Preach it, (Msgr) Pope!

http://blog.adw.org/2018/04/ancient-biblical-sermons-break-modern-rules-maybe-rules-reexamined/

Beware the paradigm shift

.. for you might just get it. The pastoral angle is attractive, just as emotional, romantic highs are, but what does it profit us if we wander away from truth?

Show me, Lord, your way,
So that I may walk in your truth.
Guide my heart to fear your name.
  -- Psalm 85 (86)

Promises of paradigm shifts, like hasty science, buzz words and sound bites, tend to leave a lot of details out. The whole point of the journey is perfection, so of course there is struggle. Devaluating the struggle for the sake of expedience  - wouldn't that risk making any struggle optional, perhaps arbitrary, to commit to (or not) as with the demands of discipleship in general?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the decline of the West

We turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which has imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs… (read more, full address here)

Martyrdom is narrow, and so is the gate

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/the-narrowness-of-martyrdom

An enemy of truth that had lately ruled widely is sloth. It may not be as evil as pride but it can be devastating when one considers how, daily, Catholics such as myself will find it too inconvenient to inform or consciences with anything beyond a few words. But a tiny crack will have turned a previous vase into so much rubbish. A few drops of poison may yet kill. Falsehood even on so narrow a matter ...

Get-Pell: when journalist are no longer interested in the truth

In a few generations, people will think back to this one and marvel at the utter disregard for the truth - all for the sake of sensational news, fame, wealth, power. Whatever the motivation, it is no longer about serving the truth, nor serving anyone, for that matter. It is the greatest irony that these so-called journalists would employ deceptive reporting to cover this royal commission, a massive undertaking to discover the truth and, based on truth, apply justice for all concerned. Deceptive, lazy journalism is deeply unjust since the journalists claim to serve the lofty ideal of truth while employing half- and omitted truths in order to serve up nothing less than untruths.

Hard truths to smile about..

and to reflect upon. (Update: I note that Msgr. Pope expounds in his own way five truths that might have been written about differently by Fr. Richard Rohr. I am aware of the latter being quoted as saying or having apparently written some heterodox ideas. So a warning to those who might follow that link: Msgr. Pope's writing seems fine and orthodox to me, but Fr. Richard Rohr seems suspect.)

Why Truth Matters

We're living in interesting times. I do believe in the springtime that Pope John Paul II wrote about, and oddly agree precisely because atheism, apathy, agnosticism, relativism and all sorts of wrongheadedness are running rampant around us. But this cannot be stressed enough: TRUTH matters. Whether or not you believe that Jesus Christ is the truth (I do), you must understand that it is of paramount importance. Here's Mark Shea sharing some truths to debunk (falsehoods) that would leave you speechless (there's wrong and there's incredibly wrong). Here's Mike Adams with some more shocking truths. These two examples can be classified as falsehoods that people actually eat up and truths that people don't hear about. Either one constitutes grave danger to those who believe the first or are ignorant of the other. Living in this great age of Google as we are, there's little excuse to hide behind.

If you ask rhetorically "what is the truth?" I will answer: "have you even looked?"

Love demands honesty

Retired Bishop Rene Henry Gracida of Corpus Christi, shares the thoughts of Phil Lawler from Catholic World News, concerning the recently deceased Senator Edward Kennedy. It may seem disrespectful to call out the sought after conversion (back to the faith of his youth) from the late senator, but that sentiment comes from the same place where we dread to call out a living person to repentance and truth. It is a deceptive place. What might be thought to be love, preventing us from speaking truth to spare ruffled feathers, even genuine pain, is not love when it does not seek to save one who hurtles towards destruction.

Quid est veritas?

My Latin may be mistaken, but this piece about truth is, to my thinking, as accurate as it is timely. Dr. Stan Williams is on to something that the sound byte generation really needs to ponder.

Speaking plainly

One of the many gifts that comes with parenthood is the opportunity to learn so much. Trying to explain something to a seven year old often encourages deep thinking -- because you usually need to be precise and perfectly honest. The latter can be tricky. It is perhaps still part of this generation of parents to focus on our children's self-esteem almost to the exclusion of every other consideration. It is not a well thought out strategy. My son can be very fixated on a perceived injustice, even as he understands, when you ask him to reconsider, that the status quo is fair, and what he is asking for is completely unfair. How am I to respect his strong feelings in the matter?

