A lesson in stewardship
The following article first appeared in Our Sunday Visitor as a reflection on the parable of the Dishonest steward in Luke 16 that criticizes the divorce between God and everyday life.
By Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.
Our society tolerates religion, as long as it keeps to itself. After all, America is about the separation of Church and state, right? Education, entertainment, employment, politics are supposed to be “religion-free.” The removal of the Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse several years ago was just one sign of this misguided divorce between faith and life.
Like it or not, we are subtly influenced by this attitude and often exile God from entire areas of our everyday life. Twenty years ago, a Gallup poll called “Religion in America” demonstrated that 89% of regular churchgoers live their lives exactly in the same way as non-churchgoers–same rate of marital infidelity, cheating on income taxes, etc.
One area we keep God-free is politics. We’ve heard prominent Catholic politicians say they are personally opposed to abortion, but cannot bring their faith into their political decision-making. Another “God-free zone” is the financial arena. It is interesting that Jesus speaks much more in the gospels about money than about sex. And yet should politics or money be mentioned from the pulpit, many become indignant.
If we do hear about money in Church, it is often in the context of stewardship, of the obligation to give of our “time, talent, and treasure.”
In Luke 16, Jesus provides a provocative lesson on stewardship. He presumes we know that a steward is someone entrusted with the administration of his master’s property. What is expected of the steward, anyway? To conserve his master’s property and maintain it, of course. In this story, the master owns an agricultural business. The nature of a business is to turn a profit. The steward’s job, then, was not just to maintain the property, but to grow the business. If you entrust hard-earned money to the stewardship of a stock broker, don’t you expect him to grow that portfolio? Remember the parable of the talents in Matthew 25– the master was very stern with the steward who preserved what he’d been given but failed to make it grow.
The steward in Luke 16 did not increase his master’s property. He squandered it. It is not clear if he did so through dishonest greed or by foolish business decisions. But in any case, he failed. When he was given a termination notice, he suddenly kicked into gear. To ingratiate himself with those who could provide for him after he lost his job, he wrote off part of their debt. Scripture scholars disagree about the meaning of this. Some say he did this dishonestly at the expense of his master. Others say that he was simply giving away his own commission. I think the latter makes more sense, since rather than rebuking him, his master praised him for his prudence.
Prudence means taking initiative to get something done, coming up with a plan, and being willing to sacrifice some present pleasures (his commission on a few deals) to generate long-term benefits.
The moral? How ironic it is that non-spiritual people often take more initiative, exercise more creativity, expend more effort than spiritual people when it comes to getting what they want.
Stewardship means more than just throwing five bucks in the basket and signing up to help with the Lenten fish fry. It means realizing that all we have is entrusted to us by God and that we have an obligation to grow it, making it as fruitful as possible for his glory. The steward asks these questions: How can I free up the most time for the most important things – God, the Church, and family? How can I develop my talents so as to be most effective for God’s glory?
When it comes to money, good stewards ask: how can I make better use of the money I already have to further God’s work? But another question often needs also to be asked: how can I generate more income so as to give more? Churches need to do this. We call that fund-raising. Christian individuals and families need to do this too. We call this employment, business opportunity, and investment. Making smart and profitable decisions in this regard is a spiritual and holy thing to do.
But what about Jesus’ warning that you can’t serve both God and Mammon? If financial decisions result in self-indulgence at the expense of honesty and justice (see Amos 8:4ff), then you are serving mammon. If your increased profits finance your family, you parish, Christian education, evangelization, the crisis pregnancy center, or local homeless shelter, chances are you are serving God.
Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D. is director of the Crossroads Initiative, an apostolate of Catholic renewal and evangelization, and owner of www.wellnesspays.net, an international multi-level marketing company offering distinctive wellness and anti-aging products. For more of his articles and resources, visit The Crossroads Initiative.
Click here to return to homepage
By Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.
Our society tolerates religion, as long as it keeps to itself. After all, America is about the separation of Church and state, right? Education, entertainment, employment, politics are supposed to be “religion-free.” The removal of the Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse several years ago was just one sign of this misguided divorce between faith and life.
Like it or not, we are subtly influenced by this attitude and often exile God from entire areas of our everyday life. Twenty years ago, a Gallup poll called “Religion in America” demonstrated that 89% of regular churchgoers live their lives exactly in the same way as non-churchgoers–same rate of marital infidelity, cheating on income taxes, etc.
One area we keep God-free is politics. We’ve heard prominent Catholic politicians say they are personally opposed to abortion, but cannot bring their faith into their political decision-making. Another “God-free zone” is the financial arena. It is interesting that Jesus speaks much more in the gospels about money than about sex. And yet should politics or money be mentioned from the pulpit, many become indignant.
If we do hear about money in Church, it is often in the context of stewardship, of the obligation to give of our “time, talent, and treasure.”
In Luke 16, Jesus provides a provocative lesson on stewardship. He presumes we know that a steward is someone entrusted with the administration of his master’s property. What is expected of the steward, anyway? To conserve his master’s property and maintain it, of course. In this story, the master owns an agricultural business. The nature of a business is to turn a profit. The steward’s job, then, was not just to maintain the property, but to grow the business. If you entrust hard-earned money to the stewardship of a stock broker, don’t you expect him to grow that portfolio? Remember the parable of the talents in Matthew 25– the master was very stern with the steward who preserved what he’d been given but failed to make it grow.
The steward in Luke 16 did not increase his master’s property. He squandered it. It is not clear if he did so through dishonest greed or by foolish business decisions. But in any case, he failed. When he was given a termination notice, he suddenly kicked into gear. To ingratiate himself with those who could provide for him after he lost his job, he wrote off part of their debt. Scripture scholars disagree about the meaning of this. Some say he did this dishonestly at the expense of his master. Others say that he was simply giving away his own commission. I think the latter makes more sense, since rather than rebuking him, his master praised him for his prudence.
Prudence means taking initiative to get something done, coming up with a plan, and being willing to sacrifice some present pleasures (his commission on a few deals) to generate long-term benefits.
The moral? How ironic it is that non-spiritual people often take more initiative, exercise more creativity, expend more effort than spiritual people when it comes to getting what they want.
Stewardship means more than just throwing five bucks in the basket and signing up to help with the Lenten fish fry. It means realizing that all we have is entrusted to us by God and that we have an obligation to grow it, making it as fruitful as possible for his glory. The steward asks these questions: How can I free up the most time for the most important things – God, the Church, and family? How can I develop my talents so as to be most effective for God’s glory?
When it comes to money, good stewards ask: how can I make better use of the money I already have to further God’s work? But another question often needs also to be asked: how can I generate more income so as to give more? Churches need to do this. We call that fund-raising. Christian individuals and families need to do this too. We call this employment, business opportunity, and investment. Making smart and profitable decisions in this regard is a spiritual and holy thing to do.
But what about Jesus’ warning that you can’t serve both God and Mammon? If financial decisions result in self-indulgence at the expense of honesty and justice (see Amos 8:4ff), then you are serving mammon. If your increased profits finance your family, you parish, Christian education, evangelization, the crisis pregnancy center, or local homeless shelter, chances are you are serving God.
Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D. is director of the Crossroads Initiative, an apostolate of Catholic renewal and evangelization, and owner of www.wellnesspays.net, an international multi-level marketing company offering distinctive wellness and anti-aging products. For more of his articles and resources, visit The Crossroads Initiative.
Click here to return to homepage
Letter from the Prelate (September 2007)
The Prelate stresses the importance of living in close union with Jesus Christ. The norms of Christian piety practiced by persons close to Opus Dei help them to share in our Lord’s Cross.
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
The Church, and the Work as a living part of the Church, is called to reflect the light it constantly receives from Christ and to spread it throughout the world. Jesus taught all Christians: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:14-16).
"By listening to Jesus’ words," says Benedict XVI, "we members of the Church cannot but become aware of the total inadequacy of our human condition, marked by sin. The Church is holy, but made up of men and women with their limitations and errors. It is Christ, Christ alone, who in giving us the Holy Spirit is able to transform our misery and constantly renew us. He is the light of the peoples, the lumen gentium, who has chosen to illumine the world through his Church (cf. Lumen gentium, no. 1). ‘How can this come about?’ we also ask ourselves with the words that the Virgin addresses to the Archangel Gabriel. And she herself, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, gives us the answer: with her example of total availability to God’s will-fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Lk 1:38)-Mary teaches us to be a ‘manifestation’ of the Lord, opening our hearts to the power of grace and faithfully abiding by the words of her Son, light of the world and the ultimate end of history" (Benedict XVI, Homily, January 6, 2006).
An essential condition for bringing Christ’s teaching and life to others (and in today’s world it is urgent to do so) is that we ourselves strive more diligently to get to know, deal with, and love our Lord better each day. This is the specific goal of the norms of Christian piety, traditional in the Church, that we live in Opus Dei. We have to fulfill them as well as possible, as the result of a choice of love, even though at times our heart is dry or fails to respond.
When a person comes to the Prelature, moved by the desire to know God better, we try to provide an adequate doctrinal, spiritual and apostolic formation, so that Christ’s teachings become, right from the start, not only clarity for his intellect but also light and strength for following in Jesus’ footsteps. We help people to appreciate and to frequent the sacraments (the Eucharist and confession), to pray earnestly, to deal with God as a Father and with our Lady as a mother, to offer their work to God, to be concerned about others’ spiritual and material needs, to draw closer to God those who are closer to them.
Let us struggle to improve each day in our personal conversation with God our Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with our Lady. We who are nourished with the spirit of Opus Dei strive to give our life of piety a special tone, which many other people also make their own: the sense of divine filiation. We strive to imitate Christ with special attention to his years of ordinary life and work in Nazareth. We foster devotion to the Holy Spirit, intimate guest of the soul, who encourages us to identify ourselves with Christ and to love God the Father. We venerate our Lady as Mother of God and our mother, with the piety of small children who hope for everything from her maternal goodness. We strive for a personal relationship with the guardian angels, whom we consider our allies in all our apostolic tasks. And we go with complete confidence to St. Josemaría, our beloved Father, in whom we see perfectly realized the spirit that God wanted for Opus Dei.
