“The most beautiful time was Christmas”

Martin Heidegger, before he became the 20th century’s greatest philosopher and infamous for a morally questionable life, was a devout Catholic. His father was the sexton in their parish. Martin and his brother helped. Below is taken from Rüdiger Safranski’s biography of Heidegger:

The “sexton lads,” Martin and his younger brother, Fritz, had to help with the church services. They were servers, they picked flowers to decorate the church, they ran errands for the priest, and they rang the bells. There were–as Heidegger recalls in On the Secret of the Bell Tower (Vom Geheimnis des Glockenturms)–seven bells in the tower, each with its own name, its own sound, and its own time. There was the “Four,” to be rung at four in the afternoon; the “Alarm Bell,” which roused the town’s sleepers from their slumber; and the “Three,” which was also the knell. The “Child” rang for sunday school and for rosary worship; the “Twelve” marked the end of morning lessons at the school; the “Klanei” was the bell struck by the hour hammer; and the one with the most beautiful ring was the “Big One”; it would ring on the eve and on the morning of high holidays. Between Maundy Thursday and Easter Saturday the bells were silent; instead there were rattles. A cranking handle set in motion a number of little hammers that struck against hard wood. A rattle stood in each of the four corners of the tower, and the boy bell ringers had to work the handles in turn to ensure that the harsh sound went out in all four directions of the compass The most beautiful time was Christmas. Toward half past three in the morning, the boy ringers would come to the sextion’s house, where mother Heidegger had laid the table with cakes and milky coffee. After this breakfast, lanterns were lit in the front-door passage, and everyone went out through the snow and the winter’s night to the church opposite and up into the dark bell tower to the frozen ropes and ice-covered clappers. “The mysterious fuge,” Martin Heidegger wrote, “in which the church feasts, the days of vigil, and the passage of the seasons and the morning, midday, and evening hours of each day fitted into each other, so that a continual ringing went through the young hearts, dreams, prayers, and games–it is this, probably that conceals one of the most magical, most complete, and most lasting secrets of the tower.” (Safranski 7)

That image of the boys going out into the snow around four in the morning to climb the bell tower and ring the bells is beautiful. These are the kinds of things we have lost in our frantic grasping after modernism and progress.

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Cited works:
Safranski, Rüdiger. Martin Heidegger: between Good and Evil. Translated by Ewald Osers, Harvard University Press, 2002.

Demanding a Better Cult

Years ago I wrote a post about my searching for the true Church. I was heading towards the Catholic Church and I knew it. And I did enter the Church later that year. I “came home” as so many converts from Protestantism say. That was a little over six years ago. I do not regret my decision. In fact, I am so glad I became Catholic, and then that my wife and kids entered the Church.

But all is not well in the Church today. It never has been, I realize that, but it seems far, far worse now than in recent centuries. Personally this is a struggle. I know it is for many Catholics as well. My the struggle is not about whether I feel I made the right decision. I am convinced I did, by the grace of God. I applaud (and pray for) any becoming-Catholic person standing on the threshold today, perhaps in RCIA, who is hanging in there and not being deterred by the actions of evil men. For me, however, the struggle has to do more with how I raise my kids, how I and my family become more Catholic, how we move closer to God, and if we end up in Heaven.

I now look back on that post and I realize it was written two months before Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis. Since that time a lot has happened. A lot of water has flowed down the Tiber, a river I “crossed” later that same year. And then this year a couple of faithful Austrian Catholics threw pagan idols into that same Italian river, idols that they removed, no less, from a Catholic church, idols used in honor of demons and that had been worshiped by both pagans and Catholics together in a ceremony in the Vatican gardens at the feet of the Pope who gave his approval, on video, for the whole world to see. I don’t really know what’s going on, but this seems crazy–truly crazy, like antichrist crazy. (Pray, pray, pray for the Pope)

Sometimes I feel like one of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of the storm and wondering why Jesus is asleep.

Thus far I have not talked to my kids about these, and many other, dark things in the Church. I only say a few things about them to my wife. In light of it all she has asked if I want to remain Catholic. Honestly, more than ever. This is one of the most exciting times to be Catholic. There is a war for the faith that is evident, palpable, and existential. It’s hard to be lukewarm in times like these, and that’s good.

Over that last couple of years my eyes have slowly opened. I have learned about Fatima and related prophecies, I have witnessed (from afar of course) scandals both theological and moral perpetrated by many close to the Holy Father, I have heard the Pope say a number of highly questionable statements, and the list goes on and on. But there’s so much more. Back in the 1980’s Saint John Paul II (the great?) let a buddhist idol be placed on a Catholic altar in Assisi during an “ecumenical” prayer meeting with leaders of other religions. Earlier the Mass given to us by God was changed by men in the 1970’s into something less than excellent, and with it churches were destroyed with altar rails thrown into alleys, altars crushed and replaced by tables, and the glorious music of the Church replaced with crap, utter crap. And there’s so, so much more to complain about. The list is nearly endless. It’s been going on for decades at least. And it’s clear all this could only come about by the hand of Satan, the willful folly of prideful churchmen, and the eager acceptance of a laity awash in the worldly currents of a modernist, consumerist, distracted, self centered society. (Some have blamed the so-called boomers, and there’s some truth to that, but they are not all to blame.)

This has been an interesting couple of years of eye-opening discoveries for me.

In the meantime I have also discovered something of traditional Catholicism. I have gone to several Extraordinary Form masses. I have a TLM missal (1962), and a couple of much older French versions as well. I have ready many articles and some books on the topic, and been studying it a bit. I have also dug a bit into traditional Catholic practices. Over and over I am struck by what has been abandoned and lost, and by what an enormous amount of knowledge I don’t have. A vastly beautiful religion has been largely gutted with barely a shell left. We are left with an anemic Mass and recourse to whatever we can summon from within ourselves of faith and piety. Modern Catholicism is nearly identical with modern Evangelical Protestantism — a faith of feelings and personal truth. I gather most Catholics today are also mostly ignorant of what has been lost. And most don’t seem to care.

But I must confess that for how much I would love the simplicity of merely raising the flag of Catholic traditionalism, I think the answer is more than that. More than traditionalism, it’s orthodoxy. I believe that ideas have consequences, and that beliefs come before action. Or, perhaps better, actions arise from belief. Traditionalism is fine, but we must be very cautious not to be caught up in the aesthetics, even for all their beauty. We must first go back to the fundamental truths, to orthodox truths. Our actions, whether they look traditional, or a mix of traditional and new, or sometime else, will follow. We must find a way back to the profound truth of Tradition without falling into the ideology of traditionalism. Perhaps it will look like the traditional Church of past generations. I would love that. There is so much that was lost or forgotten that is worth bringing back. But we must make sure we aren’t just larping in the garb of a non-modernist cultural past. Whatever we end up with must first and foremost be based upon, be run through like leaven in dough, with the Truth of Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

And this brings me to the struggle I have today, and one of the reasons I long for the Church of the past. For all its faults (because every age has it faults), the Church of Tradition, of the past, was at its best a kind of totalizing culture. Catholics were trained in all aspects of the faith. Kids were taught the catechism, traditional prayers, Latin, and so much more. Catholic schools were actually Catholic. Religious vocations were a real option. Boys were altar servers and learned the Mass, and even wondered if they might become priests someday. (I believe that boys who learn the Mass become better fathers. Perhaps not necessarily, but I think it’s a good theory.) But I don’t want to romanticize the past. I actually know very little of the past, and certainly almost none of Catholic cultural past. But I can’t help but long for it.

As a new Catholic (it’s only been six years) and as a parent I need a Catholic culture. My family needs a truly Catholic, truly orthodox, saturated, rich, and encouraging culture so that our faith can grow and we can become more conformed to Christ. I want to know how to be Catholic. The examples available to me are not great. Social media doesn’t cut it. Cradle Catholics have no idea what it’s like for a Protestant to enter the Church. They have no idea what it’s like to know nothing of Catholic prayers, practices, and the million little things that Catholics take for granted. It’s like there’s a complete lack of understanding that there anything called “culture” in the minds of most Catholics. RICA courses often range between the pathetic and the heretical (the one I attended was some of both). And, on top of that, the modern Catholic culture is so anemic compared to what it could and should be that in many ways it’s nearly an embarrassment, or should be, to those few Catholics who still go to Mass and don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s the heresy of formlessness, as one author so eloquently put it. So many Catholics who seem all too happy in the midst such great losses, are utterly nonplussed by converts who stare aghast at the crumbled ruins. They sometimes blame the converts themselves for an imagined and caricatured fervency held-over from the ex-Protestant’s former faith. Rather, the truth is more mundane and spiritually dark than that. A great, bland blindness has settled on the Church like radiation fallout over the past few decades. Nearly everything is affected and infected. The reasons for this are legion. But I’m ranting. (And I’m saying nothing new.)

By way of encouragement, I want to say to my fellow faithful and open-eyed Catholics, and to those still considering entering (or re-entering) the Church, hold fast. Hold fast to Christ. Hold fast to His Church, which is His bride. Regardless of what you see around you, and especially regardless of what some scandalous bishop or heretical priest might do or say, hold fast. Hold fast regardless of the meagerness of the cultural feast presented to you. Remember this key truth, culture arises from cult (cultus), that is from worship. If we have a bad or anemic culture it’s because we have a bad or anemic cult. We see this is at play in our larger cultures (American culture is based on what and how Americans worship – money, distraction, sex, power, ideologies, things, themselves, etc) and we see the process at play in the Church subculture. The Novus Ordo Mass, though valid, is an objectively lesser Mass than the Traditional Latin Mass, and thus it produces a lesser culture. It says the Real Presence might not be all that real. It says it’s about us more than about Christ. It says it’s not that important to bring and do our best when worshiping out Lord and King. It claims symbolism more than Truth. If you wonder why it seems we live in a “power of myth” kind of church, begin by examining the Mass.

A faithful Catholic can cut through all that and still worship Christ in Truth, and still be moved and called to holiness, and still be deeply blessed. I certainly have. But when compared to the TLM, the Novus Ordo not only is a sad shadow of the TLM, it often works against itself, presenting strange and unnecessary challenges for priests, music ministers, and laity alike.

