He Knocks and waits.......

He Knocks at the door and says "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest for your souls".   He waits at the door in a surprising way.  We should go to Him and tell him our troubles and trials, but he waits already knowing because he has suffered this already and he waits at the door for us to take our burdens.

Do we really believe in God's love for us?  God the Father sent is only Son incarnate of the Virgin Mary so that we could know that love in a very tangible way.  "He who has seen me has seen the Father.  I am in the Father and the Father is in me." 

John 3:16.  We all know the verse.  It is a deep river!  " For God so loved the world that He gave is only Son that whoever BELIEVES.........."   And now we have the great mystery of the Trinity.  The love of God made manifest in the incarnate Son.  And the promise that we would not be left orphans but that, on returning to the Father, Jesus would send us the Holy Ghost. 

In these terrible times in which we live, I can not but marvel at the love and patience of God, who is truly slow to anger and rich and abounding in Mercy.  I pray that we may be salt and light for others and that through our cooperation Mercy will triumph, even as the darkness grows.  After Christ's death, the seeming triumph of evil, rapidly came His triumphant Resurrection.

Let us love Him in return by growing in the Faith.  "When the Son of Man comes again, will He find Faith?"  In these latter times, this question takes on a great urgency.  Pope Benedict the XVI gave us this "Year of Faith" so that we might answer the knock of the Saviour at the door. The Lord  waits for us to share our burden with Him and to give us in return great treasure: oil for our lamps.  He is there to give us the light of Faith!  Surely the bridegroom is coming soon!!

Faith in The Bread of Life

Every day we eat and drink. Our life depends on it.  Our food comes out of the dust by some inexplicable miracle of the order of creation.  Equally amazing is our use of the bathroom; I'll just say it like the French do: the toilet.  Everything goes down the toilet.

It's life and death.  Children will ask you: "Why do we have to eat every day?   Why do we have to go to the bathroom so much?"  Our food comes out of the ground, without it we die, it all goes down the toilet, and in the end we die, returning to dust.

Yet we never question the power in our food.  We have faith in it.  We never worry that it won't keep us alive.  "Yes, if I eat these good apples, and buy these organic carrots, and have a nice bowl of yummy lobster bisque with a loaf of warm bread and a glass of red wine, I'll be feeling better in no time."  And it's true.

When the priest says the words of consecration, do we have faith?  Jesus said "I am the bread of life............I am the living bread which came down from heaven...........For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.  (From John 6)

If we can put such faith in things that turn to dust, can we not put more faith in Him who made the dust?  Can we not believe The Mystery of Faith with great joy?!  We can see it all around us.  We do have faith.  We just need to accept it with joy where it matters most.

No sons, no brothers. Only death and toil.

Again I saw vanity under the sun: a person who has no one, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, "For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?"  This also is vanity and an  unhappy business.  Ecclesiastes 4: 7-8.

This week our Canadian parliamentarians rejected the opportunity to debate the personhood of the unborn.  To be fair, 203 voted against the opportunity, and 91 voted for it.

Our country, our continent, and I dare say THE WORLD, is in love with money and material goods and has no time for anything but economic concerns.  Our sons and brothers, OUR VERY OWN FLESH AND BLOOD, have been reduced to a commodity.  So we have the destruction and murder of our most innocent citizens. This slaughter has to stop!

War is coming.  We are reliving 1938.  How can we tolerate the destruction of innocent human life in the womb, deny the sanctity of Holy Matrimony, kill the eldery, and then pretend we are civilized citizens?  We are already living in a nightmare.  This is the most sinister and evil generation in history. 

The bodies of aborted babies are burned in incinerators at hospitals while we carefully wipe icing from our lips at the coffee shop.  Our cowardly politicians refuse even to have a debate about when human life begins.  Then we re-elect them and go out to the movies.

The Nazis hated the Jews and tried to exterminate them.  We don't hate the babies in the womb.  We just don't care.  "Sushi anybody?  How are your investments doing?  Hey, nice car!"

"Why cant' those people in the Middle East get over their fighting?  Religion is so bad, people always fighting over what they believe."    No time for God, no time for Truth, no time for the unborn.  Just scorn, ridicule, denial, and deafening silence. 

LORD HAVE MERCY ON US!!!

An Organ Toccata for Jesus

This week I took my two oldest boys, 14 and 7 years of age, up to the university to meet with an RN who teaches anatomy.  This was a planned trip for their home-schooling, a really special trip. 

