Boże, który powiedziałeś, że żaden nie był zawstydzon, który w Tobie nadzieje miał. (Ekl. 2. 11.) spraw to prosimy, abyśmy w prośbach naszych za przyczyną świętych Twoich nie byli zawstydzeni, lecz zawsze wysłuchani, służyli Ci wierne, kochając cię bez granic w tem życiu, a po śmierci abyśmy kochali Cię nieskońcżenie w wieczności. Amen.
My wife and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this weekend. I’ve uploaded my homilies and a few other scheduled posts, but otherwise posting will be sparse.
Please keep us in your prayers.
I wish all of you a wonderful and reflective Memorial Day weekend. I still like to refer to Memorial Day as Decoration Day – reminds us that we should get ourselves over to the cemetery to reflect upon the sacrifice of those who took the Lord’s command seriously (regardless of the politics of the moment):
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Św. Filipie, któryś zupełnie poświęcił się na posługę bliźnich, nie żałowałeś trudu i niewczasu, aby tylko wszystkich pozyskać Bogu! Zapal mię miłością bliźniego, ażebym kochał wszystkich ludzi bezinteresownie, wspomagając ich jałmużną, modlitwą i dobrą radą, źle o nich nie mówił, w niczem im nie szkodził. Amen.
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation
resulting in knowledge of him.
Knowledge of Him entails a lot. It is historical knowledge, knowledge of who He is, and knowledge that He is acting now, today, in our hearts and in the world. He is acting through the power of the Holy Spirit as He promissed.
This Solemnity is about the certainty of historical knowledge. It is a fact that Jesus died, rose from the dead, was seen by witnesses, and ascended into heaven before witnesses.
It was not ghost Jesus or a Jesus of the imagination or of hysteria as some scholars state nowadays. It was the Jesus who could be touched and held. It was the Jesus who ate with His Apostles and disciples, who broke bread with them in Emmaus. It was the Jesus standing by the seashore preparing a fried fish meal for His friends. It was the Jesus who questioned Peter about his love for Him.
The world is alive with doubt. We have doubts about our relationships, our jobs, our school systems, and the direction of our country. We doubt ourselves and our decisions. The world is all too happy to open a few more trapdoors for us.
Watch TV. We don’t have the coolest, fastest, sportiest, biggest, most fuel efficient cars. We don’t sleep, eat, or relate in the right ways. Our physical appearance and abilities are questioned. How about another trapdoor?
Jesus may have lived (its hard to refute independent testimony from the historians and religious leaders of the day) and Jesus certainly died. The rest, the world says, is doubtful.
There is plenty of evidence and many centuries worth of apologists to prove the case for the resurrected and ascended Jesus. But what about you and me? What are we to believe?
I welcome you to read the proofs for Jesus. To study the culture of the time and the value of witnesses. I’ve done that and more. What I learned was that all the studying in the world can only edify what I already know by faith.
If you trust in the fact of God’s inestimable, unconditional, all powerful, and overwhelming love then you trust in the fact that He would do what we profess He did. We would trust that, with great love, the Father sent His only Son, Jesus, into the world. He sent Him not just to show the way but to atone and sacrifice Himself for our redemption. We would trust that He loves us enough to die for us. That He loves us enough to want us with Him in heaven, that the world is not the end for us, ashes to ashes, but that the Kingdom of God is our destination. That God would rise from the dead, having sacrificed Himself for us He would show us our promised future, our bodily resurrection and our ascension to meet Him in glory.
If you and I trust in God’s love then no proof is needed, just faith.
With faith we are to go forward. We are to:
—Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved—
We are to be His witnesses, witnesses by faith and by our actions.
Your faith must precede your actions. Your actions must be molded and shaped by your faith. By your faith in the resurrected Lord you will be molded and shaped into that man or woman you are to become.
So with St. Paul I say to you:
May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
what are the riches of glory
in his inheritance among the holy ones,
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
for us who believe
Amen.
O Boże, któryś św. Magdalenę Pazis ogniem miłości swej zapalił, i niebieskiemi łaskami ozdobił, użycz i nam tej łaski, abyśmy ją w cierpliwości i czystości naśladowali, i pomimo trudów i przeszkód, pobożne i świątobliwe prowadzili życie. Amen.
It appears that a student commencement speaker at a —Roman Catholic College— the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been taken to the rack for proclaiming the Catholic faith.
At the commencement, the student spoke on the dichotomy of selfishness and selflessness. He particularly singled out as selfish those who use birth control and engage in pre-marital sexual; relations. An excerpt from the article “At St. Thomas, a sour ending” which appears in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press follows:
A spring term that began with controversy at the University of St. Thomas ended the same way Saturday when a student used part of his commencement address to admonish people he considered “selfish,” including women who use birth control.
The remarks by Ben Kessler, a well-known student recently honored by peers and faculty as Tommie of the Year, led to catcalls and boos during commencement at the Catholic university in St. Paul. Others booed those who were booing. Some students walked out on their own graduation ceremony.
Buzz about the incident dominated post-graduation parties, spread throughout the community and sparked a flurry of e-mails. By Monday, there were scattered requests to strip Kessler of his Tommie of the Year award and questions about why St. Thomas officials didn’t try to pull the plug on Kessler’s speech as the crowd’s unhappiness intensified.
“He definitely ruined the day for pretty much everyone in the audience,” said Darin Aus, who was awarded his bachelor’s degree Saturday and stayed for the entire ceremony. “He made people mad enough to leave their own graduation.”
Kind of like how Jesus ruined the day for the Pharisees and hypocrites?