I found myself unable to do anything more than to speak plainly. 'No, son. That is completely wrong.'

Even as I must make allowances for what he feels, I realized five minutes into our second conversation on the matter that there was no further explanation possible. I also realized that kids can stubbornly put their foot down for the wrong things, and all I can do is tell him that we can't let things lie like that. My Father in Heaven tells me such things everyday, too. And I can only lift my hands up in prayer and beg for the grace to simply do as I ought to. Even if my heart is still set on something I know is wrong.

Truth, faith and tolerance: excerpts

I found this amazing piece from Ignatius Insight, which includes excerpts from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's "Truth, faith and tolerance" -- written before he became Pope Benedict XVI. It's great reading.

What is truth?

It was surprising today to find that I actually knew and count among my closest friends someone who has studied the Bible and harbors considerable skepticism concerning a pillar of the Gospel: the resurrection of Christ. Having watched James Cameron's documentary about the purported tomb of Jesus, Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene his wife, and other members of his family, we had an animated discussion for about 30 minutes. He poses a seemingly magnanimous idea: that even should Christ's bones be found in a tomb, that should not really matter because perhaps it is enough that Christ's resurrection was spiritual, not bodily. Of course, that does not make any sense for several reasons -- at least not to me, beyond Scriptural grounds. In the end, he did ask Pilate's rhetorical question: "what is truth?" I get the feeling that it is a question whose answer is not really of interest to the person asking it, and Pilate was probably no exception.

In the end, I came away thinking that these conspiracy theories are not always in themselves a cause for someone losing (or losing an opportunity to find) faith and truth. It is certainly not the case that my good friend was so swayed by Cameron and company's"evidence". A little grain of salt is enough to establish that they are grasping at straws. It does, however, grant yet another occasion for the skeptic to say "Aha! Now suppose that were true?"

My friend is not bothered by the fact that Cameron's case is without merit. It is enough for him that it is an interesting journey into the "what-if" of speculation. That tomb is not Jesus', but my friend is happy enough to add yet another point for skepticism. An open mind sounds nice, doesn't it? But an open mind will not lead to the truth if there are no foundations. If neither scientific evidence, expert opinions, Scripture nor Tradition -- nor even the Apostles' direct testimony -- can be admitted, then nothing can be built. Such openness to anything and everything is too liquid to admit firm truth, I think.

One of Uncle Diogenes' posts yesterday is exceptionally apt. In it, he cites the advice from Uncle Screwtape (from C.S. Lewis' classic Screwtape Letters, which I am in the middle of reading). Bear in mind that Screwtape is a demon advising a younger demon on the finer points of leading the faithful away from God.

You will find that a good many Christian-political writers think that Christianity began going wrong, and departing from the doctrine of its Founder, at a very early stage. Now this idea must be used by us to encourage once again the conception of a "historical Jesus" to be found by clearing away later "accretions and perversions" and then to be contrasted with the whole Christian tradition. In the last generation we promoted the construction of such a "historical Jesus" on liberal and humanitarian lines; we are now putting forward a new "historical Jesus" on Marxian, catastrophic, and revolutionary lines. The advantages of these constructions, which we intend to change every thirty years or so, are manifold. In the first place they all tend to direct men's devotion to something which does not exist, for each "historical Jesus" is unhistorical. The documents say what they say and cannot be added to; each new "historical Jesus" therefore has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another ... In the second place, all such constructions place the importance of their Historical Jesus in some peculiar theory He is supposed to have promulgated. He has to be a "great man" in the modern sense of the word -- one standing at the terminus of some centrifugal and unbalanced line of thought -- a crank vending a panacea. We thus distract men's minds from Who He is, and what He did. ... Our third aim is, by these constructions, to destroy the devotional life. For the real presence of the Enemy, otherwise experienced by men in prayer and sacrament, we substitute a merely probable, remote, shadowy, and uncouth figure, one who spoke a strange language and died a long time ago. Such an object cannot in fact be worshipped. Instead of the Creator adored by its creature, you soon have merely a leader acclaimed by a partisan, and finally a distinguished character approved by a judicious historian.

I am getting an eerie feeling because much of what Screwtape writes above was true for my good friend. And yet I know that arguments will not persuade him. This friend of mine is a brilliant, saintly man. But therein is another tragedy. He has studied the Bible quite carefully, having been trained by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and his studies took him out of JW. No words of mine can win his mind.

And so my true recourse is prayer.