Our Eternal Destiny: Armed Robbery, or A Warm Place By The Fire?

Today is Ascension Thursday; click here for my Ascension Thursday post on the blog Nisi Dominus. The throwback below, which first appeared on Nisi Dominus April 19th 2015, examines the (apparently) vexing question as to how Eternal Salvation differs from a mugging.. 

  Analogical thinking, it would appear, is a dying art.  I recently heard Catholic apologist and scholar Peter Kreeft on Catholic radio, and he was pointing out that brains which spend a lot of time interacting with video games and various other electronic devices simply don’t develop in the same way as those formed by extensive reading.  Among the those things that are undernourished are linear and analogical thinking.  Professor Kreeft has found that this makes it difficult to teach a subject like Theology that requires dealing with a lot of difficult and abstract ideas.

Is this your image of God?

     Over my own nearly 30 years of teaching high school students I’ve observed the same trend.  Fortunately, we still have a long way to go: while many people, especially young people, may not be as quick to grasp them as they might have been several decades ago, analogies are still the most effective way to communicate many ideas.  They have always been a preferred way of explaining Christian Doctrine: think of the parables of Jesus, or St. Paul's comparison in 1st Corinthians of the Church to a body, with all the members working together at their own assigned tasks; not only that, but one of the four traditional Levels of Meaning in scripture, the Allegorical, relies very heavily on analogical thinking.  Analogy is often the only reliable way for us who are composed of both spirit and matter to understand spiritual realities.

     Not surprisingly, analogies are also an essential tool in any dialogue with atheists and agnostics.  I recently became aware of the following analogy, which is appears to be in vogue in atheist circles: God, as we Christians envision Him, is like an armed robber with a gun to our heads, and he is offering a choice between giving him all our money (i.e., living according to the Gospel and spending eternity in Heaven), or having our brains blown out (which is spending eternity in Hell).

     Now, clearly, there are some very obvious problems with this analogy.  The vast majority of people, even many non-Christians, will have a hard time seeing going to Heaven as equivalent to getting mugged, even if we accept the premise that living a Christian life “robs” us of pleasures we might otherwise enjoy: Heaven promises something infinitely better than anything available here, whereas an armed robber does not even pretend to make our life better than it was before we met him.  And of course there is quite a lot of secular, sociological evidence that following God’s law actually makes us happier in the here-and-now.  Also, the robber analogy depicts Hell as something that God imposes on us, in which we take no initiative at all, when in fact the Catholic conception of Hell is that it is something that we choose for ourselves, contrary to God’s wish, by our rejection of his freely offered love.

Wouldn't you rather be inside?

     I propose a better analogy to communicate the eternal choice which God presents to us.  Imagine that we are standing outdoors on a cold, rainy night.  Somebody opens a door and invites us to come inside with them, where it is warm and dry (although, of course, we need to take off our wet muddy boots and our wet, dripping coats).  That’s God’s offer of eternal salvation.  We can say yes, although we are equally free to say no.  In fact, we can say “No, you can’t tell me what to do! Besides, can you prove it’s really warm and dry in there before I go in?”  and remain out in cold, wet darkness.  That’s Hell, the product of nothing but our own pride and stubbornness.

     The second analogy presents a much more accurate image of the Catholic view of our eternal destiny.  Not only that, when juxtaposed to the “armed robber” scenario, it also casts light behind it, as it were, giving observers a vivid illustration of the different worldviews that have generated each analogy: the atheist worldview which is concerned with power, force, and will, and in which one party must be the loser, and the Christian perspective, which envisions a reality in which love can triumph, and everyone can win.  Which is likely to appeal to more people in the end?

The Geometry Of Faith

“The Catholic Church,” according to G.K. Chesterton, “is much larger on the inside than it is on the outside.”  Those of us who have been out and now are in (back in, for some of us) know how true it is.  And it stands to reason: as both a worldly and a spiritual entity, the Church cannot be contained within purely physical bounds.

What is both seen and unseen?     

This sounds like sheer nonsense, of course, to those who are formed in a materialist worldview, because they reject a priori the existence of a non-physical reality.  It may be a decided minority who consciously embrace such a worldview, but many, many more unthinkingly see the world in the same way.  Explaining Catholicism and the Catholic Church under these circumstances (except, maybe, in the most zealously orthodox Catholic schools) sometimes feels like trying to converse with someone who speaks a completely different language.

