Category Archives: Devils

Our Lady and Temptation

Devils, Mary, Sin, Spiritual Life, ,

In 1926, Our Lord appeared to the last surviving Fatima visionary, Sr. Lucia, in order to ask her to spread the First Saturday Devotion.  In particular, He wanted the Faithful to fervently offer reparation for the blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Of special concern were blasphemies committed by those who “publicly implant in the hearts of children indifference, disrespect, and even hate against the Immaculate Mother.”  This wave of indifference and disrespect is fueled mostly by those who attempt to reduce Mary to the point that she is just like the rest of us.  We must oppose this tendency of what most aptly be called “over-naturalizing” Our Lady to the point of diminishing the transformative power of supernatural grace.

One way we can combat this is to highlight those areas of her spiritual life that were markedly different from us.  A good place to start is with Our Lady’s experience of temptations.  The reductionist says Our Lady suffered temptations just like the rest of us.  We might not know for sure whether or not she was tempted but we can say with assurance that her experience would have been profoundly different from our own.

On Being Tempted

Traditionally understood, temptations have their origin in three sources—the Devil, the World and the Flesh.  The Devil’s temptations take the form of suggestions to us.  They “arise from those things towards which each one has an inclination” (ST III q. 41, art. 4).  This means that he can “see” what we are inclined towards at a given time and then suggest to us to act upon that inclination in a disordered way.  As an example, when Our Lord was fasting in the desert we are told “He was hungry” and so Satan tempts Him first by trying to take advantage of his hunger. 

With Our Lord, the inclination towards food was natural and not disordered in any way.  For the rest of us, we have disordered inclinations that fall broadly into the categories of the World and the Flesh.  These both come about as a result of the wounding of Original Sin.  The World represents inordinate attachments to the things of this world to varying degrees.  It is a tendency to look upon the things that are made and not seeing the One Who made them.  Likewise, when we speak of the Flesh, we mean an inordinate love of sensual pleasure that manifests itself either in a horror of suffering or an insatiable desire for pleasure. 

While the Devil is active in tempting us by taking advantage of these inclinations, not all our temptations come from him.  These inclinations are “natural” in our fallen state and thus we can succumb to them without any instigation.  This is the “sin” that acts like “a law of my members” that St. Paul tells the Romans is constantly at war with his inward man (Romans 7:19-23).

Our Lady and Temptations

Our Lady then, because she was singularly privileged to be conceived without Original Sin, experienced temptations differently than we do.  She did not experience temptations from the Flesh or from the World.  In other words, she could only experience temptations that were suggested to her by the Devil.  The question then is whether she did in fact experience these temptations.

We must admit that Scripture is silent, at least explicitly, as to whether she was tempted or not.  But there is at least enough implicit data to suggest that Our Lady was in fact tempted by the Devil.

First, there is the principle of typology by which the archetype is always greater than the type.  Because the Old Eve was tempted by the Devil and fell, the New Eve must also be tempted by the Devil and overcome him. 

Second, there is the promise of the Protoevangelium (Gn 3:15) by which the New Eve, animated by a spirit of enmity, shall bruise the head of the ancient serpent.  This suggests not just a passive role, but a personal one by which she engages the Devil in a one-on-one fashion.

Our Lady’s hand-to-hand combat is described in Revelation 12:13-17.  It presents the devil as relentless in pursuit of her by which he tries to sweep her away in a flood of temptations, but God continually comes to her aid by swallowing up the waters of temptation.  Inserting temptations into the narrative may seem like a stretch until we read in verse 17 where the serpent grew angry at the Woman and went off to wage war on the rest of her children.  The devil’s primary weapon in that war is temptation.

Why This Matters

People are often annoyed by speculative questions like this because they seem too “scholastic”.  But the purpose of speculative questions in theology is to affect us in the practical realm.  St. Thomas in the already quoted question in the Summa (III q.41) on Christ’s temptation in the desert tells us that there are two kinds of temptations.  First there are those whose origin are the World and the Flesh.  These we should flee as near occasions of sin.  The other are those that come from the Devil.  Aquinas says:

“[S]uch occasions of temptation are not to be avoided. Hence Chrysostom says: ‘Not only Christ was led into the desert by the Spirit, but all God’s children that have the Holy Ghost. For it is not enough for them to sit idle; the Holy Ghost urges them to endeavor to do something great: which is for them to be in the desert from the devil’s standpoint, for no unrighteousness, in which the devil delights, is there. Again, every good work, compared to the flesh and the world, is the desert; because it is not according to the will of the flesh and of the world.’ Now, there is no danger in giving the devil such an occasion of temptation; since the help of the Holy Ghost, who is the Author of the perfect deed, is more powerful* than the assault of the envious devil.”

ST III q.41, art.2 ad.2

The point is that when the Devil tempts us, as Christian warriors we should stand our ground.  This does not mean we should or even can fight on our own, but that we must arm ourselves with the Cross and invoke the power of the Holy Spirit Who has led us into the desert of temptation and battle. 

St. Paul tells the Corinthians that if we rely on grace then we will never be tempted beyond what we can handle (1 Cor 10:13).  Our Lady’s experience confirms this as true.  If we “over-naturalize” her then our hope of winning the battle is diminished.  But we also learn that we have a powerful ally because Our Lady is undefeated in her battle against the Devil.  She will never let one of her children that turn to her fall in battle. 

Truth and Reality

Creation, Defending the Faith, Devils, , , , ,

The devil is a one-trick pony.  Everything he does to mankind is simply an echo of his original temptation to Eve, “you shall be like God.”  Throughout history he has dragged many souls into hell by coming up with creative ways in which he could coax men into usurping the role of God.  I say creative not in the sense that the devil can create anything.  He can only twist and distort what God creates by breathing lies into creation.  Only God truly creates while the devil fabricates, a fact that I want to spend some time focusing on.

God creates by simply speaking something into being.  He creates through His Word (c.f. Col 1:16).  Reality came into being not through some evolutionary process, but through God’s “let there be…”.  Mind you I am not saying that things don’t come into existence naturally, only that the different kinds of things (what we might call the different natures) and reality as a whole were spoken into being during the first six days of Creation.  It should not be a surprise that this foundational truth, the same truth we profess in the Creed that “through Him all things were made” is under attack.  And because it ultimately has its cause in the diabolical, it is so subtle that we might not even realize what is going on.

Lies and Reality

Human words are meant to describe reality, even if they inevitably short-change it.  The words themselves are said to be true only to the extent that the ideas they convey conform to reality.  To say “oranges are orange” conveys the truth about the color of oranges, but it does not fully describe what an orange is.  On the other hand, to say that “oranges are blue” is a falsehood because it does not describe the reality that is an orange in any intelligible way.

Now, admittedly the orange example isn’t real (as far as I know).  But it is illustrative of a larger, one might say, diabolical problem.  There are two possibilities at play here.  A person may be ignorant of the color of oranges or he may want oranges to be other than they are.  The first man is a fool and the second is a liar.  The folly of the fool can be remedied with the truth.  The liar is another story.

All lies are attempts to use words to change reality simply by declaring it so.  It is a poor man’s “let there be…”.  I say poor man, but it is really diabolical having its roots Satan who is the “Father of lies”.  He is always trying to upend Creation and make it appear to be something that it is not.  It is an attempt to “be like God” and make reality whatever you want it to be.  It is, to quote the diabolical Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood vs Casey, the freedom “to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (Planned Parenthood vs Casey, 1991).

The Father of Lies in Our Times

I said at the open that the devil was always seeking to institutionalize his plan and develops unique strategies for particular ages.  He has been particularly successful in our age because we have failed to recognize the mechanism by which he is shaping the spirit of the world.  For most of us, Political Correctness is a minor annoyance that we do our best to avoid.  But for the devil it is the tool by which he blinds men to reality.

Notice how the term itself, Political Correctness, creates the aura of an alternate reality.  It creates a realm where words are correct, but not true.  It does this by politicizing, that is, making public, that which is personal and private.  It is made political because it must have the “power” to make other people conform to the alternate reality. 

