What Would St. John the Baptist Say?

What would St. John the Baptist say to Christians if he were here now, with the same vim and verve? What do you imagine he would say? I doubt his message would be much different, but perhaps it would go something like this...

So many Christians: "Christ died for our sins, and we believe in him! What more do we need?!"

" To you who justify yourselves and say,' Christ has paid our debts and we believe.' I say to you that you must bear the fruits of repentance! Do not content yourselves, saying,' Christ is our savior and THAT is enough!' Foolish generation! Do you think that the Son inherits nothing apart from you? It is written," Many will come from East and West and recline at my Father's table." and again," I have other sheep, not of this fold." You were brought into the vineyard to labor at an agreed price, which is your salvation, and if you do not you will receive nothing and will be thrown out," Into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth!"

"Christ and his disciples came saying,' Whosoever the Son sets free is free indeed." But against you are the words of the prophet, for you have returned to your sins like a dog to it's vomit! You were freed to do the will of your Redeemer, but you have broken the fence which is the law of righteousness, and like dumb oxen you have wandered into the fields in which others have labored and trampled down the harvest, and gore one another! You were liberated from the Law, and became lawless!"

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Meditation On Malachi

There are exceedingly wicked people amongst you, tares which the Evil One has sown. Those who say," Aha! Cast the first stone!" whenever they do evil. Full of evil they say," See to the log in your own eye!" so that no one interferes with their iniquity, as they pull down all decency. They say to those who obey God," The Lord loves all people, you self-righteous!" and mean that He delights in the evil doer. But you, you are to remember the words of scripture, and like Christ answer scripture with scripture, just as Christ answered their father Satan in the wilderness. Understand the words of His prophet!:

"You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say,' How have we wearied Him?' By saying,' Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them!' Or by asking,' Where is the God of justice?'

And speaking of what would come to pass, which has already come to pass, the Lord says through His prophet:

"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before Me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold he is coming says the Lord of Hosts. But who can stand when he appears?' 

Those who say they are His and are full of lawlessness, He has seen them. The heart of a man is His holy temple. He has walked through their colonnades and on their porches. He has see the steps stained with bloodshed, and perversity scrawled upon every wall. He has seen the lewdness and vulgarity of their inner courts. He has marked the blood stained pillars, and all their abominations which they co-mingle with their sacrifices, and how they say," This is true religion! This is what God loves!" And He has set a day:

"For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, so that it will leave them neither root or branch. But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise, with helping in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of Hosts."

The most dangerous person is a pagan pretending to be a Christian. People who put on Christ like a fashion, instead of letting a true righteousness transform them. Every chance they get, they swoop in to the tooth and nail defense of every heresy and evil... always saying," Take the log out of your own eye...," pleading God's mercy and hating God's justice with the very fire of hell. The first born of Satan is what they are. These are the children of Satan who mock the Gospel and its Lord, for the sake of their father Satan and their love of all his deeds. And if they could, they would beat you with Christ's as with a club, using the Gospel to justify and defend every evil, and to condemn every righteous tongue which agrees with God. Their condemnation is certainly just.

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Fatherhood

I thought to humbly write my thoughts about my own vocation as a father. It's not something you hear much about as compared to other issues. There are plenty of blogs and articles out there on how to apologize for the faith, on the purity of liturgical form, or on why Atheists are wrong, or in defense of marriage, against abortion and contraception, et cetera. Even plenty on motherhood. Noble endeavors, let no one doubt it. However, on the vocation of fatherhood, there does not seem to be much. And if it is not so rare, it does at least seem as well hidden as St. Joseph himself. As if to say to us," Man up, and figure it out."

So, permit me to speak humbly about what I have learned from my own fatherhood, and indulge me if I speak confidently on the vocation of fatherhood. I am a father of four children. I speak to you not as someone who has seen his shoots bear fruit. Let me tell you that my children are young, aging from nine months old to seven years old. Three daughters, and one son. I myself am young, a mere 28 years old. Someone may rightly say," He hasn't been a father long enough to know what he is saying. His experiment is not complete." But if you will receive from Solomon, who had 750 wives and fell away into idolatry, instruction on how to avoid impurity, perhaps there is a possibility you may receive some things from me, and will allow me to call to remembrance in you what our Fathers have taught us, who are the Church, and the saints, even God Himself.

