PETER, FRANCIS, JESUS AND US

Peter, Francis, Jesus and Us                                 

 Matthew 16:13-20

What must the other apostles have thought when they heard what Jesus said in today’s Gospel: “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”

They must have known about Isaiah 22, our first reading, which Jesus is citing: “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open.”

He is clearly conferring a high degree of authority on the fisherman. Says the Catechism, Peter’s “power to ‘bind and loose’ connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church” (553).

But “[t]he homilist must show that [Scripture’s] language is meant to apply also to us,” says the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory. 

This is one reading the Church has very directly applied to us.

“[R]eligious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra,” says Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (25).

The apostles didn’t have anything near that clarity in today’s Gospel. But they did face with Peter the challenge we face with Pope Francis: following a human leader of a supernatural Church.

Consider the parallels: Pope Francis is “obsessed with the devil,” complained CNN. But it was Peter who said, “Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Francis was criticized for comparing human behavior to animal behavior — dogs’ “coprophilia” and “coprophagia.” Peter also compared sin to how “[t]he dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A bathed sow returns to wallowing in the mire” (1 Peter 2:22).

Crowds loved Peter. In Acts 5:15, they line the streets “so that when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any of them.” They do the same today.

Francis wants to “accompany” sinners with love — and Peter said, “Love covers up a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

But Francis is harsh when it comes to economic sins. He said “the proud, rich and powerful will end up … plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude, which is hell.” Peter was similarly harsh. Of Simon the Magician, he said: “May your money perish with you” (Acts 8:20), and he condemned Ananias and Sapphira to death for economic sins (Acts 5:1-11).

St. Paul said he “opposed [Peter] to his face.” Today, cardinals have sought corrections, too.

Why did Jesus build the Church on Peter — and Francis? “How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!” says our second reading.

Indeed! But that’s what he did. Our job is to trust. And follow.

CHEAP GRACE

“Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?...

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

LECTORS AT MASS

LECTORS AT MASS
Public reading is not public speaking, and lectoring requires nothing less, not more, of the lector.

Done well, reading scripture publicly is more than just a Bible reading. It is the lector’s job to read a passage into life so we may hear God’s story for us, first hand, for ourselves.

So here’s the first thing. Public reading is not public speaking. That runs the other way, too: Public speaking is not public reading. Too many times the one is mistaken for the other. Nearly every lector’s manual I’ve read emphasizes eye-contact with worshipers, even to the point of providing scripted clues for when to leave the text and look up at people.

I could not disagree more. So let me say it again: public reading is not public speaking. Here’s why:

In public speaking, the speaker must visibly connect with the audience to establish rapport and create an authentic relationship. Public speaking require sustained eye-contact, and gesture, and an engaged and energetic body language with facial emphasis; all of that. The speaker puts these together with the words to draw the listener’s attention to himself, to gain an audience for what he says. It is the speaker’s presence in the moment that conveys as much of the speech to the hearer as the words themselves. We see the speaker and thereby learn something about his or her character, all to the point so we gain a better appreciation of his remarks.

But a lector reading in public should be invisible, hidden within the text being read. A public reading of scripture in worship is an appointment with a text from scripture, and often a text that is not unfamiliar to the listeners. It is the text―familiar though it may be―that must capture our attention, not the lector. Looking up from the text to catch somebody’s eye is a distraction from the text. The lector must stand aside, so to speak, from him or herself. Thus, the lector’s job is to speak the text in such a way that the text itself, and not the lector, may to speak to us.

Some of the usual rules for public speaking of course apply to lectors: Careful attention to enunciation, pronunciation, vocal quality, microphone use, word pacing (not too fast, not too slow). Nonetheless, the very features that in fact go into public speaking detract from a public reading. Reading scripture in worship is to bring our attention to the text, not to the lector. Public reading, I will say it again, is not public speaking.

There are only two occasions that actually require a lector to look at anybody the congregation, and neither happens during the reading itself. The first is the introductory proclamation line, “A reading from …”  Look those people straight in the eye when you do it, so they’ll know you’re up to something serious. Pause after saying the introduction and mentally count to three before launching into the text.

