Compare Ss. Cyril and Methodius with The Theology of the Body

Can we not see a likeness between the evangelization of Europe by Ss. Cyril and Methodius for the Second Millennium, and the Theology of the Body of John Paul II as translator of Vatican II for the Third Millennium? Consider the following remarks of Benedict XVI yesterday (June 17) and the cultural impact that the TOB as the spearhead of Vatican II is beginning to have. Consider also the paper of Joseph Ratzinger on "The New Evangelization" delivered in the year 2000 where he is calling for an "experience" of God that TOB is all about.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As we continue our catechesis on the early Christian writers of the East and the West, we now turn to the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius. They were born in Thessalonica in the early ninth century. Cyril, whose baptismal name was Constantine, was educated at the Byzantine Court, ordained a priest, and became an acclaimed teacher of sacred and profane sciences. When his brother Michael became a monk, taking the name of Methodius, Cyril also decided to embrace the monastic life. Having retrieved the relics of Pope Clement I during a mission in Crimea, the brothers successfully preached Christianity to the people of Moravia. Inventing an alphabet for the Slavonic language, they together with their disciples translated the Liturgy, the Bible and texts of the Fathers, shaping the culture of the Slav peoples and leaving an outstanding example of inculturation. Pope Adrian II received them in Rome and encouraged their missionary work. When Cyril died in Rome in 869, Methodius continued the mission in spite of persecution. After his death in 885, some of his disciples, providentially released from slavery, spread the Gospel in Bulgaria and in "the Land of the Rus". In recognition of the brothers’ vast influence, they were named Co-Patrons of Europe by Pope John Paul II. May we imitate their strong faith and their Christian wisdom as we bear witness to the Gospel in our daily lives!

Benedict XVI - Year of the Priest 6/19/09 - 6/19/10

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY
ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY

Consistory Hall

Monday, 16 March 2009

Heartfelt and Total Adherence to a New Form of Life

The missionary dimension of the priesthood is born from the priest's sacramental configuration to Christ. As a consequence it brings with it a heartfelt and total adherence to what the ecclesial tradition has identified as apostolica vivendi forma. This consists in participation in a "new life", spiritually speaking, in that "new way of life" which the Lord Jesus inaugurated and which the Apostles made their own.

In Every Authentically Priestly Heart: the Aspiration to Moral Perfection

Through the imposition of the Bishop's hands and the consecratory prayer of the Church, the candidates become new men, they become "presbyters". In this light it is clear that the tria munera are first a gift and only consequently an office, first a participation in a life, and hence a potestas. Of course, the great ecclesial tradition has rightly separated sacramental efficacy from the concrete existential situation of the individual priest and so the legitimate expectations of the faithful are appropriately safeguarded. However, this correct doctrinal explanation takes nothing from the necessary, indeed indispensable, aspiration to moral perfection that must dwell in every authentically priestly heart.

Year for Priests 2009-2010

Precisely to encourage priests in this striving for spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends, I have decided to establish a special "Year for Priests" that will begin on 19 June and last until 19 June 2010. In fact, it is the 150th anniversary of the death of the Holy Curé d'Ars, John Mary Vianney, a true example of a pastor at the service of Christ's flock. It will be the task of your Congregation, in agreement with the diocesan Ordinaries and with the superiors of religious institutes to promote and to coordinate the various spiritual and pastoral initiatives that seem useful for making the importance of the priest's role and mission in the Church and in contemporary society ever more clearly perceived.

God: the Only Treasure People Desire to Find in a Priest

The priest's mission, as the theme of the Plenary Assembly emphasizes, is carried out "in the Church". This ecclesial, communal, hierarchical and doctrinal dimension is absolutely indispensable to every authentic mission and, alone guarantees its spiritual effectiveness. The four aspects mentioned must always be recognized as intimately connected: the mission is "ecclesial" because no one proclaims himself in the first person, but within and through his own humanity every priest must be well aware that he is bringing to the world Another, God himself. God is the only treasure which ultimately people desire to find in a priest.

The Priest: An Expert in Divine Intimacy

The mission is "communional" because it is carried out in a unity and communion that only secondly has also important aspects of social visibility. Moreover, these derive essentially from that divine intimacy in which the priest is called to be expert, so that he may be able to lead the souls entrusted to him humbly and trustingly to the same encounter with the Lord. Lastly, the "hierarchical" and "doctrinal" dimensions suggest reaffirming the importance of the ecclesiastical discipline (the term has a connection with "disciple") and doctrinal training and not only theological, initial and continuing formation.

Uninterrupted Ecclesial Tradition

Awareness of the radical social changes that have occurred in recent decades must motivate the best ecclesial forces to supervise the formation of candidates for the ministry. In particular, it must foster the constant concern of Pastors for their principal collaborators, both by cultivating truly fatherly human relations and by taking an interest in their continuing formation, especially from the doctrinal and spiritual viewpoints. The mission is rooted in a special way in a good formation, developed in communion with uninterrupted ecclesial Tradition, without breaks or temptations of irregularity. In this sense, it is important to encourage in priests, especially in the young generations, a correct reception of the texts of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of the Church's entire fund of doctrine. It seems urgent to recover that awareness that has always been at the heart of the Church's mission, which impels priests to be present, identifiable and recognizable both for their judgement of faith, for their personal virtues as well as for the habit, in the contexts of culture and of charity.