    Instructing the unknowing, however, is one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy (and for some of us, it’s also part of our employment contract), so we must always search for new ways to communicate the experience of faith.  In another post, for instance (“A Dark Matter: 'Proving' God In A Materialistic World"), I discuss the cosmological theories of “dark matter” and “dark energy”  as a way of addressing the common idea that, because we can’t detect God directly using scientific instruments, it’s unreasonable to believe in him.  Scientists believe that 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is completely undetectable, but they are convinced it is there because of its observed effects on things we can detect; likewise, we can be sure of the existence of God, even though he is beyond this world, because of his effect on things (and people) that we are able to see.

The Faith Postulate

     In a similar way, there are things we can know only by experiencing them; the love of God as we experience it in His Church is a prime example.  The outsider will often dismiss this sort of knowledge as requiring an irrational, unsupported belief, since the proof comes after our initial commitment.  We might ask such skeptics to consider geometry as an analogy.  Euclidean Geometry, for instance, starts with the parallel postulate, which requires that parallel lines never meet.  It’s not proven, you simply have to take it as a given.  Once you do, of course, you find that the entire system is consistent, which validates your starting assumptions.  More importantly, you find that when you apply it to the real world, for measuring property lines, for instance, it is absolutely reliable.  Likewise the Catholic Faith: once you “step inside” and see the results in your own life, the most “reasonable” response is belief (this is Blaise Pascal's proscription for those who remain unconvinced by the logic of his famous wager).  From the inside we can also see that Christianity yields truer results on a global scale than other systems of belief (as I explain in “What Would Darwin Do?”).

     All analogies are imperfect, of course, and a skeptic might point out that, while the Catholic Church claims to hold immutable truths, we can change the parallel postulate and still come up with other internally consistent systems of geometry, systems which may not work on a plane, but work perfectly well in other contexts.  In spherical geometry, for instance, parallel lines (which are actually lines of longitude) meet exactly twice, at the poles.  This system is much more accurate than Euclidean geometry for measuring on a globe.  Spherical geometry shows us, for example, that what looks like shortest distance from, say, Chicago to Rome (a straight line from west to east) on a flat map is actually much longer than a route which loops north (or appears to “loop” north) over Greenland. 

United Airlines' graphic showing Chicago to Rome flight path

The Fullness of Truth

     The fact that there are different geometries, however, doesn’t weaken the analogy at all: if anything, it develops it further.  Like Euclidean geometry, which only works on a two-dimensional plane, the scientific worldview is an accurate and quite useful tool for interpreting reality . . . within a certain narrow focus.  It enables us to learn about and work with things that are physical and measurable, but it cannot tell us about things like love, justice, or any other reality that might exist outside of the purely physical realm. Just as a bathroom scale can tell us how much we weigh but can’t tell us our age, it cannot alone tell us anything about things outside of its set boundaries.  The Christian Revelation, on the other hand, reaches beyond the material world and gives us access to a much fuller reality, and once we accept its premises, we can see both its internal consistency and its Truth when applied to our experience.

     Maybe when we look at it in this way, it can help us explain what St. Paul means when he says: “Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19).  He is not rejecting reason, but saying that, to someone who thinks in only two dimensions, three-dimensional reasoning is incomprehensible.  Likewise with Chesterton: those on the outside of the Catholic Church often think they are looking at a plane, while from the inside we can see it in all its three-dimensional fullness.  Finally, one last quote, from one of the greatest of geometricians, Archimedes: "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world!”  Everything depends on that “place to stand”, and there’s no firmer ground than the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

(This Thursday Throwback was first published 9 March 2015 on the blog Nisi Dominus)

     

Where Have All The Fathers Gone?

Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Patron Saint of Fathers.  It seems a good time to republish one of my first blog posts, a piece on the importance of Fatherhood (originally posted January 22nd, 2014) Decline of Fatherhood It's not easy being the Dad . . . Federico Barrocci's Aeneas' Flight From Troy       One of the largest elephants in the room today (if I may further abuse an already overworked metaphor) is the decline of fatherhood.  It is just one of a number of factors in the implosion of the traditional family, but it’s a - or maybe, the - key one. If you google “the importance of the father” you’ll find 98,600,000 results. That’s 98 plus million. These are not mostly religious or conservative sources: most are related to various universities or government agencies, some are mainstream magazines not known for their cultural conservatism, such as Parenting and Psychology Today. Whatever their perspective they all have the same general message: growing up without a father is bad. Real bad.    In order to get a sense of the immensity of the problem you can to go to site of one of the organizations set up specifically to address this problem, such as The National Fatherhood Initiative at Fatherhood.org. They have lists of problem areas, including: poverty, emotional/behavioral problems, maternal & child health, crime & incarceration, sexual activity & teen pregnancy, child abuse, drug & alcohol abuse, childhood obesity, education. Not only do they cite studies and statistics, they have links to collections of studies and statistics for each category, a veritable mountain of information that is researched, published and . . . ignored. The information is there, its import is crystal clear, but it seems that nobody who is able to have an impact on public opinion is willing to say or do anything. That’s why I was so pleased to hear Maine Governor Paul Lepage address the issue (here) in such a forthright way at a public appearance a couple years ago.

