How to be a Handmaid of the Lord,
Like Mary
On December 12, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and recall, in the Gospel reading at Mass, the story of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38). Mary became a pure vessel in which God dwelt during the nine months of pregnancy. Her “yes” to the special vocation of serving the kingdom of God as the mother of the Messiah did not end when her Son died on the cross. She became mother to the whole Church.
God planned her vocation at the beginning of our story in Genesis, when he told the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers” (Gen. 3:15). She said yes to that vocation when she said to the angel Gabriel and to God, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to Your word” (Luke 1:38).
To get a deeper understanding of what her fiat, her “yes” entailed — and what happens when we say “yes” to God — we need to look at the word “handmaid.” What did she mean by that? According to the dictionary, a “handmaid” is someone whose essential function is to assist. ASSIST! Not: Take charge of. Not: Become the Savior of. Not: Be such a good priest or lay minister or religious brother/sister that people admire you and give you the credit for a job well done.
An assistant is often called the employer’s “right hand” or, more literally, an extension of the employer’s hand.
When I am given an assignment by God, such as “Write a book about … ” or “Give a retreat about … “, my first inclination is to kick into high gear all the organizational and leadership skills in which God has endowed me and trained me. When I see someone wandering into darkness and God nudges me to intervene, my strong sense of caring moves me to action, and if I don’t see results fast enough (by my definition of it), I start assuming that I’m not trying hard enough and must push into higher gear.
None of this is being a handmaid of the Lord. None of this is being an extension of God’s hand. It’s me being me, stretching out my own hand to see how far I can make it reach. Let’s consider how Mary modeled the assistant’s job:
(1) First and foremost, to willingly become someone’s handmaid requires great trust in the person (or God) who is going to be the master. As Pope John Paul the Great wrote in his Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater (Mother of the Redeemer) , paragraph 13: “Mary uttered this fiat in faith. In faith she entrusted herself to God without reserve and ‘devoted herself totally as the handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son’ (Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium , para. 56).”
(2) Mary left the consequences of her “yes” in God’s hands. She did not make her “yes” conditional, as in “Okay, Archangel Gabe, but only if you explain to Joseph why I’m pregnant and he’s not the father” or “Just make sure the townsfolk don’t stone me to death or even criticize me for getting pregnant without Joseph.”
(3) She made a complete commitment to align herself with God. He was free to do with her as he willed. She did not second guess him. Nor did she offer her own opinion about where the baby should be born or what should be done with the animals or what kind of visitors they should get. This is what it means to be an extension of God’s hand. We are not the hand. We are not God.
(4) By choosing to say “yes” she opened herself to receive all the help she would ever need from God to fulfill her vocation. It was not Mary who convinced Joseph to go through with the marriage instead of divorcing her; it was God who sent Joseph an angel in a dream.
(5) Her consent came from true humility — the same kind of humility that her Son would have in consenting to the crucifixion. Such willingness lets go of all desire for self-comfort and personal gain. It is a total giving of self, an altruism that comes from knowing that God’s goodness is far greater than our own best efforts.
(6) Being the Lord’s assistant is a partnership with the Holy Spirit, who is the “handmaid” or servant of the other two members of the Blessed Trinity in carrying out all divine operations. The transformation of Mary’s “yes” into an actual pregnancy required the servanthood of the Holy Spirit. Mary cooperated with the Holy Spirit “by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls” ( Lumen Gentium , para. 62). A good handmaid is more than just an obedient servant; faith, hope and love provide the motivation in union with the Holy Spirit.
(7) Giving consent meant not only allowing God to do things to her , but also doing things for God . As his handmaid, she put herself into the position of being done unto. He did not order her around or abuse this position in any way, but he did put her into some very difficult situations. Certainly it was not easy traveling on a donkey to Bethlehem in the last month of pregnancy. Giving birth in a chilly, dirty stable without her mother’s help was probably not the way she had imagined this special moment would be. And fleeing to Egypt instead of returning home with the baby was a very disappointing and challenging time. Yet, she let God do this to her because she had meant it when she said she’d be his handmaid. At the same time, she was doing it all for God out of tremendous love for him.
(8) Mary’s “yes” united her to both the intentions and actions of God. His intentions became her intentions. His actions became her actions. The Father intended to redeem the world through his Son; Mary intended to redeem the world through her Son in accordance with his plan as it unfolded. The Father let his Son die for our sins; Mary let go of her Son as she watched him die, even though she did not yet fully understand the plan. God was in charge, and Mary united herself to whatever he did.
(9) A good handmaid listens closely to what the master wants. Mary had said, “Let it be done to me according to Your WORD.” She was a good listener. “Through faith Mary continued to hear and to ponder that word, in which there became ever clearer, in a way ‘which surpasses knowledge’ (Eph. 3:19), the self-revelation of the living God. Thus in a sense Mary as Mother became the first ‘disciple’ of her Son” ( Redemptoris Mater , para. 20).
(10) Since a handmaid of the Lord is a disciple of Christ, a handmaid is also a true follower. It’s not hard to figure out what God wants of us because Jesus is leading us to do the same things that he did (see John 14:12). In Redemptoris Mater , paragraph 41, we read: “She who at the Annunciation called herself the ‘handmaid of the Lord’ remained throughout her earthly life faithful to what this name expresses. In this she confirmed that she was a true ‘disciple’ of Christ, who strongly emphasized that his mission was one of service: the Son of Man ‘came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matt. 20:28).
Today, as Queen of Heaven, Mary still continues to serve as God’s handmaid. As Pope John Paul the Great added in paragraph 41, “The glory of serving does not cease to be her royal exaltation: assumed into heaven, she does not cease her saving service, which expresses her maternal mediation ‘until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect’ ( Lumen Gentium , para. 62).
Like Mary’s service, our ministries do not end when we leave the earth. We would do well to give our full “yes” now to our vocations as handmaids (for the guys: use the word “hand-servants”), because in one way or another, we’ll be doing it in front of God’s face when heaven is our home.
Let us rely on Mary’s ministry of being God’s handmaid whenever we need his helping hand to reach us. And let us allow her to teach us how to do the same for others.
To read the full Encyclical Letter “Redemptoris Mater”, go to: ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/JP2MOTHE.HTM.
How can you be God’s hand touching the lives of those around you? Are you trying to control it and do things your way? Have you avoided doing a good deed that Jesus would have done, something he could do through you now? Listen to what he is asking you to do for him and say, “Lord, let it be done to me according to Your will; I am your handmaid (or hand-servant).”