My RN friend pulled out all the stops and had half a dozen models (worth some $40,000) out on display for the boys to explore.  We all got to dismantle, reassemble, and ask questions about the models.  There was one of the abdomen with removable organs, one of the ear, one of the heart, one with organs, muscles, and brains, one of the eye, a full life sized skeleton, a box of bones to match up with the skeleton, a big overlapping transparent flip chart showing all of the veins, arteries, lymph nodes, nerves, organs, skeleton, etc.  It was really overwhelming to see it all. We spent a full two hours learning and having quite a blast. 

Near the end of the session, we donned lab coats and rubber gloves for a good look at a rat-disection that was in process. Matthew (7) curiously poked and prodded away while Joseph disappeared to the other side of the room to escape the ordeal. Out came the intestines, stomach, liver, etc.

So many times in my life I have marvelled at the fact that many of us will go through our entire life never seeing, never really needing to see, any of this.  We know about it because we learn about it in school.  But have you ever seen your intestines or brains?  They are there and we get a stark reminder that they are there when something goes wrong.

Is the Holy Eucharist not precisely the same?  The hidden Jesus is there, flesh and blood upon our altars.  We forget about His great love for us, about His long-suffering patience, about His infinite humility.  Sometimes we doubt.  Yet He is still there even though we go through our entire life never seeing Him.

I can go through my whole life never once thinking about my liver.  It's really quite funny to me!  I have a liver but I never really spend any time thinking about it.  If I did not have a liver, I'd be dead really fast.

Think about the words of Jesus when He says "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you".  These are stunningly amazing words, and they are literal.  Take some time and pray about that. 

Flesh for the life of the world.

My wife and I had a simultaneous identical insight which is heavy and very worth sharing.  What does the Divine Liturgy have to do with abortion?

Simply put, they both involve flesh and blood.  If we consider that God is the author of life and that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, we can easily see the important relationship between all life and the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus.

There is much controversy regarding the display of abortion images as a tool to expose abortion for what it really is.  Who should see these images?  Some argue that the horror goes on and needs to be exposed in the same manner as other genocides.  It is a powerful argument, but not without problems.  However, if we momentarily step beyond the problem of actually solving this particular argument, and consider the power of images themselves, we can focus in on something very revealing and seemingly non-offensive..........at first.

There is a Latin saying:  "Illigitimati non carborundum" which translates into English "Don't let the bastards wear you down".  Bear with me for a second.  You see, the great river valleys of the earth were not cut away by water in a day, a week, or even a year.  If you wanted to see them form, you could not do so in a life- time.  Yet there they are to look at.  Some things change like that  but even slower, some things change like that but faster.

On to the Roman Rite Liturgy.  There it is.  But it was not always like that.  And here comes the power of the images.  If we could look at a photo of the Grand Canyon prior to its formation, and compare it with a photo of it as it is today,  we would scarcely believe that erosion could do this.   If we could look at a photo of the Liturgy prior to its decimation  --Oh, we can, and we ought to-- we can scarcely believe that it is the same thing as it is today -- because it is not.

The Eucharist is the source of our being.  The Triune God is the author or life:

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

.........................................Through him all things were made..........................

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,...............................

 

And we also believe in the Real Presence of the Incarnate Jesus upon our altars.   Or do we?  Go have a look on-line at a few images of Holy Mass as it is celebrated now.  Compare them to images from fifty or sixty years ago.  As I said, at first it does not seem offensive.  Why?  Because we are the Grand Canyon.  We have been ground down to accept the compromises and lies of the devil.

Yes, these are really harsh words, but I believe they are very true.  How can the horror of abortion be going on around us?  How can babies be murdered and then dumped into the trash can by the hundreds of millions? Hundreds of millions --look it up.  How can a US President veto a bill that would prohibit a doctor from sucking the brains out of a partially born baby in order to kill it?    It can happen because we first threw out the baby Jesus and denied him on our altars!

I think that if we are going to ever see an end to abortion, we must first turn away from the sin against the First Commandment.  The First Commandment is first for a reason.

Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.   He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.  John 6:53-55.

So here is a Lenten challenge:  Go have a look at some images of the way the liturgy is celebrated in our time.  Don't just go to Mass and say "Yeah, I'll do it there".  No, because there you are in the river with the rest of the water.  Get out of the river and go up on the bank and have a good look.  Get some good images of the liturgy as it was celebrated a few short decades ago.  Ask yourself what is due to the Triune God.  Ask yourself how this erosion came about that the Holy Eucharist, the true body and blood of Christ, is ignored and profaned.  Ask yourself what is more fitting to honor the Triune God truly present on the altar : Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart, Gregorian chant, a Bach Chorale, or an electric guitar and drums playing some sappy pop-tune to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy?  Ask yourself why the sacred vessels are treated with less respect than dishes from Wal Mart.  Ask yourself why so few believe in the Real Presence.

