Christ's Healing Is the Real Thing: Gospel Commentary for 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23.

ROME, JAN. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Gospel passage for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time closes with these words: "Jesus went about all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and infirmity of the people."

About one-third of the Gospel is concerned with the healings performed by Jesus during the brief time of his public life. It is impossible to eliminate these miracles or try to give a natural explanation to them without pulling apart the whole Gospel and making it incomprehensible.The miracles of the Gospel have unmistakable characteristics. They are never done to stupefy or promote the one who does them. Some today allow themselves to be enchanted by certain people who possess powers of levitation, or who can make objects appear and disappear, or who can do other things of this sort. Who gains anything from these types of miracles, supposing that they are miracles? Only those who perform them; they recruit disciples or make money.

Jesus works miracles out of compassion, because he loves people. He also works miracles to help them believe. He heals, ultimately, to proclaim that God is the God of life and that, in the end, together with death, sickness too will be defeated and "there will be no more mourning nor weeping."

It is not only Jesus who heals, but he also orders his disciples to do the same after him: "He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the infirm" (Luke 9:2). "Preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick" (Matthew 10:7ff.). We always find the two things linked: preaching the Gospel and healing the sick.

Man has two ways to try to overcome his infirmities: nature and grace. Nature indicates intelligence, science, medicine, technology; grace indicates direct recourse to God, through faith and prayer and the sacraments. The latter are the means that the Church has at its disposal to "heal the sick."

Evil begins when we try to take a third route: the way of magic, that which appeals to a person's supposed hidden powers, which are not based on science nor on faith. In such a case, either we are dealing with a total charlatan and illusion or, what is worse, with the enemy of God.

It is not hard to determine when we are dealing with a true gift of healing and when it is a magical counterfeit. In the first case the person never attributes the results that are obtained to his own powers, but to God; in the second case people are doing nothing other than showing off their own pretended "extraordinary powers."

When you read advertisements that claim so-and-so the magician "succeeds where others fail," "solves all problems," "is recognized to have extraordinary powers," "expels demons, rids you of the evil eye," you need not have a moment's doubt: You are dealing with a fraud. Jesus said that demons are chased out by "fasting and prayer," not by giving people money!

But we must ask ourselves another question: What about those people who, despite everything, are not healed? What do you think? Do they not have faith? Does God not love them?

If the persistence of a disease were a sign that a person did not have faith, or that God does not love him, we would have to say that the saints had the least amount of faith and that they were the least loved by God, because some of them spent their whole lives in bed. No, the answer is different.

God's power is not manifested in just one way, say, in eliminating evil or in physical healings. God's power also manifests itself in giving the ability, and sometimes the joy, of carrying our own cross with Christ and in making up what is lacking in his sufferings.

Christ also redeemed suffering and death. It is no longer the sign of sin, participation in Adam's fault, but rather it is the instrument of redemption.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Wednesday Liturgy: Non-ordained "Presider"

ROME, JAN. 22, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: I was present at a Mass where a male, non-ordained religious was seated in the sanctuary amid a large group of priests who were concelebrating at a Mass celebrated by a bishop. The religious was the president of the school and was listed as "presiding." Is this in accord with liturgical norms? Can a religious or layperson ever be permitted to preside in the sanctuary at a Mass? -- W.F., New York

A: This is perhaps a demonstration of the ambiguity and limitations of the noun "presider" to refer to the celebrant or presiding concelebrant of a Mass.

Only an ordained minister can, strictly speaking, preside at any liturgical act. In the case at hand it was certainly the celebrating bishop who presided at the Mass.

While I have no more information on the role of the non-ordained religious than contained in the question, I would suppose that the Mass formed part of a series of liturgical and non-liturgical acts on an occasion such as a graduation or the inauguration of an academic year.

In such a case, reference to the religious as presiding probably referred to the totality of the acts. It would certainly be incorrect to refer to him as presiding at the Mass.

It is possible for laypersons to be seated in the sanctuary, usually when they have a specific ministry to fulfill, such as reader and server or in some cases when they receive a sacrament.

There are also some specific customs allowing for persons having some civil or non-ordained ecclesiastical dignity to be seated in the sanctuary area during Mass. This would appear to be the case regarding the president of the school.

The general tendency of the liturgical norms is to move away from such special protocols, but some are legitimately preserved out of long-standing custom.

In such cases the person should have a place that is distinct but clearly separate from that of the concelebrating priests and other lay ministers so as to avoid any confusion.

This kind of distinction honors a person's particular function rather than the individual as such. It does not, however, mutate or enhance the person's role as a member of a hierarchically constituted liturgical assembly.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Lectors and Altars

After our reply to a series of questions made by a Detroit reader (Jan. 8), I wish to clarify some misunderstandings, in part due to the brevity of the replies but perhaps also because I did not make myself sufficiently clear.

One reader suggested that when addressing the fact that there were no female lectors in the parish, my comments could give "the confusing impression that instituted readers are not laymen."

Our reader is of course correct in saying that all instituted ministers are laymen and not clergy, and my expression could have been clearer.

Our correspondent then continued: "The position that 'it is not correct to exclude women from reading,' but it is permitted to exclude them from being altar servers, is difficult to understand. The 2002 GIRM has: '107. The liturgical duties that are not proper to the priest or the deacon and are listed above (cf. nos. 100-106) may also be entrusted by a liturgical blessing or a temporary deputation to suitable lay persons chosen by the pastor or rector of the church. [Footnote 89: Cf. Pontifical Commission for interpreting legal texts, response to dubium regarding can. 230 � 2: AAS 86 (1994), p. 541.] All should observe the norms established by the Bishop for his diocese regarding the office of those who serve the priest at the altar.'

"If the pastor chooses 20 men to do the readings, I do not see any violation of a liturgical law. Those men have the possibility of receiving the ministry of instituted reader. But if a bishop establishes a norm, for example, to have female altar servers at Saturday night Mass (in the absence of instituted acolytes), the General Instruction of the Roman Missal directs the pastor to follow that norm."

Here I must beg to differ from our reader regarding the interpretation of liturgical law. He is correct in saying that if a parish were to elect only men as readers it would not, strictly speaking, be violating liturgical law as there is no obligation to choose women.

The point I attempted to make, however, is that the parish's exclusion of women as non-instituted readers is not grounded in law or in pastoral practice.

While it might be harder to understand the possibility of excluding women at the altar, the law does permit this for several pastoral reasons, although most North American parishes now have both male and female servers.

The example given by our reader of the bishop establishing a norm that women serve at a particular Mass does not hold up because establishing such a norm would exceed the bishop's authority regarding this issue.

The aforementioned interpretation of Canon 230.2 established in principle the possibility of women serving at the altar, but the proper organism for determining the practical application of this possibility is the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. A 2001 letter issued by this Congregation (Notitiae - Vol 37, pp. 397-399) clearly determined that the bishop may permit the use of female altar servers but may not oblige pastors to use them.

