Followers of the Star

It is the most wonderful time of the year. In just two days, we will celebrate the remembrance of the Incarnation of Christ. This is a time for love and a time for cheer. For a short season, we are a little more gracious, a little more compassionate towards out family and neighbors. We give each other gifts, not in a spirit of materialism or worldliness, but always keeping before us the true image of Christmas, that of the Savior made flesh and born humbly unto us. It is good to indulge in the merrymaking of this season. We can drink a little more eggnog and eat a few more cookies than is strictly good for us. We can pause for a moment in our ever more busy lives to listen to a Christmas carol or two.

That being said, Christmas is above all else a time for remembrance. Just as we might distract ourselves from the ways of this world by watching a classic movie like "It's a Wonderful Life" or "White Christmas," we should immerse ourselves within what happened in Bethlehem so long ago, the "word that has come to pass which the Lord hath shown to us" (Luke 2:15). With the same sense of wonder with which we as children waited for Santa and his sleigh, let us gaze upon the infant King, the Godhead on Earth, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us.

When Jesus was born, "there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem" (Matthews 2:1). Arriving in the domain of Herod, these learned magi appeared before him and asked "Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to adore him (Matthew 2:2).

In a way, these magi were the earliest followers of Jesus. Unlike His first disciples, the magi did not know Him by word of mouth or by hearing him speak. When they found him, Christ was not yet old enough to talk and yet his Kingliness was both inherent and apparent. The magi knew him by His star.

These magi were likely skilled astronomers from Persia. In those times it was believed that when a new king was born his star would appear in the sky. Calling Him king of the Jews, perhaps the wise men were also familiar with the prophecy of Numbers 24:17 - "a star shall rise out of Jacob and a scepter shall spring up from Israel."

In the verbiage of our times, the magi would be considered scientists and academia. Their knowledge was so great that it was often mistaken for magic. These men were true seekers of the truth. They were no pseudo-scientists who would rather appear on TV than study the intricacies of the external world. Bill Nye, Neil De Grasse Tyson and their ilk are more apt to mock Christians and pursue progressive social agendas than pursue the truth. They are nothing like the magi.

Why did the wise men travel so far? Why did they traverse hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles just because of what they saw in the sky? We can ask much the same questions about the saints. Why did they live in die by a law contrary to that of the world? Why did they give up the things of this world and even more often than not their lives simply for a creed?

Both questions have the same answer. Because it is more than a star and more than a creed. The magi and the saints searched for the same thing: Jesus. Both came "to adore him." These wise men from the East were not looking for a merely political figure. Their gifts demonstrate this fact. Gold for a king, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh for a sacrificial lamb.

Finding the King and His star, the magi were "overjoyed." Despite all their earthly power and domain, despite their knowledge and studies that gave them powers beyond that of normal men, the wise men "prostrated themselves" at the feet of the child on Mary's lap. They worshiped the King born of a virgin. Human reason and power knelt before the Throne of the Incarnation.

The magi were truly "wise men." They searched for and found the promised heir of David, Jesus Christ of whose kingdom their is no end. But what can we learn from these searchers? Is there anything that we can take away from the actions of these men who lived two millennia before us?

We find ourselves in this season, in the same position as the wise men. We have been led into the foothills of Judea. The star is in the sky. But what are we going to do? The meaning of the star was no secret. Herod's scribes and chief priests were able to explain its significance to him easily enough. Why then was it only the wise men who came searching for Jesus when so many others could see the star in the sky? The shepherds came, yes, but only after an angelic host appeared in front of them, singing celestial hymns. The wise men did not need to see the angels. They believed.

We can see the star, but are we followers of it? The existence of God is as evident as the stars in the sky. There is no such thing as a true atheist. It is impossible. No human being can absolutely deny the existence of God. It is a truth that we cannot run from.

But faith is more than the Creed we say at every Mass. It is more than simply accepting the existence of God. Faith needs to be alive in order to function. It needs to be expressed through its sister virtues of love and hope. In a letter to the Emperor Gratian, St. Ambrose wrote "Faith, therefore, august Sovereign, must not be a mere matter of performance, for it is written, The zeal of your house has devoured me. Let us then with faithful spirit and devout mind call upon Jesus our Lord, let us believe that He is God." This Christmas season, let us be more than idle stargazers. Let us be followers of the star just as the wise men were. Let us be followers of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray for the same faith that led the magi to the scene of the Nativity when the Son of God, the Word, assumed our flesh so that He might die for our sins. Let us pray for the same willingness to subjugate the things of this world to the will and Majesty of God.

Unwrap those presents from beneath the tree. Celebrate with your family. Go to Mass on Christmas (and hopefully every Sunday and holy day of obligation). Above all else, be followers of God. Reject being lukewarm in the spirit, that tepid and tasteless condition that finds no favor with God. Be rather on fire with love of God. Let your love be something that consumes your soul. Let it be something that consumes your life. Be ye faithful unto death and always submitting to the will of God.

Deus Volt!

Living in the World

Life is hard. C'est la vie as the French would say. The world is not perfect, far from it. People get hurt, they lose their jobs, their families, their lives, their faiths. Terrorists, natural disasters, and accidents kill innocent people, good people. In case you want to be depressed, just turn on the news. All of this and more. Our times are tough.

That is not to say that every age does not have problems of its own. At least we don't have to deal with the Black Death or marauding Vikings. Our generation, however, has a few problems of our own that are particularly troubling. Part of it is technology. Part of it is culture. All of it is bad.

We have been given an opportunity that no people in history have ever been given. In the space of a decade, the amount of data and information that we have access to has exponentially increased. In a matter of seconds, you can find just about anything you need to know. Want to know who the foreign minister of Austria was in 1815? That's easy, its Metternich. Need to know the Mandarin word for pig? Done, its zhu. It's that easy.

Technology is not all bad. Nothing is inherently evil. The advancement of our age allows for an unprecedented level of global connectedness and information. The problem is that we abuse this power just as we abused the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden.

What do we do with this wealth of information that is literally at our fingertips? We play games. In the space of a few days, a new application can spread across the country and even the world. Games and apps, whistles and bells, all of the bright colors and sounds, they're all so distracting. It can even become addicting. How many times have you been at a restaurant and seen someone playing a game on their phone instead of talking to the person sitting in front of them? How many hours are wasted tapping a screen that could have been spent forging better relationships, praying, or following your vocation?

Bingewatching is even worse. Netflix has become synonymous with sloth. We consume an incredible amount of TV, streamed or otherwise. And how much of it is good for us? There is only a handful of shows that are not utterly morally corrupt. All too often, television glamourizes sex and violence. It normalizes homosexual attractions and deviant behavior. Rather recently, the show, Scandal, had an episode that featured the main character getting an abortion for the sake of convenience - on the screen. It was little less than a long advertisement for Planned Parenthood. Pay attention to what you watch! The eyes are the windows to the soul. Windows work both ways.

And these are the tame things that the world distracts us with! The number of people, adults and children, men and women, who are addicted to Internet pornography is insane. You can find images of violence, terrorism, abuse, and anything you could possibly think of all too easily. Drugs run through our streets, ruining families and lives. Underage, premarital sex has become a veritable fact of life. Abortion is called a "right." Sexual perversity in the form of homosexual "marriage" has been legalized. Every single day, people lie and steal and hurt each other. When will it end?

It is hard not to fall into despair seeing the hardness of our times. We hope for distraction, a way out of the pain and the hurt of the world that we find ourselves in. And that is the doorway for the very lies of the world we try to run from. The world offers us distractions from itself that only leads us deeper and deeper into sin. Deeper and deeper into darkness. There is so much noise in this world that it is nearly impossible to think straight.

As a Christian, one of the hardest things to do is live within the world. We walk an edge, the line between earth and heaven. Our stewardship of this earth is not something to be forgotten. God has given Himself to us through the True Presence in the Eucharist, but He also appears to us in the form of our neighbors. "Amen: I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me." Matthew 25:45.

At the same time, we cannot forget that we were made for heaven. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." St. Augustine said. This is our challenge: to be children of God while on His earth.

This is a challenge that Jesus Himself lived and breathed. For "we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15.

