Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

The Russians aren’t coming! The Russians aren’t coming!

Posted on 13 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Exclusive: Orthodox leader urges Vatican to resolve dispute
By Philip Pullella | Reuters – 23 hrs ago

ROME (Reuters) – A senior leader of the Russian Orthodox Church on Monday called on the Vatican to do more to resolve outstanding disputes so that a meeting between Pope Benedict and the Russian Patriarch could take place.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (Archbishop) Hilarion, urged the Vatican to show “some signs” of readiness to resolve a decades-long conflict between Orthodox and Catholics in Ukraine that has been blocking a meeting of the two world religious leaders.

An unprecedented meeting between Benedict and Patriarch Kirill could begin to heal the 1,000-year-old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which split in the Great Schism of 1054.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church has accused Catholics of using their new freedoms to poach souls from the Orthodox, a charge the Vatican denies.

[Pay attention:] But the biggest bone of contention concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox rite but owe their allegiance to Rome.

Stalin gave the property to the Russian Orthodox Church but after the fall of communism, the Eastern Rite Catholics took back more than 500 churches, mostly in Western Ukraine. [Get that? The property was taken from Catholics by Stalin. Stalin gave it to the Orthodox. At the fall of the Soviet regime, Catholics got their property back. But Hilarion wants the Catholics to give the property to the Orthodox, or there can’t be a meeting with the Pope. Did I get that right? Am I wrong?]

“Not very much was done or is being done in order to solve this problem,” said Hilarion, who is head of the external relations department of the 165-million-member Russian Orthodox Church and one of the closest aides to Patriarch Kirill.

“As soon as we have this understanding, we will be ready to begin preparations for such a meeting,” he said. [So, it’s about the money?]

BIGGEST OBSTACLE

Hilarion said the dispute remained the major problem in Catholic-Orthodox relations and the main obstacle to a meeting.

[…]

Read the rest there.

I really hope there can be a meeting. I really do.

But… are these the proper conditions for a meeting?

Posted in Pope of Christian Unity, The Drill | Tagged Eastern Rite, Edict of Milan, Great Schism of 1054, Hilarion, Joseph Stalin, Orthodox, Patriarch Kirill, Russian Orthodox Church, Ukraine
64 Comments

QUAERITUR: Frequent confession to root out a particular sin

Posted on 13 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Just wanted to know if it’s really possible for an ordinary person like me to become holy? If so, must I go to confession as often as I deem it necessary. You see, I have sin in my life that has become repetitive and to be honest, I don’t see how I can overcome it without going to confession on a weekly basis. I desire greatly to grow closer to God, but I know there are things holding me back. What do you think?

I think that we all have to go to confession as often as is necessary. Would that priests in parishes heard confessions more often. Could they not hear confessions, for example, for a few minutes before Mass? Perhaps if their parishioners began to ask?

Sins which are habits are called vices. As with any bad habit, it is hard to get rid of a vice by just saying “No” to yourself. It takes both grace and elbow grease to get rid of bad habits.

Generally, the best way to get rid of a vice is to drive it out with another habit, a good habit or something neutral. Have a plan, form a battle plan in advance for what you are going to do instead when you note in yourself the pattern of behavior which leads to whatever habitual sin you may need to get rid of. For example, make a plan to… I dunno… scrub an oil stain out of the driveway… dust the Venetian blinds… turn off the computer and walk around the block… lift some weights… chop wood… rearrange the silverware drawer… go to the library…. Another part of the human dimension you have to tackle on your own is to avoid occasions of sin, those people, places, actions, etc., which you – after studying your own behavior with icy cold objectivity – you know have led you into the pattern of action that results in your sin.

Another thing: you need to be willing to suffer.

When we say no to our appetites, we suffer, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, depending on what it is and how deeply engrained the habit is. In this suffering, however, you have an opportunity to unite your sufferings to those of the Lord and the martyrs in heaven and, through them be tested in your love of the Lord and be corrected.

