The Early Church - A Socialist Utopia In The Making???

First reading	Acts 4:32-37 ©

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common.

  The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and they were all given great respect.

  None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any members who might be in need.

  There was a Levite of Cypriot origin called Joseph whom the apostles surnamed Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He owned a piece of land and he sold it and brought the money, and presented it to the apostles.

Good day comrades!  First of all, let me say that if you are looking at the graphic, you are probably saying, "Comrade Michael the Lesser, there is a difference between socialism and communism."  Comrade Michael the Lesser would respond, "Yeah, but this picture caught my attention so I thought I would use it."  But, the scripture passage is often used to state that the early Church was trying to set up a socialist utopia here on earth. Well, while it sounds like the seeds of socialism have been planted, they really were not.  The Church has never said one form of government is better than another, except it has condemned communism because of its atheist dogma and lack of respect for the human being.  The Church, on the other hand, has cautions for all types of government.  She wants governments to be servants of the people and not the people to be servants of the government. But what do we have here in our passage?  We have some of our fellow Catholics turning their possessions into money, which is then used to help less fortunate members of the Church.  This is a completely voluntary thing while in socialism and communism this generosity would be compelled by the state.  

With what we know today, wouldn't it be a great experiment to see if we could have the benefits of socialism?  No, not really.  Socialism has a tendency to fall apart.  Religious and pseudo-religious communities come and go, they all have a couple of things in common.  First, the surrendered property starts out helping everyone but soon enough the funds are diverted to help the founder of the group and his or her appetites get more and more extravagant.  For example, do you remember the televangelists Jim and Tammy Baker?  They hauled in millions and instead of using it for their ministry they used it to pamper themselves.  There were extravagances aplenty including jewels and furs for Tammy, vacations in hotels that featured gold plated toilets and sinks, antique Rolls Royce automobiles, two of them, I guess "his and hers."  Their ministry fell apart due to scandal, Jim was found in an intimate encounter with another man by Tammy. Then all of the excesses and theft from the church coffers came out, and Jim was sent to prison, initially for forty-five years which was later reduced to eight years.   

Perhaps more socialistic in nature was Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.  Jim was an old-fashioned film flam man but he did not seemingly start this way.  He started as a person concerned with social change and the ending of racial segregation in our country. He gathered a large following and he became friends with politicians and thus had political clout and he knew how to use it.  Through the years the temple evolved into less of a religious organization and more of a political one.  At one point, Jim condemned the Bible as a book full of lies.  He demanded his followers sign over their property to him and that he would take care of them. Eventually, Jim decided to build a utopian community in Ghana. Several hundred of his followers left everything behind and went to Ghana with him.  He was a pill popper.  He took pills to wake up, to go to sleep, to walk, to talk, any reason was good enough for him to take a pill.  The effect of all of these drugs made him paranoid.  When a US Senator came to investigate rumors that people were being held against their will, Jim decided that the time had come and he induced his followers, nine hundred of them, to swallow poisoned Kool-Aid and they all, except a few that escaped into the jungle, died.  Jonestown was a monument to Socialism. 

What the scripture passage tells us is simply that the people in the early Church were inspired to be generous and inspired to help those less fortunate.  The Church was not setting up a new socialist government, the Romans would not have approved, but they were setting up, as Christ told them to do, the Kingdom of Christ on earth.  We can thank those early Catholics (Yes, Catholics) for the example that they showed us. We can thank them too for showing that Christianity is compatible with many forms of government.  

Sunday Edition - The Synod and Cardinal Pell

SUNDAY EDITION IS PUBLISHED WHEN I FEEL LIKE PUBLISHING IT.
IT EXPRESSES MY OPINIONS ABOUT THE GOINGS ON IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH.  PLEASE FEEL FREE TO AGREE OR DISAGREE BUT DO SO IN A RESPECTFUL MANNER.

Texts from the third day of the Vatican summit on child protection emphasized transparency, including:

-- The church must be transparent and open in facing the sexual abuse crisis, and the first step in true transparency is to admit wrongdoing and how it was dealt with, says Sister Veronica Openibo, congregational leader of the Holy Name Sisters.

Sister Veronica hits the bullseye with what she says. For too long the management of the Church has lost sight of what their job is.  Their job is not to "protect the church or her reputation" for that job is the job of the Holy Spirit.  However, words are just words and I should know because I am a wordsmith and can manipulate words to emphasize any point of view.  The words our bishops and cardinals speak now have to be followed up with action.  This action must be taken without regard to the rank of the perpetrator.  If they thought so little of their vows that they abused another vulnerable human being, well, then they must be rendered harmless and they must never be allowed into a position of trust in the Church again.  We do not see much action right now, hopefully, the hand wringing and rhetoric will now stop and the scandal can be addressed with action.  What do you say, Pope Francis?

-- German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising says counteracting sinful behavior requires traceability and transparency within the church.

Really Eminence?  I can see why you are in the position that you are.  You have a great grasp of the obvious.  Could you do me a favor and perhaps mention this to the Holy Father when you see him next?  He does not seem to have a clue at how to move on this issue. 

