A Message for Women who feel “invisible”
06 Monday Jul 2015
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in06 Monday Jul 2015
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in25 Thursday Jun 2015
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in“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
– G.K. Chesteron
24 Wednesday Jun 2015
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belief in God, catholic, catholic church, catholic ucc, catholicism, catholics, the honan chapel
Sometimes parenting my children leaves me sad or disappointed when it means I cannot pursue activities I prefer for myself. Rather than be honest about those feelings, I have a tendency to take out my phone and start checking messages, Facebook, or the latest statistics on gas prices in Idaho. Not only am I not doing what I want, but I am also not present to my kids. Usually this results in more conflict between them, less following of my directions, and higher frustration all around. We all lose out.
Take this kind of avoidance a bit farther, make it an inflexible habit, and you have a common component of many mental illnesses, particularly anxiety disorders. Someone with a social phobia may find the uncertainty and risk of meeting new people to be quite uncomfortable. However, the more that they avoid social interaction, the more feared it becomes. As life is contorted to avoid feared interactions, more and more experiences become associated with fear and pain, then life must be further shrunk to avoid those feelings.
And the Catholics said “Amen”
This should make sense from a Catholic worldview. After all, we live in a fallen world that is not supposed to be all roses. The value of sacrifice is part of our birthright. Our most powerful religious symbol is the cross, an instrument of intense suffering. We join ourselves to Christ on the cross, and we also rise with Him. This is the rhythm of the Catholic life: passion, death, resurrection. “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” – 2 Cor 1:5
Though experiential avoidance seems obviously problematic on paper, it is continually pulling at us in real life.
As a therapist, I tell clients that the way out of a phobia is to approach the feared experience and tolerate the unpleasantness. The more the experience is allowed and entered into, the less fear has control. In line with what our Penn State researcher said, I tell individuals with PTSD that examining their thoughts, allowing their feelings, and being open to even painful experiences is the path to a less constricted future. I think those suggestions are helpful for anyone, but in case you wanted something more specific, here are some suggestions.
Ed Rogers is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Baylor University. http://www.aleteia.org
22 Monday Jun 2015
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‘Laudato Si’,’ an Overview
Vatican Radio offers this summary of the Pope’s encyclical, released today
By Staff Reporter
Vatican City, June 18, 2015 (ZENIT.org)
Pope Francis’ encyclical is focused on the idea of “integral ecology,” connecting care of the natural world with justice for the poorest and most vulnerable people. Only by radically reshaping our relationships with God, with our neighbours and with the natural world, he says, can we hope to tackle the threats facing our planet today. Science, he insists, is the best tool by which we can listen to the cry of the earth, while dialogue and education are the two keys that can “help us to escape the spiral of self-destruction which currently engulfs us.”
At the heart of the Pope’s reflections is the question: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” The answers he suggests call for profound changes to political, economic, cultural and social systems, as well as to our individual lifestyles.
Chapter 1 sets out six of the most serious challenges facing “our common home”
And Chapter 3 explores six of the deep root causes of these growing crises
So where do the solutions lie? Here are six of the best
21 Sunday Jun 2015
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inTIME magazine’s latest exposé on the modern dating scene purports to lay out the reality of contemporary digital courtship. Written by comedian Aziz Ansari, the article “Everything You Thought You Knew About Love Is Wrong” , and “Love In The Age of Like” (print), attempts, not so much to “dig into singledom,” but “chips away at the changing state of love.” Last I checked, love has been, is, and always will be about Our Father God who is Love, making us in love to love, but we’ll hold our collective tongue and consider a few of these “novel notions” if only to reach others where they’re at.
According to the article, the online dating industry is currently a $2.4 billion money pot teeming with folks searching “for soul mates, whether we decide to hit the altar or not,” but the technology that we carry around with us is altering our choices, the way we make decisions, and how we interact with others. The immediate and continuous access to the digital cloud gives us the impression (illusion?) that we have an endless supply of possible partners. But as the article aptly points out, more choices doesn’t necessarily mean increased satisfaction, and I might add, peace of mind. Our innate drive to “seek out the best” is constantly fed by our access to multiple options online. The article provides a good example of a “pretty boring guy” who writes off a beautiful woman “with a witty profile page, a good job, and lots of shared interests, including a love of sports” saying, “Well, she looks O.K. I’m just gonna keep looking for a while.” When asked what was wrong, his reply was, “She likes the Red Sox.”