The Deepest Expectations of the Human Heart

As Church and as priests, we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, Crucified and Risen, Sovereign of time and of history, in the glad certainty that this truth coincides with the deepest expectations of the human heart. In the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, that is, of the fact that God became man like us, lies both the content and the method of Christian proclamation. The true dynamic centre of the mission is here: in Jesus Christ, precisely. The centrality of Christ brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial priesthood, without which there would be neither the Eucharist, nor even the mission nor the Church herself.

A Timely Warning

In this regard it is necessary to be alert to ensure that the "new structures" or pastoral organizations are not planned on the basis of an erroneous interpretation of the proper promotion of the laity for a time in which one would have "to do without" the ordained ministry, because in that case the presuppositions for a further dilution of the ministerial priesthood would be laid and possible presumed "solutions" might come dramatically to coincide with the real causes of contemporary problems linked to the ministry.

The Priest: If Not Self-Sacrificing Love, Then Loveless Clericalism

Considering Benedict XVI’s “Year of the Priest,” I would like to propose that the root of the world crises of the present moment – international, familial and economic - is the crisis of the Catholic priesthood. The Catholic priest is the man who acts in the Person of Christ.

Where the Catholic priesthood is not experienced as “self-sacrificing love,” and has dwindled into “a loveless clericalism,” the laity are not affirmed in their identity as “priests of their own existence” and consequently lose the consciousness and sense of the Absolute. The laity are not loved into being and becoming who they are. Men are not men. Women are not women. There are no children. There is no economy.

The anthropology of priesthood must be discovered, and it is that of Christ.

The above occurs to me upon reading what I copy below:

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Archbishop Calls Priesthood More Than a Job

Australian Prelate Highlights Special Call to Service

CANBERRA, Australia, JUNE 16, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn is affirming that the priesthood is more than a job; it is a special call to holiness through sacrificial love and service to others.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge affirmed this in a letter to the people of his archdiocese, dated June 9, on the occasion of the Year for Priests that will start Friday.

Benedict XVI has "invited the whole Church to celebrate a Year of the Priesthood," he acknowledged, a "time to focus upon the mystery of the ministerial priesthood and the great gift it is at the heart of the Church."

The archbishop pointed to Jesus, who is "both the priest and the victim" that sacrifices himself on the Cross.

He continued: "On Calvary, we see the perfect self-sacrificing love which is eternally the heart of the Trinity and therefore the heart of all things.

"Between the Father and the Son there is an eternal dynamic of perfect self-sacrificing love which overflows into the creation and into the human heart as the Holy Spirit who draws all into that eternal dynamic.

"On the Cross, the eternal self-sacrificing love enters time; and into that same love the whole Church is drawn from age to age as a priestly people."

The call

Some men, the prelate added, are "called into that love in a special way for the building up of the priestly people."

He explained that "when Jesus calls a man into this mystery of self-sacrificing love as a priest, he is calling him above all to live the mystery of the Cross."

If not, the archbishop added, "if the priesthood is not an experience of self-sacrificing love, then inevitably it will become a kind of loveless clericalism, more concerned with power and prestige than with the priesthood of the crucified Lord."

"At the altar," he said, "which is the epicenter of the priesthood, the priest speaks words which are not his own:" This is my body given for you; this is my blood poured out for you.

"Christ calls priests not only to speak these which are his words, but also to live the mystery of the Body and Blood which is his own sacrifice," the prelate added.

Archbishop Coleridge affirmed: "The call of Jesus is total, as was his death on the Cross and his resurrection from the dead.

"His call claims the mind, the heart, the soul and the body of a man -- which is why the ministerial priesthood is much more than a job. The priesthood is hard work, but it is not just a job.

"It is a job and a marriage rolled into one with something extra as well. That something extra is a special call to holiness."

This holiness, he explained, means to be set apart for the sake of service. "If service is not there," he added, "then the priesthood will decay into clericalism."

The archbishop explained that the priest serves primarily "by living the mystery of the Lord's Cross, sacrificing himself in love for the building up of the Church."

He encouraged Catholics to "celebrate and ponder the gift of the ministerial priesthood," to pray for priests and "give thanks for their tireless service of which only God can take the full measure."

"We will also ask the Lord to send us more priests," the prelate affirmed, "who can fill the Church with the glory of Christ by emptying themselves in his name."

He noted that the priestly year will be celebrated with various activities on a parish and archdiocesan level, and expressed the hope that it will lead all people "to know and love more deeply the mystery of the priesthood of Jesus."

Benedict XVI on Corpus Christi - 2009

A) The outstanding thought for this Corpus Christi is Benedict’s quote from Leo the Great: “Become what you receive”[1] In a word, become the Eucharist (“Divenire Eucaristia!”).

What does this mean? The Blood of Christ is the sensible sign of His very Self. As in the first reading of today’s liturgy, the Covenant between God and the Jews via Moses is sealed with an external object: the blood of bulls and goats. The Covenant between God and us via the new Moses, Jesus Christ, is not an object, but His own Blood, the supreme Subject of His very Self. He is Priest-Mediator (as God-man) between Himself and the Father. This is a totally new meaning of anthropology. It escapes the epistemology of concepts and its correlative take on Being as “Substance” and presents the meaning of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, as “the Christ” - total self-gift to the Father. The meaning of man is then taken to mean that which is formulated in Gaudium et Spes #24: “man, the only earthly being God has willed for itself, finds himself by the sincere gift of himself.” This is the Christological anthropology that is a “resonating existential” (a progressive relation), as it were.