The last occasion is the concluding proclamation, “The Word of the Lord.” After the reading, pause again, same count to three, and then say the conclusion. Punctuated silence is the best attention-getter available. Use it well.

Otherwise, your eyes should be on the text you are proclaiming. Your attention to the text will draw our attention to what is being read.

Preparation? Practice aloud; reading the text 10 times is not too many. Out loud. That is after you have read the text silently to yourself perhaps an equal number of times. You must become familiar with the words, their flow, and learn where a pause or vocal emphasis will aid clarity.

Word emphasis? Explore the different ways the text might be illuminated by the tone of your voice. There is irony in scripture, humor, playfulness, somber warnings, heart-rending lament, conversational exchanges, snarky jokes (“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”), narration, and more. I cannot think of any verbal characterization that is not in scripture. Let the weight of the words indicate mood and tone and delivery for the reading.

Microphone? Do not depend on the microphone to project your voice. Find the right distance you need from it so your voice is neither lost nor overwhelming. And listen for your p’s and t’s; they sometimes explode out of a sound system like cap pistols. Move slightly back from the microphone if you hear the pops as you practice.

There you go. That’s some of the technical stuff.

Non-technical: Say a prayer, one of gratitude for the service you have been selected to perform. In fact, start there first, and then tackle the technique.

BLESSINGS FOR THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR

BLESSINGS FOR THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR

Teachers and students need the spiritual help of God.

Education is a beautiful activity, one that leads the mind, body and soul of an individual through various levels of knowledge. Ultimately this knowledge has at its source God, the creator of all and source of every good thing on earth.

That is why it is most fitting to bless the school, teachers and children who will embark on this great task over the next year. They certainly need all the spiritual help they can get as education is one of the hardest activities to engage in.

Here are two selections from the Blessing of Children and the Blessing of a School found in the Roman Ritual. These are ancient prayers that highlight passages from scripture and invoke God’s power to support those involved in education.

Lord Jesus Christ, who embraced the little children when they came or were brought to you, and laying your hands on them blessed them and said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these; and their angels ever see the face of my Father;” we beg you to look with favor on the innocence of these children here present and on the devotion of their parents, and to bless + them today through our ministry. Let them ever advance in your grace and goodness, the better to know you, love you, fear you, and serve you, and happily reach their blessed destiny. We ask this of you, Savior of the world, who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.

Lord Jesus Christ, who bade your apostles to pray that peace might come on any house they entered, we entreat you to bless + by our ministry this building destined for the education of the young. Bestow your peace and blessing on it in full measure, so that its teachers and pupils may experience your saving grace, as did Zaccheus when you came into his home. Bid your angels to keep guard here and to drive away all power of the enemy. Inspire the teachers with knowledge, wisdom, and holy fear. Foster their pupils with grace from on high, so that they may grasp, retain, and put into practice the lessons they are taught. May teachers and pupils alike so please you by a truly virtuous life that they may finally deserve to be received into your everlasting home in heaven; through you, Jesus Christ, our Savior and our God, who live and reign forever and ever.

ON GOING FOR CONFESSION

ON GOING FOR CONFESSION

It is something that Catholics are told they must do and are urged to do frequently from the very beginning of their faith formation. Sadly, today, many Catholics are not doing it all. It is the act of going to a Priest and confessing their sins in order to receive forgiveness for those sins.

Whether it is due to poor Catechesis, parents not setting a good example, or living in what is becoming an overwhelmingly secular world, too many people today, old and young alike, do not seem to recognize the danger they are putting their immortal souls in by not going to Confession on a regular basis. And this is truly sad.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it in this way:

1446 Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as “the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace.”47

A Unifying Sacrament

When I was young, I used to go to confession because I was afraid of going to hell. As I got older I was sometimes even overwhelmed by guilt and shame over a certain act or habit. All too often fear, guilt, and shame interferes with our being reconciled with Christ through the sacrament of confession. But the good news is that by confessing our shameful actions to Christ in the confessional, we can be done with them and rid of them forever.