At the same time, USAToday reports that the “American marriage rate hit a rock bottom of 50.3% in 2013.” Compare this to 1960, when 72.2% of Americans married. Concurrently, “a new finding by the forecasting firm Demographic Intelligence, suggests marriage rates will continue falling into next year as Millennials choose to opt out of traditional relationships,” opting instead for cohabitation. The report declares that the decline in marriage is seriously and negatively affecting the economy since “marriage and family also provides a sense of stability that encourages prosperity.” When people marry and have children, they buy homes and many other things that support family life. The U.S. government isn’t helping this bleak scenario: married couples get hit with a higher tax bill “because two incomes often put a married couple in a higher tax bracket than they’d be in as individuals living together.”
Online dating services are also discovering that we don’t know what we’re looking for, and if we think we do, we’re either wrong or making choices that don’t match what we said we’re actually interested in. We even run the risk that our online profiles become idealized versions of ourselves that don’t match reality. It seems we’re forgetting two fundamental points. One, that none of us is perfect, and two, that we’re constantly growing and changing. Growing and changing for the better we hope, but changing nonetheless. Added to this seemingly endless array of options is how our age of Photoshop permits flawless portraits that leave us seeking an idealized perfection that doesn’t exist in reality. It’s sad that in this context, “searching,” not “settling” is the new buzz word.
Furthermore, the print article’s sidebar, written by OkCupid’s founder Christian Rudder, contends that “religion is irrelevant. However central religious belief may be to our 15 million users’ personal lives, in online dating it is marginal.” The simple explanation for this is of course how we view our faith. Is faith merely “religion” or a reality, no, more than that, a loving relationship with our God and savior Jesus Christ, in our daily lives? You’ve heard of a love triangle. Well, the Christian marriage is truly The Love Triangle with both partners at the bottom vertices and God at the apex. The closer each partner draws to God at the top, the closer they draw to each other.
Then there’s the report about “powerful” wedding vows: how couples are “saying the most remarkable, loving things about each other. Things like ‘You are a prism that takes the light of life and turn it into a rainbow’ and ‘You are a lotion that moisturizes my heart. Without you, my soul has eczema.’” I keep hoping that the author used the words “powerful” and “remarkable” facetiously to describe these vows. It’s no wonder that after the wedding, the author “found out about four different couples that had broken up, supposedly because they didn’t feel like they had the love that was expressed in those vows.”
The Catholic wedding ceremony is markedly different. Did you know, for example, that at Catholic weddings, the bride is not to be “given away” by her father? Bride and groom are gifts to each other and walk together. Moreover, you won’t hear “Speak now or forever hold your peace” during a Catholic wedding ceremony. The couple uses the time of engagement to prepare, in the Church, to receive the sacrament of marriage and anyone who knows a reason why the couple should not be married has the opportunity to contact the priest. You don’t hear the phrase “I now pronounce you husband and wife” either. In fact, the priest does not pronounce the couple married at all. He doesn’t “marry them” or even confer the sacrament of marriage upon them. The couple confer marriage upon each other through their vows. The priest is there as a witness, to preside over Mass, and blesses the rings saying: “Lord, bless these rings which we bless in your name. Grant that those who wear them may always have a deep faith in each other. May they do your will and always live together in peace, good will, and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.” The couple is married when the rings have been exchanged with these words: “Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Does the TIME article satisfactorily reflect the reality of online courtship? My own experience suggests otherwise. Yes, I met my lovely and loving wife Cindy Marie online. After a process of discerning my vocation, including an openness to the possibility of the religious life, my spiritual director said it’s marriage. That brought the next perplexing question of how to go about meeting my future bride. I had already graduated. The company I worked at wasn’t large. I didn’t go to bars. The parish church I went to didn’t have singles groups. Ogling girls at Mass would be, to say the least, distracting. Finding a Catholic girl who is passionate about Our Lord being the first and foremost love of her life didn’t look easy, at least not in any ‘traditional’ way. A friend of mine who is a religious sister was praying for me before Our Lord and suggested that I go online to AveMariaSingles. The first thought that crossed my mind was: meat market. I wasn’t enthralled by the idea and waffled for a while, but on further prayer and reflection, Our Lord said gently to me that just as He called St. Peter at his job, He was calling me at mine. That was a revelation: I was a media professional and I didn’t trust the media. It was also a breakthrough. Not only did it finally get me online (Our Father works fast: I met Cindy within a week at that site), it also got me passionately researching what the Catholic worldview of media truly is, culminating in a book (but that’s another story).
