Southern Ontario Church History

I'm writing a historical commentary on Southern Ontario for my Dad's charter flight service, and I'm frustrated because all the cool history I find out about, I'm not allowed to include, because it's controversial and people won't want to hear it.

I learned about how Toronto was called 'little Belfast' and how the Orange Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order) had massive control of the politics of the city, and that every Mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman until the 1950s. This didn't go well with the huge Irish Catholic population, and the two had mini-wars.

I also learned out - totally by accident - about a man that reminded me of myself.



Sir Allan Napier MacNab, who was Prime Minister of Upper Canada in the 1850s (think Cardinal Newman, re-establishment of Catholic Hierarchy in England, and Anglo-Catholicism rising to popularity). Anyway, he was raised Anglican, but had a deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism. His parish priest (Anglican) was so angry that he showed up in the dying man's room when the Catholic bishop of Hamilton had left the house, and claimed he had made MacNab reconvert to Anglicanism. People just couldn't believe he would go Roman.

When all the Church of England dignataries showed up for the funeral they were horrified to see that the Roman Catholic clergy were already there performing the ceremony. They say that as his family, the Bishop, and the priests walked one way together (mind you, a very small group), the Protestant politicians and clerics and the vast majority of the mourners went the other way, refusing to even attend a Catholic funeral.

One historian wrote: as his relatives fought over his possessions, the English and Roman churches fought over his body and soul.

Definately reminds me of me.

Sir Allan Napier MacNab, pray for me, another convert who has from time to time wavered from the efforts of Anglican clerics.

Graham Greene on Peace & Despair

I'm finding that the Catholicism that makes me feel at peace is that of the English (and of what I can find, the Canadian) Tradition - as I've posted many times before on - and even more specifically, the Catholicism of novelists. Evelyn Waugh, Michael D. O'Brian, and Graham Greene. They called the period leading up to the First World War and all the way to the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Literary Revival. These authors (many of whom were converts) I find to be inspiring because they are so real. My favourite right now is Graham Greene, whose book I am reading "The Heart of the Matter". It was once said that while other religious novelists were writers of faith, that Greene was a writer of doubt.

I was talking with a Catholic friend who suffers from severe scruples (I on the other hand seem to just frequently commit serious sins, and thus don't have to worry about being scrupulous). Anyway, my friend and I both agreed that the main problem we have with Catholic faith is how idealistic it is. What we meant by that was: everything in Catholicism is measured by ideals, the real lives of everyday Catholics, repeated faillure, doubt, frustration, are not to be found in any of the 'official' sources of the Church. For this reason, authors like Greene who deal with these issues have a special place in my heart (and I hope in the Sacred Heart of Our Lord as well.)

Here is one passage I enjoyed from the novel I'm reading. It's about a police officer who is in a state of frustration and unease over the way his life is going. He is a Catholic convert and his wife is quite devout, but he no longer loves her and doesn't know how to resolve things, and she offers to just leave and go to South Africa.

"... she said, 'if I go away, you'll have your peace.'

'You haven't any conception,' he accused her, 'of what peace means.' It was as if she had spoken slightingly of a woman he loved. For he dreamed of peace by day and night. Once in sleep it had appeared to him... by day he tried to win a few moments of its company ... Peace seemed to him the most beautiful word in the language: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you: O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace. In the Mass he pressed his fingers against his eyes to keep the tears of longing in.

...

He had always been prepared to accept the responsibility for his actions, and he had alwasy been half aware too, from the time he made his terrible private vow that she should be happy, how far this action might carry him. Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute faillure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation." - Graham Greene "The Heart of the Matter" 61-62

***



One month since my last confession, anywhere from 60-75 various mortal sins. Last night I was praying my Rosary in the Cathedral before Mass, and at one point when I reached "...ora pro nobis peccatoribus..." 'pray for us sinners', I realized that at least in my almost constant dwelling outside a state of grace, I can still pray the Ave Maria with great honesty. St. Francis remarked after he threw off his clothes and handed them to his father infront of the Bishop, that he could now truly pray "Our Father". On the contrary, in all my sin, I can now at least truly pray "us sinners" with authenticity.

By some blessing of providence, I found another church that has reconciliation Monday nights, and I have the day off. I'm anxious for reconciliation, and I know the feelings Greene describes about peace and despair. Malcolm Muggeridge (another Catholic convert) described his friend Graham Greene by saying he was "a Jekyll and Hyde character, who has not succeeded in fusing the two sides of himself into any kind of harmony."

Lord Longford

I've just learned of another recusant of sorts (a convert himself, from a family in the Irish Protestant Peerage - very rare indeed). Lord Longford

There are three articles / sermons / eulogies on him here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-64505/Controversial-peer-Lord-Longford-dies-aged-95.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/430115.stm

http://www.rcdow.org.uk/textonly/cardinal/default.asp?content_ref=202

As a British History major, I was fascinated by all these things, and by how connected he was with other British Politicians as well as British RCs.

I have to go back to work now, and I was a real jerk today. Reading about this great man only makes me feel worse. I waste my life in selfishness, laziness, and indulgence, but somewhere there is a deep pain, a longing, to be a saint. May God grant it for me, as he did Lord Longford.