It can be done. But it might not be easy. You might come up with some other strategies, but first you need to study yourself with brutal honesty and without the slightest shred of self-deception. That can be reinforced with your evening examination of conscience.

Also, the sacrament of penance gives you not only forgiveness for your sins but also helps against sinning, a strengthening against the occasions of sin.

“But Father! But Father!”, some of you may be saying. “This sounds so haaaard! We’re jist… jist… *sniffle*… only human.”

To which I respond, “And…. so…?” When did being human give us a pass? We are members of a race which fell. We have been redeemed, but we suffer from the effects of our fall. We can lose what Christ won for us. We are talking here about sins which could very well be vices, a sinful habit which could slam to a soul the gate of heaven opened for us all by the Lord by Calvary and the empty tomb. We are talking about eternal salvation… or not. And even if we might consider how some circumstances can diminish our guilt for objectively sinful actions, we must must must avoid any sense of presumption about our salvation, however fleeting.

We need fearful confidence. Call it confident fear, if you prefer.

So, you have your part that you can do, on the human level. Then you must call on God to help you and ask your angel guardians to keep from you the Enemy of the soul who, though he cannot affect your will, can tweak your memories and passions. You can use constant prayer during the day. You can use the sacrament of penance as often as necessary.

And yes, I do think it is possible for an ordinary person to become holy. I believe the Lord and trust in what He admonished and taught us and gave us during His earthly life.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged bad habits, confession, frequent confession, reconciliation, sacrament of penance, sin, vices
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12 Sept: 5th anniversary of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On the site of Ignatius Insight we are reminded:

Today is the fifth anniversary …

… of Pope Benedict XVI’s now famous lecture at the University of Regensburg, where he once taught theology—a lecture that is, I think it is safe to say, considered his most controversial and polarizing public utterance as pontiff.

But, in reflecting on what the Pope said five years ago, a few simple questions are in order for, well, anyone interested in the topic:

1. What is the Regensburg Address considered so controversial and, by some, so tone deaf and insensitive?
2. What did Benedict XVI actually say about Islam?
3. What, in a sentence or two, was the central thesis/point of the Address?
4. Who or what is criticized the most heavily in the Address? For what?
5. Have you actually read the Address?

[…]

2500th Anniversary of the Battle of Marathon and 328th Anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.

Three of the sixteen paragraphs of the Regensburg Address:

[…]

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on — perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara — by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between — as they were called — three “Laws” or “rules of life”: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point — itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole — which, in the context of the issue of “faith and reason”, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that sura 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: “For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

[…]

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Regensburg Address
21 Comments

Benedict XVI on the benefits of kneeling before the Eucharist

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My friend Fr. Ray Blake, the great parish priest of St. Mary Magdalen in Brighton, alerted me via his blog to something the Holy Father said during his trip this weekend to Ancona, Italy, for the Eucharistic Congress. The full text is here.

My emphases and comments.

