The readings for the 4th Sunday of Lent are available on the bishops’ website, www.usccb.org (we preached on the Cycle A readings for the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults). A recording of the Gospel is here, the audio for the homily is here, and the full text of the homily is here.
I am starting a study of Blessed John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, and I am finding even more to relate to my own experience than I found the first time I tried to unpack all of it. And I am also finding a renewed urgency to get my head around it, so that I can share it.
A lot of this revolves around the sense of sight. How do we see one another? How do we see ourselves? And most importantly, how do we see ourselves in relationship with God?
I hope my humble effort is worthy of your time. And I hope your windowpane becomes clearer as this Lent progresses!
—Deacon Chip
Share this:
Folks,
There are a few changes to the Adoration schedule on the Fridays of Lent this year. For multiple reasons, which are beyond the scope of this post, we have decided to concentrate our hours for Eucharistic Adoration into three hours, from 9:00 pm (after Stations of the Cross and the Holy Hour after ) until midnight. First Friday 24-hour Adoration will go as usual, and everyone who usually volunteers can count on their usual hour being available for them. But on the Fridays of Lent besides First Friday (March 2nd), the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed at the end of stations, and the Holy Hour will continue until 9:00 pm in the Main Church. We will move Adoration to the St. Joachim Chapel at 9:00 pm, and continue until midnight.
Please sign up for an hour with the Lord! There will be sign-up sheets available in the Narthex after Masses this weekend (but not for you Saturday Mass folks; I’m not that good!). We are looking for at least four volunteers per hour from 9 to midnight to commit to an hour; everyone else is welcome to come and visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament at their leisure.
Eucharistic Adoration is a good Lenten practice, one that, when developed, can bear fruit all year. Please join us in Adoration of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar!
Share this:
That the Government has no authority to mandate that anyone buy *anything* like health insurance for contraceptives and sterilizations (or Anything else)? One of the major objections to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is exactly that mandate. And it ain’t been demonstrated that the Federal Government has the power to do any such thing as tell you and me what we *must* buy. states? Yes. That’s why you have automobile insurance as a condition of operating a motor vehicle.
But the Federal Guhmint? I don’t believe so.
Man.
Share this:
I so wish I was part of the class of folks who can think and write quickly and clearly on the spur of the moment. I am, alas, not one of those people.
But thank God I read people who are!
With a h/t to CatholicVote.org, I point out this article regarding a letter that analyzes the “compromise” offered by the Administration on its mandate. I saw a really interesting comparison to the terms of the mandate here, on the same blog; it’s like telling a kosher Jew that the bacon on his Rueben sandwich plate is free, even though he didn’t want it or ask for it.
If anyone is looking for a physician to treat all these diseases that can supposedly only be treated with BAC pills, I have a referral list. Our doctors have been lied to in training, at the same time we’ve all been lied to about the “benefits” of contraception. There’s no getting around what artificial means of preventing pregnancy do (all oral contraceptives have three mechanisms of action, ovulation prevention, fertilization prevention, and implantation prevention, and that last is abortifacient) (sorry if that truth bothers anyone). The reasons the Church calls artificial birth control evil are cogent (even if it took me 32 years to figure that out; the culture is LOUD on this subject!).
And the “compromise” is no compromise. Don’t be fooled!
And never forget, my Friends of Color: the mother of the Birth Control Movement (Margaret Sanger) wanted to make sure that you “undesirables” didn’t breed. How loud y’all need me to shout that? Go visit maafa21.org.
Birth control ain’t about “women’s health”. It’s about money. And it’s about purifying the species. And ultimately, it’s about abortion (because what do we do when ur birth control “fails” (meaning that life succeeds)? We visit Planned Parenthood to correct the “mistake”.
Y’all better WAKE THE HECK UP.
Share this:
To Stop The Multiplication Of The Unfit
With a h/t to Michelle Malkin, this is what I have been trying to point out for a while. Y’all need to wake up, and at least acknowledge,the truth of what we are doing, pursuing a policy like this HHS mandate that birth control be free to all and paid for by every employer, conscience be danged!
