Keeping the Fire Burning

I'm high.

No, it's not what you're thinking. I am on a "Jesus high." Or at least I was when I returned from Lifeteen's Camp Hidden Lake two weeks ago. We had a blast: Mass every day, two hours a day for Confessions, a Eucharistic procession, and Lectio Divina in addition to an obstacle course, our own lake, tubing on a river, team-building on high and low ropes courses, and messy games. With guidance from college student summer missionaries, our youth group grew closer to one another and especially to God. It was a life-changing experience for all of us. At least for a week or so.

When you come home from a high-octane religious experience like a Lifeteen Camp, a Steubenville Conference, or even a World Youth Day, a lot of people have this euphoric "Jesus high." After feeling the presence of God with hundreds or even thousands of other faithful, you feel ready to take on the world and all of its challenges, to give your life to God.

But the thing about a high is that it doesn't last. I should know. I've been to seven Lifeteen Camps, three Steubenville Conferences, and a bunch of other retreats with my local parish. Pretty much every time, I come home with the bravado and fervor of a "Jesus high." I'll make huge changes to my faith life. But then a week later, I'm back to where I was before the retreat. Often it's when I first really begin to struggle with temptation or something unexpected happens in my life.

We see this a lot in the Bible. The Hebrew people were enthusiastic about Moses leading them out of slavery, but lost their faith as soon as they felt the first pangs of hunger. After Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to feed the five thousand, the crowd was understandably excited. This Man can get us all the food we could ever want, they must have thought. They said "This is truly the Prophet the one who is to come into the world" (John 6:14) and even tried to carry Jesus off to crown Him their king. They followed Him across the sea of Galilee when He left with His disciples. Surely these men and women, so on fire with enthusiasm for Christ, will go out and proclaim the Good News. This must have been the early Church, right?

But Jesus followed the feeding of the five thousand with what is known as the Bread of Life Discourse. He spoke of "the food that endures for eternal life" (John 6:27) which is in fact Himself. The crowd was confused. They were expecting some sort of earthly food that would fulfill all their hungers, a political philosophy that will free them from Roman oppression and enrich their poverty. Instead, Jesus said "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day" (John 6:54). Rather than accept the Truth, even though it is hard, "many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him" (John 6:66). Their faith had no endurance.

So many times, after coming back from an awesome retreat, I become like the crowd. When the Eucharist is enthroned in the Monstrance right in front of me and all of my friends are at my side and the beautiful praise and worship music is blasting, I feel ready to give my life to God, no matter the consequences. Everything is right there, I can see it - Christ has just fed an immense crowd with almost no food. But then I come home and things start to get difficult. When I'm in school it's hard to remember how I felt on retreat. I return to my "former way of life" all too easily.

And I can't accept this dichotomy. Every time I try to get comfortable with acting like a Christian only when I'm on retreat and assuming that will be good enough, I am reminded of Christ's warning: "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). When I am on retreat, I am saying "Lord, Lord" because it's easy, it's what everyone else is doing. But then I all too often fail to follow the will of God when it's not what everyone else is doing.

This is a problem for the Church as a whole. We leave treat Christ like a box to be checked off our schedules, a life of holiness as something only to be lived on Sundays and retreats. We say 'Lord, Lord' but then fail to protect the poor, the suffering, the unborn. We fail to defend Truth outside of the physical building of our parish and allow poisonous ideologies like gender fluidity to spread and threaten our children. Cardinal Robert Sarah writes that "The Church can no longer go on as though the reality did not exist; she can no longer be content with ephemeral enthusiasm that lasts for the duration of major meetings or liturgical gatherings, as beautiful and rich as they may be" (God or Nothing, p. 174).

This does not mean that youth retreats like those put on by Lifeteen or Steubenville are useless. Quite the opposite: I would not be half the Catholic I am today if I hadn't gone on my first retreat. Lifeteen's Camp Covecrest brought me back to Confession and introduced me to Eucharistic Adoration, something that simply wasn't big in my old parish at the time. It taught me the value of brotherhood and how to treat my sisters with dignity and respect.

The only thing I am condemning here is my approach to taking the fervor and devotion I felt on retreat back home with me, my failure to keep the fire burning.

What I have learned is that if you really want to change your life after a retreat, you have to do something concrete, consistent, and with the support of a community.

The worst thing that you can do after a retreat is to make a vague resolution: "I want to be more holy" or "I'm going to try to pray more." You might as well have just said you're not going to do anything different at all, the end result is the same. If all you are trying to do is "pray more," you might end up saying the Rosary for the first couple of days. But as soon as you stop feeling the "Jesus high," you won't feel like praying when it's so much easier to scroll through Instagram. The Rosary will become a decade, which will turn into a single Hail Mary, until you aren't praying at all.

That is why you must resolve to do something that is concrete. Instead of saying you'll "pray more," say you'll read the Bible for five minutes every day, or that you'll go to Daily Mass once a week. These are real resolutions. They might be hard to keep at first once the "Jesus high" goes away, but you will have something specific that you promised yourself you would do. It is easier to remain constant when you know exactly what you should be doing.

And that brings me to my second point: consistency. Once you have something you've decided to do, make sure you do it often! I find that it's easiest to stay consistent if you give yourself a definite timeline. So "I'll read the Bible for five minutes" becomes "When I wake up, I'll read the Bible for five minutes" and "going to Daily Mass every once and a while" becomes "going to Daily Mass every Tuesday."

Finally, consistently doing something concrete is much easier when you have a community that supports you. Accountability is a huge part of taking the devotion of a retreat and bringing it home. You're no longer just disappointing yourself when you neglect your resolutions, now you're letting down your brothers and sisters. It's a big change in dynamic. With community, you help each other to grow in holiness. You remind people of their commitments and ask for their prayers when you yourself begin to struggle.