There is no point in me self-deprecating ad nauseum, or benumbing you with my testimony. Let it suffice to say that I am a man like you, and nothing that I have experienced in being a husband or father is uncommon to us. But I am confident in saying that I have experienced what is common, and do not lack in that respect. I think that this is probably what most of you believe, though it is not what we feel. We despair of our own faithfulness to the duties of our vocation. We can despair at the futility of our lives. Sometimes, the best thing to do is not despair, but build something new. And that, brothers, is precisely what I wish to speak to you about.

In the Holy Scriptures, in Genesis, we see that Father Isaac had a blessing he was to give his son. It was a special blessing. It was a blessing for a man, not a boy. See the scripture:

" Then his father Isaac said to him," Come near now and kiss me, my son." And he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his clothing, and blessed him and said: " Surely, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. Therefore, may God give you of the dew of Heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and abundance of grain and new wine. Let the peoples serve you. Be master over your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you." 
Notice that he likens his son to a field which the Lord has blessed. It calls to mind the words of God to His son Adam," From dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The rest of the blessing only makes sense if we understand this. And in communicating the blessing in this way there is also a haunting remembrance of the words," I shall curse the ground... you shall eat by the sweat of your brow all your days." Isaac implicitly reminds his son that he is but dust, instructing him to be humble and to remember his mortality so that he avoids vain pursuits. He also shows him that he is not like the other dust, the other ground that has been cursed; he is a field that has been blessed by the Lord. He therefore teaches him that apart from the Lord he is cursed, and like any other man.

Isaac continues his blessing by imploring God to give him the dew of Heaven, so that he may have the fatness of the earth, and abundance accordingly. This calls to mind the 127th Psalm, which is also about children and fatherhood:

"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." 

No doubt you see the importance of the "Dew of Heaven" which is favor and grace. But as we read further, we see an admonition to fathers and sons:

"It is a vain thing for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives his beloved sleep." 
You can work all you like, and give your wife and children a better quality of life. Truly, there is something to be said for providing diligently for one's family; it is a duty. But what gives one rest is goodness. As it is written by the Apostle John," I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the way of the Truth." If you have failed to spiritually steward your family, I mean... really steward them, and you do these other things, what good do you do for them?"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" or worse still, perhaps, to lose the souls of his wives and his children?

 But you are a man of responsibility, and your family has basic needs, which brings to mind the words of Christ, lest anyone should try to justify serving mammon" Therefore take no thought saying,' What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For the pagans run after all these things, and your Father in Heaven knows you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." And this is the lesson that Jacob teaches his son. Namely, that providence is an result of remaining in the favor of the Lord by means of righteousness.

Spiritual goodness predicates temporal goodness, temporal goodness does not predicate spiritual goodness. Otherwise, hedonism would be a path to God. The Psalmist isn't admonishing hard working fathers. It is an admonition against serving possession, and seeking it apart from righteousness; it is against an unhealthy reliance on and appetite for possessions. The greatest gift a man can give his family is himself, and by this means you give them to God.

The Psalm ends saying: " Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate." 
Is that how you look at your sons and daughters? I mean... really? You love them, but do you understand what the Psalmist says? Do you believe it? Are you like your Father Isaac? Do you have a blessing for your son that you bless him with? Have you taught him the 'Good Way' so that he can understand the blessing? So that he wants it, and believes in it? You should bless your children; they are the fruit of your own body. Blessing your children with such a blessing is like planting an olive grove. Your children's children will eat of the fruit, and their children will become rich through its yield. Don't waste a moment to bless your children.

Earlier, I said that the greatest gift you have the ability to give your children is yourself. That doesn't mean that you just lay down your life so that they can have bread. We know plenty of men who say of their own fathers," He always put food on the table." and they are men themselves of no particular value. The spoiled man is the epitome of that. How, then, can your gift be of any value?

We see the command in scripture," You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Make no mistake, if you do not teach your children the world will. If you do not remind them, if you do not create a culture in your home of piety, these things will be forgotten. If you are not consistent, what good is it? It is your duty to protect them from the stranger's ways, and to teach the way of their fathers.

And are you amazed that your children don't get along? That they fight? That they don't seem to love each other? I mean, love each other dearly. Don't look at your children, and comfort yourself saying," All children are this way!" Is that really enough? Is that good enough for them? Will you one day say," You were children, so I let you be evil, and did not require of you righteousness. Training you to love one another did not seem reasonable, because it was good enough that were like other people's children." Will you stop at merely being amazed? Will you one day say to them," I did not stop you from hating your siblings, because I thought my amazement would be enough to shame you into compliance. I thought it would work itself out." Require them to love each other. Require them to forgive. Require them to apologize. And do so with consistency.