There are many other examples, but the renaming of “Mother” to “Birthing Person” comes to mind because it is relatively new.  We laugh at the absurdity, but we fail to see the danger because we have grown so accustomed to it.  It is simply an attempt, albeit by employing the law of gradualism, to divorce motherhood from femininity and femininity from biological sex.  It is a (not-so) subtle attempt to overthrow reality by lying.  We intuitively grasp this, but instead of fighting back we laugh at the absurdity.  It is no longer funny.

Have you ever won an argument with a liar?  Of course not.  When someone is lying you do not use arguments to refute them.  You simply insist on the truth.  Yet many of us repeatedly resort to arguments to counter Political Correctness.  They are too adept at changing meanings of words to give any room for logic.  Can you deny that a mother is a “birthing person”? Instead we must insist on the truth through precision and clarity.  Simply refuse to adopt any of the Politically Correct language.  We must have the courage not to play the game and simply tell the truth regardless of the consequences.  Words not only convey reality, but they form our ideas about it.  Only the truth can set us free to roam throughout reality.  If we do not stop the abuse of language that abuses reality, then we risk the eternal abuse of many souls.  People end up in hell for bad ideas too, especially because it changes what they become through their actions.   

Confronting the Mass Identity Crisis

Angels, Church and State, Creation, Culture, Devils, , , , , ,

When Our Lord and His Apostles came to the great rock of Caesarea Philippi, He asked a poignant question about His personality: “Who do you say that I am?”.  Only Simon, enlightened by Divine grace, saw Our Lord for Who He really was: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).  Once Peter identified Our Lord, Our Lord in turn gave him his true identity as the Great Rock upon which the Church herself would be identified.  Peter was not alone in this regard.  Our Lord came to bestow our identity upon each one of us.  He identified with us in order that we might come to share in His identity as “sons in the Son.”  Modern man, perhaps more than any other ailment, suffers from a great identity crisis that makes this moment in Our Lord’s Life particularly important. 

The First Identity Crisis

Lucifer had the greatest natural endowment of all creatures.  In this way he was entirely unique and, created in a state of grace, he was the most like God.  This was his true identity. Rather than receive this identity as a gift, he instead chose to create his own.  Lucifer became Satan and lost his true identity forever.  He became, in the words of then-Cardinal Ratzinger an “Un-person”, corrupted beyond any personal recognition.  Out of envy, Scripture says, Satan then became an Identity Thief attempting to steal everyone else’s identity.  He began by coaxing a third of the angels to follow him in asserting their own identity.

Misery loves company and so Satan set his sights upon mankind.  Ultimately his temptation of Eve amounts to questioning her true identity as a beloved daughter of God.  He tells her that she will become like God.  The problem, of course, is that she already was like God.  God had gifted her with sanctifying grace which already made her “like God”.  Satan tempts her to see her identity as something she must grasp, rather than receive and so simultaneously attacks her femininity.  Likewise, with Adam, both his identity as being like God and being a man.  It was the man who was commanded to protect and till the Garden. 

Our identity crisis has its roots in the Fall then.  Original Sin removed sanctifying grace, which forms our true identity, our God-likeness if you will.  But it also wounded us in our sexual identity, the manner in which we individually image God.  Not only does the distinctly feminine power of childbirth become labor for the woman, but, because man will be tempted to lord over her, she will be tempted to seize masculinity.  Likewise, for man, the uniquely masculine way of working also becomes labor and he will be tempted to seize the feminine.  Not only was God-likeness lost, both forgot what it meant to image God in their masculinity and femininity.

The crisis would grow until the New Adam and his suitable helpmate, the New Eve came. Satan could not steal either of their identities.  He tried to steal Our Lord’s when He went into the desert.  The enmity between him and Our Lady made her immune to Satan’s wiles.  Our Lord and Our Lady then, each in their proper way, cooperated in restoring us not just as children of God, but sons and daughters. 

Our Identity Crisis

Satan may have lost the war, but he is still engaging in the Battle across the centuries, trying to keep us from our true identity.  He has had varying degrees of success but has been particularly successful in our own age.   His battle plan remains the same as always by destroying the image and suppressing our desire for the true likeness of God that lies at the root of our real identity.

Rather than accepting God-likeness as a free gift that comes only through Baptism, we chase immortality through technology.  The Covid crisis has been particularly eye-opening in this regard in that we are all expecting a technocratic Messiah to save us.  Technology can make us like gods.

The Church has not been immune to this attack either, putting bodily health before spiritual health.  One soul, dying in a state of grace, is far greater than 1000 people “safely” locked in their houses without any access to the gift of true God-likeness in the Sacraments.  Christ instituted the Church, so that, throughout all-time, His unique power to bestow our true identity might be made available to all.  When the Church forgets her true identity, then a mass identity crisis is sure to follow.    

While technology is the weapon of choice to suppress our desire for true God-likeness, intersectionality, rooted in identity politics, is the weapon of choice to suppress our identity as being made in the image of God.  Intersectionality attempts to root our identity in victimhood.  Christ became a victim so that we could overcome this temptation and clear the way for our real identity.  Sex, masquerading as gender, rather than being a way in which we individually image God, is simply a social construct made malleable (through technology) according to personal whims.  This Great Lie destroys our identity rather than restoring it.  It sits at the heart of today’s mass identity crisis and is nothing more than a ploy of the Evil One. 

Genesis tells us that the Serpent, in attacking Adam and Eve’s identity was the most subtle of all the wild animals (Gn 3:1).  What makes our age unique is that he has thrown subtlety out the window and has chosen to unmask himself.  That is why we must be prepared to fight the identity crisis by refusing to be a party to any of the lies that have enabled the crisis to become so deep.  Too often we simply go along to get along.  The Devil has been hard at work stealing people’s identities, we need to be equally hard at work helping them find their true one.

The Religion of the Antichrist

Abortion, Church, Church and State, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, End Times, Marxism, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , , , ,

When the wall separating east from west in Berlin fell, millions of people were freed from the shackles of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.  The man who was instrumental in this happening, St. John Paul II, saw it as part of his divine mandate to facilitate this monumental event.  But as a Catholic who had a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, he knew that was not the end of the story.  Russia had spread her errors practically unabated for 75 years; reaching even into our own country.  These errors were not Communism itself, but instead the ideology that underlies it—Marxism.  Marxism is alive and well and is poised to become a global religion through the likes of not just China’s hegemonic aspirations, but the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, WHO’s universal healthcare plan (led by Marxist Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus), Black Lives Matter and a whole host of other organizations.

A Global Religion?

To call Marxism a global religion, may, at first glance, seem to be an exaggeration.  Of course, properly speaking, it is not a religion at all.  Religion is always ordered to God which means that there can be only one true global religion.  It is the one founded by God Himself in the Catholic Church.  But the Devil is always on the prowl to ape Christ including by forming his own global religion.  Marxism is the “religion” of choice and should properly be seen as the religion of the Antichrist.

That Marx himself was under demonic influence can hardly be disputed.  Several of his biographers, many of whom are sympathetic to his cause, have mentioned this.  Paul Kengor, in his new book The Devil and Karl Marx, does a thorough job of compiling the case for Marx’s diabolical connections.  Viewed in this way, it also helps to understand the beguiling effect that Marxism has on a lot of people because of its inherent power of mass Demonic Oppression.  The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council were aware of this as they included several schemas on “The Care of Souls with Regard to Christians Infected with Communism” in their preparatory documents.  Unfortunately, these schemas never saw the light of day and would have been a great aid in fighting an “invention so full of errors and delusions.”

The Great Imitation

Besides the global aspirations of Marxism, there are other, more insidious ways in which it will imitate the true religion.  In taking on human flesh in the Incarnation, Christ sought to both repair and elevate human nature making it capable of sharing in the Divine Nature.  In simplest terms, Marxism is an attempt to fundamentally transform human nature through the instruments of politics and culture.  It may have failed to control economics, but that was not the end of it.  Using the Sexual Revolution, Cultural Marxists have been wildly successful in “transforming” human nature in the sexual realm.  No longer does human nature thrive through monogamous marriage, the family, and private property.  Parents are not uniquely suited to mold their children according to their nature, but instead human nature is malleable and should be molded into the image deemed useful by the State.  Free will, the mark of the Divine image in man (c.f. CCC 1704-1705), is an illusion and replaced through conditioning according to their social structure (or through the correction of “Unconscious Bias” as the remains from obsolete social structures and implemented through “Corporate Training”). 

