Five Minutes of Awesomeness

I'd say this video fits the theme of this blog rather well. Learn about the Big Bang vs. the Big Banger. Learn about what requires blind faith and a closed mind. Learn about what requires only reason and an open mind.

Divine Availability

Recently, a good friend of mine, who is a candidate for the Diaconate, gave me a copy of an article that appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of the periodical Pro Ecclesia. This article is entitled "Divine Disponibilité: The Hypostatic Ethos of the Holy Spirit" by Khaled Anatolios. This article has changed my understanding of the Trinity, especially in regard to the Holy Spirit.

Khaled Anatolios

It is a fairly heavy article, not read only once and put away. It is one of those that comes in layers. The first reading yields much, hinting at more. The second reading more fully fleshes out the ideas, hinting again at meanings underlying the metaphors and making connections yet unguessed.

A really good post was made about this article soon after it came out by Peter Leithart in the First Things blog here. While it is an excellent summary, I'd like to present the first fly-by of concepts here, 10 years later.

First of all, Anatolios laments that the Holy Spirit's place in the Trinity is vague and confusing and whose acts are often confused and conflated with those of the Son. Yet Scripture clearly demonstrates the discreteness of the divine Persons. He points out that the clearest distinction is made when the Holy Spirit is seen alternately as "gift" or "mutual love." The term "gift" is primarily stressed by the Eastern churches and "mutual love" by the Western tradition. His goal is to create a synthesis of the two different conceptions of the Holy Spirit that more fully shows the uniqueness of the third Person of the Trinity and the surprising unity of both metaphors.

He then introduces the concept of "availability" (French: disponibilité) as applied to human, or interpersonal interactions by the French philosopher, Gabriel Marcel.
For Marcel, there are five aspects of availability for human relationships.

1. Availability to others outwardly, contrasted to un-availability where one is closed-off to others; seeing the other person as someone who could be me
2. Availability to another's appeals; the ability to be appealed to, both to the needs/situation of the other and an active (non-passive) and enthusiastic receiving of the other (being open to others); appealing also in the sense of attracting/delighting in
3. Availability as the openness to commit to another; to allow the other to lay a claim to our response; the Good Samaritan exhibits this par excellence, where the robbed man's tragic circumstances alone appeal for help to the Good Samaritan
4. Availability that sees every situation as an opportunity and every circumstance as gift; placing oneself in the place of the other, not replacing, but standing together in that situation
5. Availability as love; enclosing others within our circle and sharing all with another; the father in the Prodigal Son demonstrates this

These five aspects of availability must now be examined as they apply to the Holy Spirit.

1. The Spirit makes the Word of the Father available to the world through the prophets; it is also the Spirit that is the medium that makes the Father available to the Son and the Son to the Father.  "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." (Jn 14:10)   He makes communion possible.
2. The Spirit is God's willingness to outwardly extend His Word, thus bringing about creatures that can appeal to Him.  Also, man's fallen state is construed as an appeal to God, thus calling upon God's Word into the availability of the Incarnation.  The Spirit is also the way in which we take joy in the Lord, in which we praise God and in whom the Father and Son take joy in each other.
3. The Spirit is a pledge or "down payment" from God of his gifts.  It is this that allows us to claim the undeserved sonship promised to us, laying claim as heirs to the kingdom.  It is a similar pledge between Father and Son that pledges one to the other through the Spirit.
4. The Spirit is that which transforms every human situation into divine gift.  It is in this way that "discernment" is understood.  The Spirit opens our circumstances to the divine life. Also, it is through the Spirit that the Scriptures were written and only through that same Spirit can they be interpreted.  It is only when divine and human availability meet that Scripture is composed and, again, understood. 
5. The Spirit is love in that He effects the mutual availability between the Father and the Son.  He also brings about a mutual availability of the Father and the Son to others.  The Father and Son face inward individually in love through the Spirit, which then enables the Father/Son to face outwardly to embrace in love all others.  So the Spirit enables both types of love, where both sides love and where only one loves another who does not love in return.

I have found that the concept of availability is extremely useful in understanding human love, but am blown away to consider how the Spirit effects and brings about love both within the Godhead (the Spirit as "love") AND from God to His creatures (the Spirit as "gift").  

The Holy Spirit is both the message and the message's medium.  He is both "love" and "loving."  It is He who makes the Father available here on earth initially through the prophets, then through the Incarnation and ultimately indwelling within us beginning at Pentecost.  He brings God's love to earth to envelop us in its embrace, pulling us in, and then outwardly enables us to bring that same love to those who do not yet know that embrace.