We are really rather consistent as human beings.  If we think something is valuable, we'll pay a lot of money for it.  If we don't value a thing, we throw it in the trash.  No! No! Recylce!  Hmmm...can you recycle an aborted baby?  Isn't that a horrific question?  Would it not be better if there were no such thing as an aborted baby?  Do we really value a used newspaper more than a pre-born child?!  But I digress.  And is that not also horrific, that I can digress from such a topic?

The first point is that we act as we believe.  The Liturgy as it is celebrated (-not sure I even like the word "celebrate" -) is a true reflection of modern belief, ........or disbelief.  And abortion is a reflection of the disbelief that life in the womb is human.  Here we could go into a whole new topic.  Is it belief, disbelief or denial?  Let's move on for now.

The second point is  -and here I invite you to consider that this seeming leap is no leap but rather an incredibly important connection- that until belief in the Real Presence returns, abortion can not end.  It will not end because it CAN not end.  Until we respect the Incarnate Flesh of the Son of God, how can we respect the life of mortal man?  See the brilliance of Mother Teresa?  She said that the fruit of abortion will be nuclear war.
 

Just one or two pictures of a beautiful new-born baby next to some pictures of a dismembered and bloodied corpse of an aborted baby shows that we have wandered very very far from the love of God.  Attendance at or pictures of the beautiful and fitting Eastern Rite liturgies (there are more than 20 Rites of the Catholic Church which are in union with Rome) compared to the very often abusive Roman Rite liturgies shows that we have forgotten that Jesus gave his flesh and blood for the life of the world and how we so easily forget the horror of abortion.

Humor and Mercy

In my family there has always been a great use of humor.  We make puns and jokes and enjoy numerous pranks.

One of our family jokes has to do with the aftermath of meals.  With five young children, a table that is too small, and a severely handicapped child who needs to be fed, the debris field beneath the table after meals is a job for a SWAT team in full riot gear or the National Guard.  When they are done we call in the local fire department to hose everything down.  Failing that, we just drive a Zamboni through the dining room.  "Hey, Joe!  Your turn to zamboni the dining room."

"I've heard of the multiplication of the loaves, but this is ridiculous."

We also like to joke (always with great interior reverence for The Word of God) about about the passage in The Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 15:

[21] Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
[22] And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
[23] But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
[24] But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[25] Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
[26] But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
[27] And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
[28] Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.



If said dog lived beneath our table, he'd look like this:.



Well, today I was hard at it in between meals, muttering to myself trying to maintain my waning patience, and I kind of said to myself, "Well that should be clean enough for the next round of chaos."  Then I had a thought shoot thrugh my mind : "What if Jesus thought like that at Mass or after our Confession?  What if He took the cynical attitude that He had just cleaned up after us and the next week would bring a whole new load of sins that He would have to clean up again?"  Suddenly that fat dog wasn't quite as funny any more.

I am always after my family telling them that we at least have to TRY to not make such a disaster.  Yes, the thought is worth some pondering because our good effort is not only necessary in spite of the infinite Mercy of God, but precisely BECAUSE of it.  Otherwise we risk the sin of presumption.

I remember having commited a serious sin one day and was looking for some consolation.  Having prayed mentally to St. Padre Pio,  I opened a wonderful biography about him (by Bernard Ruffin) and asked, "Padre Pio, do you have some word for me?"  I looked down at the page and read "That was a useless effort". If we want to hear the words "Well done, good and faithful servant", we will first have to fight the good fight --- and in some manner win.  Yes, Christ has already won the battle, but we must also carry the cross.

While helping with diaper changes and daily chores that young children bring, I have often pondered how this fits in to God's plan of salvation for us.  Little children too will ask innocently about why we have to use the toilet daily and about what happens to our food when we eat it.  A bit of simple thought about the whole cycle --from the seeds in the garden soil to the vegetables on the table and back to the waste pit-- can either produce a cynical hopelessness, or great joy at the wonder of God's great love for us.