[…] The 2,000-year history of the Church is studded with men and women saints whose life is an eloquent sign of how in fact from communion with the Lord, from the Eucharist a new and intense assumption of responsibility is born at all levels of community life; born hence is a positive social development, which has the person at the center, especially the poor, the sick and the straitened. To be nourished by Christ is the way not to remain foreign and indifferent to the fortunes of our brothers, but to enter into the very logic of love and of gift of the sacrifice of the Cross; [Here is the big quote…] he who is able to kneel before the Eucharist, who receives the Lord’s body cannot fail to be attentive, in the ordinary course of the days, to situations unworthy of man, and is able to bend down personally to attend to need, is able to break his bread with the hungry, share water with the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned (cf. Matthew 25:34-36). He will be able to see in every person the Lord who did not hesitate to give the whole of himself for us and for our salvation. Hence, a Eucharistic spirituality is a real antidote to individualism and egoism that often characterize daily life, and leads to the rediscovery of gratuitousness, the centrality of relationships, beginning with the family, with a particular care for binding the wounds of the broken. A Eucharistic spirituality is the soul of an ecclesial community that overcomes divisions and oppositions and appreciates the diversity of charisms and ministries putting them at the service of the unity of the Church, of her vitality and of her mission. A Eucharistic spirituality is a way to restore dignity to man’s days and, hence, to his work, in the quest for reconciliation with the times of celebration and the family and in the commitment to surmount the uncertainty of precariousness and the problem of unemployment. A Eucharistic spirituality will also help us to approach the different forms of human fragility conscious that they do not obfuscate the value of the person, but require closeness, acceptance and help. Drawn from the Bread of life will be the vigor of a renewed educational capacity, attentive to witnessing the fundamental values of life, of learning, of the spiritual and cultural patrimony; its vitality will make us inhabit the city of men with the willingness to spend ourselves on the horizon of the common good for the building of a more equitable and fraternal society. […]

As I have said a zillion times, Pope Benedict, I believe, has a Marshall Plan to help rebuild our Catholic identity. If we don’t know who we are and what we believe, we cannot offer what we have as Catholics to the world around us. Thus, we fail in our mission in Matthew 28 and, weaken, we open ourselves to attacks.

The key to any plan is our liturgical worship.

Benedict seems to think that a Eucharistic spirituality, which must be liturgical at its core, is a key to living as a Catholic and applying correctives to many aspects of modern life.

Benedict seems to think that kneeling before the Eucharistic Lord is important for our Eucharistic identity.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Pope of Christian Unity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices | Tagged Ancona, Eucharistic congress, eucharistic spirituality, kneeling
23 Comments

QUAERITUR: Masses, parishes for homosexuals

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I am a convert to the Faith. I wonder/am ticked off that Boston and Chicago each have a parish which has regular Masses for Homosexual so they do not feel so disenfranchized. I am sorry they are disoedient, but a Mass for them seems terribly out of plalce.

To me this is like having a Mass for adulturers or thieves. Aside praying for all involved, is someone in charge investigating these activities/trying to stop them?

I am also troubled by this.

First, we all know about and no doubt approve of Masses celebrated for particular groups. There is a Red Mass, Blue Mass, White Mass. I can see Masses for, say, Knights of Columbus, welders, convents of religious sisters. While this can create a work load for priests in this time when there are not nearly enough priests, the people in these groups are bound together because they have something in common. However, what they have in common is normal and good. They need pastoral care.

There are not Masses for active thieves, professional thieves, robbers, burglars, muggers or pickpockets. I can imagine, however, a Mass for reformed thieves, people who were thieves and are no longer. The could meet at the Church of St. Dismas on the evening of the first Saturday of the month, discreetly, and then steal away into the night, holier and more resolved than ever not to sin and hurt themselves and neighbors. They need pastoral care.

I can see Masses for homosexuals in the same way. If people are trying to resist their inclinations and live a holy life, if they have stopped what they were doing, then perhaps they could have some support for each other as a group and offer their sufferings and petitions to the Father in union with Christ’s perfect offering for sins on Calvary, which is what Mass renews. They need pastoral care.

I cannot see a group of thieves getting together to have Mass so that they can affirm their old lifestyle and perhaps even reputations as thieves. No… let’s make it drug addicts, alcoholics, or gamblers. They may have strong inclinations they still fight. They wouldn’t be there to celebrate their imbalanced appetites or addictions. They would be looking for the strength to stop for good. They need pastoral care.

Everyone has something to struggle with. Some inclinations are bad because of circumstances. Some are bad in themselves. Either way, if the inclination leads to sin, then it must be resisted with might and main and the help of grace that comes from the sacraments and from acceptance of the truth of Catholic teaching.

In any event, I have a hard time understanding these Masses and these parishes. I do not say they cannot be, but I think they should have the closest oversight by bishops and perhaps even the Holy See.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged homosexuality
63 Comments

Go to confession. This guy did!