Wow.  

My Dear Mother Mary

It’s been three years since my son’s Godmother passed away at age 46, far exceeding her original life expectancy. She suffered from Cystic Fibrosis and succumbed on August 22, 2010.

She was a faithful Catholic (to say the least) that wrote prodigiously. All her final journal entries began with “Dear Mother Mary”. As a read them, I began to see the entries as a kind of Anti-Screwtape Letters. If you are familiar with the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you will recall that each letter began with “My Dear Wormwood”, but those letters are sinister, these letters are the precise opposite.

She and her husband were planning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the summer of 2010, but the Lord prepared a final pilgrimage to holiness instead. Below is her final journal entry. Since the number three in scripture can be symbolic of “perfection”, I thought it fitting to share this exactly three years later on the Feast of the Assumption.

                                                                                                Sunday, Aug 15, 2010

                                                                                                Feast of the Assumption

Dear Mother Mary,

Happy Feast Day!  What a glorious moment that must have been to be reunited with your Abba, your spouse, your son.

Today was the day we were to begin our travels to the Holy Land.  Today was the day I wondered if I was going to end my pilgrimage on earth.  Even up to this afternoon’s CPT, I still felt unwell.

I was delighted that I seemed to figure out the Tobra was causing problems.  As more and more time passes since my last dose of it, I feel so much better, OK, I am still sick, but I can breathe again! The Dr. doubled my diuretic dose and that has helped a lot too I guess.

Somehow the Lord is allowing me to get back to normal(ish?). Many, many people are praying for us.  Was this recovery a gift from you Mother Mary to celebrate your feast day which is a celebration of God’s love and mercy?

My head is pounding though, so I think I need to bring this to a close.

Thank you that Father came by today and anointed me and listened to my confession.  What an awesome gift!  I received so much today!  Happy Feast Day!

                                                                                                                        Love,

                                                                                                                       Janice

 

The number seven in scripture is often symbolic of “completion”. Jan went home to the Lord seven days after writing this, on August 22, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary. These were the last words she ever wrote. What a fitting way to begin eternal life and what a fitting example to us about fostering a relationship with the Mother of God.

Happy Feast Day Dear Mother Mary!

Heterosexuals Caused Same-Sex Marriage

Does this post title shock you? It is a hard teaching. Who could accept it? I too was taken back when I first heard it from someone else, but it didn’t take long to see the logic. Heterosexuals have been watering down the true meaning of marriage for decades. A slippery slope need not be as fast as the metaphor implies. A lava flow can be slower than 1km/hour, but will destroy everything in its path.

The foundation for the marriage slope was laid by ending the idea of “permanent”. No fault divorce laws coincided with a message that marriage is a mere convenience, an institution that exists only for the personal happiness and pleasure of two individuals. For no fault divorce, it's basically enough to declare that a couple is no longer happy (irreconcilable differences). There is no need to “work things out”.  We can hardly blame the gay community for this. In the eyes of God however, divorce doesn’t really exist. A couple may need to be legally parted in the case of abuse or other intolerable circumstance (CCC 2383), but once God joins a valid one-flesh-union, it exists. There is no way to make it stop existing. Consider your life. Once you are conceived, you exist. Nothing that happens down the road will change this.

If no fault divorce is the foundation, artificial contraception/sterilization raised-up the angle for the sliding slope of marriage. Homosexuals have no use for contraception or sterilization, so don’t blame them. If marriage is for the personal happiness and pleasure of two individuals, then children are obviously an unnecessary by-product. Contraception blows apart the triune nature of marriage, sex & procreation, furthering the idea that marriage is about mutual gratification and sex is for anyone’s pleasure, married or not. Once the rationale is fragmented, the gay community can easily pick-up the scattered pieces of marriage and reform them into something “else”, something that does not reflect the image & likeness of God.

My wife and I help with the marriage ministry at our parish. One thing we do for the engaged couples is give a talk on sex & intimacy in marriage, which relates to the theology of the body, which relates to the image & likeness of God, which relates to the way God loves. From the eternal love between the Father and the Son proceeds a third person called the Holy Spirit. In a similar way, the love between a husband and wife helps to create a third person called a baby. Consider the Catholic wedding vows as well:

Ø  Have you come here freely?

God loves freely, so we should love freely. Love is an act of the will that cannot be forced.

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down (my life) of my own accord..." (John 10:18)

Ø  Will you honor each other as man & wife for the rest of your lives?

God holds nothing back in loving us totally and permanently.

