For many years, the slogan “my body, my choice” has been used in defense of legal protection for abortion. The idea is that a woman should have complete autonomy over her own body because we live in a free country, and to put limits on abortion takes away a woman’s “right to choose.” More recently, this same slogan has been employed by people who, for various reasons, do not want to receive a Covid vaccine. This article is not about vaccine guidance, as our bishop has given very clear guidance on this for the past year or so in our Catholic Times. In addition, our Catholic Times also publishes Fr. Tad Pacholczyk’s bioethics column, which recently has covered the topics of Covid and vaccine mandates. 

Whenever the slogan, “my body, my choice” comes into play, it usually indicates a lack of understanding of what freedom is. Our Catechism gives a good definition of freedom in paragraph 1731: “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate action on one’s own responsibility.” Free will can be used for good or evil. God made us in his image and likeness, giving is the ability to think (reason) and choose (will), which ultimately gives us the unique ability to love as God loves. 

Human freedom is the reason that our society has laws, even laws against certain types of actions which only affect our own bodies. We are not able to just walk into a pharmacy and buy any type of medication for ourselves because some substances can be harmful if used in the wrong way. We need a doctor’s prescription to buy and take certain drugs, because doctors are trained to know what is good for our bodies and what is bad for our bodies. Drugs such as heroine and cocaine are illegal because they are bad for people and bad for society. As I wrote recently, this is grounded in at least a basic understanding of the natural law: human beings are designed to flourish and grow in relationship, which can be perceived by any clear thinker. 

Recently the Speaker of the House of Representatives and fellow Catholic Nancy Pelosi made an interesting but shockingly immature statement about freedom regarding abortion. She said, “I believe that God has given us free will to honor our responsibilities.” For this reason, she supports the legalization of abortion so that everybody can have the freedom to choose abortion and utilize their God-given free will. Speaker Pelosi does not have a basic understanding of what the Church means by “freedom.” Of course, God made us free, but the whole reason for having a legislative system is because people can use their freedom to make evil decisions, and as a society we need to prevent that from happening when we can, or punish people when they make gravely evil decisions. I would be interested to hear Speaker Pelosi give her thoughts on why our government exists, since her understanding of freedom seems to mean that nothing should be illegal. 

As Catholics, we should not use the phrase, “my body, my choice” because it misrepresents why God made us. A better slogan would be “my body, God’s gift” because none of us are totally autonomous or independent. (Or maybe we just shouldn’t use slogans…) We depend on God for our existence, and we depend on other people in many ways. God has given us the gift of community because he made us as one human family and he wants us to grow, love, and suffer in union with each other. One person’s actions can have an impact, for better or worse, on that person’s family and community. May we all seek true freedom, which is ultimately found through a relationship with God, who made us in his image and likeness. 

Feast Day: October 28^th   

The apostles Simon and Jude are given the same feast-day because tradition holds that they were martyred together in Persia or Armenia, having carried the Gospel with great success to the pagan peoples north of Israel.  We know precious little of what took place between Galilee and Armenia, but this, I think, points us back to the middle of their story, and asks a profound question: how were they changed by getting to know Jesus?

We are introduced to Simon and Jude early in the Gospels, at the point where Jesus chooses the 12 men called into particularly close relationship with him.  There, at the end of the list, before Judas Iscariot is listed, we are told that Jesus named as apostles “Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.” [Luke 6:15-16; Acts 1:13 names them both in this same fashion].  

Simon, we are told, is a “zealot”, a term that will, in a few decades, go down in infamy as the name of the violent revolutionaries who tried to kick the Romans out of Israel, and upon whom the anger (and might) of Rome was levied, destroying Jerusalem, the Temple, and hundreds of thousands of Jews finding refuge there in 70AD.  Those terrible days were far in the future when Simon stood out of the crowd of Jesus’ followers and was named an apostle, yet this is the word that Luke uses to describe him when he gets to writing down his Gospel account of that morning.  