Ok, by show of hands, who believes that unfettered access to artificial contraception is the best thing that ever happened to mankind? You, sir? You, ma’am?
Alright…why do you believe that? Yes? You in the white shirt. …oh, because it lets women control when they are going to have children, so that they can ensure the best possible environment for their kids? Yes, you in the beret? … Ah, yes. Because it frees women from the yoke of the tyrannical womb? Frees them to do what? Have sex whenever they want with whomever they want? I see.
All well and good…but what did Pope Paul VI predict about all this in his landmark encyclical, Humanae Vitae? Well, let’s take a look.
His Holiness Paul VI predicted, in para. 17 of his encyclical, the following:
Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Hmmm…sound familiar, anyone? I think I saw this the last time I accidentally stopped on BET when they were playing “music” videos.
Read the rest of the paragraph. Heck, read the whole thing. you’ll immediately see two things. First, Paul VI was prophetic when he wrote Humanae Vitae. Second, you’ve been lied to, a LOT, about what the Church teaches about life, the regulation of birth, and the proper use of our sexuality.
And if you think the President and his cronies are doing the right thing by the tens of millions of Black and other minority women they’re pimping birth control for…
Think again.
Are *you* one of Margaret Sanger’s “unfit”?
Share this:
Our bishop, Most Reverend J. Terry Steib, of Memphis in West Tennessee, has joined a growing number of bishops across our country (here’s the most current list I could find) who vocally oppose the Health and Human Services contraception mandate. To date, 155 bishops have voiced their opposition to this goofy violation of our religious liberty a s Catholics. I seriously doubt that the Administration has thought this through.
Thank you, Bishop Terry!
Share this:
This here is an interesting post, courtesy of The Creative Minority Report:
Military Issues Gag Order On Catholics.
Weakness is rampant in Guhmint leadership. If the only way you can defend an egregious act is to make everyone shut up about it, then you know you’re waaaaaay off base.
President Obama may have created a far bigger problem for himself, politically, than he thinks he solved by throwing the weight of government enforcement behind suppressing the religious practices of the Catholic Church in the United States. Might not have been such a good idea.
And for those who might respond to this post with diatribes about how dumb the Church is to have a stance against artificial contraceptives, etc., etc., save your breath. Your arguments are specious, and based on faulty logic, and have already been addressed elsewhere in the blogosphere. If you insist on trying to convince me the Church is wrong, I will engage you, certainly, in conversation. But to tip my hand, I will want you to show me the great good that has come from ubiquitous use (even among otherwise faithful Catholics) of artificial contraception. Then, I will ask you to show me where Pope Paul VI was wrong, when in Humanae vitae (Of Human Life), when he pointed out the grave consequences of methods of artificial contraception:
Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. (no. 17)
He went on to point out the danger peoples in repressive countries would face from contraceptives in “the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law.” China, anyone?
So don’t run at me with all the usual arguments (freedom for women, liberation from antiquated notions about sexuality, getting the Church out of my bedroom), until you show me where Paul VI erred in the above.
Sheesh.
Share this:
The Gospel for the day is here. The audio of my homily is here. And the full text of the homily is here.
I invite your comments on this post; I think there is something telling about the fat that an unclean spirit could immediately recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God, and yet we, who should know Him better than that, so often trivialize Him. What if we recognized Him as who He is…?
Share this:
“…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” These words are from our second reading today.
It is unusual for our Sunday readings to be as direct as today’s readings are, I think. Many times, we have to hold up a lens and look at the readings, and try to make some connections that speak to our situation today. I don’t think this is one of those times.
Today marks the beginning of Respect Life Month in our Church in the United States. One would have to never read a newspaper, listen to a radio, or watch the news to be unaware of the situation facing the most vulnerable members of our society today, in the Culture of Death that is trying to take over our society. Catholic organizations being required by regulation to provide for birth control; hospitals being forced to provide abortion services; a child killed after birth, and his mother given a suspended sentence.
What are we thinking about? What are we allowing to happen in our culture? And what will come of it? .
