In our Gospel for this Sunday, we hear Jesus saying the following about entering the Kingdom of Heaven: “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” (Mk 10:15)  What does the Lord mean by accepting the Kingdom like a child?  I recently read a commentary on this verse which I find very helpful in understanding this important statement from our Lord:

All are called to be “children” in relation to the kingdom. What is it about children that makes them such apt recipients of the kingdom? Children have no accomplishments with which to earn God’s favor, no status that makes them worthy. In their dependency they exemplify the only disposition that makes entrance into the kingdom possible: simply to receive it as a pure, unmerited gift. 

Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), 199.

As we begin this month of October, our theme for the month is our Vocation to Beatitude.  Put another way, we are called (vocation) to be with God forever in the Kingdom of Heaven (Beatitude).  As we progress through this year of catechesis, we will be hearing how we prepare for this gift by the way we live our lives, conforming them to the Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the teachings of Christ and His Church.  But we must avoid falling into the trap of thinking that Heaven is something that we earn as a result of our good behavior.  As the commentary above mentions, the Kingdom is a gift that is granted to God’s beloved children, and one that we should simply receive with humility and gratitude.

The question may be raised, then: Why do we put so much value on our actions?  After all, if I cannot earn Heaven, why should I care about acting a certain way?  The gift of the Kingdom is given to us already in this life on the day we were baptized, and this gift is meant to be protected so that we do not lose it.  The teachings that our Lord and the Church give to us are directed toward that end, keeping safe the gift that we have, one that we did not earn, that of sharing in the life of Christ through the gift of grace (a word which means gift).  Therefore our actions do matter, for by them, we freely choose to keep safe or reject this gift that the Lord has so generously blessed us with.  Seen this way, our life in Christ is not so much about earning something as it is preserving and protecting something that has been given to us by no merit of our own.

Another aspect of being a child is the unconditional trust that children have in the love of their parents and their greatest fear is losing that love.  Whatever the parents ask, the children heed because they do not doubt that the parents have their best interest at heart.  So too for us with regard to our relationship to God our loving Father, and our holy Mother, the Church.  As children, we are called to assent to their teachings, trusting that doing so is in our best interest, and that following those teachings we will experience true happiness and freedom as we remain in the love of God in this life and forever in the next.  This is how we are called to be childlike in our obedience to the Lord.  But we must always fight the temptation of falling into being childish, being rebellious and demanding our own way.  With the graces the Lord offers to us freely in the sacraments, we can indeed live as the children He has called us to be, and so accept the Kingdom of God that He freely offers to us.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: October 6^th  

In 1984, a German Flimmaker wrote to the original Carthusian monastery, located in a valley of the French alps, miles from the nearest vehicular roads, the Grande Chartreuse – famed for its rigorous prayer and silence, and 500-year-old 130-flavor liquor recipe of the same name – and asked if he could stay at the monastery and unobtrusively film the daily life of the monks.  They wrote back to him 16 years later and gave him permission to come.  The final film is almost three hours long, and is almost entirely silent … because the life of the monks is almost entirely silent.  Their silence had begun almost 1000 years before.

We begin not in Chartreuse, but in Cologne.  Our story begins with a young priest of that diocese, ordained around the year 1055, now tasked with overseeing the schools of the diocese.  Fr. Bruno had been giving a good education and comfortable upbringing, so perhaps he was the right man for the job, in any case he stayed in that position for almost two decades, gradually acquiring a reputation as a philosopher, theologian, and adviser for his pupils and diocese.  20 years into his priesthood, he moved up to being Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Reims.  So far, so ordinary.

But then a violent, power-hungry, man was named the new bishop of Reims.  The clergy of the diocese pushed back against the vicious bishop, who responded by having his mobs tear down their homes and sell their possessions.  Meanwhile, Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor had just declared the election of the Pope Gregory VII invalid and demanded he abdicate.  Gregory excommunicated Henry, who pressured the bishop of Utrecht into excommunicating the pope.  Lightning destroyed the cathedral of Utrecht and the bishop died a month after.  Let’s just say it wasn’t a great time to be the chancellor there in Reims…  

Still, God was at work in the lousy situation, not only in the eventual removal of the bad bishop, but in the movement that he was beginning in Bruno’s heart.  25 years a priest, he had become a canon during the preceding years – living in community with the other priests of the cathedral – and now found himself drawn to deepen that life of focus on the Lord and his brother priests.  Three priests and two laymen, in the middle of their stable and ordinary lives were catapulted into religious life in the midst of the machinations of the distracted and disordered hierarchy of the Church of their day.  They had providentially crossed the path of St. Hugh, the holy bishop of Grenoble, who gave them an isolated piece of property up in the rocky alps in the northern reaches of his diocese.