-- If bishops are really serious about fighting clerical sex abuse, they must join forces with journalists, says Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki.

This would be a good idea but for one fact.  The journalists from all media have a bias against the Catholic Church.  Sexual abuse, as bad as it is in the Church is only the tip of the iceberg.  Sexual abuse is a symptom of the miasma we find ourselves in.  Little bit by little bit over the years our respect for life and for one another has sunk to new lows.  We do not see ourselves as children of God but just as interchangeable pawns in the game of life.  This is exacerbated by the press, TV, and all other forms of news sources who no longer just report the news but wordsmith the news to point to a value that they want to push.  The point they want to push is usually the one that sells more papers or gains more viewers and generally, these are positions that are opposite of what the Church teaches and that is what makes it popular.  In America beating up the Catholic Church is second only to baseball as a national pastime. 

-- "Too often we have kept quiet, looked the other way, avoided conflicts" and been "too smug" to confront the "dark sides of our church," Archbishop Philip Naameh of Tamale, Ghana, tells fellow bishops.

Let the confronting begin!  When a person has cancer develop in their body, in order for them to regain their health the cancer must be, in some way, be removed.  The process of removing cancer can be painful and can cause scars but in the end, the person who has been cured lives a longer life and actually has more appreciation for the act of breathing in and breathing out while walking, talking and thinking.  

For our Church, the time for surgery has arrived and we must excise the corrupted parts of our Church and we must cut deep and cut true.  We have to be fair, we have to make sure that there is credible evidence against a malefactor but once it is proven the process should proceed immediately and the perpetrator should be laicized without delay so that the harm that this person has done is cut off and healing can thus begin. 

PELL DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE JURY AND BILOCATES 

• Twenty Alibi Witnesses showing that reported abuse was impossible ignored by the jury.
• Anti-Catholic bias suspected major factor in conviction because of Pell refusing communion to gay activists, also he was a major supporter of Right to Life - both offenses angered non-christian people. 

EDITORIAL

What is the Church? One answer might be that it is the Pope and the Cardinals, the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Nuns, Sisters, Brothers and the people in the pews. This answer is not satisfactory.  The Church consists of all of these people but all of these people form the People of God.  No matter what title that they might have, no matter how much power they think they have, no matter whose ear they have, none of us are any greater than God.  The Church is His.  It does not belong to the clergy or even the pew-dwellers. it is His. 

Today we are facing (again) a scandal that will not go away.  Common ordinary Catholics are starting to look outside the Catholic Church and running away to receive their spiritual nourishment.  Without a doubt, each of them will be welcomed with open arms by any Protestant denomination that they fall victim to.  There they will receive the word that the Church, the Bride of Christ is nothing more than the Whore of Babylon.  It is a sad fact that some will actually believe this and turn away from the True Church and accept something less than they are entitled to.  They will become Christians of the Book and begin to believe in strange doctrines such as sola scriptura - where if it is not in the Bible, it has no place in your faith life.  Sadly Sola Scriptura is not found in the Bible.  They might be taught that once they accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior that they cannot lose that salvation. They will also be taught that works are not needed in spite of the fact that in the Gospel of Mark we are told that the goats who did nothing went to one place and the sheep that took care of their brothers went another.  They will also be taught that the letter of James doesn't really mean what it says.  Four times a year they will participate in a memorial of the last supper, crackers and grape juice will be distributed and the remnants will be fed to the birds because after all, they are just crackers. 

Pray for those who are suffering because of the small percentage of renegade clergy that has sullied the name of the Roman Catholic Church.  Remember as well that our Church enjoys the fullness of the Treasury of Faith and that includes the greatest gift we have ever received, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

 

Feast of the Visitation

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

Brother Michael the Lessor TOR
He had a dream...
October 1976 - Feast of St. Francis

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: 

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever."

Mary remained with her about three months

and then returned to her home.

Those that know me, know that Michael the Lesser is a fugitive from the monastery.  That's me in the picture above, mugging for the camera.  I was Brother Michael TOR.  I still own the cord that's around my waist and the crucifix, which was a gift to me from Brother Ambrose who was my boss at the mission goods store where I was assigned to work, hangs on the wall in my living room.  Those were two years that I would not trade for anything. They were hard years in a way because you were living in a small community and little petty things tended to grow in importance and little annoyances became major issues.  But, for the most part, it was a good life. I remember one day I was cleaning the sacristy and took a couple of old rugs out to beat.  As I came out of the house onto the back porch, I saw the sun glowing through the trees in the and in the distance I heard a crow cawing and it was a moment in my life where everything was in line, everything was perfect, and those moments, I have learned, come few and far between.  

As brothers, we said the daily office. In the morning was Lauds, and if you ever wanted to know what a cacophony sounded like, come and listen to twenty-four late teen and early twenty-something men try to chant in the morning.  After dinner was Vespers and the best hour of the day was Compline or as it was sometimes called, night prayer.  There was a rhythm to the day and it was punctuated by these times of prayer.  What used to annoy almost all of us is that Compline started promptly at ten o'clock, the same time that the news began.  Father Pat could give a rat's patoot about that, we never started Compline late.  