In addition, we have to always strive to serve the Church in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3:18),not only in words. Let us pray and get others to pray for the Pope and his intentions, "pulling the cart" in the direction indicated by the Holy Father and, in each place, by the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff. By carrying out faithfully the mission proper to Opus Dei, we will collaborate in a very direct way in the great mission that the Master has entrusted to the Church, so that God’s will may be fulfilled: that all men be saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).
We have to give a clear apostolic meaning to everything we do, in the most varied situations and moments. Thus everyone, including those who by way of exception are not in a position to take care of a direct personal apostolate, will carry out a very fruitful work. But this path requires-and I repeat this on purpose-that we put great care into our dealing with God in our practices of Christian piety; that we strive to finish our work well, offering it to God each day in the Holy Mass; that we give importance to small mortifications, which he hopes to see in our conduct with a steady rhythm, "like the beating of our heart" (St. Josemaría, The Forge, no. 518).
Union with Christ on the Cross is indispensable in order to carry out this apostolic program faithfully and with optimism. One cannot follow Jesus without denying oneself (cf. Lk 9:23), without cultivating a spirit of mortification, without the habitual component of specific deeds of penance. The Holy Father pointed this out, some months ago, when he announced a year dedicated to St. Paul on the bimillennium of his birth. He stressed that the apostolic fruit of the Apostle to the Gentiles could not "be attributed to brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies. The success of his apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty nor persecution. ‘Neither death, nor life,’ he wrote to the Romans, ‘nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39).
"From this we can draw a particularly important lesson for every Christian. The Church’s action is credible and effective only to the extent to which those who belong to her are prepared to pay in person for their fidelity to Christ in every circumstance. When this readiness is lacking, the crucial argument of truth on which the Church herself depends is also absent" (Benedict XVI, Homily at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls, June 28, 2007).
These considerations will help us to prepare for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 14th of this month. St. Josemaría held up for us the great goal of placing the Cross of Christ at the summit of all human activities-with our sanctified and sanctifying work-so that Jesus might draw all men to himself (cf. Jn12:32). Let us realize well the urgency of this task: "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only ‘sign’ is Jesus raised on the Cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation. This is the principal proclamation of the Church, which remains unchanged down the ages. The Christian faith, therefore, is not an ideology but a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ. From this experience, both individual and communitarian, flows a new way of thinking and acting: an existence marked by love is born, as the saints testify" (Benedict XVI, Homily, March 26, 2006).
An important part of "showing" Christ to others in our life can be summed up (and let’s not take this as obvious) in the joyful, habitual practice of mortification and penance: voluntarily renouncing comforts and pleasures which, without being bad in themselves, could cool down or hinder our union with God. The temperate use of material goods, without letting oneself be entangled in their coils, holds a fundamental importance for our union with Christ and our apostolate.
Many years ago now, our Founder wrote that "people expect from us, God’s children in his Work, the bonus odor Christi which, supported by our temperance, enkindles them and draws them forward" (St. Josemaría, Instruction, May-1935/ September 14, 1950, no. 65).In contrast, if we do not reject the contagion of worldly goods, if we think it is impossible to carry with us the demanding environment of Christ, if we don’t know how to go against the current, we will not be able to help others find the great happiness of friendship with Jesus. A worldly environment, unfortunately, is found in most places. We have to invite the others, first by our own example, to breathe the clean air of God’s nearness. And to attain this, temperance of the heart and the senses is indispensable: Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8).We need to be convinced that only thus can we love this world of ours passionately.
What a great responsibility Christians have! Let us meditate once more on those words that St. Josemaría wrote in The Way:"Many great things depend-don’t forget it-on whether you and I live our lives as God wants" (St. Josemaría, The Way, no. 755).
Continue praying for the Holy Father and his intentions. Ask our Lord to make his service to the Church very fruitful: that all Catholics-shepherds and faithful-take his teachings to heart and put them into practice. And unite yourselves to my intentions as well: forgive me for insisting so much, but I really need you, each and every one of you. As our Father used to say: "Everything is done, and everything remains to be done." Therefore I ask for your whole-hearted assistance, so that I don’t hold back the apostolic challenge of announcing to all mankind that Christ is calling each and every person.
With all my affection, I bless you,
Your Father
+ Javier
Pamplona, September 1, 2007
Click here to return to homepage
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
The Church, and the Work as a living part of the Church, is called to reflect the light it constantly receives from Christ and to spread it throughout the world. Jesus taught all Christians: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:14-16).
"By listening to Jesus’ words," says Benedict XVI, "we members of the Church cannot but become aware of the total inadequacy of our human condition, marked by sin. The Church is holy, but made up of men and women with their limitations and errors. It is Christ, Christ alone, who in giving us the Holy Spirit is able to transform our misery and constantly renew us. He is the light of the peoples, the lumen gentium, who has chosen to illumine the world through his Church (cf. Lumen gentium, no. 1). ‘How can this come about?’ we also ask ourselves with the words that the Virgin addresses to the Archangel Gabriel. And she herself, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, gives us the answer: with her example of total availability to God’s will-fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Lk 1:38)-Mary teaches us to be a ‘manifestation’ of the Lord, opening our hearts to the power of grace and faithfully abiding by the words of her Son, light of the world and the ultimate end of history" (Benedict XVI, Homily, January 6, 2006).
An essential condition for bringing Christ’s teaching and life to others (and in today’s world it is urgent to do so) is that we ourselves strive more diligently to get to know, deal with, and love our Lord better each day. This is the specific goal of the norms of Christian piety, traditional in the Church, that we live in Opus Dei. We have to fulfill them as well as possible, as the result of a choice of love, even though at times our heart is dry or fails to respond.
When a person comes to the Prelature, moved by the desire to know God better, we try to provide an adequate doctrinal, spiritual and apostolic formation, so that Christ’s teachings become, right from the start, not only clarity for his intellect but also light and strength for following in Jesus’ footsteps. We help people to appreciate and to frequent the sacraments (the Eucharist and confession), to pray earnestly, to deal with God as a Father and with our Lady as a mother, to offer their work to God, to be concerned about others’ spiritual and material needs, to draw closer to God those who are closer to them.
Let us struggle to improve each day in our personal conversation with God our Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with our Lady. We who are nourished with the spirit of Opus Dei strive to give our life of piety a special tone, which many other people also make their own: the sense of divine filiation. We strive to imitate Christ with special attention to his years of ordinary life and work in Nazareth. We foster devotion to the Holy Spirit, intimate guest of the soul, who encourages us to identify ourselves with Christ and to love God the Father. We venerate our Lady as Mother of God and our mother, with the piety of small children who hope for everything from her maternal goodness. We strive for a personal relationship with the guardian angels, whom we consider our allies in all our apostolic tasks. And we go with complete confidence to St. Josemaría, our beloved Father, in whom we see perfectly realized the spirit that God wanted for Opus Dei.
In addition, we have to always strive to serve the Church in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3:18),not only in words. Let us pray and get others to pray for the Pope and his intentions, "pulling the cart" in the direction indicated by the Holy Father and, in each place, by the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff. By carrying out faithfully the mission proper to Opus Dei, we will collaborate in a very direct way in the great mission that the Master has entrusted to the Church, so that God’s will may be fulfilled: that all men be saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).
We have to give a clear apostolic meaning to everything we do, in the most varied situations and moments. Thus everyone, including those who by way of exception are not in a position to take care of a direct personal apostolate, will carry out a very fruitful work. But this path requires-and I repeat this on purpose-that we put great care into our dealing with God in our practices of Christian piety; that we strive to finish our work well, offering it to God each day in the Holy Mass; that we give importance to small mortifications, which he hopes to see in our conduct with a steady rhythm, "like the beating of our heart" (St. Josemaría, The Forge, no. 518).
Union with Christ on the Cross is indispensable in order to carry out this apostolic program faithfully and with optimism. One cannot follow Jesus without denying oneself (cf. Lk 9:23), without cultivating a spirit of mortification, without the habitual component of specific deeds of penance. The Holy Father pointed this out, some months ago, when he announced a year dedicated to St. Paul on the bimillennium of his birth. He stressed that the apostolic fruit of the Apostle to the Gentiles could not "be attributed to brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies. The success of his apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty nor persecution. ‘Neither death, nor life,’ he wrote to the Romans, ‘nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39).
"From this we can draw a particularly important lesson for every Christian. The Church’s action is credible and effective only to the extent to which those who belong to her are prepared to pay in person for their fidelity to Christ in every circumstance. When this readiness is lacking, the crucial argument of truth on which the Church herself depends is also absent" (Benedict XVI, Homily at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls, June 28, 2007).
These considerations will help us to prepare for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 14th of this month. St. Josemaría held up for us the great goal of placing the Cross of Christ at the summit of all human activities-with our sanctified and sanctifying work-so that Jesus might draw all men to himself (cf. Jn12:32). Let us realize well the urgency of this task: "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only ‘sign’ is Jesus raised on the Cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation. This is the principal proclamation of the Church, which remains unchanged down the ages. The Christian faith, therefore, is not an ideology but a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ. From this experience, both individual and communitarian, flows a new way of thinking and acting: an existence marked by love is born, as the saints testify" (Benedict XVI, Homily, March 26, 2006).
An important part of "showing" Christ to others in our life can be summed up (and let’s not take this as obvious) in the joyful, habitual practice of mortification and penance: voluntarily renouncing comforts and pleasures which, without being bad in themselves, could cool down or hinder our union with God. The temperate use of material goods, without letting oneself be entangled in their coils, holds a fundamental importance for our union with Christ and our apostolate.
Many years ago now, our Founder wrote that "people expect from us, God’s children in his Work, the bonus odor Christi which, supported by our temperance, enkindles them and draws them forward" (St. Josemaría, Instruction, May-1935/ September 14, 1950, no. 65).In contrast, if we do not reject the contagion of worldly goods, if we think it is impossible to carry with us the demanding environment of Christ, if we don’t know how to go against the current, we will not be able to help others find the great happiness of friendship with Jesus. A worldly environment, unfortunately, is found in most places. We have to invite the others, first by our own example, to breathe the clean air of God’s nearness. And to attain this, temperance of the heart and the senses is indispensable: Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8).We need to be convinced that only thus can we love this world of ours passionately.