Finally our reader argued: "The Ceremonial of Bishops has in n. 31 '... Whenever necessary, the reader should see to the preparation of any members of the faithful who may be appointed to proclaim the readings from Sacred Scripture in liturgical celebrations. But in celebrations presided over by the bishop it is fitting that readers formally instituted proclaim the readings and, if several readers are present, they should divide the readings accordingly.' The footnote to this is the Motu Proprio Ministeria Quaedam, 1981 Lectionary for Mass, nn. 51-55 and General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 259. Surely this means it is not fitting to use non-instituted readers at Mass with a bishop presiding. It therefore follows that it is not fitting to have women readers at a Mass with a bishop presiding. Perhaps more can be done to encourage bishops to do what a liturgical book describes as fitting, having instituted readers proclaim the readings at their Mass."

Although I broadly agree with our reader's aim in making this point, I believe that I must differ in the details. When the liturgical books say that something is "fitting," it usually has the sense of optimal, or most conforming to the genuine liturgical spirit.

It does not automatically mean, however, that a different action is necessarily unfitting. There are cases when it is pastorally advisable to act differently, for example, in some cases it may be better to have a relative of the deceased read when a bishop celebrates a funeral Mass.

Another reader dealt with a different point: "Regarding the celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass facing east, you stated: '... Mass said with priest facing east at original high altar (free-standing Novus Ordo altar remains in middle of sanctuary but not used).

"'While the rubrics of Paul VI's missal foresee the possibility of celebrating Mass facing east, (for example GIRM Nos. 132, 133), they do ask that there be only one main altar and that insofar as possible the altar should be free-standing so that it can be incensed all around. The priest could still celebrate facing east, but it would be more correct to celebrate the present Roman rite using the new altar and not the old high altar....'

"You don't deny the possibility of celebrating Mass facing east, but you say it's more correct to celebrate on a free-standing altar facing the congregation. Why is it "more correct"?

I obviously failed to make myself clear. I did not say that it was better to celebrate facing the people (an entirely different issue), but that, if the church has both a new, permanent free-standing altar and an old high altar, then, even if the priest celebrates the Paul VI Mass facing east, (that is, turned toward the apse) it is more appropriate to celebrate Mass using the new free-standing altar than the old altar.

The reasoning behind this is that present liturgical norms call for only one altar in a church and that this altar should preferably be free-standing and not attached to the wall. Such an altar usually permits Mass to be celebrated in both directions.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Accommodating the Deaf

After our piece on deaf vocations (Jan. 1), a reader from South Korea wrote: "Your correspondent with the question about deaf people and religious life/priesthood may be interested to know that in the USA there is a Dominican Congregation for men who are deaf and I know in at least one South Korean diocese where deaf men have been ordained priests."

I am very happy to be able to transmit this information. In fact, at least a dozen deaf men have been ordained in the United States over the last few years and there are several currently studying in seminaries.

If one googles "deaf priests" on the Internet, one can glean valuable information regarding both the reality of deaf priests and the wide range of ministerial possibilities open to them.

Wednesday Liturgy: When There's a Medical Emergency

ROME, JAN. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: During a weekday Mass a parishioner collapsed during the Prayers of the Faithful. Someone with a cell phone called for assistance from a local hospital. The emergency team arrived, brought in a gurney, questioned the stricken man, took his blood pressure, managed to get him onto the gurney, and wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance. Meanwhile, the presider kept on with the Mass, right through the consecration and Communion, while all of this was going on just a few feet away from the altar. While visiting another church some years ago, I witnessed a different reaction to an apparent medical emergency. During Sunday Mass the presider noticed that a woman was visibly becoming faint; he left the altar and caught her before she fell, then took her to the back of the church and left her in the hands of the ushers, who presumably hadn't been in a position to notice the emergency as it was developing. Then he resumed the Mass. This seemed a lot more caring and communal than simplyignoring an obvious medical emergency. Is there some statement somewhere to the effect that nothing but nothing should interrupt the Mass? -- C.A., Urbana, Illinois

A: There is no overall rule, other than common sense and pastoral tact, to respond to such emergencies.

While the Mass should not generally be interrupted, circumstances such as those described could lead to a temporary interruption with no disrespect shown.

It would also depend on the particular moment during which the medical emergency occurred. For example, it is easier for a priest to notice a fainting parishioner during the readings then during the Eucharistic Prayer when many priests avoid looking toward the assembly.

My own reaction in this case would probably have been to interrupt the Mass at least while the emergency team was doing its work. This is, in part, because such situations polarize everybody's attention and nobody would follow the Mass anyway. Also, if the parishioner was in danger of death and no other priest was available, then it would be necessary to leave the altar and administer the sacraments.

That said, I do not wish to censure the priest in the first case as I am unaware of all the circumstances that led him to decide that the most appropriate course was to continue the Mass. The priest in the second example reacted with commendable attentiveness and sensitivity to a particular situation, but different circumstances might lead to different reactions.

A particular case is when the subject of the medical emergency is the priest himself. If a priest is unable to continue celebrating a Mass due to a sudden illness, then another priest may continue the Mass from the interruption point. This includes the case in which a priest only managed to consecrate the species of bread; the replacement priest continues the Mass from the consecration of the chalice.

Marriage and Celibacy: Love's Link: Interview With Author Father José Manglano

By Miriam Díez i Bosch

MADRID, Spain, JAN. 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Father José Pedro Manglano says history has shown that when marriages are in crisis, the vocation to celibacy also has problems.

The priest speaks of the link between matrimony and celibacy in his new book, "El Amor y Otras Idioteces: Guía Práctica Para No Perder a Quien Tú Quieres" (Love and Other Foolishness: A Practical Guide to Avoid Losing Your Beloved).

In this interview with ZENIT, Father Manglano explains what true love is, and how it can become eternal.

Q: A priest speaking about "love and other foolishness" -- this attracts attention ...

Father Manglano: How funny that you start there! That's what everyone asks me ...

Q: But I insist, it isn't common ...

Father Manglano: Quite true. It's obvious that it's something that attracts attention. But, why is it the first question that comes to mind? Perhaps what is being asked could be rephrased: What can a celibate have to say about love? As if it is taken for granted that one who opts to be celibate makes himself a stranger to the question of love.

It seems to me that this seemingly unimportant fact points to a situation clearly spelled out in Benedict XVI's "The Salt of the Earth": History shows that in the eras in which marriages are in crisis, celibacy is as well.

Q: Why does a celibacy crisis come along with a marriage crisis?

Father Manglano: Celibacy and matrimony, just as the Church suggests, are the two sublime ways of attaining a life in love. There are other forms of loving lives, yes, but no other sublime forms.

Today we are experiencing a certain crisis in marriage, and we are living a certain crisis in the meaning of celibacy. It is not understood that the celibate could be a lover and can know about love. Nevertheless, his life is a loving exercise directed toward the man Christ, and to all men and women, near or far away.

And not only that: The celibate Christian has an experience of God who is Love, and from him, he receives wisdom. If that doesn't seem true, ask St. John of the Cross, whose canticle is a paradigm of any loving relationship.

Q: But your book speaks of the love between boy/girlfriend and spouses.

Father Manglano: The book is about the love of a couple, not of the celibate. But the love of a couple is love, and the nature of love, its stages, its crises and its sentiments ... they have a lot in common.

