Understanding faith in God via Catholic topics (1)

The Catholic Church is structured the way it is because it believes that when God intervenes in human life, such as when he reveals his presence; he not only leaves behind the words that are exchanged but also tangible gifts. In other words, God never comes “empty handed,” and he does not expect the faithful in return to live only upon the words of his prophets, or of Jesus Christ.

The tangible generosity of God is abundantly clear throughout the Bible. From the moment of creation to the ministry of Jesus Christ, God provides tangible and real gifts of goodness along with the words of those who proclaim Him. God provided creation itself and material abundance to Adam and Eve. God provided specific direction of how to approach, worship and house his earthly presence to the patriarchs and the priests of the Israelites. God’s prophets performed tangible miracles of healing on God’s behalf. God made gifts of the prophets themselves, living breathing people who carried out his will, rather than only giving continuing words of exhortation to the people. God gave people both religious practices and rituals and secular teaching for following the right paths, such as how to make a verbal contract through witnessing. God provided a place, the Mercy Seat of the Ark, and the Meeting Tent, where people could come to his prophets, notably Moses, with both their religious and their secular problems and receive counsel. These are just the highlights of the clear record that God has of bringing not only his words of instruction, comfort and exhortation, but also tangible structures, both physical and ritual, as gifts that magnify and continue the grace that God has bestowed.

In my recent 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit post about Wisdom, I cite as one example that God appears to King Solomon in a dream, and offers him anything that he asks for. King Solomon asked for wisdom in the form of an “understanding heart,” and God granted him that request. God did not simply instruct King Solomon, leaving only God’s words of advice to recall, but God actually infused King Solomon with the tangible gift of Wisdom, that did not exist previously and that could henceforth be seen most clearly by all who observed King Solomon.

Judaism continues to understand that God has given them tangible gifts in addition to his words. For example, the Sabbath is a continuing gift by God to Jews as the day of their rest, when neither work nor worries should concern them. Compare the difference in a gift where if God had said, “You ought to take time off from work on a regular basis,” and then leave it up to humans and oppressive bosses to obey that or not, versus the gift of a mandated day of rest once a week. The Sabbath is an example of a continuing tangible gift that is real, physical, and measurable and not just the citing of scripture about what one should or should not do.
Likewise Islam contains gifts from God that are beyond the gems of God’s actual words, but are also tangible and measurable. One example is the prohibition of usury. Again, God could have given “good advice” that one should not charge usury, and then leave it up to humans and oppressive money managers to obey that or not. But God gives the Muslims the gift that they will not be oppressed by usury, period.

The early Christian Church which is by definition the Catholic Church likewise looked for and identified the continuing gifts of God that have been given to them. Recognizing that Jesus Christ, Savior, is the gift of God to all of humanity, the Apostles and disciples who were all drawn from their Jewish faith foundations understood very well that it was not only the words of Jesus Christ, or his washing of the stain of original sin, that God gives to them. Exactly as Moses created at God’s behest ritual and physical structures so that God’s gifts can be shared with the faithful, the Apostles and disciples, and after them the early Church fathers, identified what tangible gifts Jesus Christ brought with him to “furnish” the faith.

Consider the Last Supper. Jesus had the Apostles hire a room, one with a table, couches, and all the service needed for dinner. They did not have the Last Supper by standing up in the air, with no physical furnishings, with no shared custom, and instead only the words of Jesus to linger in oral and then book form. Jesus role modeled not only the love of God and God’s teachings, but also how to “furnish” the faithful with the physical and ritual structures that are also the true gifts of God. Thus Jesus did not eliminate the sacrificial altar; he fulfilled it and gave to the disciples the form and the ritual of the furnishings of how future worship of God should take place: the altar in the Catholic Church that at each Mass commemorates the Last Supper.

How often have good Christians today said, “I wish I could have been there when Jesus was alive, and have seen him and spoken with him?” Well, the gift of God is that at every Mass one is there with Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. God always thinks ahead, just like in the gift of the Sabbath, so that future generations are not deprived of his gifts. It’s not like God allowed only Adam and Eve to celebrate the Sabbath and then no one else, or the first generation of Israelites got a day off each week, but next generations do not. God intends that ALL the faithful Christians be able to attend the Lord’s Supper, to be in the physical presence of Jesus Christ, generation after generation. I am astounded by how many Christians, both Catholics and not, fail to understand this gift. When one celebrates the Sacrifice of the Mass, one is invited to be present at the Lord’s Last Supper, in his physical presence, and in the presence of the faithful Apostles and saints. Every time someone misses Mass they are not attending an opportunity to be in the physical presence of Jesus Christ as he celebrates the Last Supper!

Somehow many Christians, as a result of the Reformation, and also the corrupting influences of self congratulatory modernism, view Jesus Christ in only two dimensions: 1) what he taught, and thus what words and role modeling he provided to be “like Jesus” or “following Jesus” and 2) that he provided the pathway for salvation. But there is a third dimension of Jesus Christ, which is that he was a real person who brought real gifts from God by which to furnish the faithful and the Church in their lives throughout the generations.

