Category Archives: Catholicism

Matters relating to Catholicism in particular

More about the CNMC

Posted on by

203F478F-6B85-421E-920E-EAB8C27BD6CF.jpg

I’d been meaning to say a few more words about the Catholic New Media Conference and what I heard and learned there, but Julie has posted her summary of the CNMC and I find that I’ve not much more to say. The one thing she left out is the wonderful talk the last speaker presented, and fortunately she’s posted the text so you can read it for yourself. Which you should go do.

A major theme of the week was civility and taking the high road; the need for this was highlighted by a violent Facebook argument taking place at the same time involving a prominent Catholic blogger and a prominent Catholic priest. (As I only followed the fireworks from a distance I won’t go into details; those who saw what happened know what happened, and those who don’t can use their imaginations. Moreover, I don’t want to fan the flames.) (However, my sympathies were with the blogger.)

The fact is, we folks on-line can be amazingly, appallingly nasty to one another. It isn’t attractive, it doesn’t win friends, and it only influences people to distaste, disgust, and dislike. It doesn’t win anyone to Christ, but rather drives people away. We’ve got to stop doing it. See Thomas McDonald’s outstanding post on the “Inter-Nicene Creed” for more.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Hunger

Posted on by

boots_small.jpgSee all posts in this series.

I do not often resemble the following scriptures:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
—Matt 5:6

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee,
my soul thirsts for thee;
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
—Ps 63:1

And this is a problem for the interior life, because the interior life is a life of learning to love God more than anything else, to put God before all else. And since we cannot really achieve that in this life (which is why “hope” is one of the theological virtues), the interior life is precisely a life of hungering and thirsting for God.

It’s kind of a double-bind. If you aren’t hungry and thirsty for God, you won’t seek him; so how can you seek him if you aren’t hungry and thirsty for Him? How can you get the interior life moving?

It reminds me of something my eldest said when he was quite young, and was asked why he hadn’t done something or other:

I can’t want to.

When it comes to loving God, sometimes I can’t want to, either.

And yet, I find, when I think about it, that I want to want to. And that’s all that’s necessary. As C.S. Lewis had George MacDonald say in The Great Divorce,

If there’s one wee spark under all those ashes, we’ll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear.

Just pray: “Lord Jesus, I want to hunger and thirst for you as I ought.” Pray it whenever you happen to think about, because it’s a prayer that I believe Jesus will always answer. It might take awhile. In my case, I think it took years before I noticed that the prayer was being answered.

(Years? Really? Years? Well, yeah. The interior life is a long-term thing.)

Perhaps you can’t want to. But if you can want to want to, you’ll get there in the end.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Respond

Posted on by

boots_small.jpgSee all posts in this series.

The first thing to do in pursuing the interior life might also be the easiest, and that is simply to respond. If you find yourself thinking about God, for any reason, that’s a sign that God’s calling you to attend to Him. So do that.

I’m not suggesting that every time you think about God, you drop everything and rush off to some private place to pray. St. Paul tells us to pray constantly (1 Thess 5:17), but one has to eat and work and so forth. If we are to pray constantly, then, we need to be able to pray while doing these other things.

So if you happen to think about God, pray something simple. It can be something as simple as “Thank you for being with me.” It can be something more formal, like the Jesus prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Whatever you want to say is fine. The point is that you’re responding to God’s call….and over time, you’re building up the habit of responding to God’s call wherever you are and whatever you are doing. You’re also learning to recognize His presence in your day-to-day activities. It’s all good.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life

Posted on by

boots_small.jpgSee all posts in this series.

A few days ago I mentioned the interior life, and I find that I’ve got a few things to say about the interior life and how to embark upon it. I hasten to add that I’m no expert. I don’t intend to be in any way exhaustive; I simply intend to talk about things I’ve learned and things that have worked for me. Your mileage, as they say, may vary; and if something that worked for me doesn’t work for you, so be it. If everyone was exactly like me, the world would be a very strange place.

