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.

Two weeks ago, I introduced our topic for this upcoming year of catechesis for our Family of Faith program (and by extension our entire parish).  That theme is the third section of the Catechism titled “Life in Christ.”  This section provides a thorough catechesis on how we live as Christians in every aspect of our daily lives – thoughts, words, and actions.

Something that I think needs to be set before us at the beginning of this catechesis is the importance of this teaching for our salvation.  In the introductory paragraphs of this section, we read the following:

The way of Christ “leads to life”; a contrary way “leads to destruction.” The Gospel parable of the two ways remains ever present in the catechesis of the Church; it shows the importance of moral decisions for our salvation: “There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference. (CCC 1696)

Maybe you have heard the saying about the Commandments that there is significance to use of the word “commandment.”  The Lord provided us the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.  In other words, what the Lord (and by extension, the Church) teaches us on how to live are not just recommendations for us, as though we can pick and choose what we like.  No, the Lord commands these so that by following them, we can have eternal life.  By rejecting them, we risk eternal separation from Him.

In our modern day, people tend to bristle at the suggestion of Hell, that by our actions, we can lose going to Heaven.  Some claim that holding out the threat of eternal punishment was just a tactic for scaring people and keeping them in line so as to control them. And while I agree that we should not try to beat people into submission to obedience through fear, we would be doing the people of God a grave disservice if we were not faithful to teaching the entirety of the Gospel, which clearly warns that there are consequences for not following the commandments of the Lord, consequences in this life, and in the life to come.

While the fear of negative consequences must always be before us, it is better for us to focus on the positive consequences of our choosing to live this life of Christ, the greatest of which is eternal life.  Our topic for next month will be our call to beatitude, which is the beginning of happiness with God in this life, and eternal happiness with Him forever in the fullness of Heaven.  It is our desire for Heaven which should be our primary motivation for how we choose to live, not our fear of Hell, though that should always be present to our minds as well.

We have the opportunity each and every day to choose how to live.  Living the life of Christ is not about a “no” to a laundry list of prohibitions, it is an overwhelming “yes” to Christ, who loves us and has given us the path to follow that will lead us to freedom and joy already in this life and ultimately to eternal life with Him in Heaven.  

Father Alford     

Following God’s law is hard. Even for Christians who were baptized in infancy, and have lived holy, prayerful lives for many years, following God’s law never becomes automatic. It certainly does become more natural over many years, especially through the development of good habits called virtues. On the contrary, fostering bad habits develops vices. The reason following God’s law is difficult is because we all suffer from concupiscence. 

Concupiscence is an inclination to sin that we have all inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. We as human are complicated creatures because we exist as a composite of body and soul. Angels are pure spirits, so they are not subject to physical desires or weakness of mind like we do because of our bodies. (This is also the reason angels no longer fall to become devils and vice versa; they made their decision once and for all). Animals are purely bodies, and although they do have an animal soul, they are never conflicted about how to live their life. They have no spiritual life, so their only goal in life is to fulfill their nature by reproducing and surviving as long as possible. 

I describe angels and animals in this way to show that we are stuck somewhere in the middle. We have souls which are destined to live for eternity, but our physical bodies are destined to corruption. God intentionally made us this way, but when he originally created our first parents, he gave them an additional spiritual gift called “original justice.” Original justice was a gift that would have allowed Adam and Eve to live forever, with true harmony between their bodies and souls. Our first parents experienced no disordered desires at this time, such as the desire to eat more than was good for them. However, when Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin, original justice and friendship with God were lost. Through baptism, God restores us to friendship with him, but we still deal with the effects of Original Sin, one of which is concupiscence. 

If that explanation is confusing, just think of this example. After a delicious and hearty meal, your body is sufficiently nourished and satisfied. However, you still have a strong desire to eat more – just one more bite of dessert, or one last drink. I’m sure we have all experienced this desire to eat more than is good for us, and this is an example of concupiscence. We tend toward things that harm us both physically and spiritually, unless God’s grace stops us from doing so. St. Paul summed this human experience up well when he wrote, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15). 

God restores us to friendship with him through the sacraments, but he does not take away concupiscence. Why would God allow us to experience the pain and conflict of concupiscence? This can only be understood through the Cross of Jesus. In God’s Providence, it is better for us that we suffer in this way. By fighting against concupiscence through prayer or penitential practices such as fasting during Lent, we can become holier and even share in the suffering of Jesus on the Cross. St. Paul compared Christians with athletes who run to win. Runners deny themselves all sorts of things for the sake of their goal, which is winning the race. The same principle applies to Christians who are fighting against sin for the salvation of the world. 