What a great responsibility Christians have! Let us meditate once more on those words that St. Josemaría wrote in The Way:"Many great things depend-don’t forget it-on whether you and I live our lives as God wants" (St. Josemaría, The Way, no. 755).
Continue praying for the Holy Father and his intentions. Ask our Lord to make his service to the Church very fruitful: that all Catholics-shepherds and faithful-take his teachings to heart and put them into practice. And unite yourselves to my intentions as well: forgive me for insisting so much, but I really need you, each and every one of you. As our Father used to say: "Everything is done, and everything remains to be done." Therefore I ask for your whole-hearted assistance, so that I don’t hold back the apostolic challenge of announcing to all mankind that Christ is calling each and every person.
With all my affection, I bless you,
Your Father
+ Javier
Pamplona, September 1, 2007
Click here to return to homepage
Letter from the Prelate Of Opus Dei(September 2007)
The Prelate stresses the importance of living in close union with Jesus Christ. The norms of Christian piety practiced by persons close to Opus Dei help them to share in our Lord’s Cross.
September 08, 2007
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
The Church, and the Work as a living part of the Church, is called to reflect the light it constantly receives from Christ and to spread it throughout the world. Jesus taught all Christians: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:14-16).
"By listening to Jesus’ words," says Benedict XVI, "we members of the Church cannot but become aware of the total inadequacy of our human condition, marked by sin. The Church is holy, but made up of men and women with their limitations and errors. It is Christ, Christ alone, who in giving us the Holy Spirit is able to transform our misery and constantly renew us. He is the light of the peoples, the lumen gentium, who has chosen to illumine the world through his Church (cf. Lumen gentium, no. 1). ‘How can this come about?’ we also ask ourselves with the words that the Virgin addresses to the Archangel Gabriel. And she herself, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, gives us the answer: with her example of total availability to God’s will-fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Lk 1:38)-Mary teaches us to be a ‘manifestation’ of the Lord, opening our hearts to the power of grace and faithfully abiding by the words of her Son, light of the world and the ultimate end of history" (Benedict XVI, Homily, January 6, 2006).
An essential condition for bringing Christ’s teaching and life to others (and in today’s world it is urgent to do so) is that we ourselves strive more diligently to get to know, deal with, and love our Lord better each day. This is the specific goal of the norms of Christian piety, traditional in the Church, that we live in Opus Dei. We have to fulfill them as well as possible, as the result of a choice of love, even though at times our heart is dry or fails to respond.
When a person comes to the Prelature, moved by the desire to know God better, we try to provide an adequate doctrinal, spiritual and apostolic formation, so that Christ’s teachings become, right from the start, not only clarity for his intellect but also light and strength for following in Jesus’ footsteps. We help people to appreciate and to frequent the sacraments (the Eucharist and confession), to pray earnestly, to deal with God as a Father and with our Lady as a mother, to offer their work to God, to be concerned about others’ spiritual and material needs, to draw closer to God those who are closer to them.
Let us struggle to improve each day in our personal conversation with God our Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with our Lady. We who are nourished with the spirit of Opus Dei strive to give our life of piety a special tone, which many other people also make their own: the sense of divine filiation. We strive to imitate Christ with special attention to his years of ordinary life and work in Nazareth. We foster devotion to the Holy Spirit, intimate guest of the soul, who encourages us to identify ourselves with Christ and to love God the Father. We venerate our Lady as Mother of God and our mother, with the piety of small children who hope for everything from her maternal goodness. We strive for a personal relationship with the guardian angels, whom we consider our allies in all our apostolic tasks. And we go with complete confidence to St. Josemaría, our beloved Father, in whom we see perfectly realized the spirit that God wanted for Opus Dei.
In addition, we have to always strive to serve the Church in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3:18),not only in words. Let us pray and get others to pray for the Pope and his intentions, "pulling the cart" in the direction indicated by the Holy Father and, in each place, by the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff. By carrying out faithfully the mission proper to Opus Dei, we will collaborate in a very direct way in the great mission that the Master has entrusted to the Church, so that God’s will may be fulfilled: that all men be saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).
We have to give a clear apostolic meaning to everything we do, in the most varied situations and moments. Thus everyone, including those who by way of exception are not in a position to take care of a direct personal apostolate, will carry out a very fruitful work. But this path requires-and I repeat this on purpose-that we put great care into our dealing with God in our practices of Christian piety; that we strive to finish our work well, offering it to God each day in the Holy Mass; that we give importance to small mortifications, which he hopes to see in our conduct with a steady rhythm, "like the beating of our heart" (St. Josemaría, The Forge, no. 518).
Union with Christ on the Cross is indispensable in order to carry out this apostolic program faithfully and with optimism. One cannot follow Jesus without denying oneself (cf. Lk 9:23), without cultivating a spirit of mortification, without the habitual component of specific deeds of penance. The Holy Father pointed this out, some months ago, when he announced a year dedicated to St. Paul on the bimillennium of his birth. He stressed that the apostolic fruit of the Apostle to the Gentiles could not "be attributed to brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies. The success of his apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty nor persecution. ‘Neither death, nor life,’ he wrote to the Romans, ‘nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39).
"From this we can draw a particularly important lesson for every Christian. The Church’s action is credible and effective only to the extent to which those who belong to her are prepared to pay in person for their fidelity to Christ in every circumstance. When this readiness is lacking, the crucial argument of truth on which the Church herself depends is also absent" (Benedict XVI, Homily at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls, June 28, 2007).
These considerations will help us to prepare for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 14th of this month. St. Josemaría held up for us the great goal of placing the Cross of Christ at the summit of all human activities-with our sanctified and sanctifying work-so that Jesus might draw all men to himself (cf. Jn12:32). Let us realize well the urgency of this task: "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only ‘sign’ is Jesus raised on the Cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation. This is the principal proclamation of the Church, which remains unchanged down the ages. The Christian faith, therefore, is not an ideology but a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ. From this experience, both individual and communitarian, flows a new way of thinking and acting: an existence marked by love is born, as the saints testify" (Benedict XVI, Homily, March 26, 2006).
An important part of "showing" Christ to others in our life can be summed up (and let’s not take this as obvious) in the joyful, habitual practice of mortification and penance: voluntarily renouncing comforts and pleasures which, without being bad in themselves, could cool down or hinder our union with God. The temperate use of material goods, without letting oneself be entangled in their coils, holds a fundamental importance for our union with Christ and our apostolate.
Many years ago now, our Founder wrote that "people expect from us, God’s children in his Work, the bonus odor Christi which, supported by our temperance, enkindles them and draws them forward" (St. Josemaría, Instruction, May-1935/ September 14, 1950, no. 65).In contrast, if we do not reject the contagion of worldly goods, if we think it is impossible to carry with us the demanding environment of Christ, if we don’t know how to go against the current, we will not be able to help others find the great happiness of friendship with Jesus. A worldly environment, unfortunately, is found in most places. We have to invite the others, first by our own example, to breathe the clean air of God’s nearness. And to attain this, temperance of the heart and the senses is indispensable: Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8).We need to be convinced that only thus can we love this world of ours passionately.
What a great responsibility Christians have! Let us meditate once more on those words that St. Josemaría wrote in The Way:"Many great things depend-don’t forget it-on whether you and I live our lives as God wants" (St. Josemaría, The Way, no. 755).
Continue praying for the Holy Father and his intentions. Ask our Lord to make his service to the Church very fruitful: that all Catholics-shepherds and faithful-take his teachings to heart and put them into practice. And unite yourselves to my intentions as well: forgive me for insisting so much, but I really need you, each and every one of you. As our Father used to say: "Everything is done, and everything remains to be done." Therefore I ask for your whole-hearted assistance, so that I don’t hold back the apostolic challenge of announcing to all mankind that Christ is calling each and every person.
With all my affection, I bless you,
Your Father
+ Javier
Pamplona, September 1, 2007
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After Confession
By Benjamin Cocker
God, what am I that Thou shouldst deign
To take me to Thy heart again,
And whisper: "All is not in vain,--
I hear thy prayer!"
Why shouldst Thou stoop to such as I,
And bid my bitter tears be dry,
And plead in answer to my cry:
"Thy guilt I bear.
"Go forth: thy sins have been forgiven!
The saints before My throne in heaven
Have wept for thee as thou wert shriven:
Canst thou despair?"
Source: The Ave Maria, November 18, 1905
God, what am I that Thou shouldst deign
To take me to Thy heart again,
And whisper: "All is not in vain,--
I hear thy prayer!"
Why shouldst Thou stoop to such as I,
And bid my bitter tears be dry,
And plead in answer to my cry:
"Thy guilt I bear.
"Go forth: thy sins have been forgiven!
The saints before My throne in heaven
Have wept for thee as thou wert shriven:
Canst thou despair?"
Source: The Ave Maria, November 18, 1905
The Psychology Of Unbelief
By Matthew M. Anger
"The great psychologists of the ages have universally agreed that the root of all unhappiness is selfishness or egotism. Egotism is the rejection of the double command to love God and neighbor, and the affirmation of the self as the standard of all truth and morality" (Fulton Sheen, Way to Happiness).
To discuss religious commitment from a psychological viewpoint is not to imply that faith or moral choices are shaped entirely by external things like environment, body chemistry or sensory stimuli. If we remain true to psychology's origins, beginning with Aristotle, we approach it as a branch of metaphysics which studies the life of the soul. At the same time, classical psychology (as opposed to idealism), does not dismiss the importance of physical reality. A whole range of factors can influence one's mental behavior — including social relations, physical health, economic status, etc. — while leaving man's free will fundamentally intact. Unfortunately, with the changes in epistemology and ethics growing out of the so-called Enlightenment, psychological commentators veered away from the Western tradition.