Jesus knew exactly how hard life is. He ate and dined with the lowly of the world - prostitutes and tax collectors - instead of the celebrities of His age - the Pharisees and Sadducees. His friend Lazarus died when he was away. He was betrayed and abandoned by His closest friends at the time He needed them the most. When He died on the Cross, the thousands that heard Him preach were gone or were now mocking Him. He felt the cruel sting of the lash. He felt the weight of the tree as it bore down upon His shoulders. The earthly ministry of Christ was no vacation. It was life in all of its vivid colors.

How do we live in the world? There's an easy answer. Live as Jesus Christ lived. Actually following the way of Christ, now that's the hard part.

We have been blessed with more information than all ages past. Some of that information is actually knowledge. Use it! No one has an excuse for not being able to find the Teachings of Christ and His Saints. While technology can be a gateway to sin, it can also be a tool for holiness. There are apps where you can find the Holy Bible, the Roman Missal, and the spiritual writings of holy men and women who lived this life and walked this road before us.

In this life, we must have one foot in Earth and the other in Heaven. Mental prayer is a great way to connect to God while remaining an active part of the world. Simple prayers, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, can counteract the distractions of the world by turning our eyes to God. "Say the Holy Rosary. Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary's that purifies the monotony of sins!" Speaking of the saints, St. Josemaria Escriva is an excellent model of faith for this day and age. His "Way" is both accessible and profound. It is a truly life changing work.

 With every breath you take, whisper "Jesus my Savior." How hard will it be for you to fall into sin when you have Christ's name on your lips every second of the day?

Yes, life can be hard. But it can also be great. Remember that Jesus has already won the war and do not despair. Death has already been conquered. We must now find the strength by God to live out our lives as Jesus would. Through us, Jesus can walk the earth once more. That is the will of God. That is how to live in the world.

Deus Vult!

The Right and The Left

"My kingdom does not belong to this world, if my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here."     John 18:36

"Heaven forbid that we should forsake the law and the commandments. We will not obey the words of the king by departing from our religion in the slightest degree."     1 Maccabees 2:21-22

The Church is not a political entity. She is a spiritual entity. In this day and age, we are all too caught up in our convenient ideological labels. This person is a conservative. That person is a liberal. He is only saying that because he is a member of that party. She would think differently if she were on the other side of the aisle.  But God defies our categories.

God is not a Republican. God is not a Democrat.

It is a fundamental flaw to look at religion in terms of politics. All too often, Christ is reduced to a merely political figure of history by pundits and social commentators. Quite frankly, such people fall somewhere in between insane and idiotic. You cannot judge Christ without first reading His Word. Jesus was in no way political! He did not instruct us on how to govern ourselves, he taught us how to love God and how to love one another. He certainly did not, as others might assert, endorse Communism! What part of "my kingdom does not belong to this world" is unclear?

We like to look at believers in terms of politics as well. Catholics tend to fall into the middle of the political spectrum on average, and that is not a bad thing. There is no 11th Commandment that says you must be a liberal or a conservative. It simply does not matter. In His earthly ministry, Jesus welcomed them all, conservative and liberal, tax collector and prostitute, Pharisee and poor. He made no distinction.

The Catholic Church was born under the watch of the Roman Empire. Soon (relatively) afterwards, She coexisted (also relatively) with the feudal states of Europe. The Catholic Church predates American democracy by seventeen centuries! She cannot be limited by a democracy. We have more than a few kings and queens for saints. I have a feeling that it does not count for much before the pearly gates whether or not you are a Republican, a Democrat, or even a monarchist. Heaven is an open primary.

This is the Truth. The problem is that the Truth rarely finds itself acted out in reality. In America, religion has become very much political. It seems that you can no longer discuss theology without discussing politics. There is a reason for this. Though Jesus defined political categories, His moral teachings look quite similar to the social policies of conservatives today. Politics has decided to become an arbiter of morality as well as policy. In 1973, Roe v Wade made abortion legal across the United States. It was, as a whole, applauded by Democrats, and criticized by Republicans. President Reagan was a firm supporter of the pro-life movement. President Obama might well be mistaken for a Planned Parenthood spokesman. Though you might be able to find a Democrat who is against abortion if you tried hard enough, it would be nearly impossible to find an elected Democrat who is pro-life. The opposite is true for the Republican party. The current field of Republican presidential candidates are all, to one degree or another, against abortion. This carries into other moral teachings as well. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court made the rather asinine assumption that it had the authority to rule on the nature of marriage, and legalized an abomination. Like a broken record, history repeats herself. Republicans supported traditional marriage. Democrats supported the abomination.

The Republican party is not the Church, though it tends to coincide with Her teachings more than the Democratic party. Often times, conservative politicians focus more on justice than compassion. They become out of balance on the side of the law when it affects the poor and suffering. Its stance on sin and sinners is not as refined or as merciful as that of the Church. There is nothing at all wrong with having liberal Catholics. In fact, it is a very good thing. They remind us about the need to address the human suffering in the world.

The first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, was a Catholic. Many social reforms that eased the suffering of our poor were passed under that great humanitarian, FDR, also a Democrat. The Democratic party is not, contrary to popular belief, the spawn of Satan. It just happens to look like it at the moment. 

Catholic Democrats are placed in a rather nasty position by their leadership. Some of the social policies of the Democratic party are in direct violation of the teachings of the Church. Abortion is murder. It is that simple. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Also simple. The Church is not interfering in matters of politics. Politicians are interfering in matters of the Church. The great Bishop Fulton Sheen addressed this point perfectly. "The Church does not interfere in politics... The Church does not judge such a philosophy. But when it does this, it is not interfering with politics, for such politics is no longer politics, but theology."

True Catholics cannot vote for pro-choice politicians. By doing so, they help to perpetuate the genocide against infants. Their vote is stained with blood. Likewise, our vote must be an emphatic "No!" for any politician who interferes in matters of theology and tries to legitimize sin. That spurs on the disintegration of the family and the acceptance of sin in our society. That is not right.

You can be a Republican. You can be a Democrat. But first and foremost, you must be a Catholic. You must vote as a Catholic. Politics has no authority when it comes to the teachings of the Church. When theology becomes involved, we must vote according to the teachings of the Church and not the policies of our party. When it comes to moral issues, use the Catechism as your guide,  not political rhetoric. 

If only modern Catholics would have the same zeal as our ancestor in faith, Mattathias. Despite all the riches he was offered, he rejected the commands of the king. He would rather die that betray the law of God. Let his words echo in our hearts whenever we watch the news or walk into a voting booth! "We will not obey the words of the king by departing from our religion in the slightest degree."

Deus Volt!

Why Rand is Wrong

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Ayn Rand is one of the most famous intellectuals of the twentieth century. She is also wrong. The writings and philosophy of Rand are, in the old-fashioned way of referring to things, heretical. She denies the existence of God. She takes upon herself the Devilish task of raising up man into a god of his own to replace the throne she tries to empty.

Ayn Rand was born in Russia and emigrated to America during the early 20th century. She was well-educated, acquainted with the study of philosophy. Through the course of her education, Rand developed a philosophy of her own called Objectivism that she expressed through her writing, most of which was fiction. Atlas Shrugged, the source for the above quote, is one of the most popular novels of its century. In her novels, Ayn Rand examines the relationship between the individual and the state, and man's actualization of his own existence. She concludes that the "right" way to live is wholly for oneself, that there is no greater value than the individual and the mind.

Like most lies, Rand's philosophy contains some shreds of the Truth. Lies are only perversions of Truth, they can never be wholly original. To a certain extent, Rand's emphasis of the value of the individual is a good thing. The aggregation of mankind into statistics and Volksgeist is just as bad as his arbitrary godhood. We must never lose sight of the importance of each and every soul in the eyes of God, what Rohr calls "immortal diamonds." Concern for the "working class" but not for the worker himself is the great hypocrisy of socialism and liberalism. Rand reminds us of the inherent importance of the individual self through her unequivocal rejection of collectivism.

But Rand goes too far. She makes the world the altar of man. She exalts an imperfect creature as God's replacement. Her mistake is that of the Ancient Greeks who modelled their gods after exceptionally flawed human beings. Rand is wrong because she denies the existence of God. She places sinful man on a pedestal that is far too high. She rejects the concept of altruism, of compassion for our fellow men, of living "for the sake of another man."