The first reading and the Gospel both use imagery of a vineyard to speak to us today. And in both readings, there is mismanagement going on, isn’t there?
The reading from Isaiah laments that, even though the owner of the vineyard did everything he could to make the vineyard fertile, it failed to produce good fruit. The consequence of that failure? The owner gave up on it, and let it fall into ruin! The owner knocked down the hedges so that sheep could graze. He knocked down the walls so that people could trample it. And he stopped cultivating it, so that weeds could take over.
And in the Gospel, Jesus speaks of tenants who try to steal the vineyard from its rightful owner. Time after time, the owner of the vineyard sent people to get his produce. The people he left responsible for the vineyard beat, stoned and killed everyone the owner sent, even his son! And what happened to them? The vineyard was taken away and given to other tenants!
Both readings were intended to be applied to those who heard them when they were written. Isaiah’s parable referred to a coming time of trouble for Israel. Jesus’ parable was directed at those who would reject Him, and pointed out that others would be brought in to produce fruit, in place of those who were out for their own ends.
We might be tempted to look at these stories and go, “Oh, poor Israel! Those poor Jews! If only they’d listened! If only they’d believed!” We might be tempted, but we would be wrong.
These stories speak to us, too. They speak to a culture that has taken what has been given to it, and turned it upside down. They speak to a people who have, somehow, decided that things that are clearly wrong, well, they’re ok…I mean, we wouldn’t want to judge or anything. The parables speak to a people whose judgments are sometimes so clouded that we produce robust federal laws to protect people from having to hear anyone tell them they might be making a mistake. They speak to a culture that has forgotten that life, all life, is sacred, from conception to natural death.
And they speak to a culture that has made so many compromises with the Truth that it has, in some instances, lost its way. We can now experiment on people (in the form of embryos) with the excuse that we might cure disease (killing one person to save another). We can justify giving the government the authority to decide who should and shouldn’t receive life-saving or life extending treatments.
And we can look the other way as millions of people are killed every year, in the womb, in the name of “choice”.
It’s horrible, really, when you think about it. It’s so horrible, in fact, that many of us don’t want to think about it. I can count myself in that number, at least at one time in my life; I walked out of a homily in a church in Lawton, OK, back in 1988, because I just couldn’t listen to some deacon tell me how wrong I was to support a woman’s “right to choose”. I didn’t want to hear it.
But brothers and sisters, we have to hear it. We have to hear the approximately 50 million voices silenced in our country alone since 1973 by the sin of abortion. We have to hear the silent cries of the millions of women who have been harmed in our country by the lie of “choice”. We have to reach out to them, not in judgment, but in compassion! We have to at least be willing to welcome them back into our communion, and we have to be willing to help them heal!
And we have to be willing to stand up for the Truth. Our parish will take part in the Memphis 40 Days for Life campaign next Sunday. Stand for life by coming out that day. If you can’t come out, support those that can in prayer that day. But, whatever we choose to do, we have to stand up.
The consequences of continuing on this path, as a country and a world, are terrifying to contemplate. We have a choice. We can stand up for the Truth. We can defend life. Or we can reap the consequences.
What is the Truth…about Life? Where do we stand? What are we willing to do to make that stand known?
Thank God my mother was pro-life when I was conceived. Thank God your mom was too.
“…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” This is what Paul told the Philippians. This is what Paul is telling us.
What are we thinking?
Share this:
As kids, we all learned that song, “We Three Kings”. No, not the one that we sang this morning, but the one with the kings and the rubber cigar. (We Three Kings of Orient are/Trying to smoke a rubber cigar/It was Loaded, it exploded/That’s how we traversed so far!) And now everybody will have those lyrics stuck in their head the rest of the day…
But this got me thinking about how we think about Epiphany, what we emphasize, what we usually see as the point. Mostly we think about the kings, and the star, about King Herod trying to snake the Magi into giving up the location of the Christ child. And we think about what Jesus got from the Magi: every child here, I bet can name the gifts the brought to Jesus. What did they bring? (Ask for responses) See? Everybody knows about the gold, frankincense and myrrh!
