How to plant seeds of faith with strangers

When having a conversation with someone who is ignorant or hostile to Catholic teaching, a reasoned, gentle defense is most effective

You are sitting at your son’s soccer game, enjoying the crisp weather and your boy’s joy for the game. Then you hear someone nearby say “Catholic Church,” then “divorce”; suddenly the hair on your neck stands on end and your body tenses.

You realize that two parents next to you are criticizing the Church; they notice you looking at them and ask, “What do you think?”

Now that we live in a post-Christian world, every one of us encounters situations like this. The Catholic Church teaches certain precepts that are simply unacceptable — antithetical, even — to the modern ethos. Standing by those precepts, we open ourselves to criticism and even attack. Furthermore — and sadly — there are scandals surrounding some Church figures that open Catholics up for easy condemnation.

Be prepared

So what are Catholics to do? How do we respond? What are our obligations in these situations?
In a time of persecution in a deeply pagan culture, our first pope, St. Peter, wrote to his fellow Christians, “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pt 3:15, RSV). This is an oft-quoted Scripture passage, especially among evangelists and apologists, but not quoted as frequently are St. Peter’s next words, “yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pt 3:15b, RSV).

Thus we have the guidelines laid out for how we are to react when our faith is challenged or defamed:
◗ Be prepared to make a defense.
◗ Do so with gentleness and reverence.

So, how do we go about following St. Peter’s command?

Read the rest here.

Behold the Wood of the Cross

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) – When Catholics and Protestants have opportunities to talk about their Christian faith, at some point the topic will turn to the crucifix versus the cross. The Protestant argument usually ends (or sometimes begins) with the words – “but don’t you know that Christ was raised from the dead?”

Apart from the fact that, yes… we know that… we believe that with all of hearts, the question does not really address the real issue. In a few such conversations I confess that I have defaulted to an equally inane response.

“Well, if you really want to celebrate the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, why don’t you wear an empty tomb around your neck?”

By the way, a few years ago I did a web search and found a company called Empty Tomb Jewelry. Case closed!

Seriously though, the issue of the cross and the crucifix is one that points to an important point. The cross has absolutely no importance apart from the One who hung upon it the first Good Friday. Countess lives were lost on the cross over a large span of time. It was the “torture of choice” for the Romans and yet those deaths did not give rise to any embrace of this image.

On Good Friday we venerate the cross – a word that means honor, esteem, adoration, or regard very highly. Yet, the liturgy betrays the reason. “Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the salvation of the world.”

The cross alone is a wonderful Christian symbol, but leaves no challenge to the beholder. Crosses are worn by people of all walks of life and all conditions of life. It has become an item of adornment as well as a Christian symbol. The scandal begins when Salvation is hung upon it.

The crucifix calls people to a decision… a decision about the Lord Jesus Christ, who hung upon the Cross, becoming the salvation of the world. People must choose what to do about Him, whether to accept His death and, with it, the fullness of all that He revealed, or to reject Him.

A nineteenth century Baptist evangelist, D.L. Moody, captured the heart of this confrontation in a sermon entitled “What Think Ye of Christ?” He guided his hearers through a serious of interviews, including those who were present for His passion and death. To each one – the Pharisees, Caiaphas, Pilate, Judas, the Centurion at the cross, the Apostles – he asked the key question, “What think ye of Christ?” Each one answered in kind.

The crucifix continues to call us, Catholic, Protestant, and all the sorts and conditions of humanity, to respond. Our response should not just be based on what is found in our liturgies, but more importantly what is found in our hearts. It is there, in the very core of our being that the question must be settled.

What do we think of Christ? What place does He really occupy in our lives? How does His passion, death, resurrection, and revelation impact me profoundly?

During Lent the Church visits the Christ’s Passion and Death through the Stations of the Cross. Each each station the minister says, “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.” To which we respond, “Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

This is why we don’t wear an empty tomb around our necks. Resurrection without a Redeemer is merely a restoration of life. When the cross is added, it is for the life of the world!

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Infallible Infallibility

From Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

I am reading a conversion story and apologetical book called An Invitation Heeded published at the end of the 1800s with a view to editing it for re-publication by the Coming Home Network. In the chapter on infallibility the author makes the very good point that rather than the Catholic Church's stance on infallibility being nonsensical, it is the churches who deny infallibility that are absurd. The essential Protestant position is, "Our church is merely a human institution. It is not infallible." And yet they demand allegiance of the faithful to the beliefs and moral teachings of their church. But if their church, by their own insistence, is fallible how can they demand obedience and loyalty to their teachings? There is a logical hiccup here of enormous magnitude.

