Becoming Catholic

Musing of a convert(ing).

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Bishop Robert Barron talks about Mother Angelica’s legacy. God is awesome in all her saints, and Mother Angelica is a saint, I think it’s safe to say.

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The Founding of Christendom: A History of Christendom (vol. 1) is part of a 6 volume set by Warren H. Carroll. I’ve just finished the first book, and can’t recommend it highly enough.

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Recently, I watched a clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson answering the question, “Do you believe in [the Christian] God?” His answer is a good one and well articulated, as you might expect of him.

In it, he makes many points, but I wanted to note two of them. The first is that he cannot reconcile a God who allows natural disaster with a God who is all-powerful and all good.

In the video above, and also this one, and this one, Fr. Barron addresses "the problem of suffering" with typical nuance and sophistication. The conclusion is this: yes, this is a tough problem. Ultimately, in this life, it's largely a mystery, but to therefore surmise that there is no God or that He's not worth knowing is a mistake-- it is to take one piece of evidence and ignore any counter-evidence (say, certain well documented miracles, exorcisms, or what have you). Fr. Barron makes the point that if you can imagine there is a God and that this life is not "the ultimate horizon of existence" then it might be worth pondering the question: "Is it possible that suffering is a route of access to a much deeper life?"

The second point from Neil deGrasse Tyson that I wanted to mention is this: "It is unstable to build a government on a belief system." This statement is justified by pointing out:

There are many religions in the world

Varying religions disagree with each other at least as often as they agree

You can't build a government on such belief systems or it will be chaos.

OK. Well, I tend to agree. But on the other hand you can't really found anything without a belief-system of some kind undergirding your actions. If you say, "I want to live in a country where all religions have equal rights..." You are really saying, "I have a belief-system that says all religions should have equal-rights."

What is law, if not the explicit rules of a societal code-- or belief system? Maybe it's not religious, but it is a belief system, nonetheless. And it greatly matters what kind of belief system you base your society on. How else will you determine policy on things such as: euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, warrantless searches, wiretapping, torture, mainfest desstiny, sex-ed, government-operated businesses, taxation, voting rights, marriage rights, healthcare, social safety-nets, etc? Mob-rules? One might respond: "It is unstable to build a government without a belief system."

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Pope Francis’s actions speak louder than his words

He is far more radical than most Americans, including most liberals.

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Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".[13] *The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby.* The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

The last paragraph of Ratzinger’s Regensburg address (emphasis mine)

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Convinced

Why would intelligent, successful people give up careers, alienate friends, and cause havoc in their families...to become Catholic? As he was considering his own…

This is a great documentary summarizing the conversion stories of maybe a few dozen people. Well worth the $4 rental.

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Pretty epic.

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A great little segment on the need for deep fellowship. 

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A note on the Church and science

Here's a letter from a certain Catholic I love:

Believe it or not, I learned all about Copernicus in school, and not ONE WORD was said about his being a Catholic priest. Just found that out this week. Turns out Nicholas Copernicus was asked by the Pope to fix the calendar, which the educated clergy knew was wrong due to incorrect astronomical calculations. Same pope who excommunicated Martin Luther. Copernicus was afraid of ridicule for his heliocentric theory, but his uncle, Bishop of Heilsberg, encouraged him. It was the Church that taught Copernicus- he went to five different universities, all founded by the Church, and excelled. One of his students presented the theory to another pope, Clement VII, who rewarded him with a rare Greek manuscript. Same pope who put his foot down with Henry VIII.

The article goes on to say:

"These were not flat-footed peasants staring at the ground to watch it move. Nor were they Lutherans, who disparaged philosophy and said that Scripture alone, in its most obvious sense, teaches men all they need to know...."

"Ridicule? What deserves ridicule is the idea the Church was ever afraid of learning. She invented the universities, preserved the works of the great pagans, and built schools in every diocese, many providing instruction gratis for the poor. She inspired and commissioned the greatest artists the world has known- Michelangelo was among thousands. Her monks turned northern Europe into a garden of grain and fruit, making agricultural, medical, architectural, and mechanical innovations for more than a millennium. Her main purpose was to lead men to God, not to teach them farming, arts, and letters, statesmanship, and astronomy, but she could hardly have done more if she had been established solely for those purposes; and no institution in history has done more."

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If anyone says that Christ Jesus was given by God to men as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey, let him be anathema.

Trent VI, Canon 21... Good stuff.

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Sabbath to Sunday

Just heard this quoted:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

As part of an explanation on why Catholics worship on Sunday rather than Saturday. The Sabbath was linked to the original creation... the day that God rested. Sunday is linked to the new creation.

