Some time ago, I made the decision to change the Mass schedule at St. Julies in order to address a pastoral concern:  In consultation with the parish council, I ended the 8 am Mass and instituted a 5 pm Mass to serve our youth ministry program.   Now, I could have kept the original 3-morning-Mass schedule and simply added the evening Mass; but there were a few reasons I did not do this: Chief among them, I felt that, with a Church seating around 700 people, an opportunity presented itself to “stop feeding the convenience monster.”  This is the name I would give to an attitude which parishes have long been facilitating in the Catholic Community.  Many of you will recall the days when there could be as many as six Masses on a Sunday morning, on the hour, every hour.  Of course, back then, a rectory would have two or more priests in residence.
It is clear to me that, in this part of the world, we have been spoiled rotten.  Out in the western part of the country, many Catholics have had to drive for an hour or more to fulfill their Sunday obligation for a long time now.  To this day, however, I hear murmuring and/or gripes about the change in our schedule and, along with this, an attitude which concerns me in respect to the future:  The day is coming, and it is coming very soon, when things will not be so convenient any more.  This is something for every Catholic to contemplate seriously.  However, even more important than the matter of when and where Masses will be available, there is the underlying priority which is given to convenience over “communion/covenant.”  Of course, these values pertain, most properly speaking, in relationship to Christ and the Church universal:  However, we express them, concretely, in our relationships with a particular parish community.  
While we did not lose all that many people from St. Julie’s when we made our schedule change, (indeed we lost and we gained!); I did take notice that there were certain people who, apparently, had ceased attending Mass here in favor of some other parish.  It has been more a matter of occasional grumbling and criticism which reaches my ears on the matter.
My purpose is not to return “grumble for grumble,” but to raise to the surface a possible obstacle to spiritual maturity.  Convenience, while it is a value, cannot be placed too high on the list of important values.  In reflecting upon this, we need to wonder about the relationship between matters like love versus convenience, or the aforementioned communion/covenant versus convenience.  I think that we will find that convenience is not simply a neutral value, but that it can be intoxicating in its own way . . . playing off of our anxieties and challenging the higher values on our priority lists.
Perhaps, for Lent, this might be a topic which one could bring to prayer:  After all, this is a season in which we are called to challenge our hearts, minds and bodies to be in a state of greater receptivity to the transforming grace of the Lord.  

Fr. Greg

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Monday February 20, 2012

Sunday, February 19, 2012

I fully acknowledge that this is a teaching of the Church that very many, if not the majority, of Catholics reject.  Many of you who are reading this article now may be among the deeply skeptical, or those who find the teaching nonsensical.

What is the teaching?  In its essence, it is that there is an intrinsic relationship between the sexual act and the procreation of children.  In other words, “by its very nature” it is ordered to the bringing forth of children.  In a sense, this is self-evident:  The organs and fluids involved in this natural human act are designed, precisely, to create children.  The moral question which arises is whether it is morally licit to directly interrupt this natural process of human generation.  The issues which provoke this question are familiar and logical: The are concerns about responsible parenthood, economics, overpopulation, dangerous pregnancies, etc.  Therefore, the logic follows, “Could it not be admitted . . . that procreative finality applies to the totality of married life rather than to each single act?”  In other words, if there is a general openness to having children in marriage, cannot employing methods of contraception to prevent pregnancy be valid and acceptable on some occasions?

To the chagrin of many, at the time of the encyclical’s release and up to this very day, the answer has been “No.”  Basing himself on the “natural moral law,” (the Law of God imprinted on our nature), the Pope explains with this comparison:

Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one’s partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife. If they further reflect, they must also recognize that an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life.

In one scenario, the act is forced against the will or desire of one of the partners, and so the “unifying” aspect of the act is excluded.  Something which is intrinsic to the act, cultivating mutual love, is missing.  In the second scenario, an effort is made by one or both spouses to prevent conception, and so the “procreative” aspect is excluded.  Both aspects—unity and procreation—are intrinsic to the act.  It is easy for us to regard the first example as repugnant: The Pope wants us to see the same in the second.  “Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will.”

There is much more to the teaching than I can address in this small column; but, perhaps it gives you a “flavor” for the logic.  You may be among the many who struggle greatly with this teaching and what it means to live it out in the world.  Indeed, the document alludes to the necessity for “heroic” virtue in living the married life.  As is true of all things in our Faith, the horizon of the Church’s teachings are eternal union with God and the transformation we expect at the consummation of Christ’s saving work.

Fr. Greg

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Friday, February 17, 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Monday, February 13, 2012

Sunday, February 12, 2012

If God is everywhere, why can’t I just pray and worship wherever I happen to be?

. . . These are the sorts of questions which might be familiar to parents of children who are complaining about going to Mass.  However, they represent one of the excuses of most modern people who forgo “organized religion.”  We see this in a recent “viral video” wherein a young man “raps” about his love for Jesus and, at the same time, dismisses any need for “religion.”

As I reflected on the scripture passage of King Solomon dedicating the new temple in Jerusalem this past week, this issue emerged into my consciousness and I sat reflecting on it.  I came up with the following scheme which you may or may not find helpful:

Somewhere –Everywhere –Nowhere

God is somewhere.  We know that he has visited his people in history.  He dwelt in the meeting tent during the Exodus and in the Temple of Jerusalem, and in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  God dwelt among us in human form through Jesus Christ and, therefore, bound himself to being in a particular time and place.

God is everywhere. As the creator and sustainer of the universe, God is present in all of his works: He “holds up” and “holds together” everything that exists.  There is not a corner of existence where God cannot be present.