As I grew and matured as a Christian, though, so did my reasons for going to confession. I no longer go out of fear. I now go to frequent confession because I love God and desire to be united to Him in this sacrament on a regular basis.

The Beginning of Wisdom

As it says in Proverbs 9:10, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” And also, as I have heard Dr. Scott Hahn say before, “The love of the Lord is the end or fulfillment of wisdom.” In other words, going to confession on a regular basis is a very good way of getting to know God by allowing him to get to know me. The more that I open up to God, the more of Him that I can incorporate into my life.

Confession accomplishes several different things that are related to each other by consequence. First of all, confession makes me humble and hopefully keeps me that way. That in turn leads to perseverance which prevents me from getting complacent and giving up. This in turn leads to hope that sin can be overcome and grace can take hold. This then leads to an increase of faith in God and His grace, which makes it all possible in the first place. And finally, this leads to a greater love of God who I now feel much closer to than before the whole process started.

Our role in Confession is pretty basic. We go to Confession to say ‘I’m sorry God, for all my sins.’ But that is only the starting point because there is more to Confession than this. We should be striving to reach a point in our lives where we can say ‘I am sorry for becoming the person that those sins have turned me into.’ So our real role in confession is one of surrender. First I surrender my will, and then I surrender myself. And that includes being totally honest with God.

Being Honest with Ourselves

Many of us can probably relate to moments where we thought or felt that it was not completely necessary to tell the priest everything in confession. After all, I am sorry aren’t I? And I promised that I would not do it again, didn’t I? But we need to be completely honest with ourselves and God in order for His grace and His mercy to reach every area of our lives that need healing. And that, again, involves humility.

The way I see it, I must be humble enough to not only admit everything to God but also to trust that He will resolve everything as well. When I learned to confess in this way, my entire understanding of confession began to develop into an experience that I now look forward to instead of one that I dreaded. Now I look forward to the sacrament of penance with hope and faith and confidence. I realize that there is only one priest, and His name is Jesus Christ, and I don’t need to be afraid of Him.

Scripture clearly defines what Christ’s role in Confession is. In 1 John 1:9 we read “If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.”

When I honestly and humbly tell God that I am sorry for what I have or have not done, I know that in Jesus’ name I am forgiven. But that is just half of it. I also promise to make a firm purpose of amendment and to not do it again. And in return for that, I receive divine grace that cleanses me from the deceptive attraction that sin can have over my life.

Confession is More than Forgiveness

In Confession Jesus does not just forgive us and send us out into the world to pick up where we left off. He cleanses us so that we can begin in a new direction that more closely follows Him and leads to eternal life. And one of the ways in which this occurs is through penance. The Catechism explains it this way:

1459 Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused.62 Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must “make satisfaction for” or “expiate” his sins. This satisfaction is also called “penance.”

In other words, it is not just what I have done or failed to do, but who I am becoming or have become in the process of committing sin. Sin changes me but confession changes me also. What Christ is really doing in confession is not just wiping my slate clean but helping me to become more like Him. Paul states this in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18:

“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

A Transforming Sacrament

So the sacrament is all about becoming more Christ-like. Being a Christian is about much more than just being good or obeying certain commandments. It is about establishing a relationship with God whereby we are transformed into the image of His Son so that we can become truly God’s children. In the end, that is what all of the sacraments and the whole of the Christian life is all about.

I remember a quote that has been attributed to Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich: “The devil took my shame away from me when he convinced me that sin was pleasurable. I will not now allow him to give my shame back to me as I prepare to meet my Savior in confession.” And that should be our attitude as well. For Jesus Christ is indeed our savior. He can save us from anything if we allow Him to.

It’s true that mentioning embarrassing things in the confessional is not easy. I know this full well. But the reward far outweighs the difficulty. To come out of the confessional knowing that I have been totally honest with Jesus and that He has forgiven me and restored my peace with God is priceless. It creates a new me and sets my soul free.

Living in freedom

John 8:36 says “If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.” And that basically is how we should live our lives on earth until our time here is completed. Remaining in peaceful freedom and union with Christ that is never broken by serious sin.