Okay, so a lot can be blamed on the past, and certainly on the Novus Ordo Mass and the “spirit” of Vatican II, but that’s the past (though, of course, still present). Let’s not be too emotionally burdened by the past. We must push forward for a better cult. Let’s us be like the Poles who shouted, “We want God!” Let us be like the Israelites who, upon hearing the forgotten and then rediscovered words of the Torah read to them by Nehemiah, wept for what was lost of both knowledge and culture. Then let us weep no more, but rather work towards the culture we need, based on right cult that is based on orthodox truth and that, sadly, must be demanded. Dive into you parish. Put your hand to the plough. Help with the logistics, with the maintenance, with what you can. Support your overworked priest. Don’t be the person who just points out what’s wrong and waits until someone else fixes it. But then claim your voice. Earn the respect in all authentic humility, and then own that respect and speak up, out loud.

We might have to be like the boy who said the emperor has no clothes. We just might need to point at the crap we see and call it crap, out loud. We just might need to tell our priests and bishops that communion in the hand dilutes the faith, and laity in the sanctuary is confusing, and bad music degrades the Mass, and that it’s not working anymore (and never did). We must, as servants of our Lord, demand a better cult. It just might be one of the most loving and humble things we can do.

And pray every day for the pope, your bishop, and your priests.

Advent

Thirteen years ago, just as advent began, my wife and I were battling a difficult pregnancy. After years of infertility, the joyful adoption of our eldest daughter Lily, years more struggles to get pregnant, we were finally awaiting the birth of our second daughter. But about halfway into the pregnancy we got bad news. The ultrasound technician seemed to be taking a lot longer than we thought it should take. And she was being a little too evasive in her answers to us. We waited. The doctor came in and told us our daughter had a serious heart condition–treatable with open heart surgery within a few months after her birth, but very serious. We took in that sobering news with a lot of prayer and mutual support. Then we found ourselves in the hospital a couple of times with our daughter’s heart rate plummeting and my wife having contractions–months too early for any of that. We were bracing for losing our daughter. But she hung in there. And so did my wife. Then in early December things again turned worse. We rushed to the hospital. For a moment things calmed a bit, but given the serious nature of the situation we were sent to a better equipped hospital in another city thinking we were going to wait it out a bit longer. But again things quickly turned worse and the doctors performed an emergency c-section. Our daughter Coco Madalena was born on December 7th, the date of both my grandfather’s and godson’s birthday, the day before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and a month before her due date. And she was beautiful.

Heart scans indicated that she immediately needed a less invasive heart valve operation to help her survive until the major heart surgery she would need in a few months. Naturally we agreed to the surgery. It seemed to go well. The doctors were happy. All looked good. But then she had a heart attack. Emergency procedures were done. She pulled through. But then she began to struggle. During either the operation, or more likely the emergency procedures from the heart attack, she got a rare form of meningitis. The meningitis attacked her brain, and in only one month’s time she died in my arms. She never left the hospital.

All during that Christmas season my wife and I lived in a kind of limbo. My wife was at the hospital every day. I came many days, but was also juggling work. Our oldest daughter was just old enough to be both super excited to get a sister and to know something serious was going on. Family and friends all helped as they could. Many people were praying. And when Coco died our community gave us great support.

Yes, this was a big tragedy for us. A very hard time. But, the truth is, God also came so close to us. It is hard to describe, and even harder to convey. Through all the struggle, all the tears, all the difficult days and nights, We felt God’s presence. God was with us. Often I so desperately wish our girl was with us now. I think of her a lot. I also know of God’s love in the midst of trials. The journey for me was about going from head knowledge to heart knowledge, from my mind to my soul. I would never wish suffering on another, but I do believe suffering may be the only way or, ironically, the best way to come closer to God because in suffering God comes closer to us. The cross gives us a picture of this most profoundly.

We live in a hard and harsh world. So much evil, so much suffering. And that doesn’t stop just because Christmas is here. But God is with us. Christ came as a light into the darkness. Someday He will return in the awesome fullness of His glory. For now we have the Holy Spirit, we have the gospel, we have the Church, we have fellowship, we have the poor and needy all around us, and we have the communion of saints. In these ways God is with us even now.

Perhaps I have always known that, but I know it better because of the gift God gave my wife and I of our daughter Coco. In that difficult time I came to know Advent a little bit better.

Radical Feminism: Voices from 1969-1970 and beyond

Here’s a fascinating time-capsule from a key time in the feminist movement. Certainly it is dated, and some of it may seem a bit corny to us today, but the core message is still powerful and shocking — and not surprising too.

From a traditional Catholic perspective one can easily see why feminism, at least as it is presented here, was seen as incompatible with Catholicism — it has at its core the destruction of the traditional family. On the other hand, consider how much feminist thinking has entered into our culture and, in many ways, become the de facto position. Something about feminism captivated the collective consciousness of vast swaths of western culture and beyond, and has stayed with us and continued to influence and shape our culture.

In many ways this video is so sad — so much heartbreak beneath the surface of power posturing and strident demands. Consider where our society had to gotten to in order for these women, and so many others, to feel as they did. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to consider how such a radical change in attitudes may have also had a demonic element. I think it’s likely a lot of different elements and motivations were at play, some good and some bad.

And then three years later, this…

More “throwback” videos here.

A Commandment You Can Keep or, it would seem, God vs. Some Bishops

Pray for the Church. Pray for the bishops.

The Babylonians ransack Jerusalem

We are given commandments by God and are expected to keep them. We hear Jesus Himself say things like:

“Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19)

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

And the Apostle John writing:

Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. (1 John 2:3)

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus. (Revelation 14:2)

We can feel the weightiness of the word “commandments.” For many it seems like an unusually heavy word, a word out of place in today’s world, altogether too severe, to draconian — certainly not American. I sometimes sense that many Christians have a “you can’t be serious” attitude towards the objective seriousness and absoluteness of commandments. Did not Jesus, after all, save us from all that? He took up His cross so we don’t have to, right? Of course He didn’t. Reference the quotes above.

Often these days we hear of a so-called “pastoral approach,” being pushed hard by a number of bishops, that seems to offer comfort and compassion to sinners without also calling for repentance. The argument for this seems to hinge on the idea that the call to holiness (including the call to a marriage that does not end in divorce, or the call that one should not get remarried without a proper annulment, or the call to chastity or even celibacy) is an ideal rather than an expectation with actual consequences.

This seems to be the idea some bishops see the biblical definition of marriage, and even the Gospel itself — as an ideal that inspires. Writing on Amoris Laetitia, the German bishops published a statement on pastoral care of marriage and the family. The bishops wrote:

People see themselves faced by the shattered remains of their life plans that were based on a partnership. They suffer from having failed and having been unable to do justice to their ideal of life-long love and partnership.

Notice that “life-long love and partnership” is presented as an ideal. I suppose holiness is an ideal too. Right? The use of the word ideal in this instance, I would argue, comes from the desire to view holiness as an inspirational concept that can help us in our individuals pursuits of “the best version of ourselves.” But we are called to pursue holiness without compromise. Holiness is both an ideal and an objective. Is the Gospel itself an ideal too? If by ideal we mean something not truly attainable, or not something we should expect people to attain, then that would seem to contradict both Holy Scripture and Catholic Tradition. But, of course, the German bishops are not writing without precedent. Here is a key sentence from Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, as quoted by the German bishops in their letter:

“The Church’s pastors, in proposing to the faithful the full ideal of the Gospel and the Church’s teaching, must also help them to treat the weak with compassion, avoiding aggravation or unduly harsh or hasty judgements.” (AL No. 308)

Given the continuing issues with the German bishops desiring to water down both the Gospel and Tradition, it would seem they see “ideal” as being a mostly unattainable goal primarily reserved for those who have the faith and goodwill of saints, but not anything more than an an example and a slim hope for most Christians.

Naturally, we often hold up ideals as inspirations for motivation, but not as something we can have any hope of attaining. However, many see ideals as only that and no more. Is this how God sees ideals? Or, perhaps a better question, does God see His commandments as ideals at all, or as requirements? Are we called to try to be holy while believing it’s actually impossible to do so, and also that God doesn’t really care all that much anyway, nor will He truly hold us accountable? Or are we to be holy?

Consider this passage from Deuteronomy 30: 11-20

11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” 14 No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Did the Israelites keep these commandments? No. Again and again no. Did God know they would break them? Yes. Of course He did. Did they break the commandments because of sin, weakness, outside pressures, temptations, foolishness, and folly upon folly? Yes. Did they always have some “reasonable” justification in their own eyes for doing so? Probably. They must have.

And yet, God says: “Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you.” In light of this cannot the German bishops, and all bishops for that matter, hold Catholics to the actual standards God has given us, offering council, forgiveness, and mercy as is appropriate, but never ceasing to call us all to Christ without compromise? But the way of the German bishops, and too many others as well, seems to imply preaching the Gospel itself is, in fact, too difficult any more.

The evidence before us, declared from headlines and testimonies, says many bishops refuse to hold themselves accountable to God’s demands for holiness. Naturally, therefore, they might want to change the “rules” a bit, tweak the definitions of words, and shift the focus to the environment and refugees rather than ask anyone to truly keep God’s commandments. Perhaps their only integrity is refusing to ask others to do what they themselves refuse.

What was God’s “pastoral” care for His people? God says: “But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.”

Was God too harsh, too draconian on the Israelites? Was the Babylonian captivity God showing a lack of charity? Was the Father sending His Son to die on a cross to much? Some bishops of the Church, it would seem, must think so.

Thank God that we also have many good bishops. Pray for them. And pray for the rest too.

[Final thought: Sometimes it seems that criticisms aimed at traditionalists come from a place that prefers an easier, less judgmental faith than Catholic orthodoxy. Thus, criticisms of the Traditional Latin Mass, or Catholic traditions in general, though often couched in terms of the need for the Church to be less stuffy and get with the times, may actually be expressions of the desire to avoid the call to holiness–at least the kind of holiness demanded by God and sought after by the saints. Traditional Catholicism does not see holiness as merely a nice or inspirational ideal, but as a requirement, and as possible with God’s grace, and requiring God’s mercy when we fail. And traditionalists, as I have observed, tend to seek out the Church’s traditions as a means to help in the striving for holiness, not because of a “holier than thou” attitude. Is it not true that the person of faith longs for holiness and its demands, and the person without faith seeks to avoid the demands of holiness? Is this not fundamental? If so, what might this say about a significant number of Catholics, including all too many bishops?]