You are not training your children up to be good at being children when they're grown. You ought to teach them to be good men and good women. It is written," Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This does not mean that there is no time for them to be children, but understand the purpose of childhood. You cannot understand your purpose of being a father if you do not understand the purpose of childhood. And you can't accept it if you obstinately say to yourself," It's all too serious for a child." and thereby excuse yourself from your duty. If you reject this you will raise fools, and God will require it of you.

And how do you train them? Where can you start? Teach them morals, teach them piety, teach them to be implacable towards injustice, teach them to be merciful and compassionate. Have them do things that requires them to master their bodies with their souls. Make them do things they don't want to do with their own will. The earlier you start this practice, the easier it will be. This isn't something you can start when they are teenagers. This teaches them continence, so that when they are older, such as teenagers, they are in control of themselves. Teach them chastity so that they never look at people as objects. Teach them modesty, so that a holy sense of shame prevents them from being immodest and perverse. By the means of continence, chastity, and modesty they will keep themselves pure. You will have children in control of themselves, who will do what they ought and not whatever they please. You will have sons and daughters who will seek what is good for them, and not whatever might give them pleasure. Which one of you would speak immodestly about women with this son? Or approve if he does the same? Or which one of you will give your virgin daughter over to the socially approved insanities of fashion, so that she can become an object for people to lust over, so that all the young men say in their own words," Let us look upon her with our eyes!" 

Never let your sons or daughters stew in their anger against you if they don't like something. Don't send them away to stew. As St. Paul says," Fathers, do not provoke your sons to anger." If you do that, you send them away to build a wall of resentment. Bring the work of discipline to completion, diligently as a father, through love and reason, temperately. Never let your children doubt that you love them. Many people try to  practice this, but fail. They may disapprove of their child's actions, even punish them, but in the end they require no change of heart and mind, which is the object of the exercise. They don't take the extra step to actually correct the problem, as if to say," I'll beat it out of them, and that is enough!" In so doing, the parent acquiesces to the interior disposition of the child, and reduces the fruit of their own body to the status of a criminal. They treat the symptom, but fail to cure the disease. That is why so many parents look upon their parenthood with despair, they look at discipline as an act of futility that is pushing their child away from them. It's as futile as our penal system, whose supposed purpose is rehabilitation. One of the best ways to solve this is closeness. I do not mean trying to become your child's best friend, which is another grievous error of many parents. I mean in proximity. Keep them near you. Keep them close with their family, with their Church. Get them to understand the true meaning of love, that is painful, and difficult, and good. Don't ever let them think they have been cheated by allowing the weeds of modern filth grow in their minds which says that love is merely a synonym with kindness.

The ancient Persians believed that gratitude was a great means of guarding uprightness. They saw ingratitude as the source of every evil. Ingratitude towards God the source of impiety, ingratitude towards country the source of treason, ingratitude towards parents the source of treachery. Gratitude promotes closeness of proximity, and from this an interior disposition is engendered. But if you stop at proximity all you have is enablement and entitlement, and the child will hate you as soon as you stop providing. This, too, we see often these days. Perhaps, the easiest way of teaching gratitude is consistently insisting upon good manners in all things at all times.

Which brings us to the next, problem of idleness. The Persians believed that idleness bred ingratitude. Perhaps, two of the biggest challenges today to families, especially children, is excess and idleness. Excess leads to idleness. I'm not saying that you must impose a spartan austerity on your children, but cultivating contentment in your children will promote the virtue of moderation, and thus decrease a proclivity to excess, thereby eliminating a propensity to be idle. As Diogenes said," Contentment is the wealth of nature." and as another philosopher said," Whoever is content with the least has the most." If you do your fatherly duty to your children, you won't feel the need to make substitutes and spoil them by giving them too many things, or the kind of freedom that is perilous to their virtue. You will have created a noble and upright heart and mind within them that is itself austere and virtuous. But even aside from this, it is important for us to occupy our children with noble tasks that actually teach them virtues and build good habits. Such things as learning, working, cleaning, talking about things worth discussing, problem solving, etc.

