We interrupt our regularly scheduled Catholic blogging to bring you this announcement:

My family was featured on the official Cincinnati Reds blog last week. Check it out here.

Speaking of the Reds, have I mentioned that they are in FIRST PLACE? (Yes, it is rare enough of an occurance that I feel the need to announce it).

A heard a pretty funny joke this weekend that is also a bit indicting:

A Baptist pastor, Methodist minister and Catholic priest from a small town were talking about a common problem they each had: bats were congregating in their sanctuaries. The discussion turned to how they attempted to get rid of the bats.

The Baptist pastor, who liked to address problems head-on,  said, “I went and got my shotgun and started shooting at the bats. Unfortunately, all that did was leave holes in my sanctuary roof and the bats are still there.”

The Methodist minister, who was a gentle, caring soul, chimed in, “I set some elaborate traps for the bats, caught them, then drove 50 miles away and deposited them in some caves over in the mountains. Unfortunately, they beat me back to the sanctuary and are still there.”

The Catholic priest then calmly noted, “I was able to get rid of my bats pretty easily.”

“How?” both the Baptist pastor and Methodist minister asked.

“Well, I baptized and confirmed them, and I haven’t seen them in church since.”

Mary Kochan over at Catholic Exchange has a worthwhile article on “Fear, Grief, and the Imperative of Forgiveness“. I recommend it for your reading today.

When I was an Evangelical Christian, we would often engage in “spontaneous” prayer in which each person would simply pray as “the Spirit led them.” We were against rote prayers, feeling that they were “traditions of men” and broke the Lord’s command against vain and repetitious prayer (Matthew 6:7). But over time I started to realize something: our “spontaneous” prayers were awful unoriginal, each sounding like a slightly modified version of the previous prayer.

The same thing occurred with our Sunday worship services: they were intended to be spontaneous and fresh, yet over time they took on a set structure that was much like every other Evangelical service out there.

It appears that other Evangelicals have noticed that today’s Sunday services are still just as predictable as always, as can be seen in this hilarious video:

The problem with condemning repetition in prayer is that it is almost impossible to be truly spontaneous all the time, and it is human nature to feel comfortable with repetition in our lives. Jesus did not condemn repeating prayers, he condemned mindlessly repeating prayers. If you say the Hail Mary without contemplating what you are saying, then you are “babbling like the pagans” (Matthew 6:7). But if you pray the Hail Mary while contemplating the mysteries of our salvation, then your prayer is efficacious. After all, when the apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he did not say, “just wing it”, but instead gave them a set prayer to say: the Our Father.

The apostle John was on the Mount called Olivet when the Lord appeared to him. Jesus said, “John, where are the other disciples? I have something important to tell you all and then I’m going to ascend to my Father.”

John replied, “Lord, today was not a good day for them. Peter and Andrew and James had to go fishing (they let me off since I’m just a teenager), and the other disciples also have to work today. Couldn’t you have picked a better day for us to meet? Like Sunday? I mean, after all, Thursday is a work day for just about everyone.”

Jesus frowned, and answered, “It has been forty days since my resurrection. Today is the day I am to ascend to my Father. Furthermore, in ten days I will be sending the Holy Spirit to you, and you need to spend those ten days in prayer.”

John said to him, “How about this – let’s reschedule your ascension for Sunday, when we can all get together. That way no one will miss this great event. Then we can just do the Holy Spirit thing the following Sunday; again, when we can all get off work and gather together. I really think that would work out for the best and would be a lot more convenient for everyone.”

Slowly, Jesus walked away, muttering, “I think I’m starting to regret giving these guys authority over the Church…”

When an article opens with the story of the Baltimore Orioles defeating my beloved Cincinnati Reds in the 1970 World Series, I have to admit, I’m unlikely to be very interested in what it has to say.

But I’ll make an exception for this article, which details the Catholic faith of Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson, who, like me, is a convert from Methodism to Catholicism:

When Lee May cracked a two-bouncer inside the third-base line in game one of the 1970 World Series, Brooks Robinson’s response was nothing short of legendary.

Wheeling three paces to his right, Baltimore’s third baseman fielded the ball in foul territory, took two more steps and threw against his momentum. The throw bounced once on its way to first baseman Boog Powell and beat May.

It was one of many in a spectacular defensive performance by Robinson that helped the Orioles defeat the Cincinnati Reds in five games, as the World Series MVP lived up to his nickname of the “Human Vacuum Cleaner”…

He remains…the only non-pitcher to win 16 Gold Gloves, given in recognition of defensive play. No one ever spent more consecutive seasons with a big league club than the 23 he logged with the Orioles from 1955-77.