Our partner is the person that helps us grow in healthy and meaningful ways, to grow to be better persons on our journey to sainthood. This is not easily made evident in online selfies and self-profiles, and is certainly not at the core of shallow relationships that seek self-satisfaction rather than the gift of self to the other. The choice to act in ways that discipline random urges and instead renew commitments to each other daily is key, as is the refusal to settle for lust but instead choose to love and sacrifice for the other. No matter how much we abhor sacrifice (and suffering) as a culture, the inescapable fact is that love and sacrifice are inseparable. Ephesians 5 reminds us: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord…. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This is not about subordination in any mean way. Wives, submit to your husbands: our mission is to love and “sub” means “under,” so literally, “wives, be under the love of your husbands.” It is my priority as husband to initiate love and Cindy’s priority to receive my love. To love her is to love myself rightly, reflecting God’s selfless love for each one of us.
Dr Eugene Ganis faculty associate of the Veritas Center and Professor of Interactive Media, Communications, and Fine Art at Franciscan University of Steubenville in the United States. His book, Infinite Bandwidth: Encountering Christ in the Media is grounded in Scripture and magisterial documents, and is a handbook and practical guide for understanding and engaging media in meaningful and healthy ways in daily life. http://www.aleteia.org
19 Friday Jun 2015
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CNN: Here are some of the most powerful quotes from Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment released Thursday:
“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.”
“Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years.”
“We are not God. The Earth was here before us and was given to us.”
“The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology … is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit.”
“Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.”
“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. … A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity.”
Pope: ‘Revolution’ needed to combat climate change
“The exploitation of the planet has already exceeded acceptable limits and we still have not solved the problem of poverty.”
“Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.”
“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.”
“We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family.”
“We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”
We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”
“There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself.”
“What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? The question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal.”
The Pope’s 10 commandments on climate change
“It has become countercultural to chose a lifestyle whose goals are even partly independent of technology.”
Opinion: Listen to the Pope about climate
“Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way.”
“When media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information overload.”
“We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that the problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals.”
“What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?”
19 Friday Jun 2015
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“Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude.”
– Pope Francis, March 21, 2014
18 Thursday Jun 2015
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Dear Father John, During the sacrament of reconciliation, they say that the priest is “in persona Christi”, meaning, if I understand correctly, that it is really Christ that is acting through him. If so, how come the priest cannot understand if I say my sins in my own language that he doesn’t know? Surely Christ knows every language, since prayers are translated.
Thank you for your interesting and astute question. God’s action through the sacraments is, without a doubt, mysterious. That means we can never understand it fully. But a couple observations may help give some clarity to the specific issue you raise.
What In Persona Christi Really Means
Yes, the validly ordained priest acts in persona Christi when he celebrates the sacraments. That phrase is Latin for “in the person of Christ.” The full theological phrase is actually in persona Christi Capitis, which translates “in the person of Christ the head” – meaning the head of the Church. Let’s begin by simply recalling what the Catechism explains about the meaning of this reality, and then we can attempt to answer your question:
In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis… Through the ordained ministry, especially that of bishops and priests, the presence of Christ as head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers… (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), paragraphs 1548, 1549)
In other words, through ordination a priest is united to Christ in a special way so that all the Catholic faithful can be guaranteed objective access to God’s grace through the priest’s ministry. In a sense, God chooses to continue the mystery of the Incarnation through the sacrament of the priesthood. By the incarnation of the second person of the Holy Trinity, God ministered to the world inside time and space, by means of Christ’s human nature. Jesus continues that ministry now through the human nature of the priest. In this choice, God shows that he yearns to meet us where we are, to enter into a real relationship with us, to redeem our human nature through his grace, not to get rid of or substitute for that human nature. He respects the human nature that he has given us, and reaches out to us through the continual mediation of that human nature, including the human nature of ordained ministers.