Our fathers used to teach their sons. Public education is a relatively new novelty. It is certain that Jacob took his sons into the fields and unto the flocks and taught them animal husbandry. He taught them the different systems of measurement of the peoples around them. He taught them mathematics, how to build a straight wall, where to find a suitable place to dig a well. He taught them how to pray, which feasts to observe. He taught them how to watch the stars, the times to bring in the flocks and the herds, and which times to take them out. With his own hands he showed them how to trim the hooves of the sheep. He kept them close and taught them everything worth knowing. He told them which women to stay away from, how to deal with the foreigner. He taught them their lineage until they could recite it. He taught them how to read and write the languages of those around them, perhaps. And into them he lovingly and diligently poured all his knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

Is this the kind of relationship you have with your children? Are they learning in the context of family? Or are you letting strangers teach them these things, for the ends that they say are worthy? Are you letting other people teach your children morality? Are you letting them "find themselves" instead of telling them who they are as the man who helped create them? In our times, not everyone has the ability to home school, or lead such an interactive lifestyle with their children as Father Jacob did. However, it is no less incumbent upon you to not only augment what they are learning with good and godly things, but to rightly order what they have learned from others. It is your responsibility to teach them the truth about what others tell them. It's your responsibility to show them the right path. It is not their responsibility to find it. They may perish because they did not find it, and they will suffer, but do not doubt that God will require their blood of your hands. Just as it is written in the Book of Ezekiel:

"Son of man I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel, so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, 'You wicked person, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood." 

Pray with your sons and your daughters. Pray with them with your wife, too. Teach them to pray the prayers of your people. Teach them also to pray their own prayers, so that they learn to cry out to God for deliverance and for thanksgiving. Take them to Church so that they know they have a people, and so that they can receive the sacraments. Take them before the Blessed Sacrament, because it is written," Let the little children come unto Me, and do not prevent them. For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." 

What do you think? If anyone does not water their plants, and they die, who is at fault? The plant or the dresser? Or if any of you have a dog, and you turn it out to come and go as it pleases, and it becomes emaciated because it could not find what it needs, who is at fault? The dog or the master? Children aren't supposed to be good at raising themselves. It is written,"Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child." What else do you enable apart from their foolishness, if you provide for them temporally, but do not provide for their souls? And what would you say about a man who goes around looking for his keys, when they are in his pocket? Or a man who looks for his hat while he is wearing it? Isn't he a fool? So it is with everyone who goes out looking for himself, because what else does he look with except himself? Teach your children to find themselves in God, Who is in them and Whom they ought to be in.

So, as fathers, don't permit your children to be sent on a fool's errand, "looking for themselves" as the fools tell us we must do... and neither send them on one yourself. They will stumble in their foolishness, and you will become guilty. Hear the words of Christ," If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Sin crouched at Cain's door. Don't be foolish and think that it doesn't crouch at the doors of your children. Its desire if for them, and it prowls back and forth seeking to devour them.

Finally, let me speak about one of the greatest traps of fathers: Thinking that you can do all by being a great and good man yourself. Adam had Cain. David had Absalom. Solomon had Rehoboam. Marcus Aurelius had Commodus. John Adams had Charles Adams. Your greatness and your goodness are not substitutes to your duties as a father. Don't be foolish and think that your piety or your devoutness, your virtues will just rub off on your children and accomplish all the duties of fatherhood.

Yes, pray with your children. Teach them. Build with them. Show them the truth. Expose them to sources of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding that can be trusted. Take them with you when you minister to the poor. Observe the feasts of the Church, so that they might learn, and thereby build the framework of the orthodoxy up around them. Teach them charity, generosity, and compassion by involving them in your own works. Practice your righteousness with them. Read the bible to them. Above all, teach them to pray at all times, to pray without ceasing... and to never be ashamed of their faith. Impart unto them endurance, so that they never tire of doing good. This is what your children deserve from you, because this is what God has commanded us to do.

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Reservations About the Pope and Liturgical Reform

The liturgy is MERELY an expression of our love. If the liturgy is dysfunctional, it is because we (the community of believers) are dysfunctional. Yes, the liturgy is what you say it is: "The meeting of earth and heaven, the normal means by which we encounter the source and summit of our faith, Jesus Christ Himself." But is it anything more than vanity to express what is not genuine? Yes, the liturgy is a means of catechesis, the most important means. But there was a time when the liturgy was without blemish, and it wasn't good enough. Why? Because it was vanity; it wasn't a true reflection of what was in us. Fix what is on the inside," Clean the inside of the cup and behold all things shall be clean unto you." By cleaning the inside, you accomplish the cleaning of the outside, which is our outward communal expression of love and cooperation.

We need to walk the path that JP II & B16 showed us. We need real metanoia. We need real conversion. When that happens, then people will not only want the kind of reverent, sincere liturgy you and I love... they won't be able to help but express that kind of reverence and sincerity, because it will flow naturally from the abundance of their love. That's not something that everyone will be able to participate in... that's why Benedict XVI made his remarks about the coming catharsis.