Like Father, Like Son (and Daughter)

     Of course, while there are political dimensions to it, this is not primarily a political problem; its sources are social and cultural and therefore, on a deeper level, spiritual and religious. Which means we can’t expect governors, or senators or presidents, to fix it for us: the answers lie in our own attitudes, choices and behaviors.

     The Australian Catholic publication AD2000 (which I cited here also, in a recent post about church architecture) produced a fascinating article (here) a few years ago about a very important aspect of the fatherhood  crisis, especially for us as Catholics, called “Church Attendance: the family, feminism, and the declining role of fatherhood.”   The article focused on a survey done in Switzerland that examined  the relationship between the parents’church attendance and that of their children, and examined the different effects of the father’s religious practice (or lack thereof) and that of the mother. There are a variety of angles and permutations, but the big picture is this:

     .[I]f a father does not go to church, no matter how regular the mother is in her religious

     practice, only one child in 50 becomes a regular church attender. But if a father attends

     regularly then regardless of the practice of the mother at least one child in three will become a

     regular church attender.

Wow. Notice that this is for all children, by the way, not just boys. AD2000 goes on to quote an

Anglican clergyman named Robbie Low, who says:

     . . . when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and

     engagement with the world 'out there', he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for

     that role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate or just plain absent, that task

     is much harder and the consequences more profound.

This has been shown to be true over and over again, of course, although one must have courage to

say so in "polite" company these days. Vicar Low points out an important way that the decline of

fatherhood has affected his church, one which we Catholics would be wise to consider:

     Emasculated liturgy, gender-free Bibles and a fatherless flock are increasingly on offer.

     In response to this, decline has, unsurprisingly, accelerated. To minister to a fatherless

     society the Church of England, in its unwisdom, has produced its own single-parent

     family parish model in the woman priest.

Lex Orandi, etc.

Guido Reni's St. Joseph With The Infant Jesus

Guido Reni's St. Joseph With The Infant Jesus 

     It's a startling thought, but it rings true;  and while we won’t be seeing women priests in the Catholic Church (see John Paul the Great’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis [here], and the CDF document [here] affirming that the teaching on an the all-male priesthood is infallible), we are already seeing the emasculation of the liturgy in many other ways.  At all but one of the Masses in my parish the majority of lectors and extraordinary ministers are women, in some cases all of them; in all but one Mass, most or all of the altar servers are girls (and if three of my sons didn’t serve, it might be all the Masses). Among the various other things that a priest does, he is an iconic representation of the fatherhood of God. When he is surrounded by women in the sanctuary, that image is diluted. As a more practical matter, the more something is dominated by girls, the less attractive it is to boys. That may be a regrettable reality, but a reality it remains. Over the last dozen years we have seen the male/female ratio among altar servers tip ever further in the female direction. Altar serving has historically been a first step for many men in discerning a vocation to the priesthood, so as fewer boys become servers we can expect fewer “father figures” to preside at Mass and consecrate the body and blood of Christ; also, more generally, the more the Mass is seen as a “girl thing”, the more religious belief and practice themselves will seem to be “unmanly” (lex orandi, lex credendi – “the law of praying is the law of believing”), and the fewer men will bother to show up at all.

     I’m not trying to pick a fight with those whose daughters are altar servers, or who serve as lectors at Mass.  I think that it’s a good thing that we’re trying to do more than pay lip service to the truth that women enjoy a dignity equal to that of men. I also appreciate the huge number of single mothers who are struggling, sometimes heroically, to do the best they can for their children.  I’m only asking that you please look at the resources I have linked above and consider that, in a society that is destroying itself because it refuses to acknowledge the difference between women and men, we as Catholics can be a prophetic voice proclaiming and celebrating the separate but complementary roles proper to each sex.  