Benedict XVI suggested that according to the Qumram scrolls: “Jesus celebrated the Passover without a lamb and without a temple; yet, not without a lamb and not without a temple. He himself was the awaited Lamb, the true Lamb, just as John the Baptist had foretold at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1: 29).

“And he himself was the true Temple, the living Temple where God dwells and where we can encounter God and worship him. His Blood, the love of the One who is both Son of God and true man, one of us, is the Blood that can save. His love, that love in which he gave himself freely for us, is what saves us. ……”[2]

B) What is this suggesting? That we need to be strengthened to fight to the death in order to become “another Christ” in the world. St. Josemaria Escriva asserted in a meditation on another Corpus Christ that it was precisely in view of the struggle that we are in now – in this persecution of the Church (which is not so evident to the many, but nevertheless most real). He suggested that it would be hard to find a similar period anywhere in history in which the attack is so pernicious, powerful, relentless and universal. The Church is now being persecuted across whole continents in the Far East, in Africa, in the Middle East, in a large part of Europe and in certain countries in the American continent.

Consider the most recent attack on the Church in this country: the extension of the statute of limitation to sue dioceses for any alleged sexual abuse (by persons who have already died, etc.). And this only against the Catholic Church.

Consider the California Court of Appeals upholding the following: In 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution condemning Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality as hateful, insulting, callous, defamatory, insensitive, ignorant, and absolutely unacceptable. The resolution went so far as to urge the Archbishop and Catholic Charities to defy the teaching of the Church. When the resolution was challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional attack on religion, the judge held that the Catholic Church had committed a “provocation” by publicly opposing homosexual adoptions, and therefore had invited an official condemnation, which was a “responsible” reaction to the “terrible” things the Church says. This decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The “Resolution:”

As of June 4, 2009, by a 3-0 vote, the Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the resolution “urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.” The Court of Appeals determined that the city did not intend to condemn Catholicism, but rather acted out a secular motive of protecting persons from discrimination.

“Become Eucharist”

The great task is to be and to remain in the middle of the secular society exercising the positive dynamic of being “another Christ.” This is no time to go to the hills, to live a merely surface Christianity of empty prayer and liturgy, and to fear giving testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ, the Absolute and only Way to the Father and eternal Salvation. This daring must take place at the center of secular society with high professional competence. That is the reason why Corpus Christ was instituted as a feast of public veneration: a) to counter man’s forgetfulness; 2) to elicit thankfulness; 3) to overcome the pathology of a segregated individualism heightened by the new technology that really divides instead of uniting.

Daring to Give Testimony to the Truth: Archbishop Tim Dolan (New York) on “Faith:”

After the death of Cardinal Joseph Ritter in June, 1967, one of the auxiliary bishops of St. Louis, George J. Gottwald 50 years a priest and 25 a bishop “was thrust into leadership.”

“One of his many crises was the seminary. One-fourth of the priest faculty left the priesthood, the student body was decimated by departures, and the theology being taught was anything but of the Church. The priests who remained on the faculty announced they wanted to join an ecumenical theologate, since, according to their interpretation of the council, it was useless to teach Catholic theology – since it probably no longer existed.

“They demanded the presence of the apostolic administrator at what was really a ‘campus demonstration’ in the early spring of 1968, there to present him with their list of demands, in front of the obligatory TV cameras.

“Into this lion’s den walked Bishop George Gottwald, shy, nervous, wishing he was still an unknown pastor in the Ozark hills of southern Missouri. The leader of the faculty and students informed the bishop that Kenrick Seminary might as well close, since the whole enterprise of priestly formation and Catholic theology was up for grabs. The bishop offered the comment that, even with the legitimate questioning and probing of the council, there were still clear, consistent truths that had to be taught any future priest.

“’Hah!’ snickered the faculty spokesman. ‘I dare you to tell me what we can possibly teach our students now that has not changed, that will not change, that can be stated with any amount of conviction at all! I dare you to tell me!’

“The bishop’s mouth went dry, he recalls, as all eyes were on him, as the microphones clicked on and cameras whirled for a sound bite, as they waited for him to take the dare! And what did he answer?

“’I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day he arose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen’…

“This, my friends, was a man of faith: in the midst of doubt, ridicule, snickering, and confusion, he dared to state that there are certain truths that can always be counted upon because they come from God and not from us!" ( Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan "Priests for the Third Millennium," Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division [2000] 17-18).

[1] Sermo 12, De Passone 3, 7, PL 54.

[2] Basilica of St John Lateran, Holy Thursday, April 5, 2007.

Gay Attack on the Church in California

Rich Maggi writes a précis on the homosexual attack on the Church in California:

In 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution condemning Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality as hateful, insulting, callous, defamatory, insensitive, ignorant, and absolutely unacceptable. The resolution went so far as to urge the Archbishop and Catholic Charities to defy the teaching of the Church. When the resolution was challenged in federal court as an unconstitutional attack on religion, the judge held that the Catholic Church had committed a “provocation” by publicly opposing homosexual adoptions, and therefore had invited an official condemnation, which was a “responsible” reaction to the “terrible” things the Church says. This decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Today, by a 3-0 vote, the Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the resolution “urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households.” The Court of Appeals determined that the city did not intend to condemn Catholicism, but rather acted out a secular motive of protecting persons from discrimination.