Something in Simon’s character called to mind the zealous Maccabees who had revolted against their Hellenistic despots a century before Christ.  (It is enlightening to recall that two of the Maccabean brothers were themselves named “Simon” and “Judas”, so our two apostles have popular names associated with the great heroes of a century before.)  “Zeal” is the word also used to describe Paul’s fiery temperament, originally directed against those who believed Christ to be the Messiah, and after his own encounter with Christ, transformed into a fiery love for the Body of Christ, His Church.

In Paul, we get to witness the moment of that transformation, and though we do not get a similar scene for Simon, as he began to follow Jesus, his zeal as well was redirected and captured for the sake of Christ.  We get the briefest glimpses of this process in the Gospels.  On the one hand, Jesus offers all the apostles an example of true, God-like, zeal.  On the Passover, in the Temple, seeing the money-changers he overturns the tables, looses the animals, and drives the merchants out of the house of God.  The apostles can only have watched wide-eyed as their meek rabbi and miracle-worker tore through the temple precincts.  One word came to mind: zeal.  They recall Psalm 69:9 “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  

Fast forward to a later Passover.  This time Jesus has left the Temple and made his way to the upper room, this time it is not righteous anger, but sadness and compassion that fills his eyes.  He takes off his robe, He washes their feet, He returns to the meal: “he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  And then Jude, the son of James, for the first and only time in the Gospels, speaks “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” How will you be made manifest?  The people hailed you as Messiah and successor to David when you entered Jerusalem, do we now go the rest of the way and crown you king?  When does the victory happen?  What should our zeal look like?  “Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” [John 14:21-24]

In this answer, of course, both men are transformed.  Of course, Simon’s zeal had to be reordered from earth, to heaven. But his friend and companion, Jude, also had to reorder his own life, in his case his identity had to be reordered from earthly heritage, to heavenly.  Both men encountered Jesus, and found in Him the fiery love that comes from His Heavenly Father.  It is a zeal for God, and like God, and a love for God, and from Him.

– Fr. Rankin, has only slowly befriended Simon and Jude.  It’s so much easier to relate to the more fleshed-out characters of Peter or John (or any of the many more recent saints we also know more about).  But sometimes the Lord deepens our relationships with the saints simply on that spiritual level, without as many of the personal details we usually desire.  Such was the case as He drew me close to St. Jude because my sister’s convent is entrusted to his patronage, and St. Simon, in that wrestling match to give my zeal to the Lord.

Last week, I shared with you a practice that I have when praying with the mysteries of the Rosary, asking Mary to help me better understand what she wants me to see from each decade.  I had also mentioned how I often use the final two Glorious Mysteries (the Assumption of Mary and the Coronation of Mary) to ask for the grace to strengthen my desire for eternal life, the final destination to which all of God’s children are called.

As I continue to reflect on the Rosary during this month of October (the month of the Rosary), I think of the many different places and times where I have prayed the Rosary.  One set of memories sticks out in a special way during this month of October which is also Respect Life Month in the Church.  While I was in seminary in St. Louis, a group of seminarians would travel across the river to Granite City every Saturday morning to pray in front of the Hope Abortion Clinic.  The first time I went, I had no idea what to expect.  There were a few different groups around the building and we joined a group of Catholics who were peacefully praying the Rosary.  The group would pray all 20 mysteries of the Rosary, something I had never done before.  They used a little booklet of Pro-Life Rosary meditations to introduce each decade, giving the group something to consider as we prayed each decade.  Those meditations often come to mind as I pray the Rosary now, and the meditation introducing the Assumption is one that I have found particularly powerful:

The Blessed Virgin Mary was taken body and soul into Heaven because she is the Mother of God. Mother and child are united. The Assumption reminds us that they belong together. We pray that society will see that it cannot love women while killing their children, and cannot save children without helping their mothers. We pray that people will be touched by the pro-life question, “Why can’t we love them both?”