Equally enduring is the Hall of Famer’s character.

One of Baltimore’s favorite adopted sons, he stands out as a class act from a bygone era, one whose life seems to embody the all-American values portrayed in a Norman Rockwell painting of the third baseman signing autographs at Memorial Stadium.

“A lot of times we have a Tiger Woods who’s not really who we thought he was,” said Jim Palmer, a Hall of Famer pitcher who played with Robinson. “Well, that’s not the case with Brooks.”

As Baltimore fans reminisce about 1970 and the star at the hot corner, Robinson remains humble and unassuming. The 72-year-old grandfather is committed to his family and his community, his Catholic faith sustaining him in the face of health concerns.

Raised a Methodist in Little Rock, Ark., Robinson never figured he would become a Catholic. But, after marrying Connie, his Catholic wife of nearly 50 years, the baseball standout was drawn to the church. With three sons and a daughter, Robinson thought it important for the entire family to attend church together.

“When the kids got older, they were inquisitive and wanted to know, ‘How come dad doesn’t go to church with us?’ “ Robinson said. “It made a lot of sense to join the Catholic Church.”

He began studying the faith with Monsignor Martin A. Schwalenberg Jr., the Orioles’ chaplain and one of Robinson’s tennis partners. He was received into the Catholic faith in the late 1960s at the Church of the Nativity in Timonium.

“I couldn’t be happier being a Catholic,” he said. “It’s worked out well for me and it’s been a good impression on my kids.”

Mary Lou LaMartina, a parishioner of St. Agnes in Catonsville and an administrative assistant at The Cardinal Gibbons School in Baltimore, organized the first Brooks Robinson fan club with friends as an 8th grader at St. Agnes School. Ronald LaMartina, her brother, was Robinson’s confirmation sponsor.

“He’s a very devout man,” said LaMartina, who refers to Robinson as a “big brother.”

Imagine this scene: Jesus is with his disciples at the Last Supper, and he begins to teach them:

“I am God the Son, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. I am eternally begotten and of one substance with the Father. God is actually three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – but only one divine nature. I am one divine person, but I have both a human nature and a divine nature.”

At this point I can just see Peter scratching his head, looking over at John, and going “huh?”

Of course, Jesus didn’t say the above, even though all of it is true, and is actually the bedrock of Christian belief about the Godhead and Jesus Christ. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus states quite plainly why he didn’t give such a speech: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now”, but then he follows this disappointing statement with a promise: “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:12-13).

This is the foundation for the concept of development of doctrine. The mysteries of God are infinite, but the human mind is quite finite. Thus God simply cannot reveal all truth about Himself and His work immediately, but instead must do so incrementally. We see this clearly in the Old Testament, as God slowly leads His children to a deeper understanding of His nature as a loving and merciful God, and also prepares them for the coming of His Son. After the Revelation of Jesus Christ, there is no need for further revelation, but there is a need for a deeper understanding of that revelation. And that quest for deeper understanding can be a long, drawn-out process. As Jaroslav Pelikan, author of The Christian Tradition, a five-volume work on the development of Christian doctrine, once said,

For those who believe that you don’t need tradition because you have the Bible, the Christian Tradition has sought to say, “You are not entitled to the beliefs you cherish about such things as the Holy Trinity without a sense of what you owe to those who worked this out for you.” To circumvent Saint Athanasius on the assumption that if you put me alone in a room with the New Testament, I will come up with the doctrine of the Trinity, is naive. So for these readers I have tried to provide a degree of historical sophistication, which is, I believe, compatible with an affirmation of the central doctrines of Christian faith.

An understanding of the Christian mysteries entails hard work, especially for those who first received them. We do not live in a Matrix-style world, in which God simply dumps information into our minds; instead we are made to learn by meditating over information over a period of time. And in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity, it took over 300 years – with the guidance of the Spirit of Truth – to finally come to even a basic understanding of that mystery that could be put into human language.

The greatest expositor of the concept of the development of doctrine is of course John Henry Cardinal Newman. It was in fact his recognition of the development of doctrine that led him into the Catholic Church. He studied the early Church and realized that it was the earlier form of the modern Catholic Church – not identical, but instead a younger version of itself. Just like in his middle age he was not identical to his youthful self, so too the Church grows and develops over time.

But this growth is not haphazard and completely dependent upon sinful, finite man. No, Jesus promises us a guide: the Spirit of Truth. He will make sure that the Church comes to the correct understanding of the divine mysteries. He does not promise that it will not be a long, difficult journey at times, or that some people will not attempt to lead the Church down the wrong path, but he does promise that we will eventually be led to “all truth”.

