A great article for Americans about a few things we need to change if we really want to be genuine beacons of liberty to the world.
http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=394
Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle (Nov 30)
In St. John's Gospel, Andrew and another disciple of John the Baptist heard the Baptist point out Jesus as "the Lamb of God." With that, they started following after Jesus. When he notices them, Jesus asks him what he wants. Andrew enigmatically asks, "Teacher, where are you staying?" The followed John because he prophesied about Jesus, and now having seen the prophesied one they begin to follow him. It is as if Andrew and the other disciple of the Baptist want to follow Jesus to the source. It is possible that the disciples were wondering if Jesus had a place to stay - but that seems unlikely. More likely, they themselves were looking for a spiritual place to stay, for something upon which they could hang their hats, for a central organizing theme for their lives. Jesus does not give some sort of pat answer, "Oh, I'm staying on Maple Street," or "Me and my gang are at the Holiday Inn." Rather, he invites them to a new experience: "Come and see."
Christianity, ultimately, is not meant to and cannot be a pat answer to life's questions. A young man in my parish died last Saturday night while asleep in his bed. He was a good kid. Toxicology revealed nothing foreign in his system. He had just run the Marine Corps Marathon. There was no indicator that the 15-year old boy had an undetected heart defect. He simply died unexpectedly. And in response to his family's anguish, Christianity should not attempt to say, "Now there, there. It's alright. See, Carl's in heaven now. It's OK." Such an "answer" (though perhaps factually accurate) is a dull platitude that rightly angers people. If God is in his heaven and the world is good and easy to understand, then why did Carl die.
Christianity's answer is different. Christ didn't die so that we won't have to. Christ died with us. Christ said, "Come and see," (Jn 1:39). If we have the faith to go with Him into whatever darken paths He leads, we will see and encounter the goodness of God, a goodness that transcends silly pat answers given by people who feel awkward amidst suffering.
Having encountered this Man who could be the center of their lives, the disciples of the Baptist begin to feel a difference immediately. We too, as we follow Christ, begin to experience a difference in our life. Things change. Firstly, we change - our sins alarm us more, then peace wells up as we see the sins begin to fall away, brushed off us by the hand of a gentle and loving Older Brother. Slowly, he prepares us to meet His Father, and to make His Father our own. As this encounter with Christ progresses, we become like Andrew who, "found his brother Simon and said to him, 'We have found the Messiah,'... He brought him to Jesus," (Jn 1:41-42). The Christ-likening change in us draws others to us, and thence to Christ himself. In word and deed our witness becomes credible, and like St. Andrew, we can bring our brothers and sisters to know the same loving God.
Recently Fr. Julian Carrón, current leader of Communion and Liberation, was interviewed at an international assembly for leaders of the movement. The assembly was entitled, “Friends, That is, Witnesses” and was held at La Thuille, Italy. I have cruelly stripped them from their context because a lot of the dialogue is jargon-laden.
"[Jesus] did not try to respond only to the [people’s] hunger, but He tried to
respond to another [deeper] hunger, because “man does not live by bread
alone.” So, after responding to the initial need of material hunger, He
spoke of the Eucharist. He knew what the true human need was…
In
doing a work, an “I” must not reduce the need or the answer to the need… If I
realize what my own need is, I will not be so naïve as to think that by
responding only partially to the need of the other, I am responding
to him…
We have to be very careful; because now we can be very
good at creating projects, we have learned the job well... It can happen, for
example, that we manage to get the resources for carrying out projects, but then
we don’t have the personnel. So, when the project is in place, we ourselves are
not there, the [worker] that has that view of the need that we spoke of is not
there. So we are left with an NGO like the others. Is this what we want? It is
of no interest to me. If we want to keep [our distinctive] difference, we have
to obey the Mystery, and if we can do only five projects because we only have
five subjects that can do a work as we mean it, then we have to obey this. If
the Mystery wants to give us a hundred thousand subjects so as to do a hundred
thousand projects, we will do a hundred thousand, but as long as we have only
five, we will do five; otherwise, we are presumptuous, expecting to answer a
need just because we do bigger and bigger projects…
Jesus did not
heal all the sick of His time. Those whom He healed, He healed as an example, so
that through that people could learn that there was Someone interested in their
life, who answered the whole of their need. If the Mystery wants us to respond
to more needs, He will give us more people. But first we have to generate a
[worker] capable of doing a work…
For us, works are an example. I
got this perception visiting our communities, seeing our works. I would have
liked you to see what I saw at Rose’s Meeting Point, in Uganda. There I saw the
kind of work I would like, that gives me enthusiasm. As you can imagine, Rose
cannot respond to the problem of AIDS in Uganda (it is everywhere, so it is
impossible to respond completely), but she can bring the hope of meaning to all
the women she relates to and takes care of… For something like this to happen,
any NGO is not enough; it needs a [worker] who–responding to the human need
generated by AIDS–can communicate the existence of an answer to the need as a
whole and reawaken hope. This is [an apostolic] work. So we must not succumb to
the temptation of wanting to respond to everything."