I can say that it has been a while since I have had to confess serious sin. And I give all the credit to God. It is not something that I achieved, but rather something that I received. As a result, my life has become more heavenly minded. I realize every day that one day I will leave this world and go to be with the Lord, and as a result I make that the main motivation behind how I strive to live.

And even if we are free from serious sin, we should still go to confession regularly. One priest explained it to me by saying that just because you are not seriously ill, this does not mean that regular visits to the doctor are not a good idea. And if the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, so much the better. Frequent confession is a lot like that.

Take Time to Reflect

A simple tool in our spiritual life that can aid in making a good confession is a spiritual diary or prayer journal. After daily scripture and prayer, I take a writing tablet and quietly reflect on my life with God and write down what comes to me, both good and bad. I reflect on the day and how I have spent my time. This helps me remember my life and actions in greater detail. And the greater the detail that I bring with me to confession, the more completely I am transformed into Christ, and the more aware I am of His presence in my life. And that produces true freedom that nothing else can equal.

So try not to be afraid or ashamed to go to confession, and by all means do not put off going to Confession. Right now is the best possible time to get right with God and closer to Christ, and to begin growing into the real you that God created you to be all along.

DISCIPLINED TO SHARE HIS HOLINESS

DISCIPLINED TO SHARE HIS HOLINESS

Hebrews 12:10: They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.

Discipline, with love, firmness and self-control, is an essential part of child-rearing. The child whose parents exercise no discipline is not well prepared to live and work in a world where they cannot be the centre of attention all the time. To be a disciple is to be a learner: learning from parents and peers, teachers and trainers, how to relate and cooperate with others to produce a harmonious and productive community. Of course, some of that training may be wrong and therefore hurtful; some may be inadequate and therefore wasteful. Some of our seniors may abuse their authority and others may try to escape from their responsibility. But the writer is making the general point that everybody is disciplined, and that is generally good for us (Hebrews 12:9). God is a loving Father who knows how to grow us, and never represses our potential, through discipline – the skilful mixture of teaching and training, rebuking and correcting – which is the function of God's Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). None of His disciple-making is unnecessary or excessive. The Lord has given us so much; without it we would remain unholy, offensive and ineffective in His service (2 Peter 1:3-8). Of course our parents and teachers disciple us while we are growing up; after that we are supposed to discipline ourselves. But the Lord knows our weaknesses. His disciple-making goes on throughout our lifetime, and all the more necessary when we think we have 'arrived'. The Lord's goal for us is to be like Him in character, willing in service, loving in nature, discerning in spirit, rejecting evil, and embracing holiness. Holiness is summed up in 1 Peter 1:13-16, "Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" God commands His people not to spoil anything of what He is doing for them and in them, because He wants us to share in His sufferings, His work and His glory (Romans 8:17). Socially, it is very helpful to try to see ourselves as others see us. Spiritually it is essential to see ourselves as God sees us. That is why we have the Bible: it is a mirror to our hearts (James 1:22-25) which works alongside God's discipline to teach us how to live holy lives (Hebrews 12:11). For the Lord's disciple-making to bear fruit in our lives, He commands our cooperation, resisting the devil as we submit ourselves to God. He has a long-term view of our progress. It will help us to do the same. The end-point is our death or the second coming of Christ; by that time, He wants us to be like Him. It matters far less what we achieve, than becoming like Christ in character. So let us cooperate with the way in which the Lord is moving His Word and our circumstances to bring us to holiness before we see Him (Hebrews 12:14).

Holy Lord. Thank You for wanting me to be like You; and for moving me by Your Word and Spirit through my circumstances so that I may choose holiness. Forgive me when I have resented Your discipline and despised Your holiness. Please help me to learn that I need to be holy like You. In Jesus' Name. Amen

LITURGY AND LIFE

                                                    LITURGY AND LIFE   

The word “liturgy” derives from the Greek word leitourgos, “a man who performs a public duty,” “a public servant,” or simply “work.” In Catholic usage, liturgy refers to an array of communal religious practices and rituals, above all the Mass. Perhaps “work of God” is an apt definition. But “liturgy,” in a broad sense, seems to be among the natural human inclinations. In practice, liturgical actions are often simply taken for granted and are even “invisible” because the focus is on the purpose of liturgy, not its details.