“…he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1)

“…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Mat 28:20)

Ø  Will you accept children lovingly from God?

God’s love is always fruitful and brings life. Marriage does the same.

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

"Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” (Gen 9:1)

Procreation is an indispensable part of marriage and the one flesh union should always be something totally self-giving that holds nothing back; it should be God-like. Catholics call this being “open to life”. Whenever procreation is mentioned as part of marriage however, infertile couples are called on the carpet. If infertile couples can marry, why can’t gay couples? We must remember that an infertile male/female union is still of the same procreative “type” just like any male/female union.

Consider a baseball analogy. A baseball team is orientated to winning baseball games. Even if they NEVER win a game, no matter how much they try, they are still a baseball team and are always allowed on the baseball diamond. A football team also NEVER wins a baseball game, but a football team is not relevant to winning baseball games, neither is a soccer team, or any other kind of team other than a baseball team.

It is really heterosexuals that built the slow sliding slope that leads directly to gay “marriage”. True marriage reflects the image & likeness of God. It is meant to be unitive, procreative, mutually exclusive and permanent and none of these aspects can be intentionally separated. This is not true because the Catholic Church teaches it. The Catholic Church teaches it because it is true!

A Marriage Proposal

With all the talk about same-sex marriage (SSM) in recent days, I’d like to make a marriage proposal. I’d like to propose that the rational basis for secular marriage in every culture, from China to Chattanooga, is not love, or sexual attraction, or property rights, or civil rights. It is procreation; procreation within a unique framework. Defining marriage as one man and one woman, and the way humans reproduce, isn’t just some weird coincidence.

Any definition requires limits to make one thing distinct from another. Procreation within a certain context is what makes marriage distinguishable from any other type of human relationship. If this seems ludicrous to you, let’s take a closer look.

2 become 1

What about “rights”?

If marriage was about property rights or civil rights, why discriminate (for centuries) against people NOT sexually attracted to each other? Why sex? For example, why is it prohibited for close relatives to marry? The reason is because the rationale for secular marriage is procreation (inbreeding tends toward genetic defects).

If it were about rights, why bother with any specific number? Why can’t 3 or more people agree to marry and share rights? The reason is because only one male and one female are needed for procreation, so there is no reason for the government to give incentive for more than this; it only complicates things.

What about “love”?

If it were about “love” (or sexual attraction) would pre-arranged marriages be legal? What about marrying for immigration reasons or financial reasons? Would a 25-year-old super model need to prove her “love” before marrying an 80-year-old billionaire?

Aside from all this, if the rational basis was indeed love, it begs a question. Why would any government care about who or how their citizens "love" and see some need to issue a license for it and grant privileges? How would the government define love? Must it be only sexual love? Why mutually exclusive? How could they distinguish between love and lust?

The government should be about the business of the common good, so secular marriage must be for something more than the gratification and happiness of only two individuals, more than just accommodating a “special interest”, more than government acknowledgment for the sake of government acknowledgment.



Give 'em the ring finger.

Last, but certainly not least, why procreation?

The nature of permanent male/female unions leads directly to the very building blocks of a nation just like the cells of a body. Strong families and a productive future citizenry are the result if done right. This clearly relates to not only the common good, but the very survival of a population. It explains why any nation-state would give incentive & recognize a permanent male/female union as UNIQUE among all other types of human relationships.
 

Many relationships, other than marriages, have tremendous personal significance to those involved. The fact that we do not call them marriages is not evidence of bigotry, but recognition of reality.

What about infertile couples or couples who do not want children?

This question brings a new question. Should marriage be defined as any man and any woman or only those willing & able to have children? This new debate would bring much discussion, but the question itself does not logically justify SSM.
 

Heterosexual couples are fertile by nature with some exceptions, so exceptions can be debated. Homosexual couples are infertile by nature with NO exceptions. The former could change their mind or seek fertility treatments, the latter cannot. Even in the case of certain infertility, the former is still properly orientated to that unique type of union that can build an entire nation, the latter is not.

Other things that do not explain the existence of secular marriage:

Ø  Adoption:

Adoption is not procreation; it is about how to deal with children that are already here and have no one to care for them. If adoption is the same as procreation and justifies marriage, then why not let a father and his adult son get married?  Why not a group of celibate nuns? Who’s to say they could not raise adopted children just as well as anyone else?

What about the gay couple that has already adopted a child? Could not a legal arrangement be made between two adults and a child without redefining marriage into something unintelligible for an entire society?

What gives?