Fixing the liturgy isn't as little as putting a bandaid on the problem, but it isn't curing the problem either. If having perfect liturgy was the end all be all of what we have to do, Christ might have come before Vatican II and received his perfect Bride. What does it matter if we have the perfect liturgical form, but lack the perfection of liturgical essence? Nothing... it's vanity. You like good liturgical form because you are a devout and pious person. That's why. Having good liturgy requires getting everyone to that point... and that is so much more than just having good liturgy. I mean, this isn't 'Field of Dreams' where "if you build it, it will come."

Think about it like this: When Christ comes back, and he asks us what we did for the Church, what do we want to say? " I zealously defended the liturgy. I even held the Pope and all the bishops in suspicion over the matter. And I scolded anyone who deviated, Lord." What's he supposed to say to that," Good job, Phineas!" I suspect a lot of people who allow their bitterness to take the form of liturgical scrupulosity will much rather say," Shiiiiii..." when they realize that's all they have to say. No, we want to say that we were full of good works, charity, counsel, piety, faith. The liturgy is just an expression of those things. If they aren't there, how can the community express them? Those virtuous things predicate a good, sound, and holy liturgy. The liturgy is a sacrificial love offering, and it must be without spot or blemish... even the blemish of vanity and pretense.

Liturgy is extremely important. You know I believe that. But we need to fix the sickness that is destroying it, not just fix "it." So, it's ridiculous, and counter-intuitive for so many to be harboring all these negative reservations about the Pope, and to hold him in suspicion, to start the petulant whining and nagging about the liturgy... especially when we have every reason to hope in the selection of the Holy Spirit, who is the Pope. Because here is a man who might show us by his example how to clean out the inside of the cup, to live the life that predicates a good, clean, and wholesome liturgy which is the outside of the cup. If all we care about is the outside of the cup (the liturgy), then we are as the Pharisees.

And to close, let's look at that passage of holy scripture in Luke:

"As Jesus was speaking, one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal. So he went in and took his place at the table. His host was amazed to see that he sat down to eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony required by Jewish custom. Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn't God make the inside as well as the outside? So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over. What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore justice and the love of God. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things."

And to cross reference it with Matthew:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also."

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~

Why Didn't They?

One of the common question you hear, and therefore presumably one of the questions which automatically comes to mind when we look at the Holocaust on the whole is," Why didn't anyone do anything about it?" Well, there are several answers. The first answer is really stupid," Because everyone in Germany was a Nazi! Duh!" The second is more practical, but still doesn't quite make the cut," Because everyone was too scared to do something about it." Which might be more or less true. It follows from the second answer that it was a minority of Germans who had the notion to do something about it. Which brings us to the question," What good would it have done for so few, who were so powerless, to do anything?" Which leads us into a whole different line of questioning having to do with morality," Was it incumbent upon them to do something, given the evident futility of the act?"

There are two kinds of moral actions, to my mind, which encompass all moral action, inaction, disposition, and thought. The first is those things which fall under moral obligation. We are morally obligated NOT to do certain things, hence," Don't sin." Don't do anything evil, immoral, et cetera, et cetera. We're also morally obligated to DO certain things, like paying those who work for an agreed wage, or worshiping God, or defending the defenseless. The second category is called 'supererogation.' Literally, a work above and beyond the normal work. The things which fall into supererogation are 'morally praiseworthy, but not morally obligatory.' For instance, finding a zit-faced teenager on the side of the road in a broken down vehicle, and then taking the time to fix his vehicle and then teaching him how to prevent it from ever happen again... that's supererogation. Or sending someone who could use it, a large sum of money, not expecting it back, anonymously. The philanthropist who can't really afford to be one is a 'supererogator.' I'm sure that's not a real word, so don't use it. Anyway, you get the idea. Christ talked about these two things in his sermon on the mount and said that, that which is morally obligatory is of no credit to us... "for even tax collectors and sinners do that." He stated in no uncertain terms that it is only supererogation that is a credit to us, " Love your enemies and pray for them."

So, why didn't a group of Catholics, why didn't hundreds of Catholics, stand up under the Third Reich, during the din of war and atrocity to at least blow up a single damn guard tower at Dachau or Auschwitz? Why didn't they knock a single damn hole in the wall? Forget that for the moment. Let's say they had. First of all, how would they be remembered today? It's safe to assume that everyone knows the answer to that. They'd be regarded as heroes by virtually the whole human race. They would all probably be canonized saints, right now... especially if they had all perished in the spray of machine gun fire.