The Recusant Returns

Well. Like a character in Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited", after some life complications, and an ensuing attempted reversion to Anglicanism/Protestantism I've come back to Rome. My intellectual reasons / escape route from the Roman church fell apart, and God sent me a word that Pope Benedict XVI was my shepherd. Personal revelation is so embarrasing. I was thinking about it the other day. The reason I don't like Fatima or Lourdes, is because I wasn't there, it was PRIVATE revelation. But sitting in the break room at work and 'hearing' God tell me that Papa Benny is to be my shepherd, is intensely existential as an experience. I can't make anyone believe that it happened, or have them feel the significance, but personally, it was very convincing.



My Catholic chaplain gave me a book of St. Therese of Lisieux's prayers and reflections to help me find a gracious Catholicism (besides Hans Urs Von Balthasar). She is a Doctor of the Church and has been teaching me alot. Reading her today brought me to tears for about 5 minutes.

"Ever since I have been given the grace to understand also the love of the heart of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear from my heart. The remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my strength which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even more. When we cast our faults with entire filial confidence into the devouring fir of love, how would these not be consumed beyond return?"

"I cannot conceive of a greater immensity of love than the one that it has pleased you to pour out so lavishly on me, without any merit on my part"

The gentleness, and the childlike confidence of St. Therese gives me peace. I want this to be the Catholicism I pass onto others. The dogmatic declarations of Scholasticism and post-Reformation Thomism are fine for the theology student, but the heart of a saint is infinitely warmer and more inspiring than a system. As Papa Benny reminds us, our religion is primarily about a person, not a system.

It has been difficult being Catholic, and I now know what they speak of when they say "Catholic guilt". I know how Protestants could so easily evangelize us in the past with their gospel. But I am trying to find the path of gracious Catholicism, a joyful and hopeful Catholic faith.

At a personal note, I am struggling with my relationship, as my partner is not of the Roman confession. Artificial contraception, even views on abortion and the inerrancy of Scripture are sources of debate (my Baptist parents are pround that even though their son is a Catholic, he still has a Biblicist twinge).

I was despairing over the scenario and seemingly endless deadlock, about all the problems in my life that have come from Catholicism. A big 'proof' for me of the truth of the Roman claim, is that it is universally detested, it reminded me of Christ's claim that "if the world hates ye, remember that it hated me first" in St. John's Gospel (ch. 15). A huge portion of my problems would be solved if I were simply an Anglican. But I've realized that something of the Catholic spirit has permeated my soul. In moments of deep affection for Jesus, I kiss my little crucifix and tell him I love him. I will always make the sign of the cross when I am scared. And even in my temporary reversion to Anglicanism, when we almost got in a car accident, I began frantically muttering the Ave Maria in Latin.

I hope to love Jesus as best as I am able, and to have a childlike and possibly foolish hope that he will work out my seemingly impossible failings and problems into something for good. That is all I have. I hope to be a good Catholic, this is the struggle of my life, and may I die still in the struggle, or by God's grace, with a little peace and some victory.

There is no victory story, I should never have strayed, there is nothing glorious about my story. My Protestant friends are disappointed, my Anglican priest wants to meet up next week and probably either yell at me or try to re-convert me. My Catholic friends are confused over the whole situation. I have learned Christian humiliation, and hopefully I will learn from the experience that the story of my life is not one of my greatness, but of God's patient forbearance.

This picture was taken on a trip while I was a Baptist at Bible school and on an adventure in Ireland.


I was thinking about it today, and wondering if perhaps the Blessed Virgin hasn't been watching over me all this time. It's a comforting thought. Cardinal Newman said that while not every soul who is saved asked for the intercession of Mary, no soul was ever saved without it. May Our Lady always watch over this wandering sin-sick soul, and may the Sacred Heart of Jesus beat as the rhythm of my life.

Finally A Catholic Who Can Preach (Probably because he's an Convert)

"How careful we must be not to reduce the atonement to simply speaking about the obedience of Christ as it is shown to us in His life and in His death. We must not fall into that danger of thinking more of the example of Christ, than of His sacrifice. That’s something of a temptation for some -- to think that if we simply imitate Christ, then that’s enough. Now, certainly it is true, that all which He did and suffered for us is an example which is important to copy. But if this is all there is to the Catholic faith, then it’s difficult to see why Christ’s life of perfect obedience should have been crowned by a death so bitter -- and why such importance is attached to that death... We must cling to the fact that Christ is “the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world,” and that by “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,” there was made “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” As we groan over the evil that is within us, we know the need we have for a true atonement -— not just a good example, but some eternal, Godly and forceful healing of our broken lives which have been maimed and crippled by sin." - Fr. Christopher G. Phillips (http://www.atonementonline.com/tracts/tracts004.html)

It seems like the only things we ever hear about in mass are: social justice, how awesome the Church is, abortion, and ethics... lots and lots and lots of ethics. But somewhere between the Moralism, ecclesiolatry, and Socialism, there is a glimmer of the gospel. Finally someone talking about Jesus, and not just Jesus as a great moral teacher, or a proto-marxist, but actually as the sacrifice for our sins. The reason God loves us. Our only mediator, saviour, and hope. Without Christ, Catholicism is just Aristotle for the people.