For those interested in studying more about the development of doctrine, I recommend two works:

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine – John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Christian Tradition – Jaroslav Pelikan (a five-volume series; link is to the first volume)

It was recently reported that some communities in Maryland – including my own – are distributing recycling bins with tracking chips. This allows these communities to track how many people are putting out recycling bins each week. But officials insist that no one tracks individual’s total amount of recycling or what they recycle:

County officials say the new technology keeps track of how frequently residents set out their recycling bins for pickup, but isn’t used to measure amounts or types of materials households are recycling…

Information gathered using the tracking device is linked to each individual homeowner’s address. However, [Dawn] Adams [Frederick County's recycling program manager] said the data was used only to gauge neighborhood participation in the county’s recycling program.

“We can see if participation is lower in certain areas, so then we can target those areas more for outreach,” she said.

I see no reason to doubt the honesty of Ms. Adams, but forgive my skepticism if I don’t believe that this technology won’t someday be used for more onerous purposes, such as fining those who don’t recycle up to the county’s imposed standards. I don’t say this because I believe that my local government officials are particularly power-hungry or over-aggressive, I say this because I believe that they are human, and such, are afflicted with the consequences of Original Sin.

It is well-known that most political conservatives don’t trust Big Government, and that most political liberals don’t trust Big Business. I don’t trust either, because I know that both are run by sinful men and women with a lot of power. The temptation for abuse is awfully strong, and it is a temptation that history has shown most people can’t resist. And usually the path to the fall looks a lot like the above situation: an organization decides to implement something that is ripe for abuse while proclaiming “we won’t abuse it, we will just use it for good!” But shortly that new power is slowly expanded until it is truly abused (although it is still claimed to be used for “good”).

In most acts of contrition, we pray to “avoid the near occasion of sin”. I think it would be prudent if government and business organizations would also take that desire to heart, so that they don’t give themselves the tools of their own fall.

A few updates regarding my book, Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew:

First, I am now taking pre-orders for signed copies on my website via Paypal. The cover price for the book is $14.95, but I’m making it available at a discounted price of $12. Recently, Amazon dropped their price to $10.17, so you can also pre-order it there. If you order it now, I will ship it to you as soon as I receive copies, which should be in early September.

Also, I recently received the Foreword to the book, written by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. I was very humbled by the kind words he wrote. A few excerpts:

As I read Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, it seemed to me that I was in the presence of someone who was hard at work on the creation of a beautiful mosaic or an exquisite tapestry.  In this book, Eric Sammons presents us with a fascinating and truthful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a picture he fashions for us step by slow step from material found primarily in the Gospel of Saint Matthew but with fitting additions taken from other parts of Holy Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, and from many writers in the Catholic tradition, as well…

I suggest that no one read this book quickly, for although it is not lengthy, it contains a great deal of information as well as many opportunities for prayer and meditation…Working through Sammons’s book is like taking a course by a well informed and highly intelligent teacher.  At the same time it is like making a retreat led by a prayerful and spiritual retreat master…

Sammons’s work is a very serious and well-thought-out attempt to teach us once again just who is being proclaimed in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. It is a slow, steady  journey through this Gospel, a journey that pauses over and over again to examine in a thoughtful and prayerful way the names and titles given to our Lord in this Gospel.  In each name we find something significant.  Every title, we learn, offers us a slightly different way to look at Christ, a new prism through which to see him. What we glean from each name or title contributes to the total picture of our Savior, a picture that gradually becomes clearer and clearer until it is luminous…

I hope that in the years to come [Sammons] will follow this book up with later volumes on the other evangelists.  I also hope that we will see more and more books like this, intelligent, erudite, yet accessible, on our Divine Savior and his life and personality.

I was also quite honored to have Archbishop Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., recommend my book:

Drawing on his own faith journey and his personal experience, Eric Sammons demonstrates how the lived Word of God — reflected in the lives and writings of the saints and prayers of the Church can help us to better know Jesus and to strive to form our daily lives into his likeness. Who Is Jesus Christ? is a work of devotion and readers should find it both inspiring and encouraging.

Needless to say, I’m getting more and more excited as we get closer to the publication date!

Do you smell that? It is that new-saint smell. Today, for the first time in history, we celebrate the feast day of St. Damien of Molokai, who was canonized just last year. I think it is quite an honor to be able to celebrate a saint’s feast day for the first time.