It’s a big topic, though, and so I don’t plan to put it all in this one post. I feel a little presumptuous at starting another series of posts, as most of my “series of posts” seem to terminate after the second, or sometimes even the first. But I was successful at continuing my series of posts about marriage (God is good!) and I’ve already got a notion for several subsequent posts, so we’ll give it a try. Feel free to poke me if I falter.

So what is the “interior life”? The Wikipedia page on the interior life defines it as follows:

Interior life is a life which seeks God in everything, a life of prayer and the practice of living in the presence of God. It connotes intimate, friendly conversation with Him, and a determined focus on internal prayer versus external actions, while these latter are transformed into means of prayer.

I wouldn’t have put it quite that way (or nearly so well); I’d simply say that my interior life is my life with Jesus. Being a Christian isn’t simply a way to live or a set of things to believe; it’s learning to live with Jesus. And by the nature of things much of that is inside, where it can’t be seen.

The interior life is something we are all called to; it’s part of the “universal call to holiness” described in Lumen Gentium. But until you’ve begun to experience it, it’s hard to know just what it means, or how to get started with it. Hence this series of posts.

I don’t claim to be more than a beginner. But according to St. Jose Maria Escriva, the interior life consists in beginning and beginning again. So let’s begin.

On Why I Oppose Same Sex Marriage

Posted on by

This post continues a series of reflections that I began here.

Note to anyone who comes to this page looking for a fight: please read the post carefully. If you’re a supporter of same-sex marriage, you probably won’t like my reasons for opposing it. But please take the time to discover what they are, and what my notion of “opposition” is before you start cussing me out.

Previously I’ve written of my responsibility to others as a Christian, and in particular that I must not lie to them. I’ve written of my rejection of coercion in most spiritual and moral matters (including this one). I’ve written on the moral necessity of knowing and loving what is good. I’ve talked about the many benefits, both physical and spiritual, of communal living, and particularly of married and family life. And I’ve talked about what I call “foundational sin“, sin that lies at the center of your self-image and is consequently the hardest to repent of.

And here’s where we come to the nub.

It should come as no surprise, given that I profess to believe what the Catholic Church teaches, that I think that certain specific acts are morally wrong. These include having sex with another person outside of traditional, heterosexual marriage.

A same-sex couple who seek out a same-sex marriage are presumably planning to have sex of some sort together. And by getting married, the couple have embedded this sin of sex outside of traditional marriage at the heart of their lives, where it will be difficult if not impossible to repent of. It’s hard enough to root out a foundational sin in your life when it’s just you. When rooting out that sin would involve the betrayal of a loved partner, it’s much harder.

Please note what I’m not saying.

I’m not saying that gays and lesbians are abominations. God loves us all.

I’m not saying that gays and lesbians are more sinful than straight people. It should be clear from what I’ve said that I regard cohabitation of straight people and re-marriage after divorce to be equally problematic, and there are six other deadly sins to think about.

I’m not saying that same-sex attraction is sinful. Me, I’ve got many attractions to things that I ought not do. So does everybody.

I’m not saying that devoting your life to the good of your loved ones is wrong; in fact, I’ve said the opposite.

But for me to vote in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage would be to say, “Go ahead; build your lives on this sin. It’s OK. It will do you no harm.” Or worse, it would be say, “Yeah, I think it will hurt you, but I don’t care.”

I cannot coerce anyone to open their lives to God’s grace. It doesn’t work, and attempting to do so is deeply sinful. But I mustn’t lie to them either. I mustn’t pretend that it doesn’t matter.

Back from CNMC

Posted on by

So I’m fresh back home from the Catholic New Media Conference, where I had great time meeting folks I’m feeling too tired to list for fear I’ll leave someone out. I got to see Tom and Julie Davis, of course, and was lucky enough to share meals with Rebecca Frech (one of Jane’s favorite bloggers), Sarah Reinhard, Jennifer Fitz, and of course Tom and Julie. I look forward to seeing all of them again some time.

I’ll probably post a few more specifics about the conference…but not just at the moment.

Update: Fixed the link to Sarah’s blog.

