Me Too

Life. Liberty. Pursuit of Happiness.

"Me too, please."

Between flag waving, Mass, and something on the grill, say a prayer for freedom. America is a failure as a nation if it cannot secure its most prized commodity for those most weak and vulnerable among us.

Prayer for the Unborn

Composed by Pope Benedict XVI

Lord Jesus,

You who faithfully visit and fulfill with your Presence

the Church and the history of men;

You who in the miraculous Sacrament of your Body and Blood

render us participants in divine Life 

and allow us a foretaste of the joy of eternal Life;

We adore and bless you.

Prostrated before You, source and lover of Life,

truly present and alive among us, we beg you.

Reawaken in us respect for every unborn life,

make us capable of seeing in the fruit of the maternal womb

the miraculous work of the Creator,

open our hearts to generously welcoming every child

that comes into life.

Bless all families,

sanctify the union of spouses,

render fruitful their love.

Accompany the choices of legislative assemblies

with the light of your Spirit,

so that peoples and nations may recognize and respect

the sacred nature of life, of every human life.

Guide the work of scientists and doctors,

so that all progress contributes to the integral well-being of the person,

and no one endures suppression or injustice.

Give creative charity to administrators and economists,

so they may realize and promote sufficient conditions

so that young families can serenely embrace

the birth of new children.

Console the married couples who suffer

because they are unable to have children

and in Your goodness provide for them.

Teach us all to care for orphaned or abandoned children,

so they may experience the warmth of your Charity,

the consolation of your divine Heart.

Together with Mary, Your Mother, the great believer,

in whose womb you took on our human nature,

we wait to receive from You, our Only True Good and Savior,

the strength to love and serve life,

in anticipation of living forever in You,

in communion with the Blessed Trinity.

Amen.

Also see: "The Holy Blastula: Meditation on the Annunciation"

Conversion Tip Redux - Dear Lagniappe

Happy Almost Birthday to my blog!
(16 days to go)

And in the spirit of birthdays, I thought I would comment a little more on my last post. In the combox, my friend Lagniappe wrote:

"Discern(ing) - what doth it meaneth?  The post pronounces the random (chance) of flipping open a phone book and, voila!!!, this is God's direction (I get your point just a bit of hyperbole on my part) (#1).  Now, the quote:
"He is also capable of helping you discern the claims of the Catholic Church.  Ask Him to help you make the decision. Beg him to "show you the truth". You are not testing God, you are asking God for help."  Discerning requires more than a mental ascent to whatever, or a mystical epiphany, or a divine revelation of truth.  Mi Amigo, the very word, discern (as a verb), requires an examination or a judgment.  Thus, more than blind luck is required. Are you positing that one truly seeking the Roman Catholic way will find it apart from the obvious search of and through actual materials (#2)?  Will the sheer magnitude of a seeker's resolve to find this truth apart from serious inquiry result in a magic moment (#3)?

1. The phone book analogy was meant to draw out the magnitude of the task of finding a Protestant Church amongst the thousands of competing options in comparison to the magnitude of discerning the Catholic claim of being the Church Jesus personally founded. You see, many times people make the Catholic Church the "impossible find", so buried in history and Latin theology that the unlearned will never have a chance. "Sorry simple charlie," they say. Catholicism is only for the man of letters. The yeoman -- you're just out of luck.

But that isn't the case. I find something extraordinary in the Catholic Church. I find EVERYONE here. Supreme Court Justices -- who know how to blow holes in every kind of argument, farmworkers, learned theologians, and third grade educated grandmothers, all dipping their hand in the water font, genuflecting and silently kneeling in reflection after they receive the Body and Blood of our Lord.

2. No. But, I would be careful to imply that prayer is some kind of "blind luck". The intellectual duty of "loving God with your mind" certainly entails looking through actual materials. As a sage once said in another post:

"Pray more than you read blogs"

I'm the first critic of blogs. They can become like McDonald's hamburgers -- easy to eat but with little nutritive value. I did not convert to Catholicism through online blogs. I converted through the careful reading of tens of thousands of pages of books. However, not everyone will have the luxury of reading tens of thousands of pages of books. I happen to have at the time (a) a job that gave me the financial resources to buy those books, (b) time in the evening to read non-stop and (c) eventually the resources to not work for 7 months and do nothing but read (and debate non-Catholics and Catholics). So, far from "blind luck", as one who understood both the implications of becoming Catholic and the absolute necessity of examining various arguments against Catholicism, I agree that I had no "short-cut" option. However...