This is a wonderful moment to remember Jesus's first miracle, the changing of water into wine --water representing death then becoming joyful life, a prefigurement of the Ressurection-- and His last miracle, the changing of bread and wine into His body and blood.  I explain to my children the immense beauty in the words Jesus says, in John 6; 53 -58, that "unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life within you".  I get goose bumps when I think of the great love of Jesus when he says in Luke 22:15  "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer"

Just as the disciples cleaned up 12 baskets full of food after the multiplication of the loaves, we also must not waste the graces of God.  God is not like some haughty, proud billionaire who might say:  "I just gave you a million bucks.  Don't bother with the loose change." 

That fat dog under the table represents two things:  It represents God's infinite mercy, and it represents our  manifold sins and wickedness.  Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.  He does not need much from us, but he does need a few crumbs of effort.  Perhaps even a mustard seed would do.

Behold: Mary the Mother of God

In the fifth mysteries of the Holy Rosary we have The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple;  the Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord, Jesus; and the Coronation of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth.

These mysteries are beautiful in their close correspondence to God pointing to His Mother and His Mother reflecting back and magnifying the Lord.

In the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, we find Jesus addressing His parents thus:  Luke 2: "49 And he said unto them How is it that ye sought me?  wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? 50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.  51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them: but his mother kept all these saying in her heart."




So at the face of it, we have a 12 year old boy who is at once demonstrating astonishing understanding and wisdom in his dealing with the doctors in the temple, and then seeming to brush off the anguish of his desperate parents who love Him.  Then He obediently goes with them to Nazareth. 

Jesus is telling us that it is His mother and father who should know best that he is the Son of God because they are His teachers.  He is pointing to His mother from whom He took His flesh and through whose Immaculate Heart we receive the Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist.  It is almost as if He asks her "Do you not remember who you are?"  Look at the great love here!  Would we not expect the opposite?  The modern mother might say "Who do you think you are doing this to your parents!?  I'm your mother!  Now get home with us now!"   Jesus, who later commands us to demonstrate our love for Him by keeping His commandments, demonstrates further his love of His mother and foster father by his quiet obedience to them.  His mother does not scold but magnifies His greatness pondering all these things in her heart.

In the mystery of the Crucifixion, Jesus again speaks to His mother:  John 19: "26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
27 The saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!  And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."


Perhaps once again it seems that Jesus is distant from his mother in addressing her as "Woman" rather than "Mother" or "Mama".  Yet at the same time he demonstrates His great desire to give his mother consolation and love by entrusting her to the care of the "disciple whom he loved" but not before first ensuring her continued motherhood.  Here is the great emcompassing of the Ark of the Covenant.  She holds all of us as her children by Jesus's command and we are heirs to everlasting life in the unfathomable brotherhood of the Word Made Flesh.  This flesh again is born of the pain and sorrow of the mother anguishing for her son.

In the mystery of the Coronation of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, we read:  REVELATION 11 & 12
"19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. 1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered."


Here we see again the Blessed Mother, the Ark of the Covenant, refered to as "woman" and the mystery beneath the cross and in the temple is revealed.  This title is one of deep respect and reverence for that which the Father holds so dear.  His Ark which encompasses His people whom he loves is at once triumphantly victorious as a the crowned Queen of Heaven -through her unparalleled humility and purity of heart-, and still suffering in anguish over her militant earthly family.

As we read through the 12th chapter of Revelation about the dragon's hate for the woman, the Ark, we see clearly her motherhood to the followers of her Son : "17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

In these three mysteries of the Holy Rosary, we see clearly Jesus pointing to His Mother with love and respect, His great gift of her to us and thus His gift of Himself to us, and her magnification of the Saviour in humility, the Incarnate Saviour, her very flesh and now our brother!

 LUKE 1: "46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,  47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.  48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.  49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name." 

The Lord carries us.

In the fourth mysteries of the Holy Rosary we have the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven.

Mary carries the Christ into the temple in love and obedience to the Law.  Then Jesus carries the cross to Calvary in love and obedience to the Father.  Then the Father carries the Blessed Virgin to heaven in love for His Church.  In a sense there is obedience even on the part of the Father, because he is faithful to his covenant.  Mary is the Ark of the Covenant.

What an amazing connection.  I am too dumbfounded to write more.  What I will say is that what happens in the next set of mysteries is even more amazing.  This will be a meditation on Epiphany embodied in the word "behold".



Merry Christmas!

Worth more than Gold

What's worth more than gold?  What is gold worth?  My dad used to say that a thing is worth whatever you can get for it, and there is some profound truth in that statement worth some careful consideration.

Sitting next to my 11 year old mentally handicapped daughter yesterday, I had a very strange mental awakening.  I was feeding her and thinking about the economy and the price of gold.  I realized that to her gold was not worth any more than a raw carrot.  I found myself laughing out loud and thinking of my dad's statement. 

