"Stand up and be counted for what you are about to receive"

Nothing fancy for today's traditio, just some meat n' potatoes rock n'roll by AC/DC, thus continuing our series of rock songs about rockin'. Hey, I had to do this one sooner or later. Sooner seemed better than later. Besides, today I really need some rock!

"We rock at dawn on the front line/Like a bolt right out of the blue/The sky's alight with the guitar bite"

Thursday morning reflections

It's been awhile since I just selected "New Post" and started typing. So, I figured this morning might be a good time to do just that. Needless to say, blogging in the mode I do requires constant discernment, which means constant prayer and reflection about what I put up on these pages. Last October I proposed what can be termed the Ephesians 4:29 protocol. I am convinced now more than ever those of us who constitute the loosely knit Catholic blogosphere need to adhere to something like this standard not only of civility, but charity. As I stated originally, "By proposing this rule, I do not seek to eliminate critical comments or discussion. My only desire is to keep discussions in our neck of the virtual woods respectful, charitable, and constructive." Lest this be dismissed as useless idealism, to which I plead guilty some of the time, I am experienced enough to know that there are legitimately differing views about what it means to be charitable and that different circumstances call for different methods, all before bringing up our great capacity for rationalization.

In light of all the disruptions caused by even more public scandal in the Church, which, as The Anchoress helpfully noted "[t]he author of chaos" and "sower of all confusion and discord" simply loves because it sets "Catholics against each other, encouraging paranoia, conspiracy theories, all manner of uncharitable behavior and hysteria." As one who has weighed in publicly on this sad series of events, I need to constantly check my motives. I don't mind saying that I remain both surprised and somewhat disheartened that it is writing about these kinds of things that generates the most web traffic. I suppose this is the Catholic of version of the old journalistic saw, "If it bleeds, it leads," except, of course, when we write about our brothers and sisters being martyred throughout the Middle East, to which most simply turn a blind eye because it is not "happy-clappy," reminding us of what Jesus says it means to follow Him.

All of this causes me to reflect on the word "apostle" and its variants, "apostolic" and especially "apostolate," the latter of which is an old-fashioned term for what Catholic blogging certainly is. Stated succinctly and in Christian terms, being an apostle means being "one who is sent to witness to Jesus Christ." In his Message for The 45th World Communications Day, which, in my opinion, remains a "must read" for anyone seriously engaged as a Catholic in digital media, especially blogging, the Holy Father observed,

To proclaim the Gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgements that are fully consistent with the Gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically. Furthermore, it is also true in the digital world that a message cannot be proclaimed without a consistent witness on the part of the one who proclaims it. In these new circumstances and with these new forms of expression, Christians are once again called to offer a response to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is within them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15)

All of this, in turn, put me in mind of something I posted back in mid-June about Karl Barth's take on being an apostle, part of which read: "The importance of an apostle is negative rather than positive. In him a void becomes visible. And for this reason he is something to others: he is able to share grace with them, to focus their attention, and to establish them in waiting and in adoration." In CL-speak, this means laying bare the need that I am, which first means acknowledging this to myself.

Am I seeking to focus "their" attention on the One to whom I seek to give witness, or am I seeking only to draw attention to myself? After all, it is very easy to develop an exaggerated sense of one's importance, especially in the so-called "digital age." The humbling reality is that anyone with internet access can blog. So, what does it mean for a blogger "to establish them in waiting and in adoration"? It can't mean saying nothing because there would be no point. So, the perennial question is always and shall always remain about what to say. This brings me full-circle and, so back to Ephesians chapter four: "No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption" (verses 29-30).

What does it mean to be a new creation in Christ?

In this year’s Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Fr. Julián Carrón, head of the Fraternity, began by reciting the theme of the Exercises, taken from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: “Thus, whoever is in Christ is a new creation” (5:17). I am only a new creation, Carrón continues, “because Christ is something that is happening to me.” He is happening to me right now, in every moment. To demonstrate this point, he uses the example of Christ’s “disciples after Easter.” He begins by rhetorically asking, “What prevailed in their hearts, in their eyes, in their self-awareness, if not His living presence?” His living presence “was so evident for them that they could not rip it away.” But then, who would want to rip it away?