St. John Henry Newman’s meditations on the Litany of Loreto

Cardinal John Henry Newman by Sir John Everett Millais (1881).

Loreto, Italy, Dec 10, 2019 / 12:28 am (CNA).- Morning Star. Mystical Rose. Tower of Ivory. House of Gold. For centuries, Catholics have recited these titles of Mary in the Litany of Loreto prayer.

One of the Church’s newest saints, St. John Henry Newman, wrote a series of meditations in 1874 elucidating the meaning behind each Marian title in the litany.

For Newman, many of these titles of Mary link back to her integral identity as the Immaculate Conception, born without the stain of original sin. Thus, the British saint connected a dogma declared 20 years prior by Pope Pius IX to a litany prayer approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587.

“We must recollect that there is a vast difference between the state of a soul such as that of the Blessed Virgin, which has never sinned, and a soul, however holy, which has once had upon it Adam’s sin; for, even after baptism and repentance, it suffers necessarily from the spiritual wounds which are the consequence of that sin,” Newman wrote. “She never committed even a venial sin, and this special privilege is not known to belong to anyone but Mary.”

The Marian title, “Mater Amabilis,” today translated as “Mother most amiable,” is connected to Mary’s sinlessness, Newman explained: “Sin is something odious in its very nature, and grace is something bright, beautiful, attractive.”

“There was a divine music in all she said and did—in her mien, her air, her deportment, that charmed every true heart that came near her. Her innocence, her humility and modesty, her simplicity, sincerity, and truthfulness, her unselfishness, her unaffected interest in everyone who came to her, her purity—it was these qualities which made her so lovable,” Newman wrote.

Mary is particularly loveable “to the children of the Church, not to those outside of it, who know nothing about her,” Newman said.

A convert himself, Newman’s own thoughts on Mary developed from praising the holiness of the Mother of Christ as an Anglican preacher to defending Mary’s role as intercessor in “Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered.”

Newman was a 19th century theologian, poet, Catholic priest and cardinal. Born in 1801, he was before his conversion a well-known and well-respected Oxford academic, Anglican preacher, and public intellectual.

In October, Pope Francis declared Cardinal John Henry Newman a saint. That same month, the pope elevated the Dec. 10 feast of Our Lady of Loreto to the Church’s universal Roman Calendar.

In his Loreto meditations, Newman sheds light on titles of Mary whose meaning may not immediately evident to a modern reader.

Tower of Ivory

While an ivory tower is colloquially understood today as a privileged shelter from the practicalities of the real world, Newman connect’s Mary’s title, “Tower of Ivory,” to her courageous presence at the execution of her son.

“When we say a man ‘towers’ over his fellows, we mean to signify that they look small in comparison of him,” he wrote. “This quality of greatness is instanced in the Blessed Virgin. Though she suffered more keen and intimate anguish at our Lord’s Passion and Crucifixion than any of the Apostles by reason of her being His Mother, yet consider how much more noble she was amid her deep distress than they were.”

“It is expressly noted of her that she stood by the Cross. She did not grovel in the dust, but stood upright to receive the blows, the stabs, which the long Passion of her Son inflicted upon her every moment,” Newman wrote. “In this magnanimity and generosity in suffering she is, as compared with the Apostles, fitly imaged as a Tower.”

Mirror of Justice

Newman explained that the Marian title “Mirror of Justice” needs clarification to fully understand how Mary reflected Christ.

“Here first we must consider what is meant by justice, for the word as used by the Church has not that sense which it bears in ordinary English. By ‘justice’ is not meant the virtue of fairness, equity, uprightness in our dealings; but it is a word denoting all virtues at once, a perfect, virtuous state of soul—righteousness, or moral perfection; so that it answers very nearly to what is meant by sanctity,” Newman wrote.

“Therefore when our Lady is called the ‘Mirror of Justice,’ it is meant to say that she is the Mirror of sanctity, holiness, supernatural goodness,” he continued.

Newman further posited: “Do we ask how she came to reflect His Sanctity? —it was by living with Him. We see every day how like people get to each other who live with those they love … Now, consider that Mary loved her Divine Son with an unutterable love; and consider too she had Him all to herself for thirty years. Do we not see that, as she was full of grace before she conceived Him in her womb, she must have had a vast incomprehensible sanctity when she had lived close to God for thirty years?”

Morning Star

Newman divided the titles of Mary in the Litany of Loreto into four categories: Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, Our Lady of Sorrows, and the Assumption.

For example, Newman compares the “Morning Star” to Mary’s Assumption into heaven: “Mary, like the stars, abides for ever, as lustrous now as she was on the day of her Assumption; as pure and perfect, when her Son comes to judgment, as she is now.”

“It is Mary’s prerogative to be the Morning Star, which heralds in the sun. She does not shine for herself, or from herself, but she is the reflection of her and our Redeemer, and she glorifies Him. When she appears in the darkness, we know that He is close at hand,” he wrote.

By papal decree, the feast of Our Lady of Loreto will be celebrated for the first time as an optional memorial in the Roman calendar this year on Dec. 10. Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said in the October decree:

“This celebration will help all people, especially families, youth and religious to imitate the virtues of that perfect disciple of the Gospel, the Virgin Mother, who, in conceiving the Head of the Church also accepted us as her own.”

Tags: Catholic News, Cardinal John Henry Newman, Our Lady of Loreto

How the Church is honoring pilots and the ‘flying’ house of the Virgin Mary

The Holy House of Our Lady in the Shrine of Loreto. Credit: Tatiana Dyuvbanova / Shutterstock.

By Hannah Brockhaus

Loreto, Italy, Dec 8, 2019 / 05:35 am (CNA).- At first glance, pilots and plane passengers have little in common with the Holy House of Mary in Loreto, Italy.

But just as pilots and passengers take flight in airplanes, the Holy House of Loreto also “flew,” according to an often-told story, when it was transported through the air by angels from the Holy Land to the small Italian town of Loreto.

Modern documentation suggests a hint of truth to the pious story, but with a twist. Evidence suggests the house was brought to Italy by the noble Angeli family, who saved the materials of the house from destruction by Muslim invaders in the 13th century. The name Angeli means “angels” in both Greek and Latin.

Three statues of Our Lady of Loreto will soon be “taking flight” during a special Jubilee Year of Loreto, to be celebrated by the Church beginning Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

As part of the jubilee year, the Marian statues of the “Black Madonna” of Loreto will be making symbolic pilgrimages by plane. One will travel to the main Italian airports, another to military units, and a third to major airports of the five continents, including New York.