But, it is Vespers that I want to mention today.  Part of Vespers is the Canticle of Mary which is the reading at Mass today. For two years my evening featured this beautiful prayer that was said by our Blessed Mother when she visited her cousin, Elizabeth.  I got to really, really love this part of our daily public prayer.  If you read through the prayer you will begin to understand who Mary is.  Protestants say that we worship Mary.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Mary would not approve of our worshiping her.  She always points the way to Jesus.  She had just been chosen to be the very Mother of God and she does not puff herself up with pride, no, she begins her prayer with the words, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord."  She at once shows her great humility.  Mary speaks very little in Scripture, but when she speaks, she points the way to God. 

On this great feast day, my fondest hope is that I can imitate Mary in her great humility.  There never has been anyone who could claim to have any greater honor.  The old Ark of the Covenant has been replaced by the new and the tabernacle of Israel was now a virgin mother who carried inside her who would be the very Bread of Life for us. 

There are those that think that our prayers to Mary somehow diminishes Jesus.  Nothing can be further from the truth. Mary brings our prayers to her Son.  She pleads for us to get another chance.  To us, she always points to her Divine Son and she is quoted as saying, "Do whatever he tells you to do."

In all things, we are called to imitate Christ.  We are to imitate His love for the poor, for those who are in distress and we are to imitate Him in loving His mother.  Scott Hahn, a convert to Roman Catholicism, says that if we admit that Jesus lived a perfect, sin-free life, then we have to admit that He never even one of the ten commandments.  He goes on to say that if this is true then Jesus honored His father and His mother perfectly.  Further, if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, then our spiritual mother is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We, in imitation of Christ, give her the same honor that her Son gives to her.  Honoring Mary, therefore, takes nothing away from God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. So, if you have a problem with honoring Mary, please talk to Jesus, He is the one who started it!  

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. (1)   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Footnotes
(1) These are the words of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary when she agreed to become the Mother of God.  It forms the first half of the prayer called "The Hail Mary"

The Reach of The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the one institution that has had the most impact on this world, bare none.  No other organization has lived through so many different world orders.  Many different world orders have seen their sunrise, their flourishing, and their sunset. The Church has been there and has witnessed it all. 

The Catholic Church has been a beacon through many tough periods in history. During the Dark Ages, she kept the light of human knowledge burning through her monasteries and learned monks. She formed the first institutions of higher learning, gave birth to what we call the modern hospital, and through it all she has always taught the truth of the Gospel without change and without bowing to the wisdom of the current trends in secular thought. For the Church, the truth that Christ taught, the truth that the Holy Spirit infused into the Church, the truth that the apostle passed down from the beginning remains the truth that is taught today. She has been a faithful steward of and protector of the Deposit of Faith. 

The Catholic Church alone bears the marks of what the true church should be.  She is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.  She seeks to unite all under One Body and One Blood. The denominations by their very nature only serve to weaken the unity that Jesus Himself called for at the Last Supper.  When Martin Luther, filled with sinful pride, to an ax to the root of the one, singular, holy church that Christ founded he began a process that continues until today, the removal of pebbles from the Rock that is the foundation of the Church.  The Church is in no danger of falling as Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against her.  So despite the miasma of a multitude of "truths" being taught in the name of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church remains today as it was in the beginning, the organization that keeps alive the true teachings of Jesus Christ on earth.  

The Catholic Church reaches deeply into modern society.  She is the voice that will not allow the conscience of man to fall asleep. She is hated by those who would rather give vent to the evil in their hearts.  She is despised by those who want to live in the cold and silent darkness of sin and who perpetuate a culture of death.  

The Church through the centuries has been the first to dispense alms to the needy, to victims of famine, and disease.  She is the only organization who waits for opportunities to be of service. In her charity, she does not ask a man's religion nor does she weigh his wallet.  Where there is a need she gives. 

She is the very Bride of Christ but those that hate her describe her as the whore of Babylon because their eyes are blinded to the good fruit the Catholic Church has brought forth through the centuries. Instead, she is accused of killing more people than were alive at the time of the Inquisitions, while the truth is that few perished because of these courts and many more were brought to salvation.  In our own times, she was accused of working hand in glove with the Nazi government and keeping a sinful silence at the plight of the Jewish people at the hands of Hitler.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Pope Pius, at the end of the war, received and thanks from many Jewish leaders for the people he saved by hiding them in monasteries and in Vatican City itself.  

The Roman Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. As such, she is the vehicle of salvation for mankind.  Other denominations cannot say this about themselves.  The fact remains that the very Bible that these denominations, was pulled together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  The Church decided upon the Canon of Scripture that served everyone for fifteen-hundred years until the reformers led by the arch-criminal Luther removed from the Sacred Pages whole books that did not fit into their novel and unbiblical views of salvation. 

