point leads to the next one Thomas uses a principle of sacra doctrina, namely, the supernatural end of humanity, to argue for the existence of sacra doctrina. Though Thomas’s argument may seem a bit flawed to us, the methodology is explained in article 8, which says that though a principle of sacra doctrina cannot be proved by human reason, it can be proved by using another principle of sacra doctrina (e.g., using Christ’s resurrection to prove the general resurrection). Thus, by positing the supernatural end of humanity that humanity cannot reach by the light of natural reason alone, Thomas establishes that there must be a divine revealed doctrina to teach humanity about and how to attain their supernatural end.

When I look at the two, the first thing that comes to mind is that at least I learned the art the short paragraph.

3 — On Writing Complex Ideas

I’ve had the inkling that I’d like to write seriously again. As I’ve noted, I spent several years writing fiction. What if I’ve taken what I learned and applied it to writing nonfiction? With this in mind, I went to the library and checked out Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark.

Unless you very new to the craft, books like these aren’t worth reading in detail. There’s only so much you can say about writing; read enough writing books and you get the feeling you’ve been listening to a bunch of bad cover bands. 

However, the good how-to-write books teach you lessons the others don’t. For example, though every how-to-write book talks about the writer’s necessity to read a lot, Ray Bradbury’s “How to Keep and Feed a Muse” is the absolute best essay on the subject; if he doesn’t convince you, no one will. Therefore I’m always on the lookout for a good writing book.

I’m happy to say that Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools is one of these books. The most valuable lesson I learned from him (so far) is this: Use short sentences to talk about complicated ideas.

If you go back to the second paragraph of the excerpt from my book on the Trinity, you’ll see that I used only two sentences to talk about the Origen’s use of Neo-Platonism. Not good for the reader.

Now I’ve always known about the curse of academic prose, but have never been able to figure out it’s malady. Long paragraphs? Two-dollar words? Technical jargon? None of the above. Those are symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is using long sentences when dealing with complex ideas.

As William Zinsser said in On Writing Well (and I’m citing from memory): “The biggest problem writers have with the period is they don’t get to it soon enough.”

4 — Books on Writing

While we’re at it — how many writers read this blog? A few, perhaps. If you’re one, then here’s a list of the writing books I’ve found most helpful:

• William Zinsser, On Writing Well
• Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
• Ray Bradbury, Zen and the Art of Writing
• Stephen Koch, Writer’s Workshop

And for you aspiring novelists and short-story writers, here are a few more:

• John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
• Damon Knight, The Craft of Short Fiction
• James N. Frey, How To Write a Damn Good Novel
• Elizabeth George, Write Away

 And if you’re an aspiring sf/f writer, I think you’ll find these helpful:

• Orson Scott Card, How To Write Fantasy and Science Fiction
• Robert Silverberg, Science Fiction 101

5 — A Helpful Practice

When I learned how to play the guitar, I first had to learn the basics: how to hold the pick, where to put my fingers, how to read music, etc. Once mastered, I started learning how to play songs. For a while, I learned a song a week. I got the point where I could put in a CD (Metallica’s Kill ‘em All, for example; yes, I was a rocker back in the day) and play along with the album. 

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I used what I learned from real songs to write my own. I finally got to the point where I could hear a song on the radio and know exactly how it was put together.

Why is it we don’t teach writing this way? All the books on writing talk about the need to write a lot — daily, if possible. But what about learning how to write by writing out professional writer’s prose?

I had never heard of this until I read it John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist. I must have typed out a dozen or so stories. But not having a storyteller’s talent, I didn’t learn much. My typing improved, however.

Just recently, I applied this practice to nonfiction. I started typing out Frank Sheed’s The Holy Spirit in Action. After the first 1000 words I’d learned more about writing popular theology than I had in all my blog posts and half-finished articles put together. After 5,000 words (20 typed pages) I learned three times more.