3. I believe in prayer. The Lord said we should, "Ask, seek and knock."Christ also said:

"But of whom of you that is a father shall a son ask bread, and the father shall give him a stone? or also a fish, and instead of a fish shall give him a serpent?" - Luke 11:11

I understand that neither of these versus have Roman Catholicism, per se, in their cross-hairs. But, what both establish is a principle. It is a principle I learned as a Pentecostal. The principle is this: we do not need to be afraid of asking God for help and believing he will give it to us. He will not give us a serpent if we ask for a fish. He will not give us a harlot church if we ask Him for his. Does this mean that we can abdicate our duty to study, discern or judge? Of course not. Though the journey I described in #2 would have been futile had it not included hours on my knees begging God:

"Please don't lead me to Catholicism! If this is not of you, throw me off the path! Please, Lord, anything but the Catholic Church!"

Anyone interested in Catholicism, please pray this prayer.

Now, you may immediately object to where my journey terminated, you might even say I was duped, deceived, etc. That's your prerogative. However, notice that my advice leads me open to the very real possibility that God won't lead someone reading this blog to the Catholic Church. So be it. I would rather someone prayerfully discern Catholicism, then lose spiritual oxygenation on their journey.

Peace to you on yours

I Am Giving Up _______ For Lent...

...because what you give up should be between you and God. 

May God richly bless you during this season of Lent. May you enter into the profound mystery of the passion of our Lord, obtaining the graces you need for victory over sin, true piety and a gentle spirit.

Pray for me and I will pray for you.

Go to Mass. Get Ashes. He Does.

Do Catholics Practice Vain Repetitions?

A common objection you hear regarding Catholic prayer of the Holy Rosary, the Our Father and other prayers is that these prayers are "vain repetitions"(KJV). 

"Why don't Catholics pray off the top of their head?" one might ask.

"Do they even have a relationship with Jesus?"

"They seem...so...religious..." [insert face full of fear]

Dear Mr. Bible-Out-of-Context Man:

I want to cover your concerns in a few numbered items so none of us get lost.

1. What do you pray when you eat? Do you use the same prayer? Hmmm...you mean you don't make it up every time? 

Day 1: "Dear God, thank you for this food, Amen."

Day 2: "Dear God, I know you are getting bored with "thank you" so like, yeah this is great. Amen"

Day 3: "I'm really, really thankful for this food, God." [I didn't say Amen to show how spontaneous my relationship with You is]

2. Have you ever read the Psalms? Yes? No?

Example 1: "Blessed be the Lord" -Psalms 28:6

Example 2: "Blessed be the Lord" -Psalms 31:21

Example 3: "Blessed be the Lord" -Psalms 41:13

Example 4: "Blessed be the Lord" -Psalms 68:19

Also see Psalms 148 and 150.

This kind of repetition reminds me of the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, a beautiful prayer I prayed before I came into the Church.

3. Have you ever read the Scripture passage you are quoting?

"In praying, do not babble (NASV version of "vain repetitions") like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words." Matt 6:7

Here's the really interesting thing. If Catholics tend to only use a few words when they pray because they say the same thing, and a non-Catholic asserts that he or she is more religious because they use more of their own words than a Catholic when praying, they in fact prove--by that argument--just the opposite according to the passage (Matt 6:7) that is used to confront the Catholic.

It is precisely because a Catholic uses so few words, that she proves herself not to be pagan.

Well, why do you say the prayer over and over again? Isn't that vain?

A. It could be...depends on the person's heart (Isaiah 20:13). I tell my wife I love her over and over again, but it doesn't follow...

B. Jesus said, "Ask, Seek, and Knock". The Greek verb tense implies that we should "keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking." This imagery is very close to what Moses tells the people when he says "be still" and see the salvation of the Lord (Ex 14:13). The Hebrew word implies not an end of action, but rather a continuation of one's persistence in the present.