500 years later, there would be built the spectacular, silent, Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, built upon the alpine rocks from which it received its name, and the harried, hardworking, humbled chancellor-now-hermit from Cologne who had sought God there.  500 years later, now surviving for almost a millennia, the order remains an inspiration to every Christian of the priority of prayer, and openness to the graces given in crazy times.

“How lovely is your dwelling place” [Psalm 84] is taken to refer not so much to the Jerusalem temple as the heavenly dwelling of God in heaven according to the spiritual sense or meaning of Scripture.  To reach the courts of the house of the Lord, we must climb the steps of virtue and good works.
– St. Bruno, Commentary on Psalms [Ps. 83: Edit. Cartusiae de Pratis, 1891, 376-377]

– Fr. Rankin first saw “Into Great Silence” as a teenager.  Of course, 3 hours of silently watching monks walk and work and worship was not, at first, an exciting prospect.  Yet it was captivating.  There was a profundity and contentment revealed in their simple lives that no amount of activity has ever given me.  One scene sticks in my mind: the weekly spatiamentum when the monks all hike together up in the hills and are allowed to chat with each other.  Beautifully, the silence they cherished was the foundation for the joy they found sledding and joking and being brothers to each other. 

Vicki Compton recently sent the priests of the house an article by a pastor who offered some reflections on the struggles that every church faces when it comes to those who make up their congregation.  He makes the following interesting observation:

Like the American economy, local churches have plenty of jobs, but we don’t have the people who are willing and trained to do those jobs.  

The pastor points to the often-misdirected efforts to focus primarily on driving up attendance, but that in itself is not sufficient.  He writes: “We got really good at driving attendance, but we were lousy at making disciples.”  He then proceeds to provide a sketch of what it looks like to be an active disciple, as opposed to being just a passive observer:

A disciple is very different from a church member. A disciple may be a church member but a church member doesn’t have to be a disciple. What’s the difference? A disciple understands the Grand Arc of Salvation History and the ultimate purpose of God’s heart that drives our evangelistic mission…Second, a disciple understands their role in the mission. All of us have gifts. No one has all of the gifts. Each of us is created to play a significant, yet particular, role in that mission. Each disciple understands their giftedness…Lastly, each disciple is constantly being refreshed, retrained, and refocused as their mission evolves. Every disciple knows they need a regular routine of worship, deep study, and prayer to refresh their soul and inner life. Without this routine of soul care, the disciple will either burn out or flame out. Neither is a desirable outcome.

These words really convicted me and reiterated the direction we have been trying to take here at our Cathedral Parish.  Our efforts to offer various types of formation for our entire parish family (not just out students) are aimed toward building a culture of discipleship, so that our pews are not filled just with church members, but with disciples who realize their importance to this community and who willingly and generously offer their gifts for the good of the community.

The author’s final point about the importance of having “a regular routine of worship, deep study, and prayer to refresh their soul and inner life” is so key, because these are the activities of a disciple that help us to keep our eyes constantly fixed on Christ, who must always remain at the heart of discipleship.  The moment it ceases to be about Him and our relationship with Him, it is already on the path toward failure.  This is the point made in the Catechism at the end of the introductory paragraphs of Section Three on Life in Chris which will be our focus for this year:

The first and last point of reference of this catechesis will always be Jesus Christ Himself, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life.” It is by looking to Him in faith that Christ’s faithful can hope that He Himself fulfills His promises in them, and that, by loving Him with the same love with which He has loved them, they may perform works in keeping with their dignity. (CCC 1698)

May we all renew (or proclaim for the first time) our desire to not be content with just being a member of the Cathedral Parish, but to commit to being “disciples of the Risen Lord and steadfast stewards of God’s creation who seek to become saints” by making “a conscious, firm decision, carried out in action, to be followers of Jesus Christ no matter the cost to themselves” for the good of the Church. (quotes from Declarations 1 and 4 of the Fourth Diocesan Synod)

Father Alford     

There are many different types of laws that help to guide and inform the decisions we make. The Church recognizes many levels of law, including the eternal law, divine law, the natural law, and human law. Eternal law is found only in God himself, who is the source of all order and being. Divine Law is what God has revealed to us through Scripture and Tradition, such as the Ten Commandments. Human law consists of laws in our society, like speed limits, and ecclesiastical laws, such as abstaining from meat on Fridays. The natural law is one that is not spoken of as much in our civil discourse today. Natural law is written into the very fabric of living things, and it is our ability to instinctively know right from wrong and to seek good instead of evil. 

The natural law is not an invention of the Catholic Church or of any religion in history. In fact, the Catechism quotes Cicero in describing the natural law. He once wrote, “For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely” (CCC 1956). Cicero certainly was not a Christian, yet he spoke about eternal truth and the duty we have as human beings to obey this law. 