Thus the sacraments and the structures of the Church, both physical and ritual, are the Church’s discernment of what actions of Christ are demonstrations of continuing, real gifts that God has given to be carried forward. Because Jesus instructed to continue to perform the Last Supper in memory of him, this is exactly what the Church has done. This is why each Catholic Church has a consecrated altar, which is the Last Supper table. That is why each Catholic Church has a tabernacle, which houses the hosts (sacred bread) that is the actual presence of Jesus Christ at each Last Supper. No one “misses out” on having been the good Apostle at the Last Supper because the Last Supper is real and alive, with Jesus Christ present, at every Catholic Mass, regardless how humble the surroundings and regardless how many generations have passed since the first Last Supper.

So sure, Christians who are not Catholics and who “only believe in the scripture” are accepting God’s gift of salvation. But goodness gracious, I do not understand the bitterness regarding the Holy Eucharist by many toward the Catholic Church. Such bitterness and rejection is a profound blindness and missed opportunity. It is like the child who sees only the one gift provided by their father under the Christmas tree, and ignores the other gift by the same father. The child says to the father, “I only need this one gift!” Well, sure, but the father gave the child two gifts; why would the child not want to even open the second gift from the father? That is how it is when those who have an extreme view of Jesus Christ having brought “only” his words and his salvatory power totally miss out on the additional gifts provided by God through Jesus Christ. In a way it is like Jews who do not celebrate the Sabbath. They still believe in God and they still merit the graces of their faith, but it’s like they are saying, “Hey God, I don’t want the day off each week!” This is what it is like when Christians who demean the Holy Eucharist consider the sacrament to be “not essential to their salvation, and actually an ‘addition’ to ‘the faith.’” Huh? I continue to be astonished that people cannot discern the difference between following Jesus and accepting his salvation message and accepting a gift that Jesus himself left for them, wrapped, “under the tree,” and not even unwrapping it to look inside. Jesus left the gift of being with him at the Last Supper, with his physical and living presence, for every generation after him and there is that gift, every day at one’s local Catholic Church.

Preaching, prayer, communal worship and Bible study are joys of the word of God. I will write more about them in future topics. They do not “compete” with the other gifts that God has given through Jesus Christ, which is to be invited to be at his table, in his physical presence, through all generations, available every day and every place on earth where a Church and a priest celebrating the Mass can be found. That is why I never attend non-Catholic worship services, not because they are wrong, but I miss too much not being at the Lord’s Table. Even if I have to listen to the most listless and ineloquent sermon, ha, I would not trade being at even the most prayerful and heartfelt Christian service with the chance to be that day once again in the physical presence of Jesus Christ as we are once again at the Last Supper in the communion of the faithful, as good Apostles taking our place in front of the table.

I hope that you have found this enlightening and helpful. I could write much more on this topic, but I want to keep these topics high level in making their general point. Here my point is to understand that God always gives tangible gifts that can be the joy and benefit of each generation of believers; God does not expect people to live only with the verbal and behavior implications of his words, and ignore the other gifts that he likewise leaves wrapped under the tree. Think about it. For example, every country that has a Catholic Church has, by definition, in their midst, the table set for the Last Supper with the physical presence of Jesus Christ. Even if that country is not Christian they have the benefit of being gracious hosts of the physical presence of Jesus Christ, seated at the Last Supper, in their midst! Those who attend the Sacrifice of the Mass are accepting the continual invitation of God to participate, even two thousand years later, at the actual Last Supper in the physical presence of Jesus Christ. And, unlike Elvis, Jesus never “leaves the building.” Thus the faithful Christians and who are not Catholic, but attend their own places of worship, can rather than criticize, be heart warmed that not only is Jesus present wherever the two or more gather in his name, but he also has the table set nearby.

What I was like receiving the sacraments

Trying to be nice here and share some pleasant memories, and also think of questions and distortions that many might have about my point of view and experiences.

It is not at all difficult to be the "someone" (I've explained that before but basically when I say the "someone" I mean how I was born with total knowledge and context as witness to the reality of the one God, the content of the events in the Bible, and also the Qur'an) and still be a child and young adult.

For example, when I first had to start going to Confession (the sacrament of Penance & Reconciliation), unlike other children, I had nothing to confess. But I also am a born diplomat and was not ready to get into it with the nuns over a period of years how unlike other children, I didn't even have the little boo boo sins to confess. So I confessed things like lying, when what I meant was I'd say to someone "It's hot today," while one could argue that it was warm and not hot. So I'd think of a few instances where opinion could be held in speech but where I was not lying, but I could honestly "give that to the priest to work with" (they didn't ask too many questions about context or I'd have had a dilemma). So I managed to find things to "confess" that sounded "typical kid," but so I'd not be lying in the confessional either. So that's what Confession was like for me. I liked praying the prayers given as penance, but I could also appreciate wanting to get a priest who was one who gave out "light and easy" penances! :-)

