Does “Thinking of You” Equal a Hospital Visit?


I recently saw this in a forum and thought the argument was completely illogical, not to mention morally wrong. For some very valid reasons, the person can’t always make it to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. So far so good . . . this happens. But what follows is not so far so good.

The person admitted that there are several parishes that offer the Ordinary Form of the Mass at times and places where he or she can attend. However, he “was told that he could do a holy hour and a rosary” and that would suffice, because he “won’t go to a Novus Ordo Mass.” Whoever told him this was wrong, even if it was a priest.

Let’s break this down into little pieces. First of all, everyone has a moral obligation to worship God on the Sabbath, which for Catholics and most Christians, that’s Sunday. This is not negotiable. The Commandments do not say that you can replace worship with private devotions. Worship, as it’s understood in the Decalogue means to offer sacrifice in union with the people of God.

Here comes the second problem. The Rosary is not The Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The Rosary is a meditation and a private one at that. It can never replace the sacrifice, especially the Sacrifice at Calvary, which is celebrated at every mass around the world, as long as the mass is valid. Whoever said that this was a good replacement for a mass does not understand the mass.

Next problem, a Holy Hour is not The Sacrifice either. It is a private act of adoration of Christ in the Eucharist. At the mass, Christ makes himself present in the Eucharist and the people of God do adore him, but we adore him as a people, as Church, and as individuals. If we listen to the prayers very carefully, in English, Spanish, Latin or Swahili, the pronoun is always “WE”, not I. All prayers of adoration said at mass are in the plural. The only time that the first person pronoun is used is in professing one’s sinfulness and professing one’s faith.

Now that we have busted the myth that a Holy Hour and a Rosary can replace the Holy Mass, let’s get back to our moral obligation. Unless there is a real impediment that keeps us from attending mass, it is a mortal sin not to do so. The Ordinary Form Mass (Novus Ordo) is as valid as the Extraordinary Form (TLM). It is also as efficacious and it is the normative mass for the Latin Catholic Church. One cannot morally justify writing it off.

Choosing not to attend a mass, because it’s an Ordinary Form Mass and one has issues with the form, is a willful act, not an impediment. An impediment would be something that is outside of your control, something that physically keeps you from attending mass.

One’s personal feelings about the mass are not physical impediments. Unless the feeling can be proven to be psychologically crippling, there is no good reason to miss mass, because of how one feels about either form of the mass. This also applies to someone who willfully misses mass, because the only mass left is the Extraordinary Form and “I don’t like the Latin mass.” Too bad. It’s not there for your pleasure. The Sabbath is to please God, not you.

Published in: on June 26, 2014 at 10:30 PM  Leave a Comment  

How does one become a “Mirror of Perfection?”


A good friend and I were discussing the Mirror of Perfection and how we’re called to be such a mirror. St. Francis of Assisi has often been referred to as the Mirror of Perfection. I believe it may have been St. Bonaventure who started this tradition, which caught on in the Church and has lasted until today.

I’m remembering a few years back when I was a regular poster on Catholic Answers Forums being taken to task for always pointing to St. Francis whenever people complained about this or that. I would always say the same thing. “Look at people like St. Francis. They didn’t live in a perfect world and it certainly was a far from perfect Church.”

Now that I think about it, I’m glad that St. Bonaventure introduced the term, Mirror of Perfection. For centuries that Church has been telling us that we are called to holiness. Vatican II summed it nicely when it said “the universal call to holiness.” I like it because it’s clear that the call is not just for those of a certain religious tradition, but for all people. Everyone is called to holiness, even non-believers. How God leads men to holiness is complicated and parts of it are mysterious to us. We know that no one goes to the Father but through Christ. How Christ brings men to the Father is a whole other issue. We can get into that here, but we won’t. Suffice it to say that Christ does cartwheels to get us to the Father. In other words, he does cartwheels to helps become saints.

This brings me back to the Mirror of Perfection. Christ is perfect. He commands us to be perfect. He speaks to us about how we will be judged on the perfection of charity at the last judgment. “If you did it for one of these the least of my brothers, you did it for me.”

If we’re all called to holiness, to the perfection of charity, to be perfect as Christ is perfect, then aren’t we all called to be Mirrors of Perfection? How can one be like Christ and not reflect Christ to those around us? It’s an oxymoron. “I must decrease so that he can increase.” Those are the words of John the Baptist. The less of us and the more of Christ that people see when they come into contact with us, the better mirrors we become.

St. Francis was not the only man called to be the Mirror of Perfection. Rather, like St. Bonaventure says, he was probably the best mirror in Christian history. This introduces another concept. We can’t just reflect back an image of Christ. If you have ever been into a house of mirrors, some images are distorted. The key is to reflect an image of Christ that is as close to Christ as possible. That requires work. We don’t accomplish it over night.

We are sinners. We try to do what is right, but we make bad choices and we have to begin again. The secret that St. Francis discovered was that he recognized when he sinned and stopped the sinful action. He did penance for his sins and tried as hard as he could to do better. It was not always easy. Very often, the temptations came back over and over again. Over and over again, he put his hands into the hand of Christ, through prayer and penance. Christ guided him. Gradually, he reflected Christ better and better.

There is no great secret on how to become mirrors of perfection, nor are some called and others excluded. The call to holiness is universal. The key is to try over and over again, letting Christ teach us and not being afraid. As long as we journey with Christ, we have nothing to fear. He knows what we need to reflect him to the world. The first step to being a mirror of perfection is to learn to be sorry for our sins, to do penance and to try very hard not to sin again; but if we do, don’t panic. Christ does cartwheels to save us. Go back to him. Ask for forgiveness and try again. Always trust that each day he will bring you closer to being a perfect reflection of His love.