Last night, our large School of Community in the DC area hosted a member of the movement who is in the area speaking on behalf of her work. Her name is Rose Businge, the Rose mentioned by Fr. Carrón. She and her coworkers provide the material sustenance, living quarters, education, and self-respect for tens of thousands of AIDS patients and their orphans. Here are some quotes from Ms. Businge:
"Man, who apparently seems to be nothing in the face of sickness and death,
instead is great, because of his relationship with Infinity.""You become the lord of the reality - not because you possess it, but when
you discover to Whom it truly belongs. We become the protagonist in our
situation when we discover to Whom we belong.""What defines a man? What defines a man is not his problems, but Who is
discovered in him.""Man is a cry for happiness."
"Anger [at injustice] is overcome by belonging. As we become more aware
of belonging to Christ, we begin to look at wrongdoers in a new way.""If you change, the world will change with you. As you grow closer to
Christ, you will bring the world with you."
"There are many people - holy people - who do not understand your path. Do not get bent on making them understand: you will waste time and make room for indiscretions," (The Way #650).
Jacques Berlinerblau is a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, holding the chair in Jewish Civilization there. He is also a regular columnist on the Post's collection of blogs. He has a recent posting advocating the separation not only of religion from politics, but also of morals from politics.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2007/11/it_is_my_opinionand_ill.html
To which I responded:
"I am always amazed by a couple common contentions in modern American culture.
1) What a person believes has no bearing on what he does.
2) What a
person does when he thinks nobody is looking has no relevance to what he does
when he is being watched.
Of course, spelled out, both statements are
patently false. We never act EXCEPT based upon what we believe to be true, and
very clearly the same person acts privately and in public, and if his conduct
when unsupervised is reprehensible, we have no reason to trust him except that
he is being supervised, which means we cannot trust him unsupervised.
We
need to be very clear on the full range of beliefs of candidates, from practical
(it is important to balance my checkbook) to esoteric (the nature of God). We
have nothing else with which to estimate how he will act in circumstances we
cannot foresee. If I believe that the bridge ahead is out, I stop the car. If I
believe the bridge to be intact, I continue driving. If I believe another person
to be making threats he can carry out, I prepare to defend myself. If I believe
the person "threatening" me is a six year old having a tantrum, I chuckle and go
on my way. If I believe humans have an innate dignity (from whatever source)
that transcends any other consideration, I treat people with the utmost respect.
If I think people are *just* very complex arrangements of matter, then I've no
reason to treat them differently than other complex arrangements of matter (like
sheep, trees, computers, etc).
We need to know that the candidate we are
electing is not just skilled, but good, and not only good when we are watching,
but good through-and-through, because there will be many times when the
president must act while very few are watching. If we are not convinced of the
president's personal goodness, how can we trust him to act well? Witness the
situation with our current administration.
Lastly, supposedly "private"
affairs are often more public than we suppose, if for no other reason than that
private actions are acts, and as such reveal to us the inner life of the actor -
in fact, nothing BUT his actions tell us about who he is. If M. Mitterand saw
fit to break his vows to his wife on a regular basis, why should the people of
France presume that he would keep his vows to them? I will not vote for a man
known to be an adulterer for exactly that reason: if he will not keep his
promise to his wife, then he is not a promise-keeping sort of person, except
perhaps when it suits him. In which case, I do not want to hear him babble in
front of the Supreme Court all sorts of silly promises he might not keep when
the time comes, depending on how it suits him.