     On April 4th, the Feast of the Annunciation, we will (quite rightly) celebrate the Blessed Mother and her "yes" to God's plan that she be the Mother of the Savior (Luke 1:38).  Today is a reminder that Joseph also gives his assent, in his case to give up his own plans in order to be the Messiah's Father here on Earth (Matthew 1:18-25).  God saw to it that the Word Become Flesh would have both a mother and father in this world, each playing a specific role.  Wouldn't we be wise to follow his lead?

Grant,

we pray, Almighty God,

that by Saint Joseph's intercession

your Church may watch over

the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation,

whose beginnings you entrusted to his watchful care.

Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

(See also "Fatherhood and the Litany of St. Joseph" on Nisi Dominus)

Moses, Pharaoh, and Why We Preach the Gospel

(An earlier version of this Thursday Throwback was first published on 27 February 2015)

       One of the most vivid images from the Old Testament is Moses standing before Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and demanding "Let my people go!"  It's a powerful image for its own sake, but also for what it says about our own role in proclaiming the Word of God in the face of an unbelieving world.  

    We can find the depiction of Moses' confrontation with Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus, verses 6:28 through 7:25.  Here we see Moses and Aaron going to Pharaoh in order to ask him to release the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt.  Pharaoh is unwilling, and so the Hebrew leaders use miraculous signs in an effort to convince him:  Aaron throws down his staff and it turns into a snake, but Pharaoh’s magicians turn their staffs into snakes as well; even after Aaron’s snake devours the others, Pharaoh is unpersuaded.  Next, Moses turns all the water in Egypt into blood,

But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them [i.e., Moses and Aaron], as the Lord had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not lay even this to heart. (Exodus 7:22-23)

We should not be surprised that Pharaoh so easily dismissed Moses and his miracles, because God had “hardened his heart” (Exodus 7:3), and someone whose heart is hardened toward God will always be able to explain away any evidence we can offer, any arguments (however sound), and even miraculous events.  We cannot by either proof or persuasion change a mind that does not want to be changed.

Why Preach?

Am I saying, then, that it is futile to for us to contend with atheists and agnostics in a contest of ideas? By no means.  If a hard heart is the obstacle, then a softening of the heart can make change possible.   This softening only happens through the work of the Holy Spirit, but our words and actions can either help or hinder the process.  More significantly, we can plant seeds (if I may switch metaphors) that might take root in the soil prepared by the Spirit, and even somebody who is not willing to listen today may at a more fertile time remember what we have said.  The atheist philosopher Anthony Flew is one example, who late in life was finally ready to be convinced by arguments he had been rejecting for decades, and willing to embrace the reality of a Creator.  We see something similar in the case of another atheist philosopher, the Jewish-born Edith Stein, who later became a Carmelite nun and was murdered by the Nazis; we now know her as St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.

What we say is important.  How we live our lives and treat other people (expressly including those with whom we are debating) is even more important, because the good example of Christians has led to many conversions (and conversely, the bad example of Christians has chased not a few away).  Let’s return to Pharaoh for a moment.  He eventually relented and released the Hebrews after the events of the first Passover, when the lives of the first-born sons of the Egyptians were taken.  For many of us, the Holy Spirit softens our hard hearts through  suffering or misfortune.  In the Twelve Steps (the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which has now been applied in many other areas) this is known as “hitting rock bottom”: life has become so difficult, so intolerable, that a person is finally driven to consider possibilities that had been unthinkable before.   If a person who has reached such a point sees Christians living peaceful and joyful lives, he or she is likely to ask “why can’t I have that?”  Such a person is ready for conversion.  If he sees Christians who are back-biting hypocrites, on the other hand, he will probably start looking elsewhere, and the opportunity that the Holy Spirit has created will be lost.

Knowing Our Own Part

Apart from the person or persons with whom we are in direct dialogue, we also need to be aware of others who might be listening to our discussion.  Who knows where they are in their faith journey?  They might be wavering, and looking for reasons not to give up on God, or they could be someone for whom the soil has been prepared, and they are waiting for just the right seeds.  Even if the person to whom we think we are speaking never comes to conversion, what we say, and how we say it, can have a profound impact on bystanders.

    Finally, we have been commissioned to preach the Gospel by Jesus Christ Himself (Mark 16:15 -16: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.  He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned").  It seems that our Lord wants to use us as his instruments, even though it is His power that changes hearts.  Perhaps that’s why he sends Moses, who says “since I am a poor speaker, how is it possible that Pharaoh will listen to me” (Exodus 6:30), so that it is clear that it is God, and not Moses’ eloquence, that wins freedom for the Hebrews.