As the price of gold shoots up and the people of the world contend with the reeling economy, all my lovely daughter Stella knows is that her daddy will feed her.  She does not have the capacity to understand the workings of supply and demand, intrinsic value, Ponzi schemes, derivatives, bail-outs, debt, or anything of the sort.  She values the food on her plate and the attention and love that she gets from her parents and siblings.

She is straight forward, trusting --but demanding--, and simple in her needs and wants.  She relies on the love, sacrifice, and dedication of those around her and she is able to do that without --as far as I can tell-- any sense of guilt.  Her needs are met and she is happy.

I think that is worth more than gold.

The First Commandment

I AM the Lord thy God, thou shallt have no strange gods before Me.

As pointed out in a former blog, the Ten Commandments are beautifully ordered.  God is first, then His Holy Name, and then His Day.  Then follows the unfathomable love of God in the ordering of parents right next to God.  This is the archtype of the Church.  Such beauty.

The ailments of our day have reached a feverish pitch but I fear that it is only the beginning.  I say that because I see so clearly that this First Commandment has been all but forgotten.  It is forgotten by mothers who murder their unborn children, it is forgotten by judges who no longer have any regard for the law, it is forgotten by law-makers who have no regard for the underpinning of truth, it is forgotten by parents who fail to discipline their children, it is forgotten by children who have no respect for authority -much less their parents-, it is forgotten by priests who deny the existence of sin and who make light of the liturgy.

It is not my intention here to confess the sins of others.  The point is the common thread and therefore THE REMEDY!  We must LOVE THE LORD OUR GOD!  We must put Him back at the top of our lives and truly love him with our whole heart, our whole mind, and with all of our strength.  We can not even love one another if we don't do that first!

As Jesus said, on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.  It truly is simple.

We don't need some great minds to solve the world's crises.  We need LOVE OF GOD.   Each day must begin with a firm resolve to seek and to do the will of God, and to truly love Him. We can not love God if we do not put Him foremost in our minds.

What else would help?  To my mind, a good dose of silence.  Stop talking.  Turn off the electronics.  Look around and see what He created!  Listen.  Listen to others. So much of what we say is truly useless if not down right harmful.  And PRAY for Mercy and Peace.  Fast when you can.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly.  My God, I believe, I adore, I hope in, and I love Thee.  I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope in, and do not love Thee.

La Salette

So, this is another little miracle.  It is the reason that I started this blog because these "Coincidences" are just too prophetic.

Tonight, at the end of our dinner while we were enjoying some delicious green grapes- something we rarely eat around here!-, my older son tattled on his younger brother for saying "Oh God" while playing outside with the neighborhood kids.  Little Matthew is just six years old so we had a talk about the commandments.  I told him that I would not punish him if he could tell me which commandment he had broken.  So we had a little catechism review.  Then I explained to him how serious respecting the Lord's holy name is, and told him about Our Lady of La Salette, how she said the grapes would spoil, among other consequences, if men did not keep the Sabbath and stop their blasphemy.  We decided to have a story time and go and look up Our Lady of La Salette on the computer.

It was on the 18th of September, 1846 that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Melanie and Maximin in the hills of La Salette, France.  She warned them of great trials to come which resonate with the prophecies given in other approved Marian apparitions, namely famine and persecutions.  She spoke specifically of sins against the the second and third commandments. 

Today at Holy Mass we heard the readings about the labourers who recieved the payment due to them for their labours and the seeming injustice of the eleventh-hour workers receiving the same as those who worked a full day.  The thoughts come to mind: "Is it really so hard to do what is asked of us when it is reasonable?  Is keeping the Sabbath and honoring  the Lord's name not something we wish to do out of great gratitude for all His great gifts to us?"  As Jesus said, it is the Father's generosity that moves Him to give the eleventh hour workers the same pay as the others.  God is so generous and loving that He gives us not only what is just, but rewards us with abundance.  Shall we not thank Him?

Among the many things prophesied at La Salette, one can not help taking pause at the predictions of clerical sins.  Yet Jesus himself said "I myself will shepherd them, for others have led them astray".   Is it not true that our liturgy is rife with a lack of respect for the second commandment also?   How quickly we forget our history and our patrimony.  There can be no New Testament if there was not first an Old Testament.  And did Jesus not say that not one jot or tittle would be removed from the Law?  