When Faith Drains Away: Thoughts on Ireland’s Abortion Vote

Irish celebrating their pro-abortion “victory” (source)

Ireland voted for abortion. Ireland voted in anger against the Catholic Church. The majority of Catholics in Ireland, and about a third of the Church hierarchy voted for abortion too (so I have heard). The New York Times ran a headline: “Ireland Votes to End Abortion Ban, in Rebuke to Catholic Conservatism.” Many today have asked how did this happen, how did Ireland, once one of the world’s most visibly Catholic countries, become so anti-Catholic in both spirit and in public will.

Naturally many will say the fault lies with the Church in Ireland. Who could blame them? The Church has not been so saintly in Ireland. (Of course, neither have the Irish people, who are just as wicked as people are anywhere, but I digress.) Some would say this is what happens when a government tries to legislate morality. But are not the prohibitions against bank robberies, blowing up parliament, or murder legislating morality? Are there not laws prohibiting the killing of one’s three year old child? Or even one week old child?

My guess is that the real cause is not so much what the Church did or didn’t do (mostly good, some bad), or whether morality should or should not be legislated (which it should), but that faith simply and tragically drained away, and that it began happening a long, long time ago.

Consider this newsreel film of a Corpus Christi procession through Bandon in West Cork, Ireland from 1941:

What a magnificent display of public piety and cultural cohesion. But is it truly a picture of actual faith? See, it gets tricky. When Catholicism becomes so deeply enmeshed with a people’s national and cultural identity, heredity, and national concept, it is not only possible, but nearly inevitable that actual faith becomes irrelevant and even unwelcome to daily life. Great public displays of piety can so easily become a way to signal faith in a group, being “of this group” or “of this people,” in other words it becomes all about being Irish and not about being followers of Christ. Being Irish becomes the thing to be, not being Christian. No matter how many layers of Catholic tradition, habits, actions, language, postures, images, and trinkets populate the Irish landscape, these things become the very things that not only hide faith from the people, they make it easy to not need faith.

Catholicism became the Irish “identity cloak” because of Irish history with its profound and bloody battles with England and its Protestant church. One might argue that Irish “Catholicism” killed true Catholicism in Ireland. But this happens all the time. People claim the name Catholic so they be protected from the truths of Catholicism. One could also argue that the worldly promises of capitalism killed modern Catholicism in Ireland. Regardless, and for whatever reason, faith drained away, and after Ireland’s relationship with England changed, and economic markets opened up, the Catholic cloak of national identity and rebellion became too heavy to wear (except as a commodity), then finally it was all too noxious to bear anymore.

In short, although the Catholic Church in Ireland is inextricably enmeshed in all of this, it’s the Irish people who have turned away from God. It is their own choosing, a product of their own free will, Church or no Church. They no longer love God. Probably none of us wants to suggest this, but could it be possible the God has withdrawn His Spirit from Ireland and is withholding His grace? If so, the withdrawal seems to have begun a long time ago. (We see this already in James Joyce’s novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916. In that novel Stephen Daedalus, the protagonist, leaves the Catholic religion behind in order to be free. A shot across the bow for Ireland and a theme resounding down throughout the twentieth century.) And if so, why? What did Ireland do to earn God’s wrath?

I just don’t know.

But consider these Irish abortion referendum voting numbers from the same county that the video above is from.

These numbers tell us there are people in that video above from 1941 that voted in for abortion in 2018, people who, as children, knelt before the Real Presence as it passed by, people who could not imagine in 1941 being anything other than devout Irish Catholics. Now they are no longer Catholic and just barely Irish in any meaningful sense of that term, other than as a surface overlay to a thoroughly modernist world view — the Irish jigs danced in the streets celebrating their victory were only a hollow shell of a better and more humane past. They have become merely just more neo-liberal humans traveling in a selfish and lost modern world digging wells wherever they think they will find water. I believe it is inevitable they will eventually die of thirst or turn once again to the living water.

Pray for Ireland. God save them.

Catholic Liberal Education

It is interesting to hear these people, parents and teachers, talk about Catholic liberal education:

For years, beginning long before we became Catholic, we began to homeschool our children (which also meant homeschooling ourselves). After several years we got connected and involved with an educational program called Classical Conversations founded by Leigh Bortins. It is an excellent program, and I would encourage anyone interested in homeschooling to take a close look at what it has to offer. It is not Catholic, but it is basically Christian, and in many ways basically orthodox for Catholics. I also had the privilege of writing the first draft of the science chapter in Leigh Bortin’s book The Question. And I spent a year with Andrew Kern of Circe Institute studying Homer, Plato, Shakespeare and more. Kern is another significant voice in the classical education movement. As a family we are committed to the idea of a Christian classical education for our children and ourselves. In short, we know something about what a classical approach to education offers, and how it is a kind of corrective, even a profound and radical challenge, to the prevalence of the typical anti-human modern education of our society.

The kind of education discussed in the video above follows the classical education model — at least it has a similar mindset. In fact, I believe one can say that a truly Catholic, a truly classical, and a truly liberal education are all the same if understood from a biblically and anthropologically truthful understanding.

I wish there was Catholic Classical Education in our area — whether for homeschooling like the Classical Conversations program, or a more formal brick & mortar school. The local Catholic schools in our area, though having the reputation of being a little bit better quality than the local government schools, are definitely not classical — and therefore not nearly as Catholic as they believe themselves to be. Actually, at their core they are modernist with some Catholic veneer. Our eldest went for two years at the local Catholic high school and it was a bust. I feel sorry, in a sense, for the faculty and administration at that school. They are products of our modern Catholic culture, meaning they are modernist and American before they are Catholic.

They also are inheritors of the post Vatican II reality. Take away all the nuns and religious who used to be the teachers (because the draining of religious from the Church) and you now have to hire “professionals,” which leads the double whammy of much higher salaries, and therefore higher tuitions, and modernist thinking. In that sense, these Catholic schools too often represent the anti-human educational philosophy more than they realize. Into those schools come students from any family who can afford to pay, which means they are no longer serving the local Catholic community, most of whom cannot afford the tuition. This produces a student body of only about half Catholic. And of the Catholics, only about a third actually believe the tenets of the Church. (Hopefully the numbers are better in your area.) This situation has produced a “Catholic education” system that is not truly Catholic, certainly not classical, basically a poorer education than its reputation warrants.

God bless the folks in the video above who recognize the need for truly Catholic education, and the blessings that follow.

Two Forms of the Same Roman Rite — A Recent Experience

I have had two very different, but very good Mass experiences recently. On Saturday I watched the nearly 2.5 hours long broadcast on EWTN of the Solemn Pontifical Mass in honor of the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. This Mass was in the Extraordinary Form (Usus Antiquior, Traditional Latin Mass, old Mass, etc.), and it was stunning, truly stunning.

Then, on Sunday evening, because of our crazy weekend schedule, my family ended up attending a 7:30 PM Mass at our local Newman Center, which we have not attended before (we’ve been to the Sunday morning Mass years ago). This Mass, as you might guess, was in the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo, new Mass, etc.), and it was also wonderful.

If you have been following this blog you know I have become increasingly interested in the old Mass. It seems more and more clear to me that the new Mass (and especially the many abuses of the new Mass) has been a kind of tragedy for the Church. I am not alone, however I tend to take a less strident, trenchant, vehement, or angry stance towards Vatican II or the Novus Ordo than do many traditionalists. I have concerns, but I do not label myself a traditionalist. Still, I think the traditionalists largely have it right. Therefore, you might find it curious that I would find the Mass Sunday evening to have been a joy. Here’s why:

1. The church was packed. Lot’s of youth (mostly college students as you would expect), but also the elderly, families, etc.
2. Everyone was singing loud. (Yes, the music was contemporary, a bit praise and worshipy, but it was very good) Everyone recited the creed loudly too. A lot of enthusiasm in the church that evening.
3. The homily was good, not great, but it was very encouraging. I could tell the students in the row in front of us were paying attention. And it was a call to give one’s life to Christ and pursue the divine life.
4. After Mass everyone was gathering outside, lot’s of energy, lots of chatting and fellowshiping. There was a buzz in the air. There is LIFE in this parish.
5. BUT also… this church has chairs and no kneelers, and little room between rows to allow people to kneel even if they wanted to. So many, especially the boomers and elderly, do not kneel at all but remain standing. However, all the youth kneeled in reverence. My family did too (we are used to that coming from our own parish). A few others did as well. This told me that the youth are seeking reverence. Some of them will eventually discover the TLM, but they are also bringing reverence into the NO. I found this encouraging.
6. AND… my eldest daughter, almost 18 yrs old, is in need of a Catholic community to join. Although our local Newman Center is not our family parish, I would be delighted to see her “plug in” to this group where there’s communal life suited to her spirit and age group, but with all ages present too. I could tell this evening Mass, and the various indications of the community surrounding it, was a revelation to her. I am encouraged.
7. At the end of Mass there were announcements for an upcoming spring formal dance, and also that dinner would be served after Mass (at 8:30 PM!) with cake for April birthdays. I could tell my family thought this sounded fun, but we couldn’t stay.

At the Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of Portland, Oregon, he gave a homily that stressed the Novus Ordo and TLM are two forms of the one Roman Rite, and that they should inform and mutually enrich one another. I believe his Excellency thinks that if given a chance the TLM will naturally attract more and more Catholics. He specifically called out the youth, who have shown so much interest in the TLM. I’m sure he also believes that the NO Mass can sometimes have a positive action that is encouraging and leads one closer to Christ.

In case you wanted to hear his words, here is the Archbishop’s homily:

I came away from this weekend very encouraged. I felt the Pontifical Mass and the National Shrine was a potential turning point in the resurgence of the Traditional Latin Mass in this country. I also felt the Novus Ordo Mass at our local college campus parish, with its energy and community, was beautiful in its own way. And the reverence shown by the youth at the NO Mass indicates that the fields are ready for harvest, and also that, for all its faults, true reverence can actually be found at a Novus Ordo Mass. This is why I cannot be a hard-core traditionalist. I love, love, love the traditional Mass, and I pray every day it (and many other old Catholic traditions) continues to grow in popularity and becomes common in our archdiocese. On the other hand, There are places, like this Newman Center parish, where the new Mass is linked to a vibrant and dynamic college culture. For some reason it seems to be working.

Perhaps one form is more about worshiping Christ and the other more about celebrating the Church (which, of course, is the body of Christ). If I had to pick one it would certainly be worshiping Christ, but I wonder how the two can come together more. My desire is to know Christ and become holy. I pray for these things for my family, and for their ultimate salvation. And I want to fellowship with other Christians in these pursuits. These things are more important than which form prevails. However, I also believe the majority of problems in the Church today can be traced to poor worship and a lack of faith — both of which go together (as we see again and again in Church history and the ancient history of Israel). The resurgence of the TLM will, I believe, help bring back a focus on worship proper to Christ our King, and thus promote faith.