Seeing our proper role here is the key.  Mother Theresa used to remark that she was called not to be successful, but faithful.  This is a good reminder for all of us, because we tend to take upon ourselves responsibility for the results, when all that is under our control is the effort.  Exodus reminds us that if we do what our Lord asks us to do, He can take care of the rest.

LIFE SELLS

 

Tim Tebow

     This coming Sunday, as Americans and those who follow American football will know, is “Super Bowl Sunday”, when the National Football League has its annual championship game.  Since this sporting event typically has a larger television audience than any other program, advertisers pay enormous amounts of money for advertising time during the game. Over the years they have concocted increasingly bizarre commercials in order to catch the attention of that massive audience: twenty years ago an ad featuring an alligator and some frogs stealing a case of beer to the tune of Bob Marley's "Jammin'" [here] was a big hit; this year there will be an ad for ketchup and mustard [here] featuring dachshunds running around wearing hot dog buns (I'm not sure how appetizing most people will find it); over the past few decades there have been countless commercials that have gone as far as possible to employ the old advertising maxim, "sex sells" (sorry, no link to those).  The curious result has been, at least in years when the action on the field hasn't been particularly arresting, most of the chatter the next day is about the ads and not the game itself.
     Interestingly, the most discussed commercial six years ago was not bizarre at all: it simply showed a mother talking about her son [here] (o.k., he does appear to tackle her at the end, but that’s pretty tame for a Superbowl commercial).  The mother was Pam Tebow and her son, Tim, had just compiled one of the most spectacular college football records in memory (which, unfortunately, would not translate into comparable success as a professional).  The reason why this ad was more controversial that all those others ones filled with innuendo and grotesquery is that it was a pro-life ad.  Mrs. Tebow was talking about why she did not follow doctors’ advice and abort the baby who later became one of the most celebrated college athletes ever.  That, apparently, was shocking.

Avita Grace Wood

    

     Now, a few years later, comes the story of another child, Avita Grace Wood, whose life was saved by the same commercial.  Her mother, Susan Wood, had agreed to abort the unborn Avita, at the insistence of her boyfriend, the child’s father.  After seeing the Pam Tebow commercial, however, Susan changed her mind and chose life (full story here). As in the case of the numerous accounts of women who chose not to abort because of 40 Days for Life and other pro-life efforts, we are reminded that our faith, prayer, and witness can change hearts and save lives.  We just need to keep moving the ball down to the field.

(This Throwback is an updated version of a post that was first published as part of my Sunday Snippets post on 1 February 2015)

Whose World Would You Rather Live In?

     We are approaching the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, which in "an exercise of raw judicial power" (as Justice Byron White called it in his Roe dissent) cancelled out the abortion laws in all fifty states and short-circuited the democratic process to impose de facto abortion on demand on the United States.  It seems like a good time to republish this Worth Revisiting piece,  first published in October of 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)

     One thing that comes up when I am discussing the existence of God with young skeptics is the idea that faith (not just belief, but trust in God) is much more conducive to human flourishing than the alternative.  We see how Faith can change lives and transform people, and when we embrace it ourselves, our faith is confirmed by similar changes in our own lives.

     In spite of the empirical evidence, it’s still a tough sell. Militant atheism is a bit trendy these days, due in large part to the success of prophets of nothingness such as insect biologist Richard Dawkins (whom I previously discussed here).  Many people, and particularly young people (as I said, it's kind of trendy) have become enamored of the atheist worldview, and are always demanding “proof” - in this case, that faith supports life, and life abundantly, while atheism does not.

     The proof is there for those with eyes to see.  This past weekend (Oct. 2014), for instance, I attended our state Right To Life convention with my lovely bride and two of our sons.  The Keynote speaker was a man named George Michael Lane who wrote book called A Different Kind of Perfect, about his daughter Amy.  Amy has Down's Syndrome. In his talk, Lane described his struggle of conscience when he and his wife Thea received an in utero diagnosis of their daughter’s condition.  He wrestled mightily with the temptation to seek an abortion, but he was finally convinced by his parish priest to put his trust in God, who forbids us to take innocent life.

     Lane’s life since has been abundantly rewarded.  Amy is a beautiful young woman who plays the viola, has an encyclopedic knowledge of musicals and old movies, and infectiously spreads love through her family and beyond.  We spoke at length with Amy after the talk and can confirm that she is as delightful as her proud father claims she is.  She is a living reminder to us that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

     Which brings us back to the aforementioned Dawkins.  I couldn’t help but think of the last time I had heard of him in the news.  This past summer, in response to a woman who was wondering what she would do if her child were diagnosed before birth with Down’s Syndrome, the esteemed insect biologist tweeted back: “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”  No Amy for him.