For example, August is the first month of the “sports year.” The pre-season games anticipate the celebration of the regular season, which begins in September. The rituals are familiar. People gather in stadiums, sing the National Anthem, and enter into the drama of the game. The high feast days are the playoffs, culminating in the Solemnity of the Super Bowl. But we don’t think of the NFL season and rituals (e.g., kissing the Lombardi trophy) as liturgy. We’re just looking to be entertained.

Or take the military’s liturgical practices: from marching bands to the changing of the guard, with uniforms and magnificent displays of hardware and firepower. Again, we don’t think these as “liturgy.” But we do experience feelings of patriotism or nationalism, admiring the discipline and courage of our soldiers, and the might of military hardware. “Thank you for your service” has become a common military liturgical greeting in our day.

Secular liturgies have much in common with religious liturgies. Even the “incense” of pyrotechnic effects at rock concerts are “liturgical.”  Like churches, stadiums and concert halls provide useful venues for crowd control, a context for the “rituals,” and their orderly performance.

Secular liturgy, like religious liturgy, is tempered by faithfulness to the given forms. But even these forms need benign direction. Without religious sensibilities, our innate liturgical inclinations quickly become self-serious, disproportionate, even destructive. The importance of an overarching cultural framework of faith and religious liturgical practices should not be underestimated.

Soccer riots in South America, drunken victory celebrations, and rock concert debauchery reveal the consequences of liturgy severed from religion. Even military rituals devoid of religion easily go bad (Sieg Heil!). When faith and religious liturgies are rejected, the liturgical void is filled with extreme and dangerous “liturgical” forms.

The purpose of most (otherwise benign) secular liturgies is to provide a common experience of entertainment or to exalt the power and the glory of a nation’s military might. Secular liturgies are not explicitly in the service of God; they are in the service of man.

By contrast, the purpose of the sacred liturgy is worship – and the means of entering into union with the living God. The ritual and symbolic appurtenances (like sacred music) are expected to be pleasing, but pleasing because God is glorified by beauty and our obedience to His will. As we are immersed into the liturgy, we become less aware of the liturgical practices per se.  Just as football fans are unaware of the secular liturgy, it is possible for a devout Catholics (e.g., saints like Padre Pio and Pope John Paul II) to “lose themselves” at Mass in true prayer and devotion in union with Christ and His Mystical Body.

There are dangers when liturgy becomes familiar. Familiarity rooted in sloth can bring boredom and with boredom a demand for “vibrant” liturgies – i.e., excitement and entertainment.  Such selfish expectations reveal a breakdown in understanding of the true purpose of Divine worship, a purpose that “renders unto God that which is God’s.” (Mk 12:17)

The sacred liturgy does not compete with the entertainment dimension of secular liturgies. It is practically impossible for the sacred liturgy to top the excitement of a professional football game, or a rock concert, or a military parade – or even the temple prostitution of ancient Greece.  (Nothing is really new under the sun.)

The ritual of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is instructive because its honors soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in battle: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn. 15:13)  As secular liturgies go, it comes closest to true Catholic liturgy. There are few demands for it to include more “vibrant” ritual practices such as inserting popular tunes into the solemn act.

It should be obvious, therefore, that we shouldn’t demand that pastors (or pastors demand of their people) “jazz up” the Mass – the re-presentation of the Cross and Resurrection – with all those ill-advised and tiresome post-Conciliar tunes, pseudo-religious and secular. Even “conservative” Catholics need to be on guard lest “fine music” of whatever style at Mass has the corrosive effect of becoming high-class entertainment rather than facilitating prayer.

A Mass should be “vibrant” only to the extent its reverence in celebration moves our souls to enter into an intimate union with Christ and His Mystical Body.

Sacred liturgy and ritual are both instructive and transformative. While it is profitable to consider the Mass from an academic stance, it is more profitable to enter into the Mass with a living faith, attentive to and engaged in the words and action. Our transformation in Christ through the liturgy is not magical; it is gradual and mystical, touching our minds, hearts, and emotions.