Published in: on June 22, 2014 at 1:35 AM  Leave a Comment  

“Daddy, tell me more about the Trinity”


trinityThis article is a response to a request from my princess who asked me to write about the Trinity for her.  She remembered that I had taught her and her brother about the Most Holy Trinity and asked that I write about it for her.

I’m very proud that my daughter is meditating on the Trinity. Before proceeding, I’d like to explain that that I do have a daughter and a son.  Some may find it strange that a consecrated brother has children, but it’s not that strange at all.  It’s just not that common.

Let’s see . . . St. Augustine had a son.  Elizabeth Ann Seton had five children.  Louise de Marillac also had a son.  Jane Frances de Chantal was the mother of four.  St. Maximilian Kolbe’s mother became a Franciscan sister.  There have been widowed men who are fathers and have consecrated their lives to the service of the Church, but widowers are a smaller number than widows.  I’m not sure what that says about men and women.  Do women outlive men because they need to remain here to do more penance or do men die before women because they don’t have the stamina to deal with life’s challenges?  I guess we’ll find out in heaven.  But I’m very happy to be among these great men and women who have been parents and consecrated sons and daughters of God and the Church.  Having said all of this, let’s get back to the Trinity.

Writing about the Trinity can be a task as daunting as rewriting the Summa Theologica.  An old legend tells us of St. Augustine who pondered the mystery of the Trinity.  While doing so he encountered a child on a beach who was trying to pour the ocean into a hole that he had dug in the sand.    When Augustine told that child that it was impossible to pour the entire ocean into a small hole in the sand, the child told him that it was far easier to do that tan to fully comprehend the Trinity.

Anything that we can say about the Most Holy Trinity is based on what God has chosen to reveal to us about Him.  There is much more to come, but we won’t see it until eternity.  All I can do here,  Princess, is to “paint a picture of the Trinity” with very broad strokes.  I may have to do this in parts so as not to make it too long and boring. Let’s begin with what the Trinity is not.

When we speak about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we’re not speaking about part of God.  God does not have parts, because he’s not created.  Only created things have parts.  Nor is God some existential composite.  We cannot speak about parts of God. When speaking of the Trinity, we’re not speaking about parts of God.  We’re speaking about persons in God. We must make a distinction between person and people.  People are human and created.  Personhood describes the nature of a being.  Peoplehood describes the being as part of a collective.  God is not part of a collective as are human beings.  Therefore, we are both persons and people.  God is three persons, not three people; because there is no collective.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that God is simple. It is also important to understand that God is fully actualized.  There is nothing missing in him.  There cannot be an absence of love in God.  However, love is oriented toward the other.   It is not self-centered.  Love exists in communion with the other (the beloved).

In God there is otherness in oneness.  This otherness is three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God.  In these three persons, there is perfect love.  There has to be love.  If there were not love in God; IT would be something else, but not God. Where there is love, there is also communion.  Communion only exists when there is otherness.

This otherness in God has revealed itself to us as three persons who are one God:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They do not share a common divinity.  Each person is fully divine, fully God and to see one is to see the other.  Remember that we said that God is simple.  Where you share something, you’re dividing it.  It ceases to be simple and becomes multiple.  It also loses something.

Analogies don’t always work perfectly, but they help.  If I have a pizza and I slice it, I no longer have a pizza.  I have pizza.  There is a difference between having pizza and A pizza.  The former are parts of the latter.  But do you see how complicated this became when we started dividing and sharing?  Throw away any notion that Father, Son and Holy Spirit, divide and share divinity, godliness, power, authority or whatever.  Each is the same, but each is a distinct person.  It’s incredible how fascinating God is in his simplicity and his eternal communion of love.

“According to Aristotle, a good is something desired. Now is there anything more desirable than God—He is the greatest good,” (Taylor Marshall, 2014).  Imagine if God had to go beyond himself to love and be loved, to find community and experience family.  Would he then be the greatest good?  No, because he would have an unmet desire.  He would be missing something in himself, something that he has to go find outside of himself.  What kind of God is that?  The opposite thought would be to believe that God does not wish to love, does not wish community and family.  Would this be the perfect God?  No.  Community, family and love are natural to God.  Hence, when we are created in God’s image and likeness, guess what?  We are created for community, family and love.  There is more that can be said about the creation of man, but that’s another essay.

Catholic dogma tells us, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.  It is the mystery of God in himself,” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 234).

Let’s start wrapping up by saying that this mystery is uniquely Christian in that God has revealed it to the world through Jesus Christ and no one else. God tells us about himself in this mystery.  He tells us that he is one, that he exists in a community of love and that he is beyond anything that we can imagine.  He invites us to engage with him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to come to know him in his fullness when we get to heaven.

Let us remember what he said to the Apostles.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” (Mt 28:19).  Observe, the he commissions the Apostles to baptize in “the name” not “the names”.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and three.  On another day “Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”(Jn 14:9).  If you have seen Christ, you have seen the Father.  It is the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of faith to find the Father through Christ the Son.

My Princess

My Princess

Princess, if you have found Christ, then you have found the Father, because she who sees him sees the one who sent him.  This vision of faith is given to you by the Holy Spirit.

Stay tuned Princess . . . more to come on the Trinity.

Daddy 🙂

 

Published in: on May 4, 2014 at 10:10 PM  Leave a Comment  
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