The Roman Catholic Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic organization was firmly built by Christ on the rock that was Peter.  The current Pope can trace his lineage back in an unbroken line to Peter.  Never in two-thousand years has even one Pope taught error from the Chair of Peter and there have been some very bad popes indeed!  In spite of the fact that there were some popes who had only their own pockets in mind, even they did not endanger the purity of God's truth by teaching error. Quite the contrary, the evil popes taught nothing as they lined their pockets and ran roughshod over the commandments of God.  The fact remains that the good popes have outnumbered the bad ones by a vast majority.  It should be noted that the Pope is protected from teaching error, but he is not protected from committing sin. Those that state that the Catholic Church cannot be the church of God because these bad popes ruled forget that these men were just that, men, able to commit acts of great turpitude such as the evil popes did or committing acts of great holiness as the saintly ones did. 

So, reject the Catholic Church at your peril. The Church believes that everyone who calls Jesus "Lord" is a fellow Christian even if they are not in full communion with the Church and they can and will attain heaven if they lead holy lives for God sees no difference in Gentile or Jew, man or woman, slave or free.  However, he has given His Church great tools and powers in the Treasury of Faith to ensure that we come to be with Him in heaven.  The way to heaven is a narrow and sometimes steep road.  The Church provides places in which to place your feet and stepping stones to help ease the journey.  The Church will bring you to the Valley of Peace, where pain no longer exists and we will once again be one flock with one Shepherd who is the Lord. 

Pentecost - The Church is Born

In an organization, when you have no idea on what to do next the next best thing to taking action is to take a meeting.  That was what the Apostles were doing now that Jesus had ascended back to the Father.  After all, just a short time ago Jesus met them on the shore and they ate fish together and He told Peter for feed His sheep.  So what a better subject for a meeting that this!   This idea then that was proposed and then then dismissed. Hours passed in delightful discourse. In the back of their minds, unspoken was the fact that they had to be careful, they were on the high priest's hit list and that is why they were meeting in secret behind locked doors.  It had gone on for a couple of hours and idea after idea was discarded because it would expose them to too much danger. Then there came a mighty wind and tongues of fire came and settled above each of the Apostles. Their souls were filled with courage and they remembered in great detail the things Jesus had said to them.  Peter went to the door and threw off the plank that was keeping the world shut out.  He left and the other eleven went with him.  They began to preach and teach about Jesus but what was amazing was that there was a crowd of people from all over the known world, some from far away as Rome. Each of the people present heard the Good News proclaimed by the Apostles in their own language.  The tower of Babble had been reversed!  Where once they depended on a strong door and lock to keep them safe, now they depended upon the Lord. 

Today we Christians are very much like the Apostles before the Spirit descended upon them.  We hem and haw, discuss and plan, have meeting after meeting, but we do nothing to point out where our world is going wrong.  We do not shout the good news to the people in a dying world that needs it. Instead we go along quietly while one step at time our culture moves away from Christian values and moves toward the rule of the mob.  

Christian values we are told are out of date, out of touch, with the way things are today.  You know what? We Christians are out of step with the pagans. Are we ready to give a reason for the hope we carry? Are we willing to be scourged with ridicule and scorn? Are we ready to take the fight out of the darkness and into the light? 

On this Pentecost Sunday, I challenge you to become the soldier for Christ you were meant to be. The Spirit will guide you and will tell you what to say when you are carried into court to answer for your beliefs.  Be brave Christian man, Christian woman, Christian boy, or Christian girl.  May the Lord be with you. 

The Age of Martyrs

In 1998 my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting Ireland.* It is a most beautiful country with a warm and charming people. After a nights rest in Limerick and a call to the car rental people to send someone to fix our boot (trunk) because someone had hit our rental car in the parking lot, we set out for one place and ended up in another.  We actually ended up in Galloway Bay, a beautiful town on the coast.  We found a bread and breakfast that had room for us and after a wonderful dinner we found our way to the local church for Saturday Evening Mass.

 When we walked into the church we were greeted with the sound of angels singing.  The youth choir at this church was singing a prelude song before Mass started.  It was absolutely beautiful. I noticed that the Irish people had a great reverence when they were in church. It was quiet, no idle chatter disturbed the peace. The mass itself was said with a joyfulness that I have only found here in the states a couple of times.  All through Ireland we found this same attitude towards worship. I got the feeling that the people actually wanted to be there. As we explored the country I tried to figure out why the Church seemed so different there.  Then it hit me. The pestilential British made martyrs of Catholics and the right to worship came at a very high cost. Much blood was spilled and many churches were destroyed yet the Church could not be extinguished at the point of a sword. 

Today we face barbarians that make the shenanigans of the British against the Irish seem like child's play. The people who claim to be Muslims jihadists in the Arab countries are enriching the soil of the lands that they infest with the blood of Christians some of which have been there since the second century.  These members of Isis will not be able to win. It is not the military might of the United States or the Coalition that will defeat them, it is the blood of those that they martyr that will serve to extinguish their lust for power.