My First Holy Communion was great. My father was still alive and he wore a wonderful suit and I had the whole communion dress, veil, gloves, white missal and purse, and I loved them. There are photos of me and my dad taken by my brother, and they are treasured because like I said, my dad did not live throughout my childhood and my Communion was one of our last big family events before he died. So I could enjoy all the aspects of Holy Communion because not only of my faith but my assurity of knowledge. Yet, I could still have the angst of a child, especially because I can witness to the sanctity of the sacrament itself. For example, in those days you could not touch the host with your hand, so the nuns spent plenty of time warning us that it would stick to the tops of our mouths and not to panic! But we could not touch inside our mouths to loosen the host. So the nuns got all of us pretty anxious! And sure enough, the first time I received, it stuck to the top of my mouth, and also my friend who was next to me. We panicked and got all weepy! The nun in front of us in the pew told us, just keep rubbing with our tongue and not to panic and that it would dissolve, and it did. So this is another example of how I could be "the someone" and also have a very human reaction in not wanting to mess up the rules! Gosh when I think how irreverential so many are today, I wonder how far adrift and negative everyone has become. It is sad. But anyway, it was a fine day even though I got teased for the crying. It was a very sunny and beautiful spring day in upstate New York, back when we had long and snowy winters.

One thing that made me and two other children very sad was that we could not receive our first Holy Communion, and also our Confirmation, which I am about to reminisce about, with the rest of the Catholics in our school class and age group. Three of us had to be "a year behind" because of arbitrary decision that December 1 birthdays were the cutoff point. So those of us with birthdays right before December were made to wait a year with the "little kids." We all found that to be terribly mortifying that we were held back from our class just because we had October and November birthdays. So I was not with my classmates when I had religious instruction for my first Holy Communion or Confirmation. In a small town and with kids you grew up with and attended class together with year after year, that was really shattering and the first real pain that I received that was unjust and unfair. I still remember sitting in religious instruction classes with kids I didn't know at all because they were a year behind me, and me and the two others just suffered through it.

By the way, in fairness, it was not the Church that caused the problem, it was the school system that let kids into kindergarten and then assigned subsequent grades based on the December 1 date. So I was in a grade where my best friend was just about a year older than me. The Church does its sacraments by age of eligibility. So one must be seven years old to receive one's first Holy Communion and go to Confession. That is because seven is the age where children are deemed in the church to be old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Thus children become "responsible for any sins that they commit" at the age of seven. That is why the Church assembles classes according to age, and not by school grade. And that makes perfect sense in doctrine even though it hurt to go through. So I have little tolerance for people today who rail against doctrine because of "hurt feelings" and it not being "fair." It IS fair and it IS correct; that is why it is Church doctrine. So suck it up and be obedient to the Church doctrine, as I was as a child, even when it hurt me a LOT.

In classes for Confirmation you get to choose your "saint name," called your "confirmation name." It becomes one of your middle names. Well, for boys that was great. But back in the early 1960's in a poor town girls had no access to books and so forth giving them choices of names. You basically got to choose between Mary and Catherine. I'm not exaggerating. Even Anne was not discussed as a possibility. So the girls basically chose one or the other and I went with Catherine. Cultists like to get all in a tizzy about that, looking for "a reason" that I "chose Catherine" (you know, past lives and all that). Well, bumble f's, in my class I still remember sitting in my usual seat (far right row about five seats back) and hearing, "Which will it be? Mary or Catherine?" LOL! There was no leafing through the missal being "inspired" by one saint or the other, or by other women. If a girl had said, "How about Anastasia" the nun would have undoubtedly beat her senseless! It is NOT how things were done back then. So there was absolutely no significance to my choosing Catherine.

I didn't mind, though, because I was honoring a saint by that name that I knew of very well. That was Catherine Laboure, to whom the Virgin Mary appeared and gave to her the Miraculous Medal. The Miraculous Medal had been revealed given to St. Catherine in 1830, and so by the 1960's I had already seen many miracles that resulted from this virtue. The Miraculous Medal was carried by many soldiers (including my dad) in World War II, and it also helped many conversions of dire sinners. So she was the Catherine that I had in mind.

Years later, of course, in a cynical and strange world, people got obsessed with Catherine of the wheel (since the method of torture is more interesting to humans nowadays than the context of the faith). And so some people I know "wanted me to have chosen Catherine of the wheel" so they could glom onto her torture and work that into my story, in their delusion. Others love Catherine of Sienna because she was a "mystic" and had these long rapturous "conversations" with Jesus, and so that camp "wanted me to have chosen Catherine of Sienna" so that they could, well, you get my drift. It shows how little anyone knows me. The saint I chose was the one that was a virgin who lived a quiet and holy life, only a century before, living to the age of 70 or so, but with one distinction. That is, the Virgin Mary appeared to her and gave her one of the greatest gifts for modern believers, one that had demonstrated its virtue for nearly a hundred years by the time I had to "choose" my Confirmation name. And that's as simple as that. She was a great lady by the way. I wish people would follow her example more than look for gory deaths or rapturous visions. She had to go against some strong personalities to get people in the Church to believe her, and then to get the medal worked and given to the world. She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1947 by the way, just about twenty years before my Confirmation. So she was very much of my real world and my priorities are always the here and now.