That question would often sit in my mind as I prayed the Rosary, especially as I saw women entering the clinic for an abortion.  For each woman, there was a story, often a very sad story such that they felt as through they had no option but to go through with the pregnancy.  While some on the sidewalks tried to appeal to the mothers that there was a human life in their womb and that they needed to turn back from having the child in their womb taken, this often did not register.  As one woman told me who had done much counselling for women faced with an unplanned pregnancy, those appeals almost never worked, because the women were so sacred about what this pregnancy meant to themselves.  The counsellor said that what these women needed most was to be loved, to be encountered with love, not defined by the action they were about to take.  Those women who encountered somebody on the sidewalk who loved them and appealed to them, not just the baby in their womb, were those most likely to reconsider because they were able to reassess their own value and dignity, which opened their hearts to move beyond the fears and to finally recognize the gift they had been given with the child in their womb.

As we pray the Rosary during this Respect Life Month, perhaps we can ask our Blessed Mother to touch the hearts of all the good people who work to build a culture of life, that as we undertake our various efforts, we may always be motivated by an authentic and generous love not just for the unborn children in the womb, but especially for the women who carry that gift of life.  May we one day have a culture in which these women will find in us a loving encounter with Christ, for being touched by His love for them will be the most effective means for them to choose life.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: October 18^th  

We learn a lot about someone when we get to know their friends.  For our saint this week, I would like to get to know St. Luke, the man entrusted by God to craft the third Gospel of His Son.  Our story begins with St. Paul, who sits in a prison in Ephesus.  He had been working there for a few years, zealously proclaiming the Gospel and building the local Church alongside of his close friends (and roommates of a fashion) Aquila and Prisca, but it seems that he got in trouble with the synagogue leaders, or perhaps the roman officials thought he was causing too much trouble, and so, in the mid-50s, there he sits in prison writing letters to the communities he had founded elsewhere.  

The Apostle to the Gentiles first crafts the unique, personal, letter to Philemon to be delivered by Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway-slave, and then he dictates a communal letter to the Colossians (speaking at length on the topic of slavery, something that seems to have been in his mind both having just encountered Onesimus, but also now himself being “a slave of Christ Jesus”, to steal his opening line from his letter to the Romans, when he is “in chains” a different time).  As Paul concludes that letter, he mentions all the others who also send their greetings, and in this list (almost the same as mentioned in that letter to Philemon), we get a glimpse into those who have remained close to the imprisoned-apostle: “Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas … and … Justus. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a servantof Christ Jesus … Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you.”[Colossians 5:10-14]

Luke, Loukas, a Greek/gentile name we immediately notice (and Paul emphasizes it), is not only faithful to Paul in the sticky spot he finds himself, but he is also described as “beloved” (agapetos, notice the root “agape”, which indicates a close brotherhood), and “physician” (iatros, literally one-who-heals, a doctor).  Like the best of doctors in our day Luke, we learn, combines both a tender-hearted concern for those around him (Paul included), and, as we quickly find once we flip to the Gospel “according to Luke”, also a man concerned with precision and an “orderly account” [Luke 1:3], in this case of the life of Christ.  In his Gospel, many more times than any other, we find that same root-word “iaomai” occur again and again as Jesus is shown as a healer, a physician of sorts Himself, showring His love on the ignored and degraded.  And to that second characteristic, Luke’s Gospel is the one most focused on historical and informative details of Christ’s life.  Where the other evangelists skip straight to stories or parables, Luke takes time to explain to his gentile audience, throughout both Luke and Acts, the historical dates and persons engaged in the scenes he relates as well as the nuances of Jewish practices that they may not understand.  

Isn’t it amazing that, through the eyes of Paul in prison, we get to know the young man who risks a visit to him?!   And there, as Paul is encouraged by the compassion and courage of Luke, we can also see Luke’s eyes catch the same fire that had captured Paul.  Was it here, in a dingy dungeon in Ephesus, that Luke heard story after story of Jesus’ birth, preaching, healings, and sufferings, and found in his own heart God’s invitation to write it all down?  And … to not stop the story with Jesus’ resurrection, but to write an entire second book, recounting how the early Church was also born, and preached, and healed, and suffered?!  (And so the Church continues to this day!)