The reporting article:

S.F.'s blast at Vatican was legal, court says Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, June 4, 2009 (06-03) 15:52 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco didn't cross into constitutionally forbidden territory of government hostility to religion when the Board of Supervisors denounced a Vatican order to Catholic Charities not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. Court rejects challenge to 'don't ask, don't tell' 06.08.09 The 2006 resolution condemned the Vatican's "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric" and urged local church officials to defy the order by Cardinal William Levada. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sued, contending the city was expressing hostility toward Catholicism in violation of the Constitution. A federal judge threw out the suit, a decision that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld Wednesday. It said the supervisors had acted for a legal secular purpose - to protect gay and lesbian couples from discrimination - and not to express the city's disapproval of Catholicism. "The board's focus was on same-sex couples, not Catholics," Judge Richard Paez said in the 3-0 ruling. Promoting equal treatment for those couples in adoptions isn't anti-religious, he said, "regardless of whether the Catholic Church may be opposed to it as a religious tenet." Judge Marsha Berzon, in a separate opinion, said the resolution was close to the constitutional boundary and might have been invalid if it contained binding regulations or was part of a "pervasive public campaign" against the Catholic Church. The board passed the nonbinding resolution, sponsored by then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano, in March 2006, days after Levada, former archbishop of the San Francisco Archdiocese, issued his decree as leader of the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada said Catholic agencies "should not place children for adoption in homosexual households." Quoting a statement by the Vatican office, he said allowing children to be adopted by same-sex couples "would actually mean doing violence to these children." Ammiano's resolution called the decree "an insult to San Francisco." The supervisors urged Levada to withdraw his order and called on his successor as archbishop, George Niederauer, and the local Catholic Charities to disregard it. In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption, the same step it has taken in Massachusetts and other areas with similar nondiscrimination policies, said Brian Rooney, a lawyer at the Thomas More Law Center, which sued San Francisco on behalf of the Catholic League. Rooney said the league would appeal Wednesday's ruling. The supervisors' resolution would have led the public to believe that "the government is disfavoring of Catholicism," he said. But Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said the lawsuit sought to insulate the Vatican from criticism by government bodies. "Religious groups are not entitled to preferential treatment in public debate," Chhabria said. E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

Murder in the Cathedral - But Only An Experience of Mystery Can Save Coherency

Dr George Tiller is murdered. He was one of the three providers in the nation of late term abortions. The paucity of the number of facilities for late term abortions means that there is a growing consciousness in the country that abortion is indeed murder (as the recent 51% against it indicates). Of course, this will mean that Homeland Security will target the entire Right to Life Movement as terrorist and consequently clamp down on it to the full extent of the law. The Administration was just waiting for this.

But perhaps we could deeper. Notice our entrapment in ideological absurdity. By that I mean the riot of “ideas” or concepts pitted against each other in the public domain in straightforward contradiction.

1) There is no doubt that the conceptus (a) in the womb is a human person in act, or is in direct potentiality to be so.[1]

2) Another concept is the “good” flourishing life of the mother that consists in freedom to do with herself and her body as she understands the “good” to be.

3) Another is the abortionist who aids the pregnant woman in her flourishing from the perspective of disentanglement from a subjectively undesired pregnancy.

4) Another is the killer of the Abortionist who wants to defend the lives of future children who, once conceived, have the right to life.

I want to suggest that this riot of contradicting “ideas,” that sit there in plain sight in the public square, in direct violation of coherency, shows a want of a deeper context that is called “consciousness,” and that consciousness can be formed only by an experience of what it means to be a human person. That experience can only take place in some form of catharsis.

We are lacking that experience at the present moment. I quote from David Walsh: “The logic of the postmodern experience suggests the necessity of undergoing some form of cathartic release. Modernity is a spirit or a frame of mind so deeply embedded within us that we can break free form its influence only with great difficulty. An event or process of shattering impact seems to be virtually required if we are to get a glimpse of reality beyond our restricted contemporary horizon. Having been enveloped by the climate of opinion for such a long unthinking time, we need to be roughly shaken into an awareness of reality. If the nightmare of the twentieth century has been the result of this dreamlike condition, then a powerful shock is required to rouse us into a state of wakefulness. Like Koestler’s sleepwalkers, we need a penetrating experience to pierce our somnambulance. It is not so much a question of knowing about an alternative to the closed rationality of modernity, but of apprehending the truth of that alternative so profoundly that it makes all our previous sense of reality appear ephemeral.”[2]

---

[1] “Do Embryos Have Souls” Life and Soul Pauline Books and Media, Spring 2009, 14-15.

[2] David Walsh, “After Ideology,” CUA (1995) 242-243.

Benedict XVI: "Church Needs Change of Mentality"

ROME, MAY 28, 2009 (Zenit.org).



Laypeople are not merely the clergy's collaborators, but rather share in the responsibility of the Church's ministry, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope called on the laity to become more aware of their role when he inaugurated Tuesday an ecclesial conference for the Diocese of Rome on "Church Membership and Pastoral Co-responsibility." The conference is under way through Friday.

"There should be a renewed becoming aware of our being Church and of the pastoral co-responsibility that, in the name of Christ, all of us are called to carry out," the Holy Father said. This co-responsibility should advance "respect for vocations and for the functions of consecrated persons and laypeople," he added.