I went on 'pilgrimage' today to St. Joseph's Oratory, where Brother Andre resides, who will soon be canonized. The mass was a disgrace. I haven't been to an Anglican service less reverant. The priest made up half the liturgy, left out the profession of the creed, added extra musical numbers in random spots, and after the great amen after the consecration he decided to give a little speech about how nice the acoustics were in the room while our Lord sat on the altar.... Christ have mercy...

I'm so sick of Freewheeling liturgies like that. It makes me ashamed to be Catholic, I got almost visibly angry. But as the apostles said to our Lord, 'to whom shall we go?" Indeed there is nowhere outside the fold of Peter I know of with any certainty (I have alot of 'feelings' though).

Anyway, this Anglican use parish which had the above quoted sermon gives me hope, as well as the Book of Divine Worship, and the whole Anglican-Use and Anglican Ordinariate thing. I'm probably just biased, but to me, a homily should be about what God has done for us, before it can be at all about what we do for God. Otherwise we just become moralists. Kant could give us that without God. We need -as one Baptist said- to preach the bloody cross and the empty tomb. I think anyway... if I'm wrong and Catholicism does not agree, then I might have to go knocking on Rowan Williams' door, but I hope the Church that claims St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Thomas Aquinas, can begin to properly preach the gospel, or more specifically what Christ did "for us men and for our salvation", "according to the Scriptures" as the Creed says.

Here's a sign of hope for me: http://www.atonementonline.com/orderofmass/Rite1.html I need to find one of those churches...

Indelibly Catholic

All this Anglican frenzy of friends and opportunities was further compounded this weekend by an Anglican girl I'm friends with semi-asking if I wanted to start some sort of relationship. I thought to myself 'somehow by the end of the weekend, I will have 'reasoned' my way into the CofE (Church of England)'. Interestingly enough, the process began by me being unable to reason my way out of Catholicism, as the claims are so binding, the teachings of the saints and doctors so clear, there really is no way out of Rome. So then I started trying to reason my way out of reason a la Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling", but if I likewise found such a position untenable. I took a course in Islam, and while I am prejudiced as a Westerner, I have to say that 'logically' if you are going to disavow 'logic' Islam is a much better religion than Christianity. Christianity is inherently rational, and the bible doesn't have an origin like the Qu'ran (in the sense that there was disagreement and there are textual variants of the bible - not that I believe the Qu'ran is inspired).

I went for a walk today and prayed my rosary and was thinking about the sorrowful mysteries. About Christ's agony in the garden, his cross. I realized my agony was totally selfish and nothing compared to his, and that while he carried a real cross if my sufferings and trials were incarnated into a cross, it would be about as small as the one on my rosary. When I suddenly remembered St. Thomas More, I felt so much guilt. He had so much more to gain than I, and still he died as a martyr before renouncing the papacy. St. Edmund was offered the archbishopric of Canterbury for his conversion, and he accepted death over severing communion with Rome.

I repented, and thought it funny that even when I was considering the CofE - for all the wrong reasons - I was still thinking "well I hope I can still pray the rosary" or "I still want to believe in infused righteousness" or "I still need Confession". I guess I am unchangeably Catholic, a Roman through and through.

In all of this, I've realized that I'm nowhere near the level of holiness required for religious life. I told my Jesuit vocations director some of my doubts, and we're continuing, but honestly I don't think I'm mature enough yet. It's only taken a few waves to rock the boat, and if I'm to be an anchor, I'm going to need alot more strength, if that is my vocation after all.

Sts Thomas More and Edmund Campion, pray for me, a coward.

Romans and Roman Catholicism

I was at Fatima Shrine with a friend who is the RC chaplain at our school, and we were browsing the bookstore. I picked up a commentary on St. Paul's epistle to the Romans. It was the typical mix of Federal Vision & New Pauline Perspective / N.T. Wright stuff, which is fine - I don't have any knowledge of Greek so I can't argue on exegesis really. I just think its annoying because at key points in the text they just throw things in like "but Trent declared this...so the verse can't mean that". I laughed and asked my friend if Scott Hahn (a co-author of the book) knew the difference between a commentary and a catechism.

I feel very confused when I read Romans now, its almost funny if it wasn't so tragic. I can't even see the text. I can't say "oh so that's what St. Paul meant", I just see polemical impositions from the 16th or 20th centuries. I see Luther, Calvin, Trent/Augustine, Wright, and Hahn/Shepherd.

When I observe newcomers to the scriptures reading Romans I am amazed at how confused they are, and how little they get out of it. Coming from a Protestant background, this book is sort of seen as encompassing all of Christianity. When I was 16 I asked my mom if our church believed in Jesus or Paul because I had been taught - in quasi-Reformed style - that Jesus taught moral obligations to show people the impossibility of keeping the law, and Paul revealed the true nature of salvation, by faith alone.

As a Catholic, the situation is much more nuanced. It's like: faith alone IF it's with love... BUT also the sacraments should come in there somewhere... BUT if they don't then they can be received by desire... UNLESS you have imperfect contrition... BUT even perfect contrition is not incompatible with imperfect contrition, etc, etc.

In the end, I hope the Lord opens my eyes and helps me to read Romans, as well as the whole of the scriptures, but then again perhaps such a thing is impossible, and we Roman Catholics are right after all in saying that scripture can only be read in a Tradition.