     All I can say is that it’s a good thing George Lane went to a priest for advice, and not to Richard Dawkins. And whose world would you rather live in: Amy’s, or Dawkins’?

The Baptism of The Lord, An Icon Of Grace

The Baptism of Christ by Tintoretto

Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and so on the last day of the Christmas Season we celebrate the first event in the Public Ministry of Jesus.  All four Gospels tell of John’s baptism of Jesus, but all present a slightly different view.  Mark’s account is the sparest, except that he gives us the most vivid picture of John himself: "Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6).  Luke's account (which we hear in today’s Mass) starts with the people "filled with expectation", eagerly anticipating the Messiah, whom they take John to be.  John’s Gospel recounts John the Baptist hailing Jesus with the title "Lamb of God".  They all tell of John’s recognition of himself as a merely the forerunner to Jesus, to whom he is inferior, but only Matthew records his reluctance to baptize the Lord:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)

John knows that Jesus, being sinless, requires no Baptism, but Jesus seeks it out in order to show his commitment to being one of us, and to show us the path to follow.  In this account we see Jesus acting out what St. Paul tells the Phillipians:

. . . though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phillipians 2:6-7)

In all the Gospels, we see the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and the voice of the Father proclaim him to be the beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased.  And so Christ’s Public Ministry begins with an icon of all three Persons of the Trinity working together, and an image of Grace in action.  This scene sums up the meaning of the Nativity we have just celebrated, and tells us something about the agenda for the ministry that is begun.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, we are reminded that it is all Grace, a word for which the Latin root gratia means not just favor, but favor freely bestowed (hence related English words “gratuity” and “gratis”); Grace is completely, absolutely, free. God needs nothing, nothing is necessary for Him: He does it all for us, He gives us a share in His own life, as a completely unnecessary gift.  Because He loves us.

The Christmas Conversion of St.Thérèse

(An earlier version of this Thursday Throwback was first published 16 December 2014)

The future St.Thérèse (r) and her sister Pauline

 In the lives of the Saints we can find some amazing stories of conversion: the Risen Lord literally knocking his persecutor Saul to ground and blinding him, in order to raise him up as St. Paul; the rich and spoiled son of an Italian cloth merchant who needed a year in a dungeon as a POW followed by a near fatal illness before he cast off self-indulgence to become St. Francis of Assissi; the vain and vainglorious Spanish nobleman who had his leg nearly shot off with a cannonball, and then went through months of excruciating recovery, before he could begin to see God in All Things as St. Ignatius of Loyola.  How startlingly different, and yet how strikingly the same is the conversion of the little French girl Thérèse Martin, now St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, as she tells it her autobiographical Story of A Soul: 

     I had a constant and ardent desire to advance in virtue, but often my actions were spoilt by imperfections. My extreme sensitiveness made me almost unbearable. All arguments were useless. I simply could not correct myself of this miserable fault. . .  A miracle on a small scale was needed to give me strength of character all at once, and God worked this long-desired miracle on Christmas Day, 1886. . . 

     Now I will tell you, dear Mother, how I received this inestimable grace of complete conversion. I knew that when we reached home after Midnight Mass I should find my shoes in the chimney-corner, filled with presents, just as when I was a little child, which proves that my sisters still treated me as a baby. Papa, too, liked to watch my enjoyment and hear my cries of delight at each fresh surprise that came from the magic shoes, and his pleasure added to mine. But the time had come when Our Lord wished to free me from childhood's failings, and even withdraw me from its innocent pleasures. On this occasion, instead of indulging me as he generally did, Papa seemed vexed, and on my way upstairs I heard him say: "Really all this is too babyish for a big girl like Thérèse, and I hope it is the last year it will happen." His words cut me to the quick. Céline, knowing how sensitive I was, whispered: "Don't go downstairs just yet—wait a little, you would cry too much if you looked at your presents before Papa." But Thérèse was no longer the same—Jesus had changed her heart.

     Choking back my tears, I ran down to the dining-room, and, though my heart beat fast, I picked up my shoes, and gaily pulled out all the things, looking as happy as a queen. Papa laughed, and did not show any trace of displeasure, and Céline thought she must be dreaming. But happily it was a reality; little Thérèse had regained, once for all, the strength of mind which she had lost at the age of four and a half.

     On this night of grace, the third period of my life began—the most beautiful of all, the one most filled with heavenly favours. In an instant Our Lord, satisfied with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do during all these years. Like the Apostle I could say: "Master, we have laboured all night, and have taken nothing."