There is certainly an appeal to Rand's work. The quote from the beginning resonates with a lot of people. Especially in the corporate monotony, people want to hear that they are special, that they are something more than their income or social security number. Rand's words are those of the snake in the garden or the tempter in the desert. We become inflated with pompous imaginings of self-reliance and transcendence that turn out to be nothing but an illusion. 

"No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main."

Above is an excerpt from "No Man is an Island" by John Donne. It is very fitting to counter the illusions conquered by Rand. Life is not the way Rand paints it. We cannot only be concerned for our own affairs. Rand says that "His own happiness is man's only moral purpose." She is wrong.

When it comes to our age of lies, they often come in pairs. Rand revealed a world of self-aggrandizement and fantasy where the only good is the happiness of the individual. At the same time, the Communists revealed a world where the individual is absorbed into the state and simply becomes a number, where "fraternity" really means anonymity.

Neither is the world that Jesus revealed to us. "A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you," (John 13:34.) And Jesus did not love us with vague, disinterested humanitarian feelings. He did not love us as a charity. He loved US. He loved each and every "immortal diamond." He loves us in spite of the fact that we are not perfect. We are made perfect through him. Jesus Christ taught us to live our lives for the sake of another man. It is far too easy to see statistics and not people. It can be far too easy to satisfy our consciences with a check or a protest or a meme instead of with a heart and a prayer.

"As I have loved you." Jesus love us so much that he died for us! He died on the Cross for us! There is no greater love!

For too long, the teachings of Christ have been put down to merely social instruction. Jesus was not asking us to create a world of forced equality where that equality becomes as meaningless as the individual. He was not asking us to try to reduce the poverty in the world simply to get rid of a number, a statistic.

Jesus did not ask us to exalt ourselves. He told us quite the opposite, actually. "And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." We are great through our humility and love, not through our pride.

This is the Truth that Rand misses. She does not see the light of love of Jesus Christ. She only sees the light that souls reflect from God. She mistakes that brightness for being that of the individual. She tries to say that the Moon is its own light while all the while blind to the brilliance of the Sun.

Deus Volt!

Peace in Our Time?

What is our world coming to? Last Friday, on November 13th, the city of Paris suffered her worst attack since the Second World War. 129 people died. Several hundred were injured. Why? This was the work of truly depraved men, men who believed that they were fighting for the sake of religion. "Allah Ackbar," they cried as they stole innocent lives and covered the streets of the City of Lights with blood. These are not men of God. These are men of hate. These are not holy warriors fighting for their faith. These are cowards who target civilians and blow themselves up. These are not martyrs. These are murderers. In a recent address, His Holiness Pope Francis called these monsters and all who kill in the name of religion "blasphemers." Islamic terrorists like the ones who perpetrated the attacks in Paris make a mockery of the name of God by using it as their final words as they kill innocents. That is not what God is. That is not the truth. That is a lie.

The taking of innocent lives is never justified by religion. It is never justified by anything. We must always remember that a single life, a single soul, is so precious that Jesus Christ would have died on the Cross for them alone.

That is the problem with Islam. The Bible does not say "kill the unbelievers" seven times. The Quran does. The Bible does not sentence basically all woman to damnation. The Quran does. Jesus did not reclaim his holy city by massacring Jews. Muhammad did.

The heresy of these Islamic terrorists is that they think that God is pleased by acts of violence, by their killing of the unbelievers. They believe that they can appease him with the shedding of innocent blood. What damned nonsense.

They are dying for a lie. They are killing for a lie. They are truly monsters. Their violence and blasphemy is not limited to Paris, not by any means. Our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East are callously murdered by the same lie that murdered 129 in France. Every single day, the Islamic State and others like them blow themselves up, behead, rape, and murder all for the sake of their "religion," their lie.

What should we do? What can we do? Is there anything that we can do in the face of such utter violence and depravity?

Have faith in the justice of God. His righteousness is so much greater than our own. His justice comes in His own time. Make no mistake, these monsters that call themselves holy warriors, mock the name of God, and murder His true believers will have their day before the Throne. They will not be able to escape the judgement of God for their depravity.

What we should do is pray. Pray for those who lost their lives in France, in the Middle East, and around the world because of the lies of hate and blasphemy. And though it might be hard, pray for those souls that have somehow become so consumed with hate that they think that it is acceptable to take a life. And pray for better times. Pray that we might have peace in our age, as impossible as it seems, for nothing is impossible with God. This age of hate and apostasy should make us yearn all the more strongly for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Just as the Israelites prayed for deliverance during their years of captivity and oppression, so too should we Christians pray for the love of God to blot out the hate of our world.

The only thing in this world stronger than this hate is love. We have no shortage of examples of radical love in the face of hate. Do not be afraid of these terrorists. Have hope. They are not the first to promise the destruction of Christianity and all we hold dear. We have two millennia of true and holy martyrs to prove this. The Romans could not extinguish the love of Christ, regardless of the numbers of Christians sacrificed to the beasts or burned alive or tortured to death. The Church survives. She has survived fire and blood, schism and hate. The Church is well and alive!

This attack on Paris was the act of cowards, but they are doomed cowards. They have taken on a futile task because the Church of God will never fall. We are established on a rock, not on bloodied sand as they are. Await God's judgement eagerly, for He will bring peace in our time. He alone will bring peace in our time.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, patroness of Paris, pray for us.

Deus Volt!

Why We Need Mary

One of the most attacked traditions of the Catholic Church is her veneration of the Blessed Mother. Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and Atheists alike viciously criticize Catholics for "worshipping" Mary. Do not so much as listen to this infernal noise! Our faith in the Mother of God must never be shaken.

These devilish arrows of contention have no sting. The Catholic Church's veneration of the Blessed Mother as a protectress and an intercessor is well founded. The mystery of the Incarnation gives us more than enough reason to praise the name of Mary. "No man puts new wine into old bottles; otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled and the bottles will be lost." (Mark 2:22) Saint Lois de Montfort, the author of one of the greatest works on the Virgin Mary, explained this analogy as pertaining to the Mother of God's role in the Incarnation. The Son of God cannot have been born to just anyone. The womb that would be his home of nine months had to be consecrated - it would be the first Tabernacle. God created Mary for that purpose alone. She was set apart as the chosen handmaid of the Lord, the Mother of her Savior and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.  She was conceived without sin to bear in her womb He who would conquer sin. The Mother of God HAD to be without sin. No unworthy vessel could carry this Child.

Mary was no ordinary woman. Claims, however, that Catholics "worship" Mary are both unfounded and slanderous. God is glorified through his Mother. Ignoring Mary would be a grave offense to God. He wishes for her veneration and praise. Who does not like to have his mother spoken well of? Devotion to Mary is given to us in Scripture. The Hail Mary, the most beautiful of prayers, is entirely derived from the Word of God.

Our worship of God is magnified through the Blessed Virgin. Unlike Jesus and Mary, we do sin, a lot actually. It is an act of great humility to go before the Virgin Mary and ask her to appear before the throne of God on your behalf. You allow her grace and virtue to take the place of your ingratitude and sin.

We need Mary.

This age needs Mary more than any other. We flounder and fail in vice and sin. We replace traditions with "progress" and morality with choice. Our age seems to have forgotten God. We can only be saved by turning back to Him through His Mother. Mary is the protectress of the mortal race. Her intercession can save us. The need for returning to the Mother of God, our Mother, has been explicitly revealed to us through the appearances at Fatima and the writings of many saints of our age.

How can we turn back to Mary? The best way is also the simplest. Pray. Prayer is perfected in the Holy Rosary. Meditating on the sacred Mysteries is a sure way to grow in personal holiness. Start small. Taking on a summit that is too steep will quickly discourage our weak hearts. Begin with a single decade or even simply three Hail Mary's every day. It might seem boring, but "Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary's which purifies the monotony of your sins!" Build from there. Prayer is just like exercise. Do not expect yourself to bench three hundred pounds on your first try. It takes practice. We would do well never to overlook the power of the Rosary. The great Saint Lois de Montfort gives us the following words of inspiration and hope when it comes to the Rosary:

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins 'you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.' Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if - and mark well what I say - if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins."

