After this, He says, “What think ye? A man had two sons; and he says to the first, go, work today in the vineyard. But he answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go sir: and went not. Whether then of them two did the will of his father? They say, the first.”
Again He convicts them by a parable, intimating both their unreasonable obstinacy, and the submissiveness of those who were utterly condemned by them. For these two children declare what came to pass with respect to both the Gentiles and the Jews. For the former not having undertaken to obey, neither having become hearers of the law, showed forth their obedience in their works; and the latter having said, “All that the Lord shall speak, we will do, and will hearken,” in their works were disobedient. And for this reason, let me add, that they might not think the law would benefit them, He shows that this self-same thing condemns them, like as Paul also says, “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” For this intent, that He might make them even self-condemned, He causes the judgment to be delivered by themselves, like as He does also in the ensuing parable of the vineyard.
And that this might be done, He makes trial of the accusation in the person of an other. For since they were not willing to confess directly, He by a parable drives them on to what He desired.
But when, not understanding His sayings, they had delivered the judgment, He unfolds His concealed meaning after this, and says, “Publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of Heaven before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not; but the publicans believed him; and you, when you had seen it, repented not afterwards, that you might believe him.”
For if He had said simply, harlots go before you, the word would have seemed to them to be offensive; but now, being uttered after their own judgment it appears to be not too hard.
Therefore He adds also the accusation. What then is this? “John came,” He says, “unto you,” not unto them, and not this only, but; also “in the way of righteousness.” “For neither with this can you find fault, that he was some careless one, and of no profit; but both his life was irreprehensible, and his care for you great, and you gave no heed to him.”
And with this there is another charge also, that publicans gave heed; and with this, again another, that “not even after them did ye. For you should have done so even before them, but not to do it even after them was to be deprived of all excuse;” and unspeakable was both the praise of the one, and the charge against the other. “To you he came, and you accepted him not; he came not to them, and they receive him, and not even them did ye take for instructors.”
See by how many things is shown the commendation of those, and the charge against these. To you he came, not to them. You believed not, this offended not them. They believed, this profited not you. — From Homily 67.
As to the delay of the Incarnation, it was necessary that human degeneracy should have reached the lowest point, before the work of salvation could enter in. That, however, grace through faith has not come to all must be laid to the account of human freedom; if God were to break down our opposition by violent means, the praise-worthiness of human conduct would be destroyed. —” Chapters XXIX through XXXI.
From IWJ:
I would like to invite you to participate in IWJ’s “Immigration Through the Lens of Faith” training, which will take place November 9-11 in Chicago. This training is designed for staff and leaders of IWJ affiliates, religious or community outreach staff of unions, community services representatives, and organizing staff of faith-based organizations.
In the training, participants will learn how to:
- deepen outreach to the religious and labor communities
- provide a closer look at the intersection of worker justice and immigrant worker rights
- implement examples of best practices around issues that effect immigrant workers and how to implement them
- tackle the problem of wage theft and join IWJ’s national campaign to prevent it
To register contact Renaye Manley at 773-728-8400 x15 or visit the registration website. There are a limited number of spaces available.
This article: Diocese’s recommended consolidations reflect move away from ethnic parishes, which appeared in The Citizens Voice was such a propaganda piece that I just had to comment.
The article attempts to give a history of Roman Catholic parishes in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania:
More than a century ago, a congregation of people of German heritage decided to start St. Boniface Parish in Wilkes-Barre. Parishioners previously had to travel down to the German parish, St. Nicholas on Washington Street, or go to one of the territorial parishes for Mass and school.
—Children had to cross railroad tracks to get to school; it was dangerous,— Brother DePorres Stilp said. —So they tried to make a new church here in the neighborhood.—
Stilp’s grandfather was one of the founding members, and for years the parish, which celebrated Mass in German and English
More likely in Latin only – but he wouldn’t know that. , was a center for the German Catholic community in the area.Many of the national parishes in Luzerne County that are historically attended by people and practice traditions from one ethnic background grew up in this manner, according to the Rev. Hugh McGroarty, senior priest at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pittston.
Fair enough. Then the article goes on to say:
The first immigrants to the area were mostly Irish, and they built Catholic parishes. However, when immigrants from other areas of Europe came, many lived in the same communities and wanted to worship with people who spoke their languages and shared their culture…
Are they saying that Irish = Catholic? That sets the tone for this:
So the Catholic Church gave many of these groups of immigrants national parishes, and made the parishes built by the Irish territorial so anyone in the area could attend.
—There’s no Irish church,— McGroarty said. —There was one church in the area, and so the Polish made their own. And the Slovaks came in, and so on. The other church, which they called Irish, was for everyone.—
The problem of course was that the area church was Irish – right Fr. McGroarty. You had to fit in or get out. They didn’t want the Poles, or Slovaks, or Ukrainians, or Italians. You wore green, spoke English, and worshiped St. Patrick like a good “Catholic” or you got out.
I like the way he implies that these other nationalities were “given” parishes while the Irish parish was the Catholic one. Does that mean that the Poles, etc. had a slightly less than Catholic parish, and the the only truly Catholic parish was the Irish one? Is that because Irish = universal?
What a bad retelling of history. These industrial and mining towns didn’t have homogeneous R.C. parishes. You either fit with the crowd in the Irish parish or you did not. The Poles wouldn’t give in, and wouldn’t turn their assets over the the local [Irish] R.C. bishop as demanded of them (no one was “given” a church) thus in part the genesis for the PNCC.
Later in the article Fr. McGroarty says:
Many parishes held on to their roots, but, McGroarty said, there aren’t nearly as many traditions and ethnic bonds as in the past.