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I post the following email from a reader not so much because this blog helped someone to get back to confession as… well… errrr… because this blog helped someone get back to confession.

Now I post this as an example to others out there, readers or commentators, participants or lurkers. Do what this guy did and just GO!

Thanks to your repeated urging, I went to confession for the first time in about 6 months and was able to clear my soul of some rather nasty sins that had been weighing me down and inducing me to further sin. Staying this way will be hard, but I couldn’t even have this problem before being absolved, so I guess that’s the price we pay. :)

Thanks again, and please keep up the reminders. It’s important.

If you have been away from confession for a long time, go! If you are hesitating about going to confession, go! Priests, hear confessions! If you sit there they will come.

Go HERE for some tips on how to make a good confession.

Just GO.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes | Tagged absolution, confession, reconciliation, sacrament of penance
24 Comments

Lighter fare

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I just had to repost this.

[wp_youtube]nGeKSiCQkPw[/wp_youtube]

And buy some Mystic Monk Coffee while you are laughing.

C’mon. Cliiiiick it. You know you want some.

I promise I’m not teasing.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged dog tease
7 Comments

A parish bulletin message to people who dress inappropriately for Mass

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A screenshot of a pdf of an actual parish bulletin.

WDTPRS kudos to Fr. Paul Parkerson of Sacred Heart Church in Dunn, NC.

Posted in Brick by Brick, Fr. Z KUDOS, Just Too Cool, Lighter fare | Tagged appropriate dress, attire in church, Fr. Parkerson, Sunday best, Sunday Mass
107 Comments

ACTION ITEM – POLL ALERT – legalization of euthanasia

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On the site The Daily Telegraph in Australia there is a poll about the legalization of euthanasia.

The poll box looks like this.

And the results as of this writing are…

You decide.

UPDATE 21:52 GMT:

Posted in POLLS, The future and our choices | Tagged euthanasia
4 Comments

New iPhone/iPad app for The Catholic Herald and a sneaky way to get it cheaper

Posted on 12 September 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The best Catholic weekly in the UK, The Catholic Herald, now has a spiffy app for your iPhone and iPad.

You can find it HERE. To see the whole paper you have to get a subscription.

I have used the app now on my iPad and iPhone. The iPad is obviously going to be an easier read, because of the larger screen. But I was able to get around quite well on the iPhone too. The paper looks beautiful on the app. You see it as it is.

However… there is still a narrow window to get a year’s subscription the online digital version of the whole newspaper for use on your computer for £12 = $19. You can go HERE and put CHPROMO in the coupon field for access to the offer.

What that does is give you access to the entire paper as it comes out, no waiting for the mail, and also access to the archives of all the editions going back for years.

Moreover, if you get the Exactly app for the iPhone/iPad you can use your Catholic Herald digital edition login to get the whole paper.

Lemme see…. £12/$19 (computer and Exactly app) or £40/$70 (iPhone/iPad CH app?

But this opening is going to close up pretty soon as they restructure the subscription rates. This rate will only last until the end of September.

Want the Catholic Herald online? I suggest you get it now. Why not stampede them, so to speak?

Or, you could wait for a while. There may…may, mind you… be a FATHERZ promo down the line. We’ll see. I would love to work something out whereby with each CH subscription, the Bitter Pill or the Fishwrap would lose one.

On another note, I find myself even reading the advertisements in the digital edition. They give me a sense of the vigorous character of the more traditional and faithful British Catholicism reflected in The Catholic Herald. For example, I spent a little time glancing at some of the adverts for interesting Catholic schools in a special school insert. There has been some controversy about schools over there, by the way. But for now there seem still to be good girls only and boys only Catholic boarding schools, as well as mixed day schools. I think Catholic boarding schools are nearly completely gone in the US.

Here was an interesting ad for something coming up in London. Wish I could be there!