Concreteness, consistency, and community are what help you to form habits that will lead you into an ever-closer relationship with God. Once you've established that habit, you won't need enthusiasm or a "Jesus high" to remain constant in your faith.

Being Christian does not begin and end with retreats. They ought not to be a "safe place" where you can actually live out your faith but instead tools that will "recharge your spiritual batteries" and inspire you to advance in holiness.

Don't only let your light shine when you're on retreat. Keep that flame burning bright and carry it home with you so that you can set the world on fire!

DEUS VULT!

The Pelosi Heresy

Far too often in the public sphere, we have seen this watered-down, tamed, and inert kind of Catholicism, most recently with Hilary Clinton choosing Time Kaine as her running mate. Tim Kaine claims to be a "traditional Catholic" who is "personally pro-life." Of course, he doesn't let that interfere with his legislative career. Kaine is a firm supporter of a woman's right to chose, better known as a woman's right to kill - he has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood, a gold star from the murder industry. Though it has not been as publicized, Kaine is also a staunch supporter of gay "marriage." What kind of Catholic is this?

Among other names he deserves to be called (spineless flip-flopper among them), Tim Kaine is a Pelosi Catholic. I choose the name Pelosi simply because the former Speaker of the House is one of the mots prominent of this type of Catholic, though there are others: Biden, John Kerry, and the late Ted Kennedy just to name a few.

Their error is both grave and scandalous; they believe that it is possible to separate your private life from your public life, to be a faithful Catholic at Mass but a partisan abortion promoter in Congress.

This doesn't work. Christ tells us that "No man can serve two masters.... You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24), or in this case you cannot serve both God and party. One or the other will end up being your priority. And I am not saying that this problem is limited to the Democrats. Many Catholics who operate in the public sphere, regardless of their political affiliation, are guilty of this. But the issue here is that these Catholics are in such prominent positions and flaunt such flagrant contradictions. When the New York Times writes articles like "In Pelosi, Strong Catholic Faith and Abortion Rights Coexist," the faithful must respond.

We are not simply condemning a sin. We are proclaiming to the world that this is not Catholicism!

In times past, we would have called such a trend a heresy.

It is a heresy because you cannot separate what you believe from how you live. There's that famous quote of St. Francis, "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words." And this is the truth. Will people be inspired by your faith if you leave it on your lips and it never reaches your hands? How often did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees for merely sermonizing instead of authentically living their faith.

A popular excuse from people like Tim Kaine is that they don't want to impose their views on others. Sure I think abortion is murder, but I'm not going to interfere if someone else makes that their choice. But that is not consistent with the Message of the Gospel! Jesus imposed His views on others *gasp. When He saw the adulterous woman about to be stoned, Our Lord did not shrug His shoulders and rationalize that while He was personally opposed to this punishment, it would be intolerant of Him to try to stop it. No, Jesus stepped in front of the raised stones and rebuked the self-righteous condemnation of the crowd. Neither did Jesus allow the woman to continue in her sinful ways, accepting her different "lifestyle." After sending the crowd away, Jesus said to her "Go, and now sin no more" (John 8:11). That is not tolerance, that is love.

It is impossible to build a wall between your private faith and your public life.

While I cannot speak for Kaine, Pelosi, or any of the rest of their equivocating ilk, it does appear tht they are only Catholic when it looks good. Our country has not yet fallen so far that being a person of faith does not look good, just so long as that faith remains uncontroversial. Tim Kaine did a fair amount of mission work in his youth, and that ought to be applauded. And the truth of the matter is, that looks good. But the masses and the media and the party officials have decided that the right to have an abortion and gay "marriage" ought to be as sacred as the name of God. Hence Pelosi Catholics, despite the word "Catholic," are both abortion promoters and foes of traditional marriage. And complicity in the murderous evil of abortion blots out a whole lot of good.

Is this really Christianity? Faithful when it's convenient, pagan when it's not?

Father David Knight writes in His Way (a book that I can't recommend enough) that this is instead what he calls civil religion. "Civil religion is a religion whose morality is simply a reflection or an echo of what the 'nice' people in one's culture think, say and do." And that is what Pelosi Catholicism amounts to.

The scandal of this Pelosi heresy is great because of their position and power. Think about what good could be done if we had a truly faithful Catholic vice-president! God does not expect a lower standard of Catholicism from those in power. "And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required" (Luke 12:48). Children and even some adults look up to people in power. They become role-models. What message does it send our youth if abortion activism appears to "coexist" with the Catholic faith? It is these heretics who lend credence to the idea that support for traditional marriage is merely something for "conservative Catholics." Once more from the Gospel of Luke, we read that "It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin" (Luke 17:2). Woe to those who lead others into sin by their examples!

Of course, this rebuke is not limited to those with Secret Service details. Each and every one of us, myself most certainly included, must reflect upon our lives and ensure that there is no contradiction between our private faith and our public lives. Embrace the fullness of the Gospel! Catholicism is not a la carte. We cannot pick and choose. Being Catholic means that we also have to follow those teachings of Christ that we might not necessarily want to, those that make us uncomfortable, and even those that hurt a little like loving your enemy or praying for those who persecute you.

Remember that pretty much every one of us is an example for someone else whether we are a manager, a teacher, a parent, or even an older sibling. Your life is not just your own. Make sure that your conduct leads others, particularly the vulnerable, towards God instead of towards sin and bondage.

Brothers and sisters make your faith controversial! Counter the message that certain high-profile Catholics are sending. We are not of the world and so it is only natural for the world to hate us. If you're living comfortably in your faith in the midst of the world, chances are you're doing it wrong.