The American William James, for example, applied Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis to the development of the human consciousness in The Principles of Psychology (1890). A short while later, Sigmund Freud articulated the belief that human behavior was shaped by early life influences and the tendency to repress unconscious desires. Sexual drives were also seen as a key determinant in individual choices. While Freud was understandably reacting to the hyper-rationalism of earlier secularists (who denied the irrational side of fallen humanity), his theories further displaced belief in objective and transcendent morality.
Christian psychology, by contrast, should help one to understand the behavioral characteristics of the individual within an ethical framework. Recalling psychology's Aristotelian roots, one can make the connection between repeated choices ("ethics" is from the Greek word ethos, meaning "custom" or "habit") and the patterns of mental activity which emerge from consistent preferences in one direction or another. While the operations of the mind do not determine morality, the two react upon and shape one another. For example, distinct patterns have been observed in homosexuals or people suffering from extremely violent tendencies. As Sheen puts it, a man's "secret hates, his hidden sins, his flippant treading upon the laws of morality — all of these leave their traces in his mind, his heart and his unconsciousness."
Helpful to a Catholic understanding of the subject is Dr. Paul C. Vitz's Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. Dr. Vitz, a scholar and convert, states that historically important atheists "are the product of their historical period, family psychology (that is, the defective father), intellectual intelligence and level of ambition, and — last but far from least — their own free choice." Such findings, based on decades of research as a psychologist, flout materialistic views that the idea of God is simply a "projection theory" based on man's need for security.
For Freud, and others, religion could be criticized on the basis of believers' supposedly subjective motives. Vitz boldly reverses this paradigm. Atheism is not so aloof as it pretends to be, and is as susceptible as any other attitude to external factors. Vitz makes his point by considering the lives of dozens of major atheists and seeing what they might have in common. It transpires that, almost without exception, militant skeptics of the last two centuries, from Voltaire to Stalin, have suffered from a "defective father" — one who was either absent through death or through moral failure. As a result, the stance taken by leading atheists may be seen (at least in part) as an emotional reaction against paternal figures, including the divine Father.
Much has been written about the absence of fathers in modern families. "Presumably," remarks Vitz, "this widespread defective fathering will cause an increase in contemporary skeptical attitudes towards God. But it may also result in an equally widespread 'father hunger' which could manifest itself in a variety of ways, such as a growth in cults and support for political demagogues." It is also worth noting, with regard to the unprecedented explosion of sexual deviancy since the 1960s, that homosexuals tend to suffer from hostile or absent fathers, leading to "defensive detachment" from the father and other males. If anything, it shows that Vitz's thesis applies to a wide range of contemporary dysfunctional behavior and apostasy. Speaking of the decline of Christianity, he makes a point concerning the sudden vogue of black American males converting to Islam:
Recently I heard a report that black Baptist women were urging their husbands to become Muslims because they thought their men should have a religion and thought Christianity to be inadequate for men. The African-American community has suffered greatly from fatherless families, and many blacks who have become Muslims openly claim that Islam restored their manhood to them ("The Father Almighty, Maker of Male & Female," Touchstone).
In this case, the attraction of Islam is due to a lack of emphasis on "fatherhood" in the black urban community and in Christianity at large. Men eager to assert their traditional role are left without spiritual support. This has been most evident in liberal, mainstream Protestant denominations where feminist and androgynous "unisex" theology has been heavily promoted.
As for widespread theoretical atheism, it is a relatively new phenomenon. Vitz believes that atheism, rather than traditional theism, is a social construct, and one prone to changing habits and tastes. While environmental influences do not determine unbelief, the social milieu can predispose people to a particular way of expressing their moral and theological rebellion. It happens that since the late 17th century, explicit skepticism has been the most convenient and acceptable outlet. As Samuel Johnson said of the libertine poet, the Earl of Rochester: "He lost all sense of religious restraint, and finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he resolved not to obey, sheltered his wickedness behind infidelity."
An atheist's upbringing is revealing. Even more so is his high level of egotism. "Nietzche's pride and his arrogance," observes Vitz, "often to the point of pathos, are widely acknowledged." The same was true of Ludwig Feuerbach, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Adolf Hitler. In his other recent book, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, Dr. Vitz discusses the problem of selfism or "self theory," which is liberal psychology's rationalization of egocentrism. It is "an example of a horizontal heresy, with its emphasis on the present and on self-centered ethics." As such it manifests itself in as many guises as egotism is capable of: materialist sociology, group therapy, New Age movements, or the "power of positive thinking" Protestant sects. At the root of this is metaphysical denial.
"A final profound conflict between Christianity and selfism," Vitz explains, "centers around the meaning of suffering. The Christian acknowledges evil... as a fact of life." Christianity accepts the existence of sin and death. It also provides a way to transcend and transform them. "In contrast, selfist philosophy trivializes life by claiming that suffering (and, by implication, even death) is without intrinsic meaning. Suffering is seen as some sort of absurdity, usually a man-made mistake that could have been avoided by use of knowledge to gain control of the environment." Evil is thus externalized, or removed from the realm of personal moral culpability. It is the predictable operation of pride. We tend to credit success to ourselves while blaming our failures on others.
Heterodox philosophies not only appeal to man's baser instincts, they "validate" them. False theology is an expedient rationalization for antinomian behavior, which eschews moral responsibility. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind that along with obdurate heretics are misguided individuals, who may be attracted to some residual good in a false system (since no belief is absolutely evil; its error lies in subordinating higher goods to lesser ones). Catholic theologians tell us that where there is unconscious ignorance of Church teaching, erroneous judgment, and imperfect apprehension, a necessary condition of sinfulness — free choice — is lacking. With this in mind, apologetics need to be conducted with prudence as well as conviction. Like the wheat and tares in the parable, it is difficult for us to hastily root up the outwardly bad without causing undue mischief.
Msgr. Ronald Knox, who addressed psychological problems in his sermons and essays, provides further insights. He rephrased the skeptic's taunt that man "creates God in his own image," observing that when "turning your thoughts toward the Supreme, the Ultimate, you can choose, evidently, this or that aspect, this or that avenue or approach." St. Augustine argued much the same point in his Catechetical Instruction. Awareness on the part of the religious instructor of the catechumen's fears, dislikes, and even his physical comfort is not inconsequential. Augustine's psychological view of conversion has been reiterated by later apologists. We are taught not to mistake our own temperament, preferences or fashions for an objective standard. Related to this is another point raised by Vitz; namely, that religion is the solution but, superficially, it can sometimes be the problem. In this sense, the theist sees sanctimonious behavior as the failure of the individual to live up to God's calling, while the non-believer feels it shows up religion for the "falsehood" that it is. In any event, there is no denying the scandal of religious hypocrisy. This point is important in dealing with the sincere individual who has experienced such failings. It can be a mitigating, if not justifying, factor in his momentary rejection of faith.
Religious hypocrisy goes beyond everyday human frailties. As an example of this, Vitz discusses Søren Kierkegaard's father who was an austere and sometimes troubled man who nevertheless displayed genuine piety, compunction and love. He earned his son's lifelong affection. The younger Kierkegaard was also a devoted Christian who overcame tremendous temptations to doubt, and even displayed a marked sympathy to Catholic thinking towards the end of his life. In stark contrast is the pitiable conduct of Jacob Freud, father of the psychoanalyst, who was not only cowardly and incompetent, but a pervert and pedophile. Says Vitz: "in proposing the Oedipus complex, Freud placed hatred of the father at the center of his psychology." There was a very real basis for supposing that this expressed "his strong unconscious hostility to and rejection of his father." What surely enhanced Sigmund's distaste for religion was that Jacob carried on as an outwardly proper and observant Jew who spent long hours on readings and devotions. Needless to say, double standards are not unique to Judaism. Dr. Vitz gives examples of individuals raised in lax or rigorist Christian circumstances who, sadly, turned on their faith.
Vitz leaves us with an interesting paradox. Psychology will never be a proper yardstick for measuring the truth or falsity of religion. Faith of the Fatherless favors "the pre-modern idea that controversies should be settled on the basis of the evidence, not on the psychology of the interlocutors. In this framework, ad hominem arguments must be rejected as irrelevant — and all psychological arguments are ad hominem; that is, they address the person presenting the evidence and not the evidence itself." At the same time, psychological understanding is important as a prelude to apologetics. It helps us to appreciate the motives for a person's unbelief, which may include some intense, personal trauma. "If one wishes to genuinely reach such people," concludes Vitz, "one must address their underlying psychology. Aside from the common, superficial reasons, most serious unbelievers are likely to have painful memories underlying their rationalization of atheism. Such interior wounds... need to be fully appreciated and addressed by believers."
***
Matthew Anger is a freelance journalist who has written essays on history, philosophy and literature from a Catholic perspective. He lives with his wife and eight children in the Richmond, Virginia area, where he is employed as a web/multimedia designer. He contributes to The Latin Mass and Homiletic & Pastoral Review. He also maintains Imlac's Journal, a philosophical blog. This article was first published at Seattle Catholic
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Rahab's House
By Thomas Merton
- Written in 1946
Now the lean children of the God of armies
(Their feet command the quaking earth)
Rise in the desert, and divide old Jordan
To crown this city with a ring of drums.
(But see this signal, like a crimson scar
Bleeding on Rahab's window-sill,
Spelling her safety with the red of our Redemption.)
The trumpets scare the valley with their sudden anger,
And thunderheads lean down to understand the
nodding ark,
While Joshua's friend, the frowning sun,
Rises to burn the drunken houses with his look.
(But far more red upon the wall
Is Rahab's rescue than his scarlet threat.)
The clarions bind the bastions with their silver treble,
Shiver the city with their golden shout:
(Wells dry up, and stars fly back, The eyes of Jericho go out,)
The drums around the reeling ark
Shatter the ramparts with a ring of thunder.
The kings that sat
On gilded chairs,
The princes and the great
Are dead.
Only a harlot and her fearful kindred
Fly like sparrows from that sudden grin of fire.