In Confirmation a Catholic is viewed as being an adult (age 13). It is one's Catholic bar mitzvah or bar mitzpah in a way. Again, it is another example of how the Catholic Church is the true church running straight and true from its roots in the Old Covenant to modern times. A Catholic child of 13 is viewed as being "an adult in the faith" and also a "soldier of Christ." That means there is knowledge that one can speak one's own mind about the faith, is responsible for one's own sin and also must be prepared to suffer or die for the faith. The highlight of it is the ceremony presided over by the Bishop, where each new "soldier of Christ" steps before the Bishop to get the symbolic slap on the face. Wow, were we excited about that! The slap symbolizes that each child is now a defender of the faith, and thus might face persecution and suffering. Of course the Bishop doesn't haul off and clout each kid, ha! But being kids, it gave us something to worry about. No one wanted to look like a wimp. Boys worried about that and girls worried about it hurting. So I worried about it hurting. So we lined up and approached him and just as the nuns promised, it was barely more than an open handed touch to the cheek, no slap at all really! But it was great performance anxiety for all of us young soldiers of Christ!

I hope you enjoyed my musings and reminiscing.

Spiritual direction: grace, prayer, purity after sin

I'm too tired to blog all night so I'm going to try to get back into a more normal sleep time pattern starting in about twenty minutes :-)

But first I wanted to share some thoughts that came up while I was discussing a book idea with a colleague.

Grace is a complicated topic, not because it is difficult, but because there are so many ways to be fruitful in grace. Grace is a gift from God and its best description is St. John's, who describes it as the "indwelling of the Holy Spirit." In other words, grace is the presence of the Holy Spirit within a person, provided by God in the form of gifts. Gifts is not the same as talents, since obviously some of the most grace filled people who ever lived did "nothing" but pray, and didn't even have an education. I could write alot about these gifts but I would summarize them as being all related to the capability of "understanding God."

Now, while one cannot do anything to earn or obtain grace on one's own, one can "cultivate" grace by preparing yourself to receive it. God will fill the person who desires grace with grace, to their capacity. So if you prepare the space within you for the receipt of grace, God is able to send more grace according to his will and perception of your needs.

So what I want to share with you is that in this "achievement" oriented mindset of society, you might be surprised to see how easy it is to cultivate your inner space to prepare for grace. All you have to do is read scripturally sound material that promotes your understanding of God. So I am certainly not saying to read "history of religions" or other academic types of books for this grace cultivation. The way to cultivate grace is to "imprint" in your inner self continual exposure to the pure words of God, and words by those who have walked the same grace path as you. So reading the Bible is an obvious daily activity that promotes grace, even if it is just a small section, and even your favorite sections over and over. It's not an academic exercise, it's the continuing nearness to both God's words and the works of people who author prayers, devotionals, and sermons. For example, reading works by the saints, writings by the present or previous Pope, reading prayers and hymns, books by priests and other religious, and the sermons of the great doctors, founding fathers and others who preach the word of God. So there is a vast amount of prayerful material available that you can select from, including online.

I'll make some more specific suggestions from a reading list, especially if I am the one who has to write my book idea if I cannot persuade my colleague to do it (I'm trying to delegate!) :-) But for now I just wanted to put in front of you the idea that simply prayerful reading is an activity that cultivates grace, and is an easy action to take that can result in much fruitfulness and benefit.

As part of my continuing work at helping readers, especially my teenage and young adult audience, to develop better faith and reasoning skills, I want to jump a little bit onto a tangent in order to clarify a Church practice that has been greatly misunderstood. One of the things that the Catholic Church was attacked about at the time of the Reformation, several hundred years ago, was the "selling of indulgences." An indulgence is a forgiveness or remission of part of the personal punishment that may be due to a person due to previous sins. The Catholic Church believes, and has scriptural reference that supports its belief, that even if God accepts a confession of sin that there is a need to purify, through a commensurate penalty, the lasting effects of one's sins. This is because that even if one feels sorry and has the ability to make amends, it is rare that the effects of a given sin can ever be contained to not cause damage. And so the Catholic Church recognizes that there is a "purgatory" process after death that takes place before the individual is allowed into God's presence. (I've written about some of the scriptural support for this previously, in other posts on this blog). The Church developed an understanding, therefore, that prayer with the intention of being "directed toward" the effects and purification of one's own sin (and on behalf of others) can be performed as a way to remedy and reduce the amount of purgatory needed. That is called 'an indulgence.'