Without any intention of
advocating some of the models rejected by Prof. Berlinerblau, I only observe
that while the French Model might work for them (although, Prof. Berlinerblau
neglects to mention the foment in France that partly involves the French Model),
I see no reason for us to adopt it."
This past Sunday was designated as Solemnity of Christ the King. Originally promulgated in the 1925 document Quas Primas by Pope Pius XI to occur on the last Sunday of October, the feast is now celebrated each year on the last Sunday of the liturgical year - the Sunday before the beginning of Advent.
Culturally, the feast is meant to fly in the face of all that we hold dear in democratic countries: self-determination, representation, policy by consensus. Pope Pius XI read the signs of the times and could smell the growing determination by world leaders not to be bound by traditional morality. While Communists overthrew Russia and the revolutionary government in Mexico became violently anti-Christian, even Christian Europe witnessed new trends and social programs opposed to good morals. It was clearer and clearer to the Holy Father that an assault against Jesus Christ himself was underway. Placing the feast at the end of the year is perfect. The readings taken from the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours (especially those from the books of the Maccabees) for the end year all draw our attention to the Lordship of God. The readings do so in a stark way: example after example is given of worldly rulers claiming absolute dominion - even insisting that people violate the laws of God to prove their loyalty. In these cases, the readings dramatically highlight the necessity of martyrdom by those who love God.
One modern example given to the Church on November 23 is that of Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. The young Jesuit found his studies for the priesthood interrupted by the Mexican Revolution. His seminary was moved to Texas, and after a time there, he finished his studies in Belgium. By then, the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico was in full swing. Where the laws were enforced, priests were forbidden to wear special attire, renounce allegiance to the Church, cease performing sacraments, required to marry, and executed for refusal to any of those things. Priests were literally being shot in the street wherever they were found. Bl. Miguel volunteered to return to this environment because he suffered to see his countrymen go without the sacraments, with nobody to preach the Gospel to them, with nobody to remind them that God heard their cries and would not leave them alone forever.
After sneaking back into Mexico, Bl. Miguel evaded the authorities for a few years. Frequently he would slip right under their noses using the same sort of clever disguises 
that he and his siblings had used in their amateur theatre performaces as children. He even made so bold as to evangelize soldiers and police officers in places where "wanted posters" displayed his picture! By the time the young priest was apprehended in Mexico City, he was personally arranging the food and rent money for hundreds of families dispossessed for adhering to Holy Church, as well as offering Mass illegally numerous times weekly to crowds of people numbering into the hundreds. At last he was betrayed, like Christ, by one of those who benefited from his labors. Arrested with two of his younger brothers on the pretext of an assassination attempt, he refused the opportunity to disavow his priesthood, and was ordered to be shot by a firing squad in front of ambassadors and the press corps of the world's socialist and communist countries and organizations. So it was that, refusing a blindfold, Bl. Miguel stood before his murderers, facing them calmly, and forgave them aloud. Then, as the command to raise rifles was given, he threw wide his arms and shouted out "Viva Cristo Rey!"
"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith; but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ," C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, ch. 8.
"You are too naive. How few are those that practice charity! To have charity is not to give old clothes or pennies... You tell me your situation and your disappointment. Only this occurs to me: let's you and I go and give, and give ourselves without any reserve, and we will avoid that those with whom we deal should have your same sad experience," The Way #469.
"To persevere. A child that calls at a door calls once... twice... many times - loud and at length - and without shame! And someone who goes to open the door in a huff is disarmed before the simplicity of the inconvenient little creature. So it is for you with God," The Way #893
"20. We are told that St. Ignatius could find God in contemplative prayer as he wished, when he wised, and wherever he wished. You undoubtedly are far from enjoying such facility, but do not go and say that this grace is not for you: it will surely be given to you if you persever in prayer. 
It is also said that after he had seen the Blessed Virgin, Ignatius ceased to be tormented in his flesh. Know that this grace can also be given to you as experience has proved to me.
21. Until such time, prepare your heart to receive this gift and wait for it patiently in a prolonged yearning like the elderly Simeon who, prompted by the SPirit, came back every day to the Temple of Jerusalem to wait for the Savior. Like him, you will someday receive the Child in your arms and you will be rewarded for this long wait.
22. And to pass away this time of waiting, do what you can. Say the Jesus Prayer or the rosary, read the Word of God. In last resort, do nothing but wait knowing that, at any moment, prayer may well up in your heart."