Thus, Catholic prayer is grounded in both the simplicity of the Gospel and the humility of the one praying who like a child asks, knocks, and seeks--standing still in the presence of God.

"Let us pray to the Lord."

And we humbly ask.

"Lord, hear our prayer."

Do you think that when Jesus was
a child He was God? If you do, then
this picture shouldn't offend you.

The Angelic Salutation

"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you." I will never forget the first time I ever really "heard" those words. I was outside the doors of St. Mary's of the Lakes about to go to my first Mass. They sounded like a cultic chant; some type of Christian prater. Was this really where God was calling me? I opened the door and peered in and then closed it quickly afraid of what might happen as if their words might cast some spell. "Breathe", I told myself as I paced outside the parish doors, now perspiring as I waited for my friend Dominic to arrive.

Why would I have such a reaction to these words, especially hearing them in prayer? 

Why would I have both an intellectual and visceral reaction that was so negative?

What is the Angelic Salutation?

The beginning of the "Hail Mary" is taken right out of the Angel Gabriel's mouth. We know that angels are messengers for God. Therefore, we know the words in Gabriel's mouth were straight from God's mouth. Why does he send the message and what does it perform?

St. Paul reminds us that God "sent" His son "in the fullness of time" (Gal 4:4). How did he do this sending? It was done by none other than Gabriel and through Mary's fiat ("be it unto me, according to your word") that salvation came into the world. So, there are two hinges to the door of salvation opening to humanity: (1) the word of the Lord and (2) Mary's free response to it.

The Angelic Salutation, St. Louis de Montfort instructs us, "is so heavenly and so beyond us in its depth of meaning that...no mere creature could ever possibly understand it, and that only Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Who was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary can really explain it" (The Secret of the Rosary). What this great saint and millions of others (including those praying in St. Mary's of the Lakes that morning) find in these words is the entire Gospel, the entire Good News. What is this news? It is that God has sent his Son and that mankind can accept the gift and be saved. This hope is found concomitantly in the Annunciation (Gabriel's message) and the Incarnation (Mary's fiat). When Gabriel announced salvation to the world, creation stood still awaiting humanity's response. Would salvation come to men? 

IIn very much the same way that the serpent's offer to Eve awaited her response and so fell mankind, God's message through Gabriel awaited Mary's response. What would men say? Would this woman make the wrong choice again?

And creation rejoiced! She was The Woman who had been promised in Genesis. Salvation has come to men! In the Angelic Salutation we find the true inbreaking of God's salvation. It is what, since the beginning, has been anticipated. In this moment, the door to the Tree of Life is being granted access again. What the Angel in Genesis guarded against our entry, now the Angel was offering for our salvation. In Mary's fiat, the door was swung wide open! Come, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Come the poor, sinner, broken, and sick. Come and be refreshed. You banished children of Eve, as children of the New Eve, salvation has come to your house. The Virgin predestined about from the beginning has come and she is bearing a "seed" that will crush Satan, death, hell, and the grave.

Be not Afraid

How could it be that the very words that bring me salvation made me pace in fear? Who else do these words make tremble? As I reflect upon this, I can clearly see that the serpent, the one who was anticipating this moment of failure, this moment of defeat, hates to hear those words, hates to see Christians praying those words especially with Mary. Why with Mary? Because, it is with Mary that Satan cannot question the fruit of the Angel's words. Mary is the instrument of God who "watches over" His word to perform it (Jer 1:12). Could Satan be the father of lies that makes men so hardened to the "Hail Mary" since it is such his enemy?

Yes, he is the father of lies. Yes, the fact that I was so afraid of those words that morning shows that somehow I had bought a lie. But there is hope.

Although you may find the words "Hail Mary" troubling, you are in good company. At first, Mary was also disconcerted by what the Angel said. However, Gabriel continued, "Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God."

I walked into the parish that morning. Somehow, the Angel's words reached my ears. When you hear the words "Hail Mary", do not be afraid as well. The door to the Tree of Life has been opened, salvation has come to men!

Called to prayer

In the Gospels we get a few references to what was likely our Lord's discipline: morning prayer. Do you find this difficult?