This is why the Third Commandment, Keep Holy the Sabbath, is so important. Our weekly Mass attendance is not only necessary under the pain of mortal sin (absent valid excusing circumstances), it is also necessary for us to continue our ever so gradual transformation in Christ.

The liturgy can have visible, sanctifying effects on the faithful. Ask any priest who has visited an apparently unconscious parishioner who attempts the Sign of the Cross during prayers, with parched lips that tremble with the recitation of the Our Father. Like the sacred liturgy properly celebrated, it is beautiful – and transforming – to behold.

PRAYER FOR EACH WEEKDAY

Based on the ancient ordering of days to a specific spiritual theme

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfold” (CCC 1171). While this chiefly refers to the annual cycle of seasons, from Advent to Easter, the Church also traditionally sees every week as an unfolding of the mystery of Christ.

Over time there developed a tradition that assigned each day of the week a different spiritual theme. This was most clearly revealed in the regulations regarding the celebration of Votive Masses.

When a priest says Mass throughout the week, he has various options about what prayers he can use. Most often they reflect the feast of a particular saint, but on certain days the priest is allowed to celebrate a Votive Mass that highlights a particular aspect of the faith. For centuries this was restricted to certain Masses in connection to the spiritual theme of the day.

These themes were repeated each week and allowed the priest (and faithful) to have a primary focus to their work days. Most of these themes are connected to various historical events that happened on a specific day of the week (i.e. Holy Eucharist on Thursdays, because the Last Supper occurred on a Thursday).

Below is a different prayer for each day of the week based on the prayers of the Votive Masses found in the current Roman Missal.

Mondays – Most Holy Trinity

God our Father, who, by sending into the world the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification, made known to the human race your wondrous mystery, grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty.

Tuesdays – The Holy Angels

O God, who dispose in marvelous order ministries both angelic and human, graciously grant that our life on earth may be defended by those who watch over us as they minister perpetually to you in heaven.

O Lord, under the faithful protection of your Angels, may we advance boldly along the way of salvation.

Wednesdays – St. Joseph

O God, who in your inexpressible providence were pleased to choose Saint Joseph as spouse of the most holy Mother of your Son, grant, we pray, that we, who revere him as our protector on earth, may be worthy of his heavenly intercession.

Lord, may we live for you always in justice and holiness, helped by the example and intercession of Saint Joseph, who in carrying out your great mysteries served you as a man just and obedient.

Thursdays – The Holy Eucharist

O God, who have accomplished the work of human redemption through the Paschal Mystery of your Only Begotten Son, graciously grant that we, who confidently proclaim, under sacramental signs, the Death and Resurrection of Christ, may experience continued increase of your saving grace.

May sharing at the heavenly table sanctify us, Lord, we pray, so that through the Body and Blood of Christ the whole family of believers may be bound together.

Fridays – Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Clothe us, Lord God, with the virtues of the Heart of your Son and set us aflame with his love, that, conformed to his image, we may merit a share in eternal redemption.

O God, Father of mercies, who, because of the great love with which you loved us, with untold goodness gave us your Only Begotten Son, grant, we pray, that, being perfectly united with him, we may offer you worthy homage.

Read more: 5 Things Catholics Should Know About First Fridays

Saturdays – Blessed Virgin Mary

O God, who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, foremost among the poor and humble, to be the Mother of the Savior, grant, we pray, that, following her example, we may offer you the homage of sincere faith and place in you all our hope of salvation.

May the venerable intercession of Blessed Mary ever-Virgin come to our aid, we pray, O Lord, and free us from every danger, so that we may rejoice in your peace.