Give Me a Living Word: Maxims on Prayer (1.20-1.22), Jean LaFrance
The readings at Mass for last Sunday (XXXI Sunday in Ordinary Time; Wis 11:22-12:2; Ps 145; 2 Thes 1:11-2:2; Lk 19:1-10) were very happy ones to read. The visiting priest did a very good job providing them with a spiritual interpretation. I will recount (and slightly embellish upon) it here.
Feast of All Souls (Nov 2)
Feast of All Saints (1 Nov)
The term Communion of Saints can give misleading impressions, or even leave the reader drawing a blank. It's really not meant to be that complicated or obscure though. Today is the Feast of All Saints, those recognized and canonized (the ones with "St." in front of their name), and those unknown and unhailed (maybe like your grandma). Today seems like an according good day to reflect on what it is that we Christians are all called to be.
Communion is an intimate sharing, to the point of oneness (unio, in Latin). What is shared? Lots of things: your stuff, your time, your hopes and fears, maybe your time and place, even yourself, your heart, your life. What kind of sharing is it? It isn't contractual sharing, where one party gives such-and-such in return for a return from the other. That's business, not communion. In communion, each party gives of himself without waiting to see whether the other makes an adequate return. In communion, each party has to make a sort of leap of faith - giving even his own self, without knowing if the other will even care. The communion happens when the return is made, and both parties are sharing - but if each party waits for the other, it never happens, and if either party only makes the gift looking for something in return, then it's only business. There might be bumps in the road. Bumps occur when one party forgets to keep giving, or starts looking for something more in return. The miracle is that as long as the one who begins to falter turns back to the right way of sharing, the communion can actually become stronger because of such trials. More sharing of more important things with less demanded in return means more communion.
Communion is the sort of life that God has. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each sharing their whole self with the others, without waiting or wanting anything in return. This sort of love is what fills in the communion shared by the saints, but it doesn't come from them. In fact, when the saints start loving each other, they are usually very bad at it. Mother Teresa wasn't born with that name, nor with that degree of holiness, of godliness. She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in a backwoods area of Albania, and was probably pretty much like all the other girls in her town.
God makes each of us an offer, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me... Enter into the joy of your master," (Mt 19:21, and 25:21). Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu took God up on the offer. She got rid of whatever was going to hinder her acquisition of that communion. She gave and gave of herself to all around her. She grew in sanctity until she shined like a star.
Sanctity isn't anything ethereal or fluffy, and it's not anything in a pious picture. There aren't halos around the heads of saints as they walk among us. More often than not, there's dirt or pooh on their hands. At least, that's what was usually on Mother Teresa's. That's because sanctity is holiness, intimacy with the heart and mind and ways of God, sharing in His Life of Self-sacrificing Love.
God offers us each a share in His communion of sanctity. He does not want it to be just Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; rather, He wants it to be Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Joe; Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and you! As we take God up on His offer, leaving behind our sins and anything else that encumbers us, we are drawn closer and closer into communion with God. As we enter into that communion, we share in the same communion as the others drawn by the same God. We enter into the Communion of Saints. That Communion is made of a love so strong that, in Christ, it conquered death, fulfilling the prophecy found in the Song of Songs. "Love is strong as death," (Song 8:6) and in us, as we allow God's love to grow, our hope of conquering death also grows. It allows us to trust Him more, and to leave behind everything else of lesser value, which is everything else. This love is so powerful, this Communion so deep, that we have reason to hope, joining into it, we too will conquer death on the Last Day. Even in the meantime, we are bound by it to the Saints in heaven, and share in their communion.
But we don't start out that way. We start out as a ragtag group of disciples each looking to Jesus and Holy Church for different reasons: some for bread, others for work. Some hope for help cleaning up an addiction. Some come because their parents make them. Some are looking to get help for their kids, new friends, or a fresh start in life. For whatever reason we come, Jesus trains and disciplines us to start looking, not for what we can get, but for what we can give. He teaches us to have constant recourse to Him for all that we need - wisdom, strength, support, love. He helps to keep us focused on Him and on His Will and on His Kingdom. That's how we start: each of us a little Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. The question is where we will end. Will you be the next saint in Holy Church, even if you never get your "St."?
Ryan Matthew Haber
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