Continue Reading >>

Fr Richards on Purgatory

Fr Richard's homily today was inspired! He was on fire!! He defended the Church's teaching on purgatory, praying for the dead, asking saints for intercession and faith and works. But he also was not afraid to explicitly say that Protestants who attack the Church's stance on these matters of faith are wrong, that their reasoning is illogical and that they use scripture out of context.

We need more apologists like him.

I've been thinking the Catholics today are too often on the defensive - putting out fires caused by critics but not faulting them for being wrong and misleading. We need more people like St Augustine and St Dominic, not afraid to tell people that they're illogical and wrong.

Sola Fidei?
"What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him? And if a brother or sister be naked, and want daily food:

And one of you say to them: Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself. But some man will say: Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my faith. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou, that faith did co-operate with his works; and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God. Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only? And in like manner also Rahab the harlot, was not she justified by works, receiving the messengers, and sending them out another way?

For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead."

James 2:14-26

No intercession from the saints?
Protestants use St Paul's words that there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ. As usual they take it out of context.

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus
1 Timothy 2:1-5

So St Paul is encouraging us to offer supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving for all men. We all do that. We ask our friends to pray for our exams, for our sick loved ones, protestants asks their pastors to pray for them - sending piles and piles of prayer intentions to some of them.
Well, they ask people (who, according to Father might be "idiots or part-time crooks" :p) to pray. Why can't we ask our friends in Heaven? There is still only one mediator - Christ. All graces are bestowed through Him...

One of his explanations on why we believe in purgatory.
"Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."
Matthew 12:31-32

In the world to come? Hell? No. People in hell aren't forgiven their sins. Heaven? No. There is nothing unclean in Heaven. There is no sin in Heaven to be forgotten. Then? Purgatory.

"And that servant who knew the will of his lord, and prepared not himself, and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."
Luke 12:47-48

Many and few stripes. Different levels of punishment - implies purgatory...
Also it occurred to me it seems like a Biblical basis for explaining why even people who aren't baptized may attait Heaven - through the goodness and mercy of God. For indeed, they "knew not"...

Both Protestants and Catholicism when they talk about someone's death, say "may his soul rest in peace." Graves are inscribed with this.
But, Fr Richards says, only Catholics mean what they say...

Purgatory is not named in the Bible. Well, neither is the doctrine of the Trinity. Protestants believe in that don't they? Catholics arrived at BOTH the doctrine of the Trinity AND the doctrine of purgatory through a similar process, using the Word of God, the teaching authority given to the Church and through logic .

Thanks Fr Richards for reminding us that to reason and to know history is to cease to be protestant.

Don't forget to pray for those in purgatory. Especially those who do not have anyone to pray for them.

Sacrilege and sanctity in the YouTube generation

SDG has a great article regarding the videos on Youtube that depict the desecration of consecrated hosts.

To sign the petition asking Youtube to pull the videos, please please go HERE

Here are some excerpts from the article with my own emphasis in bold:

...

What this means is that we should recognize that we are vulnerable. In the Eucharist, that which is most precious to us is sacramentally available for our reception is also available for others' abuse. We may not like it, but we can't stop it.

In a way, it is Christ himself who has ordained it thus. After surrendering his flesh to the abuse of the passion and crucifixion, Christ was vindicated in his flesh by the resurrection and ascension. At that point, had he wished, he could have made the graces of his passion available on earth through the sacraments without again placing his actual flesh and blood at our disposal. The divine plan was otherwise. He wants to be physically available to us, even at the risk of being subject to further abuse in his flesh by his enemies and ours.

It is important to bear in mind what this does not mean. No injury or suffering is imposed on Christ in desecration of the Eucharist. Unlike Christ's mortal body in the passion, Christ in the Eucharist is not physically vulnerable to harm. Although desecration is a grave offense against the good of religion, the only actual harm sustained is to the soul of the descrater, both in connection with the offense to Christ and the deliberate desire to cause pain and grief to pious Catholics — as well as that pain and grief itself.

At times, the great reverence with which Catholics regard the Eucharist has led Catholics to express the horror of desecration in ways that may be misleading or unhelpful to non-Catholics. Some have compared Webster Cook's removal of the host from the church to an act of kidnapping, or compared desecration to the murder or rape of a loved one. While such analogies are not without merit, they do run the risk of obstructing communication and understanding rather than facilitating it.

Kidnapping, murder and rape all cause immense trauma to the victim, and it is this trauma that causes the victim's loved ones to suffer. Because Jesus in the Eucharist cannot be traumatized or suffer in any way, the grief Catholics suffer from desecration of the Eucharist is not really comparable to that suffered by the loved ones of a victim of violent crime.