Kessler, a celebrated football player with a deep Catholic faith, apologized Monday in a written statement distributed by the university.
“Instead of providing hope to all, I offended some by my words and by my decision to speak those words at commencement,” he wrote.
He was unavailable for comment beyond the statement.
The university’s president, the Rev. Dennis Dease, also expressed regret “that graduates and their families and guests were offended by Mr. Kessler’s remarks.” Dease said he told Kessler it was inappropriate for him to use commencement to express his opinions.
…
So the Rev. Dease regrets “that graduates and their families and guests were offended by Mr. Kessler’s remarks.” As a clergyman I would regret it too. I would regret that they weren’t converted by his remarks.
But no, in this day and age the R.C. clergyman makes a devout Catholic apologize for being Catholic. The words of Revelation in my title seem to apply to the Rev. Dease.
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: `I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. `So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. `Because you say, I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. `Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent. `Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. `He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
Also, check out comments and a letter sent by Fr. Martin Fox to the school’s administration in ‘Spoiled Brat’ College Graduates.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
I think we’ve reached the stage of human existence where we know all of our gods. Or at least we think we do. Unfortunately, like the Athenians, too many still walk away when they hear the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaimed. They are more comfortable with the gods they know, or their perception of the one true God, to hear about the reality of Jesus. They want the Jesus of acceptance, or persecution, or success, whomever the Jesus is that fits their needs and schedule. They want the Jesus who said ‘whatever you want —“ it’s ok.’ I don’t know that Jesus.
Rather I hear the words of Paul preaching in the streets of Athens:
God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
I love the one true God, Father Son, and Holy Spirit, the God that challenges me to grow, to change, to set aside my comfortable sins and repent.
My brothers and sisters,
All of us are on a journey toward God. We must recommit to making the journey fruitful. You are here tonight to receive Jesus’ body and blood as food for the journey. You are here to worship the one true God in the person of His Son in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar.
How many Biblical passages speak to the fact that the teachings of Jesus are too hard to bear? When Jesus talked of feeding us with His body and that we need to drink His blood, many of the Jews walked away.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says it very plainly:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”
Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would come and that we would see clearly because of His gifts. Now we have the Spirit. Believers, those who have faith in the Jesus proclaimed by the Church, know that Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. Take it up, proclaim and teach it, evangelize, and continue on your journey.
Dobrotliwy Boże, za wstawieniem się świętej służebnicy Joanny użycz nam tej łaski, abyśmy służyli Ci wiernie i nieustraszenie, spełniali dobre uczynki i nie obrażali Cię nigdy grzechami. Amen.
Check out Deacon Raphael’s comments on vocations: On “Being Called” to Ministry….
I agree and it’s well put. When vocations become the fulfillment of personal wishes and desires and cease to be a discerned calling from within and without, you end up with the heterodoxy we have today and a protestant God and me ethic.
The York Forum discussion board is commenting on Fr. Taylor Marshall of the Canterbury Tales blog (to whom I link) who has renounced his orders in the ECUSA and who is entering the R.C. Church. Dr. William Tighe (who posts at Pontifications on occasions and writes for Touchstone) reported:
Fr. Taylor Reed Marshall, formerly Curate of St. Andrews, Fort Worth, has renounced his Orders in ECUSA and will be rec’d into the Catholic church [sic] by Bp. Vann of Fort Worth this Saturday (May 20), together with his wife and children. At the end of the month they will be moving to Washington, DC, where TRM will take up a position as assistant to Msgr. William Stetson for “Anglican Use” matters. He will be present a the Anglican Use conference in Scranton in June, where I hope that he will be heartily welcomed, and greeted especially by those whom I count as my friends who will be there.
I wish Fr. Marshall and his family well.
As to the Anglican Use in the R.C. Church —“ well, I don’t get it.
At best it’s a stop gap measure to accommodate Anglicans who are swimming the Tiber in an effort to escape the heterodoxy of the ECUSA. It’s why I think swimming the Bosporus makes more sense. The Orthodox require a process of integration and there is no false expectation left in the mind of those converting. You must become and integrate yourself within the fullness of Orthodoxy. That’s indicative of the fact that Orthodoxy sees itself on a road toward becoming, toward Theosis.
If Anglicans wish to go to Rome, that’s fine, but why bring the trappings of Anglicanism? Getting on the road to becoming is a more truthful stance. There would be far fewer problems if people had to face the fullness of their decisions —“ making clear choices. The R.C. Church is exactly what it is. Why would people choose to delude themselves as if they have the power, wisdom, or longevity to make over the Church?
In my estimation there will be no ‘Anglican Use’ of any substantial magnitude in 25 to 30 years. The married clergy will die off and will not be replaced (can you imagine R.C. Bishops anywhere ordaining married men). They will not be replaced by more Anglican clergy swimming the Tiber, since anyone with any sense of what Church is will have gone somewhere else in those 25 to 30 years, or will have sold their soul.
That leaves the congregations in these AU parishes, which will age out. Their replacement generation will remember the beautiful liturgies but will walk away when the AU parishes get ‘integrated’. There will be the typical hurt feelings and failure to listen and meet their needs.
It’s sad and it is a warning sign to all those who push for headlong integration with the R.C. Church. They delude themselves greatly. Campos is feeling the effects of integration, the SSPX will if it chooses to integrate, and the Anglicans will as well.
As always we pray for reconciliation and the grace to overcome the sin that is a barrier to that. It must be recognized that sin exists on every side and that we need the light of the Holy Spirit to show every party the way forward.
Good luck Fr. Marshall.