Here's the question:  what is the liturgy?  Is it our own invention, our own personal celebration to make ourselves feel good?  No, it is what God asks of us through Holy Mother Church.  It is deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition and is a Sacraficial Offering, the New Covenant.  God did not give detailed directions for worship in the Old Testament only to have them abandoned to whim and fancy in the New Testament. Niether did he take on the flesh only to ascend to heaven in glory and leave his children orphans. Christ Jesus gave us the Rock on which He built the Church and to him he gave the keys to bind and loose.

Yet at Holy Mass today we were assaulted with the "Becoming Church" campaign.    The Church's direction for liturgical norms is rich, beautiful, and glorious.  Her history is so beautiful!  When will the hearts of the faithful catch fire with love for Christ and His bride, the Church, and reclaim their most fitting heritage?  Oh how I pray for that day when we, the Church, will do the work of Christ with great love and think not about our reward but our service to Him who is so generous to us!  Yes, we are the church, the Mystical Body of Christ, and yet the faithful are so asleep that they fall for this subversive propaganda that they have to "become church" by contributing funds to a campaign. The faithful truly have been ground down little by little to accept the compromises of the devil.  Surely, this is a terrible chastisement, an apostasy, a great and deep sorrow, and a terrible war.

So just what are the chances of looking up Our Lady of La Salette on September 18th, 2001, the precise One Hundred and Sixty-fifth anniversary of the apparition?  It strikes me as just a wee bit more than chance.

Humility, Dust, and Flesh

How many times have we heard the story of the multiplication of the loaves?  It is so well known to all of us, even to those who have no faith.  I was aware for the first time very recently of the story's setting and how hearing the story in this light makes it all the more powerful.

In the 14th  chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, we read about how John the Baptist was put in prison for speaking out against Herod on the issue of marriage.  Herod wants to kill John but is afraid to because he fears the people who hold John to be a prophet.  He finally has John beheaded and his head then brought on a platter before his guests only in order to honor an oath he had made before his guests.  So, we see Herod's actions propelled by his concern for himself and what people will think of him.

Furthermore he offers his guests an abomination of desolation.  He offers them flesh that will not nourish them but leave them repulsed. 

 "13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart.  But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.  14 As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them and healed their sick." Matthew 14:13-14.

Surely Jesus was grieving deeply at the death of his beloved cousin who had "prepared the way of the Lord", who had leapt for joy in his Aunt Elizabeth's womb at Mary's greeting.  Yet, Jesus is completely selfless even in this moment of horrific personal grief.  He has compassion on them because, as Mark's gospel tells us, they were like sheep without a shepherd.   So instead of asking them to go away and let him have some private time, He heals their sick, teaches them -feeding them with His word-, and then feeds them with miraculous bread in a brilliantly luminous prefigurement of the Eucharist.

It struck me that this is the Joyful Hope that we must try to imitate in these terrible times.  As Malachy Martin said not many years ago in reference to the third secret of Fatima, we will surely suffer dry martyrdom if not very wet martyrdom.  When we lose a friend in such a circumstance or we suffer ourselves for standing up for fundamental truths like the sacredness of marriage, let us remember this selfless example of humility and strive to bring hope to others. 

Remember that Jesus said "YOU give them something to eat".  To Peter who denied him - and how many times have we all denied him - He said "Feed my sheep".  We have to act ourselves no matter how insignificant our efforts seem.  Jesus will multiply and do the feeding but the food from us must be real tangible offerings to begin with.

It is worth remembering that Jesus was "True God and True Man".  His grief was real human grief, His resurrection was a real bodily resurrection, the multiplication of the loaves was real food that satisfied real hunger.  John 6: 55 "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."  Jesus came to the world as the True God and True Man, The Word made flesh-- and He truly gave himself to us.  We need to give our little bit of dust back to Him and watch what He does with it.

In my back yard there are huge Douglas Fir trees.  I just spent $1000 to have a few of them cut down because they were threatening the house.  Well, these sixty-plus foot trees came out of the dust as tiny, vulnerable little seedlings.  I too came out of the dust. I remeber that every time I eat delicious vegetables out of my garden.  What can I give back to Jesus?  I give Him my will, my music, my art, my love of His amazing creation, and my feeble witness to Truth.  I will try to give alms and works of mercy too.  I've got some work to do!

Keeping Balance

For so very many years, I have been sobered by this thought, a thought that unsettles me increasingly:

Back in 1917 in a little villiage in Fatima Portugal, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children between May and October. She predicted that the war that was then raging, the one we know now as WWI-in which some 37,000,000 people were killed-would soon end. It did end the next year in 1918. She went on to say "but if people do not cease offending God, a worse war will break out during the reign of Pius XI". Then the world experienced the 7 years of WWII with all of its attrocities and the use of horrible weapons including the atomic bomb-an other 60,000,000 dead.