CHILDLIKENESS

19TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR I

MATTHEW 19:13-15

Friends, in our Gospel for today, Jesus proposes that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children. Why? For starters, children don't know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature. "Kids say the darndest things," because they don't know how to hide the truth of their reactions.   In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously, uncomplicatedly. They are in accord with God's deepest intentions for them.   To say it another way, they haven't yet learned how to look at themselves. Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing? Why can he find joy in the simplest thing, like pushing a train around a track or watching a video over and over, or kicking a ball around? Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself, not conscious of other people's reactions, expectations, and approval.   Mind you, this childlikeness has nothing to do with being unsophisticated, unaccomplished, or childish. Thomas Aquinas was one of the most accomplished men to ever live, the greatest intellectual in the history of the Church, one of the subtlest minds in the history of the West. Yet the terms that were used over and over to describe him were "childlike" and "innocent."   Childlikeness has to do with that rootedness in what God wants us to be. Thomas was born to be a theologian and a writer, and nothing would get him off of that beam: neither the critiques of his enemies, nor the blandishments of his religious superiors, nor the temptations to become a bishop. He was and remained who God wanted him to be and thus he was like a great mountain or a flower or, indeed, a child

CHRISTIAN HUMANISM

CHRISTIAN HUMANISM

I am a humanist, but not that kind of humanist. Humanism is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days—but like most terms that once had a strong philosophical foundation, humanism has been so thoroughly detached from its philosophical substance it is another empty term in public consciousness. That said, it is an important concept and one that Catholics should reclaim.

All students of philosophy, both irreligious and religious, will learn that humanism—whilst having antecedent roots in Cicero and Plotinus—was really the result of Catholic anthropology. Humanism, on one hand, is a life embodied by the art of reading and writing—“the man of letters.” But more explicitly as it relates to philosophy, humanism is the belief in human nature, that human nature has a telos (or end), and that the end of human nature is eudemonia (or happiness). Humanism also extols the dignity of mankind, seeing humanity as occupying a special place within the world—Judaism and Christianity call this dignity and specialness the imago Dei.

When studying humanism St. Augustine looms large. Augustine is widely seen as the father of humanism, and the tradition of anthropology that Augustine established helped shaped and form the emergence of humanism come the Renaissance and beyond. After all, part of the core of Augustine’s philosophy of the self, rational introspection, and the importance of reason to humans and humanity’s ability to understand oneself and one’s nature, was one’s search for understanding oneself, which led to the discovery of God since one is made in the image of God. True self-knowledge, then, is also a coming into communion with the Divine.

The problem, however, with neo-Platonism’s proto-humanism was that it extolled only man’s capacity for reasoning. Reason may help cultivate virtue and push humans toward the want for knowledge of the One (the neo-Platonic conception of God), as Plotinus rightly knew, but neo-Platonism erred in never extolling the beauty and goodness of the human body or the material world. While the Manicheans and Gnostics were heretical Christians and heretical Platonists, there is a certain truth in seeing the heresy of the Manicheans and Gnostics as ultimately rooted in neo-Platonism’s tacit rejection of the goodness of matter. It was precisely this worrying tendency of seeking flight from the material world in neo-Platonism which had come to take on a theologized character in Manicheanism that Augustine confronted in Confessions.

This is the great achievement of Catholic humanism—it promotes a true dignity of the fullness of human nature, which includes the body. Everything that God decreed was good, and so too does this extend to materiality. Though through the Fall humans no longer have the harmonious union between eros and logos, which necessitated the incarnation of the Word to restore the imago, but not even the Fall renders the body and materiality evil. This is why the Apostle Paul obsesses over the importance of resurrection—which itself is the other half of the incarnational drama, without the resurrection of the dignified human body the incarnation of the Word loses its power.

The incarnation of the Word, in taking on material corporeality, brings an added dignity to the human body beyond simple creation and imago Dei. The importance of the Word becoming incarnate into the world is also important in understanding the restoration of imago Dei in Augustine’s anthropology. The incurvatus in se—the inward curve to the self—is the root of all sin; it is the attempt to find wisdom and happiness apart from the source of wisdom and happiness. In other words, “man is the judge of all things.” This was the Original Sin that destabilized the unity of desire and reason. The end result is humans seeking happiness through pure concupiscence without the ordering force of logos and being perpetually unsatisfied and alienated with their soul. Christ’s incarnation, since Christ is Word and wisdom—the logos as the Early Church understood—also embodies the unity of eros and logos, of desire and reason, in his perfect nature. The Word’s incarnation, as Augustine knew and wrote about in De Trinitate, reflects and embodies the highest calling man can strive for—the restoration of the imago Dei.