God is nowhere.  This has to be said in a very qualified way because, on the face of it, it seems to suggest that God doesn’t exist. On the contrary, when I say that God is nowhere, I mean to say that God is not bound or governed by being in any particular place or time.

We are always somewhere.  This is self-evident to everyone.  Sometimes we wish we could be in two places at once, but it’s just simply impossible.

We can visit everywhere . . . in the sense that it is theoretically possible for us to go anywhere we want in the world at some time or other.  We often conceive in our minds visits to different “neighborhoods” of everywhere while we are somewhere in particular, (in the shower, driving in our car, waiting in line at the bank, etc.)

We cannot be nowhere. That is poor English, but I mean to say that, unlike God, we are always bound and determined to be somewhere.

Think about it:  If you accept the above as logical and true, it makes perfect sense that God would provide for his beloved human children a particular “somewhere” to go and to be present to Him.  Psychologically speaking, if God is everywhere then God is nowhere.  How is that?  God knows that we can be most present to him in our primary mode of being somewhere.  Certainly I can worship and praise the Lord in the shower, while driving my car and in line at the bank; but is it likely that I will?  We have to be honest about our human nature: it is too easy to say “Because I believe God is everywhere, I don’t need religion or a church to praise and worship: I will do these things in my heart wherever I am.”

Lest you think I am reducing this to a matter of human psychology, I’ll be specific in the matter of Mass and the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  To say that Jesus Christ dwells in the sacrament of the bread and wine and in the tabernacle or on the altar during Mass does not exclude the truth that he is also everywhere.  Jesus’ command to the Church, “Do this in memory of me.”, was the inauguration of a new mode of his presence somewhere and in something in the world after his earthly mission came to an end.  By this sacrament he meets us where we, primarily, live . . . somewhere.

Fr. Greg

Friday, February 10, 2012

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Monday, February 6, 2012

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Dull incomprehension . . . it’s the look in the eyes of a congregation that I dread as I try, with all earnestness, to lead the people in the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass which encompasses the consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  I think, “maybe if I enunciate perfectly, and raise the volume of my voice a bit, and inject a bit of emotion into the text, I will be better able to engage the people in this prayer:  Maybe I can keep their minds from drifting and losing focus on the act of worship at hand.”

It’s tempting to reduce the weekly celebration of Mass to my performance and your attention, but this is too much of a reduction.  First and foremost, the Eucharist and the Mass are the actions of God’s grace through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit:  And, of course, linked to this gift of grace is the faith that we bring with us.  My effort to perform well and your effort to maintain a disciplined attention come in only after these two.

Of course, this is not to say that the efforts we put into our worship are meaningless: they should certainly be considered part of the response we make to the offer of grace through the gift of God’s word, and the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  If I preside over the celebration of Mass badly, or if you are terribly distracted, it is obvious that these will be obstacles to good prayer and receptivity to the gifts the Lord offers.  

A more challenging question might arise in all of this as to whether “ritual worship,” like the Mass, is too difficult for us or if this form is, itself, an obstacle to real prayer and praise.  The obvious counter-example to it would be the boisterous, evangelical worship services you see on television, presided over by televangelists.  People are up off their seats clapping their hands, the preacher moves about the stage, Bible in one hand, gesticulating with the other, and expressing himself with all-dramatic fervor.  Is that a better form of worship?  Is it more sincere and/or heart-felt?  I, for one, suspect that it has its own liabilities over the long haul: It seems likely to me that it may place too much emphasis on what a person feels or what a person “should” feel.  It also seems to me that the emphasis on the preacher’s skill or performance could easily eclipse people’s consciousness of the action of grace, (a cult of personality).  

 In support of our own Sacred Tradition, a Catholic philosophy professor from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, Michael Tkacz offers the following, helpful reflection:  “While free-lance prayer is good, we need the discipline of ritual, because prayer is a need and duty regardless of how we feel.  Spontaneity in prayer is not nearly as important as steadfastness.  I know of no passages in the Scripture which tell us to be spontaneous in prayer, but we are often urged to be steadfast.  Also, we need the authority of ritual prayers that are properly formulated so that we are oriented to the truth of our need for God.  We are not always the best judge of our needs, but God knows us better than we know ourselves” (Adoremus.org).

In past articles I had suggested the notion of “making the prayers your own,” as a way of overcoming the obstacles to ritual repetition: As I consider the problem again, it occurs to me that following along with the missalette for a time might facilitate exactly that sort of personal engagement and a deepening of prayer.  Like so many other important and meaningful activities in life, we need training:  This is the Mass!  It is the whole Church’s rehearsal for eternal life.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Friday, February 3, 2012

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree.

 . . .broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of the rights of individual freedom, and on this basis they claim not only exemption from punishment but even authorization by the State, so that these things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of health-care systems.

The end result of this is tragic: not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life.

Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon.

It is not only that in generalized opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as “crimes”; paradoxically they assume the nature of “rights”, to the point that the State is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel. 

This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable “culture of death”. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency.  

 . . . Thus, in relation to life at birth or at death, man is no longer capable of posing the question of the truest meaning of his own existence, nor can he assimilate with genuine freedom these crucial moments of his own history. He is concerned only with “doing”, and, using all kinds of technology: He busies himself with programming, controlling and dominating birth and death. Birth and death— instead of being primary experiences demanding to be “lived”—become things to be merely “possessed” or “rejected”.

Moreover, man and his life appear to us not only as one of the greatest marvels of creation: for God has granted to man a dignity which is near to divine (Ps 8:5-6). In every child which is born and in every person who lives or dies we see the image of God’s glory. We celebrate this glory in every human being, a sign of the living God, an icon of Jesus Christ.