It is the flowers that will one day rise from Rahab's earth,
That have redeemed them from the hell of Jericho.
A rod will grow
From Jesse's tree,
Among her sons, the lords of Bethlehem,
And flower into Paradise.
Look at the gentle irises admiring one another by
the water,
Under the leafy shadows of the Virgin's mercy, And all the
primroses and laughing flags
Bowing before Our Lady Mary in the Eden of her intercession,
And praising her, because they see the generations
Fly like a hundred thousand swallows into heaven,
Out of the jaws of Jerich,
Because it was the Son of God
Whose crimson signal wounded Rahab's wall,
Uttered our rescue in a figure of His Blood.
The Commission Of The Good Samaritan
By Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D.
To this day, the road from Jericho to Jerusalem is long, winding, and desolate. The two travelers could have been heading back home after weeks on temple duty. Or they could have been on their way to the Temple for their shift (Lk 1:8). In either case, the priest and the Levite were in a hurry to get where they were going. The pious duty of liturgical prayer in one direction. Family who needed them in the other direction. It was too bad about the half-dead man in the road. But someone else would have to attend to it. They just did not have time.
Then came the Samaritan. Belonging, as he did, to a heretical sect, his theology was all wrong. Ethnically he was not even a pure Jew, but a Jew/Gentile mongrel. Many Jews would have welcomed an “ethnic cleansing” campaign to purge the holy land of such half-breeds. The Samaritan, of course, knew this. As he saw his bloodied enemy lying there in the road, he could have smugly said “serves him right” and continued walking.
But he couldn’t. Compassion for the suffering of a fellow human being won out over partisan theology, ethnicity, and the demands of his schedule. His duty was clear. If this had happened to his dad, he would want a passing Jew to stop and help. So he went way out of his way, blowing his schedule to bits, spending money that he perhaps couldn’t afford to spend, even planning to follow up later, on his way back from his trip.
This is a tale told by Jesus to illustrate a point. But it reflects a curious phenomenon observable in every age. Good, religious people, who you’d figure to be most likely to help, are often the very ones who use piety and family obligations to excuse themselves from the responsibility of charity. “Someone else will have to do it – I don’t have time.” “We gave at the office.” “I’d like to help, but my budget is already maxed out.” On the other hand, it is often those you’d least expect who actually go out of their way to lend a helping hand.
Jesus said: “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father” (Mat 7:21). And the will of the Father is not just that we abstain from doing bad things (sins of commission) but that we actually fulfill our obligation to do justice and works of mercy. It is stunning that the only sneak preview of the last judgment given us in the four gospels shows people condemned not for murder and adultery, but for failing to do works of mercy (sins of omission). (Mat 25:36ff).
Yes, good judgment must be exercised. We are limited human beings and cannot possibly meet all the needs of every suffering person in our own neighborhood, let alone all over the world. There have been some who have busied themselves with saving the world to the neglect of their own family.
This is where the virtue of prudence comes in and perhaps, in some cases, a good spiritual director.
But if every new request for help elicits from us the knee-jerk reaction that we are just too busy or have already given enough, it is time for an examination of conscience.
Love is often inconvenient. It means giving not just out of our abundance, but at times, out of our substance. True charity can really hurt.
That’s what the cross is about, in fact. The Divine Samaritan saw the entire human race bloodied on a desolate road to nowhere. He got involved. And it cost him more than a two coins and a few hours delay to rescue us and nurse us back to health. What he asks of us who wish to be known as Christians, “little Christs,” is to love with his love and so be true to His Name.
For more by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D. make sure to check out The Crossroads Initiative.
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To this day, the road from Jericho to Jerusalem is long, winding, and desolate. The two travelers could have been heading back home after weeks on temple duty. Or they could have been on their way to the Temple for their shift (Lk 1:8). In either case, the priest and the Levite were in a hurry to get where they were going. The pious duty of liturgical prayer in one direction. Family who needed them in the other direction. It was too bad about the half-dead man in the road. But someone else would have to attend to it. They just did not have time.
Then came the Samaritan. Belonging, as he did, to a heretical sect, his theology was all wrong. Ethnically he was not even a pure Jew, but a Jew/Gentile mongrel. Many Jews would have welcomed an “ethnic cleansing” campaign to purge the holy land of such half-breeds. The Samaritan, of course, knew this. As he saw his bloodied enemy lying there in the road, he could have smugly said “serves him right” and continued walking.
But he couldn’t. Compassion for the suffering of a fellow human being won out over partisan theology, ethnicity, and the demands of his schedule. His duty was clear. If this had happened to his dad, he would want a passing Jew to stop and help. So he went way out of his way, blowing his schedule to bits, spending money that he perhaps couldn’t afford to spend, even planning to follow up later, on his way back from his trip.
This is a tale told by Jesus to illustrate a point. But it reflects a curious phenomenon observable in every age. Good, religious people, who you’d figure to be most likely to help, are often the very ones who use piety and family obligations to excuse themselves from the responsibility of charity. “Someone else will have to do it – I don’t have time.” “We gave at the office.” “I’d like to help, but my budget is already maxed out.” On the other hand, it is often those you’d least expect who actually go out of their way to lend a helping hand.
Jesus said: “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father” (Mat 7:21). And the will of the Father is not just that we abstain from doing bad things (sins of commission) but that we actually fulfill our obligation to do justice and works of mercy. It is stunning that the only sneak preview of the last judgment given us in the four gospels shows people condemned not for murder and adultery, but for failing to do works of mercy (sins of omission). (Mat 25:36ff).
Yes, good judgment must be exercised. We are limited human beings and cannot possibly meet all the needs of every suffering person in our own neighborhood, let alone all over the world. There have been some who have busied themselves with saving the world to the neglect of their own family.
This is where the virtue of prudence comes in and perhaps, in some cases, a good spiritual director.
But if every new request for help elicits from us the knee-jerk reaction that we are just too busy or have already given enough, it is time for an examination of conscience.
Love is often inconvenient. It means giving not just out of our abundance, but at times, out of our substance. True charity can really hurt.
That’s what the cross is about, in fact. The Divine Samaritan saw the entire human race bloodied on a desolate road to nowhere. He got involved. And it cost him more than a two coins and a few hours delay to rescue us and nurse us back to health. What he asks of us who wish to be known as Christians, “little Christs,” is to love with his love and so be true to His Name.
For more by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D. make sure to check out The Crossroads Initiative.
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In The Arguments And Trials Of Life, The Powerful Route Is Often Way Of Silence
By Michael Brown
The best thing about being right, when you are right, is that you can be quiet about it. You don't have to say a thing. The truth lets itself be known. Remember this in the discourses of life.
God will send events to defend you.
Arguing rarely solves anything, and stokes the power of the enemy.
Are there times we have to speak up? Are there occasions that we have to talk in our own defense? Are there times we have to be firm?
Of course. There are times we have to let others know they have hurt us. There are times we have to warn. There are times we have to admonish, especially those who are younger.
Silence is not always golden.
But often -- most often, in the midst of turmoil -- we don't regret what we have not said.
Talking is a plague of our time. Everyone talks. They talk constantly. They talk at home. They talk on the phone. They talk in the car. They talk on the phone in the car. They talk at work. They talk on the computer. They listen to talk radio. On television -- while we talk again on the phone, or with each other -- are the talking heads.
Would not that it be talking hearts!
To talk to the extent we do opens us to evil because it is hard to talk that long without entering into criticality, pretension, or gossip.
"He who guards his mouth and tongue," says Proverbs (21:23) "guards his soul from troubles."
Often, we wish we could take words (or tone of voice) back. We say what we wish we had not. Strife occurs. Why keep going through this? The tongue is a fire that can consume us. It says this too in Scripture. A tongue can be "a sharp sword," says Psalm 57:4. It's hard not to complain -- to verbally fight back -- when we are insulted. It's hard not to complain when loved ones don't listen -- when they leave you open to hurt (or even danger, physical or otherwise). It's hard not to holler at those who wrong you.
But in many circumstances there is the power of forgiveness, docility, and silence. The most powerful night in history was a silent one.
When we restrain our tempers in the midst of temptation we graduate to a level that brings a grace, and that grace causes events to speak for us -- loudly. Look at Jesus!
We are not to do so with bitterness. We are not to do so with relish. We are not to use the "silent treatment" as a flog (which is a form of malice). We're to forgive and inform and move on. Mainly, it has to do with debate. It has to do with senseless disputes.
Silence clears the air.
Silence lets us see the other side.
Silence invites prayer.
Loudly proclaim the dangers of today, yes; loudly admonish evil; loudly warn when there is the presence of the demonic.
But discipline yourself not to react to everything.
"If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless," says James (1:26 and 3:6). "The tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell."
This we can do without!
The solution?
Discipline. It is the key to most problems. It is certainly the key to keeping the mouth shut.
When antagonistic thoughts enter your mind, say, "Jesus, think this for me."
Jesus, think that thought....
"Jesus, think this for me!"
When you are tempted to react verbally, especially if it is antagonistic, say, "Jesus speak for me."
Jesus speak through my voice...
"Jesus speak for me." Say it until there is peace.
When you need to do something in correction, say: "Jesus, act through me."
Jesus act for me.
Say a Hail Mary.
Jesus... Jesus... It is the most powerful word on earth, and it transforms us into funnels of the Holy Spirit, through Whom truth becomes as clear as it is loud.
Michael Brown is a speaker and editor of the very popular Catholic website Spirit Daily, for news and meditations.
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Considering The Life Of The Early Christians
Letter of Bishop Javier Echevarría to the faithful of Opus Dei. This month’s letter urges the faithful to consider the ordinary but exemplary life of the first Christians.
By Bishop Javier Echevarría
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
As in past years, on June 26 the liturgical celebration of the feast of St. Josemaría Escrivá was held in many places throughout the world. Devotion to our Father is a reality that is growing each day without restrictions of geography, language, race or social status. Millions of people turn to his intercession for their spiritual and material needs, and are inspired by his life and teachings to put into practice the demands of the Gospel.