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For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

St Bernard of Clairvaux

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Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

Fr Silver

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All our learning should consist of finding out what God has planned for us at each moment. Anything we read which is not chosen for us by God is harmful. Without God, all our theorizing and reading are useless, and as they are without the life-giving power of God, all they do is drain the heart and fill the mind... The will of God is now manifesting itself in those circumstances which are the duty of the present moment. It is the fulfilling of this duty, no matter in what guise it presents itself, which does most to make one holy. for example, if it is God's will that the present moment should be spent in reading, then reading will exert a mystical power in the depths of the soul; but if he wishes us to abandon reading for the duty of contemplation, then it is contemplation which will work on our souls and reading would be useless and detrimental; if he wants us to put aside contemplation in order to hear confessions even for a very considerable time, this duty unites us with Jesus Christ, and all the sweetness of contemplation would then only destroy this union. ...There is nothing better for us than for us to do what God wants at any particular moment. We must regard everything else with complete indifference and as something worth nothing at all.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade - Abandonment to Divine Providence

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The Catholic Church Is Wealthy, But Jesus Was Poor

Recently, a friend criticized the Catholic Church for being led by a wealthy, powerful man. To illustrate, he pointed to the Pope's fancy clothes and the big, ornate Cathedrals. "Jesus was poor," he added.

I often hear this critique. It usually is couched in some sort of pious pretext, such as, "Why doesn't the Church sell all of that fancy stuff and solve world hunger?"

My first response is to point out how similar this reasoning is to that of Judas:

John 12:5 (Judas' response to costly perfume being poured on Jesus' feet) “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”

Secondly, no organization does more to help the poor of this world than the charities of the Catholic Church. It's the biggest charitable organization in the world.

Thirdly, no one lives Gospel poverty as clearly as Catholic saints like Mother Theresa, Benedict, Francis of Assisi, and so on.

Fourthly, spending money on places of worship (and liturgical garb) is Biblical:

1 Kings 6 (Temple, as decreed by God) 23 For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. ... 28 He overlaid the cherubim with gold. 29 On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30 He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

(This is also, incidentally, a good text to refer people to when they criticize the Church for her statuary.)

Exodus 28 (Priestly garb, as decreed by God) 6 Make the ephod of gold, and of blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and of finely twisted linen—the work of skilled hands. ... 17 Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. The first row shall be carnelian, chrysolite and beryl; 18 the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald; 19 the third row shall be jacinth, agate and amethyst; 20 the fourth row shall be topaz, onyx and jasper.[b] Mount them in gold filigree settings.

The full thing can be read here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2028&version=NIV

And finally, money spent on big fancy Cathedrals is not wasted money. Imagine if, instead of building the Sistine Chapel, the Church had donated that money to the poor. It would have long ago been spent and forgotten. How much poorer we would all be for it! But instead, generations of people have stepped into that breathtaking space and been drawn into worship, or at least they've been inspired. Such spaces are of inestimable value and are a *far* better investment than spending millions on some megachurch gymnasium-style building that has about as much lasting inspirational value as a cardboard box.

The OT contains many examples of money being well-spent on places of worship, and the NT Church is just a fulfillment of the OT, after all, and a pointer to the eternal kingdom.

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Frontman: Stories From Life in a Rock Band and How God Ruined Everything. Part I.

(For all of us trying to peel off our old vices, and for those days when putting on Christ is like putting on a wet suit that’s one size too small, I offer the following anecdote...) In 1999, the r...

Great, humorous read (3-part series) from Dan Lord on how God threw a wrench in his musical career.

I love the way this guy writes... But he's also an uuber knowledgeable apologist.

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Mother Teresa's Nobel Peace Prize speech

If you haven't read Mother Teresa's speech, I highly recommend it. There were two themes that particularly struck home. The first was the importance of thinking of missions, of loving Christ, as something that must begin and be strong in our closest relationships.

On the neglect of our elders:

I never forget an opportunity I had in visiting a home where they had all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them in an institution and forgotten maybe. And I went there, and I saw in that home they had everything, beautiful things, but everybody was looking towards the door. And I did not see a single one with their smile on their face. And I turned to the Sister and I asked: How is that? How is it that the people they have everything here, why are they all looking towards the door, why are they not smiling? I am so used to see the smile on our people, even the dying one smile, and she said: This is nearly every day, they are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them.

On the neglect of our children:

I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given into drugs, and I tried to find out why - why is it like that, and the answer was: Because there is no one in the family to receive them. Father and mother are so busy they have no time.

Or on their outright murder:

...if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between.

On reversing the tide:

I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult... I think that if we all look into our own homes, how difficult we find it sometimes to smile at each, other, and that the smile is the beginning of love... Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family. Smile at each other.

The full text can be found here.