How much can one learn from one writer? That’s hard to say. After about 12,000 words (about 50 typed pages), copying out a writer’s work becomes a typing exercise. You’ve learned the style. It’s only one style, however, and if you stick with it you won’t go far.

So you have to do it again, with a different writer — 50 more pages. And again with a third writer. Then a fourth, and a fifth, and so on. After a few hundred pages of copying out the words of professional writers, one should have learned enough that one can dispense with the practice.

6 — My Writers?

Provided that I decide to take writing seriously, which writers do I plan to imitate? Here’s the list:

• Frank Sheed
• Mortimer Adler
• Alban Goodier
• Ronald Knox
• C. S. Lewis
• G. K. Chesterton
• Thomas Merton

When making this list, I had two criteria in mind. 

First, the writer had to write in English — either the American version or the King’s. No translations, thank you very much. The point is to learn how to put together good, English prose, not a readable translation.

Second, the writer had to be known as a writer; they had to have a reputation as a writer. This eliminated, for example, writers such as Fr. John Hardon and Scott Hahn; both are known as exemplarily teachers, but neither (as far as I know) are hailed as great writers.

7 — Basic Discipline

Stephen King said it best: If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else — you must read a lot and you must write a lot. Which means that if I’m going to take writing seriously (and not just talk about writing, or think about it) then I have to develop a schedule and get disciplined. 

Last January, I set a serious of fiction-writing goals: To write short story a week, and to read at least 50 pages of fiction a day.

An article a week is doable, I think — at least the rough draft is. The typical article is between 1,000 and 3,000 words (4 to 12 pages), where as the typical short story is between 5,000 and 7,500 words (20 to 30 pages). I’m assuming that just as fiction writers write stories that don’t work, nonfiction writers write articles that don’t work. That’s okay. It’s part of the learning process.

For reading, 50 pages of nonfiction a day is a bit much. I know, I’ve tried. If I do this, I really think I’m going to limit myself to 200-page books. Why? Because I then should be able to read a book a week. That’s a fine practice. 

But I must ask, “Is this something I want to do?”

In the previous post entitled, “How to Practice Poverty Today,” Perry left the following comment:

I too struggle with this beatitude.  Part of my problem stems from trying to understand “poverty of spirit”.  I’m always asking myself the questions: Do I try to increase my income for my family or just make what I have reach?  If I earn more and give away more is that better?  I’ve often considered spending time reading, studying and praying about this subject trying to determine how I am to live this out in my own life.

Reading, studying, and praying about how to live the first beatitude is certainly the first step toward living it. For my money and time, the best place to start is with Fr. Thomas Dubay’s Happy Are You Poor: The Simple Life and Spiritual Freedom. 

Fr. Dubay’s thesis is this: Gospel poverty means living a sparing and sharing lifestyle.

It’s a challenging book — one of the most challenging books I’ve read. I can’t say that I’ve applied any of it’s principles in my own life. One problem is where I live. Relative to the lifestyle of most of the people around me, I live a pretty simple life. Another problem is that I don’t have extravagant desires. I don’t want a Lexus, a Rolex, or designer clothes. The vast majority of money I spend on me (rather than on my kids, or on household items) I spend on books. The most extravagant personal desire I’ve had in a long time is a MacBook — which isn’t all that extravagant, relatively speaking. So in a way I live a sparing lifestyle — at least compared to those around me. 

This is true of my family also. Though my wife has a well-paying job and we live a more-or-less upper-middle-class lifestyle, we’re not rich. But we don’t have cable by choice, don’t have the top of the market Internet service, and don’t spend a lot on entertainment. We’re fairly frugal with our money by nature, and we do have four kids, and we’d like to send them to a solid Catholic university. So the question is: Could we be sharing more?

A friend tells me that it’s almost impossible for one to answer these question about oneself — especially if one is married and has a few kids. We’re too close to the way we live, particularly if we’re already life a relatively simple life. We need spiritual guidance in this area. I think he’s right.