And to avoid being abstract, I begin each theme with tremendous cases from contemporary literature, in order to analyze the ideas that underlie the various approaches to love that we see in our culture.

Q: Is marriage a burden that makes happiness difficult, as some people say? Or is it the wings to reach this utopia, as you say, and I could personally attest?

Father Manglano: For someone who understands marriage as a making official of a subjective relationship by which I associate myself with someone else, there is no doubt that getting married means taking on a burden. Marriage, in this case, limits my possibilities and doesn't help anything.

However, for one who understands matrimony as the creation of a link that transforms me, marrying presupposes an act of liberty that brings about an "us," an aid for accomplishing the free surrender of the me transformed by this union.

Q: Then, what is the true meaning of love?

Father Manglano: Love is the work of our liberty: not biology, but rather, freedom.

Involuntary attraction -- "there's chemistry," we say -- is transformed by liberty into voluntary union. Love means free union that began with the experience of attraction. Yes. Love is liberty, fulfillment of the person, the overcoming of solitude.

Q: In Christianity, it is said love is to give one's life for one's enemies. Is this possible?

Father Manglano: It demands a purification of the heart that is not easy. Christ can ask it of us because he gives us this [purification].

It is possible only in one who is transformed by the action of the Spirit. This behavior is given us, and then, and only then, can it be demanded.

Q: [There is a phrase in Spanish that says,] "He who truly loves you will make you cry. He who doesn't truly love you will make you float." Is love demanding, by definition?

Father Manglano: Perhaps our culture has a superficial outlook on marriage. It looks at the starting and ending points, but easily loses sight of all of the steps that need to be taken so as to complete this trajectory. Some steps come accompanied by pleasure and good luck. Others bathed in sweat; sometimes they suffocate laughter and other steps are made gasping for air ...

To love is to bring about a formidable union that is not without cost: It's about the exodus that carries one from eros to agape.

But love is also demanding with the other. It is not about making the other cry because of whims, but rather because of demanding his or her growth. It is not about making things difficult for the other, but about not fleeing from those difficulties that arise: He or she is presented with reality, and he or she is helped.

If one doesn't like being with certain people, or if he or she prefers to be with me to get out of work, or if he or she tends to jealousy and control ... these are situations in which he or she needs me to be able to confront them. Giving him or her my lenient compassion is not what's best.

He loves badly, who, instead of being there while the other touches ground, helps her to live floating above reality, without confronting things.

Q: Why have we gone from believing in an "eternal love" to practicing an "ephemeral love"?

Father Manglano: Starting with Spinoza, philosophy has proposed a subjective love: Love will be a passion that awakens my happiness because of my relationship with a person with whom there is chemistry, as we tend to say.

Love will come as a sensation that I find in myself. Then, what I love when I say that I love is nothing distinct from myself. In that way, things, love lasts only as long as the sensation lasts. The moment the sensation disappears, or I wake up as a different person, that first love will have died, and on and on. Love understood in this way is necessarily ephemeral.

Nevertheless, other philosophies understand love as something objective: It is the free exercise of loving another person, of uniting myself to him or her.

The "you" is not an opportunity to feel like I'm in love, but rather the "you" is the motive for which I come out of myself to base myself on another vital center, which is the person of the beloved.

Love is "in relation to": I come out of myself and go toward the one who gives to me. Then yes, it is possible to accomplish an eternal love, that is, after all, what all of us would like. As I have heard on repeated occasions from those who have several experiences of marriage: "The ideal would be that it last forever, but ... it's not easy. I'd like that, though."

He Has Anointed Me: Gospel Commentary for the Baptism of the Lord

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17.

ROME, JAN. 11, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Jesus himself gives an explanation of what happens to him in the baptism in the Jordan. Returned from the Jordan, in the synagogue at Nazareth he applies to himself the words of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me ..." Peter uses the term "anointed" in the second reading, speaking about Jesus' baptism. He says: "God has anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power."

What we have here is a fundamental concept of the Christian faith. The name "Messiah" in Hebrew and "Christos" in Greek mean "anointed." We ourselves, the ancient Fathers said, call ourselves Christians because we are anointed in imitation of Christ, the Anointed par excellence. In our language, the word "anointed" has many meanings and not all of them are positive. In antiquity, annointing was an important element in life. Athletes were anointed with oil so that they could be quick and agile in races and men and women were anointed with perfumed oil so that their faces were beautiful and resplendent. Today, for the same purposes, there is an infinity of products available and many of them are derived from various types of oils.

In Israel the rite had a religious significance. The kings, the priests and the prophets were anointed with perfumed oil and this was the sign that they were consecrated for divine service. In Christ all of these symbolic anointings become reality. In the baptism in the Jordan he is consecrated king, prophet and eternal priest by God the Father. This did not happen through the use of material oil but through spiritual oil, that is, through the Holy Spirit, "the oil of joy," as a Psalm says. This explains why the Church highlights so much the annointing with sacred chrism. There is a rite of annointing in baptism, in confirmation, in the ordination of priests and there is the annointing of the sick (which was once called "extreme unction"). An annointing is administered in these rites because through them we participate in the annointing of Christ, that is, the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We literally become "Christians," that is, anointed, consecrated, and people who are called, as Paul says, "to spread the sweet perfume of Christ in the world."

Let us try to see what all of this says to us men of today. Today so-called aromatherapy is very much in fashion. It uses essential oils that emit a perfume to maintain health and as therapy for certain disturbances. The Internet is full of advertising about aromatherapy. There are perfumes for physical maladies, like stress; there are also "perfumes for the soul"; one of these is supposed to help us achieve "interior peace."

It is not my place to make a judgment about this alternative medicine. However, I see that physicians discourage this practice, which is not scientifically confirmed and which in fact, in some cases, provokes counterindications. But what I would like to say is that there is a sure, infallible aromatherapy that does not provoke counterindications: that one made up of a special aroma, the perfumed ointment that is the Holy Spirit!

This aromatherapy of the Holy Spirit heals all the ills of the soul and sometimes, if God wills it, the ills of the body too. There is an African-American spiritual in which the following words are continually repeated: "There is a balm in Gilead / to make the wounded whole." (In the Old Testament Gilead was a place famous for its perfumed ointments. Cf. Jeremiah 8:22.) The song continues: "Sometimes I feel discouraged / and think my work's in vain / but then the Holy Spirit / revives my soul again." For us, Gilead is the Church and the balm that heals is the Holy Spirit. He is the scent that Jesus has left behind, passing through this world.

The Holy Spirit is a specialist in the illnesses of marriage. Marriage consists in giving oneself to another; it is the sacrament of making of oneself a gift. Now, the Holy Spirit is the gift made person; he is the giving of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father. Where he comes there is renewed the capacity to make a gift of oneself and with this the joy and the beauty of living together.

The philosopher Heidegger made an alarmed judgment about the future of human society: "Only a god can save us," he said. I say that this God who can save us exists; it is the Holy Spirit. Our society has need of massive doses of the Holy Spirit.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Article: Watch One Hour With Me

FR. BRIAN MULLADY, OP, STD

A holy hour is spending time with God. Just as communication in marriage means listening, so the holy hour means listening; only in this case it means listening to God.