The natural law is written on our hearts, and we can follow it by using right reason. However, it is possible to ignore the natural law and act contrary to it. Some of the most basic moral laws that all societies enforce are known even to the smallest of children: stealing and murder are evil actions. These principles were not invented out of someone’s imagination and imposed on the rest of society. Rather, we all know within ourselves that these actions are evil, and we also know that legitimate authority should punish people who go against the natural law and disrupt the order of society through murder or theft.

It is hard to have a conversation about what is right and wrong without a sense of natural law. The Catholic Church has long been the most outspoken institution against the legal protection of abortion. Some of her critics say that the Church should not impose her religious beliefs on others. But the problem with this criticism is that our belief that abortion is wrong is not, at its core, a religious belief. Any person with a clear-thinking mind can know that abortion is an evil action and should not be allowed (or promoted) in human society. It goes against the common good of society by devaluing human life and disrespecting the order of human nature, which has the impulse to grow, thrive, and pass life on to the next generation. 

Natural Law should be the basis for the civil laws which govern human society. Otherwise, what would laws be based on? Without an understanding of the natural law, people who happen to be in power can impose their arbitrary will with no reference to anything higher than themselves. The Catechism again says, “The natural law, the Creator’s very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature” (CCC 1959). 

The natural law is written on our hearts and guides the human race to goodness and happiness. This is not a specifically Christian teaching, but one that even pagans such as Cicero have recognized as a sure moral guide and pathway to flourishing in society. 

Feast Day: September 28^th 

Last week we went with Pope St. John Paul II to Seoul, South Korea for the first canonization outside of Rome of St. Andrew Kim Taegŏn, Paul Chŏng Hasang, and their companions. This week, we have the happy occasion to tag along with him on a different trip, this time the year is 1981, and the great Pope is heading to Manila, Philippines, for the first beatification outside of Rome.  Despite the attempts of the royal family of the Philippines, who had only recently stepped back from the martial law they had been holding over the country (and continued human rights violations that the Pope forthrightly confronted), JPII was there primarily to renew the Church on that archipelago.  

He placed before each and every Christian there the story of Lorenzo Ruiz.  To the largest gathering of Catholics in Asian history – 1 million men, women, and children (it would be surpassed in 1995 when he returned to Manila for World Youth Day, with 5 million in attendance!) – John Paul spoke to the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters attending that Mass and called them to give their life entirely to Christ.  Lorenzo did this as he grew up with a Chinese father and Tagala mother, who taught him his Catholic faith.  He did it as a server and secretary at his parish, and as he learned from and assisted the Dominican friars there.  He did it in marrying Rosario and together raising their three children.  

And Lorenzo did it when in 1636 he was falsely charged with murder and had to flee his family and country.  We have few details of that hurried, and certainly horrible, departure – he left no recorded words to his friends or loved-ones – but Lorenzo chose Christ in the midst of it.  He made his way onto a ship and immediately sought out the solace of his faith, joining a group of Dominican Friars who were on their way to Japan.  Japan at the time was engulfed in places in persecution of the faith, but this group was set to land in the territory of a peaceful shogun.  

This would not be the future offered to Lorenzo.  The ship inadvertently docked at Okinawa in the middle of a hellish anticatholic persecution.  The poor, exiled, now imprisoned father endured a year of torture without renouncing his faith, and ended up dying an excruciating death near Nagasaki, preceded by, and flanked by ordained, consecrated, and lay Catholics, but he – a layman and father – would head the list of their names because of his courageous fidelity.  “Had I many thousands of lives I would offer them all for him. Never shall I apostatize. You may kill me if that is what you want. To die for God—such is my will.”  

Jesus’ words as He approached His own passion are clear: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)  The fact is that most of us will not be given the grace of martyrdom.  Most of us will not be falsely accused of murder or inadvertently dropped into a horrific persecution.  But Lorenzo never thought he would see those trials either!  We, like him, must choose that no matter the future – and the death – that awaits us, we will lose our life for the sake of the Gospel.  There is no way to heaven except the way of Christ: union with His death, and resurrection.  Will we be known as those who died for Him?

– Fr. Rankin has not yet had the occasion to write about one of his favorite saints, St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan friar who gave his life in the place of the layman and father, Franciszek Gajowniczek, in the death block at Auschwitz.   Fr. Kolbe, a decade before the concentration camp, but exactly 300 years after Lorenzo was martyred, was not in Poland, but Japan.  Standing on a hillside outside of Nagasaki, where Lorenzo’s blood had watered the first seeds of the faith, and where Kolbe would build a monastery and printing-press to bring the Gospel back to Japan.  That monastery still stands as a testament to both saints, astonishingly surviving the atomic blast that struck the Catholic city.