I read Fr. Dubay’s book about a year ago, and the one conclusion I have come to is this: Though it might be difficult — if not entirely prudent — to try to live a simpler life on the objective level, I can try to live a simpler live on the subjective level. Here’s what I mean.

Given I have four kids, a mortgage, a house to maintain, homeschooling expenses, etc., I’m not sure how I can simplify the objective part of my life. Nor am I sure how I can be more sharing with my money.

However, I can do things on the subjective level. Do I really need that book right now? Could I pass on grabbing a bite out and wait till I get home? Could I take better care of my clothes so they don’t wear out as fast? Could I cut back on how much I eat? These are fundamental questions that challenge me (and not my family) to live a spirit of poverty. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ve succeeded all that well.

I’d love to hear your ideas on this rather troubling aspect of the Christian life.

From Fr. John Hardon’s “Poverty in the Modern World”:

Certainly, the Gospels were meant to be lived not only in first century Palestine, but in twentieth century North America. The crucial question is how. The following are some directives. While referring directly to poverty, their underlying principles apply equally to the practice of Christian chastity and charity. Along with poverty, they form the triad of virtues that are mainly on trial in the affluent, sexual and self-preoccupied societies of our times.

1. We must be convinced on faith that the First Beatitude of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount is a divinely revealed truth. Only the poor in spirit will inherit the Kingdom of heaven. We shall be only as zealous about practicing poverty as we are convinced that our salvation depends on our being, and not merely professing to be, poor in spirit.

2. It is not quite true to say that an abundance of worldly possessions is no hindrance to salvation. It is.

3. We must pray to understand how we, in our state of life, with our possessions of money, property, living facilities, food, clothing, means of travel and entertainment are nevertheless to remain poor in spirit.

4. We must be sincere with God in telling Him that we are interiorly detached from the material things we possess or have access to. Self-deception is easy when I have all that I want of earthly satisfactions and then verbally tell God that my heart is not addicted to what I enjoy.

5. We should examine our conscience daily on this internal detachment from what may externally surround us like the air that we breathe. Poverty of spirit is not a figure of speech. It is a living reality. If I am truly practicing the First Beatitude, I will experience something of what it means to be poor.

6. If I am practicing poverty of spirit, I will be industrious. Poor people have to work for a living. “To labor is to pray,” says St. Benedict. And Thomas à Kempis asks, “Why do you want to rest, since you are born to labor.”

7. If I am practicing poverty of spirit, I will be sensitive to the material needs of others. Poverty of spirit means charity of spirit. I want to share what I have with others; and not only of my superfluities, but even of my necessities.

8. A good index of how poor we are is how peaceful we are in spirit. Worry and anxiety about the things of this world are, on Christ’s own testimony, signs of a lack of trust in God’s providence. According to St. Alphonsus Liguori, this means detachment “not only from what is valuable, but also from what is trifling.”

9. Internal detachment from worldly things frees the human heart for attachment to heavenly things. The more time we have in our leisure society, the more time we should give to prayer.

10. The world in which we live needs our witness of poverty. People who know what we believe should see our faith put into practice. It will take much light from God to live among the affluent and yet remain internally poor. We must call upon all the resources of grace to be patient and prudent and kind in our dealings with others without compromising our fidelity to Christ who became a poor Child to show us the way to heaven.

For me, Number 6 is the most daunting: If I am practicing poverty of spirit, I will be industrious. My biggest fear is that on judgment day I will see how many years I wasted watching TV, reading bad fiction, and surfing the internet; and then I’ll see what I could have done if I had used my time more wisely.

So, which one do you find most challenging/insightful/instructive/etc?

The section of the Catechism that treats Catholic morality is called “Life in Christ.” Section One is called “Man’s Vocation: Life in the Spirit.” Chapter One is entitled “The Dignity of the Human Person.” And then we get to the first article: “Our Vocation to Beatitude.” Since vocation means “call, and beatitude means “happiness,” we could rename the title of Article One as “Our Call to Happiness.”