Why a holy hour?

"Could you not watch one hour with me?" (MT. 26:40) The Lord speaks to the disciples when they are overcome by sleep while he is wrestling with the passion which he must undergo. Are you often like them? Do you often seem to be asleep spiritually in all the tensions and frustrations of daily life? Do you try to find your remedies in drugs, alcohol, having the perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect life, the perfect children? Do you always have to be right, beautiful, intelligent and successful, and hate every minute of it? This is because you are blocking the love God has for you.

You are created to be so completely in love with God that each moment of every day has divine meaning. You are created to know yourself, the world, and others from the divine point of view. Christ is pouring out his love for you much as he did when he wrestled with the passion in the garden, and yet you are so preoccupied with other things that you do not notice.

The only remedy for this spiritual torpor is prayer. This is not just vocal prayer, although vocal prayer is important. But the prayer which alone can heal must involve a communion of hearts of a regular basis, just as a good marriage must involve more than just words. A good marriage must also involve a communion of hearts on a regular basis. If the spouses never speak alone, the communication suffers.

One time-honored practice of spiritual communication is the holy hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The origin of the holy hour is the question Christ asked his disciples in the Garden: "Could you not watch one hour with me?" If you are in the midst of spiritual torpor or just wish to grow in the spiritual life, you must spend time with God.

What is a holy hour?

A holy hour is spending time with God. Just as communication in marriage means listening, so the holy hour means listening; only in this case it means listening to God. Just as you must spend time with our spouse just pursuing the personal relationship of husband and wife, so you must spend time with God. The holy hour places one in the presence of God to do just that.

Why should it be done in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament?

A holy hour can be done anywhere that you can bring your own self before the presence of God. There are several reasons for recommending that this be done in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The first is that this is an extension of the Eucharist in which Christ gives himself as our Living Bread for our spiritual life. The second is because it is normally a place without distractions. The third is that in Holy Communion your soul is permeated with God like wax melted into wax. There can be no deeper presence of God here on earth than the one brought to us in transubstantiation. This is why it called the "Real Presence."

What do I do during a holy Hour?

A holy hour is not a project to be accomplished but an exercise of love. You can read a spiritual book, say the Rosary, perform some act of piety which means something in your life, or you can just DO nothing. Just rest with the Lord. The important thing is to realize that you need time — apart from the liturgical prayer of the Mass and even obligatory prayers like the Liturgy of the Hours for priests — where you experience God's personal care for you alone.

Many people think there is a plaster of Paris image to which they need to conform and they try to look like the statues they see in the church. They do not want to talk about negative or hurtful things in God's presence because they think that this is unfitting. You cannot be like that. You must bring the REAL YOU before God. This means yourself with all the hurts, the warts and the strengths. You must ask God to heal you of your faults and help you to use your strength for his goodness.

How can I pray?

Normally, the classic method of experiencing the loving God and his providence for you takes four forms. The first is the recalling of some mystery of grace, which can either be found in Scripture, in the lives of the saints, or in a spiritual or theological book. This is reading (lectio). Once you place some mystery of grace before the eyes of your heart, then you apply it to your own life in some trouble or weakness, then you apply this mystery to some gift of God's goodness you have received either in yourself, from another, or from him. This is meditation (meditatio). You yourself respond to this desire for healing or knowledge of gifts received by a sighing of the heart, which may or may not be put into words. This is prayer (oratio). Finally, you rest in the goodness of God with the knowledge that God loves you so much to aid you in healing or shower you with his blessings. This is contemplation (contemplatio).

"O God, you are my God; for you I long, for you my soul is thirsting; my body pines for you like a dry weary land without water. So I will gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. My soul shall be filled as with a banquet." (Psalm 63)

St. John Vianney is reputed to have asked a man who sat quietly for hours before the tabernacle what he was doing. The man replied, "I do not know. I look at him and he looks at me, and we are happy together."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Fr. Brian Mullady, OP, STD. "Watch One Hour With Me." New Hope Publications.

Reprinted with permission of New Hope Publications, New Hope: KY and Fr. Brian Mullady, OP.

If you enjoyed this text, a brochure of it is available through New Hope Publications.

THE AUTHOR

Fr. Brian Thomas Becket Mullady entered the Dominican Order in 1966 and was ordained in Oakland, California in 1972. He has been a parish priest, high school teacher, retreat master, mission preacher and university professor. He received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STD) from the Angelicum University in Rome, Italy and was professor there for six years. He has taught at several colleges and seminaries in the United States. He is an academician of the Catholic Academy of Science. Until recently he was a Professor of Theology at Campion College in San Francisco. He is now an itinerant preacher of missions and retreats. He has had four series on Mother Angelica's EWTN television network. He is the author of Light of the Nations and numerous articles.

Copyright © 2007 New Hope Publications

Article: Their disbelief is my strength

MICHAEL COREN

I suppose it’s the greatest joke of all. Deliciously ironic as well. My Christian faith has been profoundly encouraged by those most eager to smother it.

Put simply, I was helped along the road from indifference to belief by the banality of atheism. Since reaching the age of reason, I’ve had the usual old regulars thrown at me. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why doesn’t He make Himself more obvious? Why is evil committed in the name of religion? Throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades and some lies about Papal culpability during the Holocaust and you have the standard God-hating manifesto.

The more I dealt with all this, the more I realized that the very belief being attacked was absolutely and abundantly true. More than this, the reason it was under attack in the first place was precisely because it was true.

The tiniest seeds of my Christianity were planted, I think, much earlier and by an Oxford professor who happened to be one of the finest children’s writers of all time. I was six-years-old when C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was read to be me by Miss Power — I assume I was also in love with her, and yes my wife does know — at Redbridge School in Essex, England.

Part of Lewis’s gift is that he strokes rather than grabs. As a child from a working-class, secular, part Jewish family, I had no idea then that Lewis was writing about Christ. Leave the beauty and the story to stew for a few years, expose the child to the natural-law certainties given by God that permeate the human condition and then send him out into a series of great universities where atheism is as predicable as self-indulgent moans about tuition fees. To quote the philosopher Pat Benatar: “hit me with your best shot.” So they did.

If God were good, He would make Himself obvious. Not really. God makes himself just sufficiently evident to allow us freedom. If He were easy to find, we’d all believe and thus have no real choice. If He were almost impossible to find, it would be cruel and unfair. He chooses the middle path. He’s there if we seek to look, but not so if we don’t care. He’s the great lover, not the satanic rapist. He desperately wants us to love Him and return to Him, but we have to make that decision ourselves.

Yes, but even people who believe in Him often suffer. And look at all the pain in the world.

Bad things happen to good people because, well, bad things happen to good people. The teachings of Christ do not guarantee a good life but a perfect eternity. These 70 or 80 years on Earth are merely time spent in the land of shadows and, anyway, human suffering is more an indictment of humans than of God. Also, if life has no ultimate meaning and people are often absolute swine, why does any of this matter in the first place?

But Christians are sometimes hypocrites and awful things have been done in the name of Christianity.