Please don't assume that I am intending to undercut the real life heroics of hundreds, if not thousands of people in Europe who did risk everything to hide and save Jews. In no way! can the heroism and goodliness of those people's actions be delimited. And they ought not be forgotten. But having assumed this hypothetical alternate history, which category of moral action would their deeds fall into? Morally obligatory actions, or supererogation? Ruminate that.

Let's try to make a few analogies. If you saw a gang mugging an old woman, or beating an 80 year old vet to death for their wallet, do you think you would have a moral obligation to do something about it? Or do you think that your intervention would fall into the category of supererogation? Or lets say you saw a man kicking his toddler in the stomach repeatedly at a rest stop. Do you think you have a moral obligation to do something about it? Let me be more exact: To physically stop him? Or would your actions fall into the "morally praiseworthy, but not morally obligatory" category? Hmmm? Let's 'up the ante.' What if the guy stomping his toddler to death was openly armed with a pistol, and you didn't have one. Still morally obligatory? It goes back to that question," What good would it have done for so few, who were so powerless, to do anything?" Would you rather be the person who was shot trying to save that child, or would you rather live in immortal infamy as the person who stood by and watched?

"No-Brainer" questions, right? Okay, good. Congratulations on not being a completely worthless human being. Now, back to the hypothetical question about the our heroes from the alternate history... would their actions have fallen into the category of moral obligation or supererogation? Still hazy? No definitive line of demarcation? I understand. It's hard to grasp genocide, intellectually. How do you grasp a number like 12,000,000? Honestly? As Stalin said," One man is a tragedy. One million is a statistic." I could bring up things like putting people in xylon gas showers, pregnant mothers being injected with acid, people being shot in the back of the head, et cetera, et cetera. But... you've heard it all before. It will never be as shocking as 'the toddler' scenario. That doesn't make you a bastard. That makes you human. You can't fathom the gravity of it, because your mind isn't designed to. It's a thought terminating reality. It's too much. That's why the concentration camps were able to run. It's to much too grasp... Nazi soldiers included.

So, understanding, and accepting our handicap, let's just answer that question logically. Would their actions fall under moral obligation or supererogation? One answer sounds absurd, and it isn't moral obligation. So, if they, the people who knew and wanted to do something about it, were morally obligated... why didn't they do something? Hmmm? It's a good question. Which is why you can hardly think about the Holocaust without asking it, at least once.

Let's say, for the sake of argument that doing something about it would have fallen into the category of supererogation. It's unfathomable to me, but for the sake of argument. There are many situations where it is not better to live. There are many situations where life is subordinate to a goal, or the life of others. Many such situation happen in war. "Greater love hath no man, than to lay his life down for his friends." Do you believe that?.... Why didn't anyone do that violent act of supererogation? Why didn't hundreds do that violent act of supererogation? It's a good question. Which is why it naturally comes to mind.

Perhaps, they wanted to "honor the emperor." Or perhaps they didn't want to criminally damage government property by blowing up a guard tower, or knocking a hole in the camp wall. Or maybe they were worried that if they did, they would build a bigger, nicer, thicker wall in its place. Maybe, they were afraid that one of the soldiers might get burned if they threw a Molotov cocktail over the wall. Or perhaps, all that is complete bullshit. Maybe, they were just cowards. To be sure many were. Maybe, they just didn't have a single clue about what to do. Maybe, they were waiting for someone else to form an armed response that they could join. Maybe, it was too much to fathom what went on behind those walls. Or maybe, the Germans weren't lying when they told the Allies," We didn't know." Maybe...

So, let's talk about something else... killing babies. We've killed approximately 4.58 times the number of people the Nazis have, and they were all babies. And we killed them in the most grotesque place possible... inside of their mothers. People people at the incipient phase of existence. People in a practical sense, more innocent than most of the victims of the Holocaust. Not only, but we have enshrined abortion in law as a right. We have given it the full protection of our law... federal, state, and local. All our power defends and protects it in concert. 55,000,000 murdered babies. Fifty-five million. That's one of those numbers you can't really grasp. That's 6.67 times the population of New York City. That's almost 1 1/2 times the population of California. You could murder every single person living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark twice, and still have five million more people to murder to match that number. Really, it's an act of futility. There's no figure I can give you that will make it comprehensible.

Don't feel like looking down your nose at those German cowards anymore... do you? Waiting for someone else to do something about it? Don't know what to do about it? Waiting for someone else's efforts to gain momentum that you can join? Too much to even fathom; never seems quite the atrocity that it is? One thing is for sure... there's no way for you to lie about it like the Germans did. You know. You know.