I look at what my brothers and sisters in those lands have gone through and still have kept the faith and I wonder if I too would have the strength to offer my life for my fellow Christians.  I like to think that I would.  The power of the example of the martyrs is what will keep the church alive. The barbarians had lined up about 30 Coptic Christians to execute them. Included in the group was one man who was not Christian.  The Coptic men kept repeating the name of Jesus and kept praying while waiting for their death. The cowardly barbarians asked the man who was not a Christian to immediately convert to Islam and his life would be spared. The man, without any hesitation said, "Their God is my God."

In today's first reading at Mass we see that Paul and Barnabas where brought before the leaders and they without fear spoke out on how they had to obey God's word and not man's.  They were punished and expelled from the district, but the church still grew. 

As you enjoy your Sunday bring to mind all of those that came before us that made it possible for us to worship as we do.  Thank God for the martyrs and for his One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  

If you are interested in more information about the persecution of the British against the Irish, click on the link and you can read a brief paper about it.    (  LINK  )

*1998 was a long time ago of course, and the Irish Church has had some set backs as has the Church all over the world. The errors of common society have unfortunately been embraced by many Irish people. 

Pre-Vatican 2 Memories

I was born into the Pre-Vatican II Church. So I am fortunate to remember what the Church was like before and after that great time of change in the Church. 

My first memory of Church was when I was very young, maybe five years old or so. It was a December Sunday before Christmas. I dressed in my "good" clothes, ones I wasn't allowed to play outside in, and together we walked the two blocks from our home on Loomis Street down to Archer Avenue and St. Bridget's Church.  

We entered the Church and my mother dipped her finger into the holy water font and traced a sign of the cross on my forehead and made the sign of the cross herself.  we walked down the aisle and my mother stopped at one of the pews and she went down on one knee and got back up. I did the same think and filed into the pew. She pulled down this thing that was attached to the pew in front of us and knelt down. I did not follow suit because when I tried it, I could not see anything. I just sat down and looked around. In back of me an old man held rosary beads in his hand and they clinked against the pew and as his lips moved the made almost inaudible sounds.  I was a disgustingly good kid. I just sat there and looked around at what was happening. Then the church bells started tolling in the ding dong pattered that seemed to sing "you're late, you're late" to the people rushing in from the parking lot.  The moments after the bells stopped, a single chime sounded inside and everyone stood up. The man wearing some funny clothes said something in a language I did not understand and all those around me, except the old man with the rosary who stayed on task with his beads, made what I learned later was the sign of the cross. Not wanted to be left out, I tried to imitate what I observed and my mother told me that it appeared that I was attempting to shoe away flies.  This is the extent of what I remember about my first time at mass. 

It would not be the last time I would attend mass with my mother but when I entered Kindergarten I started attending the nine A.M. Children's mass with my classmates under the watchful eyes of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary and later under the even more watchful eyes of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

In those early days being a child Catholic meant that you had to be adept in memorizing. We did not learn much about the Bible directly but we learned the truths of the Catholic Church using the ever popular Baltimore Catechism. This book presented the Kingdom of God in bite size pieces in a question and answer format, starting for first simple general principles, defining who God was, what He did, and why He did it. Now I sucked at math and diagramming sentences escaped me, but I could tell you who God was,what sin was, who various characters in the Bible were and what they did. So, while Protestants learned these things through exposure to the Bible and could tell you the chapter and verse the stories came from, we Catholics knew the stories but not where they were in the Bible. 

When my grandmother Anna Barbara Remeikis died the Church was still operating in the old traditional mode. The body was carried into church and the priest was dressed in black vestments and the casket was covered in a black pall. The music sounded somber and was in Latin. Women all wore hats or little rags called "chapel veils."  The whole thing seemed to accentuate the finality of death. We then drove to the cemetery and the casket was carried by the pall bearers, of which I was one, to the grave. I remember looking at the yawning open hole, seeing the tears streaming down my mothers face as we put the casket on the device that would lower Grandma to her final resting place. We pall bearers took off our white gloves and laid them atop the casket. The casket was incensed and the prayers of committal were said, the casket received a blessing with holy water and then it was over. The undertaker announced that all of the mourners were invited to go to this banquet room near the cemetery to partake of a memorial luncheon in the honor of Anna Barbara Remeikis. 

Several years later Frank Remaikis was called home. This was after the reforms of Vatican II were propagated and there was a different feeling to his funeral. The somber sounding Gregorian chant had disappeared in favor of more modern Catholic hymns. The black pall that reminded everyone of death was gone and was replaced by a white pall that represented the fact that Frank had been baptized and was now with God and that we should be happy for him in that his earthly labors were over. If anyone deserved to go directly to heaven, my grandfather should have been a candidate as he suffered as few have suffered on this earth. He was a cancer survivor not once or twice but three times!  Once he had been opened up like a side of beef.  He never complained. But his remarkable story is for another time. His funeral was a celebration. We were reminded at the homily that we would see Frank again in Heaven and his body would rise again when Jesus came back again. When the mass was over we drove to the cemetery and instead of looking into a black empty hole, the final commitment was done in a bright chapel. Sure we were all sad that Frank was gone, but we knew he would return someday. 

