Early Church Fathers, Sunday, March 11 2012, St Clement of Alexandria

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"But faith, which the Greeks disparage and regard as useless and barbarous, is a voluntary preconception, the assent of piety; “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of those things which are’ not seen,” according to the divine Apostle. “For by it most especially did the men of old have testimony borne to them; and without faith it is impossible to be pleasing to God.  Others, however have defined faith as an intellectual assent to a thing unseen, since certainly the proof of a thing unknown is manifest assent. … He, then, that believes Scriptures with firm judgment, receives, in the voice of God, who gave the Scriptures, an unquestionable proof. Nor by proof does faith become more firm. Blessed, therefore. are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

St Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children

Friday Florilegia, Friday, March 9, 2012

Reading 1 Dn 3:25, 34-43

Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud:
"For your name's sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,

or make void your covenant.
Do not take away your mercy from us,
for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,
Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,
To whom you promised to multiply their offspring
like the stars of heaven,
or the sand on the shore of the sea.
For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,
brought low everywhere in the world this day
because of our sins.
We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader,
no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,
no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.
But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received;
As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks,
or thousands of fat lambs,
So let our sacrifice be in your presence today
as we follow you unreservedly;
for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.
And now we follow you with our whole heart,
we fear you and we pray to you.
Do not let us be put to shame,
but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.
Deliver us by your wonders,
and bring glory to your name, O Lord."

A Word on Wednesday, Wednesday, March 7, 2012, St Elizabeth Ann Seton

Image via WikipediaIf I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate . . . Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better.

                                               St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Early Church Fathers, Sunday, March 4 2012, Eusebius

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While [Ignatius of Antioch] was making the journey through Asia under the strictest military guard, he strengthened the diocese in each city where he stayed by spoken sermons and exhortations, and he especially exhorted them above all to be on their guard against the heresies which then for the first time were prevalent and he urged them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles to which he thought it necessary, for securities sake, to give form by written testimony (Ecclesiastical History, 3:36 [A.D. 325]).

Freedom of Conscience, Saturday, March 3, 2012

 It’s the liberal argument, made especially vehemently in the controversy over the HHS mandate, that religious belief should not be introduced into public life.  I’ve long felt, since I was in college and even somewhat before, that such thinking is nonsense.  Like it or not, religious feeling, for or against, is part of being human and, as humans we’re incapable of cutting ourselves up, as it were.  We can’t separate ourselves into separate compartments that allow us to act one way while playing one role, and another way in another role.  As I heard a Presbyterian minister say one time, “God isn’t just God on Sunday.” 

Something forgotten in such debates today is that one of the central philosophical notions of the Founders is that the rights enjoyed by every citizen belong to that citizen as a gift of God, not as a concession from any government or king.  Nathaniel Peters makes this case in a column on the First Things web site:

 

Furthermore, even before the twentieth century, religious liberty and talk about the rights of conscience had formally entered into the Catholic tradition. This development grew over time, from the scholastics to John Henry Newman and John Courtney Murray, but it flowered in the Second Vatican Council’s declaration “Dignitatis Humanae.” There, in light of Catholic tradition, the Council Fathers made Catholic arguments on Catholic grounds that religious freedom truly is a Catholic and Christian thing. Some have objected to this development—most notably the schismatic Society of St. Pius X—but most have come to see that the freedom to follow the dictates of one’s conscience in matters of religion is not an unfortunate concession to the modern age but a sound development of Christian truth. Today, as George Weigel recently wrote, paraphrasing Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, “the overwhelming majority of Christians believe that it is God’s will that they be tolerant of others who have different notions of God’s will. Religious tolerance, for Christians, is not a mere pragmatic accommodation to the fact of religious difference; it is a virtue, a moral good.”

Furthermore, protecting the freedom of conscience is not simply a concession to the privatizing tendencies of liberalism. Arguing for religious liberty need not entail denuding the public square. Religious liberty strives to protect a minimum standard: The government cannot coerce a person to perform an action that his conscience deems wrong on religious grounds. It shields the private exercise of religion not to keep the exercise of religion private, but rather as a necessary prerequisite for making it public. Moreover, claiming opposition to something on the grounds of private religious conscience need not inhibit separate public arguments against that thing.