Our devotion to the blessed Mother can also be made manifest in action. We must show the world that Mary is our Mother. Live a life that is an imitation of both Jesus and Mary. Just as His earthly life is a guide for us to follow, Jesus gave us Mary as an example of holiness. Follow the virtues that Mary lived: humility, patience, reverence, and profound faith. There is a popular rubber bracelet with the acronym WWJD? - What Would Jesus Do? It would be truly fitting for us to add to that WWMD? - What Would Mary Do? Study Scripture and the works of the Saints to learn how to imitate the Blessed Mother in all fullness.

Finally, we can express our devotion to the Mother of God through consecrating ourselves to "this august princess." There are a few methods of consecration that have been handed down to us through the Saints.  Personally, I would recommend that of Saint Lois de Montfort. As you might have noticed, this illustrious Saint comes up often when we speak of Mary. He wrote "True Devotion to Mary" a work that outlined his plan of consecration. Consecration takes the form of "slavery to Jesus through Mary." By consecrating ourselves, we submit our bodies, our minds, our will, and everything we possess to the will of Jesus and the Blessed Mother. This is a very blessed form of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mary is our Mother. We must not tolerate any insult to our Mother. Any time someone slanders the Blessed Virgin, you ought to be more offended than if they had slandered you yourself. Do not remain silent when her name and reputation are tarnished. We are the Church of Jesus. Jesus wants us to defend His most Holy Mother. We must also recognize our own sinfulness and turn to Mary as the means of worshipping God more fully and gaining salvation. Our lives should be an echo of Mary's Magnificat, "my soul magnifies the Lord."

Blessed ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God - Pray for us.

Deus Volt!

The Dignity of Man

In his address to the United Nations, Pope Francis reminded the collective nations of a simple fact - all men are created in the image and likeness of Christ. Every man, woman, and child that shares this earth has the same essential dignity.

Despite the unprecedented level of connectivity and communication ushered in by technological advances, we maintain an attitude of what His Holiness called "exclusiveness." Far too often, we do not look beyond our borders, our families, and most importantly, our selves. It is far too easy to reduce the seven billion members of humanity to just that: a number.

Catholics should not look upon the world as a hodgepodge of separate nations, of individual interests, or of statistics. Sure, you might feel bad if you hear that just short of a billion people worldwide face hunger and starvation. But what do you do with that feeling? The sentiment is not enough. It might reflect well on your moral sensibilities if you can conjure up feelings of sympathy for the millions of displaced refugees around the world, but it does not make you a good person. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so the adage goes.

We are Catholics. The word "catholic" means universal. We are a part of the Universal Church. The truth in which we place our faith is not limited to any hemisphere of the globe. It is not limited to any culture. It is not limited to any tongue. Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites, were the first people chosen by God. When the Son of God became man, our inheritance was no longer of flesh and blood, but of the spirit.

Leaders and followers alike, do not fall into error! Do not forget that all men were created equally by God. There is no essential difference between an American billionaire and a Syrian refugee. Both have the same dignity as children of God.

Now what does this dignity mean? It means that all men are entitled to the same, basic rights. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, "unalienable rights." When speaking before the United Nations, Pope Francis put forth the three L's of human dignity: lodging, labor, and land. These three things are needed to give men quality of life. In addition to those three, His Holiness added to the necessities of life education, and religious freedom, freedom of conscience.

Men are not numbers. They are not a statistic. Refugees from regional conflicts are not a problem, they are people. The starving are not simply mouths. The homeless are not simply buckets to catch thrown loose change. Issues involving humans cannot simply be solved by throwing money at them.

What this world needs is a new host of Catholics who understand the dignity of each and every human life. We must protect that life from the womb to the grave. We must not stop fighting. We cannot allow children to be murdered in the womb. We cannot allow the elderly to be discarded when they are of no use. We cannot allow people to starve, to live in ignorance, to lack the basic necessities of a human life.

As always, Jesus did not leave us bereft of instruction. Matthew 25:37-40:

        "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

When we see another man, we should not see the tone of their skin, their religion, their clothing, their wallet, or their language. We should instead see the face of God.

Especially in this age of darkness, when true doctrine is mocked and when faith is reduced to a fantasy, the faithful must act as the body of Christ. The Church must be the hands and feet of God, wherever He is needed. And He is needed everywhere: from the streets of Chicago to the slums of Mexico city, from the boardrooms of New York to the villages of Mongolia.

Every man was born as a reflection of the goodness of God.

No man can survive without God.

Deus Volt!

The Narrow Path

"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13-14

There is a famous joke involving a tourist in England. He finds a native and asks "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" The inevitable and unexpected response is "practice, practice, and practice." 

The point is that it is very difficult to get into Carnegie Hall, at least in one sense. You cannot simply pick up an instrument and pluck a few strings for a few weeks or even a few months in order to perform in Carnegie Hall. You cannot buy a ticket to get in. The only way to Carnegie Hall is years and years of practice, of sacrifice.

Interestingly enough, there is a parallel to Heaven here. There is no easy way to gain eternal life. Now, notice that I say "gain" instead of "earn." The distinction is monumental. We, all by our little old mortal selves, cannot earn our way to Heaven. There is no deed so great, no life so perfect (excepting Jesus and Mary of course) that would make us perfect enough to enter into Heaven of our own accord. Heaven, just like grace, is a gift. Heaven, just like grace, can be rejected. The consequences of rejection remain the same: spiritual death and Hell.

But make no mistake. Though we cannot earn our way into Heaven, there is still a Hell, and it is very real. Despite the grace that has been given to us by God, despite His love, innumerable souls decide to reject His plan in favor of their own. In doing so, they reject His eternity. We are not privy to the will of God. We do not known how He decides which souls enter into Heaven. All we know is what Jesus has told us.

The gate to eternal life is a "narrow" one. As pessimistic as it sounds, there are "many" souls who reject the narrow road and plant their feet on the "wide road" that "leads to destruction."

How often do we forget this? In a world that likes to ignore both Heaven and Hell, we are told that we can live as we please. The lie of relativism tells us that there is no true way to live, only the way that seems right to us. In days such as these, the other road must be very wide in deed.

This is the danger of tolerance. For false love of image and of acceptance, we allow people to live in sin. We allow people to walk that "wide road" to Hell. This is not judgement. Who among you would allow a blind man to walk straight off a cliff, simply because you do not want to presume to show him the right way for fear of offending his sensibilities?

Jesus did not say "many is the way to Heaven, just do what you would like, and I will give you eternal life just so long as you offend no one." There is but one way to Heaven. That is the way of God.

It is hard to walk the narrow path these days. Everyone will shout that you are going the wrong way, that you are an idiot for choosing such a difficult path. All the while, they are blind to the quicksand that they themselves trod so assuredly.

Know that the road is hard. The gate is painfully narrow. There are brambles on this road. There are thorns that will cut and hurt and bleed you. There are stretches of mud that seem impassable. There will be days on this road when you will want to turn around. You will want to return to the illusory safety of the wider and easier road. The road that is far less lonely.

Remember that you do not tread this road alone. There have been saints who have walked this road. They have left us maps for the path. Look to the lives of the Saints. Read their words of encouragement and instruction. They know what it means to walk this road that seems ever narrower.

Remember what lies at the end of this road. We do not strive towards fame, wealth, or any earthly gain. All those will perish like dust in the wind. We walk to Heaven, the eternal reward. We were made for eternity, not this world of shadows.

The narrow road is hard. The reward, however, is very much worth it.

Deus Volt!

Mere Spirituality

Spirituality is not religion.

In our convenient age of five-step formulae and "there's an app for that" mentality, it should come as no surprise that we often look for similar shortcuts when it comes to practicing religion. Previous generations had at least the decorum to be either hot or cold when it came to religion. You either believed in God or you did not. Simple. There were no impious half-measures.