Yes, yes, yes! Christians can occasionally not live up to the teachings of Christ. Whoopee. People failing as Christians is not the same as Christianity being untrue, any more than people voting for a poor government is the same as democracy being a failure.

It was popular among rationalist thinkers in the late 19th century to assume that advances in textual analysis, archaeological discovery and scientific breakthrough would disprove the Bible. Not quite. Virtually every time we find out something new in these fields it supports rather than challenges Scripture.

As for crimes in the name of Christ — of course. Crimes in the name of atheism, freedom, love, Canada, everything. It’s human nature. Which is precisely why the supernatural is so important. In fact, Christ Himself tells us that His name will be exploited.

You’re weak, God is a crutch invented by scared and threatened people and the more we know the less we believe.

Could be. Sure, God could be an invention. Then again, absence of God could be an invention — by scared and threatened people who are too weak to follow His laws and are terrified of judgement. Be careful with the notion that knowledge means wisdom. 1930s Germany was one of the most educated and sophisticated cultures in human history. There are twits who do not believe, geniuses who do, and vice versa. It signifies nothing. It was popular among rationalist thinkers in the late 19th century to assume that advances in textual analysis, archaeological discovery and scientific breakthrough would disprove the Bible. Not quite. Virtually every time we find out something new in these fields it supports rather than challenges Scripture.

What became apparent to me was that the opposition to faith was as unappealing and bland as faith was appealing and thrilling. I read, prayed and thought myself into faith more than 20 years ago. It was gradual but inevitable. Miracles occurred but they need not have. I do not need a miracle to remind me that water quenches my thirst. Christ was there in my life, with me and in me and around me. Atheists showed me the way. God bless the little devils.

Then, just recently, the tarnished old arguments from the flimsy and trendy were re-published in new editions by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and we were all supposed to run away and hide. So I read them. Then began to laugh. It’s the emperor and his new clothes. Naked, quite naked.

Nothing new here. Nothing clever or challenging, either.

Busting with errors, hysterical, clumsy, nasty and obviously incredibly frightened. Suddenly, I realize what’s going on. It’s that God again, helping to strengthen my faith. “The best they can do,” He’s saying, “is blast you with the same old nonsense they threw at you when you first thought of coming my way.”

Clever old God. Must remember to thank Him next time on my knees. Thanks for the non-believers, the God-haters, the atheists and all of their kind. Yes, the greatest joke of all.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Michael Coren, "Their disbelief is my strength." National Post, (Canada) December 24, 2007.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post.

THE AUTHOR

Michael Coren (born January 1959 in Essex, England) is a Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He is the host of the television series The Michael Coren Show. His articles and speeches often include stories of his own personal spiritual journey. Coren is half Jewish through his father.

He converted to Evangelical Christianity after a conversion experience as an adult, greatly influenced by Canadian televangelist Terry Winter. In early 2004, he embraced Catholicism. He cites St. Thomas More, C.S. Lewis, Ronald Knox and his God-father Lord Longford as spiritual influences, but remains connected to the ecumenical scene in Canada and beyond. He is the author of twelve books, including Mere Christian: Stories from the Light, Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis: The Man Who Created Narnia, J.R.R Tolkien: the Man Who Created 'the Lord of the Rings'. He is published in many countries and in more than a dozen languages. He is currently writing a book entitled Socon, A Handbook for Moral Conservatives. Michael Coren is available as a public speaker. Visit his web site here.

Copyright © 2007 National Post

Article: Lowering the cost increases demand

FATHER RAYMOND DE SOUZA

In the fourth-year economics seminar I teach at Queen’s University, we cover a range of topics, from globalized trade to the nature of rationality. But one topic seems to attract more interest from the students than others — economics and marriage.

Perhaps it is because the senior students are at an age when they are beginning to think about marriage and family questions themselves, or perhaps because it is a topic in which the realworld applications are easy to see.

For example, applying economic principles to divorce law, one would expect that the lower the exit costs from marriage (no-fault divorce, for example), the lower the “entrance requirement” would be (commitment to the marriage). Therefore, if the law makes it easier to get out, it also makes it correspondingly less important to consider the decision to get in. No great surprise there, as it is a basic economic axiom that if you lower the price of something (divorce) there will be an increase in the demand for it.

It is another set of figures, though, that spark the more intense discussion. For about 10 years now there have been many studies, both in Canada and the United States, which show a link between cohabitation before marriage with greater marital instability. That is, couples who live together before they marry are more likely to divorce than couples who do not. This year our seminar had the benefit of the latest Statistics Canada from the 2006 census, which reported again the same phenomenon.

Some students find this counter-intuitive. Their intuition is that if a couple were to live together first, they would learn more about each other, see each other with both strengths and weaknesses, and therefore be able to make a better decision about marriage. It is like a trial period for a new product, or a probationary period in a new job — a chance for the parties to see if it is a good match, with a less costly way to break off the agreement if it is not.

So why do the data show the opposite? Perhaps there might be a “selection” issue, namely that cohabiting couples are less committed to marriage initially than non-cohabiting couples. In that case, when cohabiting couples eventually get around to marrying, their lower level of commitment leads to a higher rate of divorce.

Cohabitation is bad preparation for lasting marriages because it confuses what marriage is about. It mistakes the fruits of marriage — delight in each other, a shared project in life, the joy of children — with what constitutes the essence of marriage itself.

There could be another explanation though, which is that the decision to marry is not really like getting a new product or starting a new job, where functionality and compatibility are key factors. If marriage is something different, then the preparation too should be something different.

What helps marriages to endure is not the compatibility of the spouses or the delight they take in each other. After all, over time people do change, circumstances are different and the pressures of life are brought to bear. Not all age equally gracefully. What enables marriages to endure, and thrive, is the commitment of the spouses to the marriage itself. Most married couples will tell you, quite unsurprisingly, that they could never have imagined beforehand the circumstances that they have faced over the years of the marriage. Keeping one’s promises and a willingness to sacrifice for the other are the foundations of marital and family stability.

The question then arises: Is cohabitation good preparation for keeping one’s promises and learning to sacrifice? Perhaps not. What distinguishes cohabitation from marriage is precisely the absence of the formal promise or solemn commitment. And it is more difficult to make significant sacrifices for the other if there is less confidence in the permanence of the arrangement.

Cohabitation is bad preparation for lasting marriages because it confuses what marriage is about. It mistakes the fruits of marriage — delight in each other, a shared project in life, the joy of children — with what constitutes the essence of marriage itself. The fruits, to mix the metaphor, are the result of the foundation — which is built by duty, commitment, sacrifice, loyalty, perseverance and fidelity. What is needed is not so much a trial period of preparation, but training in those virtues. It turns out, both intuitively and according to the data, that cohabitation is not good preparation for that.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Father Raymond J. de Souza, "Lowering the cost increases demand." National Post, (Canada) December 10, 2007.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post and Fr. de Souza.

THE AUTHOR

Father Raymond J. de Souza is chaplain to Newman House, the Roman Catholic mission at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Father de Souza's web site is here. Father de Souza is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2007 National Post

Article: The Currency of Faith

JOHN ANDREW MURRAY

How one man put God into circulation.