Deus Vult!

The Problem with Protestantism

Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has become more open to ecumenism. She has begun a dialogue with a variety of Christian denominations, most notably the Anglicans and Lutherans in an attempt to find common doctrinal ground. While this communication is very good in itself, and we should certainly pray that fallen-away congregations might once more be united in Mother Church, we must also be aware of the message that this can send, particularly to the youth. Unfortunately, this dialogue can be interpreted as approval rather than bride-building. Particularly in this age of moral relativism, people have come under the impression that any group just so long as it is Christian, or even just religious, will lead them to salvation.

But that is a lie. The Catholic Church is one as we profess in the Creed. There is no other Church. All other faiths are just a shadow of the Truth, they might contain a semblance, but never the whole thing. 

There is but one Church. We read in the Vatican II document Lumen gentium that the Church is the "instrument for the salvation of all" (LG 9.2). The Catechism states that the Sacrament of Baptism is "necessary for salvation" for all who have heard the Gospel message (CCC 1257).

We are playing a very dangerous game when we are not clear about the Truth that other Christian denominations are not just another path to salvation among many.

Ever since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the doors of the Wittenberg cathedral in a supreme act of pride, Protestant denominations have been multiplying like, well, like Catholics. Including all the different separations within the denominations, there are something like 30,000 Protestant churches. Just because one man did not feel like reforming the Church from within as have so many saints since the days of Paul, there remains to this day a rift in Christianity between Catholicism and Protestantism, the Truth and imitation. 

Note that I am not attacking Protestants personally but rather the theology of Protestantism. There's a difference.

There are several very real problems with the Protestant faith. Chief among these are the absence of Apostolic Succession, a reverence of the Blessed Mother, and the Sacraments. 

There is a clear breach in Apostolic Succession in every Protestant faith whether it was founded by a lay person or by a fallen clergy. Apostolic Succession has two parts: tradition and authority. The Catholic Church has an unbroken line of bishops, cardinals, and popes going all the way back to when Jesus said to St. Peter "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). This is why we can trust that the Catholic Church is true. And this lineage of tradition leads to authority. The Pope in Rome can speak with the backing of Apostolic Succession and respond to the challenges of today as Christ's vicar on earth. 

Some Protestant churches hardly even have people that can be called clergy. Pastors can get online degrees and then go off to lead congregations. Others allow votes to decide their course instead of the Word of God. Even denominations with hierarchies are insufficient because they are not valid successors of St. Peter. Their words have no authority. 

And all of this leads to confusion. Without authority derived from Christ or even a hierarchy to establish order, many pastors are free to do as they please, as long as the congregation does not revolt. They simply interpret the Word as they see fit. Some unfortunately exploit the power and influence of their position. For some this means greed and money laundering from the offering plate without oversight. Others twist the Word to mean whatever benefits them leading to godless ultra-progressives like the Unitarian Universalist Church or file and hate-filled groups like the Westboro Baptist Church (which isn't even Baptist). Some Protestant churches can't even follow their own rules like the United Methodists who just recently elected their first openly gay bishop. 

This is not to say that priests or even bishops cannot be guilty of the same flaws. The difference is that the structure of the Church means two things: they cannot change tradition and there is a higher authority with the power to rebuke them.

Outside of the Catholic Church and Apostolic Succession, the Truth can be hard to find and often comes packaged with lies.

The most negative comments I have ever received about my writing came when I published an article on Catholic365 about the importance of a devotion to Mary. And the attacks weren't from atheists or pagans but from Christians! Any Protestant attack on Catholicism always includes the claim that we worship the Blessed Mother and then goes on to demean her importance. This, of course, is enough to get the temper up of any red-blooded Catholic. We love our Mother - in his early stages of conversion, St. Ignatius of Loyola nearly killed a man for insulting Mary.

But perhaps instead of just defensively explaining the reasons behind our rightful veneration of Our Lady, we should question why the Proddies feel that they have to make this attack so consistently. Why are they so threatened by Mary?

St. Louis of Montfort writes that "An infallible sign by which we can distinguish a heretic, a man of false doctrine, an enemy of God, from one of God's true friends is that the heretic and hardened sinner show nothing but contempt and indifference for Our Lady. He endeavors... to belittle the love and veneration shown to her." Sounds just like the standard line of Protestant attack.

If you truly love Jesus, you cannot help but love His Mother.

A serious issue with Protestantism of today is that it shows a lack of reverence and sometimes even an "indifference" towards the Mother of God.

Thankfully, this is not the case for all Protestants. Some show a very healthy and commendable love for Our Lady. My grandfather was an Episcopalian, but in the years before his death he faithfully prayed the Holy Rosary.

The single greatest failure of Protestantism is that it lacks the Sacraments. Martin Luther himself began dismantling the Sacraments very early on. When he was done, only Baptism and Communion remained. And even then he denied the True Presence!

Now some denominations (or non-denominations) don't even pretend to have a communion service. The Unitarians don't even have baptisms (or a creed for that matter). The Eucharist is the "source and summit of the Christian life" (LG 11). Without the Eucharist our faith would be empty!

And that is the problem with Protestantism. It is empty. It can only ever offer fellowship and a chance to pray in a group, not the "Bread of Life" (John 6:35).

What would you or I be without the Eucharist? The Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of God Himself sustains us along our spiritual journey, gives us strength through grace.

That is why we must protect and educate our youth. Teach them that it's not all the same to God whether you go to Mass on Sunday or a non-denominational praise and worship service. That the "communion" offered at another church is not the same as Holy Communion.

Not all denominations are the same, but there is only one Church.