Christianity worships Christ Who made Himself a victim for our sins (c.f. 2 Cor 5:21) while Marxism worships the Victim Class.  Man’s nature is not social and marked by complementarity but instead is competitive.  It is to be informed by the narrative of oppressor versus oppressed.  There is a never-ending search of the new victim class in order to keep the worship going.  Virtuous men and women, those who are most like God are scorned and those who have been intersected by the most “axes of oppression” are exalted. 

Finally, just as Catholics offer the blood of the Innocent Lamb of God to the Father, Marxists offer the blood of innocent children through abortion to the Devil.  Marxism and abortion are always a package deal because Marxism, like all religions, needs to offer sacrifice.  The Devil throughout history has always demanded the blood of the innocent in sacrifice.  Marxism in all its instantiations always includes abortion.  It was Russia that became the first country to legalize abortion in 1920 and thanks to the Marxist feminists of the 1960s, the United States followed suit.  You can often identify a Marxist by how insistent they are that abortion is a “right”.

The Spirit of Christ animates the Christian religion and so the spirit of the antichrist animates the religion of Marxism.  The globalists who seek a One World Order are Marxists at heart.  Once a critical mass is met, then the world will be ready for the antichrist.  This is not an inevitability however and so Catholics must fight against Marxism in all its manifestations.  The Church was once instrumental in fighting Communism, but now it too has been infected with Marxists.  We need to pray that Christ will once again cleanse the Temple by setting his sights not on the money changers but the Marxists.  We have Our Lady of Fatima on our side and we can fight its spread through the First Saturday Devotion.  We can also zealously combat the errors where we see them and educate ourselves on this most pernicious enemy because there is one other thing the religion of the antichrist does—seeks to wipe out the believers of the True Faith.

On Inculturation

Anthropology, Church Authority, Culture, Defending the Faith, Devils, Natural Law, Pope Francis, , , , , , , ,

In his new Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis mentioned the process of inculturation as a starting point for the conversion of the region.  The Holy Father most certainly had the Pachamama controversy in mind when he exhorted the Faithful to “not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples. Rather, we ought to know how to distinguish the wheat growing alongside the tares, for ‘popular piety can enable us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and is constantly passed on.’ It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error. Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for gathering and fraternity, albeit in need of a gradual process of purification or maturation” (QA 78-79).  Setting aside the fact that all false religions are by definition superstitions, the Holy Father’s remarks call for a deeper understanding of what the Church means when she uses the term Inculturation. 

Understanding authentic inculturation begins by grasping what we mean when we use the term culture.  Culture is the soil in which the human person grows.  As the Second Vatican Council put it, “Man comes to a true and full humanity only through culture, that is through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature…. The word ‘culture’ in its general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities” (GS, 53).

Against Cultural Relativism

When viewed in relation to “goods and values of nature,” it becomes evident that cultures are not ends in themselves, but instead means for human growth.  Likewise because there are objective “goods and values of nature,” we can also evaluate cultures objectively in terms of good and bad.  Good cultures are those that cultivate authentic human flourishing and bad cultures are those that do harm to true human goods.  Authentic culture must always be, according to the International Theological Commission, that which “reveals and strengthens the nature of man.”

In short, there is no such thing as a neutral culture nor can anything like cultural relativism be tolerated.  We must evaluate and judge cultures by the objective criterion of whether true human goods are protected and promoted.  It is the Church’s role to be judgmental towards cultures in three specific ways.  Those values that are true human values, even if expressed in “local” terms are adopted as part of the vernacular of the Church and are the means by which the Gospel takes root.  If they point to true human values, but are deficient in some way then the Church purifies them.  Finally, if they are irreconcilable then the Church condemns them.  This process of promoting, purifying and purging is what the Church calls inculturation.

The point of reference for the Church is not the culture itself, but as in all things, the transmission of the Gospel.  The culture is simply the means by which the message takes root.  This is why it is disingenuous to speak of inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church has the fullness of truth and thus has no new facts to learn from the various cultures.  The culture gives to the Church what is for its own benefit—a language that speaks the truths of salvation.  What she does gain is a fuller manifestation of her catholicity.  It becomes proof positive that the Gospel can be put in terms that are intelligible to men of every age and place and answer the deepest longings of all human hearts.

Because he was the most traveled Pope in the history of the Church, St. John Paul II constantly emphasized the connection between inculturation and evangelization.  In an address to the People of Asia while he was visiting the Philippines he reminded the Church that  “Wherever she is, the Church must sink her roots deeply into the spiritual and cultural soil of the country, assimilate all genuine values, enriching them also with the insights that she has received from Jesus. Given the mission entrusted to it by our Lord, the Church’s priority is always the evangelization of all peoples and therefore of all cultures. Inculturation is a means of evangelization, being at the same time its consequence.”

With all of this laid as a foundation, we can see what role, if any, Pachamama would play in legitimate inculturation.  Those who defended it treated it as something that could simply be taken up (literally) as an authentic human value.  But worship of a false god, however seemingly benign or how “spontaneously” it arises (how do we know if something arises spontaneously or at the prompting of demons?), is not a true human value.  Nor is that something that can be purified but instead must be something that is rejected.  Pachamama may have crossed the Tiber after it was tossed in the Tiber, but it was only because certain churchmen lacked both the faith and charity towards the Amazonian people to give them the saving truth of Jesus Christ.  As St. John Paul II, who was not immune to failures in authentic inculturation, told the people of Cameroon, “the Gospel message does not come simply to consolidate human things, just as they are; it takes on a prophetic and critical role. Everywhere, in Europe as in Africa, it comes to overturn criteria of judgment and modes of life; it is a call to conversion.”  Never once was the call to conversion issued to the worshipper of Pachamama.

The great missionary saints, whether it was St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, or St. Isaac Jogues, were all masters of inculturation not because they were clever but because theirs was a call to conversion even if they translated them into colloquialisms.  It was because they were holy men that they were up to the task.  As John Paul II put it, “Only those who truly know Christ, and truly know their own cultural inheritance, can discern how the divine Word may be fittingly presented through the medium of that culture. It follows that there can be no authentic inculturation which does not proceed from contemplating the Word of God and from growing in likeness to him through holiness of life”.

Why We Shouldn’t Dare to Hope

Apologetics, Church, Church Authority, Church Fathers, Devils, End Times, Last Things, Magisterium, , , , , , , ,

In a previous post, a theological and anthropological defense of the permanence of hell was offered.  A brief mention was made of the need to avoid hell in the right way—not by means of an infernal gymnastics, one that stretches the imagination and explains it away.  But the denial of hell’s everlastingness is only one of its manifestations.  There is another, perhaps more popular, strategy that could be called the “Dare We Hope” approach.  First put forward by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar in the 1980s, Bishop Robert Barron has taken the baton and run with.  According to the Bishop, this approach posits two things:

  1. Given what God has accomplished in Christ through the power of the cross, we may reasonably hope that all people will be saved.
  2. The Church has never claimed to know if any humans are in hell, which leaves open the theoretical possibility of universal salvation.

We will deal with each of the two points and then discuss why, ultimately, to adopt does great harm to the Church’s salvific mission.

Hope or Optimism?

At first glance, there is nothing objectionable to the first point.  Nevertheless, it doesn’t exactly pass the Catholic smell test, especially when it is combined with the second.  That is because it suffers, like most modern theological statements, under the veil of ambiguity.  By using the theologically charged word “hope” it lends itself to being easily misunderstood and therefore misapplied.  Theological hope is something that is virtually certain based upon the merits of Christ and is not conditional in any way upon human response.  In his book, Balthasar says that there are only two responses to the question of whether there will be some men who refuse God’s gift of salvation. 

