I am extremely fortunate that my parish has perpetual adoration. This has been a beautiful gift to our parish, and it has resulted in countless blessings. Once, I was asked to speak at the end of Mass on the importance of giving one’s time to the parish (part of a “time, talent, and treasure” campaign). I told everyone to make a commitment to go to adoration once a week. Don’t worry about joining any committees or programs, just go to adoration. Everything else would work out after that.

Our Holy Father spoke yesterday on the importance of this devotional practice:

Adoration should lead to greater union with Jesus

Speaking to the Congregation’s full assembly, Pope Benedict said that he hopes their reflection on Eucharistic adoration “may help to clarify… the liturgical and pastoral means by which the Church of our time can promote faith in the real presence of the Lord in the Blessed Eucharist, and to ensure that the celebration of Mass fully incorporates the aspect of adoration.”

The Pope also took care to highlight the truths of the faith that adoration is rooted in. “The doctrine of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine, and of the real presence, are a truth of faith, already evident in Holy Scripture and later confirmed by the Fathers of the Church,” noted Benedict XVI.

After then explaining that, “in the Eucharist, adoration must become union: union with the living Lord and with His mystical Body,” the Pope illustrated this reality by drawing upon what he said at World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne: “God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in Him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards to others until it fills the world, so that His love can truly become the dominant measure of the world.”

Come, let us adore Him!

Possibly the greatest store on earth, at least to this bibliophile, is Loome Books in Minnesota. It is the largest theological bookstore in the nation, and if I could, I would have no problem with setting up a cot and just living there (although my wife might object). Who needs food when you’ve got Congar, Lossky, and Ratzinger to read?

In their latest e-catalog, they are promoting a list of books for “The Educated Layman.” The list include the following categories:

• Biblical Reference & Commentaries
• Catechetics
• Catholic Recusancy in Great Britain (1559-1829)
• Fine Christian Art & Architecture
• Collected Lives of Saints
• Eastern Christianity
• General & Modern Church History
• Theological Reference Books
• Graeco-Roman Studies
• Grammars
• Liturgical Studies
• Books on the Mother of Our Lord
• Medieval Studies
• Literature
• Christ and the Gospels, et al.
• Papal Teachings
• The Early Church
• Philosophy
• Pilgrimage
• Prayerbooks
• Reformation & Counter-Reformation
• Second Vatican Council
• Sets
• Dogmatics, Spiritual and General Theology
• Thomas Aquinas
• Canon Law

Just perusing the list is probably a near occasion of sin for me, as it creates an unhealthy desire for the goods of this world!

The Detroit News today has an article on the rise of traditional practices within the Catholic Church. It notes that practices such as the Latin Mass, Adoration and indulgences are on the upswing, and those who are interested in such practices are not necessarily all conservatives:

Some Catholics who attend the more traditional rituals say they are quite progressive in outlook, willing to at least discuss issues like married and women priests and are more accepting of homosexuality than the Vatican, for example. They say their choice of forms of worship is not at all about the politics of the church. They simply find the traditional Mass asthetically pleasing, with its Gregorian chants, use of the old term “Holy Ghost” instead of “Holy Spirit,” burning of incense, frequent ringing of bells to mark important junctures of the service and the formal procession of 10 altar boys, deacons and priests dressed in traditional cassocks and lace-embroidered surplices at the beginning and end of the Mass.

The article does seem to imply (incorrectly, in my mind) that most of the appeal of these traditional practices are aesthetic in nature. While I can see that being true to a certain extent – especially with the Latin Mass – I can’t see that really being a factor in the increased use of indulgences, for example (what exactly would be more aesthetic about receiving an indulgence, anyway?).

Clearly, much of this rise is due to the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made a concerted effort to place the reforms Vatican II within the context of the entire tradition of the Church. His whole career, in fact, has been one big effort to promote the hermeneutic of continuity – the idea that even when the Church needs reform (as she always does), she must reform in continuity with the legitimate and Spirit-directed traditions of our Faith.

There is such a deep richness in the Catholic Faith that it was a shame that for almost a generation these very valuable and beautiful traditions were lost. Praise be to God that they are becoming more widely available today!

I mentioned in a previous post that here in DC Archbishop Wuerl is making a major push this Lent to invite non-practicing Catholics back to the Church. In conjunction with that effort, the Archdiocese has started a blog called “Maybe it’s God“. It has a number of contributors, including Monsignor Charles Pope, who preached a wonderful 40 Hours at my parish this week and Monsignor Rob Panke, who is the Vocations Director for the DC diocese (he is awesome at this job – we have more than 70 men studying for the priesthood right now, so he must be doing something right!). The blog covers a number of great topics, such as “40 Reasons to Come Home,” “How to Go to Confession,” and “Top Ten Ways to Evangelize.”