In order to help the faithful, most of whom were poor and simple people with no education, the Church tried to categorize the "amount" of purgatory someone might experience in terms of days and years. That may seem naive and quaint now, but it was a sincere effort to help people "manage" their own salvation. So a person might have a card with a prayer on it, or a prayer would be printed in the Missal, and the prayer might have a footnote saying something like (100 days). What that meant was that for each time that one said that prayer, they could hope for 100 days of their "purgatory penalty" to be removed. Of course no one can characterize the individual process by which a soul will be purified from sin before entering heaven in terms of activities or earthly time measures, but the Church fathers understood that sincerely, remorseful prayer has a real salvatory effectiveness on reducing one's stain of common everyday sin (we aren't talking about original sin). So this is the point I am making in this blog, except I'm talking about the "here and now." Prayer is a method for cultivating your inner self so that more grace from God can be received, AND prayer diminishes the stain of sin that every human has, even if that sin has been fully forgiven. So my point is to show that the Church throughout its 2000 year history has always understood that prayer is not just "the right thing to do because God expects it," but it is also of practical and real spiritual health benefit, not just for now when one is alive, but when one dies and seeks to be reunited with loved ones in the presence of God.

So just to finish the tangent about indulgences, and then wrap up with my point about cultivating grace for the here and now. Corrupt individuals and poor situations of leadership within the Catholic Church resulted in some religious actually "selling" indulgences. For a monetary donation these religious claimed to be able to grant a number of days or years of indulgence! This is outrageous and corrupt and of course everyone was right to be scandalized. However, the Reformation threw the baby out with the bathwater, as the old saying goes. When attacking the Catholic Church for indulgence selling, they lost track of the basic understanding that prayer does have desirable and remedial effect on one's purity which has been compromised by sin. This is because the age of reason was also dawning at the same time as the Reformation, and so the idea of 100 days per prayer seemed silly at the same time that the selling of indulgences was a scandal. But a huge misunderstanding resulted and this is one of the philosophical chasms between Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church. I'm going to make a generalization, but my point is to help you young people have the full outline of the problem and then fill in the details of understanding as you wish. Protestants left the Church carrying away a general disposition that 1) prayer is good because God expects it 2) you read the Bible and have study groups to better understand God, specifically through Christ and 3) there is no punishment or purification for sin that you are sorry for because "it's between you and God" and "Jesus paid the price."

However, Catholics continued with their understanding that they have maintained for two thousand years, which is 1) God expects prayer that is fulfilled via the Mass 2) Bible reading is good, and that's why there is 2-3 readings from the Bible each day in Mass 3) prayer is an essential activity in one's own purity and salvation, not just something "God expects," and 4) being forgiven of sin by God is not the same as being pure to enter heaven, especially if one is not able to contain and recompense for each instance of one's sin those who have been harmed. This is why the priest "prescribes" prayers after Confession (the sacrament of Penance & Reconciliation). The priest is ensuring that the penitent is at least doing THAT much prayer that is "directed toward" cleansing one's self of the stain of sin that has been committed, albeit forgiven. So while the Catholic Church stopped the scandalous and appalling sale of indulgence practice, and also dropped the attempts to "measure" amounts of potential indulgence, thankfully they did not lose sight of their doctrine about the real and salutatory effects of prayer.

So prayer, in the Catholic church doctrine and tradition, is much more than the valid functions of 1) worshipping God because he expects it and 2) your personal dialogue and communion with God. The Catholic Church recognizes a prescriptive, remedial, purification, and penance fulfilling power of prayer that is an essential activity as part of one's own cooperation with God in one's own salvation. This is why the Church knows that "at least" they are getting the person who comes to confession once a year to "do those five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys" with the intention of atoning and purifying the stain of forgiven sin. Obviously one must be sincere and not just rattle the prayers off without having sorrow for the damage that one's forgiven sins have nonetheless done (damage to innocent parties and to one's own purity). But with even one's average level of belief and faith, prayer works in this purpose. Protestants are very generous in prayer, because they very much believe in the power of prayer as directed toward what we call "intentions," which is to support individuals or institutions in their time of need. So the children of the Reformation are a very prayerful people.

But the difference, so you can better understand and bind the wounds that have been made between the denominations and the Catholic Church, is that they are purposeful in their generosity of prayer, but do not have the same understanding of the other purpose of prayer that is a centerpiece of the Catholic Church's sacramental understanding of the Apostolic church of Jesus Christ, which is that of being a co-participant in one's own individual salvation and in the purification now and in the hereafter of the stains away from sin.

So the next time you have coffee with a detractor of the Catholic Church and they throw in your face that the Church "was corrupt and sold indulgences, and you are the fake church anyway," sigh, as I do, but do not be defensive. Generations of Protestants don't know the reasoning behind the continuity of the Catholic doctrine and tradition (and many poorly formed Catholics don't understand it either, but at least if they are Church attending they are still doing it, albeit minimally!) I want you readers, especially the young people who are seeking to better understand the fullness of situations, rather than have tradition knee jerk reactions, and those of you who seek to better understand not only God, but why the Catholic Church is sacramental in orientation, the way that it surely is, to understand the context of the misunderstanding. Protestants, in general, think that Catholics are somehow "insulting" Jesus by "not having faith that he paid for all our sins." They miss the point; that is original sin. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that people can swindle the bank they work for. Jesus didn't die on the cross so you can lie about your neighbor, or sell drugs. Even if you are "sorry" and "confess to God" personally for those sins, there is genuine damage that has been done to your neighborly community (society), the individuals (victims) and one's own soul. The Catholic Church understands that prayer is your "skin in the game" to "correct" the damage done by forgiven sin and to purify your soul in anticipation of salvation in God's presence.