“To this there are two possible answers: the first says simply ‘Yes.’  It is the answer of the infernalists.  The second says: I do not know, But I think it is permissible to hope (on the basis of the first series of statements from Scripture) that the light of divine love will ultimately be able to penetrate every human darkness and refusal.” 

Dare We Hope, p.178

Notice that the hope that Balthasar is describing is dependent in no way upon human actions, but instead upon the power of God.  Under this viewpoint any soul that is lost is a failure on God’s part and so it must be certain rather than a mere desire for all men to be saved.

To be fair, Bishop Barron does take the time to define how he is using the term hope in the FAQs on his website: “we should recognize hope to mean a deep desire and longing, tied to love, for the salvation of all people, but without knowing all will be saved, thinking all will be saved, or even expecting all will be saved.”  Bishop Barron says he is using the term in the human sense meaning merely as desire.  It is puzzling why, if the Bishop simply means that out of love for God and neighbor he desires that all individual men be saved then why he doesn’t just say that.  It seems that he brings a whole lot of extra baggage into the discussion by uniting it with von Balthasar.  Because Balthasar appears to be using the term in the deep theological sense, Bishop Barron is wedding himself to the Balthasarian position.  He is indissolubility united to Balthasarian hope.  He says as much later on in the FAQs when he says that von Balthasar’s position reflects his own (“he does agree with Balthasar’s main thesis, affirmed by the Catechism, that we can pray and hope hell is empty of people.”). 

Part of the reason why Balthasar muddies the waters of salvation is because he rejects the classic distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will.  He reads 1 Tim 2:4, “God our savior who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” as an absolute statement that does not depend upon a human response.  The Church has long made the distinction between the fact that God wills all men be saved (called His antecedent will) and His consequent will which comes about because He also willed men to have free will that could choose something other than saving grace.  This viewpoint is based upon Scripture (c.f. Sirach 15:14-17, “God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice.  If you choose, you can keep the commandments; loyalty is doing the will of God.  Set before you are fire and water; to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand.  Before everyone are life and death, whichever they choose will be given them.”) and leads directly to the Church’s belief that, despite the objective power of the Cross to save all men, not all men will receive it.  A summary view was presented by the Council of Trent:

“But, though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated. For as in truth men, if they were not born propagated of the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust,-seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own,-so, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just.” 

Session 6, Ch. III

The Theoretical Possibility of an Empty Hell

This leads naturally to the second proposition, namely that, because the Church has never claimed to know if any humans are in hell, universal salvation remains a theoretical possibility.  The problem is that the Church has consistently believed that there will be at least two human beings in hell.  The first is the Antichrist who is described in Revelation 20:10 as being “tormented day and night forever and ever.”  One could also reasonably assume, given the principle of biblical typology, that all of the Antichrists described by St. John in his first letter as well as those who have been historically considered types of the Antichrist also suffered a similar fate.   

The other example is Judas.  Although the Church is not in the habit of declaring reverse canonizations, the witness of Scripture offers no other interpretation than that Judas ended up in hell.  In Matthew 26:24, Our Lord declares that “would be better for that man[that betrayed Him] if he had never been born.”  In John 6:70 he calls Judas “a devil” and in 17:2 He says that “none of them was lost except the son of destruction.”  None of these could be true if Judas was counted among the Blessed.    

In his FAQs, Bishop Barron says that “The Church has made no authoritative declaration, based on this passage or any other, that any person whatsoever is in hell.”  This statement again is highly misleading.  The Church may never have solemnly declared that Judas is in hell, but solemn declarations are not the only way in which Catholics determine whether something is to be definitively held.  There is a consensus among the Fathers of the Church that Judas is in hell.  In a 5th Century homily, Leo the Great placed the “Son of Perdition” in hell saying,

“The traitor Judas did not attain to this mercy, for the son of perdition (Jn. 17:12), at whose right hand the devil had stood (Ps. 108:6), had before this died in despair; even while Christ was fulfilling the mystery of the general redemption… The godless betrayer, shutting his mind to all these things, turned upon himself, not with a mind to repent, but in the madness of self-destruction: so that this man who had sold the Author of life to the executioners of His death, even in the act of dying sinned unto the increase of his own eternal punishment.” Sermon 62, On the Passion of the Lord

St. Ephrem (4th Century) and St. Augustine (5th Century) say the same thing.  St. Thomas, writing 8 centuries later also sees Judas in hell as well as St. Catherine of Siena.  

As a side note both Balthasar and Barron claim that St. Catherine of Siena share their position.  This is very difficult to reconcile with her Dialogue where the Father tells her that Judas was “punished with the devils, and eternally tortured with them” (Dialogue, 37).  This would call into question the authenticity of her entire Dialogue, something I am not sure they would be willing to do.

Adding to the witness of Scripture and to Tradition is the law of the liturgy, ­lex orandi.  In the liturgy for Good Friday the Church’s Collect traditionally portrayed Judas as receiving eternal punishment.

“O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy clemency; that even as in His Passion our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each retribution according to his merits, so having cleared away our former guilt, he may bestow on us the grace of His resurrection: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth.” 

Traditional Roman Missal

Why We Must Get this Right

Beliefs, like the ideas underlying them, always have consequences.  Balthasar (and presumably Bishop Barron) was concerned that the traditional view of hell as heavily populated ultimately drove people away from God.  He said that, “One really has to ask oneself how, given an eternally valid bifurcation of mankind like this, simple human love of one’s neighbor, or even love of one’s enemy in Christ’s sense could still be possible.”  This reeks of the false spirit of Vatican II in which a pastoral concern, namely a zeal for souls such that we truly desire that each person we meet be saved, demands a obfuscation of doctrine.  Clarity especially about the Last Things is a vital necessity for true zeal.  The fact that hell remains a real and likely possibility for each and every one of us ought to spur each one of us to work not just for our own salvation but the salvation of everyone we meet.  The Dare We Hope approach destroys zeal for souls by making evangelization seem completely unnecessary.

The Permanence of Hell

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C.S. Lewis once said that there was no doctrine that, if he had the power, he would more willingly remove from Christianity than hell.  But he also was humble enough to recognize that were he to do so, it would destroy the very reason for Christianity.  The Good News is really only good when we understand the bad.  Unfortunately, there are many in our modern day who, rather than teaching us how to avoid hell, avoid hell itself by explaining it away.  In its place they have offered a universalism in which all men will be saved.  There are different ways in which this universal salvation is brought about, but one of the more popular versions posits that hell is not everlasting and those who had been consigned there will be given the opportunity to repent and join everyone else in heaven.

According to Scripture, Sacred Tradition and human reason, escaping hell after death is an impossibility.  In Hebrews 9:27-28 we are told that just as Christ died once, we too die and receive judgment once.  Likewise, Revelation 20:10 says that the damned “will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”  That “their worm dies not and the fire is not extinguished” (Mk 9:45) is also taught by Sacred Tradition, not only through the unanimity of the Fathers (c.f. St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Augustine) but also through the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) which declared that the damned “receive a perpetual punishment with the devil”.

The Permanence of Hell and Human Nature

It is when we apply human reason to Revelation about the duration of hell that we begin to understand why it is the way it is.  In our temporal state, our will remains flexible in that it may be changed both before and after a choice is made.  We choose based upon some knowledge and only choose differently based on some new knowledge.  In short, a change in will is dependent upon a change of mind.  Regret only follows upon some new realization.

The ability to change our minds is a uniquely human power, and uniquely temporal at that.  The angels, our spiritual counterparts, are incapable of regret because they can’t change their mind.  Our decisions are plagued by ignorance, their decisions are always fully informed and thus fully consented to.  Their wills remain everlastingly fixed in the decision they have made because they never have a reason to change their mind.  When the soul is separated from the body, we will “become like the angels” in that our wills too will remain fixed in the state they were at separation and we have no reason to change our mind.

As we apply this anthropological truth to the question of the damned, it does not seem obvious at first why they should not desire to change their mind.  Wouldn’t the pains of hell be enough to make them rethink their relationship to God?  The short answer is no and to deny this would begin to tear at the fabric of many Christian beliefs besides the everlasting duration of hell.