It was a Presence that overcame any doubt, any shadow: it imposed itself. Christ was something that was happening to them. He was not a doctrine, a list of things to do, a sentiment. Yes, He was an external presence, different, but one that permeated their life. The Resurrection of Christ, His living presence, introduced a newness that made life finally life, filling it with an intensity they could not generate by themselves. It was so evident that they called it “newness of life.” And who was living it? A new creature. Newness of life–but we can simply say life in its fullest sense, that reveals itself for the first time with all its intensity–so defined their persons that the Christians were called “the living.” What an experience they had, and what an experience the others watched in them, such that they defined them “the living”! This is what Christ introduced into reality forevermore: a possibility of living life at a level previously absolutely unknown for us

St. Francis of Assisi, by Jusepe de Ribera

A few days after re-reading these striking words, which I am sure were intended as a provocation, I came across a passage in Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s Razing the Bastions: On the Church in This Age, which I have been re-reading in preparation for my long-awaited re-immersion into Balthasar, specifically the Theo-logik part of his grand trilogy, about St. Francis of Assisi:

Everything depends on the awareness that we have of our Christianity. For Francis, to be a Christian was something just as immense, certain and startlingly glorious as to be a human being, a youth, man. And because being a Christian is eternal being, eternal youth, without danger of withering and resignation, his immediate joy was deeper. Not one single year separated him from Christ, the one who had become flesh… For him not one speck of dust had settled on the freshness of the wonder of the passage of time. The hodie of the liturgy on the great feasts was the hodie of his life (underlining emphasis mine; hodie, of course, is Latin meaning “this day,” or, “today”)

Balthasar concludes by asking rhetorically, “Is there a saint who has had any other Christian consciousness of time?” To which the answer is simply, “No,” even if, like Bl Teresa of Calcutta, she had to work for years to achieve such a Christian time-consciousness.

Originally, I was going to post this yesterday, but due to current events that concern so many of my faithful sisters and brothers, I held off until today.

Sad, but unsurprising, part deux- l'affair Corapi UPDATED

Life is weird. This afternoon I was browsing through the website of the Carthusian Charterhouse of the Transfiguration, the only Carthusian foundation in North America. This Charterhouse is located in southern Vermont. While browsing I came across a quote from St. Augustine about the deep need we all have for solitude, for silence: “For lovers of this world, there is no harder work than not working.” This made me think even of how hard we work at having fun, comparing that with the simplicity I knew in my years growing up. So struck was I by this great insight that I wanted to post it as my Facebook status (ironic, I know) with a short comment to the effect that chronic vacationing and “having fun” were often not re-creational, but distracting, thus falling under the purview of the great bishop of Hippo-Regius’ insight.

No sooner did I log onto FB than I saw where Deacon Greg had posted a statement by the head of John Corapi’s religious order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (S.O.L.T.), Fr. Gerald Sheehan, concerning the allegations against Corapi, basically stating that the order has determined what were previously only held to be allegations of sexual misconduct with adult women, along with drug and alcohol abuse, are, sadly, true. I couldn’t help but be dumbfounded by the stark study in contrast between the Carthusian life and what Fr. Sheehan’s statement reveals about the life of the professed religious order priest, John Corapi, apparently stretching back sometime:

SOLT’s fact-finding team has acquired information from Fr. Corapi’s e-mails, various witnesses, and public sources that, together, state that, during his years of public ministry:

He did have sexual relations and years of cohabitation (in California and Montana) with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a prostitute; He repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs; He has recently engaged in sexting activity with one or more women in Montana; He holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the Society

I am honest enough to state, yet again, that I was never a fan either of Corapi’s style, nor much of the content of his teaching and preaching. Prior to the events dating back to March of this year, when these allegations first surfaced, which reached a crescendo with his dramatic decision to leave his religious order and the priesthood a few weeks ago, I do not believe I had mentioned him even once on these pages, largely due to the fact that my purpose here is not to engage in polemics, especially of the intra-ecclesial kind. I take no joy at all in anyone’s demise, especially that of someone who God really and truly used to draw people into the Church and back into the Church, whether I “liked” them or not.