Not so today, not so. We have created a blasphemous assortment of half-prayers and religious "feelings." This Frankenstein's monster goes by many names: New Age philosophy, astrology, pantheism. It is most commonly addressed as "spirituality." The basic message is simple. Get rid of all that doctrine, tradition, and rules, and replace it with emotional experiences that will somehow coalesce into the achievement of some esoteric plane of existence, nirvana, enlightenment, etc....

Spirituality is the essence of our times. No responsibility, no rules, no tradition, and no God. Spirituality is far more dangerous than atheism. It is, in itself, a kind of cocktail mix of agnosticism and religion. It removes God from the equation. All of the religious feelings sans a Supreme Being. This is a dangerous, spiritual arsenic. It is a devilish trick. There is nothing wrong with spiritual feelings in themselves. In fact, they are very good. Such feelings often mean that the Holy Spirit is moving within our hearts. These feelings are intended to bring us closer to God.

Spirituality takes these feelings and disguises them, disguises them, and perverts them. It is a subtle lie unlike the outright rejection of atheism. Atheism is a desert. Spirituality is a poisoned well. The combination is deadly. St. Augustine wrote that "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." The heart cannot survive on atheism alone, on shadows. It needs spiritual substance. And instead of the true fruits of the true Church, a modern soul is deceived and taken in by the sweet-tasting but ultimately empty.

This is the strategy of evil. Starve the soul with atheism. Create a culture immersed with the death of the spirit, Nietzsche's nihilistic message, "God is dead." Eventually, the soul will reject the lies it has been fed. It will OD on sand and dirt. That is where spirituality comes in. When the soul has emptied itself with darkness, it looks for something more. The answer of the world is spirituality. An empty "religion" based only on emotion and fantasy, on feelings and sensations.

Always remember that God cannot be replaced. There is nothing that can replace the need for God in our souls, no matter the amount of garbage we swallow. Our hearts will be forever "restless" until they find God.


Deus Vult!

On Abortion

There is nothing morally ambiguous about abortion. Nothing can justify it. Taking a life is only justified in combat, in self-defense, in defense of innocent life. But abortion is the taking of innocent life. It is the premeditated destruction of a human child. Killing a baby is nothing but murder. There is no justification.

The fight for the lives of the unborn has been going on for far too long. It is now a multigenerational war. Roe v Wade happened over forty years ago. Parents have handed down the struggle to their children. The new millennium inherited the struggle. A new array of recruits have taken the field. In a long war such as this, it is all too easy for combatants to descend from crusader to cynic. We lose sight of what we are fighting for. 

Abortion is not an issue of the left or right. It is a human issue. We should not fight for its end because of our political affiliation but because of our outrage at this moral obscenity. The murderous streak in man has a long history. Just ask Cain and Abel. We have killed each other in very nearly any way possible. There have been monsters disguised as men. Abortion, however, is a monster's dream come true. It is murder disguised with rubber gloves.

The numbers for abortion make a very decisive statement. About 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Stalin's purges and despotic influence reaped 20 million corpses. The regime of Mao Zedong brought a death toll that was twice that. In the United States alone, 58 million and counting children have been killed by abortion. According to US Abortion Counters, more than 1.3 billion babies have been killed since 1980. That's more than one seventh of the current world population. And that number is only going to get bigger and bigger. Today, a fifth of pregnancies end in premeditated murder.

And abortion is murder. You do not sever the life of a human being and call it a medical procedure or a right for women. Life begins at conception. That is a fact. Attempts to push the beginning of life to a date later than that defy logic. If life begins at sixteen weeks, why doesn't it occur at fifteen weeks instead? That is an idiotic argument formed by people who are either supremely ignorant or murderers.

All you have to do is watch some of the Planned Parenthood videos that have been released in recent weeks to see the dark side of the abortion industry, the industry of death. Abortion is not some clean medical procedure. Killing a baby is far from humane, go figure. The baby's body is crushed in certain ways to ensure that vital organs remain viable and therefore profitable.

It is sickening to hear a crime called a right. It is morally reprehensible to defend what is clearly murder. Perhaps this generation will not see justice. It has taken far longer than forty years for some wrongs to be righted. It is just that few wrongs have ever been this wrong. There will be justice. We might not be able to charge those morally complicit in abortion with murder in the end. Those who knew exactly what they were doing and didn't care might not spend a day in jail. But justice is not of man but of God. And God's justice comes in His own time. 

Never forget what we are fighting for. Never forget who we are fighting for. Every time you see a baby, every time you see the wonder in their eyes, remember. Remember that we are not fighting for a political agenda or personal gain. We are fighting for the children. 

Deus Vult!

A Divorce Society

We have lost our reverence for the sacrament of marriage. You hear this a lot in reference to the legalization of homosexual "unions," which are indeed a terrible mockery of the indissoluble union between man and woman instituted by God. But this is just one of the symptoms of a culture bereft of respect for matrimony, and a rather minor one at that. Proportionately, there are surprisingly few homosexuals. Therefore the effects of gay marriage are relatively limited in scope.

There is one symptom of our culture of death and disunity that dwarfs homosexual "marriage" in both scope and significance: divorce. 

Divorce is so commonplace today, it's almost moral gray noise. We forget that half of modern marriages end in divorce. We forget that whole legal practices have been built upon divorce cases. No one pays any attention to the fact that celebrities have five ex-wives and their current spouse is half their age. Nevertheless the roots of a lot of our problems today lie in divorce. Divorce could well be what kills our culture. 

Indissolubility is one of the essential characteristics of the Sacrament of marriage. God did not intend for the wedding band to be a rubber band, easily stretched and easily broken. Marriage is a union that should be set in gold, not broken for convenience. 

Christ's teachings on this subject are very clear: "What God has joined together, man must not separate.... I say to you, whoever divorces his wife

(unless the marriage is unlawful)
and marries another commits adultery." (Matthew 19:6,9)

It is amazing how easily the words of the Gospel are forgotten by Christians. The teachings of the Church, however, are decisive. Matrimony is a sacrament that should not be changed. 

Apologists for the existence of divorce always fall back to the singular example of an abusive spouse. Clearly, they say, such a case would merit the severance of marital relationships. The Church allows for the physical separation of spouses in extremely grave cases such as abuse. Reconciliation, however, remains the goal in such cases. The nature of the marital bond means that the one spouse must never give up on the other. In extreme cases, there is the process of annulment. Ecclesiastical authorities can declare a marriage to be null and void, as if the bond had never existed in the first place, but this is the exception and not the rule. 

Nowadays, couples become divorced for trivialities. They break the divine bond of matrimony for incompatibility of temper or even economical reasons. There are several attitudes of this culture of death that contribute to a high divorce rate.

The most prevalent erroneous attitude towards marriage is that of temporality. A man and a woman should not become married because they are attracted to one another for beauty is fleeting with age. They should become married because they love one another, not with a carnal love, but with a sacrificial love. Marriage is not a condition forced upon a couple because of the duration of their relationship. It is not the evolution of a dating relationship, but the highest form of love a man can have for a woman and likewise. 

Some like to think that divorce is a victimless phenomenon, that its effect is limited to husband and wife, that since two consenting adults agree to go their separate ways no harm has been done. That is not the truth. Irreparable damage is done to the very core of society: the nuclear family. Children are never the same after a divorce. Regardless of age, they are scarred for the rest of their lives. Suddenly, Mommy and Daddy are no longer living together. The children are deprived of the gift of a father and a mother. Vast numbers of families today are headed by single-moms. 

Binders of studies have been done on the effects of only having a single parent. The single most common denominator for prison inmates is that they were raised by a single parent. A 1996 study showed that 70% of juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers. Divorce is even more prevalent in minority families. A study by the Progressive Policy issue showed that if you control for the effects of single mothers, the difference between the white and black crime rates disappears. 

The scariest numbers, however, come from a Village Voice cited study. If a child was raised by a single mother, they "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home." 

(Note: most of these studies were listed in an article on rightwingnews.com)

Divorce is a viscous cycle. Even if a couple doesn't have a child when they first get divorced, aren't they even more likely to get divorced a second and a third time? And a child from a divorced family, will undoubtedly be far more inclined to have a divorce when they themselves become married. That is the cycle that will dethrone the world as we know it. 