“This pilgrimage will represent the Mother’s embrace of the whole world,” the prelate of Loreto, Archbishop Fabio Dal Cin, said at a press conference Dec. 3.

The Jubilee Year of Loreto, which will be celebrated through Dec. 10, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Loreto being officially proclaimed the patroness of pilots and air passengers.

This designation was made by Pope Benedict XV in March 1920, after aviators fighting in World War I became devoted to the Virgin Mary under this title for her traditional connection to “flight.”

Pope Francis recently also added the Dec. 10 feast day of Our Lady of Loreto as an optional memorial in the Roman Calendar of the universal Church.

With the theme “Called to fly high,” the Jubilee Year of Loreto will begin with an opening of the Holy Door of the Basilica of the Holy House in Loreto.

By visiting the basilica during the year, Catholics may obtain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.

A plenary indulgence requires an individual to be in the state of grace and have complete detachment from sin. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after the indulgenced act, and pray for the pope’s intentions.

This plenary indulgence, according to Archbishop Dal Cin, may also be extended to chapels in civil and military airports upon request of the local bishop.

Catholics are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Mary in Loreto during the jubilee year, or to another shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto.

There is also an official hymn, composed by lauded composer Fr. Marco Frisina. During the year, a charitable donation will be made for the purchase of new equipment for the neonatology department of Sacred Family Hospital in Nazareth.

Celebrations throughout the year will also include an air show by Frecce Tricolori, the Italian Air Force’s aerobatic demonstration team.

The jubilee year “does not only concern the world of aviation (workers and passengers), but is addressed to all the devotees of Our Lady of Loreto,” Dal Cin said, “and to those pilgrims who will arrive to the Holy House from all over the world to receive the gift of the plenary indulgence.”

Tags: Catholic News, Holy House of Loreto

DECEMBER 3, 2019
Ten Lessons in Evangelization From St. Francis Xavier
FR. ED BROOM, OMV
efore St. Francis Xavier set out on his great mission, St. Ignatius spoke these final words to him: Go set all on fire! Francis embarked for India, then to Japan and died on the shore overlooking China. His missionary work was completed in only 11 years and he died of exhaustion at 46 years of age.
Like Francis Xavier, all followers of Christ are called to be prophets, evangelizers, and missionaries. Followers of Christ must strive to be encountering Christ as Friend and Lord and then share Jesus with others. It is a contradiction in terms to keep the priceless treasure of Friendship with Jesus to oneself. St. Andrew teaches us this lesson. After being called by Jesus, Andrew filled with joy hurries to tell the Good News (“Gospel”) to his brother Peter.
How did St. Francis Xavier, in such a short time, convert, baptize, and teach the Catholic faith to countless souls? What was his secret to success?

1. Spiritual Exercises
   His conversion came about by completing the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of St. Ignatius of Loyola himself. Ignatius challenged Xavier with the Biblical quotation:
   “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul in the process?” The Spiritual Exercises, done well, enlighten, convert, and transform souls into fiery apostles.
2. Obedience
   The Holy Father asked Ignatius to send some of his followers from the Order of Jesus to India and the Far East, and Francis Xavier obeyed. Obedience to God, the Pope, and the Church is always a true sign of holiness by which God blesses with abundant graces. “Lord, not my will but yours be done!” (Prayer of Jesus to the Father in the Garden of Olives).
3. Love For Poverty
   Upon arriving in India, Xavier’s heart overflowed with love for the poor of the country. His love knew no bounds. Instead of seeking out comfortable lodgings and ease, Xavier decided to live with the poor, sleep like the poor, eat and drink with the poor, and become poor himself. Jesus’s first Beatitude exemplifies this attitude of heart: “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5: 3).
4. Love for God’s Children
   Jesus taught love for children. “Let the children come to me for such is the kingdom of heaven.” Francis Xavier loved the children and they loved him. He taught them their catechism, as well as their prayers. Such was the love the children had for him that barely did he have time to say his prayers or even eat!
5. Apostolic Creativity
   St. Francis Xavier was a genius, especially as a teacher and missionary. As a tool for memorization of the catechism, Xavier made use of song. In simple verse and rhyme, Francis taught the children the basics of catechism.
   Then the children then would return home and sing the catechism, thereby teaching their own parents. Pope John Paul II exhorted followers of Christ to be open to the Holy Spirit as well as apostolic creativity. Jesus said to Nicodemus that the spirit blows where He wills. Like Xavier, let us be open to the direction of the Holy Spirit and follow where He wills!
6. Baptism
   It all starts with the sacrament of Baptism. After instructions, Francis Xavier would baptize by the thousands! He baptized so many that sometimes, at the end of the day, he could no longer hold up his arm.
7. Ordering the Disorder
   This great saint, after finishing his time in one place, would leave well-formed catechists to carry on with the mission of forming the people in the community. Now, more than ever, zealous priests need zealous lay leaders to help to carry on the task of evangelization. “The harvest is rich but the laborers are few.”
8. Inculturation
   While travelling to Japan, St. Francis Xavier had to learn the social mores and customs of another country. In this case, seeing someone dressed in rags caused revulsion to the Emperor. As St. Paul says, “I become all things to all men so as to win as many to Christ as possible.” Xavier donned the most elegant clothes fashionable and gave gifts to the Emperor, thereby winning the Emperor’s friendship and opening up the door to the preaching of the Gospel message.
9. Prayer & Penance
   It is impossible to find a saint who did not take the “two P’s” seriously:
   prayer and penance!
   At the end of his exhausting day, St. Francis Xavier spent hours in front of the Most Blessed Sacrament, praising the Lord, thanking the Lord, and imploring for the sanctification and salvation of the people God placed in his path. The consolation that God sent Francis Xavier during his prayers was so intense that the saint begged the Lord “basta” — “enough” of the consolation, lest he die of its intensity!
   May St. Francis Xavier attain for us the fire of intensity in our prayers!
   How did the saint practice penance? One way: he slept very little, so as to accompany the Lord and offer himself as victim for the salvation of souls.
10. Apostolic Zeal
    A favorite prayer of St. Francis Xavier was, “Give me souls!” Another saint who had a similar motto was Saint John Bosco, whose motto was posted on the wall of his office: “Give me souls and take all the rest away.” St. John of the Cross asserts: “Authentic charity is manifested by apostolic zeal.”
    Indeed, if we truly love God then we should love what God loves—the salvation of immortal souls. In the Office of Readings for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, in a letter written to St. Ignatius, there is a passionate appeal for more workers to gather in the harvest, specifically reproaching the proud and learned at the universities. The words of Xavier explode with apostolic zeal and intense suffering for the salvation of immortal souls.
    Let us meditate attentively the words of St. Francis Xavier:
    “Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman. Riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you! I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.” (Office of Readings, Dec. 3, Feast of St. Francis Xavier)
    Tagged as: evangelization , Francis Xavier , missionaries , saints, St. Francis Xavier

Protestant attacks on the Catholic Church often focus on the Eucharist. This demonstrates that opponents of the Church—mainly Evangelicals and Fundamentalists—recognize one of Catholicism’s core doctrines. What’s more, the attacks show that Fundamentalists are not always literalists. This is seen in their interpretation of the key biblical passage, chapter six of John’s Gospel, in which Christ speaks about the sacrament that will be instituted at the Last Supper. This tract examines the last half of that chapter.