Other changes were made in the way Catholics lived their faith life. In the olden days the altar railing separated the holy from the profane and unauthorized persons were not permitted to open the gates and approach the altar without permission. If you were an altar boy you had that permission, other than that civilians were to keep out. The priest read the epistles and the Gospel and when communion time came we wall went up to the border and knelt down and Father would come by and place the consecrated host on your tongue and he would mumble something in Latin to which you responded "Amen."  You did not chew the host, you let it melt in your mouth, which if it got caught on the roof of your moth could take awhile ! 

Post Vatican II the communion ritual changed a bit. First of course the Mass changed, instead of facing the altar the priest now turned around and faced the people. The Mass was celebrated in English and people clinking rosary beads on pews during Mass started to become less frequent. Communion now could be placed in your hand. This was something not heard of in the old Church.  Pre-Vatican II only the consecrated hands of the priest could touch the sacred species. The average every day Catholic could now hold out his unconsecrated hand and receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ right in his own hand. This is an amazing change. 

There were other changes in church discipline. Catholics, who had received the name "mackerel snappers" because they were not allowed to eat meat on Friday were absolved from this practice and the crowds roared their approval. Of course, most of the Catholics never read the second part of this loosening of discipline, they were supposed to choose something else to replace the Friday abstinence. Most of us, me included never did. 

It is this loosening of the Friday discipline that shows one of the most important things that Vatican II did for us. Vatican II allowed us to become spiritual adults. We could foster our relationship with God using practices that meant something to us personally. As in the example what happened was the discipline was relaxed and we accepted the relaxation but did not really look into something to replace it. 

It's opinion time! I appreciate the reforms that were suggested by the church fathers as they tried to change us from children of faith into adults of faith. The changes were needed. What went wrong was how the changes were applied. The Catholic Church has been around for two thousand years and will most likely be around two thousand years from now. The church erred not in the reforms themselves, but how they were pushed out to the users.  There was time, lots of it, and these reforms could have been pushed out slowly after enough teaching about the reform(s) had been made. The way it was done had a tendency to alienate some of the older, more traditional Catholics, the ones that clinked beads against the pews during Mass for example. While many were singing Kumbya and Michael Row the Boat Ashore, the more traditional Catholics longed to hear Ave Maria.  While changing to English was one of the best ideas to come out of the council, the Church suddenly, almost overnight, changed and did not really give the oldsters a Latin Mass to go to, well they still had them, like at seven in the evening at a church so far out in the sticks that you might have had to take a Greyhound bus to get there! 

Today, we Catholics are paying the price for this unintentional mis-management.  we have fewer priests and our youth do not seem to find priestly or religious life a way to go. But we are the Catholic Church and we will survive.  Thank God for the reforms of Vatican II. They were needed and now with our perfect 20/20 hindsight the Church will begin to repair the damage caused and they will open further the windows that Vatican II opened and the Holy Spirit will do His work and we will be even stronger. 

God Bless!    

  

Ashes to Ashes - Dust to Dust

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of our forty day journey with Jesus in the desert.  When I was a boy the only thing I thought of on this day was that now on Friday's we would be having fish for dinner.  Fish normally consisted of either Mom's Tuna Fish Salad or the dreaded fish sticks. Some days during Lent we got a double whammy, at school we would be given fish sticks for lunch with a dry lump of U.S. Government cheese, coleslaw and a cup with a peach in heavy syrup in a cup. There was a reason God made fish the way He did, you know, fish shaped, that was to remind you that fish were meant to fish shaped and should be eaten fresh and never carved into sticks.  But that's in the past and today I never have to eat fish sticks. Not eating meat on Friday was really ingrained into us those days. One year my father took us to see the Chicago Auto Show on a Lenten Friday.  We stopped for a snack and he bought me a hot dog. I had taken a bite of it and before I could swallow it he mentioned that it was Friday.  It meant nothing to him, he did not follow the faith even though he was a baptized Catholic.  I excused myself and spat the mouthful of David Berg Kosher hot dog and bun into the garbage can and followed that up with by fling the reset of the hot dog.  My father laughed at my antics and shook his head as he took a bite of his hot dog.  By the end of the night I was a bit hungry and even a fish stick would have tasted good, everything tastes good when you season it with enough ketchup. 

Our journey with Jesus is one that takes us into the desert. It is a time that we can spend reviewing our life, working out what we need to change to become ever better followers of Jesus.  Why the desert?  The desert is a place like no other. It  is desolate, you can go a long time without seeing another person.  The only sounds you will hear is the howl of the wind. You will be utterly alone without any distractions. There will be no one there to flatter you or criticize you.  It will just be you.  The solitude will allow you to focus on yourself and your relationship with God.  That what Lent is all about. It would be a wrong to classify it merely as spring cleaning, because it it much more than that.  The desert, a place where you can begin to see yourself as God sees you.  

So as we step out of our comfort zone and begin to take some time to learn about ourselves and become closer to Christ let us resolve to make this Lenten journey the best one we have ever had. 