Ø  Surrogate Mothers:

This IS procreation, but NOT in the framework that secular marriage intended. If surrogate motherhood equates a true procreative union, and therefore justifies marriage, why not let any group of people, like a softball team for example, pay women to have babies and then allow the entire group to marry? Additionally, surrogate motherhood does not occur naturally as part of a human union (neither does adoption). Could not a single individual effectively adopt or employ a surrogate? Why involve marriage?

Ø  Impregnation:

This does not require two women, but women in a lesbian partnership could always find a way to get pregnant with help from a man. This is also procreation, but again, not in the context that secular marriage proposes. If impregnation equates a true procreative union, and therefore justifies marriage, why not let a mother and her adult daughter get married?

Why not just change the rationale?

Public institutions shape our ideas and ideas have consequences. As mentioned, any definition requires limits, and limits require a rationale. This is what makes a circle a circle and a square a square. They are both shapes, but they are not the same. If marriage means whatever you want, then it can mean anything, which makes it mean nothing. Removing the rational basis for a norm will erode adherence to that norm.

Think about it!

Thinking means connecting things and any kind of rational thinking involves asking coherent questions and finding intelligible answers. Why sex? Why exclusive? Why two? Why permanent? Why property? Why government? Why rights? Why bother? Procreation links all these ideas.

Our society is getting very proficient at making assertions & demands, but not so skilled at asking & answering “why”.

Winning the Culture War

The last post on this blog reflected on a talk by Dr.Peter Kreeft about why Catholics are losing the culture war. In light of all the same-sex marriage talk lately, it seems more than appropriate to share some insights from the second half of the talk entitled  “Winning the Culture War”, available on CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media.

Political or judicial action to keep marriage defined in civil law as it is in natural law is fine, but this kind of action is geared more toward the effect of the problem than toward the cause. Almost all dissent from Catholic teaching today involves something sexual and I think the problem of sexual sin in our culture can be framed as follows:

 

Here is the gist of a seven-point plan on how to take corrective action on the problem of sexual sin and win the culture war from the root of the battle:

1. Give to Caesar what is Caeser’s: It’s not about politics. Fight Christ’s war using Christ’s weapons of truth and love. In the end politics must be based on force (soldiers, police and lawyers). This is not The Way Jesus spoke of.

2. Stop the Happy-Talk: You are in a war, so shut-up and fight! But be a happy warrior because it is a glorious war. Losing your hope is like losing your faith because we know God always wins in the end.



3. Stop the busyness: Be Mary instead of Martha or do the works of Martha in the spirit of Mary (see Luke 10:38-42). Seek a contemplative presence with God. When Jesus comes to your house, stop cleaning the house and clean your mind instead.

4. Forget what is fashionable: …and all the time and energy it absorbs. Give Christ the loaves and fishes of your life and He will multiply them. Start spending time in Eucharistic adoration (even if you don’t feel like it) and He will change you. Do it as an act of the will.

5. Conquer the sexual revolution: As mentioned above, almost all dissent in the Church has to do with sexuality. Abortion, homosexuality, contraception, women’s ordination, inclusive language, fornication, divorce & remarriage all have an aspect of sexuality to them.

Anything between consenting adults is now justified and often glorified, even murder. We demand sex without babies. Since unrestricted sex is so indispensable we dispose of the babies instead, and the killing must remain just as unrestricted as the sex. What other examples of killing innocent life is tolerated like this? Not even the killing of animals. Even some trees have more rights.

The answer is JP2’s Theology of the Body. It’s like reading St. Augustine in the 5th century or St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century.  It’s the big picture. It’s the plug in the dam of our cracked society.

6. Be a saint:  Saints understand one thing very well; God is God and we are not. Saints give God EVERYTHING. This is easier said than done. I like to equate it to weight loss. What’s so difficult about weight loss? If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight; VERY simple. What could be simpler? But how difficult it is to lose weight with our natural tendency towards fatty food, our bad habits, hunger pains and the culture of food we live in? So it is with the culture of death and we need God’s Grace to overcome it.

Whether it’s something sinful or saintly, it all starts with thoughts. “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. Be saintly, not spiritual: Do not seek only the subject of God; seek the object of God. Do not seek subjective truth, but objective truth. Reject the motto “I feel, therefore I believe”. Reject the axiom that says the only sin is upsetting someone. Seek repentance instead of self-esteem. Love holiness, not niceness. Replace the fear of man with the fear of God.