I encourage you to check it out!

With the election of a new Russian Patriarch, Evangelicals are hoping for better relations with the Orthodox. Laws in Russia generally favor the Orthodox Church over any other religious group, and Evangelicals are particularly unwelcome in Russia by the Orthodox hierarchy, as they are often seen as trying to poach existing members of the Orthodox Church.

The clash between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism is often a cultural one, however:

Evangelicals in particular are struggling against the concept that non-Orthodox Christianity is foreign and even unpatriotic. William Yoder, spokesperson for the Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists of Russia (RUECB), explained the popular conception of religion in Russia: “If you’re Russian, you must be Orthodox. By the same equation, if you’re Baptist, you must be an American.”

The problem is that often Evangelicalism does equal Americanism. Modern Evangelicalism has for the most part married itself to the “American Gospel,” and has thus become divorced from historical Christianity, of which Orthodoxy is a part.

One example: to most American Evangelicals, individualism is a core part of Christianity. The belief that one is saved by faith alone has morphed into the belief that one is saved alone, without any connection to the Church. This meshes well with the “rugged American individualism” that Americans so love. But it is completely foreign to Orthodoxy (and Catholicism, for that matter).

I remember from my Campus Crusade for Christ days that we treated Russia like it was a pagan nation. There was no respect for the 1,000 year Christian tradition of that nation. If a person didn’t profess their belief in Christ in the typical Evangelical way – “I am born again” or “I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” – then they were considered among the lost, even if they were a fervent church-goer.

I do believe in religious freedom, but I understand the hesitancy of the Orthodox Church to welcome groups like American Baptists into their country. Perhaps if the Baptists, and Evangelicals in general, were willing to accept the Orthodox practice of Christianity as salvific, the heirarchy would be more open to ecumenical relations.

As you have probably heard, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, “Angels and Demons,” is coming to theaters this May. From the trailer (which you can see here), it looks like more of the same: the big, bad Catholic Church knows nothing about Jesus, hates science and only cares about keeping its power. Yawn.

What strikes me most about representations of Jesus in places like the Da Vinci Code, the Jesus Seminar, and the annual Easter media Jesus-bash is how commonplace and boring that Jesus is. Each of these revisionist Jesuses have one thing in common: no one would ever give their life to that man. No one would go to the ends of the earth preaching about a nice preacher who died due to an unfortunate misunderstanding. No one would radically change their lifestyle for a proto-socialist who just wanted to live a quiet life with Mary Magdalene. No one would be martyred for a Jesus who didn’t really raise from the dead.

But the traditional Jesus – the one who claimed to be the Way, the Truth and the Life, the one who demanded that we be perfect and follow him in order to be saved, the one who died a bloody death to save us and defeated the powers of death by rising from the grave – is the Jesus who produces a radical change in the lives of individuals who follow him. This is the Jesus that is the impetus for a worldwide religion that has changed human history. This is the Jesus who is the inspiring force behind countless saints.

It is this Jesus – the Jesus of the Scriptures and of history – that I am trying to present in my book Who Do You Say That I Am? He is the Lord to whom millions have made a radical commitment, thereby changing the world forever.

So when you hear about the “new Jesus” this Easter or in May, remember that the “trad Jesus” is the “rad Jesus.”

According to this story, Operation Rescue founder and Catholic convert Randall Terry has gone to the Vatican to ask them to remove American bishops who, in his opinion, have not done enough to stop the scourge of abortion in this country. He specifically singles out Archbishop Wuerl of DC (my bishop) and Bishop Loverde of Arlington due to the high number of politicians residing in their dioceses.

Although I am sympathetic to many of Terry’s complaints in regard to the lack of action by many bishops in fighting legalized abortion, I think his methods here are fundamentally flawed and reflect a poor ecclesiology.

The Catholic Church is not set up as a corporation, with the Pope as the CEO and the bishops as his lieutenants. The pope’s job is not to simply hire and fire bishops whenever one of them doesn’t toe the party line. A bishop is a true successor to the apostles, and as such, has almost complete authority over his diocese. Yes, a pope can remove a bishop if necessary, but it would set a bad precedent if he began to remove bishops as frequently as Terry desires. It would send a message that a bishop is nothing but the pope’s flunky and has no real authority on his own.