His example is very timely and will always be so, with God’s grace, and will help many men and women to discover the paths that lead to the Blessed Trinity, amid all noble human realities: the family, work, social relationships, etc.
Our Lord wants us, in struggling for sanctity each day in accord with the spirit of Opus Dei, to strive to faithfully follow the paths that St. Josemaría opened by his docility to the divine will. Thus, with the witness of our interior struggle (at times victorious and other times not, but always beginning again joyfully) and with our words of encouragement, many others will be enheartened to undertake this way of sanctification in daily work and in the fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary duties, which is the Work.
Today I want to remind you of some teachings of our Father connected with the first Christians, who received the Gospel message directly from the Apostles or from their immediate co-workers. He used to point to them as an example of how we should live in the midst of the world. Just yesterday we celebrated the liturgical memorial of the first martyrs of Rome, men and women who bore supreme witness to Christ in the Eternal City during the persecution of Nero. Upon introducing their feast in the universal calendar, the Church decided it would be celebrated on June 30, right after the solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as though to stress their close union with the ones who had transmitted to them Christ’s holy teaching.
To explain Opus Dei’s mission, St. Josemaría often turned to those first sisters and brothers of ours in the faith. If you want a point of comparison, he would say, the easiest way to understand Opus Dei is to consider the life of the early Christians. They lived their Christian vocation seriously, seeking earnestly the holiness to which they had been called by their Baptism. Externally they did nothing to distinguish themselves from their fellow citizens. Similarly, he added, the faithful of Opus Dei are ordinary people. They work like everyone else and live in the midst of the world just as they did before they joined. There is nothing false or artificial about their behavior. They live like any other Christian citizen who wants to respond fully to the demands of his faith, because that is what they are.
In mentioning these ideas I am also moved by the desire to second the teachings of the Pope, who in his Wednesday audiences has been speaking for quite some time now about the early Fathers and writers of the Church. His words can help us to imitate the example of those who lived at the dawn of Christianity. In general, the circumstances surrounding their witness to the faith do not seem all that different from our own.
The first point that stands out is the optimism, filled with confidence and conviction (from their faith!), with which they confronted the pagan world. With the light of our Lord’s teaching, they were able to discern the positive elements in the social customs of their times, and to reject what was not in accord with the new vision of life Christ’s doctrine had given them.
The Pope points out, for example, that St. Justin (a layman and philosophy teacher in Rome), basing himself on Sacred Scripture, shows first of all the divine plan of creation and salvation that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Logos, that is, the eternal Word, eternal Reason, creative Reason. And he stresses how that ancient Father of the Church held that every person as a rational being shares in the Logos, carrying within himself a "seed," and can perceive glimmers of the truth. Thus, the same Logos who revealed himself as a prophetic figure to the Hebrew people under the old Law also manifested himself partially, in "seeds of truth," in Greek philosophy. Now, Justin concludes, since Christianity is the historical and personal manifestation of the Logos in his totality, it follows that "whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians."
In many countries, we who know we are God’s children find ourselves submerged in a neo-pagan society, and (let us never doubt it) we have been entrusted with the marvelous mission of redirecting it to God. The apostolic response of each and every one of us has to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us. Firmly grounded in Catholic teaching, we have to act without any inferiority complex in the heart of the civil society to which we belong by our own right, and-without arrogance-transform it from within acting as a leaven in the mass, for mankind’s temporal and eternal good.
So let us be optimistic and objective. Although we see deficiencies and errors, there are always many positive attitudes and good realities in the men and women we find alongside us and in the environment around us. In carrying out our apostolate, we have to discover and appreciate these riches, in order to lead those we are dealing with towards the Truth. By stressing these points of common interest, it will be easier to bring souls to God. Our greatest ally for the new evangelization of society-besides the guardian angels of those we are dealing with-is precisely the divine residue that is always found in every human being (although at times they don’t realize it), even among those who are furthest from God.
So let us be filled with optimism, and try to spread this outlook to others who perhaps are discouraged in the face of the moral and spiritual decadence that has arisen in so many places. In our personal conversations with friends and colleagues, as well as in the more or less public interventions that we might be called upon to make, we should rely on the two "wings" of faith and reason, as the Pope repeats untiringly, without separating one from the other. Thus we will counteract the relativism around us, a manifestation of a lack of faith and a lack of trust in reason.
Recalling as well our beloved John Paul II, let us put into effect his advice: "Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ! Open to his saving power the borders of states, the economic and political systems, the broad fields of culture, of civilization, of development. Do not be afraid! Christ knows what is in man’s heart. He alone knows it!" We need to make this a reality first of all in ourselves, allowing our Lord to enter our souls and to rule there; and also in those we are dealing with, accompanying them so that they reach the conviction that Jesus is their best Friend.
Therefore it is essential that we constantly improve our theological formation, that we go deeper-in accord with each one’s needs and circumstances-into the topics of public discussion related to the fundamental aspects of revelation.
In explaining the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church, the Pope stresses another point of great importance for today’s world. He states that the great error of the ancient pagan religions consisted in not adhering to the paths traced out by divine wisdom in the depths of man’s soul. Therefore, the decline of the pagan religion was inevitable: it was a logical consequence of the detachment of religion-reduced to an artificial collection of ceremonies, conventions and customs-from the truth of being. The early Fathers and Christian writers, in contrast, made the choice of the truth of being against the myth of custom. Tertullian, the Pope recalls for us, wrote: Dominus noster Christum veritatem se, non consuetudinem, cognominavit. Christ our Lord affirmed that he was the Truth, not custom. And Benedict XVI remarked: it should be noted in this regard that the term consuetudo, used here by Tertullian in reference to the pagan religion, can be translated into modern languages with the expressions "cultural fashion," "current fads."
Today as well, the shipwreck of those who try to do without God is certain. Despite the apparent victory of relativism in some places, this way of thinking and of living will end up collapsing like a house of cards, since it is not anchored in the truth of God the Creator and in his divine Providence, which directs the paths of history.
We Christians know that we are freer than anyone, because we do not allow ourselves to be dragged about by momentary fads. The Church wants her children to be responsible and consistent Catholic citizens, so that the mind and heart of each of us are not dispersed, each going in its own direction, but consistent and firm, doing at every moment what one clearly sees has to be done, without letting oneself be dragged along, through lack of personality and of loyalty to one’s conscience, by passing tendencies or fashions: so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles (Eph 4:14).
At the beginning of this letter I mentioned that devotion to St. Josemaría is continuing to spread throughout the world. A few days ago (and these are not the only quite recent examples) a stone plaque was unveiled in Reggio Calabria commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of our Father’s visit to that city, and a street in Fiuggi was named after him. And today, July 1, a parish church in Valencia is being dedicated to St. Josemaría. This is why my letter is dated here, since I have come to this city through the invitation of my dear friend and brother in the episcopate, Archbishop García Gasco, to take part in the liturgical ceremony. Please join me in giving thanks, and let us continue working, each in one’s own place, so that this spirit of God may reach new environments and people.
It gives me great joy to tell you that since this past June 26 your brothers who are beginning the stable activity of the Work in Russia have been in Moscow. Let us accompany them closely with our prayer, during these first moments and always; and let us prepare for the future expansion.
Upon seeing all of your letters on the occasion of my birthday, I was filled with embarrassment and joy. I have thanked each and every one of you. As our Father used to say, ask Him about it, if you have any doubts.
With all my affection, I bless you,
Your Father
+ Javier
Valencia, July 1, 2007
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Sign Of The Cross - Sign Of Our Faith?
By Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio
To some, being Italian-American means overindulging in pasta and joking about tough guys. But being Italian means being heir to a rich tradition stretching back before the Caesars. Included are philosophers like Seneca, poets like Dante, artists such as Michelangelo, and saints like Francis of Assisi.
To some, being Catholic means giving up chocolate for Lent. But those who explore their Catholic heritage discover thousands of years of meaning, insight, and life-giving resources: inspiring stories about people from Abraham to Mother Teresa, practical instruction by some of the most brilliant thinkers of all time, tried and true spiritual practices that make people grow in character and happiness.
In John 10:10, Jesus said “I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” That recalls Isaiah who, speaking of God’s people, says: “Lo, I will spread prosperity over her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.” (Is 66:10-14). The Catholic Church is all about preserving and enjoying the WHOLE, rich heritage of Christ. In fact, the word “Catholic” comes from the Greek word for “whole.” The problem is that some preserve outward practices of this heritage, like giving up something for Lent, but have lost the connection with the meaning and power of the practice.
Take for example the sign of the Cross. For some it is just a mechanical part of “logging on” and “logging off” of our time “connected” to God via prayer. For others, it seems no more than a good-luck charm to make superstitiously before stepping up to bat.
To see what it really means, we need to look where it comes from. In baptism, a cross is traced on the foreheads of the baptized. The same happens in confirmation, when it is done with sacred oil called “chrism.” As the cross is traced, the name of the triune God is pronounced, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
How far back in time does this practice go? Paul says “I bear the brand marks of Jesus in my body.” (Gal 6:14-18). Notice that in the book of Revelation, those doomed to death have the mark of the beast on their foreheads while the 144,000 in white robes have been sealed with the name of God and the Lamb (Rev 7:3-4, Rev 11:1). Sounds a lot like the sign of the cross, doesn’t it?
In the early Church, the sign of the cross was seen as the brand mark on the body of a Christian that indicated that he or she was now the property of a new master and under the protection of that master. The blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites protected them from the Angel of Death who “passed over” their homes. The sign of the cross on the Christian says “hands off!” to the power of Darkness. Note that Jesus says to his disciples “I have given you power to tread on snakes and scorpions and all the forces of the enemy, and nothing shall ever injure you” (Lk 10:19). The sign of the cross is the sign of this power.
But this sign means even more than belonging to the triune God. It indicates how and why we’ve come to belong to God and to be entitled to his protection. It means that for my standing with God, I do not trust in the good deeds that I’ve done or the “good person” that I am. Rather, I stake my claim to heaven on what Jesus did for me on Calvary. It means that I am saved by a pure gift of His love, by grace. “May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Gal 6:14).