How Do You Start a Conversation about the Interior Life?

Posted on by

In her book, Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell suggests that the first thing a parish needs to do to reach a norm of intentional discipleship is “Break the silence.” That is,

Talk openly about the possibility of a relationship with a personal God who loves you. Talk about your relationship with God.

In a study she quotes, 71% of Catholics who left the Catholic Church for Protestantism answered that they left because “My spiritual needs were not being met.” From her work, she says that it’s often because they’ve begun to experience spiritual growth in Christ…and they can’t find anyone to talk to about it at their parish. Then they meet an Evangelical who does talk about it, and they think, “Gosh, this person knows what I’m going through. Nobody at my parish does….” And they quite understandably leave the Church.

When people are leaving the Church because of their spiritual growth, we have a problem.

What I would have called the “spiritual life” when I was an Anglican, Catholics call the “interior life”. I like that name better, because it’s about how I relate to God in my deepest self…and because my deepest self is spirit-and-body, not just spirit. But because it’s part of my deepest self, it’s hard to talk about it, especially casually, especially in passing.

Seriously: it’s after Mass on Sunday, and I’m saying hello to someone I probably don’t know all that well. It’s quite possible that they have no idea what the interior life is. It’s quite possible that they have a much deeper interior life than I do. (It’s quite possible that both of these things might be true of the same person!) How do I even get started talking about it?

And then, I think there’s a culture of not showing off. It’s proper to have a deep interior life, but it’s not proper to show off how deep your interior life is. Of course, Sherry points out that it’s much more important to listen than to talk. Well and good, but I still don’t see how you get the conversation started. “Hey, how’s your prayer life this week? Gotten any consolation lately?” Once you’ve got an in with someone, that might be possible, but I suspect that the average Catholic would look at you funny.

But it’s important. Because serious spiritual growth depends on the development of one’s interior life, and for people who are just starting having someone to talk to is a real help.

I’ve got a friend—he’s the minister of a Four Square church in New Mexico—who likes to greet people with, “How’s God treating you?” That’s a start, because it’s nicely vague; people can take on a purely external level if they choose.

In any given parish, there are people who are used to having an interior life with God; those who are just starting to have an interior life with God*; and those who don’t know that it’s possible to have an interior life with God. Somehow we need to get these people talking to each other.

_____________
* According to St. José Maria Escriva, “interior life is beginning, and beginning again.” Ain’t it the truth.

Catholic New Media Conference

Posted on by

So this week I’ll be traveling to the Catholic New Media Conference to meet some of my fellow Catholic bloggers. This is rather out of character for me, as I’m an introvert by nature, and I almost never travel except on business; and yet somehow I find myself going to the Catholic New Media Conference. I wonder what will come of it?

I dunno if I’ll be able to do much blogging this week, consequently; depends on how much time I spend being social, and how tired I am when I stop. If it’s anything like the Tcl conference I go to every year, my spare time will be nil.

On Knowing What Is Right

Posted on by

It struck me this morning how deep down practical the Golden Rule is as a guide to knowing right from wrong. We know it in its familiar form from the Bible:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

But it’s a commonplace in many cultures, even if often stated in its negative form:

Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.

Now, I’ve usually thought about the Golden Rule in terms of my duties toward others. But turn it around; and for this the negative form is more useful. What things shouldn’t others do to me?

I might not have a problem with stealing; but I don’t want others stealing from me.

I might not have a problem with sleeping around; but I don’t want others to sleep with my wife.

I might not have a problem killing people who are inconvenient to me; but I certainly don’t want anyone killing me.

It’s easy to rationalize the things I want to do. (For the record: the three things listed above are not among them.) But I’m always pretty certain about when I’ve been ill-used.

It’s commonplace these days to talk about how social mores very from culture to culture; it’s less common to point out, as C.S. Lewis does in The Abolition of Man, how much they are the same from culture to culture. But in fact, they are—in terms of one’s responsibilities to real people. The culture determines just who is considered to be a real person: a member of my family, a member of my ethnicity, a fellow citizen of my country. This can mask the moral similarity. But when you look at what other people are allowed to do to me, well…things look a lot simpler.