Certainly a great number of Protestants are authentically trying to journey with God. But some Protestant churches are worse than others. And these we must be watchful against.

Too many denominations openly approve of the massacre of innocents that is abortion! They condone murder and trample every teaching of Christ. Some go so far as to attack the pro-life movement. For so many years, abortion has been thought of as just a "Catholic issue" simply because only the Church had the courage to stand in the breach and defend life. Make no mistake, any "church" that supports or is even indifferent to abortion is not Christian in any sense of the word. They are collaborators.

Too many Christian churches have backed away from defending marriage. They allow openly homosexual clergy, "open" in the sense that they revel in their sinful behavior, take pride in it. They perform gay "marriages" eagerly, without a thought to what example this sets to young people honestly struggling with homosexual attractions. These are cowards who when the world said "Move" they replied "How far?"

 The problem with Protestantism is that they are, to varying degrees, away from full communion with the Truth. You will only find the fullness of Truth, of life, within the arms of the Church.

Therefore, when we are engaged in ecumenical ministries, let us not forget the flawed reality of Protestantism. Let us engage in a Crusade for Truth to bring our Protestant brothers and sisters back into the fold. Spread the fullness of the Gospel where it is lacking in their chosen faith. Bring them home.

DEUS VULT!

The Fight for Marriage

The latest movie in JJ Abram's reboot of a classic franchise, Star Trek Beyond, will be coming out in a couple of weeks. From the looks of the trailer, it will be pretty good: a lot of action, a lot of special effects, and the sense of wonder that has attracted so many multigenerational fans. But there is something in this movie that you won't see in any of the trailers but you might have seen in the news. Sulu, the pilot of the Enterprise, comes out as gay. This is such an unnecessary and superfluous departure from the tradition of the original series that even George Takei, the actor who first played Sulu and a gay-rights activist in real life, condemned the move.

This leaves many people asking: why? Even without having seen the movie, it's probably pretty fair to guess that Sulu being gay contributes nothing to the film. We ask the same questions when we see the gay couple in Modern Family, Oscar in The Office, or the token homosexual characters in virtually any other TV series. 

The reason for this entertainment trend is quite simple. There is a concentrated effort to normalize homosexual behavior. And that effort is successful. The US Supreme Court ruled last summer that gay "marriage" is a constitutional right. The number of people who identify as a homosexual has more than doubled in the past decade. And if you dare say that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, you will instantly be branded as an intolerant, hateful bigot. 

This is not really a fight for rights. There's no such thing as a right to marry whomever you want just like there is no such thing as a right to abortion. Both are artificial creations of a political and activist Supreme Court bench. Just like we saw with Ginsberg's criticism of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (which is literally a violation of Canon 5.A.1of the Code of Conduct for US Judges), Justices are far from above engaging in partisan politics, which certainly casts suspicion on the strict constitutionality of their decisions. And even if there was ever a fight for the rights of homosexuals, it has no real need to exist now. It is no longer legally or socially acceptable to discriminate against people who struggle with homosexual attractions. And that's a good thing. Contrary to popular belief, the Church does not hate homosexuals. We recognize first and foremost that they are people and therefore have an unalienable dignity. Struggling with homosexual attraction is not in itself a sin. Engaging in the behavior, however, is. 

The issue here is that there are forces actively trying to attack the traditional institution of marriage. The move towards normalized gay "marriage" is not a move towards equality, but rather a move towards the degeneration of marriage. While we certainly have a problem with divorce and adultery in our country, gay "marriage" does so much more to undermine the foundations of marriage. It lowers marriage to mere sexual attraction instead of self-giving love. 

The great lie of gay "marriage" is that sex is the greatest good. 

It is not. 

God is the greatest good, and He created men and women for each other, not for themselves. If sex is the greatest good, then why did Christ die on the Cross for us? The Cross is the greatest act of love. Our culture has deluded itself from divorcing procreation and self-giving from sex. This divorce has led to many of the evils that we see today. 

We can see the insanity and illogic of the gay "marriage" army in its foot soldiers and apologists. If you've ever made the mistake of pursuing the comment section of a Catholic post about gay "marriage," you will see the same arguments over and over again: "It's not hurting anyone," or "Let people love who they want," along with a string of straw-men and name calling. These arguments barely deserve that name, they are frenzies of emotion, not logic and certainly not Truth. The fact is people are hurt by the normalization of gay "marriage." The participants are hurt because they are in a state of sin. They follow their passions and end up in a mere shadow of real married love. Children the "couple" adopt are also hurt. Studies have shown that children raised by same-sex parents are significantly disadvantaged and, more importantly, they grow up being taught that love is only an emotion or attraction. 

Accepting gay "marriage" is not a victory for love because a homosexual couple cannot love each other the way a married couple ought to. That's the truth. That is why we defend the sanctity of marriage. As I have said before, love is so much more than sex. Married couples are called to a higher, procreative, and unitive love which cannot exist between a homosexual couple. 

Marriage is meant to be unitive. Marriage is a reflection of the mystery of the Trinity: two people become one. That is why Adam exclaimed "flesh of my flesh" when he saw Eve, his wife. 

Sex and married life are also meant to be procreative; "go forth and multiply" was a command, not a suggestion. This, of course, does not demean the married love of couples who cannot have children because of medical complications. Their intentions and potential still point towards the creation of new life. But this does condemn homosexual "marriage" because it is physically incompatible with procreation. 

The gay "marriage" agenda is neither meek nor innocent. It is fanatical and cunning. It is engaged in a ware against the institution of marriage, against the family. This lobby uses shows like Modern Family to suggest that homosexual unions are normal, "modern." Sodomy was not such an issue even a few decades ago because our culture held some degree of Christian values, values that are rapidly disappearing today. The culture has become a crusader for the sake of sin. 