That the Church puts happiness as one of the foundations of the moral life is rather astounding, when you think about it. But what’s more astounding is that this is confirmed by Scripture! 

In Genesis 2, God made Eve for Adam so he should not be alone. Thus the primary relationship human in which humans engage — marriage — was created in was created by God for our happiness. 

Then in Genesis 12, which is the beginning of God’s definitive and salvific action in human history, God gives Abram his heart’s desire — children. It will be through Abraham’s offspring that the joy and happiness of salvation will be given to the world.

Finally, the beginning of the sermon with which Christ began his public ministry — the Sermon on the Mount — he tells us exactly how to be happy: “Blessed are the poor in spirit … blessed are the pure of heart … blessed are those who hunger after righteousness.”

The three definitive beginnings — the beginning of human life, the beginning of salvation history, and the beginning of the everlasting covenant — all begin with God revealing his desire for us to be happy.

As Serais Pinckaers says in The Pursuit of Happiness — God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes:

This feature of the beatitudes [their emphasis on happiness] also leads us to revise a certain idea of God’s designs for us which is overly marked by fear. God has placed the desire for happiness in the heart of every man as a fundamental thrust, and He wants to respond to it by sharing His own happiness with us, if we will allow ourselves to be led by Him along paths known to Him alone. Our God does not love unhappiness. He takes no pleasure in tragedies and terrors, as the devil would have us believe when he arouses the anxieties and fears hidden in our depths. God always has happiness and joy in view. He wants us to believe this for His sake, on His own word.

If one of the foundations of Catholic morality is happiness, what does that mean for the moral life? Or perhaps the better (or more precise question) is this: What is the relationship between happiness and objective moral precepts? How do you convince a 17 yr. old that he’ll be happier if he abstains from sex until he’s married? How do you convince a husband that cheating on his wife will make him unhappy? 

And we can’t use the secular reasons to answer this question. You can tell the 17 yr. old that pre-marital sex will make him unhappy because he might get a girl pregnant or might contact an STD. Teenagers are invincible. And you can’t tell the adulterer that he should stop because if his wife finds out she’ll want a divorce and take him for half of what he’s worth. 

Remember, we’re talking about Catholic morality, not social virtue (which, alas, no longer exits in Western culture). Thus our concern is with happiness and God. So how does God make a chaste teenager happy? How does God make a faithful spouse happy?

The answer is difficult because the West’s typical definition of happiness is instant gratification. The West has a microwave mentality. When we want something, we get it. But chastity and faithfulness don’t give us instant gratification. The happiness virtue provides — and the happiness God ultimately provides — comes much later. 

Thus one of the battles the catechist has when talking about morality is to get people to stop thinking only five minutes into the future. Barring tragedy, life is a journey, our race is a marathon. To gratify the moment’s desire without giving a bit of thought to the long haul is stupidity.

And, sadly, that’s where we’re at.

In our never-ending battle to put Christ back into Christmas, what Pope Benedict XVI says about the Christmas tree needs should be understood by all — especially children.

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- “With its loftiness, its green [color] and the lights in its branches, the Christmas tree is a symbol of life that points to the mystery of Christmas Eve,” says Benedict XVI.

With this, the Pope explained Friday the Christian meaning of the Christmas tree. He was speaking to the delegation from the Austrian region that donated the 108-foot-tall tree in St. Peter’s Square.

“Christ, the Son of God, brings to the dark, cold, unredeemed world in which he was born, a new hope and a new splendor,” the Holy Father said.

He went on to recall the “deeply Christian soul of Austria,” and he encouraged the pilgrims to “work so that also in the future, this testimony of Christ remains vibrant, to give men support and guidance in their lives.”

“If man allows himself to be touched and enlightened by the splendor of the living truth that is Christ,” the Bishop of Rome affirmed, “he will experience an interior peace in his heart and will himself become an instrument of peace in a society that has so much nostalgia for reconciliation and redemption.”