On Sacramental Marriage

Posted on by

This post continues a series of reflections that I began here.

In the last post in this series, I described four kinds of marriage: natural marriage, civil marriage, sacramental marriage, and “neo-marriage,” and said that I’d have more to say about sacramental marriage in another post. This is that post.

The first thing to point out is that these four kinds of marriage aren’t mutually exclusive. Both civil and sacramental marriage build on natural marriage, to begin with. A civil marriage need not be a sacramental marriage, and a sacramental marriage need not be a civil marriage (though in this country, at least, they mostly are). Being “sacramental” is an additional layer added to natural marriage by Jesus Christ. And that means we need to talk about what a sacrament is.

Here’s the deal. As Christians, God asks a lot of us. Becoming holy is no easy thing, and we can’t do it on our own. So He gives us help, in the form of grace. And because we are not simply spiritual beings, but are naturally body-and-soul together, Jesus gave us the sacraments: physical actions by which He promises to give us spiritual graces, provided that the relevant conditions are made. Thus, baptism, a pouring of water combined with particular words, cleanses us of Original Sin and makes us co-heirs with Christ.

(Note: I am not a theologian; I am a software engineer. If I screw this up, somebody please gently let me know, so I can fix it.)

There are three things that are required for a valid sacrament:

  • The valid form
  • The valid matter
  • The proper intent

The form is the ritual involved. In baptizing someone, you must baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The matter is the water, and, I imagine, the person being baptized. And the proper intent is the intent to baptize the person. In the Eucharist, the form is the Mass, the matter is the gifts of bread and wine, and the intent is the intent that the Holy Spirit should come upon the gifts and make them the Body and Blood of Christ.

If any of these three requirements are not met, there’s no sacrament. For example, a priest can say the Eucharistic prayers all day long, but if he’s simply intending to memorize them rather than “confect the sacrament”, then there is no sacrament.

So let’s look at marriage. The form is the wedding vows the couple make to each other before witnesses. The intent is the intent to be truly married in Christian matrimony, forsaking all others, until death do them part. The matter, well, the matter is the couple themselves; and there’s a reason we use the phrase “consummating the marriage.”

Catholics, of course, are required to get married in the Church. This involves pre-marital counseling (to make sure the couple have the right intent) and a Catholic wedding service (to make sure the form is correct). The consummation can usually safely be left to the couple themselves. Now, the requirement to be married in the Church is, as I understand it, a matter of canon law rather than Church doctrine; and indeed, the Church assumes that Christians married in other denominations are also sacramentally married….assuming the intent is right.

This, by the way, is what it means for a marriage to be annulled: a Church tribunal looks into it and determines that the conditions for a valid sacramental marriage were not met, e.g., because one of the two were previously married, or because one or both did not truly intend Christian matrimony.

Being a sacrament, marriage confers grace on the couple: grace that will strengthen them and (if used properly) allow them to grow in holiness together. And as I’ve indicated above, the proper action of the sacrament isn’t simply the vow the two make to each other; it’s also the consummation, the act of sex itself, by which the two of them become one flesh.

Now, if you think about, how cool is that? Here’s a sacrament the couple can enjoy over and over again, without help from anyone else, in the privacy of their own home, and be truly blessed by God each time. It’s not only good, it’s good for them!

There’s more to sacramental marriage than that, of course. There’s a whole vast theology, some of which I’m slightly familiar with, and which I really don’t feel qualified to to describe at more than the simplest possible level. For example, marriage is an image of the faithful, self-sacrificing and fruitful love of God for his people; and it is this that is behind the Church’s prohibitions on divorce, contraception, and sex outside of marriage.

I don’t propose to defend the Church’s teachings here; I’m more concerned with their consequences. And the chief point I want to make is that sacramental marriage is pretty darn cool, being the intersection of the love of a man and woman for each other with the love of God for them both, yielding significant spiritual benefits for the couple.