What we need today are more models of the beauty of Holy Matrimony. We need more married couples who embody the spirit of St. Monica. St. Monica is best remembered by her relationship with her son, St. Augustine. Augustine was an avowed heretic for many years. He was an outspoken opponent of the Church during a time of Roman persecution. But through the unceasing prayers of his pious mother, Augustine became a Catholic and went on to become one of the greatest doctors of the Church. Clearly, St. Monica is an example of the value of persistent prayer and the need to pray for one's children. But there is a better reason that she should serve as the model for married couples today.

No marriage is perfect. You cannot expect two human beings to live together and never fight. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that some marriages are much more difficult than others. St. Monica's marriage was one of those. She was married to Patricius, a pagan. Patricius was about as abusive as a spouse can get. He verbally abused the faith that Monica held so dearly to her heart. He was both an alcoholic and a gambler. But St. Monica never gave up on her husband. It is very doubtful that she always liked him, but she never stopped loving him. Just as her persistent prayers saved her son, St. Monica's faith converted her husband on his deathbed.

We need more couples like St. Monica and less like those on Desperate Housewives.

Marriage is a sacred institution created by God. People like to say that Christians did not create marriage and therefore they have no say on the subject. Only half of that is true. Christians did not come up with marriage just as they did not invent the Mass. Both were instituted by God Himself. It is therefore impossible for us to change the essential nature of marriage. All we can do is twist and pervert it. Yes, homosexuality distorts Holy Matrimony. Divorce, however, does so even more.

Deus Volt!

The Darkness of Atheism

Atheists are idiots.

It's that simple. Now, I understand that some atheists may seem to be intelligent in the eyes of the world. They might have doctorates.  Their names might be hallowed in the halls of academia. They might have published New York Times best sellers. That, to the secular eye, constitutes intellect.

But atheists are fundamentally stupid. They are like a well crafted watch that is set to the wrong time. Sure it might keep good time, but it will always be wrong nevertheless because of its internal and essential flaws. Atheists are like a castle built in the sand, to paraphrase Chrisy. Externally, they might appear sturdy and strong. But such an edifice will not stand the test of time as it is built on a poor foundation. 

Atheists have built up their castles, their lives, on a lie. That lie, is that God does not exist. There is no question that can trump that of the existence of God. Nothing is more important. This question is not one that can be answered with a noncommittal answer, though people have certainly tried. This question is the difference between light and darkness, between Truth and a lie. 

Here is the truth: God is alive. This is a truth of the heart, the mind, and the soul. This is the Truth. When I look at an ocean sunset, mist sliding down the mountains, the eyes of a newborn child, I cannot help but know in my heart that God is alive. 

Anyone who says that they do not believe in God is lying to themselves. The existence of God is a self-evident truth. No one is born an atheist. What child does not pray for a pup or a new bike? Atheism is the delusion of pride. When most people say that they don't believe in God, the inevitable explanation is that they believe that they have been personally wronged by God, and therefore He must not exist. Such is folly. Yes, there is suffering in this world. A lot actually. Bad things happen. Loved ones die of cancer, children starve on the streets, natural disasters kill thousands and leave many more without a home. But this reality is not the antithesis of God. God allows us to suffer. Why? The true reason is known only to Providence. But it is through suffering that we become disillusioned with the things of this world. It is through loss that we often turn to God. Adversity tends to weed out the fair weather believers. Gold needs to be tested by fire. 

The problem with atheists is that they believe in the primacy of human reason, even when that "reason" is blinded by emotion and hubris. Since an atheist believes they have concocted some crackpot contradiction to the reality of God, God must not exist. The idiocy of atheism lies in the fact that they somehow think that their minds have to be able to comprehend every single facet of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God. They forget that His ways are higher than our ways. 

I am not sure that all ants believe in humans. Certainly, not all ants have seen human beings. They might have heard about them from other ants, but a fair number of ants could live their entire lives without setting their ant eyes on a human being. A greater number of ants, while not having seen a true human, will have seen the works of human hands. Perhaps some ants will have the wisdom to infer the existence of some form of higher life through these objects, but I am sure that just as many ants claim that the cities and sidewalks and suburbs have always existed, they exist by pure chance . The ants certainly cannot have an exact idea of the nature of human beings. We a s humans have not deigned to send a messenger to the ants to explain ourselves. Therefore, large numbers of ants likely deny the existence of man. 

This tangent might seem a tad ridiculous. Certainly the human race exists. Just because ants cannot wrap their minuscule intellects around our nature, does not change the reality of our existence. 

This is an analogy to atheism. The arrogance of the ant academia cannot change the truth. The hubris of man cannot change the truth. The existence of God is not predicated upon our believing in Him. 

  

Deus Volt!

You are Greater Than Cecil

A lot of fuss has been made about the death of Cecil the lion, a recently deceased denizen of a Zimbabwe national park who was killed, purportedly illegally, by an American dentist. With the sheer number of different animals in the world, it is surprising that the demise of a single member of the big cat family would cause such an international uproar. Yet such is the case. I would venture a guess that more people in the United States know the name of Cecil the lion than know the name of the current vice president. That is the power of trending on social media.

There is nothing wrong with being angry that an animal was killed illegally. All creatures are created by God and they are due some measure of dignity. There are laws against poaching and for good reason. In acting as stewards of God's earth, it is right and fitting to preserve species from extinction. The most recent papal encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si, examines this stewardship in greater detail and wisdom than can be provided in this short post.

But we need to look at the phenomenon of the death of Cecil the lion for an even bigger reason than as a reminder of our human responsibilities. The reaction itself was dangerous, even terrifying. It was myoptic. Suddenly, the death of one lion became national headlines. The death of a single human would not have been as tragic in the eyes of the media (Not to mention the millions of dead children from abortion.) Protestors flocked to the dental practice of the man who killed Cecil carrying signs that called for his death. The moral equivalency here is out of proportion for more than one reason. It is interesting to note that the same people who have trouble stomaching the death penalty would have no qualms about its application on a man who killed a beast. If you would believe Facebook and Twitter, a murderer is little more than a lightweight felon next to the dentist who hunted Cecil.

Give a man annonymity, and you will get stupidity in return. The arguments on the Internet that would like to immortalize Cecil as some kind of figurehead of animal rights are disturbing. Self-appointed pundits are claiming that the lives of animals are worth more than those of humans. These claims tend to fall into one of two categories. About half say that since animals have not created war and racism, they are obviously morally superior to human beings. The other half uses a twisted sort of mathematics. Apparently, since there are only slightly less than 30,000 lions left in the world (Pandera.org,) lions are more valuable than humans as we number seven billion.

Both of these arguments are disgusting.

This is why the Cecil incident is so eye-opening. In this culture of death, people have become so jaded that they have forgotten their own dignity. They've listened to the lies of Satan for too long and mistaken them for truths. This is the pinnacle of an age that has lost sight of its own value. Pornography reduces us to objects of pleasure. Greed reduces us to our savings account. Now we look at the innocence of beasts and envy them, forgetting that their innocence comes from ignorance.

It is time for the truth.

God created both man and beast. But just because the same hand formed them does not mean that they have to be equal in value. The hands of a sculptor can create both a simple cup and the Pieta. In no eyes are the two equal in beauty or worth. The same is true for us. God did not create the animals in His image. It is in man that the likeness of God can be found.

The Catechism has the perfect answer for our moral dearth of a world:

"The hierarchy of creatures is expressed by the order of the 'six days,' from the less perfect to the more perfect. God loves all his creatures and takes care of each one, even the sparrow. Nevertheless, Jesus said: 'You are of more value than many sparrows,' or again: 'Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!' Man is the summit of the Creator's work,"

Jesus did not die for Cecil the lion. He died for you and me. Humans are inherently superior to animals.

Deus Volt!

Slaves of Christ

"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God."

Romans 1:1


"What heart so cold as not to be inflamed with love by the kindness and good will exercised toward us by so great a Lord, who, though holding us in His power and dominion as slaves ransomed by His blood, yet embraces us with such ardent love as to call us not servants, but friends and brethren?"

Catechism of the Council of Trent

"We must belong to Jesus and serve him not just as hired servants but as willing slaves who, moved by generous love, commit themselves to His service after the manner of slaves for the honor of belonging to Him."