The Pontiff acknowledged that this requires a "change of mentality," especially regarding laypeople, shifting from "considering themselves collaborators of the clergy to recognizing themselves truly as 'co-responsible' for the being and action of the Church, favoring the consolidation of a mature and committed laity."

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My Comment: Let it be inserted here that as Church, the laity have mission to the world. The entire Church is denominated "secular," but the laity is "characterized" as secular because they their transformation into Christ, their sharing in the priesthood of Christ, takes place precisely in their fulfillment of ordinary secular work and family life. This, indeed, demands a "change of mentality." The clericalization of the laity must be overcome.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Bishop of Rome suggested that "there is still a tendency to unilaterally identify the Church with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission" of all the baptized.

"Up to what point is the pastoral responsibility of everyone, especially the laity, recognized and encouraged," he asked.

Referring to laypeople committed in the service of the Church, the Pope said there should not be "a lessening of the awareness that they are 'Church,' because Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, convokes them and makes them his People."

Benedict XVI thus asked priests to transmit to laypeople a "sense of belonging to the parish community" and the importance of unity. He further encouraged that laypeople draw close to sacred Scripture, through means such as lectio divina, and carry out missionary activity, in first place through living out charity.

The Holy Father contended that preparations for the Jubilee Year 2000 in Rome helped "the ecclesial community to enhance awareness that the command to evangelize is not just for a few, but for all the baptized."

That's how the Church has lived for generations, he added, while "so many baptized" have "dedicated their lives to educating young generations in the faith, to care for the sick and to help the poor."

"This mission is entrusted to us today, in different situations, in a city in which many baptized have lost the way of the Church and those who are not Christians do not know the beauty of our faith," the Pope stated.

On the other hand, he cautioned against a tendency to see the People of God from a "purely sociological" point of view "with an almost exclusively horizontal perspective that excludes the vertical reference to God."

The Pontiff looked at the distinction between "People of God" and "Body of Christ," affirming that both concepts "are complementary and together form the New Testament concept of the Church."

He explained: "While 'People of God' expresses the continuity of the history of the Church, 'Body of Christ' expresses the universality inaugurated on the cross and with the resurrection of the Lord."

"In Christ, we become really the People of God," which, he affirmed, means everyone, "from the Pope to the last child."

"The Church, therefore, is not the result of a sum of individuals, but a unity among those who are nourished by the Word of God and the Bread of Life," the Pontiff noted.

And the Church "grows and develops," he affirmed. "The future of Christianity and the Church of Rome is also the commitment and the testimony of each one of us."

First Steps To Penetrate “The Year of the Priest”

Layfaithful and Ministers are Equally Priests [as “Other Christs”] yet Irreducibly Different [as Bridegroom (male) and Bride (female)] 

The equality of laity and ministerial priests is grounded in their sacramental sharing in the one priesthood of Christ. The priesthood of Christ is presented in St. Paul’s Hebrews 9-11. It consists in the divine “I” of the Logos mastering “His” human will of Jesus of Nazareth, and by the medium of it making the gift of Himself to the Father. Since the human person is made in the image and likeness of the Logos, he/she is capable of that same self-mastery and the same self-gift. Hence, it could be expressed in terms of being “priests of their own existence” in that they are able to be mediators between themselves as subjects – “I’s” - and God. If priesthood means mediation, then priesthood is part and parcel of the ontological topology of the human person.

This, of course, means that anthropology is fundamentally Christological and a radical departure from the received Aristotelian anthropology of “individual substance of a rational nature.” This is a huge novelty which is not a break with tradition but, let’s say, complementary to it. What it does is introduce the “deeper” subjective dimension of the human person as more real. It discloses that there is an ontological reality to subjectivity as subjectivity that was hitherto considered to be “thought” and the locus of subjectivism as relativism. John Paul II affirms as much when he states: “In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being, and hence with metaphysical enquiry” (Fides et Ratio #83). Let me supplement that with this other remark of Wojtyla: “I am convinced that the line of demarcation between the subjectivistic (idealistic) and objectivistic (realistic) views in anthropology and ethics must break down and is in fact breaking down on the basis of the experience of the human being. This experience automatically frees us from pure consciousness as the subject conceived and assumed a priori and leads us to the full concrete existence of the human being, to the reality of the conscious subject.”  

Thanks to the growth like this in philosophic sensitivity, there has been the disclosure of the self as ontological reality, in fact, the supreme ontological reality – the “privileged locus” - that has hitherto been hidden by and in consciousness, but which has been disclosed “phenomenologically” in the free activity of self-determination which has never been named specifically as epistemological “experience” although we have forever been experiencing it. Wojtyla has done the heavy lifting here in “The Acting Person” disclosing the “experience” of the “I” in the act of self-determination as opposed to the case when something merely “happens” within the subject. He says: “When I act the ego is the cause that dynamizes the subject. It is the attitude of the ego that is then dominant, whereas subjectiveness seems to be indicating something opposite – it shows the ego as if it were subjacent in the fact of its own dynamization. Such is the case when something happens within the ego. Efficacy and subjectiveness seem to split the field of human experiences into two mutually irreducible factors. Experiences are associated with structures. The structure of ‘man-acts’ and the structure of ‘something-happens-in-man’ seem to divide the human being as if they were two separate levels.”
This achievement of identifying the self as the grounding ontological reality is fundamental in being able to appreciate that both laity and priest are equally priests insofar as equally Christs by their sacramental incorporation into Him. The essential difference, like that between male and female is the orientation, “direction,” or “attitude” of the self-giving. But that’s what has to be developed below.