Concupiscence is not fun, but it is a part of our lives, and there is only one way to deal with it: through God’s grace. Our Weekly articles will be focusing, in large part, on following God’s law for the next several months. This is never meant to be overwhelming or discouraging, but rather to encourage us to rely more fully on God’s grace so that we can all share in the Resurrection of Jesus. 

Day: September 22^nd

Before we get to the 1780s, let us first turn back to the 1980s.  Pope St. John Paul II, two weeks after Easter in 1989, touched down in Fairbanks, Alaska to refuel before continuing his red-eye flight to Seoul, South Korea (believe it or not, he had already visited Alaska in 1981!)  He would celebrate the first canonization Mass outside of Rome there in Seoul a few days later, to proclaim as saints 103 of the Christians martyred there in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  Of the group, the namesake and leader was Fr. Andrew Kim Taegŏn, but the second person always mentioned is that of Paul Chŏng Hasang, a layman, like most of the rest of those martyred.  The Great Pope would stop a few more times before returning to Rome (a 23,000-mile journey, the third-longest of his entire pontificate), but let us remain there in Seoul for a moment. 

200 years before John Paul’s Alitalia jet touched down on the Korean peninsula, Christianity first arrived there in far less grandiose style.  A few intrepid lay men and women smuggled books and crucifixes back to Korea from China, where they had first met Jesus through the priests working there.  The scholars and sophisticated of Korea immediately rejected this new faith – down through history Christianity has always been a scandal and laughingstock to the affluent and self-sufficient – but it slowly took hold in simpler, humbler, hearts.  

Jeong Yak-jong, newly baptized as Augustine Chong, was one of those bold souls carrying Christ across the Han river.  For seven years, Augustine would pass on the faith to his family and friends, eventually writing the first catechism in the Korean language, all of this before the first priest arrived.  There would be four thousand Christians, by then enduring persecution, in Korea when the first Chinese priest managed to arrive there.  In return for his efforts, this father and missionary received the gift of martyrdom from His heavenly Lord, staying faithful when many of his fellow Christians repudiated their faith in the face of those tortures.  His last words, and a fitting last message to his 7 year old son was “I would never regret [having become a Christian] even if I had to die a thousand times.”   Paul would learn that lesson well, risking his own life to guide priests across the Han river, until at the age of 45 he was captured, and enduring in his faith through tortures, was faithful until death.  

During the same persecution in 1839, another Christian by the name of Ignatius Kim was also killed.  His son Andrew, the generation after Paul, and two generations after Christianity had first arrived in Korea through Augustine and his compatriots, would become the first native-born priest from Korea. At the age of 15, this young man traveled 1300 miles to go to seminary in Macao, China (making his father’s trek of 750 miles to Beijing look easy!), before making the arduous journey back to his homeland to bring them the sacraments of the Church.  At this time, still, only a few foreign priests and one bishop (from France) had managed to make their way into the country, so the graces Andrew Kim could carry back were incalculable.  He was captured after 13 months of priestly ministry, and murdered with 20 others in 1846.  In his final letter, he said this:

We are twenty here, and thanks be to God all are still well. If anyone is killed, I beg you not to forget his family. I have many more things to say, but how can I express them with pen and paper? I make an end to this letter. Since we are now close to the struggle, I pray you to walk in faith, so that when you have finally entered into Heaven, we may greet one another. I leave you my kiss of love. 

We would be well to never forget our families either!  From the 72 disciples of Jesus, to the 103 we celebrate this week, to our own day, Christianity has always been passed on more by lay people, and families, than by priests and religious.  How can we cherish, carry, and communicate our own relationship with Christ this week?

– Fr. Dominic was not born in 1789, nor 1989, so he has no memories from either era.  But, isn’t it interesting to realize that as Augustine made his first midnight mission carrying Christ back to Korea from China, the U.S. Constitution had just gone into effect in our country, and George Washington had been unanimously (I believe the only time that happened) elected our first president?  And, as Pope John Paul landed in Korea in April of 1989, it was only a few weeks before the Tiananmen Square demonstrations would happen in China, and a few months before the fall of Berlin Wall in the USSR?