Total Devotion to Mary, St. Louis Marie de Montfort 

Slavery. That's a touchy word. Ever since the conclusion of the Civil Rights era, Americans have been extremely sensitive towards the topic of bondage. The morally reprehensible enslavement of Africans in America between the eighteenth and nineteenth century has left scars on the American consciousness. Slavery became a byword for racism.

That is why it is with no small measure of apprehension that we learn that we must be slaves of Christ. We don't like to think about our relationship with God in those terms. Our arrogant human understanding makes us want to think that our relationship with God is some sort of mutually beneficial business partnership. We like to believe that we can work to deserve God's grace. The flawed mind says that Christ's outpouring of grace is the wages of good works and faith. We like to think that we are simply the servants of Christ, for servants are paid for their work as they deserve. But what can we do to deserve God's grace? Our lives cannot justify His mercy. His grace is a gift, not compensation. Therefore, we are slaves to God, a generous master.

There are three kinds of slavery as outlined under St. Louis Marie de Montfort's Total Devotion to Mary: natural slavery, enforced slavery, and voluntary slavery. Natural slavery is the state of the creatures of the Earth. The plants and animals of Creation are slaves to God by their very nature. There is nothing that they can do to change that, because slavery to God is within their very nature. Enforced slavery is reserved for the demons and the damned. Ironically, their servitude is enforced because they chose for it to be so. By rejecting God's love, they condemned themselves for eternity. By choosing their wills over God's, they are forced to accept the will of God in their condition.

God does not want natural or enforced slavery for His chosen people. The highest and most beautiful form of slavery is reserved for the faithful. Voluntary slavery is the perfected condition of both man and angel. The most perfect union with God is the complete abandonment of our will which is replaced by the will of God.

We like to talk about making sacrifices for God. How often are those sacrifices merely physical or emotional? It is good to offer up our suffering to God. It is good to love our neighbor, even when they happen to be our enemies. It is good to sacrifice our reputation with the world in order to witness the love of God. But those are shallow sacrifices. God wants all of that and more. But what He wants more than anything is the sacrifice of our will, our desires.

God gave us freewill out of love. He did not want to create cold automaton, but rather souls that could hate and love and act of their own accord. But the true measure of holiness is giving that gift back to God.

By giving our wills to God, we do not become those same automaton. We do not condemn ourselves to a menial eternity. We are not robots. God is not a taskmaster. We know the nature of our master. He wants that which is absolutely best for us. And more often than not, we would not reach that greater good by our own volition. We become slaves to God out of faith, the simple and wholehearted trust of a child.

This is a hard pill to swallow. But let the sweetness of God's love allow us to accept this bitter medicine which holds the key to our salvation. 

Deus Vult!

The Frame and the Painting

What is your excuse for not attending Mass? Surely your schedule was not so full that you could not work in an hour on a Sunday morning or even a Saturday night; you certainly found enough time to binge watch that new series on Netflix! If you weren't too busy, then why? The Mass was boring?

The Mass is not boring. That is not a subjective opinion. That is a fact. There is something seriously wrong with the person who finds the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of God boring. It certainly seems much less boring than watching a football game. The "miracles" your team is able to pull off in overtime are nothing next to the true miracle of the Eucharist.

But the meat of the Mass is not what people find boring. It is not the mystery of transubstantiation, it is the homily, the priest, the music, or even the person sitting next to you. The music was either too old-fashioned or too contemporary. The cantor sang off-key. The homily was too long, it was too hard to understand, it was not long enough. You know for a fact that the man sitting next to you is a lazy bum who drinks the night away; what business does he have being in church? (What business do you have being in church for that matter? But that is not the question here.) It seems that parishioners can find error in almost every part of the Mass except for the actual act of the Mass.

Actually, this is how it should be. The Church is a divine institution, the body of Christ, composed of sinners. As Pope Francis is fond of saying, the Church is not a hotel for saints, but rather a hospital for sinners. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that as the people celebrating the Mass are somewhat less than perfect, the music and the homily, may not quite attain to your perfect expectations.

In the Mass, the celebrant, the priest, acts in persona Christi. No surprise, that just means that he acts in the person of Christ. At the beginning of the Mass, the priest says: "The Lord be with you." This is not simply a blessing. It is an announcement. Jesus is in the house, acting through the priest. Even so, the priest is still just a man. A holy man hopefully, but still just a man. The homily is not the newest installment of the Gospel. It is the advice and instruction of a priest of God. We have no right to expect every single Sunday homily to qualify our pastor to be a Doctor of the Church. Yes, perhaps the priest speaks with a lisp, perhaps he drones on. But the homily is not the center of the Mass. The Mass is not an oratory contest.

Few parishes have the budgets to support having Matt Maher play at every Mass. That would be nice, but also impractical. You might have to settle for Joe Shmoe, the neighborhood plumber who took piano lessons for two years. The Mass is neither a speaking event nor a concert. What matters is not the skill of the musician but rather the devotional spirit engendered by the music.

Your parish might have the worst homilist on the face of the planet. Your cantor might be confused as to whether she is a baritone or a soprano. The person you are sitting next to might not have showered for three weeks. It might be too hot. It might be too cold. NONE OF THIS MATTERS! These are external characteristics of the Mass, they are the accoutrements. They do not change the essential beauty of the celebration of the Mass!

Very rarely does garnish ruin a dish.

Let's say that you go to an art museum. You find a Picasso or a Rembrandt or a DaVinci. The painting itself speaks to your soul. You have no doubt as to its beauty. You could say that the essential nature of the painting is its beauty. But then, you take a step back and look at the painting again. A horrendous mistake has been made. Instead of the elegant, hand crafted mahogany that this masterpiece deserves, it has been framed with a worn, splintered piece of scrap wood. Yes, your artistic sensibilities are offended by this terrible choice for a frame. But be honest with yourself. Does the frame in any way detract from the beauty of the painting itself? Sure the frame might be in bad taste. It might even be a little distracting. But how can the frame change the beauty of what it contains?  A beautiful woman is as beautiful in a tarnished mirror as she is in a polished one. It is just a little easier to appreciate in the polished mirror; just as the beauty of the painting would be in a better frame; just as the Mass would be with the perfect music and a saint for a priest. But the Mass is beautiful nevertheless.

Deus Volt!

How to Fish for Men

Televangelism doesn't work. Personally, I've never liked it. I don't think we should "sell" God the same way we sell a fitness program or a pair of shoes. The reason why televangelism does not work is the same reason the First and Second Great Awakenings never lasted for more than a generation. Why? The answer is simple: relying totally on emotion makes for fickle disciples.

Emotions are by definition impermanent. Moods come and go with startling speed. We've all experienced this. One moment you are happy and on top of the world. The next, the tiniest of annoyances is enough to knock you down and ruin your entire day. That is why evangelization cannot simply rely on emotion. Televangelists can get someone to sing Hallelujah in the midst of a praise and worship session with blaring hymns, but can they get them to do the same on the streets? in the classroom? when they are all alone?

We should be careful not too rely too much on emotion when making disciples out of the nations. While some kind of emotional religious experience is often the first step in the process of conversion, it should not be considered the only step. Retreats and concerts are all good things. A single retreat, however, is not enough to change a heart completely.

In our mission of evangelization, we need only one example: Jesus Christ. It is important to remember that, if He had wanted to, Jesus could have been Incarnated in this day and age of technological communications. He could have made Himself an account on Twitter and, in messages of 250 characters or less, brought His Word to the entire world. He could have given Himself a talk show where He could perform miracles before live audiences. To our mortal minds, that would seem to make sense. Just think of the number of people He could have had for disciples! Certainly more than twelve.

But that is not what Jesus did. He was born in the most humble of circumstances. He lived among a people, the majority of whom could not even read, let alone wrap their minds around dogmatic theology. Nevertheless, Jesus, the Son of God, became Jesus of Nazareth.

Yes, Jesus did perform miracles before crowds of people. The multiplication of the fish and loaves is a perfect example. But in His ministry, Jesus kept the Twelve close to Himself. They were His friends (Judas was a bad one). It is likely that He had known them from His childhood. Peter, John, and James were Jesus' close companions in His earthly life.

