St. Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop, (371)
St. Ado of Vienna, Bishop, (875)
St. Adelaide, Widow, (999)
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Brothers and sisters,
If we believe the new age mystics and the statistics, Christianity is dying.
Look around you. Even here, we are not packing ’em in.
What we are experiencing in the United States is something that occurred in Western Europe around thirty years ago.
Barbara Pym’s book, Quartet in Autumn, pegged the phenomenon back in 1978. She wrote of Edwin, loyally faithful, almost obsessed with the Church of England. Edwin attends on Sundays and Holy Days. He knows all the parishes in his locale and their forms of worship. He knows all the pastors. He knows every bit of clerical and liturgical ephemera.
Edwin comments on how empty the churches are, sometimes its only the vicar and Edwin at services.
At one point in the book Edwin works with one parish’s ladies guild, seeking to help one of his co-workers. The ladies are well into their golden years, the oldest well into her eighties. There’s no young blood.
Depressing, because Edwin remembers the good days, the packed churches, the grand worship of God. He has a Christianity of memory.
Most Americans consider themselves to be believers. That has to be good, right?
Unfortunately that really equates to very little.
People define themselves as spiritual, but not religious. They don’t go to church. In another generation their children will have no concept of church other than it being an odd looking building they run across from time-to-time.
Their concept of God, if they should even have one, will be one in which God is kind, loving, and forgiving. God who really doesn’t bother much with what a person does. As a matter of fact, that particular god has no requirements at all. You can do as you please as long as you are —nice.— You can even forget him.
Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John,
—What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind?—¨
The people went to see John because he was a rock. He proclaimed God’s word and didn’t soften it for anyone. Remember last week when John called out to the Pharisees and Sadducees saying to them, —You brood of vipers!”
John told of repentance and he spoke of a faith that was grounded in the eternal truth of God; truth that does not bend to the will and desires of man, but truth that requires us to bend and to be humble. It is that truth that supersedes all we see, all we think we know.
My friends,
The call must be made.
I opened by restating Isaiah
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
That is our job. Your job and my job.
We need to fill these pews, and not just these. We need to fill the pews of the churches in every village, town, and city. We need to get God’s people in attendance at this banquet. We need to make them strong because their faith is weak or non-existent. Their course is frightening.
Its the Holiday season. Cards are being sent, calls are being made, little gifts are being prepared for co-workers, neighbors, the postman, teachers, bus drivers, delivery men, and pretty much anyone of those special folks you run across all year.
When you make that call, send that card, or drop off that gift, issue the invitation.
If you are a little taken aback at verbal communication then write it.
Dear Jane,
Thank you for all you have done this year.
I would be very happy to have you join me at my church on Christmas Eve. We have a Christmas concert at 9pm on Christmas Eve and Holy Mass follows at 9:30pm. We are located at 250 Maxwell Road in Latham, next to the Times Union Building off Wolf Road. If you cannot make it I will keep you in my prayers.
Brothers and sisters,
Think of what you do when you arrange for those all important events in your life. Your children’s wedding, graduations, birthdays and anniversaries. Think of the expense and the work.
For all the expense and work people only come because you ask. People come because you care enough to ask.
We need to ask. All the events, all the specials, all the press about the Good News of Jesus Christ is worthless unless you and I ask. Not someone else, not your husband or wife, or pastor, or deacon – but you. Not only on Christmas, but extend that invitation every week.
Call the kids on Thursday night. Tell them that you will pick them up. Ask the elderly neighbor who cannot get around so well, —Will you go with me?— Ask the family who’s so busy, harried, and stressed out. Ask the immigrant. Ask the rich. Ask them all.
Afraid that they might become a burden – and start asking you too often? The objective truth is this. People need this moment. People need this grace. People need this foundation – the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ. You and I need to offer them an entryway to this moment.
John was not moved. He stood strong with God’s word as his assurance. We need to stand strong, give that assurance, and pass on the strength the world desperately needs.
Jesus said:
—Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.—
Every soul that hears the word of God and comes to believe will be greater than John the Baptist. He or she will be born into the Kingdom of God.
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes to save you.
You have those words and work to do. Go and do it.
Amen.
St. Nino, Virgin, (350)
St. Valerian of Africa, Martyr, (457)
St. Paul of Latros, Hermit, (956)
St. Spiridion of Termithus, Bishop, (4th century)
St. Nicasius of Rheims, Bishop and Martyr, (451)
St. Venetius of Poitiers, Bishop, (605)
Another scholarship application season is upon us.