Three Things that Are Helping Keep Me Roman Catholic

"Reflect deeply on this. I cannot overemphasize its importance. Fix your eyes on the crucified and everything else will seem insignificant. Since Christ demonstrated his love by doing such amazing things and suffering so radically for us, how can your mere words be enough to please the Beloved? Do you know what it means to be truly spiritual? It means to become a slave to God. We are branded with the sign of the cross. It is the token we have given him our freedom. Now he can offer us as servants to the whole world, as he offers himself." - St. Teresa of Avila

The visible Church itself is the Lord's mystical body. The Church is the visible expression of Christ's grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society which is a sign. Any attempt at dualism here is the work of evil - as if one could play off the inward communion in grace with Christ against the juridical society of the Church, or vice versa. The Church therefore is not merely a means of salvation. It is Christ's salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this world.- Edward Schillebeeckx O.P.

"‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’" - Luke 10:16

Thoughts from St. Cyprian

"Hence, then, the one peaceful and trustworthy tranquillity, the one solid and firm and constant security, is this, for a man to withdraw from these eddies of a distracting world, and, anchored on the ground of the harbour of salvation, to lift his eyes from earth to heaven; and having been admitted to the gift of God, and being already very near to his God in mind, he may boast, that whatever in human affairs others esteem lofty and grand, lies altogether beneath his consciousness. He who is actually greater than the world can crave nothing, can desire nothing, from the world. How stable, how free from all shocks is that safeguard; how heavenly the protection in its perennial blessings,— to be loosed from the snares of this entangling world, and to be purged from earthly dregs, and fitted for the light of eternal immortality! He will see what crafty mischief of the foe that previously attacked us has been in progress against us. We are constrained to have more love for what we shall be, by being allowed to know and to condemn what we were. Neither for this purpose is it necessary to pay a price either in the way of bribery or of labour; so that man's elevation or dignity or power should be begotten in him with elaborate effort; but it is a gratuitous gift from God, and it is accessible to all. As the sun shines spontaneously, as the day gives light, as the fountain flows, as the shower yields moisture, so does the heavenly Spirit infuse itself into us. When the soul, in its gaze into heaven, has recognised its Author, it rises higher than the sun, and far transcends all this earthly power, and begins to be that which it believes itself to be." - St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistle 1.14)

Catholic Events Worse than the current Child-Abuse Scandals

My parents and I had another sort of fight tonight, by which I mean, our local newspaper covered a story of a priest who served at my parish church and was now pleading guilty for child molestation, etc.

My dad was furious and did the usual Protestant thing of the Church is evil, etc. And asked me why I defend it. My response was equally bold, I said its because the church is the bride of Christ (unblemished), and that "the Catholic Church is the Kingdom of Christ on Earth". This didn't go over well. My dad kind of stormed off and dragged my mom with him.

They hate it when I cite worse things the Church has done and that I will stand by it no matter what (barring doctrinal contradiction). So I stated worse things imputable to the Catholic faith, and in the interest of education - lest we think we suffer the worst - I will remind everyone of a day not celebrated much anymore: St. Bartholomew's Day.

The St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre:
On August 23, 1572, French Catholics massacred over 5000 Huguenots (French Protestants). Higher estimates say 20 000 Protestants. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_massacre#Death_toll)

The severed head of the leader of the Huguenots was sent to the Pope as a gift, and when they heard the news in Rome, they rang Church bells in celebration. In fact, the Pope commissioned paintings of this event, because it was a work of divine providence (according to his Holiness).

The Spanish Armada:
The Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I in late 16th century England, even though it is doubtful she was ever a Catholic. This was the late medieval equivalent to painting a target on a ruler, and some say that it was much more like puttinga price on her head. The Pope then supported in 1588 the Spanish in their attempt to invade England and violently overthrow the Queen in order to re-institute Catholicism on the then half-Protestant nation.

Confessional Rumors:
All across Victorian England it was a generally accepted fact that Romish priests had sex with women in the confessional and that Catholic clergy used convents as brothels. There were stories of priests who allegedly ran away with women they had secretly converted and stolen from their husbands, and in general Catholicism was seen as a subversive and virtueless system of priestcraft that destroyed morality and true Christianity. It was illegal until 1829 in Britain.

...so ya. The Roman Church has seen and survived much darker days...

On a different note, I got my package from the Jesuits today and am totally excited by all the info. But for the first time in my life I feel pressured into a more Roman Catholic position because of my parents. When you get alienated that much by your family, and you're even considering priesthood, it kind of skews your options in favor of it, if only to escape home and have someone else take care of you (the Society).

New Reading: Dorothy Day

I picked up the autobiography "From Union Square to Rome" by Dorothy Day. I - like other evangelicals - had only known her through quotes in Shane Claiborne books. As a Catholic I know now her through quotes in homilies. I'm excited about reading this book, more than the usual excitement over reading new books (it's the fear of the unexpected reversed / Hegelian anti-thesis to the fear of the unexpected). Anyway, since she always said "don't call me a saint" I figured I would show how history treats requests like that:



I find biographies really interesting because you can learn so much about how to live from reading the accounts of others' lives.

Perhaps she'll make me a Marxist in the end. As of now, I endorse Capitalism with as much hesitancy and fear as I endorse Dentistry. A necessary evil in our day and age.

First Year in Rome (shortened)

I realized how long my last post was, and am going to try to be less wordy.