John 6:30 begins a colloquy that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. The Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they might believe in him. As a challenge, they noted that “our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. “Give us this bread always,” they said. Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.

Again and Again

Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: “‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” (John 6:51–52).

His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56).

No Corrections

Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct “misunderstandings,” for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically.

In John 6:60 we read: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” (It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64.) “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66).

This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t he call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically.

But he did not correct these protesters. Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have “to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper—and it was a promise that could not be more explicit. Or so it would seem to a Catholic. But what do Fundamentalists say?

Merely Figurative?

They say that in John 6 Jesus was not talking about physical food and drink, but about spiritual food and drink. They quote John 6:35: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.’” They claim that coming to him is bread, having faith in him is drink. Thus, eating his flesh and blood merely means believing in Christ.

But there is a problem with that interpretation. As Fr. John A. O’Brien explains, “The phrase ‘to eat the flesh and drink the blood,’ when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense” (O’Brien, The Faith of Millions, 215). For an example of this use, see Micah 3:3.

Fundamentalist writers who comment on John 6 also assert that one can show Christ was speaking only metaphorically by comparing verses like John 10:9 (“I am the door”) and John 15:1 (“I am the true vine”). The problem is that there is not a connection to John 6:35, “I am the bread of life.” “I am the door” and “I am the vine” make sense as metaphors because Christ is like a door—we go to heaven through him—and he is also like a vine—we get our spiritual sap through him. But Christ takes John 6:35 far beyond symbolism by saying, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55).

He continues: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (John 6:57). The Greek word used for “eats” (trogon) is very blunt and has the sense of “chewing” or “gnawing.” This is not the language of metaphor.

Their Main Argument

For Fundamentalist writers, the scriptural argument is capped by an appeal to John 6:63: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” They say this means that eating real flesh is a waste. But does this make sense?

Are we to understand that Christ had just commanded his disciples to eat his flesh, then said their doing so would be pointless? Is that what “the flesh is of no avail” means? “Eat my flesh, but you’ll find it’s a waste of time”—is that what he was saying? Hardly.

The fact is that Christ’s flesh avails much! If it profits us nothing, so that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ are of no avail, then “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Cor. 15:17b–18).

In John 6:63 “flesh profits nothing” refers to mankind’s inclination to think using only what their natural human reason would tell them rather than what God would tell them. Thus in John 8:15–16 Jesus tells his opponents: “You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me.” So natural human judgment, unaided by God’s grace, is unreliable; but God’s judgment is always true.

Also in John 6:63, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit” does not mean “What I have just said is symbolic.” The word “spirit” is never used that way in the Bible. The line means that what Christ has said will be understood only through faith; only by the power of the Spirit and the drawing of the Father (cf. John 6:37, 44–45, 65).

Paul Confirms This

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). “To answer for the body and blood” of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine “unworthily” be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.

What Did the First Christians Say?

Anti-Catholics also claim the early Church took this chapter symbolically. Is that so? Let’s see what some early Christians thought, keeping in mind that we can learn much about how Scripture should be interpreted by examining the writings of early Christians.

Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of the apostle John and who wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans about A.D. 110, said, referring to “those who hold heterodox opinions,” that “they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again” (6:2, 7:1).

Forty years later, Justin Martyr, wrote, “Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66:1–20).

Origen, in a homily written about A.D. 244, attested to belief in the Real Presence. “You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received the Body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish” (Homilies on Exodus 13:3).

Cyril of Jerusalem, in a catechetical lecture presented in the mid-300s, said, “Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm” (Catechetical Discourses: Mystagogic 4:22:9).

In a fifth-century homily, Theodore of Mopsuestia seemed to be speaking to today’s Evangelicals and Fundamentalists: “When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood,’ for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements], after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit, not according to their nature, but to receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord” (Catechetical Homilies 5:1).

Unanimous Testimony

Whatever else might be said, the early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries in which the literal interpretation is opposed and only the metaphorical accepted.

---

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

Ten Reasons Why Our Hearts Should Be Full of Thanksgiving
FR. ED BROOM, OMV
hanksgiving day is celebrated once a year in the United States as a national holiday. But as follower of Jesus, Thanksgiving Day should be every day! Why? For many reasons!
First, the Psalmist commands us to give thanks: “ Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; for His mercy endures forever.”
Second, St Paul invites us in his letters to give thanks to God constantly; that means, at all times!
Third, Jesus rejoices in gratitude and suffers when faced with ingratitude. Jesus healed the 10 lepers of this contagious, painful, incurable disease— that of leprosy—and only one of the 10 returned to give Jesus thanks and this man was a foreigner (Samaritan). This ingratitude must have wounded the loving Heart of the Saviour!
Fourth, Jesus was the epitome of
Gratitude . Before working the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus raised His eyes to heaven and gave thanks. At the Last Supper Jesus took bread and “Gave thanks”. “Eucharist”, a word coming from Greek actually means “Thanksgiving.” Therefore the greatest gift, “The Gift of Gifts”, from God Himself, the “Eucharist means “Thanksgiving”.
Therefore, all of us should strive to give constant thanks to God, our supreme and most generous Benefactor. Honestly, everything we have in life are pure gifts of God. As St. Paul asserts, quoting the Greek poet: “In Him we live and move and have our being.”
Why not compose your own Litany of Gratitude?
Why We Should Give Thanks
Following is a list of reasons why our heart should be abounding in thanksgiving. It is our duty, but also our privilege to thank God! This list will limit itself to spiritual gifts from the “Giver of all good Gifts”.