The disparity can be seen in other ways. For instance, I would unhesitatingly fight and die or even kill to prevent one of my children from being kidnapped or killed. But I wouldn't physically harm someone in order to prevent him from desecrating the Eucharist. I might courteously approach someone observed in the act of taking the Eucharist away without consuming it (in fact, I did this once), but after the Cook debacle I would be leery of any sort of physical contact.

Even if I believed that violent defense of the Eucharist were morally legitimate, it would still be unhelpful and counterproductive. Although the Webster Cook incident was probably blown out of proportion in several ways on several fronts, it seems likely that things could have been handled better in ways that would have made the situation better rather than worse.

...

Here are a few thoughts, not only regarding attacks on the Eucharist, but also attacks of other sorts on the Faith and the faithful — including in the comboxes of this very blog.

To begin with, there's nothing like being attacked to remind you that you're in a war. It's not a war against flesh and blood; our enemies are demons, not human beings, but the attacks do come through the actions of human beings. To be attacked in war is not a shocking departure from the norm; it's the expected thing. That doesn't mean it isn't dreadful — they say war is hell — but let's not lose perspective and think that something alarming is happening.

With respect to eucharistic desecration particularly, some practical steps might be in order. Our pastors and shepherds may not all be aware that this kind of thing goes on at all. You might email a few YouTube links to your pastor, or even your bishop, just to let them know, or perhaps write a letter to your diocesan paper. It would be nice to think that heightened consciousness might make a difference somewhere or other.

At the same time, let's recognize that public anger and outrage can be counter-productive. Public outcry can sometimes pressure market-sensitive organizations, or individuals capable of salutary shame, to eliminate unacceptable behavior or to adopt better behavior. It worked with eBay, and it may or may not work with YouTube — but it certainly won't work with the desecraters, or with those who in other ways attack the Faith and those who hold it.

On the contrary, it will only encourage them. In their minds, such reactions — the more passionate the better — both validate their opinion of us and justify the contempt in which they hold us, thereby granting them even more license to punish us further. Our cries of outrage are music to their ears. It is both their motivation and their goal.

Break the vicious circle. Don't give them what they want. Let's respond with sorrow, but not with outrage, and certainly not with anger, abuse, bitterness or contempt. Don't return evil for evil. Don't try, or even want, to hurt back those who hurt us.

Let there be nothing petty, vindictive, spiteful or self-righteous in our attitude — nothing to justify their contempt. Let's show them what is lacking in their disrespect for us by showing them what respect looks like.

I'm not saying to be friendly with people who are trying to kick you in the teeth. I am saying don't try to kick them back. I'm not saying not to call a spade a spade. We can call someone's behavior despicable (or disingenuous or whatever it is). We don't have to spit in their eye as we say it.

Try to respectfully recall people to right behavior rather than simply punishing them for bad behavior. Or, if they're incorrigible, call it like it is, without rancor, and move on. Don't engage in name-calling. Label behavior, not persons, and don't escalate for rhetorical effect. If someone's behavior is rude, say that it's rude — don't call it psychotic or demonic or something.

This isn't just a matter of "taking the high road"; it overlaps with that, but it needs to be more than that. It needs to be a matter of the spirit of Christ, who is perceived in the eucharistic elements only by faith and who relies on us to make him visible to the world.

Zeal for defending the Faith is not enough. There is a right way and a wrong way of defending the Faith; we need to do it the right way. By all means politely complain to YouTube, especially if you're a member, explaining that you feel the videos are inconsistent with their policy against shocking or offensive material. Don't leave scorched-earth comments on the offending videos. If you YouTube yourself, one really good pro-Catholic video is worth a thousand objections to bad ones.

Conspicuous piety isn't helpful either. Let's not make a big show of telling people that we're praying for them or that we forgive them, or go on in a highly devotional way about the mysteries of the passion and the sacraments — I mean, in public discourse engaging attacks on the Faith; of course highly devotional language about the mysteries of the passion and the sacraments is a good thing in itself.

Patience, humility and self-control can go a long way. Charity, of course, is the big thing — the one thing necessary.

Chesterton famously said that the only unanswerable argument against Christianity was Christians. Peter Kreeft has often pointed out that the reverse is also true: the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is Christians. It was an argument that conquered the Roman empire. It can conquer hearts and minds today.

The grace we need is available. Of those millions of Masses celebrated in the US every year, and hundreds of millions of hosts received, only a very few are maliciously desecrated. Even if many more are unworthily received, that's still a lot of grace flowing from heaven.

Pray the rosary. Spend time with the Blessed Sacrament. Read the Bible, the Catechism, the saints. Love God, love your neighbor. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on the wind and the waves. Let the peace of Christ reign in your heart. Yes, we're in a war, but it's already won.

In related news, THIS IS A GOOD ARTICLE.