Priests vs. Zombies
And yet, God doesn’t take over the human nature of the priest. He doesn’t possess it in such a way that the priest’s own personality and consciousness are suspended. If he did, then the priest would simply be a kind of robot or zombie, an inanimate channel of God’s grace rather than a true partner of Christ and a conscious, free sharer in Christ’s mission. God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t override our human nature. Instead, he calls and chooses every Christian to enter into a relationship with him, and those who accept the call become partners in God’s work of salvation. The New Testament calls this, among other things, becoming “co-workers in the truth” (3 John 1:8). God refuses to violate our freedom, but works through us, and in a sacramental way through his priests, respecting our freedom. This manifests his love and respect for us, as well as our dignity from being created in his image. The Catechism explains this in terms of the priest’s human weakness, which isn’t obliterated by the sacrament of Holy Orders:
This presence of Christ in the minister is not to be understood as if the latter were preserved from all human weaknesses, the spirit of domination, error, even sin. The power of the Holy Spirit does not guarantee all acts of ministers in the same way. While this guarantee extends to the sacraments, so that even the minister’s sin cannot impede the fruit of grace, in many other acts the minister leaves human traces that are not always signs of fidelity to the Gospel and consequently can harm the apostolic fruitfulness of the Church. (CCC 1550)
The Priest’s Role in Confession
Now we are ready to answer your question. In the sacrament of reconciliation, God’s grace reaches us through the priest no matter what, as long as the matter and form of the sacrament are respected, regardless of the wisdom, attention, or comprehension of the priest. Of course, the more responsibly a priest engages in this ministry, the more helpful will be his mediation. His advice and his manner can contribute to or detract from the penitent’s experience of God in the sacrament, but they don’t increase or decrease the sacramental grace itself. And so, even if you confess to a priest who doesn’t know your language, as long as you can understand the penance that he gives you the sacrament is still valid. Christ’s grace reaches you through the priest who is acting in persona Christi. But Christ’s grace doesn’t override the priest’s human nature and limitations (like language), rather it works mysteriously through them.
I hope this helps answer your question, at least a little bit. God bless you!
Art: Mirror detail of Clerical Clothing, KF, 11 September 2005; Interior Scene [Confession], Jean Alphonse Roehn (1799-1864), unknown date; both PD-Worldwide, Wikimedia Commons.
Fr. John Bartunek, LC, S.Th.D, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and baseball coach. He then spent a year as a professional actor in Chicago before entering the religious Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ in 1993. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2003 and earned his doctorate in moral theology in 2010. He provided spiritual support on the set of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” while researching the 2005 Catholic best seller “Inside the Passion”–the only authorized, behind-the-scene explanation of the film. Fr. John has contributed news commentary regarding religious issues on NBC, CNN, Fox, and the BBC. He also served as the English-language press liaison for the Vatican’s 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. His most widely known book is called: “The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer”. He has also published four other titles: “Seeking First the Kingdom”, “Answers: Catholic Advice for Your Spiritual Questions”, “Meditations for Mothers”, and “A Guide to Christian Meditation”. Fr. John currently splits his time between Rome and Rhode Island, where he teaches theology as an adjunct professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and at Mater Ecclesia College. He is also continuing his writing apostolate with online retreats at www.RCSpirituality.org and questions and answers on the spiritual life at www.RCSpiritualDirection.com. FATHER JOHN’S BOOKS include: “The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer”, “Inside the Passion”–The Only Authorized Insiders View of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, “Meditations for Mothers”, and“A Guide to Christian Meditation”.
Read more: http://www.spiritualdirection.com/2015/06/15/reconciliation#ixzz3dQBU4FoN