Finally, a bone for you traditionalists: As the Novus Ordo Mass began my daughter, who has of yet, since becoming Catholic, only experienced NO masses (mostly at an older and more solemn church we normally attend, but NO nonetheless), leaned over to me and said this Mass seemed very Protestant to her. I have to say, in a way, she was right.

 

Teaching like Saint Paul

My wife and I chose to homeschool our children. This immediately placed upon us the need to have a plan on how we would do this. Consequently we faced the question of what method or approach should we chose. We ended up with what is commonly called Christian Classical Education, an approach we think is best, but we have been open to other ideas, and have tried to enter into a dialectical process with other homeschoolers and educators on this topic. We also looked to the Bible to see what we might find there, and to Saint Paul, one of the Church’s greatest evangelists and theologians, we naturally turned.

I published a version of this essay several years ago. I feel it is worth republishing again, with slight modifications.

I doubt if Saint Paul ever developed a detailed educational foundation or curriculum or program in the way that we might today. He may have thought about the right approach in some formal way as he spread the Gospel, but he certainly didn’t lay one out in his letters.  And I doubt he ever founded a school (of course, if he did I doubt he would have used the word “classical” in its name). But still, as I ponder what Christian Classical Education is or might be, I wonder what Paul would contribute towards a philosophy of education. Without trying to turn this into an overwhelming project for which I am unprepared, I want to briefly look at only two verses from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. He writes in Philippians 4:8-9:

(ESV) Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

(RSVCE) Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.

(KJV) Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

[Note: I’m providing three common translations to help give a broad sense of the passage.]

Consider St. Paul’s list:

• What is true
• What is honorable/honest
• What is just
• What is pure
• What is lovely
• What is commendable/gracious/of good report
• What is excellent/virtuous
• What is worthy of praise

What do we do with such a list? (Imagine going to your local school board and proposing that the district’s curriculum be revamped to begin with this list. Ha! I dare you.)

And then about this list St. Paul says to think about these things.

To think. In the minds of our modern educators, and most of the rest of us, thinking is almost tantamount to doing nothing. Ever see someone thinking? What are they doing? On the outside they are often quite still, maybe staring into the distance. In effect, they are doing nothing. And yet, they are doing a great deal. Now if they are not thinking alone, not staring placidly off into space, then they are probably in dialogue with someone. But a true dialogue can seem to be unfocused and wandering, which is also antithetical to teaching in the modern sense.

Our modern education system is partially based on a sense of urgency–we cannot afford to waste time with thinking when we have so much knowledge to get into those little brains. We have become slaves to the bullet-pointed list. It is a system that must swap dialogue with lecture. The material must be covered, we cannot slow down, and then slow down some more. But this modern system denies the existence of the human soul and its mysterious needs and movements. Is that what we want?

Paul says to think about these things.

What is thinking? I know nothing about the brain as a subject of scientific study. I know there are chemicals and electrical impulses involved, but more than that? I know nothing. However, I gather thinking is a mystery of our minds, of our humanity. I use the word mystery because I doubt science can ever, truly plumb the depths and workings of thinking. Thinking is a mystery because it is a force of great power that seems to have no substance, no true existence, no way to completely contain it and control it as a totality. We can guide it, use it, encourage it, welcome it, and share it, sometimes even fear it, but we cannot entirely subdue it. To think is to ponder, to wonder, to suppose, to engage, to meditate. More importantly, thinking is to take an idea into oneself, into one’s soul, and turn it over and over and make it one’s own, or to reject it in favor of another.

So then we ponder and wonder, suppose and engage, meditate and bring into our souls

• What is true
• What is honorable/honest
• What is just
• What is pure
• What is lovely
• What is commendable/gracious/of good report
• What is excellent/virtuous
• What is worthy of praise

Can you think of any better education? I can’t.

Paul could have left it there, but he goes on. He writes, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me…” Don’t pass over this. Consider that Paul is able to confidently write that the Philippians have directly experienced him in such a way that they have:

• learned from Paul
• received from Paul
• heard from Paul
• seen in Paul

This list is somewhat cryptic, but I think we can get a glimpse into how Paul was a teacher. First the Philippians learned from Paul. He saw himself as a teacher. He had intention. He knew what he wanted to teach them. And he taught them thoroughly enough, with enough feedback, to know that they learned. He is confident of that. Then he says they have received. This implies a giving, a handing over, and a taking in. There was something that he left with them, something they now have. He can write to them because he knows they have what he gave. In this sense they are more like Paul than they were before. One of the primary goals of the classical educator is that his pupils will one day become his colleagues. The Philippians are now colleagues of Paul; they have something that Paul has, something he gave them and they received.

Third he says they heard from him. Teaching often involves speaking and hearing, but sometimes we forget what a gift is language. If you are like me then you love Paul’s letters, but you would really love to hear him speak, to ask him questions, to sit at his feet, to get into a deep dialogue with him over beers. Paul engaged their minds as God intended, as their minds were designed to function, by using language. We sometimes hear that apocryphal story of St. Francis exhorting his followers to preach Christ at all times and, when necessary, use words. There’s a valuable lesson in that story, but Paul was not afraid to use words right up front. Preaching Christ requires using words. Speaking to another also requires presence. Paul was with the Philippians, in person, in the flesh; they heard his voice, knew its sound, picked up on nuances of meaning in the subtleties of his voice and body language. To hear in this way, that is, to listen to ideas spoken, is a profoundly human experience. We do not know if the Philippians heard Paul because he formally preached to them, or lectured them, or led them in Socratic dialogue, or engaged in casual conversation, but they heard.

Finally, and this may be the most important, they saw. Paul presented himself as an example. He lived what he taught. Or better yet, he embodied the logos. The Gospel, the good news of Christ, the content that Paul taught, handed over, and spoke, was also visible in his life and actions. Paul could rightly say, “look at me.” The best teachers embody the logos.

Can we find more about how Paul taught? Yes, I’m sure we can. But just from these two verses we get something of great depth. We find that Paul, with confidence, can say the Philippians

• learned from Paul
• received from Paul
• heard from Paul
• saw in Paul

And what did they learn?

• What is true
• What is honorable/honest
• What is just
• What is pure
• What is lovely
• What is commendable/gracious/of good report
• What is excellent/virtuous
• What is worthy of praise

From this alone we can know that Paul was a master teacher in the fullest Christian Classical model. How this will look in your own teaching will be unique, but there is no better foundation that I can find.

And then Paul writes:

“…practice these things…”

Paul both taught in person and was writing to the Philippians with an Ideal Type in mind, that is the complete or perfect Christian, that is Christ. Christ is the logos. We are Christians and therefore seek to embody the logos in our lives. It is not enough to merely find the idea of the Ideal Type good or fascinating or excellent. One must put it into practice. To practice is to work and persevere at imitation, it is a form of becoming. To imitate is to behold, to embrace, to take into one’s being and seek to embody the Ideal Type in one’s life and actions. True knowledge is, in this sense, incarnational. It has a form. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” To put on Christ implies that when others look at us they see Christ. Ideas have consequences. Others will know us by our fruits, which are visible signs of an inner reality. Are we putting into practice these things?

David Hicks wrote: “To produce a man or woman whose life conforms to the Ideal in every detail is education’s supremely moral aim.” (Norms and Nobility, p. 47) Is this not also the passion of Paul, that the Philippians live’s would conform to the Ideal of Christ in every detail? And how are the Philippians to do this?

“…practice these things…”

Now, if you haven’t noticed, I have not defined what Christian Classical Education is or how to do it. Partly this is tactical; I don’t have a clear answer. On the other hand I will offer a quote from Andrew Kern:

Education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty so that the student is better able to know and enjoy God.

I cannot think of a better, more fundamental description of what a Christian Classical Education is all about. There is a lot in there, and a lot of room for developing strategies of teaching, but if this is what we are aiming for, if this is what we are building on, if this is our longing, then consider again the words of Saint Paul:

(ESV) Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

(RSVCE) Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.

(KJV) Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Do that and the God of peace will be with you.

Homeschooling and the World

We homeschool. This puts in a strange place within our society — a good place I believe, but not always understood. I wrote this piece below, in a slightly different form, several years ago (before we entered the Catholic Church) in response to a tendency I see within the homeschooling world, and which I feel is still relevant today.

There is a trend within the subculture of homeschooling* that is based, in large part, upon separation from society at large. This makes some sense. Homeschoolers are often defined, to a large degree, as people who want to pull their children out of mainstream society and protect them from “the world.” Certainly not all homeschoolers are this way, and I hope we are not, but it has some appeal given the many troubles this world presents.

Recently we attended a Christian homeschooling conference. As you might imagine we saw all kinds of Christians, from the young hip couple with their cool glasses and lattes to the families with 6+ children all wearing 19th century prairie outfits. The conference had numerous speakers and work sessions. One of the keynote speakers struck me as the kind of homeschooling parent I don’t want to be. I don’t mean to be unduly harsh, and I only heard the one talk (or I should say over-the-top performing-preacher show talk), but I was encouraged by his talk to more clearly define an aspect of why we homeschool and why some of our reasons stand in contradiction to his.

He began by lauding his father for taking his family to an island away from “the world” and homeschooling them. In other words, our keynote speaker was raised on an island cut off from the taint and spoilage of the wider world. He went on to say that that was a great thing and we should not be afraid to separate our children from the world on “islands” where they can be protected and safe. If you are like me you might be chafing at this idea, but it is not unwarranted, and I want to give the idea its due.

This world we live in is most certainly full of may horrible things — war, famine, crime, and all kinds of ugliness. There are also many competing ideas that challenge one’s own beliefs. A Christian parent who is interested in their children knowing God as they themselves know God may want to protect their children from those competing ideas for as long as possible. The same goes for any parent who has a worldview to which they cling. I can understand the desire to keep one’s children away from the corrosive influence of the world. To do so feels like being responsible, and in some cases it certainly is. So I know where our keynote speaker is coming from. I know that feeling. But there is more to the picture.