This is dangerous because we are walking a slippery slope. In the Bible, sodomy is always associated with incest and bestiality, and for good reason. Once one becomes "acceptable," the rest will soon follow. If a man can marry a man, why can't he marry his sister, or a cow, or a tree? If sexual attraction is the only justification we need, it becomes very difficult to argue against these grave moral evils. 

Brothers and sisters, we must mount a defense of marriage. We are on the brink of becoming another Sodom and Gomorrah. With Christ as our Commander and the Truth of the Gospel as our fortress, we can defy the powers of this world that will only be appeased by the utter desecration of marriage. 

You who are married, live in communion with the Church. Let your love and fidelity be a testament to the Truth. You who are single, honor sex as an expression of love for marriage alone. Court with an eye towards marriage, don't simply date and break hearts for the fun of it. You who have children, teach them. They need to learn the truth about love and marriage and they need to hear it from you! Be careful with what you let them watch and read. One of my favorite priests likes to say that giving unrestricted Internet access to a child is the same as leaving them alone in an adult bookstore. The Internet is morally neutral. It is a tool that can be used for good or for evil. But it also gives a voice to people who more often than not attack the traditions of the Church. They abuse their arbitrary influence and lead others into sin. Even be wary of seemingly innocuous cartoons. All too many are beginning to subversively spread a pro-gay-"marriage" message (as I understand it, Steven Universe and Adventure Time are among these, just to name two).

But most of all, in order to defend marriage, we must love. Show the world what love is - not an emotion, not an attraction, but self-sacrifice for the good of the other. Love those who struggle with same-sex attractions; help them bear their Crosses. Remember that an oft forgotten spiritual work of mercy is to instruct the ignorant. Spread the truth about marriage. It is not loving to allow someone to remain oblivious to the truth about marriage, it is tolerant and selfish. 

The only way we will defeat the forces who are trying to destroy marriage is by living an authentic witness to the true nature of married love. 

Deus Vult!

Sell What You Have

How often have we heard the story of the rich young man in the Gospels? Mark relays the encounter as such:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.'" He replied and said to him, "Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, "You are lacking in one thing. Go and sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." At that statement his face fell and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:17-23)

Many of us might find ourselves in the same situation as the young man. We grew up with the Ten Commandments, probably memorized them. And we follow them (or at least we like to think we do). We haven't killed anyone or missed Sunday Mass (as long as the game isn't on), so that makes us perfect, right?

We cannot view holiness as a To-do list. Christianity is about a journey. That's what our Baptist brothers and sisters fail to understand with their notions of being "saved."

Nevertheless, it seems that this young man was making good progress on that journey. He "ran up" to Jesus, not with an ailment to be healed, but with an honest desire to grow closer to God. We read that "Jesus, looking on him, loved him." This man could have been a great saint in the Kingdom of God; he could have been another Apostle. But then Jesus asked "too much" of him. There are a few variations in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). In the Gospel according to Matthew, we read that "Jesus said to him, 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give it to the poor" (Matthew 19:21).

This is not an exceptional call. Jesus asked the same of everyone who followed Him: "So likewise everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33).

But what is the response of the rich young man? Silence. None of the Gospels record him as saying anything in response. He had nothing to say. The rich man "went away sad, for he had many possessions" (Mark 10:22).

He could have been a follower of Christ were it not for his love of his possessions.

It's all too easy for us to sit back and shake our heads at this young man. What a pity. But that idleness is not acceptable. We cannot divorce ourselves from the call of Christ. The Word of God is not a story book. Everything in the Bible is living and effective. So when Jesus says "Everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33) or "sell what you have" (Matthew 19:21), He was not just speaking to the crowd or the young man. He was speaking to you and I!

We live in a culture where wealth and its accessories are ends in themselves. The American dream is no longer owning a house in which to raise a family, it is to own the most toys, the latest smartphone, the nicest car on the block. People, human beings, are viewed as units of labor by capitalists and socialists alike. The rich drink champagne on private islands while people starve to death. Modern slavery leaves millions in bondage. Children are literally butchered by Planned Parenthood and their allies so that their body parts might be sold for a profit. The words of Christ, "sell what you have" apply very much to us, brothers and sisters.

But this teaching is too hard. Christ can't expect us to give so much. This must only apply to monks and nuns.

Father David Knight wrote a book called His Way, a real punch-in-the-gut kind of book after the spirit of St. Josemaria Escriva, that says otherwise. Writing about lay spirituality, he identifies the call of all Christians as one of martyrdom. Now, this isn't the kind of martyrdom that you might be thinking of, at least not necessarily. The word "martyr" literally comes from the Greek word for "witness." Therefore, we are all called to witness to the Gospel in our daily lives.

That goes whether we are religious or lay people. We all have the spirituality of martyrdom. But then Father Knight makes an important distinction. Within the spirituality of martyrdom, there are different life-styles. There is the monastic life-style - what we typically think of when we read "sell what you have" and then there is the life-style of the laity - secularity. Father Knight writes that "The lay Christian's life-style is secularity; and his spirituality is martyrdom."

Secularity means we live in the world but are not of the world. We walk the streets just like everyone else, but we will not submit to the prevailing winds of the culture. Lay secularity reaches people where they are. Through our interactions with people in their daily lives, we have the opportunity to live out an authentic witness to the message of the Gospel, a martyrdom.

Now I am hesitant here, for I do not want to fall into the Protestant heresy of interpreting the Bible by myself, but after reading some of the commentaries of the Church Fathers on this passage, I can say that I believe Christ's instructions that we sell what we have and give it to the poor, does not necessarily mean that each and every Christian must sell their houses and go out and live on the streets of Calcutta - not to diminish the vast importance and value of such a life-style in anyway!