Fifty years ago, the phrase "In God We Trust" first appeared on our nation's one-dollar bill. But long before the motto was signed into law by President Eisenhower, it was considered for U.S. coins during the divisive years of the Civil War.

On Nov. 13, 1861, in the first months of the war, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase received the following letter from a Rev. M.R. Watkinson: "Dear Sir, One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins. You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were now shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation?"

The clergyman surmised correctly. Chase was indeed a Christian.

As a young man at Dartmouth College, Chase had described himself as skeptical of the Christian faith. He had written to a friend, Tom Sparhawk, in 1826: "A [religious] revival has commenced here [at Dartmouth]. I was not taught to believe much in the efficacy of such things but I do not know enough concerning their effects to oppose them." Not only did Chase tolerate Dartmouth's revival of 1826, but he emerged as one of 12 new followers of Christ. As Chase wrote to another acquaintance in April of that year, "It has pleased God in his infinite mercy to bring me . . . to the foot of the cross and to find acceptance through the blood of His dear Son."

While the thought of a revival at an Ivy League school seems odd today, they were relatively commonplace back then. Like his contemporaries, Dartmouth President Bennet Tyler believed in the importance of integrating faith, virtue and knowledge: "As the obligations of morality are founded in religion, so also the only efficacious motives to a virtuous life are derived from the same source. The man who discards all religious belief . . . knows no law but his own inclination, and has no end in view but present gratification." As Chase would write to Sparhawk one year later: "Remember too that the religion of the Bible is the religion I would recommend . . . and I would wish you to make that book your counselor and your guide never forgetting to implore the teachings of the Holy Spirit of Truth."

Chase wrote the following to the director of the Mint in Philadelphia: "Dear Sir, No nation can be strong except in the strength of God or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."

Chase's relationship and trust in God would put him on a path that would affect both him and the country in the years to come. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Chase became a lawyer. Believing slavery to be a sin, he defended many escaped slaves in his early years of practice in Cincinnati. He tried to argue, for instance, against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 on the grounds that Ohio was admitted to the Union as a free state and not allowed to have slaves based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Chase eventually gained the nickname "attorney general for runaway Negroes." He embraced the title (which was intended to be an insult) and went on to fight the institution of slavery while serving first as a U.S. senator and then as the governor of Ohio.

When then-Secretary Chase was chosen by President Lincoln to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1864, he appointed the first black lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. And in an 1865 letter to black Americans in New Orleans, Chase encouraged "the constant practice of Christian virtues" to combat "unjust hostility" and "prejudice."

Given the association of his name with Chase Manhattan, however, Salmon P. Chase is largely remembered for his role as secretary of the Treasury from 1861 to 1864. Seven days after reading the 1861 letter from the Pennsylvania pastor, Chase wrote the following to the director of the Mint in Philadelphia: "Dear Sir, No nation can be strong except in the strength of God or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."

It was several years in the making, but on March 3, 1865, Congress passed a bill calling for "In God We Trust" to be inscribed on U.S. coins. It would be one of the last acts President Lincoln signed into law.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

John Andrew Murray. "The Currency of Faith." The Wall Street Journal (November 30, 2007).

Reprinted by permission of the Wall Street Journal and the author, John Andrew Murray.

THE AUTHOR

John Andrew Murray holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and an M.A.L.S. from Dartmouth College. He has been in the education world for 15 years, serving in the Headmaster role for the last seven. While at Dartmouth, Murray wrote his master’s thesis on the history of American higher education from 1636 to 1933. Entitled The Cross in the Ivy, his work explored the Christian history of the Eastern and Ivy League colleges and how they became secularized. Murray is also the writer and director of the award-winning film Think About It: Understanding the Impact of TV/Movie Violence. It comes with a faith-based/public school discussion guide which allows teachers to tailor their presentation to their respective audiences.

Copyright © 2007 Wall Street Journal

Article: The Decline of Laughter

ROGER SCRUTON

Laughter is not only a joy and a balm, it is the principal way we have of accepting the failings of our fellows.

Reason shows itself in all our attempts to understand the world and in all our ways of relating to each other. It is displayed in our choices, and also in our involuntary reactions. Only a rational being can weep or blush, even though weeping and blushing lie outside the reach of the will. And only a rational being can laugh. Hyenas make a noise like laughter, but it is not a sign of amusement, nor does it have the social function that laughter has — which is to make light of our differences and to rejoice in what we share. Laughter is not only a joy and a balm, it is the principal way we have of accepting the failings of our fellows. And laughter, though confined to rational beings, must be spontaneous if it is to be real. Willed laughter is a kind of sneer; spontaneous laughter is an acceptance of the thing that provokes it, even when, by laughing at something, you cut it down to size.

A society that does not laugh is one without an important safety valve, and a society in which people interpret crude humor not as the first step toward friendly relations, but as a mortal offense, is one in which ordinary life has become fraught with danger. Human beings who live in communities of strangers are greatly in need of laughter, if their differences are not to lead to civil war. This was one of the functions of the ethnic joke. When Poles, Irish, Jews, and Italians competed for territory in the New World to which they had escaped, they provisioned themselves with a store of ethnic jokes with which to laugh off their manifest differences.

Ethnic humor has been studied in depth by the British sociologist Christie Davies, and his findings — in The Mirth of Nations — are a salutary reminder of the ease with which spontaneous social solutions can be confiscated by the po-faced censors who seek to govern us. The jokes and teases that Christie assembles are gestures of conciliation, in which difference is made harmless and set laughingly aside. Yet everywhere in the modern world a kind of puritanical vigilance is extinguishing the ethnic joke, condemning it as an offense against our common humanity. What was traditionally regarded as a way to prevent social conflict is now seen as a major cause of it: The ethnic joke is accused of "stereotyping," and so tainted with the indelible stain of racism.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the literature of feminism is devoid of humor — and advisedly so, for if it ever were to employ this resource it would die laughing at itself.

Even more sinful than the ethnic joke in the eyes of our moral guardians is the old comedy of the sexes. Despite all the ingenious labor of the feminists, ordinary people notice the very real differences between the sexes, and the very great need to accommodate those differences and to defuse the conflicts to which they might give rise. Humor has been the traditional recourse of humanity in this predicament, as men jokingly defer to their "better half," and women submit to the edicts of "his nibs." But who now would risk making a joke about sexual relations or the female temperament in a faculty lounge? You might think that the censorship goes only one way: After all, savage denunciations of men, and whole disciplines of pseudo-scholarship devoted to repeating them, are familiar features of academic life in America. But try making a joke of the masculine defects, and you will be in just the same trouble as if you had made a joke about the weaknesses of women. For the feminist the failings of men are no laughing matter. Not surprisingly, therefore, the literature of feminism is devoid of humor — and advisedly so, for if it ever were to employ this resource it would die laughing at itself.