Each time I make this sign, it is a renewal of my “decision for Christ,” my intimate relationship of love with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which comes as a pure gift of God’s grace through faith, baptism and confirmation. In this simple little sign is contained the very essence of the gospel.
The good news is that everything in the Catholic heritage is like this – full of rich meaning that we’ve forgotten. But we can recover the meaning and reactivate the power. Let’s get busy exploring and unpacking the amazing Catholic tradition!
For more by Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio, check out The Crossroads Initiative
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Theistic Revolution
By William F. Clark
"God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, Prologue
"It is really so: the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." — Pope Benedict XVI
A REVOLUTION IN THE OFFING
Within less than 20 years, theistic religion will become the developed world's primary organizing and motivating force — not through orderly growth, but suddenly and by default, as today's wrongheaded social patterns and perspectives become untenable. Atheism in particular is about to fall victim to its own errors, while Roman Catholicism is uniquely positioned to gain tremendous stature. Historians may one day refer to this event as the "Theistic Revolution."
WHERE WE ARE TODAY
For generations, the West has drifted ever further into a form of atheism that manifests itself in behavior rather than professed ideology. (Except during the heyday of Marxism, relatively few people have embraced philosophical atheism.)
Our contemporaries have fallen into this atheism of practice largely because many of the Christian clergy have lost the ability to proclaim a compelling alternative. Most people's hopes, cares, and entire perspective are constrained to fit within a purely material world.
Westerners are alienated from their civilization's religious past and seemingly without recourse to a source of transcendent truth. Their ethics, fundamental beliefs (to the extent they are even developed), and behavior are in flux, often influenced by concepts that are attractive only for as long as they seem novel.
As a result, many among us see their own lives unfolding within the context of randomness. They detect no obvious purpose for existence, and feel no assurance that their aspirations, achievements, and trials have any lasting significance. In this way, atheism has devalued the world and obliterated hope.
In a desperate response, increasing numbers of educated people have sought meaning in, and eventually been disappointed by, occultism, various superstitions derived from Eastern religions, or pop psychology. Others have thrown themselves into a single-minded pursuit of professional goals or other personal agendas. Unfortunately, these goals and agendas usually spring from egocentric obsessions or the desire for riches, so even if they are achieved, they do not satisfy man's hunger for truth and purpose. The Catholic concept of a vocation — a call from God to dedicate one's life to a specific path and all of its attendant burdens for the sake of salvation and the common good — or any other concept of duty that transcends the self, is usually simply absent.
HOW WE GOT HERE
Atheism attained its grip on the West largely via the propagation and general acceptance of the Theory of Evolution, following the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. According to Darwin, groups of organisms change over time, mainly because of natural selection, causing descendants to differ in structure and physiology from their ancestors. (In this paper, "evolution" refers to macroevolution — the development of entirely new species and functional structures, not microevolution — routine variations within species (e.g., breeds of dogs) that do not create new structures or species.)
This theory provided an explanation for the origin of species that obviated the need for divine intervention, so it reduced many believers' confidence in Christian and Jewish teachings, and tended to make God seem remote. By substituting chance and natural selection for a creating God, Evolutionism also debased all living things, including man, by re-classifying them — at least implicitly — as accidents. William Provine, professor of evolutionary biology at Cornell University, described Darwinism as "the greatest engine of atheism devised by man." (Michael Powell, "Doubting Rationalist 'Intelligent Design' Proponent Phillip Johnson, and How He Came to Be," The Washington Post (May 15, 2005), page D01)
The entire Christian worldview suddenly seemed hopelessly anachronistic. In the 1860's, prominent churchmen such as John William Colenso, Anglican Bishop of Natal, South Africa, were inspired by The Origin of Species to reconsider the historicity of the Bible. Colenso ultimately rejected the historical truth of the Biblical creation narratives in a controversial book, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, which gained much notoriety at the time.
Most theologians simply vacated the intellectual battlefield. With regularity and an air of certainty that they no longer projected about many traditional doctrines of their religion, the clergy reminded their congregations that "the Bible is not a science textbook." Theologians treated this truism as an all-sufficient justification for the uncritical acceptance of rationalistic preconceptions (e.g., that miracles and authoritative, supernatural revelation of the truth in human language are impossible).
This set the tone for much of theology during the following century, and predisposed Christians to abandon beliefs and customs that seemed irrelevant in the modern era.
Within most of the Christian world, this secularizing trend was reinforced over time, which tended to reduce further the prominence of what was once widely accepted as "revealed truth." For example, in 1982, theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg noted that the World Council of Churches had reorganized its structure apparently to de-emphasize potentially divisive doctrinal initiatives in favor of less controversial efforts for social justice and peace. (Richard John Neuhaus, "Pannenberg Jousts with the World Council of Churches," Christian Century, February 17, 1982, p.174.)
At the same time, throughout the industrialized world, technological progress continued, which raised the average standard of living and seemed to make less urgent the ultimate questions about the meaning of life and the existence of God. Most Christians traded their traditional mores for ever-more permissive standards — initially with little apparent cost. (The societies established during a more religious era have not yet lost their capacity to produce goods.) Many non-Christian nations underwent a similar transition.
Today, only a minority in the developed world take the major religions seriously. Also, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the disillusionment that followed the radicalism of the 1960's, ideologies and utopian philosophies — religion's only competition in the provision of durable hope — have been discredited almost completely.
Millions now spend their days distracting themselves with material goods and other passing interests. In such soil, hope and love do not take root, leaving little motivation or justification for the selfless sacrifices upon which every society depends. It is already possible to predict many of the impacts that will eventually result from this mentality.
WHY THE REVOLUTION WILL OCCUR: AN OVERVIEW
Scientific research and societal trends are both hastening the demise of atheism in all its forms.
Philosophical atheism cannot thrive without a rationalistic explanation for the origin and diversity of life. The only explanations that were credible were versions of the Theory of Evolution (e.g., Neo-Darwinism and Punctuationism). As I will explain, these are being discredited — largely by incisive critiques that various evolutionary theorists have written about each other's concepts.
In society, the previously hidden, corrosive aspects of practical atheism have begun to manifest themselves. Where God is no longer the ultimate point of reference, people have lost perspective and all sense of proportion. They now view the universe as if it were reflected from a fun-house mirror: some of the smaller things in the world loom absurdly large, while many of the most important aspects of life — especially the opportunity to extend God's love and receive it again through a family or religious devotion — are made to look small, even repulsive. Led astray by these distortions, people are making foolish choices.
There are now increasing numbers of otherwise responsible, healthy, financially secure couples who have chosen not to have children in order to devote themselves more fully to office work, pets, and a surfeit of gadgets and living space that they scarcely have time to use. The embrace of artificial contraception has reinforced the view that children are something to be avoided at all cost, and that their creation should more often than not be left to "someone else."
The resulting "baby bust" is about to destabilize nations, because the most self-sufficient members of society are not replacing themselves with similarly capable citizens who can support pension programs in particular and civilization in general. As economies are undermined, it will become impossible for most people to ignore moral and religious issues any longer: pain will have opened their minds.
The condemnation of artificial contraception, which is the most distinctive and controverted point of Catholic moral doctrine, will be vindicated spectacularly. The credibility and influence of the Catholic Church will skyrocket.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SCIENTIFIC ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION
For over a century, science appeared to be an ally of atheism, primarily because of the Theory of Evolution and the tireless work of its exponents. The latest research, however, is buttressing theistic religious belief — and this applies especially to the fields of cosmology and biology.
Among the strongest scientific evidence for the existence of God is the Cosmological Anthropic Principle, which has illuminated how narrow is the range of physical constants in the universe that would permit the emergence of intelligent life. The late Sir Fred Hoyle, a world class cosmologist who served as Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University and founded the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy, put it this way: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." ("The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics 20 (1982):16.)
As astronomer and cosmologist Robert Jastrow stated: "The smallest change in any of the circumstances of the natural world, such as the relative strengths of the forces of nature, or the properties of the elementary particles, would have led to a Universe in which there could be no life and no man" (quoted by Roy Abraham Varghese in The Intellectuals Speak Out About God (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984), pages 21-22). This principle applies to several physical constants, including electromagnetic force, gravitational force, and the ratio of neutron mass to proton mass. If any of these were fractionally different, matter would have different properties and densities. Stars would condense too rapidly to sustain life, or there would be no carbon — which appears to be a prerequisite for living things.
Perhaps deliberately to escape the clear theistic implications of the Cosmological Anthropic Principle, some have posited the existence of a multiplicity of universes (multiverse) with countless potentially different laws of physics. These theorists assert that given enough universes, it becomes certain that at least one will have physical laws and constants that are conducive to the development of life. Obviously, adherence to this theory requires a non-theistic version of pure faith in something unseen — faith in the unproven existence of universes other than our own.
Luminaries in the world of biology have contributed evidence that indicates an intellect created life on earth and directed its development. Interestingly, many of them consider themselves atheists, but their findings provide strong justification for belief in God. One such atheist, the late Sir Francis Crick, Nobel prize-winning co-discoverer of DNA, wrote: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." (Life Itself (New York: Touchstone, 1982), page 88)
The Theory of Evolution finds itself beset by difficulties: the above-mentioned challenges to belief in the accidental creation of life, and fratricidal disputes between proponents of Evolution's two leading schools (Punctuationism and Neo-Darwinism).
The huge differences between these schools of evolutionary theory are sometimes overlooked:
According to Neo-Darwinism, evolution occurs slowly, as random DNA copying errors continuously give rise to relatively small-scale mutations, and a rare subset of these mutations confer competitive advantages on organisms that have them. These mutations gradually produce major new structures and entirely new species. The fossil record has not yet supported this view. As the previously quoted Professor Provine, himself a convinced evolutionist, stated, "...the evidence for the big transformations in evolution is not there in the fossil record — it's always good to point this out." (Michael Powell, "Doubting Rationalist 'Intelligent Design' Proponent Phillip Johnson, and How He Came to Be," The Washington Post (May 15, 2005), page D01.) Others have noted that the long continuum of mutations necessary (according to this theory) to create fully functional structures would also produce many useless and clumsy intermediate structures, which would actually frustrate evolutionary progress by making their owners less fit.