– Fr. Rankin’s closest friends are all ones who have brought him close to Jesus.  I have been taught and formed by brother priests – much like Paul did for Luke, telling him the stories and teachings of Jesus.  My classmates and friends from seminary – much like Mark – have been brothers in the journey and have offered countless insights into what a relationship with Jesus is like.  And so many families and friends around my assignments, and in my family, have been to me like Aquila and Priscilla and Mary and John were to Luke.  The question this week: am I not only the kind of friend that stands by when suffering strikes, but also, am I the kind of friend who gives the greatest gift I can to those I love: the gift of a relationship with Jesus?

As many of you are aware, our house at the Cathedral is a house of runners.  While not all of us run every day like Bishop Paprocki, and not all of us run as fast as Father Rankin, we all have been known to “pound the pavement” around town with some regularity.  I have to admit that I do not love running.  Do not get me wrong, it is good exercise and it is something that I do not mind doing.  I just find it difficult to get motivated to get outside and, once I start running, to keep going!  For me, the secret to boosting my motivation is the Rosary.  I always carry a finger rosary with me and I find that praying the Rosary keeps my mind occupied with holy thoughts, distracting me from the discomfort of running.

Several years ago, a priest made suggestion to me about how I might get more out of praying the Rosary.  He invited me to pause at the end of each decade, asking Mary what she wanted me to understand about the mystery that I had just prayed.  This practice has been extremely fruitful, as it helps me from turning the Rosary into a repetitive set of words without much reflection.

October is the Month of the Rosary, so it can be a good time for us to examine the role this devotion plays in our spiritual life.  Maybe you find yourself struggling with not getting much out of the Rosary, feeling that it is too repetitive.  Perhaps you can adopt the practice that was suggested to me, one which I make use of regularly.

As you know, our theme for our Family of Faith catechesis program for this month is our Vocation to Beatitude.  I like to tie this theme of Beatitude to the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, because these mysteries focus especially on the Resurrection which is the event that makes our sharing in heavenly beatitude possible.  The final two Glorious Mysteries are the Assumption of Mary and the Coronation of Mary.  These two mysteries invite us to reflect on the fact that, at the end of her earthly journey, Jesus welcomed His mother into Heaven, body and soul, to share in this gift of eternal beatitude.  As I stop at the end of these two mysteries, asking Mary for her guidance to understand them, I am always drawn by the image of the joy the she must have in being reunited with her son, knowing that nothing will ever separate them again.  This thought strengthens within me a desire to share in that same gift when I reach the end of my journey.  

Another image that comes to mind when I reflect on these two mysteries is the desire that Mary has for us, her children, to share in this gift as well.  After all, at the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave her to us to be our mother.  The thought of her longing for us to be in Heaven should bring us great peace.  But even more than our awareness of her desire for us to be with her and her son is the fact that she is constantly working on our behalf to have that desire realized.  Each time when we pray the Hail Mary, we ask her: “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  She is right next to her son in Heaven, constantly asking Him to help us.  There is no moment in our lives, no matter how difficult, that she is not praying for us and as a result, there is not a single moment when her son is not happily accepting her request for us, sending us the graces we need to persevere and one day join them in Heaven.

During this month of October, perhaps we can ask our Blessed Mother to help us to understand how in each of the mysteries of the Rosary, they reveal God’s love for us and His plan for us to be with Him forever in Heaven.  She can help us to see how through His life, death, and Resurrection, He has each of us in mind, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (Jn 3:17) 

Father Alford     

Feast Day: October 11^th  

Good Pope John – as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli would be called after his election to the papacy at the venerable, and supposedly leisurely, old age of 76 – did not die on October 11^th (contrary to the typical feast-day given to any saint, the day they were “born” into heavenly life).  But in the Church’s wisdom, she has chosen a different day on which to recall his saintly life: the day that he opened the Second Vatican Council.