Here's how it works, using an analogy. Jesus Christ died for all humanity and to remedy the effect of original sin. Therefore, Jesus reopened the door to heaven for all who believe in him. Jesus freed those who believed from the laws of the Old Covenant and brought the New Covenant. However, obviously the Ten Commandments and all of the admonitions of God remain valid regarding human behavior. So we know that Jesus Christ was not a "free pass to sin and it's all OK so long as you say the sinner's prayer and are truly sorry." Jesus consistently warned that the way to heaven is narrow and that temptation is everywhere. He even makes a point that one of his miracles required prayer and fasting in order to be efficacious (this was when the disciples could not cure someone and had to turn to Jesus to do it). Notice that Jesus himself needed the power of prayer and fasting to perform a specific type of miraculous cure. So prayer is continually demonstrated by Jesus to be more than worship but also a sacramental and healing device.

So, imagine that you swindled your bank, you were caught, you had to pay the money back, and you either went to prison or had a severe fine and probation. Imagine you are a Christian (obviously lapsed or very weak in the face of temptation) and so you tell God you are sorry and you mean it. In your heart you know you are forgiven. Is everything "OK" then? This seems to be the stance of non-Catholic Christians of non-sacramental denominations. But as far as the Catholic Church's understanding? Is everything "OK?" Not exactly!

The Catholic Church understands that you have no way of knowing that when you swindled your bank that in the trail of damage: several people lost their jobs and reputations, investors lost money that cannot be repaid, elderly may have had to cash in their pensions, the bank decided to shut down a department as a result, a young intern watched you and decided 'he could get away with it while you didn't and maybe he'd try that improved swindle at a different bank..." and so on and so on and so on. Sin is very rarely a "one victim" event. Crime may be, as someone steals money from a bank. But the sin of coveting and stealing has a ripple effect on people you do not even know, for only God sees all the effects of a sin. So you can be forgiven of having committed that sin, but you owe a debt due to that sin that is not "covered by Jesus dying on the cross," because it is the wrong that has been done to the many that you do not even know. This is why the Church teaches penance based on prayer. The prayer is not "punishment." The prayer is for the intentions of the damage that one's sin has done that one cannot remedy first hand. So if you are the swindler who then was a Catholic and repented, you would go to confession and receive a prayer penance. That prayer penance is applied by God to the benefit of purifying your soul from the stain of that sin's effect AND toward the unknowable victims of the sin. They are like the "collateral damage" to use a military term. You, in this example, meant only to steal the money, and you have no way of knowing about the intern who watched you and wants to now go forward modeling himself after you, even after you've regretted your sin! God "applies" all penance prayer that you do toward healing and recovering the collateral damage of the sin. This is why the Church has derived its understanding of the power of prayer to not only pray for one's own benefit, talk to God, pray for others, but also to offer up to God prayer for God to use to purify one's self and protect others from the ripple effect of sins you committed and now repent.

Nothing cheeses me off more than when people insult the Church by invalidating huge precious insights we have about our obligations to God and neighbor as being "corrupt" or "wrong" just because they don't understand the theology. So I don't mind the insult that "nah nah nah, YOUR Church used to sell indulgences!" I mind, though, the smugness of people who do not understand that they have an obligation to clean up and purify the effects of sin in their own soul and their neighbor's well being as a result of even regretted and "forgiven by God" sin. But hey, I do not question their faith or love of God, even though the children of the Reformation broke away from the tree trunk of the Church that Jesus Christ and the Apostles established. It's when they throw the first stone in our direction that I want to go, "Um, hey buddy, um, do you realize that you just don't get it?"

Anyway, I meant this to be a quick note about grace and its cultivation, but I realized as I typed this that I needed to plug the gap in understanding about why prayer and prayerful reading has a purposeful efficacy in several situations, beyond being for personal intentions or a form of worship. Prayer is an almost prescriptive activity in the Catholic Church because of the Church's many years of understanding based on scripture and tradition that greater purity can be restored through its sacramental, penance, and indulgence intentions.

As usual, I hope this helps in bridging misunderstandings, as information for those who want to learn more about the Catholic Church (for both ecumenical or for faith searching reasons), and to provide spiritual direction helping to better understand God's richness of relationship with humanity. God bless!

Personal story/thoughts re attacks on Catholic church

Just a closing personal recollection to share with you, as I feel I’ve done more than enough blogging for today. I’d do much less but have such a sense of dread and foreboding at the dire condition of religious discourse and the misuse of the word “tolerance” in the world today. For example, Catholics are called intolerant, yet the same accusers would defend any half ass “spiritual system” that drops into a person’s dopey head. Catholics are called “intolerant” for not “allowing” women to be priests, but by the same token by that accusation the critics are basically saying that a faith cannot exist where there is a class of mediators called consecrated priests who must be male. Again, if some half ass New Age spiritual system came along where the only sermon givers could must be gay men, the critics would laud that system and not call it intolerant at all.