LET ME SING OF YOUR WONDERFUL NAME
LET MY LIPS TELL THE JOY OF YOUR LOVE.
THE HEAVENS PROCLAIMING THE GLORY OF GOD
AND YET NO SOUND CAN BE HEARD
THE WORLD IN IT STILLNESS ARE WRAPPED IN YOU SILENCE
NOW FATHER GIVE US YOUR WORD!
LET ME SING OF YOUR WONDERFUL NAME
LET MY LIPS TELL THE JOY OF YOUR LOVE. 

He said what? The Reformers Curious Quotations

Today's post will cause all of us especially the Protestants among us to pause and scratch our heads. Some of the things we think that we know about the 16th century founders of the new and novel Protestant churches is mixed up and wrong.  Lest you think I am a great brain and have done a lot of research on this subject, let me confess, I have not. The quotes were researched by a wonderful author named Devin Rose in the book entitled If Protestantism is True which is available through Amazon.com's Kindle service.

Protestant apologists often castigate the Catholic Church for believing things that they cannot find in the Bible.  Well, to them I would say where does the Bible say that all Christian belief has to be found in the Bible.  But that is a subject for another post.  Today I am going to let the great "reformers" to speak on several subjects that are bones of contention between Catholics and Protestants. I will not comment on what they say, I will let their quotations stand on their own merit.  I have to say that these people are the ones responsible for creating the many thousands of Christian sects that exist today. It was through their words that we have Lutheran churches, Presbyterian churches, Baptist Churches, Churches of God, and all of the other denominations that have sprung up.  It was their sword that carved up the Church and destroyed the unity that Jesus prayed for.  And so, without further delay, direct from the frozen tundra of Illinois I present to you the reformers.

On Mary the Mother of God

Martin Luther:

"In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such great good things given her that no one can grasp them. Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born in Bethlehem, but of him who, before the workd was eternally born of the Father from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God. (1)

John Calvin:

"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son granter her the highest honor. Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God." (2)

On the Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Martin Luther

"Scripture does not say or indicate that she later lost her virginity. When Matthew says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought for her so, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her. This babble is without justification he (one who interprets the Bible against Mary's perpetual virginity) has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either scripture of the common idiom." (3)

John Calvin

"The inference Helvidius drew from Matthew 1:35 was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. No just and well grounded inference can be drawn from these words as to what took place after the birth of Christ.  He is called the "first born"; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that He was born of a virgin. What took place afterwards the historian dies not inform us. No man will obstinately keep up the argument except from a extreme fondness for disputation."  (4)

Martin Luther on Jews 

"The Jews are full of devil's feces which they wallow in like swine. (5)

Martin Luther on Marriage

"I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case civil authority has nothing to do in such a matter. (6)

Back to my narrative. These quotes are shown how the two greatest reformers thought about things.  I found the antisemitism and his tacit approval of polygamy striking.  

When there appears any article about the Roman Catholic Church on the internet you can bet that the trolls that hate the Church will come out in force and trot out all of the old tried and true accusations against the church such as that we worship Mary, pray to statues, worship bread and wine, you know the stuff.  I take a few minutes to correct the troll, knowing full well that I am not going to change the troll's mind. But there may be some out there who will read what I say and perhaps, just perhaps, their heart will soften and they will start looking at the resources I recommend to them. 

We Catholics have a great responsibility to our Protestant brothers and sisters.  I am not excluding rabid anti-Catholics either, those such as Jack Chic to give an example of someone who truly hates the Catholic Church.  We are tasked with bringing them home and to undo five hundred years of separateness back into the unity Christ wanted in the first place.  The quotes just serve to indicate that some of the people that hate us the most have no idea how far they have strayed from not only the Catholic Church but from their own Protestant roots. 

We are called to be one in Christ. It is not for the Catholic Church to divide herself among the denominations to bring this about. It is rather the denominations, large and small, that must unite themselves into one Church that teaches the Good News to those who need it most.  

I have come a long way in a short period of time in my own personal understanding of our differences. At one time I considered all Protestants beyond hope and hell bound.  Then I studied what my Church teaches and found out that I was in effect the Catholic version of Jack Chick, unreasonable, uncharitable, and not very Christ like.  The Catholic Church write in the documents of Vatican II what my understanding should be: 

"Even in the beginnings of this one and only Church of God there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly condemned. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions made their appearance and quite large communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic Church-for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame.  The children who are born into these communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church event though this communion is imperfect.  (7)

In the Decree on Ecumenism we read: 

Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments with together go to build bu and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spitit, and visible elements too.  It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as a means of salvation which devive their efficacy frin the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church. 

I as a dutiful son of Holy Mother Church therefore am to treat Protestants with great respect, admiration, and love.  This is contrasted with certain Protestant sects that teach that he Catholic Church are idol worshipers, calling the pope the anti-Christ. 

So that is all I have to say today.  thank youfor listening. 

Footnotes 

(1) On the Divine Motherhood of Mary, Weimer's The Works of Luther English translation by Pelikan Concordia St Louis V7 P 572

(2) Ca;vini Oera Corpus Reformatorium Braunschweig Berlin 1863-1900 V 45 P 348

(3) Pelikan ibid v45:206, 212-3 / That Jesus Christ was born a Jew

(4) Pringle vol 1 p 107

(5) On the Jews and Their Lies - circa 1543

(6) Martin Luther, DeWette, II 459.