There are many joke-free zones in our religious literature. The Old Testament is full of them — think of that appalling Book of Joshua — and the Koran is as rigidly humorless as any document that has survived the efforts of humanity to laugh it off. But this points to another area in which humor has become dangerous. Christians, Jews, atheists, and Muslims, living side by side in acute consciousness of the divisions between them, are greatly in need of the religious joke. The Jews, through their experience of the Diaspora, living as strangers and sojourners among communities that at any moment might turn against them, have long been aware of this. As a result the rabbinical traditions are full of self-deprecating jokes, which underline the absurd position of God's chosen people, living on the margins of a world that does not know that that is who they are. Jewish humor is one of the greatest survival mechanisms ever invented — which has aided not only its own survival but the survival of Jewish identity, through an unparalleled history of attempts to rub it out.

Here too the censors are hard at work, depriving humanity of its natural way of defusing conflict, and forcing upon us all a kind of tiptoeing and apprehensive deference that is in fact far closer to hostility than any robust guffaw.

It seems to me that we stand in need of a repertoire of religious jokes and a bold habit of expressing them. However, many Muslims have an exaggerated capacity to feel slighted, and there is scarcely a humorous remark to be made about Islam that will not instantly be read as an expression of hostility. Here too the censors are hard at work, depriving humanity of its natural way of defusing conflict, and forcing upon us all a kind of tiptoeing and apprehensive deference that is in fact far closer to hostility than any robust guffaw. Of course, religion is a sensitive topic, and the traditional British response, that it should therefore never be mentioned in polite society, is understandable. But in a world of increasingly belligerent affirmations of faith, the British solution is no longer available. Satire of the kind directed at Tartuffe by Molière is surely what our mullahs deserve. By satirizing them, we come to terms with them; we also distinguish their ludicrous self-righteousness from the gentle path of accommodation that ordinary Muslims want and need.

An outside observer cannot fail to be struck by the decline of that kind of humor in America. This universal human resource, which in the works of James Thurber, H.L. Mencken, Nathanael West, and other great exponents enabled America to weather previous social upheavals, and even to accommodate the new kind of American woman, is now marginalized or disapproved. A joke in bad taste can cost you your career, as Don Imus recently discovered — and any joke, however sophisticated, that touches on race, sex, or religion runs a serious risk of punishment. As a result, an eerie silence surrounds the great questions of modern American society — a silence punctuated by the hysterical outbursts of the humorless, whenever their factitious sensitivities are provoked.

That this is an unhealthy situation surely goes without saying. More depressing, however, is its effect on ordinary morality. In the past it has been axiomatic that faults are forgiven, if followed by a clear intention to mend. This axiom does not, it seems, apply in the world of American censorship. One remark judged to be "racist," "sexist," "stereotyping," or "homophobic," and you must leave the community of the saved forever. It is the end of your prospects in any career over which the censors exert their control — and that means any career in education or government. You can grovel as much as you wish, like Don Imus; you can perform the equivalent of King Henry II's barefoot pilgrimage to Canterbury, and it will make no difference. One fault and you're out.

And it doesn't matter if it is not a fault: Your remark may have been misunderstood, your joke may have gone unintentionally wrong, you may have made a slip of the tongue — you may, like the hero of Philip Roth's great novel The Human Stain, have merely used in its traditional meaning a word that, in some novel usage, has been placed on the political index.

Moreover, the ability of the self-appointed censors to discern ideological sins and heresies has been vastly enhanced by their daily exercises in resentment. Such accusers know how to discern racist, sexist, and homophobic thought-crimes in the most innocent-seeming small talk. And they know no forgiveness, since they are cut off, like all humorless people, from the process of self-knowledge. The desire to accuse, which brings with it a reputation for virtue without the cost of acquiring it, takes over from the normal flow of human forgiveness, creating a wooden personality familiar to all who have had to deal with the lobbies that now control public opinion in America.

What is needed, it seems to me, is a seriously rude, arrogant, and well-educated class of journalists, who would lend each other support in ridiculing the pretensions of the censors.

What should be our response to this? It is easy to say that we should laugh at it. But losing your career is not a laughing matter; still less is it a laughing matter to be put on a list of targets by the Islamist offense-machine. What is needed, it seems to me, is a seriously rude, arrogant, and well-educated class of journalists, who would lend each other support in ridiculing the pretensions of the censors.

We had such a class of journalists until recently in England. Throughout the left-wing takeover of the universities in the 1970s, journalists like T.E. Utley, Peregrine Worsthorne, George Gale, and Colin Welch would treat their readers to witty, disrespectful, and outspoken dismissals of the new intellectual movements. As a result, those movements gained control only of the universities and not of public opinion. Some of that bold class of journalists were on the left, like Alan Watkins and Hugo Young; some were on the right, like Utley and Worsthorne. But in the fight against the censors they stood together, united in their contempt for the puritan disease. As a result, each could be as rude as he liked about the surrounding sea of stupidity and still raise an accepting laugh from his readers.

Alas that most of those journalists are no longer with us, and reading about the Don Imus affair in the American press, I wonder whether they ever had their equivalent over here.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Roger Scruton. "The Decline of Laughter." The American Spectator (June 2007).

This article reprinted with permission from The American Spectator © 2007. All rights reserved.

Published continuously since 1967, sparring toe-to-toe with presidents and a generation of leading political thinkers, The American Spectator continues to provide its unique view of American conservative politics, with a keen sense of irreverence.

THE AUTHOR

Roger Scruton is a research professor at the Institute for Psychological Sciences in Washington D.C. He is a writer, philosopher, publisher, journalist, composer, editor, businessman and broadcaster. He has held visiting posts at Princeton, Stanford, Louvain, Guelph (Ontario), Witwatersrand (S. Africa), Waterloo (Ontario), Oslo, Bordeaux, and Cambridge, England. Mr. Scruton has published more than 20 books including, Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged, The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought, News from Somewhere: On Settling, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy, Sexual Desire, The Aesthetics of Music, The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, A Political Philosphy, and most recently Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life. Roger Scruton is a member of the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2007 The American Spectator

Wednesday Liturgy: Face-to-Face Confessions, and Other Queries

ROME, JAN. 8, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: With regards to several of the changes implemented with and after the promulgation of the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, are the following "optional" for the celebrant? These are all practiced at my very traditional parish, but I'm wondering if they are OK. -- J.D., Detroit, Michigan

A: As our reader gives a list, we shall attempt to answer one by one. By necessity the replies will be somewhat telegraphic without indicating all the sources and leaving aside some pastoral considerations that would nuance the responses.

-- "No face-to-face confession."

This falls within the rights of the priest, who may insist on the use of the confessional even when the penitent requests face-to-face confession. Most priests exercise flexibility on this point, but some have strong reasons for not participating in face-to-face confessions. The penitent should also exercise flexibility in respecting the priest's conscience.

-- "Communion is distributed by intinction only (therefore, no communion in the hand); kneeling at communion rail to receive Communion (can stand at communion rail to receive if need be)."

Normally it is the individual Catholic who decides the manner of receiving holy Communion in those countries where Communion in the hand is permitted. If, however, the priest opts to administer both species by intinction, then the option of receiving in the hand automatically falls by the wayside. If, for a good reason, a particular member of the faithful did not wish receive under the species of wine, then he or she must be allowed to choose to receive the host either in the hand or on the tongue.