1. Faith in God
   When it comes to your faith, do not take it for granted; rather, be thankful for it and cultivate it, as the seed planted and nourished.
2. Prayer
   You pray? If yes, also give thanks! This too is a gift coming from “The Gift of Gifts,” the Holy Spirit who actually teaches us to pray. “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit, intercedes with ineffable groans so that we can say, Abba, Father.” (Romans 8).
3. Your Guardian Angel
   He is your constant friend at your side. Give thanks to God for His gift of friendship, but talk to him and thank him for having inspired you with holy thoughts and saved you from many dangerous spiritual pitfalls.
4. Divine Mercy
   Despite your many failures, God has forgiven you as He forgave the Prodigal Son upon his return, and as the wandering sheep brought back to the fold. God’s mercy, His greatest attribute— Lord I thank you and I praise you for such a wonderful gift.
5. The Saints
   There is a wonderful crowd of Heavenly Friends that are waiting for your prayers from heaven and longing to see you advance in Friendship with God. Your prayer to them fills them with joy and results in your receiving added graces on earth to arrive safely Home to heaven.
6. Patron Saints
   In a very special manner, due to your parent’s choice, you have a very special friend—he is your patron saint. Look them up. Read on their life!. Underline the three virtues he or she practiced. Ask for his intercession to overcome in you that which is most displeasing to God. The intercession of your patron saint is powerful before the throne of God!
   7 . The Bible, God’s Word of Truth
   What songs of gratitude should explode from our hearts knowing that we have the “Word of Truth”, the Bible, and can read, meditate, assimilate and live it all the days of our lives. Years ago, there was less access to the Bible and less literacy. Today Bibles are easy to purchase and can be read in any time and place!
7. The Blessed Sacrament
   “Really Present” in even the most humble church in the world is the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Sacrament is truly Jesus, the “King of Kings and the Lord of Lords” and He is waiting for His friend—you—to visit Him and thank Him for all that He has so generously given to you. You need not travel across mountain, hillside, nor ocean to encounter Him. Just go to your closest church and there He is, waiting!
8. Holy Mass
   Every day of the year throughout the world the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is being offered by the priest to God the Father for the forgiveness of sins, conversion of sinners, and for the salvation of the entire world. Your gratitude should manifest itself by your assistance in Mass, participation and reception of Holy Communion. Remember that Mass/ “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving”. No greater gift in the world than God Himself, descending from heaven to earth to abide in the human heart.
   All this becomes a reality in Holy Mass and in the reception of Holy Communion!
9. Mary: Mother of God, Mother of the Church, My Mother
   In the prayer “The Hail Holy Queen” we invoke Mary “the Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope…” In the midst of the stormy, dark, uncertain sea that we live in, we can always look up and see Mary, the Star of the Sea pointing the way to the eternal shore of salvation. Hail, Mother of God, Hail, Mother of the Church, Hail, star of the Sea, Hail, Holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope….
   In sum, let us cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Let us give thanks to God at all times, in all occasions, and with all people. God rejoices in the heart that constantly is beating: “Thank you Lord…Thank you Lord…Thank you Lord… DEO GRATIAS!”

A Fire and a Sword: Four Unexpected Reasons Why Jesus Said He Came to Earth
STEPHEN BEALE
dvent is a time to immerse ourselves in the reality of Jesus’ coming—in history, in our lives, and in the future. It is also an opportunity to step back and reflect on the reasons why He came.
Evangelical Protestantism tends to give one reason: to save us from the penalty for our sins. The Catholic tradition has several. A patristic answer would be that Jesus came to unite God to man. A medieval Catholic might say that it was to die and to institute the sacraments and the Church. More recently, in his book,
Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI said that Jesus brought us God.
All of those are valid explanations for why Jesus came. But what were Jesus’ reasons for coming in His own words? Over the course of the gospels, He offers an intriguing range of reasons.

1. ‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!’ – Luke 12:49
   This statement, so jarring and enigmatic, both inspires us and instills fear. There are many ways to interpret the fire. It can be seen as judgment, which is certainly part of Christ’s mission on earth. Fire is also purifying, as several commentators have noted. But, most importantly, fire is associated with God’s divine being, from the fire on top of Mount Sinai to the tongues of fire that descended at Pentecost. As one nineteenth century Anglican commentator, Alexander Maclaren, so beautifully puts it ,
   We have here one of the rare glimpses which our Lord gives us into His inmost heart, His thought of His mission, and His feelings about it.
   He does not kindle it simply in humanity, but He launches it into the midst of humanity. It is something from above that He flings down upon the earth. So it is not merely a quickened intelligence, a higher moral life, or any other of the spiritual and religious transformations which are effected in the world by the mission of Christ that is primarily to be kept in view here, but it is the Heaven-sent cause of these transformations and that flame. If we catch the celestial fire, we shall flash and blaze, but the fire which we catch is not originated on earth. In a word it is God’s Divine Spirit which Christ came to communicate to the world.
   Fittingly, this divine fire is also associated with the burning love we have for God and sharing Him with others. As St. Catherine of Siena said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
2. ‘I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.’ – John 12:46
   In his commentary on the Gospel of John, St. Augustine sees the light primarily in reference to being enlightened about who God is. He connects this verse with Jesus’ statement to His disciples that they are the light of the world, in Matthew 5:14. So, according to Augustine, there are lights and then there is the Light:
   Such a statement, I maintain, can nowhere be met with. All the saints, therefore, are lights, but they are illuminated by Him through faith; and every one that becomes separated from Him will be enveloped in darkness. But that Light, which enlightens them, cannot become separated from itself; for it is altogether beyond the reach of change. We believe, then, the light that has thus been lit, as the prophet or apostle: but we believe him for this end, that we may not believe in that which is itself enlightened, but, with him, on that Light which has given him light; so that we, too, may be enlightened, not by him, but, along with him, by the same Light as he.
   Jesus description Himself as the Light also confirms His identity as God. Note Augustine’s language, which strongly insinuates both Jesus’ relationship with the Father and His unchanging nature as God: But that Light, which enlightens them, cannot become separated from itself; for it is altogether beyond the reach of change .
   The Nicene Creed seems to pick up on this use of light as an image for God when it declares that Jesus is ‘God from God, light from light, true God from true God.’
   Such language not only draws us upward in contemplation of God. It also calls us to action. Thanks to Augustine’s comparison with Matthew, we can see Jesus words in John as a calling to us to become little lights in the darkness.
3. ‘I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.’ – John 10:10
   The vision that Jesus has here of His mission is so much richer and broader than what some Christians say it is. Yes, Jesus saves us. But this is where the evangelical Protestant account falls short. Because we are not simply saved from something. We are also saved for something. And that something is abundant life. Again: Jesus came not only to save us from death but to give us a new life. In theological terms, we could describe it as participation in the inner life of the Trinity. In an eschatological context, we could say it is the joy of the beatific vision we will enjoy in heaven as we both rest in Him and journey to know Him ever more deeply. In the language of the virtues, we could say an abundant life is one that is large in loving.
4. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. – Matthew 10:34
   This one is harder to explain than the fire-casting verse above. To understand it, we have to dig deep into Scripture. Jesus is likely speaking in metaphorical terms since he rebukes Peter for drawing his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the midst of its well-known exposition on spiritual arm, Ephesians 6 identifies the “sword of the Spirit” as the “word of God” (verse 17). Hebrews 4:12 expands upon this:
   Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
   One level, Ephesians and Hebrews are talking about Scripture itself. But we should also understand the ‘word of God’ as the Word Incarnate. The next verse in Hebrews supports this interpretation, referring to the ‘word of God’ as ‘Him’:
   No creature is concealed from Him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must render an account.
   Revelation 1:16 offers further confirmation in its depiction of Jesus as having “a sharp, double-edged sword” coming out of his mouth. (Note that this passage also employs images of fire and light to describe Jesus!)
   Clearly there is a sense in which Jesus is ‘divisive.’ To paraphrase St. Paul, the cross is a stumbling block to those who cannot accept it. The ultimate division is between heaven and hell, and between those who accept Jesus and those who do not. The Good News is that Jesus came to give us a choice