Punctuationism can be considered a reaction to, and critique of, Neo-Darwinism. It asserts that evolutionary change happens so rapidly and in such isolated populations that its details are seldom captured in the fossil record. Although this concept appears tailor-made to explain the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record, it requires basically blind faith that highly complex, fully functional structures and brand new species were repeatedly created almost instantly (in terms of geologic time) — but still by accident.
Disputes between the champions of these schools of Evolutionary Theory (e.g., between the late Steven Jay Gould, who helped establish Punctuationism, and Richard Dawkins, a leading defender of orthodox Neo-Darwinism) have been heated and public, perhaps because they instinctively recognize each other's critiques as serious threats to the entire Evolutionist worldview. The gulf between, and deficiencies of, these versions of the Theory of Evolution are so significant, that there is little chance that a credible new synthesis can be derived from them. The relationship of their proponents is best described as mutual annihilation, not healthy competition: they have salted the ground underneath each others' feet.
The growing Intelligent Design (ID) movement has exploited these and other critiques to emerge as a powerful alternative to Evolutionary Theory. According to the Access Research Network Website (http://www.arn.org/idfaq/What%20is%20intelligent%20design.htm), ID Theory holds that "nature shows tangible signs of having been designed by a preexisting intelligence." ID is not tied to any specific religion, so it is gaining a variety of adherents who cannot easily be branded by Evolutionists as Christian fundamentalist agitators. Nor can they be dismissed as ignorant.
By July 22, 2005, over 400 scientists, including a professor of bio-organic chemistry at Moscow State University, the Vice President of the XIV International Congress of Genetics, and others holding doctorates from Princeton, Cornell, and other reputable institutions had signed a "scientific dissent from Darwinism." The dissent (available at http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=443) stated that "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
The Catholic Church is beginning to draw attention to problems with the Theory of Evolution, and their implications. Earlier this year, in the inaugural Mass of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI stated, "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution." In a July 7, 2005 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, wrote the following:
The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. ("Finding Design in Nature," The New York Times, (July 7, 2005), Editorials/Op-Ed Section)
In the same piece, Cardinal Schonborn approvingly quoted the following words of Pope John Paul II:
To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems.
Cardinal Schonborn concluded with the following forceful statement:
Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SOCIETAL ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION
On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, the most controversial papal encyclical of the last 400 years, which declared that artificial birth control is immoral. A key portion of the encyclical follows (emphasis mine):
...Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards....Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection..... Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go...
At the time, the intelligentsia, and perhaps the majority of the Christian laity and clergy branded Pope Paul's decision foolish, despite its congruence with what every major Christian denomination had taught until 1930. (In that year, the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference approved contraception in limited circumstances — a first among major Christian bodies.) Few believed Pope Paul's concerns had any merit whatsoever.
Ironically, almost exactly 30 years later, the following words appeared in the New York Times under the headline "Population Implosion Worries a Graying Europe":
Driven largely by prosperity and freedom, millions of women throughout the developed world are having fewer children than ever before....As a result, birth rates in many countries are now in a rapid, sustained decline. Never before — except in times of plague, war and deep economic depression — have birth rates fallen so low, for so long. What was once regarded universally as a cherished goal — incredibly low birth rates — have in the industrial world at least suddenly become a cause for alarm. With life expectancy rising at the same time that fertility drops, most developed countries may soon find themselves with lopsided societies that will be nearly impossible to sustain: a large number of elderly and not enough young people working to support them. The change will affect every program — from health care and education to pension plans and military spending — that requires public funds. (Michael Specter, "Population Implosion Worries a Graying Europe," The New York Times, (July 10, 1998))
The same concerns about dropping birthrates are evident in industrialized non-European nations as well, including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. All face the likelihood of destabilization. The number of retirees will swell, while the ranks of able-bodied workers to replace them will dwindle or become dominated by immigrants — immigrants who will have no desire to pay high taxes to support the retirement of people with whom they have relatively little in common. Barring huge breakthroughs in automation to compensate for the lack of young workers, pressure for mandatory euthanasia of the elderly will grow. (The pressure may already be considerable. Some observers believe the scandalously lackadaisical nature of the French government's response to a terrible heat wave in the summer of 2003, which killed 14,847 primarily elderly people, resulted from indifference to the plight of the aged.)
Returning to Humanae Vitae, we see that the Pope's prescience regarding artificial birth control included an understanding of its eventual impacts upon morals. After considering the fashions, music, and general behavior of young people today, who could argue that Paul VI's prediction was inaccurate?
The Catholic Church's counterintuitive foresight and vocal witness regarding the immorality and dangers of artificial birth control were stunning and unique among major institutions of the day — especially those in the developed world. Only the intervention of a supernatural intelligence could have made them possible, and many of our contemporaries will soon realize this.
The widespread availability of artificial birth control is not the only reason for the sharp reduction in the birthrates of developed countries. We must also consider the effects of the previously mentioned atheistic, materialist mentality that robs people of the morale, stamina, and will to sacrifice for their neighbors and for generations of descendents they will not live to see. Michael Specter's article quotes Dr. Pierpaolo Donati, professor of sociology at the University of Bologna: "Prosperity has strangled us. Comfort is now the only thing that anybody believes in. The ethic of sacrifice for a family — one of the basic ideas of human societies — has become a historical notion. It is astonishing."
The mindset that produced this behavior is essentially exterminating itself. Those who have maintained the will to share life with the next generation, and who are still capable of recognizing this life as a divine gift, will dominate the future.
HARBINGERS OF THE REVOLUTION
The appeal of a deliberately theistic approach to life is already growing, even among those who were formerly most hostile to it. In recent years, several intellectuals and prominent members of the secular establishment have abandoned atheism. Millions will soon follow the trail blazed by the following harbingers of the Theistic Revolution:
Jean Paul Sartre: After a long career as an atheistic existentialist, in 1980 said "I do not feel I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God." (Quoted in Varghese's The Intellectuals Speak Out About God; p. 128)
Sir Anthony Flew: British philosophy professor who was long considered a leading champion of atheism, said in a 2004 interview that he has concluded that an intelligence or first cause created the universe, and that a super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature. (ABC News Report; December 9, 2004)
Dr. Mortimer Adler: Former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, leading American philosopher, and at various times a self-described agnostic and pagan, converted to Christianity in 1984 and to Roman Catholicism in 1999.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson: Former atheist, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL; originally known as the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), and former director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health in New York City, who personally performed over 5000 abortions (one of which killed his own child), converted to Roman Catholicism in 1996.
HOW THE CHURCHES WILL FARE
Not all churches and denominations will thrive during and after the Theistic Revolution. As increasing numbers of thinkers objectively evaluate various Christian groups, the weaknesses of Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy relative to Catholicism will come into sharp focus. Here is a brief look at the also-rans:
Liberal Protestantism: Rests on a self-contradictory assertion that it is possible to declare authoritatively that there is no authoritative revelation. Non-Christian Physicist Steven Weinberg, quoted by Frank Tipler (The Physics of Immortality (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), page 340) put it bluntly:
Religious liberals are in one sense even farther in spirit from scientists than are fundamentalists and other religious conservatives. At least the conservatives like the scientists tell you that they believe in what they believe in because it is true, rather than because it makes them good or happy. Many religious liberals today seem to think that different people can believe in different mutually exclusive things without any of them being wrong, as long as their beliefs 'work for them.'...We are surrounded by piety without content....I happen to believe that the religious conservatives are wrong in what they believe, but at least they have not forgotten what it means to believe in something.
This religion offers man little reason for hope, because it denies the possibility of the intimacy with God that divine revelation represents. As historian James Hitchcock wrote (What is Secular Humanism? (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1982), page 123):
Liberalism in religion has never been a way into faith; it has always been a way out....A loosely defined religion, subject to endless revisions in keeping with the preferences of individuals, has little appeal to those outside the faith. It serves mainly those who chafe against their inherited faith and are looking for ways to make it less demanding.
Eastern Orthodoxy: Maintains a beautiful liturgy and rich spirituality, but its hierarchy is afflicted by national rivalries, leaving the Orthodox Churches incapable of speaking with a single, definitive voice. For those who expect to be able to identify God's Church by its capacity to provide authoritative guidance on the major moral questions of the day, the relative silence of the Orthodox Churches on prominent issues such as abortion, cloning, and homosexual marriage does not compare favorably with the performance of the Roman Catholic Church.
Eastern Orthodoxy will also probably continue to be frustrated by its conflicted attitude toward the papacy. The Orthodox manifest what appears to be both jealousy of the Pope's prestige and recognition of his role as at least "first among equals" within the global episcopate.
Fundamentalist and Conservative Evangelical Protestant Communities: Claim authority based on something that many will realize is an impossibility — an infallible canon of scripture defined by humans without assistance from an infallible Church. The growing multiplicity of, and fundamental disagreements among, these communities demonstrate that the Bible alone is not sufficient for the establishment of church unity and doctrine.
THE CATALYST FOR THE REVOLUTION
The attacks perpetrated since September 2001 by Muslim fanatics in the United States, Europe, and the Far East are a major catalyst for the Theistic Revolution. This is so, because these events have conclusively demonstrated that major assumptions of the modern mentality are specious — especially the belief that religious opinions "don't matter" and that all expressed points of view should be treated as equally valid.
Ultimately, the repulsive violence and intellectual poverty endemic to Islam will check its growth and help ensure Christianity's conquest of the developed world. This will occur despite the fact that many demographers predict that Islam will become the dominant religion in Europe before the end of the 21st century because of immigration and the currently low birthrate of native Europeans.
The prospect of domination by Islam will help motivate increasing numbers of Westerners to jettison everything associated with the hopelessly depressing atheistic philosophy that made such domination a real possibility. Atheism will yield its ground to primarily Christian theism, and Islam will recede into the shadows.
Originally published at Seattle Catholic
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