The concept of “the world” is a big deal in Christian teaching. Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. John the Apostle said “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.” Paul the Apostle said “do not be conformed to this world.” There is a lot more to be said, and I do not intend to unpack the biblical concept of “the world” here, but most Christians know there is this thing called the world which they must avoid in some way. Christian homeschoolers might see pulling their kids out of public school as pulling them out of the world. Christian families who move to the country far from urban areas may believe they are removing themselves from the world in some meaningful way. Certainly to raise one’s family on an island would feel like the world is far away and one’s family is safe.

However, when John says “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world,” we see that the world is not so much a physical entity as it is a heart condition or a spirit. Also, when Jesus said, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world,” it appears his intention was not fleeing the world but to bring it light. Elsewhere in scripture Christ followers are called to be light in the world and salt of the earth. And when we read that “God so loved the world that he gave us His son,” we get the idea that our stance towards the world may not be so simple. We may not be able to separate ourselves from the world as easily as we think for “lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” comes with us wherever we go, even to an island. Also, we cannot be light or salt to the world if we decide to have nothing to do with the world. And we certainly cannot love the world as God loves the world if our stance is to flee the world which, as we have seen, may not be so easy anyway.

At that homeschoolers conference it became clear that the world could be seen most clearly in such things as 1) cities, 2) public schools, 3) government, and 4) anything other than far right politics. If one didn’t know better one could conclude that homeschooling is all about 1) getting out of the city to the country – a kind of “back to the garden” idea, 2) avoiding any kind of public education, including any education or activities that has public monies attached to it, such as a city funded soccer league, 3) having nothing to do with government or public service unless it is to defend against liberals who want to impose laws on homeschooling, and 4) assuming a political stance and championing the values of such organizations as the Christian Coalition. I may be taking a somewhat extreme critical view here, but I honestly don’t think so. This is what I see coming from much of the Christian homeschool subculture and from our keynote speaker.

But those reasons are not our reasons.

One of the great blessings of Christian truth is the incredible freedom we have. As we love God and His values we find ourselves marveling at this world He created. This world of His includes all that we find, including the incredible variety of humanity and human creativity. We might and should grieve at the evil we see in the world, but we should also love the world. We should love the cities and the arts and the culture and the governments. Wisdom dictates that we do not love folly or evil or rebellion against God. On the other hand this world is full of God’s creative work, it is His sovereignty manifest in all things everywhere, and this world is full of the people He loves – which includes all people. We have the freedom to engage in this world head on. We also have the opportunity to be light and salt. This opportunity is a great privilege. As a parent I can choose to model light and salt, or I can model the act of withdrawal.

Another great blessing is that because I know God is sovereign I can engage in this world without fear. I can live in the city or in the country, work in private business, ministry, government, or public schools, listen to Christian or secular music, visit art galleries and museums, watch popular movies, and even drink, smoke, play cards and occasionally cuss, without fear. If Jesus is my example then I can eat dinner with the most worldly people. If Paul’s theology is correct then I can eat meat sacrificed to idols. Wisdom, and the pursuit of holiness will dictate how I live, and so will my consideration the weaker brother (and I too am a weaker brother), so I may choose not to do some or most of these things at times, or ever, but there is no need for fear. But I must say that having no fear is not the same as not being scared. A man may say he is not scared of the world, and that may be true, but he may still live in fear of the world. To take one’s family away from the world and live on an island because the world is a bad place is to live in fear of the world.

We are to fear God, not the world. Our battles are not with flesh and blood, but against evil spiritual powers — sin and Satan. And it is God who fights our battles. Our greatest weapons are faith, love, and prayer.

There is another kind of separation — the separation through ideology and stereotypes. On our keynote speaker’s website promoting his daily radio program he touts the following: “There are no psychiatrists, professional counsellors [sic], bureaucrats, and seminary professors. But you will find fathers, mothers, grandparents, pastors, and friends.” Other than spelling counselors wrong this quote says a lot. There is an attitude within some quarters of Christianity that sees psychiatrists, professional counselors, bureaucrats, and seminary professors — along with scientists, social workers, and anyone from Hollywood — as being other than fathers, mothers, grandparents, pastors, and friends. Not only is this a wrongly prejudiced perspective more indicative of a passionate narrow-mindedness than of wisdom, it is also a perspective indicative of fear. There has always been a class of persons who claim victim status though they are not victims in a meaningful sense. This class is also easily manipulated by those who point to the educated, or those in government, or big city dwellers, or those in the entertainment industry, as the victimizers. Some politicians can be quite good at doing this, and so are many preachers. Our keynote speaker not only claims the victim status but uses his talents to fan the flames of fear. Fear thrives in the world of stereotypes. And just like the religious leader who prays to God, thanking God that he is not like other people, we can all fall prey to a profound blindness. What we see in Jesus is someone hanging out with the sinners. We see someone not only reaching out to everyone, but doing so without fear, and not drawing lines between himself and the rest of humanity. And, ironically, it is the religious leaders — the upstanding citizens, moral agents, family lovers, Bible teachers — who criticized Jesus for just such activities.

Where does this leave us? Our confusion, like so much in Christianity, is to make the wrong distinctions and then fall into the pit of false religion and self-righteousness. We confuse the world with superficial distinctions as “psychiatrists, professional counselors, bureaucrats, and seminary professors” rather than with a heart rooted in “lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” The world, in this bad spiritual sense, is as much alive and thriving within Christianity as it is anywhere else. When it comes to worldliness there is often no distinction between the Hollywood movie star and the megachurch pastor. In fact we bring the world with us wherever we go, wherever there is humanity, even into the nuclear family unit (a modern entity that, arguably, is the source of many problems in comparison to the traditional large extended family living and working together — but this is not the place to dive into that subject). Only through the grace of God do we have any hope to be free of the world — and that freedom can come to a professional counselor/psychiatrist working for a government agency while moonlighting at a seminary and living downtown in the biggest city as it can come to the man barricading his family against the evils of the world in some distant wilderness. Grace be to God for our hope and freedom.

But what about my charge as a parent? It is one thing to be an adult confronting the ugliness of this world, it is another for a child. As a parent I must protect my children when appropriate. I must also guide them in wisdom. I would rather my children face into the harshness of reality, guided by my example, sometimes stumbling and struggling, but learning to see themselves for who they truly are and learning to love others where they are. I also want my children to grow up without fear. If we can walk through this life together, confronting the variety of human experience and choice, and do so hand in hand, I think my children might have a decent chance of knowing good from evil, of learning humbleness, of appreciating all that God has created, and learning that goodness comes not so much from trying to avoid the stain of the world as turning to God in genuine repentance. We have come to realize that fleeing the world and taking one’s family to an island, even if those actions are clothed in the finest Christian robes of piety, could very well be an act of rebellion against God. Not necessarily, but could be.

This is one reason we homeschool, and we do so within a city context, and we listen to all kinds of music and study all kinds of art, and we are interested in politics beyond narrow “Christian” agendas, and we appreciate MLK and Gandhi, and we appreciate revised histories when they offer clarity and truth, and we don’t believe one can homeschool true faith into any child, for faith is ultimately a gift of the Holy Spirit. And we also don’t think we’ve got it all right. All we can do is move forward in humbleness (which also is a gift), looking to God for grace and mercy, and seeking goodness the best we can.

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* Like many different elements of our society, homeschoolers represent a kind of subculture. However, it would be incorrect to think of it as a single or homogeneous subculture. At best it is a subculture of subcultures, and may be better described as an eclectic group of families that have a rather unique similarity regardless, and sometimes in spite, of their many dissimilarities.

Remembering a teacher

My daughter Wilder Rose speaking of her music teacher and the joys he gave her, and her sorrow of losing such a good and fine teacher.

A couple of weeks ago my kids music teacher died. He was a brilliant, generous, uniquely gifted man who was loved by many people and many families in and beyond our town. He was primarily a percussionist who played in various bands, played many other instruments than drums, taught numerous students over the years, and also handbuilt wooden canoes.

A year ago we purchased a traditional drum kit for our son who was 6 years old at the time. We began looking for a drum teacher. This man came highly recommended. We had some worries because our son is young and prone to fidgetiness (some might say he’s a touch ADHD). However, this teacher was perfect for our son, working with his natural tendencies, and helping him discover the music within him. Then he offered to add our daughter for just a few dollars more. So we bought her a guitar. Our daughter is deeply musical and sings, plays piano and fiddle, and has great natural gifts in music. But as she began guitar something beautiful began to happen. Suddenly her musically talent blossomed like it had not before.

This man, a musician, husband, and wonderful teacher, gave my children, and our family, the gift of himself. After he died we cried and cried, and then we began to discover just how much he meant to so many other people in our community. Today we went to a memorial geared more towards his students, who are mostly kids. There was a drum circle, sharing, tears, laughter, and good fellowship.

The world needs more teachers like him. His loss, as is the loss of any human being’s life, is very significant, but our community also lost a special teacher. We also lost a wonderful musician.

As a Christian I know that this life is not the end. I know that death is the severing of one’s soul from one’s body, and that someday they shall be reunited. The memorial only addressed this sense of continuation in terms of us remembering him and carrying with us what he put into us through his teaching and his person–which is no small thing. But I realize that our society today adds to the natural difficulty of dealing with the tragedy and sorrow of death the lack of deeper knowledge of God’s goodness and the ultimate end in which we are made share.

I pray for his soul. I pray that God will have mercy on him, and bestow His graces upon his soul, if only for the generosity, kindness, and love he showed my kids.

Thecla & Tiepolo: The Making of an Altarpiece

I love this video. It speaks to many things I love (family, doing art with one’s kids, teaching about prayer and holiness, beauty, etc.), and things that I want more in my life.

You can find out more about the folks behind this video here: http://www.2spetrvs.com/

I officiated a wedding

It was my first time doing such a thing. When I was asked I wasn’t sure I could say yes. I became Catholic several years ago, and this was not a Catholic wedding, so I was not sure what the rules are. But my research (much thanks to Catholic Answers) said it was okay within parameters I was willing to follow, so I said yes. My wife and I counseled the couple as well. I was humbled to be asked, and felt it a great privilege to be a part of this couple’s starting out together.

photo by Daniel Odegaard

Here is the text of what I said at the wedding:

Karly and Jackson I want the two of you to take a good look at all the people who are here today. Go ahead and look at them. These are people who are dear to you, and you are dear to them. There is no denying the fact that the two of you are loved, and this day is important to a lot of people.

And I must say that Maricel and I have enjoyed spending time with the two of you over the past several months. It’s been a blessing to us, and I hope it has been good for you as well.