Whatever else the critics falsely say about the Catholic Church, they have to admit one thing. The Catholic Church doesn’t sit around writing blogs and documents and books criticizing other faiths. Shouldn’t people think long and hard what THAT means? We don’t make money with pop or “scholarly” books attacking our post Reformation brethren, Muslims, or even New Agers. We keep it focused on the Lord Jesus Christ and God.

So here is the story I want to share with you. The grandfather of one of my sponsored Native American children gave me and my husband a great privilege in the 1980’s. We were able to visit one of his tribe’s kivas, which is their underground place of worship. It was an extremely moving experience, and to this day it remains one of my fondest memories. Now, this tribe believes that their prayer life is an essential component of the survival of the world. In other words, they worry that if they ever die out, that the world will too, because they will be unable to do their native worship of God.

I have enormous respect for this, I relate to it, and I applaud their belief. You don’t find me arguing with them that they need to convert to Christianity. Far from that, I hear the Holy Spirit in his words. It is the sense of responsibility to God, not superstition that motivates this pious man and others like him. His focus is on God, and on their role in continuing to make the world a spiritually worthy place for physical life to continue. I’m not saying to run out and get insurance policies for them, ha, or now proclaim that you have learned a spiritual secret, because there’s no secret to it, as this belief is confessed in classic text books about this tribe. What I am showing you is that “spiritual envy” should not exist in anyone who truly loves God. We came together as colleagues, this medicine man and I. I don’t want to make him a Catholic, and he didn’t want to initiate me into the tribe, but he did pay me a high honor.

It is that attitude that is also behind the Catholic Mass. By that I mean that everyone benefits spiritually from each Catholic Mass celebrated, even if you don’t even know what a Catholic is. The Catholic Mass is the sacramental worship of God. We don’t run out of Mass saying that no one else’s worship is valid. The Catholic Mass is for the benefit of not only all Christians, Catholic or not, but of all people, even those who are infidel, who totally do not believe in God. I’m thrilled when I see packed parking lots at the Baptist church down the street. If people feel moved to have a “home” praise and worship service, more power to them: they are praising and worshipping God. But the Catholic Church, along with the other sacramental churches, such as Orthodox, Anglican and so on, are doing what no one else is doing. They are participating in consecrated sacramental worship of God in the spirit that instructions for consecrated worship was given to the first man, Adam, and throughout the faith history of the Israelites. Why in the world would anyone criticize the Catholic Church for continuing to have consecrated sacramental worship of God that is in the direct footsteps of the original faith as given to Abraham, Moses and their spiritual descendents? Why is there such one sided hostility toward the Catholic Church regarding the structure of their liturgy and the formation of their faith? It is spiritual jealousy and arrogance. I sleep a little better at night knowing these past two decades that I met that medicine man who feels he carries a divine contribution toward the spirituality and indeed survivability of humans, even on behalf of the 99.9 percent of the world who never even heard of their tribe or their beliefs. What kind of person resents the Catholic Church for continuing to celebrate consecrated sacramental worship of God on behalf of everyone for two thousand years, continuing the faith history that existed for even two thousand years before them?

By the fruit you will know the tree. If the fruit is to make a name for oneself, to make money for oneself, or to attempt to erode the faith of a group of people by being hostile to the Catholic Church as a sacred institution, you really have to question how rotten might be that tree, despite their using the sweet name of Jesus.

Frank talk about Church divorce/sacraments

I want to provide some perspective and words of comfort to those who are confused and hurt by the strict teachings of the Catholic Church regarding divorce and premarital sex. First of all, it is not the Church’s job to “change with the times.” It is the Church’s job to tell people what God has instructed them is necessary in order to conduct their lives righteously and, with hope and grace, attain eternal life in God after death. It would be unthinkable if the Catholic Church knew what Jesus instructed and what God has revealed throughout the Old and New Testament, and then started fiddling with the truth in order to make people more “comfortable” and “up to date with society” and yet omit some of the essential instruction about salvation. So instead of hounding the Church to loosen up on its doctrine, believers should be thanking them for holding fast to what they know is true.

Having said this, God is not exactly unfamiliar with the state of the world today. When Jesus commented that from the beginning it was intended that a man and a woman should marry and not divorce, and that it was only due to the hardness of men’s hearts that Moses allowed divorce, it was a different society than it is now. I do not mean looser mores and increasing secularism justifying divorce and/or premarital sex. But I am saying that when Jesus lived people usually did not find themselves in marriages where one can be beaten and abused without risking the spouse’s family’s retaliation, marriages where a spouse is abusing drugs and/or alcohol, marriages where a spouse has homosexual or pedophilia tendencies, marriages where a spouse values a material life style over allowing a parent to stay at home with children, or marriages where a spouse refuses to be a mature bread earner and/or denies God. Many people find themselves in unbearable marital situations that no one would endure in the time that Jesus lived and preached. This does not mean that marriage should become as casual and optional as many press the Church to make it. The Church should continue to preach and believe the ideal, even if the ideal is very hard to find. When one gives up on the ideal, one gives up on all of it, and there become no standards at all and no chance to correct the downward slide of society. So Jesus correctly reminded people that while Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of people’s hearts (for example, putting away a wife who could not bear a child and heir) God’s intention is that marriage be between a man and a woman and unless there is infidelity there should be no divorce.