The two important words in Christ's message to the young man (and to us) are "sell" and "give."

The real evil in riches is not the mere possession of them. St. Hilary of Poitiers writes in his commentary on this passage that "To have riches is no sin; but moderation is to be observed in our havings." Likewise, St. John Chrysostom writes: "What He spoke was not condemning riches in themselves, but those who were enslaved by them."

What all Christians must sell is not necessarily their possessions themselves, but rather their attachment to them. Renounce the spirit of possessiveness, understand that everything you have is nothing.

I once heard this story of a young priest who was visiting an older monsignor. The priest had everything he needed for the journey in a suitcase which he brought to the monsignor's office.  He was surprised by the lack of possessions in the older man's office. He probably could have fit everything that the monsignor had in his suitcase with room to spare. "Monsignor," he asked, "why do you have so little? I have more with me in this suitcase, and I'm just passing through." The monsignor smiled and said "So am I."

We were not made for this world, we are just passing through. Therefore we can never really own anything of this world. In every account of the rich young man, Jesus follows the command "sell what you have" with its reward: "and you will have treasure in heaven." The only things of value are spiritual treasures, grace. The important things in life are not the balance of your bank account or your designer clothes, but the souls you bring back to God, the relationships you have with God as their foundation, the love you show your neighbor.

You might think you're getting off the hook here. Great, now I don't worry about selling all that I have in order to get into heaven. Phew. All I have to do is pretend that my brand new car and flat screen television have no value while I enjoy them.

In fact, I believe that we are being called to do much more than simply sell all of our physical goods. It is not enough to merely whisper your rejection of riches. "For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead" (James 2:26). If your faith does not cause you to make real changes in your life, if it does not bring you to action,, then your faith is dead. You have not experienced a real conversion, you've merely decided to accept an idea. Faith calls us to live differently.

This is the "give" part of Christ's command. Start with the small things. Effective conversions consist of baby steps. Maybe instead of buying that five dollar latte, you donate the money you saved to your local pregnancy resource center like Birthright. You could hold off on upgrading your home's entertainment system to ensure that you have more time to bond with your friends or your children instead of staring at a screen. Pay attention to who you buy from or even which charities you've sent checks to just so they'll stop calling. Avoid those companies that donate to Planned Parenthood, anti-marriage lobbies, and other groups that violate Catholic social teaching. Be wary of charities; many, many organizations send checks to Planned Parenthood or fund embryonic stem cell research, both grave evils. United Way and the March for Dimes are two big supporters of the abortion lobby.

Make sure that you spend your money in a way that reflects your faith. I once heard that you can tell what someone worships by looking at how they use their wallet and their calendar. Ask yourself, are the things you buy helping you to become a better person? Or do they distract you from your journey with God? That means you definitely shouldn't have a Playboy subscription.

Work. not to become wealthy, but to support your family. Do not become blindsided by visions of yachts and Mercedes. There are cheaper ways to have fun on the water, and a used car can get you places just as easily. I'm not saying that you can't spend money on pleasures, just don't let the pursuit of such pleasures hinder you from loving your neighbors.

Use the money that you spare to help the poor. Eat out a little less so someone else can eat. Buy a less expensive car to give another man clothes to put on his back. Consider giving money to the Church. There are collections during Mass for a reason. The Catholic Church has very real material needs. There are churches to be built, parishes to be renovated, salaries to be paid, and programs to be funded. It's fallen out of popularity, but consider tithing to the Church.

The Gospel gives us a great role-model for a Christian attitude towards riches. Zacchaeus the tax collector, unlike the rich young man, makes the right response to Christ's call. He was a wealthy man, but he also took advantage of those he taxed. Tax collectors were already some of the most hated people in Jesus' time (not unlike today). Zacchaeus would have been even more despised by his countrymen. But one day, Jesus passed through his town. And Zacchaeus wanted to get a look at him, maybe he was curious about what this new rabbi had to say, maybe he had an authentic desire for something more than his life of sin, or maybe he just wanted to catch a glimpse of a celebrity.

Either way, being a short man, he climbed a tree to see Jesus. Now, Jesus came by, and much to Zacchaeus' surprise, He stopped and asks him to get down. Jesus wanted to dine with him. Our Lord did have a thing for breaking bread with sinners.

So Zacchaeus "came down quickly and received him with joy" (Luke 19:6). And when people expressed their anger that Jesus was eating with such an unclean man, Zacchaeus responded by saying "Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over" (Luke 19:8). Without Jesus even asking it of him, Zacchaeus did what the rich young man could not. He rejected his riches so that they might not be a hindrance to following Christ. The Gospel does not say that he gave up everything that he had and become a monk. Instead, he gave significantly to the poor, made reparations to those he had wronged, and began to deal fairly with people. He embraced a life-style of secularity within his spiritual call to martyrdom.

I don't think its a coincidence that the story of Zacchaeus closely follows that of the rich young man in the Gospel according to Luke. The short sinner did what the "virtuous" young man could not. Which one will you be?

Brothers and sisters, remember that following Christ is so much more than donating you possessions or writing checks to charities. The real reason the rich young man could not follow Christ is that he was not following the greater commandment of "love your neighbor as yourself." If he had done so, he would have sold everything down to the clothes he was wearing to help his fellow men because Christ asked it of him. In our journey towards spiritual perfection, let us strive to an openness to the will of God, and a love for our fellow man that surpasses our love for riches.

DEUS VULT!

On Fatherhood

Dedicated to my father,

My first and truest example

Of what it means to be a man.