And this points out a very important thing – though making the commitment to get married is a very personal decision, it is also a very public one; it is a decision that is made and lived out within a community, and it affects, and is affected by, the lives of that community. None of us will be the same after today. So in case you are feeling just a little overwhelmed about all the attention, know that it’s not just about you, even though it is about you.

Before we get to your vows I want to take a few minutes and say a few words about marriage. I say these words based on my own experience and convictions that have come about because of my marriage to my beloved Maricel. I also say these words because of the conversations Maricel and I have had with the two of you. And because this is so important, I wrote out what I’m going to say. So I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to read to you.

For many here, and I hope for you too, what I will say will be nothing new. But weddings are important moments for all who come to witness, to celebrate, and to be reminded of the joy and goodness of marriage. In other words, it’s not just about the two of you getting hitched, it’s also about all of us reaffirming our own commitments to what marriage is, and to live in the light of those commitments.

The two of you have chosen, and are declaring today in front of these witnesses, to become ONE. We are told in Genesis 2:24 that in marriage a man and woman are united together and become one flesh. These words are also repeated by Christ. Today you two will be united in the mystery of marriage and you will personally and publically begin your life as one. This is an incredible idea to ponder – to be one.

But let’s make sure we are clear on a couple of absolutely critical and fundamental facts of this amazing oneness. First, becoming one in no way diminishes your individuality. Karly you will still be you. And Jackson, you will still be you. True oneness does not negate who each of you are as unique individuals. In fact, the mystery of oneness in marriage means that you two should help each other to become more fully, more completely yourselves. Jackson, you should dedicate your life to helping Karly become more beautifully, more wonderfully her truest and best version of herself. Karly, you must be dedicated to the same for Jackson, to become his truest and best version of himself.

But I also must say that, even though you start today being one, you will live out the rest of your days together becoming one. In other words, it takes work to be one. Marriage is something you dedicate yourselves to. And you need each other to do this. Your marriage, if you work at it side-by-side, and in cooperation with God’s grace, will become ever more perfectly and ever more completely what marriage is – that is, what it is meant to be.

You also need this community. We are all here today with you, not only to be witnesses of your vows to each other, and not merely to celebrate this day, but also to declare to you that we will support you and encourage you on your journey. As I said earlier, this decision you have made and are making is being done within a community. We are all here because it’s that important to us.

And secondly, this brings us to something perhaps even more fundamental. You see, we make a big deal out of getting married by having weddings, by gathering as a group like this, doing these formal ceremonies, and then making a party out of it. The reason is because getting married is not merely some legal agreement, or a contract where the two of you meet in the middle somewhere. The commitment of marriage is, rather, a covenant. Instead of saying “I’ll do my part as long as you do your part,” or “I’ll carry this half and you carry that half,” a covenant is a promise of persons. It’s one person saying I commit myself to you, I give myself to you, I pledge my very being to you and to your welfare, your self, your holiness. Not only is this amazing, but you see, when two people pledge themselves to each other in marriage it is a kind of miracle. There is nothing ordinary about a covenantal marriage.

In fact, Christians have always referred to marriage as sacred. It’s not just another thing we do, it’s a sacrament. In other words, it’s an outward sign of an inward grace that has been instituted by Jesus Christ. In fact, the language of marriage is the language of God’s relationship to us. It is, in effect, the language of salvation itself: God and His people, Christ and His Church, the groom and his bride. And God can work in your lives in many ways. And He has already been working in your lives since before each of you were born, creating the families and communities into which you were born, in which you were raised and in which each of you have been formed.

Now you stand here ready to enter into this special grace of God, that of marriage, created by God since the beginning of time, blessed by His only Son, and given to you as a special work. It is both a beautiful and a challenging privilege offered to you as you submit yourselves in love to each other. And as you do the work of marriage, may God continue to work in and through you, to bless each other, to bless us, and to bless the world.

But now I must address the issue of sin. You see, for how wonderful and good marriage is in its very nature, marriage can also be a struggle. Why? In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul writes about his struggle with sin. He says that all too often he does the things he doesn’t want to do, and conversely doesn’t do what he knows he should. He then says he finds a war going on in his soul. He desires righteousness, he desires goodness, to be loving and virtuous, but that desire is constantly being sabotaged. Something deep within him is again and again warring against his ultimate desires. If we are honest with ourselves we all find this principle in each of us, whether we are married or not. It’s a struggle common to us all. We are all in the same boat.

In marriage one cannot hide from this reality. Ironically, and I say this with the utmost seriousness, this inability to hide is one of the great gifts of marriage. In many ways marriage seems designed to make this inner struggle more evident. But instead of seeing this as something to avoid, welcome this truth. Only by knowing the truth of yourselves will you then feel the honest and authentic need to turn to God and call to Him for His grace and mercy. Only with this knowledge can you develop genuine empathy for each other. Knowing the two of you as I do, I am convinced that you already know this in part, and will continue learn this more fully. In fact, I truly believe you will come to embrace this.

So let’s remind ourselves of the goal. We want to be holy, truly loving, imitators of Christ. The apostle Peter says that we actually become partakers of the divine nature, that we would become like Christ who gave Himself for us. And what joy it is that now, because of this covenant you are entering into, each of you has a partner, that is one another, to help you on this profound and glorious journey. There is nothing either of you can do of more importance, or that carries more weight, than to follow Christ in the totality of who you are.

So then how do you deal with these demands, and strive for this reality? It begins with the grace of God through Christ. For Christ gave us the example of how we should live when He came into this world, humbling Himself even to the point of death, and then rose again that we might have life. He did this for you Jackson. And He did this for you Karly.

Christ dwells with you and in you. He gives you the strength to take up your crosses and so follow Him, to rise again after you have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and abundant love. It is in loving each other and giving of yourselves as Christ gave Himself for us that you will live out the covenant of marriage and become one.

I know that both of you desire to do good in the world beyond yourselves. You expressed to me and Maricel that in your hearts is the calling to do works of mercy, to help those in need, to serve and bring Christ to others. This is a noble calling and, in fact, we are all called to do these things. I want to emphasize that it will be your marriage, and the oneness you build together in Christ, that will not only be a powerful witness to the world, but will be the source of your strength, the foundation from which you can best extend your love to others. Work first on your relationship with Christ and with each other, and in your parenting if God blesses you with children, and the rest will follow. This, in a very personal way, will become the way you two seek His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these excellent and noble things will be given to you as well.

Finally, love is to will the good of the other as other. Jackson, your desire for Karly ought to be that she should become the woman of God she is meant to be. Karly, your desire for Jackson ought to be that he should become the man of God he is meant to be. You are not to use each other, and I know you believe that. But I must say that marriage is not a cure for loneliness, or merely a way to provide physical intimacy, or the way your going to get happiness. It’s not about what you can get from the other, or how you can make the other conform to your short-term needs. To love each other is more than having feelings for each other, it is to actively desire the very best for each other, to serve each other to that purpose. And this requires that each of you become students of each other, spending your days finding out more and more about how each of you uniquely embodies the image of God. Enjoy the romance, but even more revel and rejoice in goodness, in the pursuit of holiness, and in love that endures.

My prayer for you is that you would live in the light of these truths, and in the love of Christ; that you will give of yourselves to the building up of each other towards holiness; and that your marriage become the greatest blessing you ever receive short only of your final glory in the kingdom of God.

I am truly excited (and I know we all are) for both of you and this new journey you are beginning.

And now, Jackson and Karly, we have come the time for you to pledge yourselves to each other.

No slapping matter (or is it?): Thinking about Synods and Encountering Christ

An irate Bishop Nicholas slaps troublesome priest Arius across the face at the First Council of Nicaea

Some brief, and probably uneducated personal thoughts on the Synod on the Family, but first…

…and with humility…

There is a lot of discussion and vitriol flying around these days about the family and the Church. It bothers me. Two frequently narrow-minded religio-political groups — Liberals and Conservatives — have been squaring off over questions of divorce and remarriage and the receiving of the Eucharist — and other important matters of marriage, sex, faith, and the Church. I say narrow-minded because Christ is neither liberal or conservative, and neither is the Church. As Christians we know this. At one time or another I have been in both camps (I still am I guess). Nonetheless, I wonder…

Could all this hullabaloo over these tendentious and tender issues be God’s way (perhaps by way of Pope Francis) of calling the Church to account? The Church, frequently in the actions of its members (but not in its dogma), in recent decades (maybe longer), has again and again turned away from the foundational teachings on family and sexuality. Catholics do whatever they want it seems. This is well documented. There’s a lot of interest from all “sides” in the synod and its outcome for these very reasons. What this all means and where it will lead I cannot really say — and a lot of smarter people than I have much to say about these things anyway.

The conservatives, who are people of good will, and who are worried the liberals will get their way (there’s a lot of worry going around), should at least realize the “battle” was lost a long time ago — at least on a cultural/historical level, for God, of course, has lost nothing — and they have also been part of the problem. They may be “conserving” dogma, but some concept of a past culture is probably not worth conserving in some significant sense, at least in terms of a past “golden age” of Catholicism — though I could be wrong. We live in this culture, we are culture, culture is a living, moving thing. I sense many feel the conservatives are only interested in a kind of old-fashioned mono-culture — whether this is actually true I cannot say. However, bulwarks can seem like too much Soviet architecture, and it didn’t take long for many, even good-willed Catholics (or their children), to abandon the conservative project. How did the project “lose” so quickly and so completely? I suggest the Church’s presentation of its core teachings on sexuality and marriage for the past 150 years or so has taken too much for granted, was content too much with externals, and was not sufficiently evangelical in its approach or its language, did not bring Christ first, etc. If your average Catholic cannot articulate the Church’s understanding (and I mean understanding, not merely a recitation of the “rules”) on these issues what does that say? I believe this has caused untold suffering. I could be wrong.

Bishops should bring Christ to others first. Some do. Perhaps most do, I can’t really say. But the world needs Christ and the world seems to say the Church only brings them rules and dry theological presentations of human passions. (This synod could end up being another example of this. Let’s pray it isn’t.) I get that the world rejects Christ too, but shouldn’t it be more clear the world is actually rejecting Christ and not the Church — if that’s the case? It’s complicated, but let’s not accept easy excuses.