And what happens when we have a “bad” pope? History has shown that the charism of infallibility does not protect against incompetent or even evil pontiffs. If the precedent is set that the bishops are simply middle managers who have no real authority, what happens when a pope is elected who is corrupt or otherwise a poor shepherd? Do we want him to apply this precedent by removing orthodox bishops on a whim?

Another problem with this suggestion is that it would basically destroy any ecumenical progress with the Eastern Orthodox. If the pope began to purge the episcopal ranks of those who do not meet his standard of acceptability, then it would confirm the worst suspicions of the Orthodox. It would show that the Catholic Church has no respect for the office of the bishop – an office, I might add, highly revered in the early Church.

Again, I am sympathetic to many of Terry’s complaints. I find it scandalous that many bishops have not spoken in stronger defense of the unborn – although I was very pleased with how many did speak strongly in the last election cycle. It pains me deeply that many bishops don’t recognize the absolute evil that legalized abortion is. But the solution is not to fire bishops until we find ones who are to our liking. I would propose that the solution is much more fundamental, closer to home, and appropriate to the Lenten season:

When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.”

And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.”

And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?”

And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

“But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Matthew 17:14-21

The demonic scourge of abortion will not leave our land when we get good bishops, although that will help. It will only leave when we have committed ourselves as a Church to prayer and fasting to end abortion. Through prayer and fasting, mountains can be moved and souls can be converted – even the souls of bishops.

In the NewsOK (an Oklahoma paper), religion columnist Andrew Tevington, a United Methodist minister, is asked the following question:

Q. I am Baptist and attended a friend’s Methodist church. During the worship service, they recited a creed that said something about “apostolic and Catholic church.” Why would they say that in a Protestant church? What does it mean? Our church doesn’t believe in any creed but Jesus.

Bob, Edmond

Rev. Tevington gives a pretty good answer, defining what “catholic” means in the orignal Greek (“universal”) as well as distinguishing between apostolic churches and non-apostolic churches. However, as should be expected, his answer falls a bit short.

One thing that Rev. Tevington does not address is what the original framers of the Nicene Creed believed when they professed the Church as “catholic.” Does it refer simply to the “worldwide Christian church,” as Rev. Tevington believes?

By the time of the Council of Nicea, the term “Catholic” had already become something of a title, not just a description. Yes, the term means “universal,” but it also referred to something distinctive – a visible Church with bishops that could trace their offices back to the apostles. It did not simply refer to all who professed Christ throughout the world, but specifically to that visible organization which one joined through Baptism and maintained membership in through the reception of the Eucharist. One could know if he was a member of this Church are not – and so could others.

I am glad that non-Catholic Christians still recite the Nicene Creed, as it shows that they place a high value on the importance of correct doctrine. However, it would be better if they did not change the meaning of the words to fit later doctrinal alterations.

Vatican II emphasized the truth that all of us are called to be holy; it is not something reserved for priests and religious. Pope John Paul II realized that an effective way to demonstrate this reality is to canonize more lay Catholics. The percentage of lay Catholics who have been canonized throughout the centuries is quite small if you consider how much they make up the membership of the Church.

Married couples especially have not fared well; only two have been beatified: Ludovico and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi (2001), and the parents of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin (2008). As a Catholic, I know I am called to sainthood, and as a married man, I think it would be great to have more models of married couples to follow.

Well, just last month the cause for canonization was opened for another married couple, Paquita Dominguez and Tomas Alvira, a Spanish couple who were members of Opus Dei and had eight children (all of whom are still living). I pray that many more married couples are recognized for their saintly lives in the years to come.

All you holy men and women, pray for us!

This is an interesting story from the height of the Cold War. Apparently, President Reagan tried unsuccessfully to convert Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Christianity while they were both in power. From the article, which is based on a new biography about Reagan, only political motives are given for Reagan’s attempt. I’m willing to believe that he was evangelizing for spiritual reasons; although not a church-goer, Reagan was well-known as a believer and he had to know that his attempt could easily backfire politically.

Have you ever thought, “I want to show people that I’m not just a cultural Catholic, but I’m really, really Catholic”? In other words, have you ever wanted to let people know that you are Catholic to the Max?

Well, I’ve got the perfect store for you:

Catholic to the Max!

This great company sells a ton of Catholic t-shirts, religious art, bumper stickers – you name it, they probably have put a picture of our Holy Father on it. Since we lay people can’t go around in religious habits (or at least shouldn’t), these are great conversation/evangelization starters when you are out and about. A few examples:

And my personal favorite for my daughters:

Disclaimer: I am very good friends with the owners of this store, but please don’t hold that against them. It’s not their fault – they tried to get rid of me, but I kept coming back and they felt sorry for my wife.