Liberals, I might add, have not hesitated to make this argument when it suited their own purposes.  Peters writes:

 

For example, consider a young pacifist Quaker during the Vietnam War. The Quaker’s religious convictions prevent him from fighting in the Vietnam War. They also make him believe that all wars, not just the Vietnam War, are wrong, and that part of his duty as a Christian and a citizen is to make public arguments that this is the case. If the government seeks to ignore his conscientious objection and draft him, the Quaker can claim that the government should not violate his conscience and make him fight in the War. But in making that argument, he does not cede the separate argument that Vietnam is an unjust war—or that all wars are unjust—and he does not lose the ability to make such arguments publicly. Indeed, claiming the right not to fight in the War is his first step toward further public advocacy, on public grounds, that the War is unjust and should not be fought at all.

As Americans, we have a right to voice our deepest held beliefs publically and not to be forced to do something deeply repugnant to us morally.  The issues raised by the HHS mandate are serious philosophical and constitutional issues that affect our liberty as Americans.  I hope it won’t be obscured through the deliberate recasting, and misdirecting this in terms of separation of church and state, by which they mean something never written into the Constitution. It isn't a matter of one group, Catholics, trying to force their beliefs on the rest of the country, it's Catholic's trying to prevent the beliefs of others being forced on themselves.  It's critcal to understand the difference.

Friday Florilegia

For the next week, I suggest the reading from Matthew found in next Tuesday's readings.

Gospel Mt 23:1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
"The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people's shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation 'Rabbi.'
As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.'
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called 'Master';
you have but one master, the Christ.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

Too Busy Not to Lectio

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Too Busy Not to Lectio

In this economy, those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs have probably grown tired of the refrain, “We have to do more with less.”  Everybody’s busy and it seems the more technology we have, the worse things get.  To help provide an antidote to hectic lives, I’ve added a regular posting series on the ancient practice of lectio divina, or sacred reading.  To anyone familiar, though, with the classic practice of lectio, it should be obvious that isn’t what I’m offering here, not primarily.  What I’m suggesting is something that might be called, lectio for the overworked, or lectio for the too busy person.

The classic practice of sacred reading involves the steps I’ve include on the lectio page of this blog, which, if practiced as designed, involves some daily commitment of time and effort.  It’s usually suggested that be a daily period of a minimum of 30 minutes.  For many people, myself included, that’s a tough thing to do.  Finding 30 minutes when we can be silent and alone is near impossible with all of the other duties and responsibilities we  have.

But, spending perhaps 10 minutes of prayerful time with the Word is much less a challenge, and, I may be overstating the case, but I think no less beneficial.  Based on my own experience any regular daily time spent reading a short passage of Scripture and pondering it’s meaning for our lives can be a great blessing.  I’m hoping to encourage you to do so by providing short passages, usually from the daily Mass readings for the following week.

Suggestions

I’d like to offer a few suggestions concerning beginning and continuing this practice.  First, there are no rules.   I’m providing a short passage each week, if that passage speaks to you stay with it, even if it means continuing with it into the following week.  If it doesn’t speak to you, you might try reading the entire chapter the reading is from, or perhaps something from the preceding or following chapter.  If, as in the case of this week’s reading, the passage is from a short book, you might read the entire book and begin to pray from that, even if it means staying with the book for a week or two.  If that doesn’t help, turn to the Mass readings for that day and begin there.

Next, if a passage does speak to you in prayer, trying writing a portion of it on a card, or better, try memorizing it so as to have it with you the rest of the day.  That way, if things seem to be getting too hectic and you need to stop for a few minutes, you can review your lectio from that morning to gain some refreshment and reassurance that even in the chaos of a busy day, God is there with you.

Try to do this at the same time, in the same place, every day.  This regularity is very helpful in establishing the habit of prayer in our lives and also helps our experience of prayer. 

Finally, as you read, take it slow.  Even a passage of seven or eight verses can take several days to quietly and meditatively read through, especially in short sessions.  Reading is not, in this case, study.  You’re not trying to gain a greater understanding of something or gather useful information.  You might think of this as time wasted, at least in the way the world looks at such things.  In this case, seven or eight verses can be more than enough to keep you in prayer for the entire week; if so, so be it.  Go with the flow.

I’ll try to write more, over the next month or so, on some things I’ve learned about this way of doing a daily prayerful time of reading God’s word.  I also hope to provide more information on lectio on the new lectio page, for example helpful web resources and books on the topic.  In the meantime, if you try this I hope you discover why I say you may be too busy not to lectio.