I can only imagine how devastating this must be for those members of the faithful to whom Corapi means so much. It is God who draws us to Himself, regardless of the circumstances or people He uses to draw us. It is always first and foremost the work of the Holy Spirit. We have many ways of speaking about this truth, but St. Paul’s remains the very best: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7- ESV). What called this verse to mind was remembering the title of the autobiography of the greatest media priest ever, albeit one who remained faithful and true, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Treasures in Clay.

In addition to these findings, I advise people to be ready for other findings detailing Corapi’s appalling dishonesty about his military service, including changing and altering his story as facts about his duties in the Army were made public, and possibly his academic achievements.

Rather than end with some ambiguous call to pray for John Corapi, I ask all my readers to specifically pray that he will comply with the order of his religious superior, Fr. Gerald Sheehan, who, “under obedience,” has directed Corapi “to return home to the Society’s regional office and take up residence there” and “also ordered him, again under obedience, to dismiss the lawsuit he has filed against his accuser.” I realize complying with these two directives will require of Corapi, who has shown such defiant pride even as his situation grew worse, a superhuman act of humility, for which he needs God’s grace. If, after a season of penance, of publically “coming clean” about his lies and exaggerations, which will certainly require much prayer and fasting, he discerns that a call to the religious life is not for him, then let him leave absolved and in the church’s good graces to live the abundant life that he publicly proclaimed across many years before millions of people. I have to admit that those who vehemently rejected the idea that Corapi follow the example of St. Pio of Pietrelcina were correct, just not for the reasons many of them supposed. After all, Padre Pio was innocent.

In the wake of this let's not forget and in light of this grow nostalgic and act as though holiness is a sentimental remembrance of things past. Let us instead acknowledge holiness as a present reality. To fail to do this is to reduce saints in just the way Dorothy Day did not want to be reduced by being canonized. As Han Urs Von Balthasar wrote in his still timely little book, Razing the Bastions: holiness "is always something more than the wisdom of the tradition, it is the presence of the Holy Spirit for us in today's age." Hence, we must learn, as Bl. John XXIII taught us, to discern the signs of the times. Turning to Balthasar again, it is important to note with regard to discernment- "As soon as holiness appears on the scene, anxiety and wrangling fall silent, even if the opposition (especially on the part of the tradition) does not."

UPDATE: There are three additional posts about the Corapi affair to which I would draw your attention dear reader:

- The Anchoress' SOLT and Corapi- UPDATED- wherein, among giving a good overview and fine perspective on this whole, sorry affair, she rightly takes the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (S.O.L.T) to task for doing the equivalent in religious life of handing a teenage boy whiskey, car keys, and a pornographic magazine

- Frank Weathers' You've Been Corapi Rolled. What Now?, where Frank applies the soothing balm of Rick Astley to the scratches inflicted by the so-called Black Sheepdog

- Mark Shea's Mercy and Forgiveness for Fr. Corapi and His Fans in which Mark debunks what he accurately calls Corapi's "Special Forces Hero persona" and states succinctly something that all of us in the Catholic blogging business know- "You learn a lot about yourself from total strangers on the Internet." Mark also has some wonderful words of reconciliation, not of the namby-pamby variety, but the real stuff, which means wrestling with some unpleasant truths. I especially commend him for taking on Michael Voris' shameful diatribe, Corapi and the Blogs. I have to publicly express something I came to see a few weeks ago and that this post proves, Mark Shea is without doubt one of the most courageous and charitable Catholics in the blogosphere.