Where are we now? Have we ceased offending God? No! Sin is not only increased, it is practically glorified! Divorce as common as marriage, co-habitation, contraception, abortion, homosexual "marriage", and rampant pornography, sex, sex, sex, sex, and more sex!!! In the grocery store, in the kindergarten class, in the library. Worship the earth, global warming, -oh, I mean climate change, yes, that's what they call it now, yes, climate change- swallow the lie, pay the carbon tax, save the trees, sustainable development, don't offend anyone.....keep smiling, it's all good.

Children now use the Lord's name in vain routinely, something which cuts me to the core. The Sabbath Day is go-to-the-mall-day and fix-the-car-day and build-a-fence, paint-the-house, and mow-the-grass-day. Church? What's that?

No one needs to look far beyond the tip of his nose to see that mankind has a serious spiritual illness. If the earth is convulsing, it is because man has lost his sense of balance.

If this seems a bit disjointed, read on a bit; let's go on a little mental trip and come back to Fatima later.

Think about the beauty of what God made. We begin the Credo "We believe in One God, the Father the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in Jesus Christ His only son, Our Lord............through whom all things were made...............We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord the giver of Life.........."

Creation is astoundingly beautiful, incomprehensible really. Consider all of what science has taught us about God's creation. Can a single person comprehend it? I am filled with wonder at it all.

What is the most amazing part of creation? I think that it is the order of it all. It's all ordered so magnificently that it's mind boggling! Atoms, genes, gravity, light, chemistry, mathematics, resonance, cells, germs, physics, biology, biochemistry, astronomy, etc. It all follows a beautiful and often elusive order.

Then there is man. His body alone is magnificent! A lifetime can be spent on studying the body and who can fathom it? Then there is the mind, and then the spirit. What a marvelous trinity that is.

Then there is the human will. Is it ordered? Think about the 10 Commandments, are they ordered? Yes, I think profoundly so. The first three are about God: God is First, His Name is Holy, Keep The Sabbath. The fourth? Honour thy Father and Mother. God is to be honored by man and similarly children are to honor their parents. Very orderly I would say.

So now, back to the world of sin. What is going on today? Man has made himself God and has decided that he can destroy God's most magnificent creation-the baby in the womb-at will. So man denies God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If 60,000,000 dead in WWII is horrific, what of the 45,000,000+ EVERY YEAR by abortion!? The blood of the innocents cry to heaven for justice.

Denial of God, blasphemy of His Holy Name BY CHILDREN, and disregard for the Sabbath. The Bible too says that in the last times that children would be disobedient to parents. One, two, three, four.........

Now look back at the Fatima prophecy and compare the weight on the scales in 1917 as compared to now. Getting the picture?

God loves us so much and we are in a time of tremendous Mercy! This hour of Mercy is getting stretched very thin, VERY VERY thin!

If the world in 1917 was deserving of WWI, and in 1939 of WWII, we need to sober up quick and make use of this time of Mercy. The Lord is truly slow to anger and rich and abounding in Mercy and Forgiveness. BUT If men will not turn to Him, what is He to do?!

When a child learns to ride a bike he starts with training wheels to get the feel of it and to enjoy just riding and believing the day will come when training wheels won't be needed. Then his dad removes the training wheels and breaks his back for a couple of hours guiding the child without wheels, catching him, and helping to learn to balance. "Look around. Keep your head up. Watch where you are going. Sit up nice and straight. Relax and have fun!" And in no time the child learns the laws, the feel, and the limits of gravity. He may get a scrape or two and that's maybe a good thing to drive home the point that there are rules that are there in nature. The child always wears a helmet with the hope that it will only ever need to look nice and sparkly blue rather than needing to actually protect his head in a crash. Riding sure is wonderful!

Creation is so magnificent and our will is the thing that we must keep in balance. When we keep the balance according to the laws, we experience freedom and joy. Living in joy magnifies our freedom and we don't need to worry about the helmet we wear! We must keep joyful hope simply because that is the best way to live.

I don't know of anyone who rides a bike grudgingly without joy with the attitude that it is only a matter of time before he falls off. Right now though, there are a host of people riding drunk, no-hands through life on the precipice without a helmet. And if you are on a precipice, the helmet may not do you much good when you finally lose your balance.