One day, maybe, people will ask about us," Why didn't anybody do anything about it? Oh they waved plenty of banners, sure. But why didn't they do something REAL about it? Why didn't the Church stand up and denounce their 'Hitlers' by name and by party?! Why didn't they do everything in their power? Why didn't they risk everything? Why didn't they risk all for the just and right cause?" Weeell... that sort of response to abortion might have fallen into the category of supererogation..." What a safe and terrible answer." May God spread his mercy upon us for our moral dereliction. Be sure to do something meaningful about this... like talking about it on facebook.

Why Do We Need Priests? We're All God's People!

I've seen so many Christians sneer and scoff at the institution of a priesthood, particularly of a Pope. It is an old complaint. Listen to what they sound like (Numbers 16):

"They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?"

I bet Moses would say something like we would say. Something like," The laity is no small thing. You are all priests, prophets, and kings. The Lord has called you near to himself to do His holy works. What more do you want?" Let's see what he says:

“Hear now, you sons of Levi: ?IS IT A SMALL THING? to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself, to do the work of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to serve them; and that He has brought you near to Himself, you and all your brethren, the sons of Levi, with you? And are you seeking the priesthood also? Therefore you and all your company are gathered together against the Lord. And what is Aaron that you complain against him?”

I'm sure that would fall on deaf ears. They'd probably insolently retort:

"Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you should keep acting like a prince over us? Moreover you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!”

It would be so convenient if we knew what the Lord would say about such a protest, wouldn't it? Oh, yes... that's right. We do know:

"... the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly. Then all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, “Lest the earth swallow us up also!” And a fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense."

Then, of course the cry babies would come out and say that isn't nice and try to levy some moral argument against God's representative. I wonder what God would want to do to them? Let's take a look:

On the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the Lord.”  Now it happened, when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.”

And they fell on their faces. So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun.” Then Aaron took it as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the assembly; and already the plague had begun among the people. So he put in the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped. Now those who died in the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the Korah incident. So Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague had stopped."

Hmmm... imagine that. Moral of the story: "Know your role and shut your hole." Be grateful for your place in the Body of Christ. Give due honor and respect and deference to the priesthood, and to God's representatives. Lesson over.

What Ought To Be Done

Si Deus pro nobis quis contra nos? If God is for us, who can be against us? In English that doesn't really make sense. Lots of people can be against us. We glance over the word 'be.' In this case, it has a profound operation. What it really means is, if God is for us, then what else is there? None can contend with the will of God and succeed.

It's so important to remember simple things, like the fact that we are to be doing His will, bringing about His kingdom. " No one will say,' Lo, here it is!' or ,' Lo, there it is!' for the Kingdom of God is within you..." When we say the 'Our Father,' we say," ... Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..." The kingdom of God comes through obedience, purity, and uprightness of heart. And when it does come, it brings with it all the benefits of a kingdom," But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." 

Before Christ said the latter, he had been talking about the cares of life. He wasn't talking about the wants of life, he was addressing basic human needs saying," Therefore, take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." What would Christ say to the Catholic Church in America? What would he say about our fiscal dependency upon the federal government that makes us beholden to the point of moral dereliction? What would he say to a Church that values its tax exempt status over its sacred, God given mission to denounce evil and propagate righteousness?

When the clergy conscientiously fails to denounce politicians who support the institutionalization and protection of evils like abortion, homosexual marriage, pornography because it would imperil the finances, the rights, and the privileges of the Church, what do you imagine Christ ought to say? Is it too much to think about? Is it not your problem? Not your business? The same Church that does this is the same Church that teaches that you may not do evil to accomplish good. Is this a real case of the clergy saying, "Do as I say and not as I do and all will be well?" Or is it quite simply what it appears to be... cowardice?

"But we could lose our parishes, our schools, our hospitals, our cathedrals...," So? We should do evil, or fail to do good, then, so that we might obtain the privilege of existing from the wicked? I think not. All who offer this argument are like Peter when he took Christ aside and began to rebuke him, when He told them that He must go to Jerusalem and all the things that He would suffer. Peter had a worldly mind, in which the preservation of what was already was the highest goal. As St. Thomas Aquinas said," If the highest goal of a captain was the preservation of his ship, it would never leave port." In essence, that is the philosophy of the coward. It's very similar to the philosophy of hedonism, which is also the voice of the world, which says that pleasure and convenience are the chiefest goods. Christ rebuked him for it," But he turned and said to Peter," Get behind me Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

"But we could literally and radically cease to exist! We could find ourselves in a situation not unlike that of the 3rd and 4th century Church!" You don't say? You mean that bishops and priests and religious might have to work jobs like the early Christians did? You mean that the Catholic Church would have to pay its own way, as it once did? I'm reminded of the 'Fable of the Bees' whose hive through corruption grew to a size they would not have done had they not become corrupt, and how by God taking from them in a single hour that ill gotten gain and restoring to them that virtue lost, they found real happiness and true goodness, though they suffered greatly." Beware the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy!" That leaven which puffs up and expands, and makes things seem greater than they are. That leaven which has gotten into the Church, swollen it, bloated it, till it is distended and grotesque. 