And the liberals, who are also people of good will, should realize they are just as much a part of the problem of causing great suffering amongst the faithful as everyone else. Tenderness and mercy is good, truly very good, but they go inextricably together with truth as well. (The same could be said to conservatives.) It’s not a 50/50 proposition — trying to find a nice balance between truth and mercy, between hard reality and tender compassion. It’s a 100/100 proposition — total truth and reality along with total mercy and compassion. (Again, one could say the same to conservatives.) We cannot turn away from our human nature, from the way we are designed, and not suffer. We cannot reject God’s natural will for our lives and not suffer. [Side note: If you are a Christian then you believe God exists and is your creator. Meditate on that.] But we are all at fault, for the real problem of our society, as it has been with every society before us, is our deep and profound brokenness. We must not let our pride prevent us from seeing this. I raise my hand as a guilty offender; I am broken and prideful.

Bishops should not hide the truth from anyone, thinking that truth is too difficult to handle right now — for that person. Bishops who refuse to bring truth, keeping it hidden, are snakes. Gentle smiles and soft hugs don’t make for genuine healing if there is not also truth in those hugs and smiles. Our souls are desperate for love and truth. Tenderness without calling for repentance is a hollow emotion. I can’t say I know any bishop who does this, but I can imagine. Oh that every prince of the Church were an icon of Christ!

And I am constantly confused on these issues. It is easy for me to say, “Who am I to judge.” (Only I do judge all the time and without mercy.) I am forever figuring out how to make good and right judgements, to see clearly, to know what is true. I pray for wisdom. There are people of all stripes whom I love — and love all too poorly. We’re all carrying heavy packs on this pilgrimage. I pray we are going the same way. Pray for me, a stumbling and wayward sinner.

Consider: It is better that we are prodigal sons who eventually find salvation than older brothers and end up in Hell. Think about it.

I do believe that Christ is calling us all to Him — every one of us. We are not being called first or foremost to dogma or to rules or to tradition — even if those things are good. Honestly, I love dogma, but… We are being called to Christ. To Him alone. We must risk that, and let others have the freedom to risk that as well. We do not come to Christ if not in freedom. That includes everyone, not just you or me.

Unless we solve the problem of our brokenness, of this principle of sin within us, we cannot find true joy — and we cannot solve it. We just can’t. Only in Christ can we find the answer to our soul’s longing. That is the gospel, that is the good news. Only by His blood, by His love, in His resurrection, and through His mediation do we have hope and reality of salvation, of our own resurrection. Only by the grace of God do we live. This is not a liberal or conservative issue. Neither “side”, separately or together, has the capacity to contain the radicality of the good news of Christ.

Be neither liberal or conservative, be a radical follower of Jesus Christ. This may mean being open to an encounter with Him — I’m sure it does. Is it not true that we mostly encounter Christ through encountering other people? Are you willing to take that chance? I hope I am — fear and trembling folks, fear and trembling.

I see in Pope Francis a man who brings the evangelism of encounter, and the world is crying out YES! Sadly I read and hear a number of catholics behaving like some of those baddies in the Gospel accounts — they grumble, they worry, they don’t see that their fear is blazoned on their sleeves. There is the constant parsing of the Pope’s every word, fretting over every action, and more grumbling that he is too confusing, sending the wrong message (“What will they think?!” “They’re bound to take that in the wrong direction!!” “Look who he’s meeting with, he’s sending the wrong message, doesn’t he see that?!!”). I get it, the Pope is sometimes confusing to many people — though I have yet to find him so. Some Catholics, sadly quite a lot, are saying the vilest things about the Pope. I think the Pharisees said the same things about Christ. Can’t you just hear it: “He is muddled and confused, and confusing others. Did he really say that?! My God, save us. He is leading us to schism. He wants schism. Just like a Jesuit to play a devil’s game. He’s not a real Pope. Pray for his death.” (Death?!! Yes, some “Catholics” have even said they want him dead. Can you imagine?) I’m not defending anyone, not even the Pope. His naysayers may prove to be right. I just wonder if something is happening (that’s not really the right word, not a strong enough word) according to God’s plan that is calling the Church, and its leaders to account — and in the process bringing about a renewal of sorts (perhaps a re-formation?). So the tensions are good. They point to something meaningful going on. Usually only in suffering do we gain wisdom. Only through struggle do we find the truth.

Anyway, I love this Pope. I don’t expect perfection from any man, but I do find in him a kind of icon of Christ to the world, and not just in his office, but in his words, actions, and person. Think about that. If true, what do our reactions to him say about us? We should examine our hearts if we find him displeasing. Again, I’m not defending the Pope. I could be blind.

So finally, about the synod… I suppose all this is my way of saying I sometimes (secretly) hope the Synod on the Family becomes a big, knock down, drag out fight. I hope true colors fly, and the truth emerges from the smoke. It seems about time the bishops wipe the genial smiles off their faces and they point some fingers and throw some zucchettos — maybe even overturn some tables. Of course I want them to behave with all the of the virtues in full force (love, courage, etc.). They should act always in love — sometimes not being nice is the loving thing to do; sometimes it means to stop hiding their true feelings and ideas under thick theological speak and formalisms. The Pope said to “speak clearly.” More importantly, if there is a crisis, then act like it’s a crisis. This is not, should not be, a political fight. It is a fight for the Church, for the Bride to be ready and perfect and lovely for the Groom when He returns. May Christ be glorified — and decorum be damned, if necessary.

Not to tell anyone what to do, but pray if you care.

on pilgrimage

We’re all on one journey or another. Sometimes a person is just journeying along and then at other times reaches a point, perhaps a milestone, perhaps a destination. And sometimes that arrival really means something personally.

And so, when a middle-aged former Protestant converts to the Catholic Church, it naturally is a kind of subjectively momentous moment, and maybe not a little statement. For those who see the Christian landscape in terms of lines on a map, or divided territories, a conversion like this can seem as a crossing over to (or from) the enemy. There are still those who live in a world of Protestant/Catholic trench warfare, often never believing they are motivated by anything other than love (as the bullets fly). Probably for most people in our modern culture, however, such a conversion warrants merely a moment of curiosity with only a shrug and a “well that’s nice.”

But it is a kind of statement because, while many Catholics inherit their status from birth, and others convert in order to please their future spouses, to be raised as a Protestant like me, and to take one’s Protestantism seriously for more than forty years, and then to find a compelling enough reason to leave the anti-Catholics for the Catholics, is to proclaim something important, even if it’s only important to me. In fact, I suppose for many the issue isn’t at all Catholic vs. Protestant, but why even care? Just love Jesus man. So my conversion is both away from Protestantism and a stance for Catholicism. I am not a love Jesus/hate religion guy. I’m a love Jesus and His Church guy. Thus it’s a stand in favor of something older and more permanent than the latest fashion. It’s saying the old debates still matter in some important way. And it’s saying there is something that transcends both the debates and our post-modern nonchalance.

Regardless, it’s usually best to go where one is called to go. And so this past Sunday, with my family as witnesses, I entered the Catholic Church.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I’m no warrior or ardent apologist. I don’t want to defend the ramparts. I move incrementally forward, if at all, in fear and trembling. Only by the grace of God go I. If you have followed this blog at all over the past several years you know that my conversion was a long time coming, filled with pondering and searching along a somewhat circuitous path. If you know me personally, then you know I don’t make these kinds of decisions quickly. Perhaps I like to spend more time than I should in reading and discussing, but this was no little thing for me, and it took a lot of prayer, a lot of reading, podcasts, videos, many many discussions, talking to myself, and a fair amount of back-and-forth.

And don’t get me wrong. All this push and pull was not due to doubt. Seven years ago I knew this was the right way for me. But for various reasons I thought it wasn’t possible, or wasn’t coming soon, so I began working towards it in the only way I knew. Years ago I surprised myself (in more ways than one) by praying that God would “make” me Catholic if it was His will. I said that prayer because I didn’t know how to make it happen myself. In His wisdom God took His time.

So here I am, having “arrived” at (and in) the Catholic Church. I believe the Catholic Church to be the one true Church. And yet, in other more significant ways the journey has only just begun. I’m now Catholic but I’m also just now learning to be Catholic. And I think it will take the rest of my life to learn even a little of what that means. Perhaps it’s best to say the journey continues, as it always has. We are all being and becoming.

In short, I’m still on pilgrimage towards the promised land, towards the New Jerusalem, towards salvation. God willing.

a pope, a man, a model

A young priest takes up a vocation. His future is in God’s hands.
His life not yet the full testament of his desires and faith.

A man of God. A man who has served Christ.

What is it that makes a man?

Pope Benedict XVI’s recent renunciation of the Petrine office, effective 28 February 2013, is a fascinating moment in world history.† Plainly, it’s big news. But it also is a moment to consider this man who, called up to the priesthood as a young man, became one of the most important theologians of the 20th century, and then was chosen by the Church he loved and served for so long to be the Bishop of Rome. Now he is leaving this office, presumably going into quiet seclusion and taking up a life of prayer until the end of his days.

I have never studied the life of Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Someday I may read one of his biographies. (I just started a biography of John Paul II.) What I know of his life is very limited. But I have read in numerous places that he is kind, thoughtful, brilliant, pastoral, and humble. I own several of his books and love them. I love the way he writes, the way his mind works (as far as I can tell), and his theological insights. I love his commitment to the truth and to Christ and to the Church. I know that he has weaknesses, flaws, and limitations, for we all do. He is human. I know that he is a sinner who is striving for holiness, striving to finish the race as St. Paul encouraged us all to do. But I also see a man who is a kind of model of virtue. Though his path and mine are wildly different, we are both called to the same goal, the same ultimate glory. We are both called to imitate Christ.‡

What I see in Benedict XVI is a soul devoted to our Lord. I also see a man with great gifts who has glorified God with those gifts. In that way he is an example for me. I also have gifts given to me by God. So do you. We should all seek to glorify God with out gifts. I know I fail miserably at this. But Benedict, and John Paul II, and the saints, and I pray the next pope, will continue to inspire us all to holiness and true glory.

As I raise up my children, teaching them in light of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, I look for role models. I seek out examples of men and women who can inspire us to be authentic followers of Christ. No man or woman is perfect, except Christ, but some rise above, as it were, and their lives are worth contemplating. I think Benedict XVI is one of those role models, as is John Paul II, as are numerous saints and great Christians throughout history. Slowly I am coming to realize the value of presenting heroes as archetypes of holiness to my children and to myself for the sake of our souls. That, I am beginning to see more and more, is at the heart of a Christian education.

God bless Pope Benedict XVI.