Fighting the culture war involves fighting some BIG lies and the bigger the lies the bigger the suckers. Some lies are so big that they become hard to see unless you step back from the fray to see the big picture. The earth always looks flat until you break-free of worldly gravitation and start seeking the heavens. The message to all Catholics is clear. Seek first the Kingdom of God and the rest of the victory will be given to you.

Catholic Phony

Peter Kreeft has a fascinating way to describe how Catholics have been losing the culture war over the past few decades in a talk called “Winning the Culture War”, available on CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media. He describes how Satan plots to destroy Catholics à la Screwtape Letters. In case you are not familiar, The Screwtape Letters is a book by C.S. Lewis about an older demon, Uncle Screwtape, writing a series of letters to his nephew, Wormwood, about how to land a Christian in Hell.

 

The talk begins by explaining that God is being itself and the goal of Satan is to move us away from true being or “the real”, and move us toward non-being or “the unreal”. Moving toward the unreal makes us phony, and he used the acronym of P-H-O-N-E-Y to make some powerful points. Ironically, even the acronym of PHONEY is phony since it’s spelled incorrectly. The speaker seems intelligent enough to have planned it this way, but whatever the case, it is a very clever approach to bringing out problems within the Church that may not seem like problems on the surface. It acts almost like a modern-day examination of conscience. Are you P-H-O-N-E-Y?

Now hear this!

PLEASE NOTE: The following is paraphrased from Dr. Kreeft's talk and is written in the context of Satan giving instructions to other demons on how to completely destroy Catholics (along with the rest of civilized society), while at the same time making them think they are really faithful and quite helpful to the world.

 

 

 

P is for Politicization:

Make them treat politics as religion and religion as politics. Make them worship the elephant or the donkey instead of God. In this way they will make politics absolute and religion relative.

H is for Happy-Talk:

Keep them focused on peace, love, tolerance and non-judgmentalism. Convince them that the spiritual battleground is really a spiritual playground. Make them forget that in the past few decades they have lost about half their priests, two thirds of their nuns, Mass attendance went from 75% to 25% and confessions have been reduce by even more.

Don’t let them see that Catholic families are being destroyed at about the rate as non-Catholic families. They abort, contracept, sodomize, fornicate and divorce at about the same rate as everyone else, but make sure to convince them that all this is “progressive”. Of course we know that calling someone who supports these things “progressive” is like calling a cannibal a chef.

O is for Organizationalism:

Make sure they see the Church as an organization, not an organism; an earthy business instead of a supernatural mystery. Make them want success and not sanctity. Make them fear failure and not sin. Keep them busy and distracted; make them Marthas instead of Marys.

 

Do not allow any silence in their lives; prevent it at all costs because silence can lead to the “one thing” spoken of by Him at the house of Mary & Martha. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Use all the power and principalities at your disposal to keep them from contemplative silence which leads directly to the “one thing”. Nothing is more devastating to us and we have no defense against it (see Luke 10:38-42).

 

N is for Neo-Worship (worship of the new or fashionable):

Teach them that what is new is true and what is old is false. Make sure that they dismiss their “old’ weapons against evil and refer to them as “pre-Vatican II”. These things should include the Mass, the Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration, frequent confession, the Rosary, any traditional devotion to Mary or the saints, all dogmas and the whole idea of infallibility. In fact, it may even be possible to convince them Jesus himself is “pre-Vatican II”.

E is for Egalitarianism, especially among the sexes:

Men are superior to women at being men, and women are superior to men and being women, but make them think that men and women are the same. In this way the beauty of men and women is negated like making the beauty of black and the beauty of white into a dull gray. Make certain that any non-physical difference noted between men and women is immediately labeled as sexist bigotry. This will keep them quiet about the reality of the sexes.

Y is for Yuppiedom or Hedonism:

Make them shoppers instead of saints. Addiction to the comforts of this world will make them unwilling and unable to practice sacrificial love or embrace suffering. Make them want Christ without the cross, which is the same as no Christ at all.

Some Final Instructions:

Turn strength into weakness, but call it compassion. Make faithfulness faithlessness and have them call faithfulness fanaticism. Make them think of humility as stupidity and obedience as cowardice. Don’t overestimate them when they are lacking God’s Grace. In this state it is possible to convince them that good is evil and evil is good. Don’t underestimate yourselves; you can coax them into believing that snow is black if you need to. Make everything lead away from reality which will lead them to insanity. The unreal is the same as non-being, which is the same as non-living, which is exactly where we want them. Remember, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).


The 2nd part of Peter Kreeft's talk deals with how Catholics can ultimately win the culture war. I’ll share some notes & thoughts on that part in a week or two. Until then, God bless.