St. Damien of course is best known for his work among the lepers in Hawaii. He lived among these outcasts for years, ministering to both their physical and spiritual needs. But most importantly, he identified with them, becoming an outcast for the sake of outcasts. He took this identification to the greatest extreme: he contracted leprosy himself and eventually died of the disease.

We see the same type of identification through suffering in Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. She sought out those who felt abandoned and wished to identify with them. She prayed fervently to God that He would grant her desire to be like them in love. And He granted her request in an unfathomable way: He allowed her to feel abandoned even by Him. She knew what it was like to feel that no one loved her – not even God – and thus was able to fully love and identify with those she served.

And of course both St. Damien and Blessed Teresa were imitating their master, our Lord Jesus Christ. The incarnation is the most radical identification of them all: the Almighty Son of God became man out of love. And this identification went to the furthest extreme: suffering and ignominious death. This is the Christian answer to suffering: that God Himself joins us in our suffering; He can truly identify with everything we suffer. And in this identification through suffering, He lifts us up to Him in love.

Like St. Damien, we are called to identify with those who suffer: this is the path of true love. May we never turn our backs to the poor and suffering, but instead always join with them and bring them to our suffering God, who will lift them out of their suffering and into His loving embrace.

St. Damien, pray for us!

Yesterday news broke that Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor was charged with rape and patronizing a prostitute. This follows the accusation about a month ago that Super Bowl-winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted a college student in Georgia earlier this year. In both cases, people who knew the men expressed shock and disbelief that these men would have done such heinous acts. Like many such high-profile cases, people could not see how men they perceived as “nice” could also act in such a manner.

The problem is that too many people today equate being “nice” with being good. Being nice is part of being good, but the two terms are not equivalent. Niceness, or politeness, is simply one of the virtues that entail being a good person. It is quite possible to be polite to others and yet be a monster. In fact, many monsters throughout history have used politeness to accomplish their evil designs.

Each of the virtues involve putting the good of others before one’s own desires. This is true of politeness; instead of just dominating interactions with others to obtain your own needs, being polite forces you to put the other person’s needs ahead of your own. But it is quite possible to be selfless when it comes to social interactions in public and still be quite selfish in other situations, especially those that occur in private. Each person has his own strengths and weaknesses in the moral life, and just because a person might be unfailingly polite does not mean that he is also virtuous in other areas. For example, a person might have been raised with strict guidelines for being polite in social situations and thus is able to be polite quite easily, but he might also be a compulsive liar or adulterer. Furthermore, oftentimes people will behave in public much differently than they behave in private – not for virtuous reasons, but because they want to avoid shame.

The key to a truly virtuous life – to being truly “good” – is making all your actions selfless, even those no one else sees. Each one of us will struggle with a few particular areas and find other areas of the moral life quite easy. But we need to remember that being “nice” does not mean we have mastered the moral life. This is true not just for public figures, but for ourselves as well.

I mentioned the other day that I have an article in the May 16th edition of OSV Newsweekly and that it was only available online to subscribers. I just found out that they have now made the article available online to all readers. You can access it here.

You might be surprised to know that I’ve got a lot more to say than can fit on this blog. Just ask my wife.

That’s why I do speaking engagements, too, and have been for fifteen years. I’ve addressed groups large and small on topics as diverse as Scripture, evangelization, marriage and spirituality.

Although my true speaking-topic-loves are Scripture and Evangelization, I’m happy to speak on other Catholic themes and shape my talk based on the audience.

Right now I’m not receiving any financial compensation from these engagements (although I do ask that the host organization pay for my travel expenses, and in lieu of a speaker’s fee I ask for a donation to Little Flowers Foundation). I look at my speaking engagements as a tithe, in the hope that I can help others draw closer to Christ.

The message of my book Who Is Jesus Christ? is that the Lord is waiting to meet us – chasing us down in fact – in Scripture and in the circumstances and experiences of our lives. If I can serve others in seeing Him, encountering Him, embracing Him, I consider that a privilege.

I am now scheduling for engagements starting this Fall through Summer 2011. If you are interested in having me come to speak, just email me. For more details, click here.

Who would have thought that P&G would create one of the most pro-life applications for the new iPad? It’s true:

One of the great things about being pro-life is that we never have to worry about facts getting in the way of our convictions. Science clearly tells us that it is a baby in a mother’s womb, no matter what pro-abortion advocates might claim, and advances in technology are just reconfirming that each day.

I have an article in the latest issue of Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly (subscription required) on not letting anger overtake our spiritual peace during times of scandal and persecution.