Kosciuszko Foundation scholarship applications are currently being accepted for academic year 2008-2009. The majority of Foundation scholarships support Master and Ph. D. studies. There are also a limited number of scholarships for undergraduate students covering a junior or senior year abroad in Poland. The Foundation also support research projects in Poland.
Scholarship details may be found at the Kosciuszko Foundation website.
The deadline for filing scholarship applications is January 15, 2008. All applicants will be notified of the results in May 2008.
St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr, (304)
Saints Eustratius and Companions, Martyrs, (unknown)
St. Judoc, Hermit, (668)
Saints Epimachus and Alexander, Martyrs, (250)
St. Finnian of Clonard, Bishop, (549)
St. Corentin, Bishop, (6th century)
St. Damaus of Rome, Bishop, (384)
Saints Fuscian, Victoricus, and Gentian, Martyrs, (unknown)
St. Daniel the Stylite, Monk, (493)
From The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams which I picked up from Why Pullman Killing God is no Bad Thing:
I read the books and the plays as a sort of thought experiment: this is, after all, an alternative world, or set of worlds. What would the Church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed, and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny. For Pullman, the Church evidently looks like this most of the time; it isn’t surprising that the only God in view is the Authority.
…
But this should not be read as a way of wriggling out of Pullman’s challenges to institutional religion. I end where I started. If the Authority is not God, why has the historic Church so often behaved as if it did indeed exist to protect a mortal and finite God? What would a church life look like that actually expressed the reality of a divine freedom enabling human freedom?
A modern French Christian writer spoke about “purification by atheism” – meaning faith needed to be reminded regularly of the gods in which it should not believe. I think Pullman and Wright do this very effectively for the believer. I hope too that for the non-believing spectator, the question may somehow be raised of what exactly the God is in whom they don’t believe.
Amen.
I ran across a blog called GodBeGone.
Looking at the writing there I drew an immediate comparison to the recent controversy over the Golden Compass movie.
Fr. Martin Fox pegged the objections to the movie in his article: Golden Compass author: ‘My books are about killing God.’
In it he says
Parents can’t always keep up with popular culture—”and when a movie is promoted as a fun adventure, featuring children riding enchanted polar bears, all in time for the Christmas season, what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, the film’s makers have an agenda. The film is based on the works of author Phil Pullman, who has written a series of entertaining stories called “His Dark Materials.” In his own words: “‘I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,’ says Pullman. ‘Mr. Lewis [C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia] would think I was doing the devil’s work'” (from the Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2001). And, “I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak…. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God” (from the Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 13, 2003)…
I read a review of the Golden Compass in The Atlantic, aptly titled How Hollywood Saved God.
That’s true in that Hollywood watered it down so as to make it meaningless.
Substitute any characters in the movie – plug Saint Francis in here or Bing Crosby in there, and we’d all be singing White Christmas as we process to church with little animals at our side.
Mr. Pullman got ripped off big time. Hollywood took his book and turned it into a movie that was 99% fluff and little substance. So much for the strength of his convictions standing before the all powerful Hollywood money machine.
What I was most struck by as I read through the Atlantic review and the GodBeGone blog was the lack of reasoned argument and scholastic integrity from the “there is no God” folks.
…and isn’t that it.
I fully agree with people’s right to believe or disbelieve as they see fit. I am confident enough that Jesus Christ and the Holy Church can stand up in any reasoned argument, but these folks rarely bother with reasoned argument.
Mr. Pullman is just repeating a mantra made up by someone else. He’s offering his literary skills as a mouth piece for that mantra without any real study of the points-of-view involved
Any debate or discussion that relies on unstudied diatribes (Mr. Pullman going off on the crusades, witch hunts, blah blah) and the repetition of accusations as a substitute for reasoned argument or scholastic integrity is meaningless. In the GodBeGone blog you find repeated shots at God through the improper use of the English language (let’s not capitalize Jesus or Christianity or anything else we find silly because, well that’ll get ’em).
Consider the historical parallels.
If we repeatedly accuse a group of folks of all sorts of bad things, supporting such with horrible literature, twisted history, and bad scholarship, and we use language in such a way as to make them inhuman (don’t capitalize their names – they’re not human anyway), don’t we set them up for inhumane treatment, concentration camps?
Scholarship takes more than sound bites. It takes more than blog entries. It takes time, study, an understanding of the core beliefs of your opponent, unadulterated by fluff and histrionics.
As the Young Fogey might point out, tolerant conservatism does not demand that you believe what I believe, nor does it force my beliefs upon you. It does demand that we be gentlemen about the process and that you respect my rights equally, including my right to be treated humanely and to profess my beliefs.
So have at it. Tell me how wrong I am.