What has changed in my Christian life since becoming Roman Catholic 1 year ago?

Love - Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Mary, Pope Benedict, Scripture, and the Sacraments have all taught me this one supreme lesson: we love because he first loved us, we love because he is infinitely worth loving, we love by seeing others love Jesus (the saints), we love others by seeing Jesus in others. Love is the fulfillment of the law of Christ, love is the one necessary thing, "love is that without which no one can be saved, and with which no one can be lost" (St. Robert Bellarmine).

The Blessed Virgin Mary has shown me what loving Christ looks like, the Rosary has focuses my attention on the life of Christ rather than my own problems (or even merits). The saints inspire me and show me how to love Jesus, why I should give my whole heart and life to the service of Christ's kingdom on earth, which I believe to be the Roman Catholic Church, and in part everywhere Christ is proclaimed as Lord. In all the sacraments I encounter Christ, offering his gift of grace, offering his very self to me, a miserable sinner, but a much loved child of the Father.

It's ridiculously simple, it sounds trite and foolish, but that is what I've learned. There have been difficulties, and troubles, and continue to be. But when all else fails, I look to a crucifix, or I read the gospels, or I pray a rosary, and once again encounter the surpassing love and riches of Christ.

"Give me your love and your grace: this is enough for me." - St. Ignatius of Loyola

Loving God According to Rowan Williams and I

"...which of us does "love" God? I remember, ages ago, talking to a young Chinese Marxist student, who amazed me by saying, "of course, priesthood [I had him I hoped to be ordained] is unrewarding, but you won't mind that, because you love God." I was amazed and rather appalled, because I couldn't imagine why he should think I loved God; as soon as he'd said it, I knew it wasn't true. After all, what was it to love God? The saints loved God: their whole lives revolved around God, they wept and laughed and danced for love of him. When St. John of the Cross was staying at a convent over Christmas, one of the sisters saw him, when he thought no one was looking, picking up the figure of the child Jesus from the crib. He hugged it close to his chest and then, with eyes closed, danced around the crib for a few minutes. Well, that, it seems, is love of God: a devotion that makes people more than a little dotty, that produces an all-pervading warmth and delight, an incommunicable gladness beyond all words. "My beloved is mine and I am his"; Jesu, the very thought is sweet; In that dear name all pleasures meet"...St. Aelred of Rievaulx on his deathbed murmuring "Christ, Christ, Christ" unceasingly; Francis of Assisi literally crying himself blind in his long vigils of prayer.

If this is loving God, most of us don't." - Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) "Loving God" in "A Ray of Darkness" p. 127

This is one of my favourite sermons of all time. Dr. Williams goes through the Catholic position and the Protestant position and notes how both fail to adequately describe the experience of loving God. He doesn't dogmatically state his views, in typical Anglican style, but rather talks about loving God as understanding him as "incomparably worthwhile". Almost a Thomistic understanding of knowing the kind of thing God is, even if not knowing exactly what he is, and then allowing our souls to ascend to the love of God by his grace. As the Angelic Doctor stated "To love God is something greater than to know him".

The Protestant/Calvinist/Lutheran position traditionally has been to say that humans can't love God. The Wesleyan/Catholic tradition has been to say humans can purely love God. A third way that modern Evangelicals and Roman Catholics alike have share is the idea of love as a choice.

Given the choice between Papist, Puritan, or Prelate, I'm going to have to side with the latter, and agree with Rowan Williams that love of God is something indescribable. It is mystical, but it comes from a choice we make long before the experience that prepares us for the reception of this grace.

There's so much in this sermon and I'm butchering it. Do yourself a favor, go out and buy a copy of Ray of Darkness. I don't agree with alot that Williams says, but much of what he says has formed my faith in that wonderful Anglo-Catholic tradition that harmonizes so well with both the fathers and Rome.

He borrows alot from Hans Urs Von Balthasar and I enjoy both of their understandings of love. They are both just within the Catholic tradition, but not in the mainstream of it.

Weekend Musings

I used this verse in a debate the other day and I found it interesting.

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord" - Ephesians 2:19-21

It's an interesting idea that Cardinal Newman suggested, that while the deposit of faith is the same, the 'unpacking' or development of doctrine is still happening. This verse struck me the other day. Mainly because it says that the Church is build upon apostles. Calvin said that meant 'apostolic teaching' by which he meant the Bible, by which he meant the Protestant canon. I personally think that it means apostolic succession, but I would say that wouldn't I. I like this verse though, as well as the preceding chapter.

On Ash Wednesday I met a deacon who is a professor of neuroscience at my university and he found out I was a convert and he told me a story about Mother Teresa. A reporter once asked her why she was Catholic, she said because she hadn't found a better religion yet.

Today I was driving to get my haircut and there was a brilliant English Monsignor who was preaching, and I really enjoyed his sermon, so I sat and listened to it for a while. By the time I walked up to the barber shop it was closing for the day. Typical Andrew haha. But I wasn't angry, it was worth it, I'll get my hair cut later.

I started reading Dietrich Von Hildebrand's book that a friend sent me the other day. It's about St. Francis (of Assisi's) message to laymen today. As a 20th century Philosopher von Hildebrand is fascinating and attacks relativism greatly. St. Francis' story was a big influence in his conversion to the Church. It's really great and I'm learning a ton about St. Francis. I have a picture of him and a small figure my mom got me in Assisi as devotional aids in my room, and it's embarrassing how little I knew about him until recently. When I read that he called his order the minores fratres 'lesser brethren', it immediately made me want to join, it felt like the religious order invented for me.