St. John Paul II best summarized this calling for excellence and dignity in Theology of the Body and in his constant claim that humans are “called for greatness.” Properly speaking, Catholic doctrine and Augustine’s philosophical anthropology does not view desire as something bad. It is something good—desire is written on the human heart for wisdom and happiness as the Catechism proclaims which should properly lead one to God. As Augustine wrote, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” The problem of concupiscence is when it detaches itself from the source that it seeks.

Plotinus knew that man’s search for truth brought him into a henosis (union) with the One. But Plotinus’s work carries the implied detachment of reason from the body, something that Catholicism strongly opposes. Catholic concerns over “restriction” of bodily action is not a constraint against liberty, it is the highest promotion of liberty: true human flourishing. Those who denigrate their bodies, and their souls in the process, only grow more and more alienated and conflicted with themselves. We are called to greatness with dignity; it is startling that our society has greatness and dignity confused with alienation and denigration.

Today’s “humanism” is hardly the dignified humanism of Augustine, Giovanni Mirandola, or Erasmus. It is essentially an anti-humanism that rejects all the core tenets of traditional humanism and maintains the highest end of humanity is free choice to be whatever one wants to be. Basically modern “humanism,” which is no humanism at all, is a rebellion against humanism—the ultimate outcome of Hobbesian anthropology that reduces humanity to mere “matter in motion” with nothing more than an insatiable desire for power, consumption, and material self-advancement. The self-exhausting end to Hobbes’s materialist anthropology is trans-humanism, itself the logical end of the implicit atheism and sensual hedonism that his anthropological philosophy begets.

Rather than happiness being internal and rooted in the health of the soul, which when found and cultivated, dignifies the human body and the whole world, Hobbes and anthropological liberalism lowers the bar to the lowest common denominator in man. As Leo Strauss explained in Natural Right and History, Hobbes’s explicit hedonism and implicit atheism rejects the entire Greco-Christian ethical tradition of excellence. “Free Choice” rather than teleological flourishing, sensual hedonism rather than bodily dignity, and ethical egoism rather than common good, are the new heights for humanity to strive for. That is to say there is no striving for excellence at all.

The humanism of Hobbes, and the “secular humanism” of today, is no humanism at all. It advances a fallen man, rather than an incarnate Word, as the highest image of existence. It advocates for a modified Epicurean hedonism, rather than virtue ethics, as the highest calling for human behavior. It de-humanizes the human body, through an implicit atheism, and calls this de-humanized and exploited body true dignity. Secular humanism celebrates the destruction of the human body and the incurvatus in se as the highest expression of freedom and human flourishing.

Anthropology, which is the study and understanding of what it means to be human, has far reaching consequences regarding which school of anthropology dominates culture. Catholic philosophy inaugurated the elevation of anthropological philosophy precisely because Catholic philosophy, with its marriage to the incarnation of the Word, must get human nature and human existence right. At the heart of Catholic anthropology, which is ultimately founded in Augustine, values and extols the virtues of the body, magnanimity, and prizes ontological flourishing—life—as the heart of human existence and living.

Hobbesian anthropology, on the other hand—and Hobbes’s anthropology dominates the heart of Western liberalism—values egoism, emancipation, and is rooted in not harmony and life as Catholic anthropology is, but conflict and violent death. After all, Hobbes maintains that the starting point of human existence is not the harmony of man and God in a beatification vision, but a “war of all against all” in the state of nature that exhausts itself in a life that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbesian anthropology, and the Whiggish myth of progress, is flight from the human condition—it logically and necessarily exhausts itself in what C.S. Lewis called the “abolition of man.”

In Hobbes’s account humans are a random assortment of atoms bouncing off each other that propels us into motion. In Augustine’s account humans are made in love to love, in wisdom for wisdom, and in communion for communion. Happiness and flourishing is our end, not material possession, choice, or emancipation, and we know, as Catholics, where human flourishing is to be found. The happy human cannot be happy unless he is in communion with the source of the beatitudes. And culture will not beget life unless it has the source of life at its center.