Lumen Gentium #10 reads: “Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are none the less ordered one to another, each in its own proper way shares in the one priesthood of Christ.” Using precise terminology, the Church is saying that the ministerial priest and the layfaithful of the common priesthood are equal as identical in their sharing in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ. Their identity and relation to each other – as equal but different – is analogical to the identity and relation of male and female. Consider “Dominus Iesus:” “Jesus Christ continues his presence and his work of salvation in the Church and by means of the Church (cf. Col 1:24-27), which is his body (cf. 1 Cor 12:12-13, 27; Col 1:18). And thus, just as the head and members of a living body, though not identical, are inseparable, so too Christ and the Church can neither be confused nor separated, and constitute a single “whole Christ”. This same inseparability is also expressed in the New Testament by the analogy of the Church as the Bride of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25-29; Rev 21:2,9)(Lumen Gentium #6).

Because of the ontological nature of the sacraments as real sources of identity with Christ, laity and ministers are one (“unum”) as Christ, yet essentially different. They are to be understood as the identity and essential difference that obtains between male and female. Jesus Christ is Bridegroom; the Church is Bride. Their enfleshment in the Eucharist makes them One Whole Christ. This can only be understood if the being of laity and minister are understood as constitutively relational. The laity as Bride-female is equal to Bridegroom, but oriented in an essentially different way as relation. The one is total self-gift as donation; the other is total self-gift as reception. The giftedness of the Bride is to the world; the giftedness of the Bridegroom is to the Bride.

Let’s consider the ministerial priest. The orientation or direction of the relation of the ministerial priest is to be totally in the service of the layfaithful to activate their priesthood. They celebrate Mass, preach the revealed Word and administer the sacraments, above all, Penance. John Paul II put it best when he said: “This Marian profile is also – even perhaps more so – fundamental and characteristic for the Church as is the apostolic and Petrine profile to which it is profoundly united… The Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided from it or being less complementary. Mary Immaculate precedes all others, including obviously Peter himself and the Apostles. This is so… because their triple function has not other purpose except to form the Church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary.”

Using common parlance, laymen and priests form the communio of the Church – the Body of the One Christ - by the mutual gift of self. Priesthood means “mediation” and it takes place by mediating between self and God in the service of others. Laymen do it on the occasion and exercise of their professional, secular work in the world. Priests do it by acting in the Person of Christ serving the layman. The direction of the relationality is different, and therefore irreducible. Yet they are both total self-gift and relational, and therefore priests of Christ.

In the parlance of St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, everybody must live out the “priestly soul,” which is the “lay mentality.” The priestly soul is the self-mastery that comes from subduing the self as one subdues the earth in order to take it as private property. The prototype of the priestly soul is the Divine Person of the Logos subduing and mastering the human will of the man (not person), Jesus of Nazareth, thus making that human will His own. You own the earth that you subdue. That act of self-mastery is the supreme act of freedom that differentiates the human person from a merely cosmic stimulus-response organism working out of sheer necessity. That freedom is what St. Josemaria understood to be the “lay mentality,” i.e. the freedom with which each one decides about himself in all that pertains to what is open to opinion. What is not open to opinion is the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the morality consequent to it.

This anecdote of Malcolm Muggeridge could help us:

“… Some forty years ago, shortly before the outbreak of the 1939-45 war, the person whom I have most loved in this world, my wife Kitty, was desperately ill, and, as I was informed by the doctor attending her, had only an outside chance of surviving. The medical details are unimportant; probably today, with the great advances that have taken place in curative medicine, her state would not be so serious. But as the situation presented itself then, she was hovering between life and death, though, needless to say, there was no voice, as there might well be nowadays, to suggest that it might be better to let her go.

“The doctor explained that an emergency operation was essential, and, in honesty, felt bound to tell me that it would be something of a gamble. Her blood, it appeared, was so thin as a result of a long spell of jaundice that before he operated a blood-transfusion was desperately needed – this was before the days of plasma. As he said this, an incredible happiness amounting to ecstasy surged up inside me. If I could be the donor! My blood group was established, and found to suitable; the necessary gear was brought in, very primitive by contemporary standards – just a glass tube one end of which was inserted in her arm and the other end in mine, with a pump in the middle drawing out my blood and sending it into her. I would watch the flow, shouting out absurdly to the doctor: `Don’t stint yourself, take all you want!’ and noting delightedly the immediate effect in bringing back life into her face that before had seemed grey and lifeless. It was the turning point; from that moment she began to mend.

At no point in our long relationship has there been a more ecstatic moment than when I thus saw my life-blood pouring into hers to revivify it. We were at one, blood to blood, as no other kind of union could make us. To give life – this was what love was for; to give it in all circumstances and eventualities; whether God creating the universe, or a male and female creating another human being…” or Malcolm Muggeridge giving lots of his blood to his wife.