     More merciful to me even than to His beloved disciples, Our Lord Himself took the net, cast it, and drew it out full of fishes. He made me a fisher of men. Love and a spirit of self-forgetfulness took possession of me, and from that time I was perfectly happy.

The Lord didn’t need to knock Thérèse down, beat her up, or have her shot in order to get her full attention; all he needed was to allow her to overhear a couple of stray comments from the father she loved so dearly.  That wounded her deeply enough to reveal to her the reality of her own selfishness, and to open her up completely to Christ’s Grace.  The meaning of conversion, after all, is to “turn around”, away from a way of life dictated by our own desires to one truly centered on God.
     Now, most of us need a wake-up more like the one which was granted to St. Paul or St. Francis; perhaps not quite as dramatic, but most of us, I suspect, are much more wrapped up in our sin than was little Thérèse Martin.  But that is precisely why the Little Flower’s conversion stands out: even someone who seems to be doing just about everything right is still in need of conversion, and not just in one instant, but continuously over a lifetime (and of course she did experience much greater suffering later in her short life). Sin will always be trying to turn us back. 
     St. Thérèse’s conversion story reminds us of something else.  There will always be opportunities for conversion.  We don’t need to go out looking for trouble, because we will all have ample opportunity to experience The Fall in our lives.  The more enmeshed we are in sin, however, and the higher the walls between ourselves and God, the harder our fall must be.  Wouldn’t it be better to come to Christ like Thérèse did, without too much collateral damage to ourselves and to others?
     Finally, St. Thérèse learned to turn her hurt and disappointment into generosity of spirit, her selfishness to selflessness.  When I think back on her Christmas of 1886 I am reminded that I need to ask my Lord for the Grace to do the same. O come, O come Emmanuel!


(See Also: A song that captures the spirit of Advent: “Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming” http://goo.gl/XYvbh8 )

     

A Still Small Voice & The Lord Of Creation

(This Worth Revisiting Post was originally part of the Sunday Snippets post from the Fourth Sunday in Advent, December 21st, 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)

     Today, Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Advent, we anticipate the Nativity of Our Lord in a few short days.  The (seemingly) unexpected appearance of the Lord of Creation in the form of a human infant in a stable reminds me of the following passage from the Old Testament, in which God comes to the prophet Elijah as he hides in a cave:

And he [the Lord] said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice; And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him, and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  (1 Kings: 11-13)

This, in its way, is as clear a foretaste of the Messiah as the "messianic" passages we read in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel throughout advent.  Most of us have probably heard that, before the coming of Christ, people lived in fear of divine power.  Encountering God was something to be avoided: the point of praying and offering sacrifice, even sacrificing one’s own flesh and blood, was so that God (more often understood as “the gods”) would leave you alone.  We can detect echoes of this ancient attitude in the account of Abraham as he brought his beloved son Isaac up Mount Moriah, prepared to offer him up (Genesis 22).  The story of Abraham and Isaac, in which God reverses expectations and provides the lamb in place of Isaac, shows us the end of Christ’s earthly ministry; the story of Elijah in the cave shows us its surprising beginning. God doesn’t show himself in any of the terrifying guises one would expect (wind, earthquake, fire), but as a “still, small, voice” (in some translations a “whisper”).  In just the same way, the second person of the Trinity comes among us in the least threatening way imaginable: a helpless little baby, cradled in a feeding trough.  No wonder, when the Angel announces Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, he first tells them not to be afraid; and then he says:

For behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people: for to you is born this day in the city of Davis a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:10-12).

Good News , indeed.  It is, in fact, a Great Joy, and not at all a bad thing when God is in our midst, for “God is Love”(1 John 4:8); and the Infinite Creator of the Universe makes himself finite, small and vulnerable . . . for us.

     

As we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Our Savior at Christmas, at the End of Time, and to each one of us in our own lives, here’s a beautiful song, "Mary Did You Know?" performed by the lovely HayleyWestenra:

The Presentation, Atheism, And The Problem Of Suffering

(This Thursday Throwback was first published on The Feast of the Presentation, February 2nd, 2015)


And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:33-35)

Girolamo Romanino: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

     The Presentation of the Lord presents us with a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ.  On the one hand, it is our last fleeting look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims the infant Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretelling that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against” and warning the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum.  The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who pulls together the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: Redemption comes only from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of the entire story in the Feast of Presentation.