A change of mind regarding God in this life requires the action of actual grace.  We are incapable of lifting ourselves out of sin and move towards repentance on our own.  It is actual grace that moves us.  Because it is still my and your repentance however there must be a movement of the will that accompanies the actual grace.  It is possible that the will become so hardened that actual grace no longer penetrates the hardened heart.  Scripture offers us a prime example in Pharaoh.  While Moses pleads with him, his heart remains impenetrable.  The will becomes hardened through its own acts and only a supernatural act of God can undo it.

Why Repentance After Death is Impossible

The soul in hell then is incapable of repentance because there is no actual grace present to move them.  This is not because God withholds it however.  It is so because their will is fixed in a permanent “No!” to God.  There is no actual grace is present because no amount of grace could change their mind.  Why this must be so becomes obvious once we think about it for a second.  This fixity of the will is, in a certain sense, a two-edge sword.  It keeps both the damned in hell and the blessed in heaven.  If a change from evil to good is possible, then it could also be possible that there is a change from good to evil.  In other words, there would be nothing per se that would keep the blessed from crossing over the chasm into hell.  This law of human nature cannot be operative for good only.  As Abbot Vonier puts it, “God has made spiritual natures so perfect that a wrong use of their powers will bring about results as permanent as the right use of them.”

This, by the way, is at the heart of the error that those who believe in “once saved, always saved” commit.  They confuse our temporal state with our permanent state.  The soul is not fixed until death, but they insist that it is fixed once a single choice for Christ is made.

All of this helps us to see damnation as caused strictly by the damned themselves and not as a result of God’s judgment.  It all depends upon the condition of a person’s soul upon death.  Our souls at baptism are reformed into the shape of a cup enabling them to hold sanctifying grace.  This grace, as a participation in the divine nature, is what enables us, upon death, to see God face to face.  It is what makes our souls flame resistant enabling us to stand within the flames of the Consuming Fire.  But our wills, through mortal sin, can also bend our souls so that they are no longer able to hold sanctifying grace.  If our souls are never repaired and we die with them in that shape, then we become permanently incapable of standing before God.  It is the shape of our souls then that determines are everlasting state.

Catholics have grown very fearful of hell, not in the sense that they try to avoid it, but that they avoid speaking of it.  The risk for seeming harsh or intolerant is overwhelming.  The problem is that silence on the bad news makes preaching the Good News very difficult.  Catholics need to rethink their approach if they are to trample down the Gates of Hell and save many people who would otherwise end up there.  This begins by seeing hell for the hell it is and understanding why it must be so.

Cardinal Cupich’s Two-Way Street

Church, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, Ecumenism, , , , , ,

In a commentary in Chicago Catholic posted last week, Cardinal Cupich weighed in on the Pachamama controversy.  The Cardinal decried the removal and disposal of the statues into the Tiber River of calling it an act of “vandalism”.  He defended the inclusion of the “artwork from the Amazon region depicted a pregnant woman, a symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life” during the Amazonian Synod as an example of the necessary “two way street of inculturation” in which “both the cultures and the church are enhanced in coming to know God.”  In truth however, the Cardinal is defending idolatrous syncretism, a position that is indefensible for a Catholic.

Artwork or Idol?

In an act of sophistry that would make even Protagoras blush, the Cardinal depicted the statues as “artwork”.  One has to wonder why Aaron didn’t think of that when Moses confronted him over the Golden Calf.  His description defies logic and is a great distortion of the truth.  Pachamama is no mere symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life, but a benevolent goddess of motherhood and fertility that is still worshipped among the indigenous peoples of the Andes.  The peoples, as evidenced by the opening ceremony in the Vatican Garden, still offer worship to the goddess through the statue. 

Each August, the people of the Peru dedicate the month to making offerings and sacrifices to Pachamama.  It is believed that it is necessary to satisfy her hunger and thirst with food offerings.  These offerings are burnt, carrying the prayers of the people in the smoke.  The Pachamama is no mere symbol, but instead a goddess.  The Cardinal is either lying or a fool or both.

Even Pope Francis admits that it was an idol, although not directly of course.  In his apology for the theft and submersion of the statues, he said that the statues were displayed “without any idolatrous intentions”.  No one would question the idolatrous intentions of someone unless the items in question were, in fact, idols.  The Pope’s comment, rather than exonerating him however actually makes what happened even worse.  Worse, that is, if you believe St. Thomas Aquinas.

As an offense against the First Commandment, he thought that idolatry, next to heresy is the gravest sin.  It is an offense directly against God Himself.  Aquinas thought that not all idolatry was equal.  He said that the worst kind of idolatry is, using the Pope’s words, idolatry “without any idolatrous intentions.”  The Angelic Doctor said “since outward worship is a sign of the inward worship, just as it is a wicked lie to affirm the contrary of what one holds inwardly of the true faith so too is it a wicked falsehood to pay outward worship to anything counter to the sentiments of one’s heart” (ST II-II q.94, a.2).  To set up idols without any idolatrous intentions is not only to commit idolatry but to lie as well.  Citing St. Augustine’s condemnation of Seneca for setting up idols that he did not believe in, Aquinas condemned the Pope’s position.

St. Thomas makes another interesting connection in his treatment of idolatry.  Citing St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he mentions how God turns men over to sins against nature as punishment for idolatry. He says that it is a fitting punishment of the sin of idolatry which abuses the order of divine honor that man would sin against nature as a way of suffering from the confusion from abuse of his own nature.  Might it be that the refusal of the Church to stand against all of the idolatrous elements of New Age spirituality has been met by gross sins of nature, especially among the clergy?  In other words, perhaps the homosexuality that plagues the Church is an effect of idolatry that won’t be rooted out until its cause is also rooted out.

Inculturation?

The Cardinal mentions that this event is simply an attempt at inculturation.  He errs however is describing inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church needs no outside help as She has been given the fullness of truth.  Instead she brings the truth to those who have yet to accept it and explains the truth on terms that are readily understood by her audience.  When evangelizing new cultures she may find elements that can be baptized such that they will make the Gospel intelligible.  She brings nothing back to the Church except the souls she is saving.  Our Lady’s approach (detailed here) to St. Juan Diego and the people of Mexico is a prime example of this.  She borrowed elements that were familiar to them, modified them, and used them to point to the true God in her womb.  The Church learned nothing from the Aztecs.

A two-way street approach to inculturation is just another word for syncretism.  Often masquerading as “ecumenism”, this practice ultimately is about finding creative ways to blend the Church’s doctrines with those of other religions.  It thrives on ambiguity and teeters on heresy.  The problem is that you end up far away from the truth in a way similar to what Chesterton described when he described syncretism as analogous to a man who says that the world is a rhomboid because some people believe that the world is flat and others round. 

It signals a loss of faith, thinking we must compromise to get people to come over to our side.  But the truth has a power all its own such that when it is spoken, especially with charity, it is immediately compelling.  It is also a loss in faith in anything supernatural.  The fact that idols have demons behind them is totally foreign to those of Cardinal Cupich’s ilk.

This is why they find it so incomprehensible that someone would go to the lengths the “vandal” did in attempting to destroy the idol.  It is an act of zeal; zeal for God and hatred of demons.  As St. John Henry Newman puts it, “zeal consists in a strict attention to His commands—a scrupulousness, vigilance, heartiness, and punctuality, which bears with no reasoning or questioning about them—an intense thirst for the advancement of His glory—a shrinking from the pollution of sin and sinners—an indignation, nay impatience, at witnessing His honor insulted—a quickness of feeling when His name is mentioned, and a jealousy how it is mentioned—a fulness of purpose, an heroic determination to yield Him service at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling—an energetic resolve to push through all difficulties, were they as mountains, when His eye or hand but gives the sign—a carelessness of obloquy, or reproach, or persecution, a forgetfulness of friend and relative, nay, a hatred (so to say) of all that is naturally dear to us, when He says, ‘Follow me.’”  It is zeal that destroys idols without destroying the idolaters.  It is zeal that seeks to set the idolaters free.