Each year when my family attends the March for Life in DC, I see many members of religious communities. Usually I know them by sight: the Sisters of Life, Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Renewal, etc. However, I always see a large number of sisters dressed in a royal blue and gray habit, and I’ve never known who they are.

Well, this past weekend, two of those sisters came to speak to our homeschooling group. They are with the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, a religious community founded in 1988 and already boasting over 830 sisters! They were founded in Argentina by Father Carlos Miguel Buela and can be found in 27 countries. One of their convents is here in DC, very close to the Capitol building. They are primarily missionary sisters and serve in a wide variety of apostolates: missions, youth ministry, pro-life work, teaching and more.

I was very impressed with the two sisters who came to speak to us. They were beautiful and joyful young women who desired to love Jesus with all their hearts. Their backgrounds were interesting as well: one was the oldest in a devout Catholic homeschooling family of six children, and the other sister was the daughter of a non-practicing Catholic and atheist! God really chooses whomever He desires.

Be sure to pray for these sisters and the great work that they do.

By now you have probably heard of Connecticut Bill 1098, which would force Catholic dioceses to appoint lay-dominated boards to their parishes, thus diluting, and perhaps even removing, episcopal oversight. Many other news agencies and blogs can give you the run-down of the political motivations behind this move, and what is needed to do to prevent this action, but I’d like to mention another aspect of this issue.

Oversight of parishes is fundamentally a theological issue, not a political or financial issue, and as such, I can’t see how this isn’t a clear violation of the 1st amendment. In Catholic theology, the rule of a bishop over his diocese is almost absolute, with the only caveat being that the Pope is the sole figure whose rule is greater. This is fundamental to Catholic theology, and can be traced back to the earliest Church. For example, around 110 A.D., St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of John the Apostle, wrote,

“But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils. See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is[administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 7-8 Emphasis added).

In other words, to a Catholic, our hierarchical church structure is not something man-made, simply set up this way for practical reasons. It is part of the very DNA of being Christ’s Church. It is something that no secular power can abridge or remove.

It is true that there have been times in Church history, especially in the Middle Ages, in which the internal affairs of the Church have been influenced, and even directed, by political entities. But the difference then was that the political powers did not try to change the internal structure of the Church, they simply tried to take advantage of it. When the office of bishop was a political appointment, the underlying assumption was that bishops had authority – which is why the appointments were so valuable. Now, however, the Connecticut legislature wants to simply obliterate the divinely-ordained authority of the apostles’ successors. This is similar to China’s efforts to remove the authority of the Pope from Church affairs in that country.

It is not a good sign when a comparison can be made between communist China and an American legislature.

Update: Good news! It looks like this bill has just been pulled.

This weekend I added a tool to allow readers to easily subscribe to Divine Life (see it on the top right of the page). Just click the tool, and then choose your favorite reader (mine is Google Reader). Readers allow you to easily receive the entries from this blog and any other blog or website that has an RSS feed (which is about every website now). It’s a great way to get diverse sources of information in one convenient place.

Subscribe in the next 10 minutes and I’ll throw in a free knife set!*

* Knife sets are available until supplies last. Considering I have none, good luck collecting on this offer.

Yesterday’s Old Testament reading on the sacrifice of Abraham is probably the most difficult passage of the entire Bible. The idea of the God of Jesus Christ asking Abraham to sacrifice his child is shocking. Many in fact have used this story as an indictment of the Judeo-Christian God.

And the truth is that this is a troubling story. Even knowing how it ends does not mitigate its scandal; just asking a father to kill his beloved son is itself terrible, even if you always plan to save the child in the end. Yet this is precisely what God asks of Abraham. Immanuel Kant believed that Abraham was mistaken in thinking that God would ask him to kill an innocent child, and I can see his point. If a friend were to come to me and tell me that God had told him to kill his child, I would assume one of two things: (1) he’s crazy, or (2) he is hearing voices originating in hell. But nothing in the Bible indicates that this was a delusion of Abraham’s; in fact, Abraham’s willingness to obey God even in this terrible act is held up as a model to be admired and followed.

In “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” it is said that although Aslan is good, he is “not a tame lion.” Nothing obliterates the image of the Christian God as a “tame god” more than the story of Abraham’s sacrifice. His ways are not our ways. One thing that is easy to do is to subconsciously think that we have figured God out – that He will act in a predictable way. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is not bound to anything other than His own promises – which He willingly bound Himself to. But He is not obligated to act in the ways that we think are appropriate or that abide by our conception of Him. We, on the other hand, are obligated to obey Him in faith, regardless of what He asks us to do.