Why another council?  After all, it hadn’t even been a century since Vatican I, and besides, 1962 didn’t seem an age filled with heresies, and couldn’t the Pope just invoke his infallibility and declare what needed declaring?  The gentle pope explained himself on that memorable October 11^th to a packed St. Peter’s Basilica:

What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.

– “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia”, Opening Address to the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII, October 11, 1962.

His point was clear: this was a council, not to define something that needed defining, but to engage the Catholic world in declaring anew the perennial truth of Jesus Christ.  Several hours later, the exceptional day seemed complete, yet as he began to wind down in the papal apartments, he heard the continued murmur of the excited crowd assembled below in St. Peter’s Square.  They were cheering and praying, carrying torches and lights, and celebrating this tremendous moment in the life of the Church.  They were so happy to be Catholic, so delighted by their faith, and so wanted to see their papa before they went back home.  “I do not want to speak!  I’ve already said everything this morning” he wearily disclosed.

But then, unlike any Pope before him, Good Pope John placed upon his neck the sacred stole, opened the window, and waved down at the delighted crowd.  He held no text, there were no courtiers flanking him, or Swiss guards protecting him.  He dispensed with all formality and just embraced the Catholic world standing below his window.  His most famous speech would come in the simple sentences that followed as he looked upon the souls below.

Dear sons and daughters, I feel your voices! Mine is just one lone voice, but it sums up the voice of the whole world. And here, in fact, all the world is represented here tonight. It could even be said that even the moon hastens close tonight, that from above, it might watch this spectacle that not even St Peter’s Basilica, over its four centuries of history, has ever been able to witness. We ask for a great day of peace. Yes, of peace! ‘Glory to God, and peace to men of goodwill.” If I asked you, if I could ask of each one of you: where are you from? The children of Rome, especially represented here, would respond: ah, we are the closest of children, and you’re our bishop. Well, then, sons and daughters of Rome, always remember that you represent ‘Roma, caput mundi‘ [‘Rome, the capital of the world’] which through the design of Providence it has been called to be across the centuries.  My own person counts for nothing — it’s a brother who speaks to you, become a father by the will of our Lord, but all together, fatherhood and brotherhood and God’s grace, give honor to the impressions of this night, which are always our feelings, which now we express before heaven and earth: faith, hope, love, love of God, love of brother, all aided along the way in the Lord’s holy peace for the work of the good. And so, let us continue to love each other, to look out for each other along the way: to welcome whoever comes close to us, and set aside whatever difficulty it might bring.  When you head home, find your children. Hug and kiss your children and tell them: ‘This is the hug and kiss of the Pope.’ And when you find them with tears to dry, give them a good word. Give anyone who suffers a word of comfort. Tell them ‘The Pope is with us especially in our times of sadness and bitterness.’ And then, all together, may we always come alive — whether to sing, to breathe, or to cry, but always full of trust in Christ, who helps us and hears us, let us continue along our path.

– Pope John XXIII, “Moonlight Speech”, October 11, 1962

As he stepped back inside, he took off the stole, and laughed with his secretary, “I did not know what to say. I turned to my Teresina [my ‘little Therese’]”.  It was the little flower of Lisieux – her understanding of the kindness of God, and the little chances we have every day to choose love – that inspired the Holy Father on that lovely, moonlit, night of 1962, and on that anniversary every year, we are filled with joy as well as he looks down on us from heaven.

– Fr. Rankin, stepping into his historical shoes this week, notes that just 5 days after these words, another Catholic leader also named John, the 35^th president of the United States, announced to a frightened world the presence of USSR nuclear missiles on Cuba.  Thankfully, a final John tells us that “perfect love drives out fear” [1 John 4:18], and that is exactly what happened: the crisis ended; Christ remains.

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.