Jumpstarting Reform

Devils, Eucharist, Fasting, Spiritual Life, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , ,

In the opening chapter of his short book, Letter to a Suffering Church, Bishop Robert Barron calls the scandal within the Church “a diabolical masterpiece”.  The Bishop’s point is that everything that has happened within the Church over the last half century has been clearly and methodically planned out such that the sulfuric stench cannot be overlooked.  Bishop Barron only mentions this insight in passing as he attempts to instill hope in those who have suffered greatly as a result of the latest scandal. It is befitting, however, if we are to fully come up with a plan of reform, that we linger just a while longer on this fact.

First, we must admit that as ghastly as the abuse crisis has been, from within the satanic strategy, it is but a means to the devil’s overall plan to destroy the Church.  What this means is that if we focus only on the abuse crisis then we will be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.  This is not to say that we do nothing about it or that we do not address it directly—band aids are necessary treating wounds, but only after the source of the wound is treated.  And the source of this wound in the Church is exacerbated by the fact that we deny that someone is actively working to destroy the Church.  It is the steady refusal over the last half century to admit of the Church’s militancy.  The Church is not a field hospital, but an army.  It may have field hospitals, but it is not the Red Cross.  It is an army because it is at war and its battleground is dominion of human souls.

Breeding Soft Soldiers

This repeated refusal to admit of the Church’s militancy has not changed the fact that she is Militia Christi, but it has made the soldiers soft.  The Church may be feminine, but she is not effeminate.  There is no more visible sign of effeminacy than sexual vice, especially of the kind that many clerics are accused.  But this softness affects not just the clergy but the laity as well.  We are the “soft generation” that is doomed to be the “lost generation” if we do not tighten up formation.

Notice that I did not say the softest generation, for there are far too many generations in the Church who have fallen prey to softness.  Church historian Roberto De Mattei describes the story of the Sack of Rome in 1527 as a “merciful chastisement” because reform in the Church had stalled and it served to jumpstart it. “The pleasure-seeking Rome of the Renaissance turned into the austere and penitent Rome of the Counter-Reformation.”  His point, although only implicitly made, is that chastening, either divinely or self-inflicted, is always a necessary pre-cursor to reform.  Softness must be rooted out one way or the other.

Like any army, once the enemy is clearly identified, a battle plan must be drawn up.  Since this is first and foremost a spiritual battle, we must use spiritual weapons.  Every renewal in the Church has come on the heels of a small remnant that committed to using these weapons and specifically aiming them at the enemies of the Church.  When the Church becomes soft, it is these three weapons, prayer, penance and mortification that are eschewed.  So, if we are to re-enter the fray, we must grasp the hilt of these three swords and wield them against our enemies.

Prayer

The mention of prayer is not meant to insinuate that people are not praying.  It is to direct our prayers towards a very specific intention—to strengthen and protect the Church from her enemies.  This intention is best fulfilled by praying with the Church in her two “official” prayers—the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

I have written many other times about the necessity of regularly, that is daily and not just weekly, participating in Mass so I won’t belabor the point yet again but lead with a simple question: what sacrifice in your life do you need to make so that you can become a part of Christ’s saving mission begun at Calvary and continuing at the altar of your local parish?  The Eucharist is an infinite source of grace that Christ is just waiting to pour out upon those who offer it with Him.

The second form of prayer is one that I have not discussed much in the past and that is the Divine Office.  Commonly called the Liturgy of the Hours, it is the prayer of the Church that is offered seven times a day.  Seven is no arbitrary number, but the Church’s answer to the fact that “though the just man falls seven times a day, he will get up” (Proverbs 24:16).  This getting up and returning whole-heartedly to God by singing to Him His songs of praise in the Psalms and Canticles and recalling His saving acts throughout history.  The Liturgy of the Hours are by their very nature penitential and thus perfectly suited to our times.

Those in the clerical state are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours under the pain of sin.  Many unfaithful priests do not.  The laity can pick up the standard voluntarily and run with it, keeping those unfaithful priests, many of whom are directly responsible for the sad state of the Church, in their intentions.  And because it is a free gift and not required it is most pleasing to God, even if due to our state in life it requires a great sacrifice to pray seven times.  Desperate times call for heroic sacrifice.  If it seems daunting find someone who can pray it with you or teach you, or read one of the recent books written to draw the laity into the Divine Office.

Penance and Mortification

These two terms, penance and mortification, are often used interchangeably.  Grasping the distinction is important only insofar as it relates to our intention.  Penance is reparation for sins committed, mortification is like pre-pentence in that it is aimed at rooting out the weaknesses that cause us to sin and have to do penance.  In practice they should go hand in hand.

Sins of the flesh and the demons who specialize in them are specifically targeted by fleshly penance and mortification.  “These can come out only with prayer and fasting”.  Fasting is the “fleshly” penance par excellence because it trains the Christian soldier to control all of his fleshly appetites.  It is the antidote to the softness that has hamstrung the Church.  It is no wonder that we no longer hear about it from the pulpit or that the Church does not require it more often than twice a year.  We need to be giving more and offer it in reparation for the Church’s soft sins.  The upcoming battle will require tremendous sacrifice and only those who have trained themselves to forego what is necessary in favor of the “one thing that is necessary” that will persevere.

There are many ways to fast and all are good.  The point is to start by making sacrifices at each meal and add from there.  You will find a method that fits with your state in life.  The method that St. Thomas recommends amounts to skipping one meal a day and that principle seems to work well although the combinations are endless.  One that works very well for the laity because it is the least disruptive to family life is from dinner to dinner.  You eat dinner on day 1 and then eat only two tiny meals during the day and then have a full meal at dinner the next evening.  The point is not to kill yourself but to offer something to Jesus.  When this intention is kept in mind, you will find that your desire to be generous with Jesus quells any hunger pains.   

There are other bodily mortifications and penances that are helpful, especially when we think about those practices that make us soft—cold showers, sitting upright in a chair with both feet on the floor, setting AC/heat at a level where you are slightly uncomfortable, rocks in shoes.  The point is to directly attack our need for comfort in a spirit of penance.

St. Paul was perhaps the greatest cultural reformer and a pillar of the Church.  One could argue that his success was attributed to the fact that he had a clear understanding of who he was fighting against and armed himself spiritually for the battle.  “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).  If we want to jumpstart the reform of the Church, then we should likewise enter into the spiritual battle.

 

The Un-Person

Devils, Spiritual Warfare, , , ,

It what is becoming a recurring theme. Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, the Superior General of the Jesuit Order recently told an Italian magazine that the “devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality…The devil exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because [he] is not a person, [but] is a way of acting evil. He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life.” This statement comes on the heels of a similar statement two years ago in which told another magazine that “we have formed symbolic figures such as the Devil to express evil.”  This, of course, contradicts the unbroken Tradition of the Church, rooted in Sacred Scripture, that the devil is in fact a person and with his minions in tow, he actively works to destroy humanity out of envy.  Fr. Sosa is not alone in his belief however and therefore his position merits a thorough examination. 

One might be tempted initially to dismiss the whole discussion.  The reality of evil in the world, it seems, is a human problem and therefore the nature of its source is not really important.  If you want to believe in an actual devil or a symbol, then what difference does it make?    As we shall see, and without danger of hyperbole, it makes all the difference in the world.

Let us first call to mind what we mean when we speak of the devil as a person.  At root, a person is a being that has intelligence and the capacity to choose.  Lucifer along with the rest of the fallen angels were endowed with these inherent capabilities by God at their creation.  Rebelling against God, their intelligence and perverse will remain fixed on the destruction of His human creatures.  Endowed with a power over nature, the demons work with extreme intelligence to set in motions plans for this destruction.  These diabolical plans are carried out both directly and through human cooperation.  Any notion that evil does not have a personal power behind it then would not fit with the reality of what the Church knows to be true.  Fr. Sosa, on the other hand, would have us believe that the devil “exists as the personification of evil in different structures” (emphasis added).  Removing the personal element, we now find evil as presented to us in “different structures”.    