Young people often look to mentors for inspiration. Perhaps they look to an Olympic Champion for inspiration on how to ride a bike competitively. That's what the whole brand endorsement industry is about, after all. "Be fashionable just like William and Kate!" How about we imitate a TRULY deserving model? What about trying in simple ways to be like Mary and keep a pure intention in everything we do? In my next blog I will try to give some concrete ideas about what that really means.

Let us pray for conversion-of our selves-and for peace.

The Father who is present.

What is a father without a child? It is the child who gives the father his fatherhood because without the child, their can be no father. What a beautiful paradox. The father gives the child life through the mother, and the child gives parenthood back to them.

Due to my own weakness, I struggle to simply be present to my children. Yes, I must teach them; that is my duty. Yet this symbiotic relationship is here too. I have discovered that being present to my children's sense of wonder, I can be a much better teacher. It's much harder for me to do this; it really takes effort and love. In the end, it really amounts to the children teaching me about what I need to teach them.

I had this realization very powerfully this past week when I took my six year old for a walk in the woods. He asks hundreds of questions. Then he asked the clincher: "Why do you always say that, Dad?" You see, to many of his requests to go here or there, I would always say "We had better not." It was out of habit, and I might just as easily have replied with an other similar habitual demand for obedience. But his question was genuine and it struck me immediately. I thought it through and saw that there was simply a true innocent observance of the fact that I do often reply without being truly present to his question.

Yes, let's go down that path into the meadow, I agreed. It was a magical moment where my son taught me without knowing it, and I was suddenly drawn into his presence and wonder fully, and I saw the true gift that he is to me. What I taught him, I hope, is that he can trust his dad, that exploring is not to be feared, and perhaps he even learned unwittingly to be present to others.

God the Father is present to us continually, and if we communicate with Him and trust Him with the innocence of a child, if we really go to Him as Abba, He will surely reveal the wonders of His creation beyond our imaginings. To St. Faustina Jesus said "The more you trust me, the more I will bless you!" Jesus, I trust in You!

'Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves."

John 14: 8-11

Come, Holy Ghost.

Meditating on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, it is very informative and enriching to consider the relationship between the three groups of mysteries, the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious.

In the 3rd Joyful mystery Christ the King gives up his crown and becomes a helpless child, born into the cold of the night in poverty, for the love of sinful man.

In the 3rd Sorrowful mystery, Christ the King recieves a crushing crown of thorns in the ultimate act of humility. Bearing the cruelest of insults, spitting, and the unimaginable pain of the physical thorns, he accepts all of this for the love of sinful man.

In the 3rd Glorious mystery, Christ the King sends His Spirit, crowning us, with the fire of Divine Love. "O Come Down Love Divine, Come fill this heart of mine" we sing.

We often hear the words "God is love" which have always seemed trite and empty to me. Not that these words are not true, even ultimately true, but often those things which are most profound and intimate are lessened by our attempts to describe them. How does one describe the perfume of a rose to one who has not experienced it?

Our society needs to recover the beauty of true intimacy. There have been private revelations over the centuries, some of which have had heavenly messages for the seers only, for example revelations of the Holy Trinity which were not to be revealed. I often wondered what the point of that was. Then I slowly came to the realization that intimacy with God is the point.

God desires intimacy with all of His children, but He needs our cooperation to grow close to Him.
"If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." John 14:23

What is a law?

I have a wonderful six year old who loves to ask questions. He will eat an apple and say "Dada, what's an apple?" Riding in the car he will ask "Dada, what's a car?" At first these sorts of questions seemed nonsensical, but I have learned over the years to treat questions from my children with great respect because their sense of wonder and their innocent inquisitiveness is often profound and beyond immediate comprehension.

His questions of this sort are still coming. The latest is: What is a law?

I found myself trying to explain the different sorts of laws. There are the laws of nature, like gravity and inertia. There are juridical laws that governments make which have the common good at heart. (Sadly, in this impoverished country, laws are changed by judges through precedent or whim without even the consent of parliament.) There is the natural law which is written on the heart.

My son's other favorite question, which amazes me to no end, is "What happens if you don't?".

What happens if you disobey the law of gravity? Well, it could cost you your life. You can learn the law of inertia by leaving your seatbelt off. You may not die, or you may. There may or may not be a civil law to tell you to wear a seatbelt. And this brings us to the crux of all laws:

Laws, true laws. are grounded in reality and truth. Spend some time thinking and praying on that thought and you will come to see that our society is in trouble. Once the laws of a country stop having direct relation to truth, what is to stop them from becoming truly insane altogether?
The answer is scary: nothing.