I'm really excited to go to Mass tonight again. I'm trying to figure out a Catholic definition of love, and I think I've almost got it. I think the locus classicus for understanding it is Jesus' statement in St. John's Gospel "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I feel like love might be defined in a Catholic sense as 'self-giving'. Christ gave himself for us to the Father on the Cross, to merit the grace which makes us able to be offered to the Father by Christ. Something like that maybe? The Evangeli-speak would be 'give your life to Christ'. That sort of thing.

Pearls Before Swine: Magisterial Teaching & the Herd

I've caused another fiasco in our Newman Club on campus (this time it was for something beyond informing them it wasn't "The Newmans Club" or that John Henry Newman was actually English and never established any clubs). No once again it seems Magisterial Teaching has been "offensive".

That to me, seems to be the problem with EVERY religion, in my arrogant opinion. That people do not listen to their authorities. The Enlightenment has been so successful in demolishing authority that we are stuck in this hyper-individual scenerio that just breeds relativism. This is normally where Catholic bloggers blame Luther. The problem with this is that Luther actually believed things. Lutherans following him actually adhered to the book of Concord. Catholics have been able to come to much agreement with Lutherans who follow their own authorities.

So Protestantism isn't the issue (though I would say Anabaptism/Baptists/Pentecostals are, and I would say they aren't truly Protestant). It's the fact that Biblical and Historic Christianity is dogmatic, it's based on authority, and you have to follow that authority. The other problem is that people are too lazy to investigate, so they follow the authority blindly, I do occasionally when it comes to things like Marian apparitions because I haven't investigated them (although it's a little different as the Church hasn't thrown their authority definitively behind any).

This is why I got angry with a Calvinist the other day who didn't know what active Reprobation was and didn't know the Calvinistic doctrine of infant baptism, etc. If you're going to give your soul to the gospel according to Geneva (or Rome, or Wittenburg), KNOW what they teach!

So ya. this is my frustration with my generation, open ignorance cloaking itself as tolerance cloaking itself as 'virtue' or 'love'. And as Papa Benny has just reminded us with "Caritas in Veritatem", the TRUTH is necessary for love.

Here are some true articles of historic Christian faith / Catholicism / Thomism being denied on campus almost daily:

-all people are born sinful, and that apart from God's grace they can in no way merit salvation on their own, and that apart from Christ, no person can be saved. (This was an issue because I said Ghandi was in Hell, because he rejected Christ. Everyone freaked out because of my "judgment". The issue is - and I KNOW this as a Protestant convert - Catholic soteriology states that the ONLY way works can be meritorious, is if they are linked to Christ's ultimately meritorious work of salvation. Thus to be outside Christ - as a rejection like that of Ghandi's would put a person - means that NO WORK has ANY merit in the eyes of God. As the Protestants love quoting, it is a Menstrual rag. (See Isaiah). So before God, all of Ghandi's 'good works' were filthy rags, because they were not Christ's works within him. Unless of course he secretly believed in Jesus, etc).

-one ultimate reality exists and humans by divine aid can access it. Postmodernism is not a heresy per se, RELATIVISM is a heresy. As my friend Lance says, the best Postmoderns are most Premodern. Postmodernism can be a great way to attack the heresy of Modernism (that man can understand the universe/nature without God), BUT must be enforced with the belief that, with God, we CAN have some understanding of Reality. This is Thomas, Anselm, Augustine, and all of traditional Dogmatic Realism. The Protestant Reformers were Nominalists which is another heresy (though as some Presbyterian ministers have pointed out, many in the Reformed community view those opinions of theirs as heretical and have a more Thomistic Realist stance).

-the Bible is to be understood as Literally true in many areas. Catholics never learned traditional Erasmian biblical interpretation but they seem to have learned the deadly historico-critical interpretation from someone (probably just English class). Their first claim is that the greatest mistake in exegesis is to understand something as 'literally true' (now the widespread denial of Transubstantiation makes more sense). It is true that sometimes the Bible is not speaking literally, but in certain areas it is. I actually can't think of a single passage or book of the bible that a Liberal Catholic could not come up with some kind of exegetical gymnastics to get out of: ex. Oh we all know that the gospel of John is unreliable, or that all the Old Testament was corrupted by Babylonian influence, etc. I've heard it all, and it's all crap. There I said it. I prefer Conservative Evangelical Exegesis to Liberal Catholic exegesis. This is why I listen to Chuck Swindoll, James MacDonald, and Alistair Begg on the radio. They're all great exegetes of the bible. Papa Benny of course is an amazing exegete himself.

So these are all the problems. In the end, I still haven't heard what my comment was that angered people. It might've been when someone angrily disagreed with Church teaching on divorce and re-marriage and asked if they were a bastard child and I might have told them "according to the Roman curia, you are" or something to that effect. Or it might've been when I told them that Ghandi -as far as we know- is in Hell. Or it might've been when I told them that infant baptism actually exists because babies are born sinful.