There is a crisis in our world. It does not have the theatrical force of a hurricane or the publicity of acts of violence. Rather, this threat is slowly growing like the rising waters of a flood which go unnoticed until the levy breaks. And then it is too late.

We have a dearth of manliness in our culture, but more importantly of fatherhood. You can't have the latter without the former. There are a lot of examples of fake manliness. Of men who treat women like objects for their own gratification. Of men who use their God-given strength not in defense of the innocent, but who have "overturned the way of the poor and oppressed together the meek of the earth" (Job 24:5).

We have had too many men who take the easy way instead of the "narrow gate" (Matthew 7:13). I have read story after story about men who pressure their girlfriends, wives, and daughters into having abortions because of their own fears and convenience. That is why pro-choice is not pro-women. Abortion is a way for men to oppress women. To exploit them.

More and more men are rejecting the Truth and perverting their sexuality, be it for premarital relations or homosexuality. In the height of folly, men are even going so far as to reject the biological and spiritual reality of their manhood claiming they "identify" as something else.

Men are falling away from the Church and even from the belief in God altogether. They claim to be advanced or evolved, but atheism and humanism are the most barbaric creeds of all. Without God man becomes nothing but meat and is treated as such.

A crisis of manliness means a crisis of fatherhood. Fathers should be an example to their sons, a beacon of strength and virtue. They should not enable the sins of their children for the sake of moral relativism or let them "experiment," go through a "phase." Fathers cannot allow their children to pick their gender. They ought to be an example of holiness, not of vice.

Too many families do not have fathers at all. Single-parent households are the natural consequence of promiscuity. The fathers are there for the good times, but leave as soon as commitment or responsibility looms. And study after study points to the significantly higher rates of crime and delinquency of children raised in a single-mother home. The prevalence of single-parent homes in the African American community almost completely accounts for its higher crime rate.

As goes the father, so go his children.

But not all men are bad. Far from it. For every Mordred there is a King Arthur. For every Goliath, a David. For every dragon, a knight in shining armor.

We have good men in our world today. They just tend not to be where the spotlight is.

There are hosts of men who refuse to follow the norm and instead follow their God, no matter the consequences. St. Joseph trusted in the message of Archangel Gabriel even though he knew taking the Virgin Mary into his home might have been scandalous. St. Stephen testified to the Truth even as his body was broken by stones. St. Augustine had the humility to seek forgiveness after his life of sinful wordiness and became a bold defender of the Truth. St. Maximilian Kolbe gave his life for another man without fanfare or hesitation.

Two of my favorite Biblical examples of manliness are Mattathias and his son, Judas Maccabeus. Mattathias was the father of five sons in the day of the oppression of Israel by King Antiochus. Though he was offered gold, silver, and influence, Mattathias refused to forsake the Lord and the law saying "Although all nations obey King Antiochus... I and my sons, and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers. God be merciful unto us: it is not profitable for us to forsake the law and the justices of God" (1 Maccabees 2:19-21). Faced with the pressures of the world, tempted with its riches, and threatened with its sword, Mattathias did not abandon his faith. Furthermore, he did not allow his sons to abandon their faith. On his deathbed, Mattathias said to his gathered sons: "You, therefore, my sons, take courage, and behave manfully in the law: for by it you shall be glorious" (1 Maccabees 2:64).

His son, Judas Maccabeus, having such an example for a father, grew up to be a great man who "in his acts he was like a lion" (1 Maccabees 3:4). Like his father, "he pursued the wicked and sought them out" (1 Maccabees 3:5) and fought "for our lives and our laws" (1 Maccabees 3:21). He did not use the strength of his arm for self-aggrandizement but rather for justice. His last words are very telling of the sacrificial way he lived his life: "God forbid we should do this thing, and flee away from them: but if our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our glory" (1 Maccabees 9:10).

 There are men who sacrifice everything for their families. Men who work late hours to put food on the table and get their kids through college. Men who put off their ambitions to raise a child. Men who refuse to cave to what the world says. Men who stand up for the innocent and defenseless, especially the unborn. Men who put God first in their lives, then their family, and at last themselves.

My father is such a man. As I have grown, I have learned just how blessed I am. Few enough fathers go to Mass. Even less lead their children to God as my father has. Growing up Catholic in a public school is hard. Again and again, my father pushed me, not just to get by and keep my head down, but to thrive. He's the hardest working man I have ever known, but he always has time for his children. Throughout my childhood, I cannot remember a single selfish act of his.

At the same time, my father did not allow his children to grow up without a sense of responsibility and virtue. There was never any room for relativistic nonsense in our household.

My father is a rock. No matter the tumult in my life, he is always there. He has always been there for his children.

His love for my mother is an example of the sacred and sacramental nature of marriage. By word and most importantly by deed, he taught me about the dignity of woman and the importance of men of virtue.

So on this father's day, I would like to thank my dad. I would not be who I am today without him. I pray that we might have more fathers like him in this age. I firmly believe that with a revival of manliness and true fatherhood in our world, a whole lot of problems would quickly disappear.

Rise up Men of God.

Deus Vult!

A World Without God

"God is dead." That resounding diagnosis was put into words by the German nihilist Nietzsche whom I've already written about. It was rephrased on the cover of the April 8, 1966 issue of Time magazine as "Is God Dead?" Both echo the same sentiment, the idea of a world without God.

This devastating idea has not been around for very long. Up until the era of the Enlightenment, belief in some sort of divinity was pretty much universal. It was unthinkable for any intellectuals or political leaders to say with any amount of public support that there was nothing, no God. That is until the so-called "age of Reason," in reality the death of reason, which was brought about by the dissent encouraged by the Protestant Reformation. If the Catholic Church could be questioned, then why not question belief in God as well?