NOVEMBER 22, 2019
St. Thomas Aquinas’s Guide to Turning Away from False Goods & False Gods
DR. KEVIN VOST
“The ultimate and principal good of
man is the enjoyment of God.”
— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, 23, 7
imagine that if you are like me, it is one thing to agree that our goal should be the attainment of bliss in heaven with God (and an easy thing to agree on, at that), but quite another thing to live our lives with our eyes fixed on God rather than on ourselves . Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, we’ve all had a battle against sin on our hands. Sin takes our eyes off our heavenly goal and redirects them toward far less worthy things.
St. Thomas wrote that “inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin” (I-II, 77, 4). “Inordinate” means disordered, unrestrained, and inappropriate. It means love of the lower, bodily, animal self over one’s spiritual soul; love of simple pleasures, of money, of false gods of every sort in place of love for God.
The Deadly Sins & Our Gaze of God
All sins remove our gaze from God and place it on ourselves in one way or another. Lust, for example, has always been very good at tempting us to accept far less than the best. Through lust we fixate on people’s bodies and remain blind to the souls within them, made in the image and likeness of God.
Through gluttony we live to eat, rather than eating to live. Through greed we obsess about obtaining worldly things. Through anger we lash out at those who keep us from our sensuous and worldly goals. Through envy we are saddened by the thought that others may have more things or more fun than we do. Through pride we most directly and deliberately shift our goal from serving God to serving ourselves, doing everything our way .
Sloth
All six of the classic seven deadly sins mentioned above divert us from our ultimate end. As I peer over Thomas’s broad shoulders, I see him writing about yet one other deadly sin most relevant to our first lesson: “Sloth is not an aversion of the mind from any spiritual good, but from the Divine good, to which the mind is obliged to adhere” (II-II, 35, 3).
Sloth then, is the sin that provides the most direct obstacle. It takes our minds off the divine good, which is God. This may seem a bit surprising to some. In our day, sloth probably first calls to mind “laziness,” as can be found in many dictionary definitions.
This article is from adapted from a chapter in
12 Life Lessons from St. Thomas Aquinas . Click image to learn more
Acedia, the Root of Sloth
We’ll have a true grasp of sloth if we understand it through the word St. Thomas himself used for it — acedia,
the Latinized version of the Greek word akedia, meaning “without,” and
cedia (or kedia , if you prefer the Greek) coming from kedos, meaning “care” or “concern.” The deadly sin of sloth is a spiritual sloth that says, “I don’t care — about the things of God.”
Thomas further defines “sloth” as “an oppressive sorrow” and as “a sluggishness of the mind which neglects to do good” (II-II, 35, 1). Sloth is a spiritual apathy, a sadness or boredom about the divine good of God . This lack of passion for serving and enjoying God is the antithesis of our first life lesson, and yet it is, in some sense, the first life lesson of the popular culture around us.
We can see this in the culture, and within ourselves, when we look at the sins that accompany, serve, and flow from sloth. St. Thomas, borrowing from St. Gregory the Great, notes that each deadly sin has a bevy of “daughters,” so let’s look now at sloth’s sorry brood.
Sloth’s Daughters
Wanderings Towards Unlawful Things
Sloth’s daughter running rampant in our culture is that of “wandering of the mind after unlawful things” (II-II, 35, 4). Thomas agreed with Aristotle that “those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures have recourse to pleasures of the body.” In our day of extreme “separation of church and state,” observe how the vast majority of the most heated political debates involve precisely the “pleasures of the body.”
So many minds in our culture have wandered so far toward unlawful pleasures of the body, rejecting God’s laws, that it is quite fitting to see this as a worship of false gods , and unfortunately, the chief false god appears to be Molech, who relished the sacrifice of innocent children (Lev. 18:21, 20:1-5; 2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35).
Hopefully our minds have not wandered far from spiritual good in pursuit of bodily pleasures, but we still need to examine our consciences to track down and bring home our own wandering, prodigal minds. Spiritual sluggishness is not for the lazy alone. If we become overly obsessed with our work or some hobby or special interest, or even our cell phones or social media accounts, we might be extremely physically active , while mired in spiritual sloth .
Other Daughters of Sloth
Thomas names other daughters of sloth. It would do us well to see if they lie lurking lazily in our souls.
Sluggishness regarding the commandments. To keep our eyes on the goal of God, we need to ask ourselves if we are doing the specific kinds of things He commanded us all to do, such as honoring His day by going to Mass every Sunday.
Faintheartedness regarding spiritual obligations. Do we give our full effort and attention to spiritual obligations, in things as simple as speaking to God in prayer as well as in things as difficult as publicly standing up for the right to life?
Despair. Are we spiritually apathetic and despairing because we doubt that God could show forgiveness and mercy to sinners such as ourselves? To do so is to doubt God’s loving power and mercy and to accept not the best but the worst as our lot.
Spite toward those who lead others to spiritual goods. Have we been spiteful to those who stand up boldly to do God’s will? Have we disparaged the priest who dares to give powerful sermons on controversial topics or our neighbors in the pew who are willing to take a public stand to pray at an abortion center and offer counsel to women in crisis?
Malice. Hopefully we do not openly detest the spiritual goods of God, as do some of the most virulent “new atheists” who describe a Christian upbringing as child abuse, but do we do anything to defend the Faith when it is attacked in our presence?
If sloth or any of its sinful, self-serving daughters have a home in our hearts or are expressed in our deeds, it is time to root them out and pulverize them to dust, because they are keeping us from our ultimate goal, and they might well be hindering our loved ones, too, as they look to us for guidance.
The Sloth of Secularism
Alas, sloth has other powerful allies that quite directly strive to remove our eyes from the goal of God and bring them down to gaze upon the world. One term for this worldly view that champions sloth in our time is the ideology of “secularism.” The word derives from the Latin
saecularis which means “of an age, or a generation,” and it has long referred to “worldliness” in Christian usage. Secularism is a worldview with no place for religion and, therefore, no place for God. Those with a thoroughly secularist worldview will certainly spend no time trying to conquer sin as a first step toward loving God.
The influential philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that it is not sin, but rather the sense of sin, the very notion that it is possible to behave in a way that is contrary to God’s will, that leads to man’s unhappiness.
By 1973, the eminent psychiatrist Karl Menninger would come to write the book Whatever Became of Sin? , arguing that increasing societal problems, the growing incidence of mental disorders, and increasing unhappiness had resulted from the growth of secularism and the rejection of the concept of sin in modern culture. Four and a half decades have passed since then, and our problems continue to mount, as more and more people seem to flounder, having lost track of the meaning of life.
Although I hope and pray that every one of my readers still has a zest for life, we might also ask ourselves how a downplaying of the dire importance of sin in acquiescence to the social winds of the times has grown within the Church herself , not to mention
within our own souls . To root out key obstacles that keep us from the enjoyment of God, we must pulverize not only the sloth that would turn our
hearts from God but also the
secularism that seeks to divert and poison our minds and our Church as well. When we refuse to accept sloth into our hearts and secularization into our minds, we ready our souls to accept only the best, the things that lead us to God.
✠
This article is adapted from a chapter in Dr. Vost’s latest book,
12 Life Lessons from St. Thomas Aquinas : Timeless Spiritual Wisdom for Our Turbulent Times . It is available as an ebook or paperback from Sophia Institute Press .