-Courtesy, once again of the intrepid newsman, Deacon Greg Kandra, is the blog post of Bishop Gracida, the bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi, who granted the order to which Corapi belong(s?)(ed?) the status of an institute of diocesan right, weighs in via his own blog. I agree with "Daniel T", who posted the 8th comment on Deacon Greg's post to the effect that instead of publicly critiquing the current bishop of Corpus Christi, who effectively inherited this situation, and the leaders of S.O.L.T, Bishop Gracida would be better served by explaining his own actions.

UPDATE II: I also culled from Deacon Greg's useful post, Phil Lawler's very objective piece, Corapi: Why were warning signs ignored?

Lawler’s comparison of Corapi to Marcel Maciel Degollado, disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, reminded me of the account of the latter’s death at the end of Jason Berry’s two-part exposé that appeared in the National Catholic Reporter. Berry takes this account from the Madrid newspaper, El Mundo, admitting that it cannot be independently verified: “After the priests got Maciel to a Legion house in Jacksonville, Fla., he reportedly grew belligerent when [Father] Corcuero tried to anoint him, yelling, ‘I said no!’ The article says Maciel refused to make a final confession, and states flatly that he ‘did not believe in God's pardon.’

I pray that I may never read another such horrifying account of death as long as I live.

Constitutionally transcendent

Today we celebrate the 235th anniversary of that day when the United States, originally 13 British colonies, declared its independence from Great Britain. This post unapologetically builds on my post from one year ago, "When in the Course of human events...". In the powerful declaration, publicly proclaimed in Philadelphia, we read these important words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Furthermore, John Adams, who was perhaps the most influential Founding Father, writing to some officers of the Massachusetts militia in 1798, well after our Constitution was ratified, offered this- "we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams

Constitutionally, the United States is built on the assumption of a transcendent order. Many of our struggles today arise from a general loss, or at least diminishment, of our collective sense of transcendence. We are tempted to interpret Adams' words to mean religion as a form of social control, but to read them that way is to take them anachronistically. In his book, published last year by Catholic University Press, The Turn to Transcendence, Dr. Glenn Olsen wrote that Christianity, like Judaism before it, is cosmological, meaning that Christians "see human life both as dramatic, centered on a struggle to achieve a proper use of freedom, and as eschatological, receiving its orientation from beyond history" (208). Indeed, rather than as a form of social control, Adams, in his address, seems to also be concerned with the proper use of freedom. As St. Paul wrote in his Letter to the Galatians: "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another" (5:13- ESV).

Olsen goes on to note that is was Heidegger who "compared the meditative knowledge of medieval figures such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux, aimed at the transformation of our being in the light of destiny, with the calculative thinking of the modern world" (209). The calculative thinking of the modern world often holds that what counts as true knowledge must be empirically verifiable, despite the devastating critique of so-called verificationism by Wittgenstein, among others. Indeed, the calculative thinking of the modern world is instrumental insofar as it is "aimed acquiring tools of action" (209).

Calculative thinking, which is instrumental, Olsen goes on to note, quoting Adriaan Peperzak, is "'rationality without receptivity,' thinking without 'admiration, gratitude, and compassion, but rather ...[based on] celebration of human intelligence, possession, engineering, and mastery'" (209). He is quite correct to note that the movement from the transformation of being in light of our destiny to so-called calculative thinking leads to a loss of transcendence, the further obliteration of the question of Being that it was Heidegger's project to recover.

Being constitutionally transcendent is exactly what still makes the United States of America exceptional. Hence, losing that which constitutes us as a nation is a perennial temptation we must resist.

The second reading for the fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Beginning today and for the next five Sundays our New Testament reading for Mass is taken from the eighth chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans. I suppose the best way to describe today's reading, Romans 8:9,11-13, is that it tells us what it means to be truly "spiritual" (a word that is as overused as it is misused).