Where the Church DOES need to change is to provide more timely and more understanding annulments. I am extremely unhappy with the current situation of annulments. The Church thinks it is upholding standards by making it a difficult and prolonged, painful process, but it is wrong. I've just listed up above unbearable marriage situations that apply to far too many people, and all of them, I feel, merit the granting of swift and understanding annulments. In the time of Jesus no man would abuse drugs, abuse his wife, hang out in gay bars, view porn on the computer, and duck out of bread winning without most likely being beaten within an inch of his life by her family (if those sins all existed in that time). Nowadays all too many marriages are touched by at least one of those blights and in my opinion annulments are merited to the injured party with no scandal or lack of dignity. That is the way to respond to “today’s society” that is still faithful to the teachings of God. Can you honestly tell me that, just as an example, a spouse who steadily uses drugs is upholding a true marriage? Especially if children are being raised in a household where a spouse is using drugs? Good grief, no. I do not think the Church should even question a request for an annulment if there is drug or alcohol abuse. That is different than loosening the definition and standards for a marriage; that is actually upholding the standards by liberally granting swift annulments when the situation of that marriage is so obviously impure and tainted by the substance abuse.

I think this is also, to be fair to the Church, where the loss of vocations and the rapidly changing culture has caught them flat footed regarding sheer human resources for the annulment process. Just as insufficient (and in many cases shameful and criminal) attention was given to the problem of sexual abuse in the Church, there has been inattention to updating the process of annulments and the communication of liberality and generosity of criterion toward those seeking them. I am quite outraged that people who have suffered through the break up of a marriage also have to suffer through an unsympathetic and prolonged process of annulment. I totally understand, to be honest, people who did not even try to seek an annulment for that very reason. While I have some sympathy for the parish priest who is under resourced and who tries to maintain the dignity of the sacraments, I cringe and am very sad when a person who has suffered through a divorce, and especially if they at last find happiness and remarries, are in any way separated from the sacraments because of the insufficiency of the Church to handle the burgeoning problem of marriages that turn out to be fatally flawed due to reasons such as I gave above. Rather than be the source of swift and charitable comfort with the granting of rapid and non judging annulments, the Church is adding oppression onto the suffering ex-spouse by manipulating denial of sacraments. And I include judgmental laity in this chastisement too. I have been on the receiving end of smart mouth judgment of what I’d endured in failed marriage from people who have no right to speak, judge, or preach.

So I hope this helps with those who struggle to understand why the Church holds so tightly to very conservative doctrine about marriage and premarital sex (as this is indeed God’s true intention that they are trying to protect) but also provides comfort to those who see that something is also very lacking in the Church’s response to the cold hard reality of the times. It does not take a genius to see that there are at least ten marriage killers that proliferate in society today that did not exist in the time of Moses or Jesus. Give me a freaking break. The Church ought to hire some consultants and get a process in place to swiftly recognize the marriage breaking and invalidating circumstances and grant swift compassionate annulments. I do not see why an annulment that is valid and merited should not take place at the same time as the legal divorce. How much intelligence and thought does it take to understand the circumstances of a divorce and grant an annulment? The Church is definitely lacking in charity and pastoral caring when it has not put in place a system to liberalize and streamline annulments for those situations where as I listed above, there is a profound invalidation of a marriage as it would have existed in the time of Christ.

Just to give some comfort to those who have suffered through a breakup of a marriage, I’ll tell you this experience of mine. I married very hastily, while young and still in college, in order to escape an abusive stalking situation (I was unsuccessful in that, by the way, as I've frequently mentioned on these pages). I soon discovered that the man I had married was latent homosexual, an alcoholic who would drive drunk (brought home once by police), and used our apartment as a crash pad for friends who came from their heroin shooting galleries. Was that a valid marriage? Give me a break. And to add insult to injury, the Catholic priest who married us was found to have had a child by a nun on the side. Was he able to conduct a valid marriage? Give me a break. He should not have been elevating the Holy Presence, say nothing of conducting marriages. I have never considered that a valid marriage by so many measures that I could donate some to other divorcing couples ha. Can you even imagine what Jesus would have said about the “sanctity” of this farce of a “marriage?” And I was going to seek an annulment from the Church that had the sexually marauding priest actually conduct the “marriage?” And I would listen to jibes about being “divorced” and yet still be of the Church? Guess again. Press me and you’ll find I have a more Islamic perspective about putting away a spouse that is so outrageously disrespectful, and what would I surely say about the Church being unjustly conservative about annulment but a blind eye toward unchaste priests? So I thought I would share my thoughts about how I can be so conservative doctrinally yet extremely pragmatic about the reality of the suffering and problems in current times and how the Church needs to get off the dime about it.