Strive For Balance In Your Spiritual Life
FR. BASIL W. MATURIN
Most of the heresies that have opposed the Church in her progress through the world have arisen from the undue pressing of one part of the truth. For the truth of the Christian Faith can generally be stated in the form of a paradox. And any failure to keep perfect balance and proportion in these statements results in error.
The history of the struggles of the early ages is the history of the wonderful instinct with which the Church ever preserved the mean between the extremes toward one or another of which the human mind tended in the definition of the doctrines of the Faith.
But amid all these controversies that spread over several hundred years, ranging from gross heresy to the nicest and most delicate overstatement or understatement of a truth, the Church ever kept the balance between the extremes of the contending parties, and taught that “Christ is perfect God and perfect man,” and that the union was effected “not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person.”
So, again, with the doctrines of human
life. Some, looking upon the nature of man, have felt most keenly its inherent badness; others, its inherent goodness. But the Church, recognizing fully all the evil and all the good that is in man, taught that his nature is neither wholly bad nor wholly good; that he is a being created in the image of God, but fallen, and that without God’s grace he cannot attain to his perfection.
Again, in regard to man’s spiritual
life. There have been those who have taught that man’s greatest act is to be still and to leave God to work within him — that man can do nothing; God must do all. On the other hand, there have been others who, feeling the intensity of their own struggle and little sense of supernatural help, have taught that man must fight as best he can his own battles. And the Church, recognizing what was true, and rejecting what was erroneous and exaggerated, in each, taught the truth in the great paradox of St. Paul: “Work out your salvation. For it is God who worketh in you.”
Do not develop only part of your soul
This article is from a chapter in Christian Self-Mastery . Click image to learn more.
There is danger of this pressing of part of a truth in the practical life. Man has many sides to his nature, and his conscience must take them all under its care. If he neglects part, he will find that he has injured the whole, for all are a part of the one person. It is true in more senses than one that “the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee.” Every member of the body must be used for the welfare of the whole organism. And every side of life must be used if a man is to be at his best.
Indeed, if anyone sets himself to develop merely one side, he will find that he fails to perfect even that side, for it needs many things that come to it from other quarters. One man determines to develop the social side and altogether neglects the religious, but he finds in time that the social side fails in its perfection through the lack of just those things that religion alone could give him. Another neglects the social side for religion, and he soon finds that his religion becomes fanciful, fantastic, and deceptive, unless it is brought in contact with the hard facts of human life and experience. Another determines that he will give his life to the training and development of his reason alone, but he learns, perhaps too late, that he is not merely a reasoning but a moral being, and that the reason isolated and separated from the rest of his nature suffers vengeance at the hands of those powers which, as its fellow workers, would have helped and perfected it.
There is the same danger in the struggle with sin and the effort to form virtues. Many people who set themselves to conquer one fault and give their whole minds to this will find, if they are not careful, that they have only fallen into another.
For virtue cannot thrive in the narrow soil of one department of the soul’s life, unnourished by the streams that should flow into it from all sides and unpruned by the hand that watches over and labors for the enrichment of the whole. Every Christian virtue has more sides than one and is a more complicated and delicately balanced thing than we imagine. It has to look, as it were, toward God and toward man; toward the person in whom it dwells and toward others; toward itself and its place in the soul and its relations with other virtues. It has to be tended in its growth by the intellect as well as by the will and affections, and has to endure much severe pruning at the hand of reason. It must be able to live in the open and bear the hard dealings of the rough world, and it must grow in the silence of prayer and the presence of God.
There may be such a thing as the overgrowth of the one virtue to the crowding out of others that are equally or perhaps more necessary. Or, on the other hand, we may develop a virtue in one department of life to the neglect of all others. It is not uncommon to find a man very different in his domestic relations from what he is in public life. There are not a few who are thoroughly truthful and honest in all the concerns of life except in the conduct of their business. But a virtue is not a Christian virtue if it is exercised with exceptions. It must have its roots in the person and spread through every department of the soul’s life.
In the effort to conquer our faults, therefore, we have to be on our guard against the danger of being one-sided. For the very virtues we may be striving for are not so simple as they seem, and the materials of which they are formed, if not mixed in exact proportion, may produce not a virtue but a fault.
Humility is the perfect blending of the very highest and the lowliest thoughts of oneself. The humble man is conscious at once of his own nothingness and of his exaltation as God’s creature, whom He would unite to Himself. And he somehow contrives with the deepest sense of his own unworthiness to maintain a dignity that wins respect. If he leaves out this self-respect, his humility is not true humility and ends in self-degradation.
Meekness is the blending of gentleness and strength — a strength that has been won by victory over self and passion, and a gentleness that shows that this victory is the outcome of no harshness and bitterness toward self or the world, but of love. Test true meekness by the severest trials to which it can be put, and you will find in it no flaw of weakness or harshness, but a dauntless courage of the loftiest kind and an inexhaustible gentleness.
So with charity. Christian charity is not a blind disregard of facts, a refusal to see things as they are, a condoning of the sins of others. It is the love of the sinner springing from the love of God, which necessitates the hatred of sin. There is a great deal of spurious charity in the world, making excuse for sin or explaining it away, devoid of strength and virility, and often mixed with insincerity and unreality. True Christian charity blends in perfect proportion justice and love.
Thus, we might go on and see how every virtue involves the balancing and blending of characteristics that seem at first sight almost opposite, and thus embrace the whole many-sided nature of man and keep him exact and well-proportioned. There is more truth than we realize in the saying “Every vice is a virtue carried to extremes.”