(7) Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintgratio, I 3

Lent - The Season of fish sticks and beans

It seems just moments ago we were wishing each other the greetings appropriate to the holidays and now it seems that the season of Lent is knocking at the door.  Wednesday next is the day we call Ash Wednesday and marks the forty day period that the Church provides us to prepare for the Solemn Easter Tridium, the celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter vigil. For some of us this period of time is remarkable only due to the fact that we Catholics abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on  Friday's of Lent. The Church also mandates fasting on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.

Lent literally means "spring."  What does the word "spring" bring to mind?  To me it brings to mind the ground thawing out after a chilly winter and new growth breaking the soil and plants opening up their leaves to catch the warm rays of the sun.  It is a mystical season that restores life where once there had been no sign of it. So it is with our lives and the season of Lent. 

When I was a boy I hated the season of Lent. In our household it was the season of fish sticks. There is nothing nastier on God's green earth than fish sticks. It was also the season of giving up something, usually candy if you were a kid, and that was a painful thing to do. Remember too that back then no one told the kids that Sunday's are not counted in the forty days of lent and you could gouge yourself with all the candy you wanted on Sundays!  No, Sister Emerita and her fellow sisters kept that as a Canonical Secret so we kids would not get out of the habit of giving up candy. In our household my father was an agnostic so Lent was not really part of his year but he put up with the fish sticks and vegetarian beans that was the staple of Lenten Friday dinners. We kids tried to remain faithful to our promise to give up candy but it was hard.  Why even in the school I went to the lunch time candy table was set up so you could get your sugar fix that would last you until three o'clock. Sales were off a bit but some kids still bought candy and we were told not to judge them because it was just possible that they were doing something else for Lent.  This was hardly likely because we knew who was buying the stuff and Eddie McIntyre and Albert Winkler were hardly the holy type that would eat candy and then go home and beat themselves with rosebush canes! 

Lent also brought with it a shortened school day on Friday.  This was not greeted with glee by most of us.  School would let out at about two or so in the afternoon and we would adjourn next door to the church where we would undergo the Stations of the Cross. This entailed forty minutes of  standing, genuflecting, kneeling, listening as the fourteen stations of the cross were prayed.  For a young boy this was a tedious rite and personally I longed for the joys of math class to break this prayer marathon. Actually I understood the Stations of the Cross much better than I understood the New Math that the good sisters were teaching so that is how desperate I was. 

 Not everyone hated the Stations of the Cross.  Jackie Gleason (no not the TV and film star) who had perfect posture and never went around with his hands in his pockets as the nuns always reminded us, usually served as one of the altar boys that accompanied Father around the Church as walked with Jesus to Calvary.  I always thought that Jackie wanted to actually be crucified on those Friday's, as we got closer and closer to the Crucifixion you could almost see the stigmata appearing on the boy. The ritual finished usually about a quarter to three so the good sisters gave us the opportunity to kneel for fifteen minutes before we were marched out of church one row at a time, keeping silent until we felt the sun and cold Chicago air on our faces. Then all hell would break loose as the weekend had officially started! 

On Saturday, we went to confession.  There were four priests and all of them spent four hours or so hearing confessions. We did not do this as a class, but we saw all of our classmates waiting in line.  I wonder how bored the priests must have gotten with several hundred children confessing that they had disobeyed their parents or swore or something of that nature.  They probably rejoiced when they got an adult parishioner that confessed that he had committed adultery, murdered a bishop, and burnt down two schools!  

Then on Sunday morning we would all gather at the 9:00 AM children's mass and sit with our class for Sunday Mass.  When the time was right the ushers would pass the basket and our children's envelopes filled with part of our hard earned allowance, nickles or dimes, would go into the basket. On Monday morning the totals were posted for each class with the names (but not the amounts) of those kids who contributed.  If a name from your class was missing, it was assumed that they had skipped Mass and were in big trouble and should be very careful until they could confess their sloth next Saturday at confession. 

So we are once again coming into the Lenten season. My boss, who knows I am a Catholic asked me what I was giving up.  I told her that I was giving up nothing this year. I explained that I would be trying to do something special for Lent, something positive, something that will help others during this season in the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  

What I am going to do personally for my own spiritual growth will be to forsake some TV time to do some Bible or other spiritual reading and to do this daily.  I will resolve to eat less so as to share the hunger the needy feel every day of their life. I will resolve also to do something about that hunger by making donations to organizations that fight hunger. I resolve to be kinder, to swallow my pride and to turn my other cheek when I am insulted or ridiculed.  I will also resolve to be a better ambassador for Christ and His Holy Catholic Church.  I will engage in dialogue with those who write hateful things about the Church but I will not criticize them, I will just criticize their words. 

I want for myself this Lent to be something special, a time of growth for my soul.  I invite you whether you be Catholic or Protestant to do the same.  It really just requires that you keep your eyes open, your pride in check, and to be open to the Spirit working in your life.   

God Bless you and may the Crucified One light your way this day.