But hey, if they kick me out for teaching them their own doctrine, the Lutherans or Evangelical Anglicans would probably welcome me with open arms. (though it would be problematic as the only area I think they MIGHT be right which I'm obligated to believe they're wrong in (and I do in obedience to authority) is Concupiscence as actually being Sin. The famous line in Trent about "while St. Paul says it's sin....he's actually wrong', etc. But other than that I'm a Papist)

Newman or Aquinas

I was sitting at my university doing Latin homework today when I overheard an interesting discussion. A girl and a guy were talking about Creation and the essay they were writing. The girl began talking about Aquinas' arguments for God's existence and she kept saying that he believed in the eternality of the universe (a belief Aristotle held, but which Aquinas opposed vehemently), it made me really annoyed - to the point that I almost got up and said something to her. But I waited patiently trying to understand that life would go on, and that all over the world people were misunderstanding the scholastics. At the end of their conversation, she said something to the effect of: 'but it's all ridiculous speculation anyway, your mind can't even wrap itself around the concepts, I'm just trying to get the paper done'.

As a converted Thomist I took great affrontery to such a claim - that the Thomistic 'proofs' for God were meaningless in everyday life. Though as I sat there it reminded me of another thinker who I respect equally (whether this is right ethically or not) to Aquinas, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.

He was a man of the people and as Catholic Encyclopedia says "a mystic not a skeptic". Even as a convert, he had no great love for the Scholastics and Medievals and indeed said very little about them. His most philosophical work was his essay usually called "Grammar of Assent" which took him 30 years to write. Now in Aquinas, Kant, and Heidegger, there is a complete phenomenology and ontology, a 'way of knowing' statements about belief and reason, etc.

Contrary to all of this, Newman set out what he believed to be - not the 'proper' or most logical way - but the real way people came to believe things. He argued that we actually have alot more faith than one might imagine, and that in all sorts of things we act using "Illative Sense" which bridges the gap between what we logically are certain of, and what we think is probably true and act on.

His whole point in "Grammar of Assent" (according to the summaries I've read) is that you don't need a volume on how to believe, because you already know how to do it.

This philosophy appeals to me greatly because it's something that everyone can understand. It's not removed to ivory towers and complex irrelevant discussions about Being and Time. It's a sort of everyman apologetics. I haven't read it yet - it will take a while. But I think perhaps I might end up switching my philosophical structure from 'pure'(?) Thomism to a sort of Thomistic Personalism which Newman and Papa JP II espoused.

Salve Regina

"I went to see him (Chesterton) as he died. I asked to be alone with the dying man. There that great frame was in the heat of death, the great mind was getting ready, no doubt, in its own way, for the sight of God. It was Saturday, and I think that perhaps in another thousand years Gilbert Chesterton might be known as one of the sweetest singers to that ever-blessed daughter of Sion, Mary of Nazareth. I knew that the very finest qualities of The Crusaders was one of the endowments of his great heart, and then I remembered the song of the Crusaders, Salve Regina, which we Blackfriars sing every night to the Lady of our love. I said to Gilbert Chesterton: "You shall hear your mother's love song." And I sang to Gilbert Chesterton the Crusader's song: "Hail, Holy Queen!" - Fr. Vincent McNabb

I remember reading part of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's autobiography where he taught his prison guards how do sing the Salve Regina and they would sing it together - even though they didn't know what it was. It's a beautiful prayer - I think.

I was thinking about St. Louis de Montfort and how he argued that the person most devoted to Mary is most devoted to Christ, and how he said that Mary is not great because of anything she is in and of herself. She is great because she was the home, mother, and earthly teacher of Christ. Everything she does points to him, and so the quickest way to understand true Christian devotion, true emptiness of self and love for Jesus, is to look to Mary (through Mary?).

Cardinal Newman has a great line where he says that for Catholics, our beliefs don't contradict our belief in scripture, etc because we see no contradiction, only harmony. He writes 'they say we ought to be disturbed, but we aren't'. That's what I try to tell people when they question Catholic Mariology: when they ask 'why?' answer 'why not?'. It's the 'default' Christian position from Patristic times to the Reformation, and they saw no problem with it. Mother Teresa once was asked why she was Catholic and she replied that it was because she hadn't found a better religion yet. That's my general standpoint.

I want to learn how to sing the Salve Regina in Latin. I love it when we occasionally get to sing it in English for a recessional hymn.

"Godless Generation"

I was reading about internet phenomena the other day, and I found out about the 'puppy-throwing marine' youtube video. For the sake of time I'll assume that title is descriptive enough. Anyway so this video got banned because a puppy dying was seen as offensive. Then I saw a video from a girl named 'angie the anti-theist' filming her abortion (she did it by pill). What does this say about our culture? That people think a puppy's life is more valuable and it's death is more offensive than the murder of a child.

The Vulgate quotes St. Peter speaking in the Spirit at Pentecost saying "salvamini a generatione ista prava" - Save yourselves from this perverse generation. Another translation says: "godless generation".

I was in my Existentialist philosophy class and after I asked if Sartre had any logical argument for Atheism and she replied 'no but it's just a generally accepted premise that he doesn't".

I was reading Karl Rahner's work on the Trinity and in it he was arguing against traditional Catholic theology. This is a man people apparently say is a 'hero' of the faith. The "textbook" theologians as he calls them, were the real heroes.