Grace—it’s why I’m Catholic

There are many reasons to be Catholic. Grace is present in all of them.

By Annemarie Scobey-Polacheck | Print | ShareARTICLE YOUR FAITH

My friend recently asked me in an email conversation why I stay in the Catholic Church. “If that sounds confrontational, it’s not,” he wrote in his email. “At least not yet. I am genuinely curious.”

My friend was raised Catholic but is not currently a practicing member of any religion. He credits the Jesuits with saving his life in high school, and he went to Georgetown University for undergrad and married a Catholic woman he met there. They now have four children. His wife is still a practicing Catholic and brings the younger kids to Mass and religious education. My husband Bill and I are godparents to their third child. 

My friend’s question is a fair one. He’s not asking why I’m Christian or questioning my faith in God; he’s asking me why I belong to a religion that has some elements with which he knows I disagree.

He knows, for example, that I believe the church should ordain married people of both genders, along with men and women who choose celibacy. He knows I believe the question of birth control and family planning is complex and should not be simplified into a one-size-fits-all teaching. He knows that because Bill and I have adopted from the U.S. foster care system, we have a depth of understanding of the ramifications of all types of child abuse.

Yet we have chosen to stay with a church whose leaders failed to protect children from the most egregious of abuse. He knows I hold dear our gay friends and colleagues—that I believe they should be as welcome at the eucharistic table as they are at our own dining room table. 

And yet I’m Catholic. Passionately Catholic. And I could no more change to another Christian religion than I could peel off my skin and exchange it for a different tone with a better hue. 

Why am I Catholic? I may not embrace or even agree with all the teachings of the church, but I believe in all the sacraments. I believe in God’s grace working through them. I’ve felt the grace; I’ve seen it.

When each one of my children was baptized, the grace washed over the whole family—connecting our new little child to us, as parents and their first teachers, back to their grandparents, and to the grace of their great grandparents. Baptism, our first gift of faith to our children, a tidal welcome into life eternal. 

I’ve received communion and have been grateful for the grace that carried me through a difficult relationship. I know it was eucharistic grace that allowed me to be able to reach beyond the angry words I wanted to say to a difficult person, to the better words I needed to say to begin to heal the relationship. 

I’ve felt the grace present in the sacrament of reconciliation. I’ve seen my children leave the church after going to reconciliation feeling more peaceful, acting more loving, trying harder to be who they are called to be. Not leaving the church perfect, by any means—none of us do—but coming out of the sacrament, still imperfect, but full of grace. I remember Liam running around the parking lot of the church when he was about 8, after his first reconciliation, yelling, “I feel so light!” I have felt that lightness, too. It is grace. 

It is marriage where I’ve probably felt sacramental grace most strongly. Bill and I continue to turn to our vows, to our promise to God, to each other. I’ve seen the grace in my parents’ 50-year marriage—two people with completely different personalities who bring out the best in one another. I see the same grace in the marriages of my friends. One friend, whose husband made a hurtful choice, responded by upping her prayer, turning to her husband, and recognizing not only her own pain, but his. She allowed his poor choice to propel them together more in search of God, rather than let his behavior be a reason to drift apart. I watched their grace, and it made me weep. 

Some sacraments seem under-utilized. We do not need to reserve the sacrament of the sick for the dying. Any serious problem—mental, physical, emotional—can be a reason to receive the sacrament. I asked that my daughter Jamie be anointed when she was 1—not because she seemed sick, but because I knew of her past history before she came to us as a foster child. I knew healing was needed. I asked for it. I felt the grace. I feel it now. In 14-year-old Jamie’s exuberant presence is God’s grace. 

And then there’s ordination. God’s profound grace. Some of the most influential, inspirational people Bill and I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and listening to are (or were) priests. These amazing people, in their homilies and in the way they live (or lived) their lives, inspired the decisions we have made and have deepened our own faith journey. Holy orders is a beautiful, grace-filled sacrament. It’s just not expansive enough—we could have even more grace-filled people leading our church. 

And speaking of grace-filled leaders, what about those sisters? I’m Catholic because I stand in awe of the strong, independent, creative women so often at the helm of our Catholic schools, hospitals, and social service agencies. Yes, many of them are retired now, and fewer women are entering orders, mostly because Catholic women today have so many more options than young women did decades ago. These sisters were ahead of their time as leaders. In choosing to forego marriage and family, they were able to experience the greater world in a way uncommon to many women. And in doing so, they lifted us all. 

I couldn’t say all this to my friend in my email, because the email came in at work, and I didn’t have time to respond. But I can say it now. I can explain that I stay in the Catholic Church because of God’s grace present in the sacraments. I have seen how this has led to prayer, service, and goodness in the world. This grace is present in Catholic social teaching, a beautiful set of letters and documents about how we are called to serve our world in a very concrete and practical way. 

I am part of the Catholic Church because I see God’s people, nourished by the sacraments, anointed with oil, splashed with the water of baptism, serving God in great numbers. They teach in schools, work for change, bring about good in the public and private sector. They house refugees and give food and shelter to the needy. They bandage the hurt and the broken, give medicine to the ill, and visit those in prison. They speak out against injustice. I see them, and I strive to use my God-given grace as well as they do. That’s why I’m Catholic.