Priestly Total Self-Gift Means to “Taste God”

Benedict XVI remarked: God “failed” in Adam and therefore started the human race over again in Himself. God “failed” in the parable of the Banquet where the first guests invited failed to come. Benedict XVI asks why did this happen, and what is one to do? – because this is precisely the situation we are in today in the Church. He responds:

“St Gregory the Great in his explanation of this text sought to delve into it further and wondered: how can a man say "no" to the greatest thing that exists; that he has no time for what is most important; that he can lock himself into his own existence?

And he answers: in reality, they have never had an experience of God; they have never acquired a "taste" for God; they have never experienced how delightful it is to be "touched" by God! They lack this "contact" -- and with it, the "taste for God". And only if we, so to speak, taste him, only then can we come to the banquet.

St Gregory cites the Psalm from which today's Communion Antiphon is taken: Taste, try it and see; taste and then you will see and be enlightened! Our task is to help people so they can taste the flavor for God anew.

In another homily, St Gregory the Great deepened further the same question and asked himself: how can it be that man does not even want to "taste" God?

And he responds: when man is entirely caught up in his own world, with material things, with what he can do, with all that is feasible and brings him success, with all that he can produce or understand by himself, then his capacity to perceive God weakens, the organ sensitive to God deteriorates, it becomes unable to perceive and sense, it no longer perceives the Divine, because the corresponding inner organ has withered, it has stopped developing.

When he overuses all the other organs, the empirical ones, it can happen that it is precisely the sense of God that suffers, that this organ dies, and man, as St Gregory says, no longer perceives God's gaze, to be looked at by him, the fact that his precious gaze touches me!

I maintain that St Gregory the Great has described exactly the situation of our time -- in fact, his was an age very similar to ours. And the question still arises: what should we do?

I hold that the first thing to do is what the Lord tells us today in the First Reading, and which St Paul cries to us in God's Name: "Your attitude must be Christ's -- 'Touto phroneite en hymin ho kai en Christo Iesou'".

Learn to think as Christ thought, learn to think with him! And this thinking is not only the thinking of the mind, but also a thinking of the heart.

We learn Jesus Christ's sentiments when we learn to think with him and thus, when we learn to think also of his failure, of his passage through failure and of the growth of his love in failure.

If we enter into these sentiments of his, if we begin to practice thinking like him and with him, then joy for God is awakened within us, confident that he is the strongest; yes, we can say that love for him is reawakened within us. We feel how beautiful it is that he is there and that we can know him -- that we know him in the face of Jesus Christ who suffered for us.

I think this is the first thing: that we ourselves enter into vital contact with God -- with the Lord Jesus, the living God; that in us the organ directed to God be strengthened; that we bear within us a perception of his "exquisiteness".

This also gives life to our work, but we also run a risk: one can do much, many things in the ecclesiastical field, all for God ..., and yet remain totally taken up with oneself, without encountering God. Work replaces faith, but then one becomes empty within.

I therefore believe that we must make an effort above all to listen to the Lord in prayer, in deep interior participation in the sacraments, in learning the sentiments of God in the faces and the suffering of others, in order to be infected by his joy, his zeal and his love, and to look at the world with him and starting from him.

If we can succeed in doing this, even in the midst of the many "noes", we will once again find people waiting for him who may perhaps often be odd -- the parable clearly says so -- but who are nevertheless called to enter his hall.

Once again, in other words: it is a matter of the centrality of God, and not just any god but the God with the Face of Jesus Christ. Today, this is crucial.

There are so many problems one could list that must be solved, but none of them can be solved unless God is put at the centre, if God does not become once again visible to the world, if he does not become the determining factor in our lives and also enters the world in a decisive way through us.”

To “taste God” is to experience God in yourself. This is possible because the metaphysical anthropology of the human person is the image of the divine Persons. The only person I can experience in the use of my freedom in the act of self-determination is myself. If I master myself to give myself in prayer as Jesus Christ is prayer to the Father (being a pure relation to the Father which reveals itself when incarnate as prayer), I can experience within myself – in some way – what Christ experiences in Himself as a divine Person. The more gift I make of myself, the more gift I experience; the more gift I experience, the greater the actual consciousness I have of what it means to be the Son of God; the greater that consciousness, the more able I will be to be able to say: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16, 16).

Consider This in the Light of the Two Previous Posts: "Billionaires Meet In NY to Plot Population Strategy"

World’s poor targeted for population reduction…

 

Help the Friday Fax track and expose this new population conspiracy…

 

                                                                                                         

           May 27, 2009

Dear Reader of the Friday Fax,

 

A cabal of the world’s richest men and women just met in New York City. The meeting included multi-billionaires David Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Warren Buffet.

 

The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate their charitable giving. That sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Until you hear what they agreed on.

 

They agreed that the world’s number one problem is that there are too many poor people. That’s nice, too. There are too many poor people. And what is their solution?

 

GET RID OF THE POOR PEOPLE.

 

These fabulously wealthy people with their grand houses, private jets, yachts and lavish lifestyles decided to pool their massive resources and declare war on the world’s poor by spending billions of dollars on population control!

 

This group met a few days ago in New York and call themselves, get this, The Good Club!

 

This is a veritable rogues gallery of anti-life and anti-family plutocrats. Ted Turner is a long time supporter of forcing poor countries to support abortion and population control.  David Rockefeller is one of the founders of the modern population control movement and through his Rockefeller Foundation has paid billions for it.

 

And these guys are not just for population control;

They are also anti-Christian!