When reading passages from Paul's writings, like the one we encounter today, it is necessary to know a few terms so as not be mistaken about what is being communicated. Hence, there are four key Koine Greek words that are very useful to know: soma, the word Paul employs to simply refer to our physical bodies; sarx, by which Paul means the "natural" person, the instinctual, or animal part of us, given to impulse and self-gratification (i.e., "flesh"); psyche refers to "soul" by which Paul means the invisible animating principle or entity which occupies and directs the physical body (all animate creatures have a soul); pneuma, which is spirit and the word, as in today's passage, Paul uses to refer to the Holy Spirit, which animates our human soul, which, unlike the souls of other physical creatures, has a spiritual dimension that seeks the higher things and not just survival and/or physical gratification.

In verse eleven of our passage, when the apostle writes that "If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also," the word he uses for "bodies" is the plural of soma, somata. It is also interesting to note that the word translated as "mortal" is actually Greek for "dying": thaneta. So, literally, the verse says, "your dying bodies." The four times the apostle refers to our "flesh" he uses the appropriate form of the word sarx. In verse 13, Paul uses somatos to refer to "the body," the fleshly deeds of which we put to death by the power of the Spirit.

This is important because too often we use the word "flesh" as synonymous with body, which leads us to conclude that our bodies are bad, sinful, matter that needs to be cast-off. This, of course, is gnosticism plain and simple, something Christians have rejected and fought up to our very day.

The take-away line is the final line: "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." To put to death is to mortify. Take the virtue of chastity, for example, we all have sexual impulses, it is part and parcel of being human. Because being sexual is a necessary component of being human, it is not bad. On the contrary, it is good. The goodness of sex for human beings does not lie only in the physical pleasure that we derive from it, or even that we might seek to give. For the those in whom the Spirit of God dwells, its goodness lies in higher things, which do not exclude what we can truly call the lower things, but actually serve to enhance them. So, if we get into the habit of gratifying our impulses as often as we have them, or gratify them in order not to have them grip us so strongly, then we are living according to the flesh. The same can be written about eating, about sloth, about any of what we traditionally term "the seven deadly sins." Hence, we mortify our flesh and also positively practice the spiritual disciplines, like prayer, fasting, alms-giving, solitude, study, confession, et al.

As James Kushiner, who is an Orthodox Christian, put it- "A discipline won’t bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace." This succinctly captures why and how our conscious and active cooperation with God's grace is necessary. Grace builds on nature, which means that life in the Spirit does not skip over experience because experience, as the theme of the Communion and Liberation assembly of Responsibles in 2009 set forth- experience is the instrument for our human journey.

What does it mean to be spiritual, then? I think the skipped verse explains this well: "But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness" (Rom. 8:10). Jesus, in today's Gospel, invites us to verify this through our experience.

"Behold, I make all things new," even you

Each morning we should all pray for the grace of conversion because, as Fr. Carrón observed, "Each of us knows very well how often our heart is hardened, how much we are unwilling deep down to let ourselves be attracted by Him" (Whoever is in Christ is a New Creation 4). Carrón goes on to note that as we become more aware of our need for conversion (our need for Christ), which means becoming more and more aware "of our fragility and weakness," we need to pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace of conversion, which always means coming to grips with our sinfulness. As St. Paul noted at the very beginning of the Christian experience, "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Rom 8:26- ESV).

Indeed, "whoever is in Christ is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). Carrón avers those who are in Christ are new creations "because Christ is something that is happening to [them]" (Whoeveris in Christ is a New Creation 4). Carrón directs our gaze to the disciples following Easter by asking, "What prevailed in their hearts, in their eyes, in their self-awareness, if not His living presence?" (Whoever 4) Certainly, Christ's resurrected presence "overcame any doubt, any shadow: it imposed itself" upon them (4-5).

"Christ was something that was happening to them. He was not a doctrine, a list of things to do, a sentiment" (Whoever 5). The presence of the resurrected Christ "introduced a newness that made life finally life, filling it with an intensity they could not generate themselves" (5).

So, today, the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, recognizing that the Holy Spirit is Christ's resurrection presence among us and in us, creating us anew, generating an intensity we are incapable of generating ourselves, despite our many, often desperate attempts, let us pray, Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam (i.e., come Holy Spirit, come through Mary).