The bishops of the United States have determined that the normal means of receiving Communion is standing and approaching the altar in procession. Rather than a law cast in stone, this norm describes what is in fact the most common practice in the country. It is still possible to kneel if this is the custom of the place and the use of the communion rail is not prohibited.

-- "No 'kiss of peace' even on Sundays ('Offer each other a sign of peace' is passed over)."

Surprising as it may seem for many, this is actually an optional gesture even on a Sunday.

-- "No female altar servers. ... No extraordinary ministers of holy Communion."

As indicated by various documents of the Holy See, the bishop may permit, but not oblige, a pastor to use female altar servers. If the pastor does not wish to take this option, then he is within his rights. Likewise, if the pastor considers that the parish has no need of "extraordinary ministers" because there are sufficient priests, then he need not have any.

-- "No female lectors."

If all the readers are lectors formally instituted by the bishop (a ministry reserved to males), then women would be excluded by default. This would be a very unlikely situation in a parish and so the readers are probably all laymen. If this is the case, then it is not correct to exclude women from reading as liturgical law makes no distinction regarding who may exercise the non-instituted ministry of reader.

-- "Recitation of the prayer to St. Michael before the final blessing."

This prayer no longer forms part of the liturgy of the Mass and would now be classed as a devotional exercise. As such, it could be recited as a long-standing custom but preferably after Mass has concluded and not incorporated into the liturgy itself.

-- "Exposition and Benediction immediately following Sunday Mass. (This is done in place of the final blessing by the priest and is very short: Jesus is exposed, Divine Praises recited, blessing given with monstrance, Jesus is returned to the tabernacle)."

This is most certainly an error. Liturgical norms expressly forbid exposition just in order to give Benediction. It is always necessary to have a congruous, albeit brief, period of adoration before Benediction. While I do not know of any required legal minimum time of exposition, I would suggest around 20 to 30 minutes as being sufficient.

-- "Mass said with priest facing east at original high altar (free-standing Novus Ordo altar remains in middle of sanctuary but not used)."

While the rubrics of Paul VI's missal foresee the possibility of celebrating Mass facing east, they do ask that there be only one main altar and that insofar as possible the altar should be free-standing so that it can be incensed all around.

The priest could still celebrate facing east, but it would be more correct to celebrate the present Roman rite using the new altar and not the old high altar.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-ups: Layman's Gestures, and Televised Masses

ROME, JAN. 8, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

After our Dec. 25 column regarding a layman making the priest's gestures, a reader inquired: "Is your response primarily for those saying the prayers at certain times of the Mass, [or is it] true as well just before the Gospel when the priest makes the three signs of the cross on forehead, lips and heart? I've always thought that was reserved for the one proclaiming the Gospel, but it seems that the entire congregation does it."

My earlier response referred to a general, but not absolute, rule of thumb for presidential prayers. The example cited by our reader is actually not a presidential prayer but a monition made by the deacon or priest reading the Gospel.

The rubrics already foresee that the entire congregation makes the gesture of the triple sign of the cross together with the deacon or priest.

Another reader wrote in regarding some remarks I made in an earlier reply regarding using screens at Mass: "Like millions of people over the globe I viewed the Pope's midnight Mass taped at Vatican City. I viewed it from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Eastern Standard Time in the United States. I believe the first papal midnight Mass I watched was offered by Pope Pius XII. To write '[T]he last thing the faithful need at Mass is more television. By their very nature, television and cinema induce mental passivity and polarize attention and thus are more likely to impede rather than enhance active participation at Mass which consists in much more than merely seeing the action on the altar' -- appears to be going against the Pope and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Personally, I did not substitute the Pope's midnight Mass for attending Mass in my home parish. I was a lector at the children's vigil Mass on Christmas Eve and a minister of holy Communion on Christmas Day. Possibly you could rethink your position."

I sincerely don't believe that I need to rethink my position at all because I was writing about an entirely different situation in which I disagreed with the proposal to use screens during the celebration to enhance visibility even though the altar was clearly visible to the entire assembly.

Watching the Holy Father's midnight Mass or indeed any televised Mass is a commendable spiritual exercise, above all for those unable to attend Mass, but also for any Catholic who desires to unite heart and soul in prayer together with the Pope and the Church.

Most Catholics understand that following a televised Mass cannot, strictly speaking, fulfill the festive obligation. But it is a source of spiritual comfort and growth to those legitimately impeded, and thus dispensed, from attending Mass due to age, infirmity, distance or some other just cause.

It may also be a further source of spiritual nourishment for those who, like our reader, both attend Mass as well as follow the televised Mass.

Even while appreciating the good done by televised Masses, however, I believe there can be no comparison to the actual experience of being physically present at the august Sacrifice.

The Decisiveness of the Magi: Gospel Commentary for the Epiphany

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for the solemnity of the Epiphany are Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12.

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ROME, JAN. 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).- We will closely follow the Gospel's account of the coming of the three magi to Bethlehem to find in it some practical instruction for our life. In this account the historical element mixes with the theological and symbolic element. In other words, the Evangelist did not intend only to report the facts, but to inculcate the things to be done, indicate models for the readers to follow, or avoid. As the rest of the Bible, this page too was written "for our instruction."

There are three different reactions to announcement of Jesus' birth that clearly emerge in this account: that of the Magi, that of Herod and that of the priests. Let us start with the negative models, the ones to avoid.

First of all, Herod. He, just having heard the news, "was greatly troubled." He convokes a meeting of the chief priests and scribes, not to know the truth but to plot deception. Herod represents the person who has already made his choice. Between God's will and his will, he has clearly chosen his own will. He sees nothing but his own interests and he is determined to cut down any threat to the current state of things. He probably even thinks that he is doing his duty, defending his royalty, has caste, the good of the nation. Even ordering the killing of the innocents must have seemed to him, as with many dictators in history, a measure demanded by the public good, morally justified. From this point of view the world is full of many "Herods" even today.

Let us turn now to the attitude of the priests and scribes. Asked by Herod and the Magi where the Messiah is to be born, they do not hesitate to give the right answer. They know where the Messiah is born; they are even able to tell others; but they are not moved. They do not run to Bethlehem, as would be expected of people who await the coming of the Messiah, but remain comfortably in Jerusalem. They act like road signs: They indicate the way to follow but they remain immobile on the side of the road.

We see an attitude symbolized in them that is also found among us. We know well what is necessary to follow Jesus and, if the need arises, we know how to explain it to others, but we lack the courage and radicality to seriously put it into practice. If every baptized person is for this reason "a witness to Christ," then the attitude of the chief priests and the scribes must bring us all to reflect. They knew that Jesus was in Bethlehem, "the least" of the cities of Judea; we know that Jesus is found today among the poor, the humble, the suffering.

We finally come to the protagonists of this feast, the Magi. They teach not with words but with deeds, not by what they say but by what they do. They have not tarried, they have set on the way; they have left the security of the environment familiar to them, where they are known and revered. They have acted decisively, they have not hesitated. If they had begun calculating, one by one, the dangers, the unknowns of the journey, they would have lost the original determination and would have been lost in vain and sterile considerations.

One last precious indication comes to us from the Magi. "Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way." Changing one's life changes the way one takes. The encounter with Christ must bring about a turn, a change of habits.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]