 

The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the big funders of the anti-Catholic anti-life groups that calls itself Catholics for Choice. Ted Turner gave a speech at the UN several years ago in which he attacked his childhood Christianity and was given a standing ovation for doing so!

 

There is a massive resurgence of population control activity.

 

Just a few weeks ago, we reported in our Friday Fax that the UN just issued a new report calling for increased spending to reduce the fertility rate (that is UN-speak for population control) in the developing world!

 

I will put aside the question of whether these guys have gotten the news that the big population problem in the world today is not rapidly growing populations but rather the “graying of the population” precisely because of UN style population control programs.

 

I bring this to your attention because as there is renewed spending on these issues and that the UN is back into the population control business so much that there is a profound need for the continuing health of C-FAM’s Friday Fax…

"Our Crumbling Foundation" NYT 5/26/2009 A19

Reading Bob Herbert’s “Our Crumbling Foundation” in the NYT, May 26, 2009 A 19, one is tempted to think back to the last posting here of David Goldman’s “Depression and Demographics” where he pins the long term, and really, only solution  to the financial health of the country on the birth rate. Anything besides living babies who will grow into autonomous producers of wealth is considered “bookkeeping and ultimately trivial.”

Today, Bob Herbert wrings his hands and does not know what to say about the solution:

“America has become self-destructively shortsighted in recent decades. That has kept us from acknowledging the awful long-term consequences of the tidal wave of joblessness that has swept over the nation since the start of the recession in December 2007. And it is keeping us from understanding how important the maintenance and development of the infrastructure is to the nation’s long-term social and economic prospects.

“It is not just about roads and bridges, although they are important. It’s also about schools, and the electrical grid, and environmental and technological innovation. It ‘s about establishing a world-class industrial and economic platform for a nation that is speeding toward second-class status on a range of important fronts.

“It’s about whether we’re serious about remaining a great nation. We don’t act like it. Here’s a staggering statistic: According to the Education Trust, the U.S. is the only industrialized country in which young people are less likely than their parents to graduate from high school

“We can’t put our people to work. We can’t educate the young. We can’t keep the infrastructure in good repair. It’s hard to believe that this nation could be so dysfunctional at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. It’s tragic.”

 

It’s important to keep in mind that this is the same newspaper with editorial and op-ed that has espoused 1) contraception fearing that we would be standing on each other’s shoulders eating seaweed, and 2) abortion that has done in 49,551,703 babies.

Attempting to make a point and sustain the critique, I offer a piece from the previous posting of David Goldman on this blog:

“The declining demographics of the traditional American family raise a dismal possibility: Perhaps the world is poorer now because the present generation did not bother to rear a new generation. All else is bookkeeping and ultimately trivial. This unwelcome and unprecedented change underlies the present global economic crisis. We are grayer, and less fecund, and as a result we are poorer, and will get poor­er still —no utter what economic policies we put in place.

“We could put this another way: America’s housing market collapsed because conservatives lost the culture wars even back while they were prevailing in electoral politics. During the past half century America has changed from a nation in which most households had two parents with young children. We are now a mélange of alternative arrangements in which the nuclear family is merely a niche phenomenon. By 2025, single-person households may outnumber families with children.

“The collapse of home prices and the knock-on effects on the banking system stem from the shrinking count of families that require houses. It is no accident that the housing market —the economic sector most sensitive to demographics— was the epicenter of the economic crisis. In fact, demographers have been predicting a housing crash for years due to the demographics of diminishing demand. Wall Stre­et and Washington merely succeeded in prolonging the housing bubble for a few additional years. The adverse demographics arising from cultural decay, though, portend far graver consequences for the funding of health and retirement systems.

“Conservatives have indulged in self-congratulation over the quarter-century run of growth that began in 1984 with the Reagan administration’s tax reforms. A prosperity that fails to rear a new generation in sufficient number is hollow, as we have learned to our detriment during the past year. Compared to Japan and most European countries, which face demographic catastrophe, America’s position seems relatively strong, but that strength is only postponing the reckoning by keeping the world’s capital flowing into the U.S. mortgage market right up until the crash at the end of 2007.

“As long as conservative leaders delivered economic growth, family issues were relegated to Sunday rhetoric. Of course, conservative thinkers never actually proposed to measure the movement’s success solely in units of gross domestic product, or square feet per home, or cubic displacement of the average automobile engine. But delivering consumer goods was what conservatives seemed to do well, and they rode the momentum of the Reagan boom.

“Until now. Our children are our wealth. Too few of them are seated around America’s common table, and it is their absence that makes us poor. Not only the absolute count of children, to be sure, but also the shrinking proportion of children raised with the moral material advantages of two-parent families diminishes our prospects. The capital markets have reduced the value of homeowners’ equity by $8 trillion and of stocks by $7 trillion. House­holds with a provider aged 45 to 54 have lost half their net worth between 2004 and 2009, according to Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. There are ways to ameliorate the financial crisis, but none of them will replace the lives that should have been part of America and now are missed.”

This suggests that nothing economic policy can do will entirely reverse the great wave of wealth destruction.”[1]

 

Welcome news is the upholding of Proposition 8 in California that bans same sex marriage.  The loss of perception concerning the meaning of human sexuality and the communio of the sexes as imaging the Divine Persons in holy matrimony was foreseen as an outgrowth of contraception. That originating evil is still with us, and still not clearly understood in its treacherous undermining of the human person.

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[1] David P. Goldman, “First Things,” May 2009.