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† I only just realized that the word “history” really means Christ’s story: “His story.” I used to think “history” was at minimum a borderline patriarchal and misogynist term that meant “man’s story,” excluding women from some implied supreme status of men. Not surprisingly I picked up this notion in college. Now I believe that if Christ is the very center-point of the story God is telling, the key figure, the main reason, the hero, then certainly the flow of time and events must be His story: history.

‡ I am aware of the many charges against Benedict XVI one finds in our popular media culture. I have yet to see any news story on the current pope without some reference to the sins (real and perceived) of the Church. Comments on blogs having to do with B16 and/or the Catholic Church almost always begin with harsh words referencing the sex abuse crisis, and then move on to references to the Nazis. Comments made on the pope’s twitter feed are mostly a torrent of slurs and bigotry. The Catholic Church is deeply hated in this world, and probably it deserves some of what it gets (the sex abuse crisis is very real and evil, but perhaps wildly overblown by the media as well for various reasons). Regardless, I am convinced that B16 does not deserve the garbage thrown at him. In fact, I think just the opposite.

However, I am also convinced that a small fraction of priests (less than one tenth of one percent of the total number of priests)  committing horrible sins, and then those sins being systematically covered up, creates such an outpouring of anger (justifiably so) because the Catholic Church represents the fullness of the Body of Christ (or should) more so than any other group. In a sense, even coming from those who do not believe they need to be saved, one could say that if we cannot trust the Catholic Church then we truly are without hope. This is debatable of course, but it may get at some of the underlying pain of the issue. It may even get at the heart of the Protestant Reformation, which was a rebellion fueled largely by frustration and anger. Sin should never be tolerated in the Body of Christ. But then we all need to look at ourselves, our dark and sinful hearts, and wonder how anyone can be a Christian at all. For whatever reason it’s the way God “writes” history and our lives—good and evil in constant struggle, learning through failure (sometimes big failure), the constant need for repentance, the constant need of reform.  But we know we must continue to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (see Phil 2:12b-13) Only by the grace of God do we have any hope.

a prayer

Seven years ago today our daughter Coco died. We miss and look forward to seeing her again.

These kinds of anniversaries are interesting. On the one hand there is the reminder of a tragedy, a difficult and sad experience. On the other hand I look back and remember the great blessings of God at that time and since. God was with us, present, along side, holding us. So many people, from family and friends, to doctors and nurses, to musicians whose music touched us, made us know we were not alone, not without hope, not without love. God helped us to see His plans and His love more clearly than before. Also, if Coco had not died—and this might seem difficult to say—we would not have our next two children with us today. Her death sent us on a different course, and we are blessed still.

I believe Coco is alive with Christ and the saints.

To You, O Lord, we humbly entrust Coco, so precious in Your sight.
Take her into Your arms and welcome her into paradise,
where there will be no sorrow, no weeping nor pain,
but the fullness of peace and joy
with Your Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

John Paul II on Parents Educating their Children

The following is from FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO:

The Right and Duty of Parents Regarding Education

36. The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married couples to participate in God’s creative activity: by begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled, “since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs.”(99)

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others.

In addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents’ love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love.

This gets to the heart of why we have chosen to homeschool our children.

men need glory

Men need to believe that glory is possible. Belief (in the depths of their souls) that true glory is not possible, that glory was always a myth in which they can no longer legitimately believe, produces much of the malaise of modern man. This man—expressing that malaise in sloppy dress, banal rituals, perpetual adolescence, and constantly sought after distractions—has lost the compass of his nature. But man is made for glory, both temporal and eternal. He loses all hope if genuine glory is merely the ghost of ancient fantasies. Recovering the truth of glory is a critical principle of educating boys.

Considering the Universe Next Door

This article was first published on the Classical Conversations Writer’s blog.

“[A]s I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship…”
(Paul speaking to the Athenians)

“Wandering about in a twilight where all cats are grey is not seeking truth.”
(Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

Will our children grow up to be thinking adults who understand their beliefs, know where those beliefs came from, and know how those beliefs fare in comparison to competing beliefs? Let’s begin to answer these questions by first looking at the world in which our children will grow up.

Our present age

This world is disordered and has been since Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, but the modern soul suffers from a particular disordering. For millennia human beings lived within cultural boundaries of ready-made worldviews about nature and man, history and morality, life and death. Even as western societies expanded during the age of discovery they took with them the intellectual and social glue known as Christendom. They also brought along what we today call Christian, classical education (they would have merely called it education). But with modernity came a shifting of intellectual, social, political, economic, and spiritual tectonic plates possibly greater than any historical event save the coming of Christ. The shift (occurring mostly between the years 1650 to 1950) has been well documented, but it simply boils down to the movement from theism (with all its implications) to naturalism (with all its implications) to various reactions to naturalism.

A simple version of this shift might look something like this:

God exists, is infinite, personal, transcendent and
deeply involved in every aspect of His creation,
as seen most fully in the Incarnation.
⇩
God is transcendent but impersonal. He created the
world and set it in motion like a clock to run on it’s own.
⇩
Matter is all there is. God does not exist.
⇩
Therefore human beings are only complex, natural machines.
Therefore there is no basis for meaning and significance.
⇩
Human beings must create their own meaning.
One’s existence precedes one’s essence.
We are condemned to being free.

It is a downward path, from reason to irrationality, from God’s image in us to man is merely another animal. At this point one might seek answers elsewhere, perhaps in Eastern pantheistic monism, which says the soul of every human being is really just part of the Soul of the cosmos. Or one may find something more loosey-goosey, such as postmodern New Age spirituality, where one can create one’s own spiritual journey from a buffet of choices. And of course we often seek meaning in sports, politics, work, education, the arts, family, and the god of our age, consumerism. But it is still meaningless without an infinite, personal, transcendent and deeply involved creator God. The tragedy of mankind’s sinful nature includes the startling evidence that many choose ultimate meaninglessness rather than bowing the knee to God.

We are much like the frog in the pan of boiling water, unaware that we’re slowing cooking to death. We swim in these worldviews like fish in the sea. If we consider the world of just two hundred years ago and see what happened between then and now, we might see something like what Richard Tarnas described:

As the twentieth century advanced, modern consciousness found itself caught up in an intensely contradictory process of simultaneous expansion and contraction. Extraordinary intellectual and psychological sophistication was accompanied by a debilitating sense of anomie and malaise. An unprecedented broadening of horizons and exposure to the experience of others coincided with a private alienation of no less extreme proportions. A stupendous quantity of information had become available about all aspects of life—the contemporary world, the historical past, other cultures, other forms of life, the subatomic world, the macrocosm, the human mind and psyche—yet there was also a less ordering vision, less coherence and comprehension, less certainty. The great overriding impulse defining Western man since the Renaissance—the question for independence, self-determination, and individualism—had indeed brought those ideals to reality in many lives; yet it had also eventuated in a world where individual spontaneity and freedom were increasingly smothered, not just in theory by a reductionist scientism, but in practice by the ubiquitous collectivity and conformism of mass societies. (Tarnas, p. 388)

Consequently, we live in a pluralistic age, much like the age of the first Christians. The Apostle Paul in Athens was confronted by a people who had an endless capacity for both credulity and incredulity. Athens was the center of the intellectual world, a place where the love of speculation and debate ruled. It was also a highly religious city. Athens was full of the enticements of idols and opportunities for worship. However, both stiff incredulity and groundless credulity will eventually produce cynicism born from an inevitable and corrosive relativism. Our present age is also corrosively cynical. But we do not need to visit a geographic location like Athens to be surrounded by gods. Our world comes to us, and it does so with an intensity and vehemence such that one either becomes quickly overwhelmed or must take the defensive posture of numbness.

I feel this pressure constantly. I find everywhere the cynicism of relativism. We must be prepared to understand and carefully judge the constant opportunities for belief that confront us daily. Let us not lose sight of the truth as so much flotsam and jetsam in a sea of ideas and competing worldviews. As a homeschooling parent I have the responsibility to prepare my children to be in the world but but not of the world. I must help form their minds so that they are capable of making wise judgements about “objects of worship.” And, hopefully, that they come to love the adventure of discernment.

Among the best gifts I can give my children are great questions and the time to think them through.

The questions

Can truth be known, understood, and communicated? Are some dogmas worth believing and holding fast, and others to be rejected? What is it that my neighbor believes? What is it that I believe? Is there even any value in trying to find the answers, or are we just playing games?

Children traverse a chasm on the way to adulthood. That crossing is the process of leaving the comfort of belief for the sake of family to the passion of belief for the sake of self. It is the journey from childhood to adulthood, and it is a journey God created as an important part of human nature. It is, in short, a necessary part of coming to faith. Needless to say, eventually our children will be among wolves, whether they are thrown among them or discover they walked willingly (and perhaps naively) into their midst. If we believe that the grammar stage of learning can help prepare a child for the dialectic stage, and the dialectic for the rhetoric, then perhaps we can prepare our children for the chasm which begins in the dialectic stage. Perhaps we can encourage right thinking that still allows for the natural and necessary struggle to proceed as a ship handles rough seas with a good rudder and plenty of ballast. What is committed to memory provides the ballast and good principles of dialectic provide the rudder.

To help our children (and ourselves) with the dialectical engagement with worldviews we might begin with seven questions that can be asked of any worldview, any philosophical or theological system, and even of the core beliefs at the heart of any book or film. These questions I am stealing from James W. Sire’s book, The Universe Next Door. They are:

1. What is prime reality─the really real?
2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
3. What is a human being?
4. What happens to a person at death?
5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
7. What is the meaning of human history?

Consider how powerful these questions can be as they lie in the background of our discussions. For most students (for anyone really) these questions are very difficult to answer. Surprisingly, most college graduates have never seriously considered these questions, or even know of their existence. But we are called to live examined lives. We are called to raise our children to live examined lives. We need to gently make these questions mandatory.

Belief has to come from within. We cannot make our children into authentic Christians. At some point they must personally choose to follow Christ or not. Like us they will feel the pressures of this age and the next. They will experience the chaos of competing ideas, the tensions of modernity, and the longing in their hearts for meaning. As parents we must acknowledge the reality of the world they live in, including its very real dangers. We must also model for our children good habits of thinking. And we must recognize that it is God’s design that our children will question the faith in which we have raised them, perhaps even rebel against that faith for awhile. One thing we can give them is a set of questions that will not let them off the hook.

Works cited:

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. Grand Rapids: Eardmans, 1989.

Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988.

Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that have Shaped our World View. New York: Ballantine, 1991.