     Given the above, I found it interesting that this story [here] appeared just this morning: Englishman Stephen Fry, an “outspoken atheist”, was asked what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife:

 “I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault,” Fry continued. “It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”

"Outspoken Atheist" Stephen Fry

In other words, the old Problem of Suffering (which I spend a lot of time discussing with my adolescent religion students).  For us Christians this problem is resolved in the Mystery of the Cross, as we saw above: it’s a paradox that leads us to a higher understanding, and a greater experience.  For the unbeliever, however, it is a contradiction which, if followed to its logical conclusion, leads to annihilation.  Most atheists believe that all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is.  Suffering, therefore, is the worst thing that can possibly happen; hence the righteous indignation of the Steven Frys of the world:

Fry went on to question why the God of the universe would allow pain and suffering and argued that doing away with belief in God makes life “simpler, purer, cleaner, more wroth [sic] living, in my opinion.”

Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now simply random and pointless pain.  Not only that, but it is something we all must experience, it’s inescapable.  The only way to eliminate suffering for a Steven Fry is to eliminate not God, but humanity.  Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar [here] proposes just this solution is his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. 

    Small wonder that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance.  We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering, that it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but a path to Heaven.  That is, indeed, Good News.

    

A Dark Matter: "Proving" God In A Materialist World

(This Throwback was first published on 30 January 2015)

Nasa graphic of the Big Bang theory from "Dark Energy, Dark Matter"

     How do you show young people that Christian belief is reasonable?  I’ve seen more and more over the years in which I have been teaching in Catholic High Schools that most of my students have been formed in a materialist worldview – even when they are professing Christians.  It’s an unspoken assumption in most of the classes they’ve taken, particularly the science classes.  They just assume that a transcendent God who cannot be measured or detected with scientific instruments cannot be shown to exist.  I have found that, with a little help from NASA and modern cosmology, many students can better understand that belief in God is at least as reasonable as many “scientific” concepts that are accepted almost without question.  

     Cosmological science offers a good illustration of some ways in which we apply reason to our world and experience.  You may occasionally hear in the news, for instance, reports of planets discovered in other solar systems.  We do not now have any instruments capable of “seeing” the planet itself; instead, we detect it by observing its effects on other things, such as the miniscule wobble its gravitational pull causes in the star it orbits, or the very slight changes in the light we observe from the star as the planet passes in front of it (read more here).  On an even grander scale, consider the question of “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy.” Over the past century, scientists have formulated what is known as the Big Bang Theory to account for the fact that the entire universe appears to be expanding at a consistent rate.  At the same time, they have calculated that in order for the universe to do what it seems to be doing, there needs to be much more matter and energy than we can detect – many times more.  As the NASA publication “Dark Energy, Dark Matter” explains (my italics): 

More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe. (full publication here) 

Notice that physicists say that more than 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is completely undetectable, and we may never be able to detect it.  There is no direct evidence of the existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, and yet they are sure it is there, only because of the effects we observe on other things.

     Much of the evidence for God’s involvement in our world is of a similar sort, at least for those who have not themselves had a direct experience of God.  Like Dark Energy, God cannot be measured with scientific instruments, but his effects are very clear.  Consider the case of Bernard Nathanson, an atheist doctor from a Jewish family who was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).  Nathanson himself performed or presided over tens of thousands of abortions until he was convinced by ultrasound images of the humanity of the unborn.  Deeply disturbed by his involvement in the taking of so many innocent lives, Nathanson, still an atheist, became active in pro-life activities, where he encountered many committed Christians.  He noticed something different about his religious friends, which he eventually recognized as what St. Paul called “The Gifts of the Holy Spirit”: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23).  It was clear to him that the difference he saw was due to the religious dimension of their lives, the visible effects of their relationship with God.  He eventually converted from atheism to Catholicism.

Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520 from "Dark Energy, Dark Matter" 

     Literally millions of people have come to Faith in the same way over the last two thousand years.  Like Nathanson, they were first attracted by the effects they saw in others, and after embracing Christ, found the same changes in their own lives.  They very reasonably based their faith on the real results they saw in others, and in themselves. 

     That, by the way, is one way in which belief in God is different from a belief in Dark Energy or Dark Matter.  Nobody has ever had a personal encounter with Dark Energy, or seen a miracle performed by Dark Matter; countless people throughout the ages have had direct experiences of God, or witnessed His miracles, which continue up to the present day.  One might say that, when we examine the evidence of the world around us, belief in God is actually quite reasonable.

Related Posts: 

"What Would Darwin Do?"

"The Presentation of Our Lord, Atheism, and the Problem of Suffering"