—There isn’t that much,— he said. —The tradition is with the old people.—
I guess you ought to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day parade Father, and dump the corn beef and cabbage down the Susquehanna — it’s only for the old folks anyway. Tradition is only for the old? Kind of like the all that funny old Catholic stuff like devotions, the Traditional form of the Holy Mass, etc.? Sorry Father but those are all things the PNCC hasn’t had to rediscover (í la Benedict XVI) because we retained them – because we listened to the people. The Church’s Tradition is universal, consistent, and is for all people.
A patient, to be healed, must be touched; and humanity had to be touched by Christ. It was not in “heaven”; so only through the Incarnation could it be healed. —” It was, besides, no more inconsistent with His Divinity to assume a human than a “heavenly” body; all created beings are on a level beneath Deity. Even “abundant honor” is due to the instruments of human birth. — Chapters XXVII., XXVIII.
I found an interesting article at The Catholic Thing: Neighborhoods Thrive Throughout America wherein the author states:
—It is easy to see in this mutuality of obligation,— writes sociologist Andrew Greeley, —a continuation in the urban environment of the old peasant loyalties of village and clan.—
The Catholic immigrant experience proved that homogenous neighborhoods can enhance American urban life —“ quite a contrast the 1960s big-government social engineers who, in the name of urban renewal, turned many of them into municipal deserts.
I refer to this as the good life because this environment, the associations created therein, and as the author states, this “mutuality,” is part and parcel of God’s design for mankind. We are designed to grow in our understanding of our obligations toward each other. We are meant to act within a supportive and connected community, valuing our family and our neighbor (Luke 10:29). The good life is found in communities that build up and support the right aspirations of their members — aspirations founded in the Gospel and the teachings of the Church. The confluence of right teaching and communal membership forms a microcosm for teaching and passing on an understanding of our moral, social, and religious obligations.
From experience we know that such communities were not without their sins and shortcomings. That is where we all fall short. That said, we must not negate the greater value provided by those communities all-the-while rushing headlong into forced unanimity. As we have ventured into new, unexplored, individualistic territories, under the mask of unanimity, we have seen the fabric of society torn in numerous ways. As recent events tell we have all played the role of robber-baron in an attempt to claw to the top, enriching ourselves at the cost of family, community, and our nation’s treasure.
As our PNCC experience
I am on a streak — catching up with old items I wanted to opine on. Here’s one:
From Damian Thompson at the Telegraph: Bishop of Portsmouth bans Polish Mass.
It’s a wonder that stuff like this still happens. As the Young Fogey pointed out at the time – not only are Bishops who do this against tradition, they are fighting against the very folks who do go to church.
If anyone wonders: Why the PNCC? they need not take a stroll through a hundred plus years of history, they can see it day-to-day, in the here and now. The reasons are obvious, from church closings to clergy that fail to relate to the needs, desires, and aspirations of people in search of God. The reasons for the PNCC were expounded from our first day. It is about respect for God and those who believe in Him, respect for Holy Tradition as well as tradition, respect for those who pay the bills, and central to all these, respect for each person’s God given dignity. Freedom and democracy apply or they do not. Man’s right to use his intellect, talent, and freedom in the service of God apply beyond a bishop’s desire that the believers pray, pay, and obey.
As we declare:
The Church is an organized body of free religious people who strive with the help of their organization, to achieve life’s highest purpose. Every religious act must evolve from man’s free will; it must not yield in any way whatsoever to external compulsion. Neither religion nor the Church as its exponent, should be servants of political parties, governments or tools of the potentates of this world for combating the free aspirations of man or a nation toward liberty; but on the contrary, they are to strengthen men’s spiritual powers, assist them in life’s struggle – in fulfilling their mission nationally and to humanity as a whole. — Principle 5, from The Eleven Great Principles of the Polish National Catholic Church.
To return, then, to its reasonableness. Whether we regard the goodness, the power, the wisdom, or the justice of God, it displays a combination of all these acknowledged attributes, which, if one be wanting, cease to be Divine. It is therefore true to the Divine perfection.
What, then, is the justice in it? We must remember that man was necessarily created subject to change (to better or to worse). Moral beauty was to be the direction in which his free will was to move; but then he was deceived, to his ruin, by an illusion of that beauty. After we had thus freely sold ourselves to the deceiver, He who of His goodness sought to restore us to liberty could not, because He was just too, for this end have recourse to measures of arbitrary violence. It was necessary therefore that a ransom should be paid, which should exceed in value that which was to be ransomed; and hence it was necessary that the Son of God should surrender Himself to the power of death. God’s justice then impelled Him to choose a method of exchange, as His wisdom was seen in executing it.
But how about the power? That was more conspicuously displayed in Deity descending to lowliness, than in all the natural wonders of the universe. It was like flame being made to stream downwards. Then, after such a birth, Christ conquered death. — Chapter XX through XXV.
The scheme of the Incarnation is still further drawn out, to show that this way for man’s salvation was preferable to a single fiat of God’s will. Christ took human weakness upon Him; but it was physical, not moral, weakness. In other words the Divine goodness did not change to its opposite, which is only vice. In Him soul and body were united, and then separated, according to the course of nature; but after He had thus purged human life, He reunited them upon a more general scale, for all, and for ever, in the Resurrection. — Chapters XIV through XVII.
The Incarnation was not unworthy of Him; for only evil brings degradation.
The objection that the finite cannot contain the infinite, and that therefore the human nature could not receive into itself the Divine, is founded on the false supposition that the Incarnation of the Word means that the infinity of God was contained in the limits of the flesh, as in a vessel. —” Comparison of the flame and wick.
For the rest, the manner in which the Divine nature was united to the human surpasses our power of comprehension; although we are not permitted to doubt the fact of that union in Jesus, on account of the miracles which He wrought. The supernatural character of those miracles bears witness to their Divine origin. — Chapters IX through XIII.