All of this has made me better understand this command to save ourselves from this godless generation. This is another reason I'd like to completely do so and maybe become a priest, to be completely removed from this culture's values and be a living image of Christ. What a job?! But how incredibly difficult...

Flee From Sin / Occasion to Sin

"Have you sinned, my child? Do so no more,
but ask forgiveness for your past sins.
Flee from sin as from a snake;
for if you approach sin, it will bite you.
Its teeth are lion’s teeth,
and can destroy human lives." - Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 21:1-2

I came across an interesting theory/theology the other day. Fr. Vincent McNabb, an English Dominican, who lived at the time of Chesterton, argued that the Christian life is about avoiding sin, and for those who have not the heroic virtue to resist sin, then the Christian life is about avoiding the occasion to sin. Occasion to Sin is a very Catholic phrase that means putting yourself in a place to fall - actually I looked up the etymology and it comes from occidere which means 'to fall down'. So Fr. McNabb called Catholics to leave the city where more temptation was at hand.

This is reminiscent of the call in the New Testament out of Babylon:

"Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
‘Come out of her, my people,
so that you do not take part in her sins,
and so that you do not share in her plagues" - Revelation (Apocalypse) 18:4

Dom Vincent actually called London: Babylondon. Clever. I was struck by this theology because it is much akin to my desire to run away to a monastery. I was thinking about how it applies to what the philosopher sayeth (Aristotle), that moral character/virtue is based on habit. For most post-enlightenment ethicists -especially of the Protestant Moralist tradition (I'm looking at you Richard Baxter and your 18th century Anglican Brethren) - ethics has been seen as the attempt of the sturdy individual to overcome temptation personally and thus triumph over evil and suceed in Christian living. St. Thomas and Aristotle would argue that actually allowing yourself to be placed in the occasion to sin and then failing, makes you weaker morally. Thus every time you try to face the same temptations you're actually getting weaker.

SO, the argument is that such 'weak' Christians should live in an environment that provides the least occasions to sin. I, being one such weak Christian, think such an impoverished, celibate, and obedient life might be a good opportunity to build my moral muscles in order to face the world.

Thus, while many would consider such an option cowardly and 'running away' from the world, I'm reminded of the words of our Lord:

"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell." - Matthew 5:29-30

This passage beautifully echoes the teleological ethics of the Catholic system. Whereas many would say it is no virtue to run away because you aren't 'beating' the enemy vices, in Catholicism, what you do matters - not what you 'feel' like doing. If you're locked in a padded room and you feel like killing yourself (presumably after reading too much Nietzsche) but can't, then you will die without the mortal sin of murder/suicide on your soul. You will be saved. If you are given the option and fail, you will enter grave sin and be able to hope only in God's extra gratuitous mercy.

So there's my argument. It's the one Joseph used when he ran out of the house of Potiphar (semi)naked: run away, or in the King James: "flee from sin"

(I have a feeling the exact opposite argument could also be made so I'm ready for disagreement)

Random Musings: Vocation, Newman, Priesthood

As I read the venerable Cardinal's spiritual autobiography, I cannot help but be swayed towards studying theology at the least, and entering the priesthood at the most.

Throughout Lent, I've been trying to pray for clarity in my vocation. This is difficult as I find God rarely speaks to me, or more accurately, I rarely discern his Providence until I look back in reflection. But as I read stories about the greatness of saints (in my opinion) of folks like Newman and anti-Nazi clerics and others in Germany inspired by his theology of conscience, I feel like there could be no greater honor than to give me life in the service of our Lord.

I don't know what I'll do with my life, but to phrase things this way I thought: 'what do I want my wikipedia page to say?' My first thought was: how many amazing Christians who have given their lives in labouring for Christ's Kingdom do not have wikipedia pages. I don't want one either. But if by the felicitous grace of God I one day have one, I want it to say Priest.

I am far too tempted to this life in favor of titles or glory in service of so great a thing as the Catholic Church. The only thing that helps me avoid this temptation to pride is the title Priest.

Contrary to what many Protestants think, Catholics (Orthodox, and Anglican as well) do not believe there to be a Catholic Priesthood, there is only the priesthood of Christ. To be a Catholic priest is to be one who offers himself to act in persona Christi to share in Christ's eternal priesthood, and to offer the same perfect sacrifice that only Christ could offer. In the same way that the only ministry is the sharing of the apostolic ministry, the only priesthood is the sharing of the priesthood of Christ.

So if you remember that you are a priest, it is not to remember that you are greater than someone else, but to remember that you are imitating someone else, namely, Jesus.

I'm uncertain, I'm still far too undisciplined for such a life. But if I could persevere to the level of holiness befitting to one of the servants of God, how awesome would life be?

At present, I am terrified to participate in the Mass at all because of my fear of upsetting the divine liturgy/screwing up (I remind myself of Luther, except far less holy than he). Luckily our assistant Chaplain forced me to do a reading the other day, and hillariously on the way back to my seat, I tripped once or twice (without falling face down though) and everyone was disappointed that such a potentially entertaining disaster was avoided.

Anyway, all this self-reflection is probably unhealthy, I should even consider the priesthood until I can actually successfully live the Christian life as a layman. God has given me a head and a bit of a heart, so I do theology and teach the faith wherever possible, he would have to move my hands if I were to become a priest.