And it occurs to me that, by focusing on the three kings, and the gold, frankincense and myrrh, and all the other tiny details of the story of the Magi, we miss what the Church is really trying to teach us about Christ, and about ourselves, with this celebration.
And the point isn’t the Magi of thousand years ago.
Where did this feast day come from, anyway? Epiphany was first celebrated in the Eastern Church to observe the birth of Christ; Christmas as we would recognize it came hundreds of years later there. In the West, while the celebration of the Nativity was the first celebration of Christ’s coming, the Church of Rome added a feast to acknowledge Jesus ’manifestation to the world. The word epiphany comes to us from the Greek epiphaneia, which means “appearing”, or “coming”. Our Feast of the Epiphany is literally a celebration of the “appearance” of the Lord before all of mankind, personified by the three Gentile kings.
And note the details. The Magi visited well after Jesus’ actual birth, not the same night or even the same week of His birth; they likely visited the Holy Family somewhere other than a stable. And look at the gifts they brought! Jesus didn’t get no bicycle, or PlayStation 3 for His birthday! He received gold, frankincense, and myrrh, strange gifts by our standards!
History, tradition, and Hollywood have filled in a lot of other things for us, some of which help, but some of which just sensationalize the event of the Three Kings arriving, but which don’t help us understand.
The wise men followed…a light from the Heavens. That light led them to Jesus, even though the Jews of Jerusalem couldn’t quite see it!
So what’s the significance of all these details?
Well, first, the Magi coming to Jesus is the event that makes it clear that Jesus is here for everyone. The angels’ announcement to the shepherds at Christmas demonstrated that Jesus came for the poor, the lowly and neglected in society; the shepherds hearing the news first tells us that. The Magi being the first to acknowledge Jesus publicly as a King shows that Jesus came for the Gentiles as well.
The star leading the Magi to Jesus across hundreds miles of desert signifies Jesus’ call to faith, directed to all of mankind, Jews and Gentiles alike. The Magi dropping everything to leave immediately signifies the response of faith that comes from seeing the Light of Christ.
And the gifts weren’t just randomly selected, either. Gold is a tribute for royalty. Frankincense was used to worship God, as prayers rise with the smoke from the censer. And Myrrh was an expensive ointment used to care for the bodies of men. So, in their gifts, the Magi acknowledged Jesus as true God, true man, and King of all!
All that symbolism is vaguely inspiring, maybe…but so what? Why should we care?
See, the problem with quaint stories with lots of cute little details is that the details that we miss out on the big picture! The value of Epiphany is much more than pretty pictures of kings and dromedaries. It’s much more, because we figure into the story at almost every turn!
“Wise men still seek Him?” I’ll give you that. We should all constantly be seeking Christ in our lives, yes. So we’re all like the Magi, in a way.
But…where is the Star that new seekers follow to find Christ? That star is in us! The Light of Christ that we each receive at our baptisms is supposed to be kept burning brightly. Why? So that others may see our faith and follow it to Christ! And when we stand up for right, for truth, for what should be instead of what is, when we stand against the darkness and with the Light, we are the Star, showing others the way to Christ!
Remember I said that the point of the Feast of the Epiphany isn’t really the Magi?
It’s not. The point of the Epiphany of the Lord is not just that Christ was worshiped by three Gentile Kings. No…The point is that Christ continues to be worshiped by Gentiles even today! The point is that people do still seek the Light of Christ. The point is that, while the Magi followed a heavenly light to arrive at the home of the Redeemer, the Seekers of today follow another Light to find Him. And that light is in each one of us.
Heavy responsibility? Absolutely. But the Church doesn’t just leave us out there alone to bear it. The whole of our sacramental life in the Church is meant to kindle that Light of Christ in us. We gather to worship, and we gather to learn, so that we can better represent that Light in each of us.
Epiphany is about far more than Kings, and rubber cigars. Epiphany is about the Light of the world, being manifested to the Gentiles. It’s about that light leading all nations to God.
Most importantly, it’s about the call of Christ, asking each of us:
Be the Light!
Tall, Bald, and Called 