Why the Difference Matters

The difference is no mere subtlety but amounts to a vastly different Christianity.  If evil exists and is aided and abetted by the devil, then the battle is primarily a spiritual battle.  Knowing who our true enemy is, we engage in the appropriate battle.  The devil who is pure spirit is only susceptible to spiritual combat.  Aided by grace and the Communion of Saints, we engage first and foremost on a spiritual front—“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).  Using an image from St. Thomas Aquinas, men are like horses and the demons are like riders.  When we dislodge the riders, the horses run free.  Souls are saved in the midst of this combat.

Compare this to evil in “different structures”.  If there is no person behind the evil then the battle is no longer spiritual but political.  This sounds very similar to the ideas of Rousseau, Marx, Nietzche, Stalin, and Mao.  They all sought to create political solutions to remove the structures of evil, even at the edge of a sword.  They became demons themselves.  But even if they were to find some utopic solution, it would still mean demonizing any men and women that opposed them.  In short, if you deny the existence of demons, then you will most certainly create them.  And because the proper home of demons is hell, souls will most certainly be lost.

The Devil as the Un-Person

The substitution of the political for the spiritual solution is precisely why Fr. Sosa’s ideas are not just stupid, but dangerous.  They open up a Pandora’s Box of sorts that ultimately tears at the roots of true Christianity.  His very ideas are diabolical because it creates “structures” that are turned away from God and de-personalize man.  When then Cardinal Ratzinger was asked the question in 1973 about whether there was a personal devil he said, “If one asks whether the devil is a person, then one must in an altogether correct answer that he is an Un-Person, the disintegration and corruption of what it means to be a person” (Ratzinger Reader, p.44).” 

What the future Pope was saying is that the diabolical disorientation that Fr. Sosa is proposing ultimately leads to more “Un-Persons” and not some cute theological trick.  It is clear based on past evidence that he truly believes this to be true and thus should be corrected as the International Association of Exorcists did last week.  For our part, we too need to realize that there is a powerful person who hates each one of us more than we can possibly imagine and our only refuge is in the Blood of Christ, the only Person Who can save us.

If Harry Met Paul

beauty, Culture, Devils, Moralilty, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , ,

The former Chief Exorcist of Rome, of pious memory, Fr. Gabriele Amorth is well known in Catholic circles for his books on the demonic.  He is well known outside of Catholic circles for his repeated criticism of the Harry Potter series.  Speaking mainly from the experience of casting out thousands of demons, he once said, “behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.”  This was met by mockery outside the Church and deaf ears within.  Many Catholics, clergy included, see “nothing wrong with Harry Potter” and thus allow and encourage children to read the series, see the movies, visit amusement parks and play video games.  Fr. Amorth is not the only exorcist who has warned against the series and even Pope Benedict cautioned against it during his time as Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith.  Deaf ears can often lead to blind eyes and thus it is imperative that we have a coherent explanation and not merely scare tactics of why Harry Potter is dangerous.

To begin, we must concede that for a parent to offer an “it is harmless” defense of anything is not good parenting.  Even if there is such thing as a “harmless” story (as opposed to helpful or harmful), it is questionable parenting to use that as a criteria for what you expose your children to.  Junk food for the body might be permitted, junk food for the mind ought not to be.  But in truth it is an attempt to feign neutrality when in fact there is really no such thing as a neutral story.  Inundated by television and movies, which condition us to accept views of the world uncritically, we can easily forget how powerful a story is to convey a world view.  We tend to equate entertainment and goodness.   

Why Stories Matter

Stories are, to borrow a phrase from JRR Tolkien, a sub-creation.  The author creates a world of his own imagining and then animates that world.  But it is not a creation ex-nihilio, but a sub-creation.  To be intelligible it must rest upon reality as it really is. A good story should also be entertaining, but to be good it must wrap a narrative around a particular aspect of reality so as to let the light of truth shine upon it.   A bad story may also be entertaining, especially if we are uncritical of what we are reading or seeing.  In fact, it often is in order to mask the ugliness of the story.  Ultimately what makes it a bad story is that it distorts reality.  It puts forth a false idea of truth and goodness, redefining them in subtle ways.

Stories have such a powerful effect on children because of their unbridled capacity for wonder.  Wonder gives them a much more expansive view of reality which makes them particularly apt to see the message attached to the narrative.  They don’t just read a book or watch a movie, they insert themselves into the world created by the author and move about.  This is why a whole generation of now adults grew up playing Star Wars and why another generation is growing up playing Harry Potter.  If you don’t want your children pretending to be magicians, using magic for good or ill, then you would not want them to read these books.  Children will play in the stories they hear and read.

There is also a bit of a mixed message that is being sent.  Magic, sorcery and divination are all presented as intrinsically evil by the Church (c.f. CCC 2117) but presented as something that can be used for good by the Harry Potter books.  Since “intrinsically evil” implies one can never use it for good, this sends a rather mixed message.  In short, on the one hand we have a story where the hero uses it and on the other we have stories in Scripture where it is strongly condemned regardless of how it is used.   Deuteronomy 18:9-12 describes magic as an abomination before God and tells how a believer should respond in the face of it.  One need not wonder what would happen if Harry met St. Paul given the latter’s interaction with the magician in Acts 13:6-12.  The point though is that a child will not naturally allow a contradiction to exist and thus will reject one story and accept the other.  One can hardly imagine that, without proper guidance and formation, the child will almost always choose the more entertaining story.

What is Magic, anyway?

A fuller understanding of magic itself will help us better grasp the inherent danger; a danger that is growing daily as our culture is re-paganized.  There are about 20,000 books on Amazon that describe different Wiccan spells so we are talking about more than just mere sleight of hand or some fringe movement if we merely follow the market. Magic is not a sub-creation created in the mind of the author, but something that exists in the real world. Magic is about harnessing superhuman power and using it to overcome our natural limitations.  So, when we speak about magic what we are really talking about is angelic power.  Angels by their nature can act upon material creation simply by willing it.  They can manipulate pre-existing matter in any matter that they wish.  This is exactly what those schooled in magic and the occult are trying to do.

The problem is that evil angels, demons that is, are willing to share this power with human beings.  Not in order to help them but to entrap them.  They give them superhuman powers through spells and the like in exchange for control of them.  By grasping at a power beyond them, they submit their own human strength to the demons.  The demons are only too happy to comply because it makes them “like God” because it is a cheap imitation of God’s power of miracles.  Ultimately it is an attack on God and the humans are simply pawns who end up bearing the brunt of it.

The Harry Potter books never say where the magic comes from, but it comes from the place that all magic comes from hell.  It can seemingly be repurposed for good, or else it would lack appeal, but ultimately this good is a mere smokescreen for the evil that lurks behind its power.  This repurposing of magic for the good is the theme behind another fantasy story, one that acts like the magic elephant in the room anytime Harry Potter is discussed–The Lord of the Rings.

Magic is a key element in the Lord of the Rings as well, and yet, most would say these would be categorized as good stories.  To grasp how it is different from Harry Potter we must return to what was said earlier about the source of magic.  If magic, at its core is angelic power, then there is nothing wrong with angels using it.  It is their natural power.  Those who naturally use magic in the story, namely the Elves and Gandalf, are not human.  Gandalf is not a man but an angelic being called a Maiar who had taken human form.  He and the Elves are, in Tolkien’s sub-creation, angels.  It is natural for them to use “magic” and thus they are not seizing something that does not belong to them, but applying their given powers in pursuit of the good.  The story makes clear that all those lesser creatures who ultimately try to harness that power, even if for good use, ultimately come to ruin.  It is a story ultimately against magic and not for it.  And in that way it is vastly different than Harry Potter which celebrates its use by men and women.

Judas and the Wages of Envy

Devils, Passion of Christ, , , ,

The first full moon in Spring brings with it two things, both of which are equally predictable.  First there is Easter, celebrated on the Sunday immediately following that first full moon.  Secondly, there is the somewhat predictable “scholar” who will bring forth some long lost “proof” that Christianity is a hoax.  Usually it is by the “rediscovery” of some “lost” gospel.  Never mind that it was lost because the Church Fathers already knew about it and deemed it a fraud.  Easter 2006 was no different in this regard.  National Geographic released an English translation of the Gospel of Judas just in time for the Pascal feast.  This “gospel” paints Jesus and Judas as somehow in cahoots.  But it also has a particular appeal because it appears to answer an age-old question of why Judas did what he did. 