Some of the most famous Enlightenment thinkers were either explicit atheists or at least toed that line: Spinoza, Hume, and Kant just to name a few. It should come as no surprise then that the greatest expression of Enlightenment thought, the French Revolution, was so profoundly atheistic. Voltaire, who laid the foundations for the Revolution with his writings, was militantly anti-Christian. Indeed, the persecution of priests and other clergy was characteristic of the Revolution. The French Revolution replaced God with the State.

This trend, the aggrandizement of personal power through the "elimination" of God, continued. We cannot forget the godlessness nature of the Nazis, Bolshevik Russia, and Pol Pot's Cambodia, all responsible for horrific crimes against humanity. This is especially evident in modern China where churches are bulldozed and their pastors mysteriously disappear.

And indeed, the war on God is not limited to totalitarian regimes. Today, in America, there is a decided "bloodless" and "polite" persecution as Archbishop Lori so aptly called it. Christian values are under attack. Think about it. Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion on demand, the normalization of homosexuality, the de-stigmatization of promiscuity, and a culture of divorce have led to the breakdown of the family. Atheist groups with their litanies of "freedom of religion" and "separation of Church and State" attack that very freedom by silencing any mention of God and attempting to erect an atheistic government. Say the name of God in the public sphere and they might just try to arrest you. Proclaim the absence of God and you will be applauded.

Now beyond the existence of this war on God, which is undeniable, I want to look at the effects this has on our way of life. What does a world without God look like? It is not very hard to imagine because we are at its threshold! Look at how Planned Parenthood and its murderous ilk have convinced us that life only begins when we want it to. Look at how the media loses its mind when a gorilla is shot to save a child, but not when children are shot without cause. Look at how armchair philosophers sit in their penthouses and decry the existence of poverty and proceed to do nothing to stop it. Look at how homosexuality and transgenderism is applauded, encouraged, while traditional marriage is belittled. Virtue has become vice and vice, virtue.

For a hellish glimpse into the future of a world without God, we need only read the works of "ethicist" Peter Singer. Not that I am recommending so much as picking up anything that he has written. In fact, quite the opposite. His ideas are incredibly dangerous. In his seminal work, Practical Ethics, Singer begins innocently enough, with the topic of equality. It's hard to disagree with his conclusions, all he seems to want is for everyone to be treated fairly. At first. Then he takes it too far. Applying his godless utilitarian philosophy, Singer makes the argument that we ought to treat animal interests as having the same weight as human interests in the sphere of ethics. To do so, he frequently uses the example of newborns and the mentally disabled as human beings who are closer to the level of animals. "Killing a snail or a day-old infant does not thwart any desires [for the future], because snails and newborn infants are incapable of having such desires." (Practical Ethics p.90) You can't make this stuff up!

Singer goes on to argue that, because of his principle of considering only the interests involved, not only is abortion justified, but so is infanticide - "on purely ethical grounds, the killing of a newborn infant is not comparable with the killing of an older child or adult" - and euthanasia. He goes so far as to walk up to the precipice of justifying involuntary euthanasia, but falters.

These are dangerous ideas. And if you reject God, they are hard to argue against. That is because without God human life immediately begins to lose its value. If we were not created by a loving, all-powerful God (as we were indeed created!) then we are no longer men but beasts. Despite Singer's assertions to the contrary, this means that we are lowered to the level of animals, not that animals are raised to our level. And just like animals, we can be put down when it is convenient. Dostoevsky was all too accurate when he wrote that "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." I do not think that it is too outlandish to envision Singer's fantasies becoming reality in a world without God, and even involuntary euthanasia becoming accepted for the sake of the collective "good."

When I imagine a world without God, I see a world where human life is meaningless, where love is reduced to sexual sensation found as easily in the Internet as in human interactions, where the very terms "men" and "women" have become offensive, and where people of faith are persecuted.

This is not the kind of world that I want to live in!

Brothers and sisters, we must bring back a Godly culture of Truth! Where life and true love are valued!

How can we do this? It might seem that a monumental effort is necessary, something that will shock the world back into reality. In truth, it is the little things that will change the world and overthrow the very foundations of our godless culture of death.

First, we must love. It is easy to be angry with the way the world is headed. It is even more easy to hate those that are pushing it along the road to hell. It requires courage, however, to love them. Remember that as St. Theresa of Avila says, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours." Jesus did not condemn sinners, he lovingly rebuked them. Christ did not say to Matthew the tax-collector "Do what makes you happy." But he also didn't say "You're going to hell Matt." He said "Follow me"  (Matthew 9:9). Jesus, the only one who was without sin and could therefore throw a stone at the adulterous woman, didn't. Instead, he said "Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on do not sin any more" (John 8:11).

To turn back this culture of death, I firmly believe that we must fully commit ourselves to the pro-life cause. I'm the president of my high-school's Students for Life of America club (a most excellent organization) and I also run its blog. Now it would be excellent if everyone could start or become active in local pro-life groups, but you don't even need to do that much. I have already written a list of ways you can be a Pro-Life Warrior. In short, the war on abortion is largely a war of information. Simply spread the word about the ugly realities of abortion. Lies told often enough often become half-truths. Planned Parenthood has convinced people that developing babies are just "clumps of cells" and that abortion has no psychological effects on women, both of which are patently false!

Very simply, you can help to create a culture of God by being men and women of God. Pray as often as you breath. Attend Mass whenever possible. Venerate the Blessed Mother. Pray the Rosary, our primary weapon. Stand up for your beliefs. Be an example to the world, your friends, your family. Raise your children in the faith.

The future of a world without God may be bleak. The future with God, however, is filled with hope and grace. Rise up and join the Crusade for Truth!

DEUS VULT!