As Jesus continued His preaching, those crowds began to disappear. The turning point was the hardest teaching of Jesus. People were ready to accept Him as a moral teacher, a guru. They liked His teachings about the meek inheriting the earth and treating everyone as you would want to be treated. The same was not so for the "source and summit of our faith" (St. JPII). Jesus said to the crowd, the SAME crowd, in fact, for whom He had multiplied the fish and loaves, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you." John 6:53.

This was hard for the people to understand. They had been caught up with the sensationalism of this miracle worker, but now He was asking them to accept something that seemed to be completely illogical. He asked them to have faith. "Then many of his disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?'" John 6:60.

Then, and note the number of the verse here, in John 6:66, "As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him."

This is the greatest example of fickle disciples produced by emotion alone.

But something even more important happens next.

"Jesus then said to the Twelve, 'Do you also want to leave?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.'" John 6:67-69

The friends of Jesus, those that He had kept close to His heart, the people with whom He had a personal relationship, stayed on. Even if they could not understand His teaching, they accepted it on faith.

We need the same approach when it comes to evangelization. Emotional experiences and miracles will attract people. You need the glue of a personal relationship to retain those new disciples, else you lose them to the first breath of wind.

This is how YOU should evangelize. You do not need to stand on the corner of the street, Bible in hand, shouting "Repent! Repent!" That has a way of driving people away.

What you need to do is not even necessarily evangelizing with words. It is evangelization by action. Know who your friends are, your true friends, and not the ones who would sell you out for thirty pieces of silver. Be the love of Christ to them. Be the hands and feet of God on this earth. Show them the joy and peace that you find in God, and they will be attracted to you. Plant the seeds of Truth in their hearts and let God do the rest. You can cancel your appearances on the View and skip your audition to be the next Billy Graham. All you have to do is be a Christ-like friend, brother, sister, son, or daughter.

Deus Volt!

The New Olympus

If you were to meet a man claiming to still worship the outdated deities of Ancient Greece and Rome, you would call him crazy. Perhaps, because of our excessive reliance on tolerance, you would outwardly express your acceptance for their chosen belief system. But on the inside, yes, you would call them crazy. And for good reason. The old pantheon of Zeus and Hera (or Jove and Juno depending on your preference), has died out. They and their worshipers all but disappeared with the Christianizing of the Roman Empire under Constantine.

But what if I were to tell you that there is a new pantheon of gods? Their worshipers are not limited to any geographical location, they span the globe. The sacrifices made to these gods cannot be measured in the millions but rather in the billions of dollars. There were only twelve Greek gods worth mentioning. These new gods number in the thousands. '

Who are these gods? They are not hard to find. You do not need to climb Olympus to gaze at their thrones. All you have to do is turn on the TV or browse the Internet. The Olympians of today, the gods of the culture of death, are the actors, the athletes, the musicians. The new Olympus sits in Hollywood and in New York City. The altars of these new gods do not burn with the flesh of slaughtered animals, but rather wads of American dollars.

Here's a fact. According to the Statistic Brain website, American teenagers spend $258.7 Billion every year. To give that number some context, that's just about equal to the GDP of Chile. And where does all this money go? Somehow I feel confident in venturing a guess that the majority does not go to charity. No, this money is placed on the altars of these gods. It is spend on movies, songs, clothing, all inspired by these new gods. Now, I am not saying that these are not good things to spend money on. I am merely showing the financial influence that these new Olympians have.

Money is not the issue. It's culture. St. Augustine, contemporary of the old gods of Rome, noticed the social dangers of their worship. Writing of Homer, the Greek poet who wrote about the escapades of the Olympian gods, Augustine said "These are, indeed, his fictions, but he attributed divine attributes to sinful men, that crimes might not be accounted crimes, and that whosoever committed any might appear to imitate the celestial gods and not abandoned men" (Confessions XVI).

Look at any of the myths surrounding the old Olympus. The "gods" are selfish, arrogant, petty, and deceitful. They are very human. Jove was a serial adulterer. Neptune and Apollo were rapists. Minerva was conceited. How are these supposedly divine beings supposed to serve as examples of right behavior? Their worship encourages sin! As Augustine said, any wrongdoing can be justified by saying that the Olympic gods did the same.

The same is true for our gods. It is a rare occasion indeed when the male star of an action movie is not a womanizing drunkard who acts only for his own gain. You do not need to look through your newsfeed for long before finding a story about an athlete that got arrested. As for music, all you have to do is listen to the lyrics of any Eminem song to realize the oppressive moral degeneracy of many musicians. And yet these are the people we worship!

We are more forgiving towards our famous actor than towards our best friend. Sure he abuses drugs and has seven DUI's on his record... but just look at his hair!

I am not saying that to be a good Catholic you have to renounce all modern culture and only listen to classical music or only watch movies that are rated G. We do not need cultural hermits who shudder at the name of Tom Cruise or Matt Damon. What we need is simply a greater awareness. Do not fall into the same error as the Greeks and Romans. Remember that these "gods" are not divinities given human attributes, but rather humans given traits of the divine.

Deus Volt!

The Sublime Beauty of the Eucharist

In this world, man has always been in search of that which is most beautiful. Beauty is the ideal to which sculptors, artists, writers, poets, and musicians have been striving towards since the beginning of time. But it is a vain search. The greatest beauty has already been given to us. It has been given to us by God. This apex of beauty is none other than the Eucharist.

There is no need to search for the Eucharist, to attempt to hew its form out of marble or breathe it to life from a canvas. The Eucharist is set before us, made available every day of the year.

I should have no need to explain what the Eucharist is, though for the sake of clarity, I will digress. The Eucharist was established by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. But His final Passover meal before His Crucifixion was not the first time that Jesus instructed his disciples about the wonderful mystery of the Eucharist. The whole of Christ's teaching led up to the dual climax of the Institution of the Eucharist and Crucifixion. And it is not a coincidence that Jesus gave His disciples the Eucharist just before He gave Himself up to the Romans.

The Eucharist is beautiful because of its impossible reality. Our limited human understanding cannot so much as hope to attain so much as a child's understanding of the Eucharist. What our mortal senses perceive to be merely blood and wine is so much more than that. The "bread" is the flesh of Christ. The "wine" is His blood. This is an astounding contradiction of human reasoning.

The Eucharist is the greatest of sacrifices. Just as love is a sacrifice, the gift of the Eucharist in every Mass is the greatest expression of God's unconditional love for us. He does not hold anything back. There are no misgivings in the love of God, no terms that He sets on his affections for us. He gives Himself to us in the guise of bread and wine, giving us His all: His body and His blood. Just as human understanding cannot comprehend the Eucharist, human expressions of love cannot rival the eternal sacrifice of the Mass.

Often, the beauty of the Eucharist goes ignored. How often do we go to Mass and spend more time thinking about what the person next to us or the baby two pews ahead is doing instead of reflecting on and recognizing what is happening on the altar? How often do we receive the body and blood of Christ, freely given, and mistake it for a symbol?

God gives Himself to us, us worthless sinners. He loves us with an incomprehensible love even when we disobey Him. God sees our every flaw, He is the Witness to our every iniquity. It is difficult for us to believe that any human being could know every one of our sins and still love us. But that is exactly what God does, most fully expressed in the Eucharistic miracle.

Let us make sure that God's passionate love for us does not go unrequited. There are two ways in which we can thank God for his love, for there is nothing we can do to deserve it. We can love God through the people He has placed around us. Our love for our brothers and sisters, even if it is just a faint shadow of the love of God, brings us into closer communion with the will of God, closer to Heaven. The other thing we can do is show a greater appreciation for the Eucharist. Go to Mass every week. Reflect, not on what you will be eating for dinner or which NFL team will win the Super Bowl, but rather on the divine mystery of the Eucharist made manifest in the Mass. Eucharistic Adoration is also a worthy expression of our gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist. Kneel before the Blessed Sacrament. Bring yourself into the real presence of God.

O Lord Jesus, please help us, the Church, and the world, gain a greater understanding and love for the great act of love You have given to us undeserved. Thank you for the sublime, the beautiful, Eucharist.

Deus Volt!