The tree, a Norway spruce from the municipality of Gutenstein in Lower Austria, was decorated with some 2,000 ornaments and 1,500 lights.

Our pastor retired at the end of October. I was asked by our deacon if I’d help out with RCIA. Sure, I said, no problem. I showed on my slotted night (deacon had petitioned others to help out as well), led the discussion, and absolutely loved it. So I did the natural thing - I offered to take it over full time. 

My first class as the official instructor is this Wednesday. The topic is the sacraments of healing –Confession and Anointing of the Sick. A few weeks after Christmas break, we’re diving into Catholic morality. Which is my weakest area, at least in terms of systematic understanding.

Thus I have about six weeks to rectify my knowledge. To do this, I plan to read the following books:

• Part Three of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
• Morality: The Catholic View by Servais Pinckaers
• The Pursuit of Happiness - God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes by Servais Pinckaers
• Living the Good Life: What Every Catholic Needs to Know About Moral Issues by Mark Lowery
• Parts IIa and IIb of My Way of Life: The “Summa” Simplified for Everyone by Walter Farrell and Martin Healy
• Part Two of The Catholic Catechism by Fr. John Hardon

But reading won’t be enough. I also have to think deeply about these issues. The best way to do that, I’ve found, is to write about them. So expect a lot of posts about Catholic morality over the next few months.

As I noted in Saturday’s “Diverse Deliberations,” I sadly discovered (or finally accepted) that I can no longer read popular fiction. It makes me want to write it. While reading and writing fiction isn’t a sin, it is something I believe the Lord is asking me to sacrifice. What do I mean by this?

Fr. John Hardon said that all the creatures in our lives can be put into one of four categories: things to be enjoyed, things to be endured, things to be removed, and things to be sacrificed:

Some of these persons, places and things, some of these thoughts and desires are to be enjoyed. We’d better, we’d better identify which of these persons, places and things God wants us to enjoy. And, thank God for providing these enjoyable creatures in our lives. But first, make sure you know what persons, what places, what books, what experiences God wants you to enjoy.

God puts into our lives, hear it, deliberately, this is God, God puts persons, places and things into our lives that He wants us to endure. Father, are you saying there are persons in our lives placed there by God for us to endure? Yes! And we’d better know which creatures God wants us to endure. After today’s sessions, you wives, please don’t go back to your husbands and tell them, “I learned something I never knew before. God put you into my life, that by enduring you, I might reach my heavenly destiny.”

There are creatures in our lives that God wants us to get rid of, remove. Why? Oh, they may be very pleasant, but they are the occasions of sin. Find out what are these creatures? What thoughts, what desires, what reading, what radio and television programs are occasions of sin and remove, and the word is remove, these creatures from your life.

And finally, what creatures does God want me, not to remove because they are occasions of sin, but that God wants me to sacrifice, to give up. Not because I have to, but because out of love for God, I surrender, give up, in other words, sacrifice.

What I’ve learned is that to sacrifice a good requires, well, sacrifice. It’s not easy to sacrifice something we want to keep. If the sacrifice were easy, we’d have to wonder about the it’s quality. True sacrifice hurts. That’s what makes it so difficult.

Episode #8 of the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast is up! 

In this last of five episodes that treat Luke 1.26-38, we dive into the biblical text itself and attempt to understand the Annunciation narrative as a whole.

In this verse-by-verse interpretation, we contrast the annunciation to Mary with the annunciation of Zachariah. This is the only way to truly grasp what Luke is trying to communicate.

One of the highlights of this episode is seeing how Luke 1.26-38 supports the traditional Catholic belief that Mary had taken a vow of virginity before become betrothed to Joseph. Thus when Mary asked “How can this be, since I have no husband?” she was asking how she was to keep her vow of virginity with God’s desire for her to become a mother. The answer, of course, is the virginal conception of Jesus.

Go here to listen to the episode!