Now is better than ever for the responsibility of the Church, of the bishops, priests, and the religious to be realized, for them to stand up and say to the flock," Gird your loins... for you are a stranger here." So that the whole Church may say with Christ," I must go to Jerusalem..." For as St. Paul says," If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." And do you so quickly forget the words written to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna? " Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. be faithful unto death, and i will give you the crown of life. he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death."

The Church has the responsibility of St. John the Baptist in this time. Its purpose is to be preparing the Church for the return of Christ. It's to be bearing fruit in season and out of season. Do not forget so easily the fig tree which the Lord cursed and upon which he found no fruit out of season. He spoke out against Herod, because of his marriage to his brother's sister. St. John spoke out against the same Herod from whom the pharisees received monies. Against that same Herod who gilded the temple in gold, and draped it in silk, and built up its colonnades. The same Herod who made the temple more glorious than it had been since the days of Solomon. And what did Christ say when the apostles marveled and pointed it out to him?" Truly I say unto you, there shall not be one stone left here upon another."

That is what the Church must do. At present, that is not what we are doing. At present it is we who are the pharisees. It's our religious institution taking the hush money." Take this and be quiet on politics. Take this money, and let society be the government's business. Take this money and provide the medical care we tell you to. Take this money and teach what we tell you to in your schools."
It is, it has become an adulterous relationship that the Church has with the government. That should make Catholics tremble in fear and with shame." I have seen thine adulteries... for I AM a jealous God."  On the one hand we can make a clean break and experience a liberation of conscience unprecedented. Can you imagine? True freedom! Not that other sort contrived by men that the government distributes arbitrarily at its leisure. The freedom that Christ gives! On the other hand, we can be like Judas Iscariot, the traitor, and take the thirty pieces of silver.

All the succor, all the benefit, all the amicability, influence, wealth, and power in the world can not justify the silence the Church is selling to the government. It cannot. The Church sold its voice, and now wonders why the sheep have scattered. Where is the shepherds voice? Where is his crook? At the risk of ruining the literary flow of this letter, I want to quote from Braveheart when he addresses the nobles who are a type of the clergy in this case, specifically the bishops," Why is that impossible? You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from Longshank's table that you've missed your God given right to something better." This is precisely the situation we are in.

Make no mistake, if we were to ever be our true selves, it could only result in persecution. When you think of the dullness and banality of your own faith, do not wonder. When you wonder at the timidity of the Church, and you see how the government has us in a convenient little box with all other religions, hope shrinks away. When you wonder what happened, when you read the Book of Acts and you look at the Early Fathers, when you read the lives of saints and you wonder," What happened? Where is this Church? What changed? Why is the Catholic Church just another face in the crowd in the 21st Century?" You know in your heart the reason. It's because we asked for permission to exist. It's because we took their money. It's because we allowed ourselves to be subjugated, literally we became subjects, whereas our fathers would not tolerate such a yoke.

We have been called to suffer with Christ, who gave Himself for the life of the world. It is not always better that we should live. "Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for his friends." The Church must lay its life down for the sake of humanity... we were called to do this. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. Are you persecuted? Are you really persecuted? Or do people just disagree with you? Or do people intermittently just not like you? Is your Church really challenging society with its godliness? Or is your Church merely a carping annoyance whose moral opinions are little more than an occasional gadfly that can be shewed away? The answer means everything.

The Church is called to be Christs. What do you think it means? You know what it means! Friendship with Christ is enmity with the world. That is not just a reality for the individual Christian, it is the reality for the Church. Pray for your priests to have moral courage. Pray for your bishops to stand in the day of temptation. Pray for the courage they need to seek first the kingdom of Heaven. Pray for the resolve necessary to accept what will be lost. Pray for them to have a vision of what will be gained, for," Where there is no vision the people perish." Pray for hope, for," He who keeps the law, happy is he." the law of righteousness.