We must admit that it is more than mere curiosity that places this question before us.  Even if Christ ultimately claims the victory, it does not sit well with us that Judas was the collateral damage.  Nor are we comfortable with the fact that many of the Church Fathers place Judas in hell because, as Our Lord said, “woe to him by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.  It would have been better for him to never have been born” (Mt 26:24).  Nor should it.  Even if Judas is alone in hell, the losing of a single soul is the greatest of all tragedies.  But Sacred Scripture and the Church’s liturgical calendar place the question before us this week and so we must resist the temptation, like the heretics of the first Christian centuries, to “psychologize” Judas and try to explain it away as if he was a victim caught up in the tsunami of the Redemption. 

“Watch Out Lord”

We must first admit that neither Scripture nor Tradition gives us a clear answer as to why Judas did what he did.  And the lack of clarity is for a good reason.  Any one of us can be Judas—selling Jesus for something else.  This must be lesson number one or else we cannot even begin to unpack what might be hidden away in what we have been told.  We are each presented with the temptation of the thirty pieces of silver daily, although usually we settle for a whole lot less. We all sell Christ out in small (and big) ways every day.  As St. Philip Neri said every day of his life, “watch out Lord, lest Philip betray you today.”

The point is that we must all see in Judas our capacity to do likewise.  If a man who spent three years with God in the Flesh could do it, then anyone can.  It is only grace that preserves us from the temptations we would otherwise easily succumb.  And this is why when Our Lord warned the Apostles that one of them would betray Him, each of them feared it might be him.  They knew that they didn’t really want to, but they also knew that they were capable of anything given the right set of circumstances.  This is what it means to recognize that you are a sinner—not that you have done a bunch of bad stuff, but to know that at any point you are capable of falling off the wagon.  “Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12).

Judas and the Role of the Devil

Likewise, we must also understand that the Gospel narratives are calling us to go beyond Judas’ personal motivation and to see in this great betrayal the hoof marks of the great enemy of man’s soul, Satan.  This is not to absolve Judas of responsibility but to acknowledge the role he played.  St. John tells us that “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him” (Jn 13:2).  The devil had tempted Judas to betray Our Lord and Judas had made up his mind to do so.  As St. Thomas says in his commentary on this verse, Satan “enters into a person’s heart when one totally gives himself to following his suggestions and offers no resistance at all. Thus Satan first put the plan to deceive Christ into Judas, and then he entered into to possess him more completely and to lead him to accomplish the evil.”  In short we cannot rule out demonic possession in the carrying out of the betrayal.  Even if this is the case, Judas was a most willing participant and not merely a puppet in the hands of the devil.  Judas was willing, but may have lacked the “courage” to carry it out.  Once he consented to the devil’s suggestion, however, he ceded his personal freedom over to him.

This too can be spiritually instructive for us.  Judas shows us that we should not yield to temptations of the mind, even if we “would never actually do it.”  To consent to a temptation is to put ourselves under the power of the Evil One.  Very often we will entertain thoughts of revenge, even though we know deep down we are incapable of carrying it out.  This is very dangerous because when the source of the temptation is the devil, he is only too happy to help give us the strength to carry out our wildest fantasies.  If nothing else Judas teaches us that.

All that being said, I believe we can begin to uncover some of Judas’ personal motivation.  We must first eliminate what appears to be the obvious answer—greed.  Thirty pieces of silver was the price paid for the death of a slave and was not very much.  It would have been far less than Judas was likely making embezzling as keeper of the Apostolic money bag.  He was walking away from a pretty good racket.  That coupled with the fact that, because he inherited his father’s name, Iscariot, he was probably already wealthy, makes it unlikely that greed was the motivating factor.

Biblical Typology and the Judas/Judah Connection

Instead we can look at the Patriarch Joseph as a type of Christ.  For he too was sold for pieces of silver by his brother Judah.  And why did he do this?  For the same reason that Judas would betray Christ—envy.  Envy is the devil’s forte.  It was envy that motivated him to go after mankind when he fell.  And in his role as the Accuser, it is envy that he is constantly seeking to incite in us.  Envy always presents itself by way of accusation making it about what it’s not really about.  It is an attempt to tear down another person simply because they are stealing from your greatness.  Judas was not the thief, Christ was—”why was this not sold for 300 days wages?”.  The devil was not in Judas, it was Our Lord who was the devil. 

So, it was Judas’ envy of Our Lord in His absolute freedom, especially his freedom from a desire for riches, that led Judas ultimately to consent to turning him over.  And in this way, the story of Judas should be particularly instructive for us.  We live in a culture that has been particularly designed to incite envy.  When someone does something great, we scan their social media history to find a way to tear them down.  Supposed class/race/gender/sexual identity warfare is all about envy by demonizing the other.  Envy is the most difficult for us to see because we are living in it.  And that is why we must never forget what happened to Judas and the wages of envy.       

On Ghosts

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A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that almost 1/3 of all Americans have had some paranormal encounter with human spirits after they have died.  This, coupled with nearly half of all Americans admitting to “believing” in ghosts, makes the existence of ghosts a fairly common topic of discussion, especially in our increasingly superstitious culture.  What does the Church have to say about ghosts?

To begin, there are a few preliminary points that will serve as a foundation for the discussion.  First, when we use the term ghost, we are referring specifically to human spirits who have died as distinct from angels or demons.  Second, although Christians often dismiss the question as absurd, there are Scriptural reasons to believe that ghosts do exist.  The most well-known example is when King Saul conjured up the ghost of Samuel and spoke to him (1 Samuel 28:12-18).  Our Lord too spoke of ghosts during His earthly ministry, twice, in fact.  On both occasions (Mt 14:34, Lk 24:39) the Apostles thought He was a ghost.  Rather than saying “ghosts do not exist”, He reassures them that He is not a ghost because ghosts “do not have flesh and bones as I do.”  Our Lord tells us that ghosts not only exist, but that they are in a spiritual state in which they do not have material flesh and bones. 

Why There Are Ghosts

If ghosts are, at least theoretically, a possibility, then what practical purpose might their manifestation serve.  In short, they are meant to communicate some message to the living, although this statement needs to be seriously qualified.  For this, we can rely upon St. Thomas who himself was visited at least three times by ghosts in his lifetime.  We should not be surprised then that he treats this topic in his Summa Theologiae (Supp. Q.69, art. 3).

St. Thomas asks whether it is possible for souls in heaven or hell to be able to appear on earth.  His response is thorough enough that it enables us to come up with guidelines for understanding the purpose of these visitations.  First of all, we are judged immediately upon death.  This means souls are either in Heaven or in Hell, with some making a temporary stop in Purgatory before settling in to their final destination in God’s presence.  There is no such thing as a soul that is doomed to wander the earth or anything like that.  While this might make for a good Dean Koontz book, it is not rooted in reality. 

It is the natural state of these souls then to be cut-off from their communication with the living, but according to God’s will they may miraculously appear to men on earth.  This is also noteworthy because it helps us to understand the Biblical injunction about conjuring spirits of the dead in order to make inquiries of them (c.f. Lev 20:6, Deut 18:3).  It is only according to the designs of God’s Providence that these visitations might occur and not through human manipulation.  To try to invoke spirits of the dead is to usurp a power that only God, as the God of the living and dead, can use.

The saints in heaven can appear to the living whenever they will because their will is always aligned with the Divine will.  They appear so as to instruct men on earth in a similar manner to St. Paul appearing to St. Thomas when he was stuck in his interpretation of a particularly difficult passage in Romans.  The souls that are damned too can appear to men “for man’s instruction and intimidation,” although they would not do so willingly.  Those souls in Purgatory appear in order too seek prayers and suffrages.  St. Thomas was visited by his sister Gui from Purgatory and she asked him prayers and masses to be said in her memory.

The last group, those in Purgatory, bear further discussion.  These are probably the most common type of “ghosts” because they come as members of the Church Suffering in need of the help of the Church Militant.  Their appearance, at least according to most demonologists and exorcists, are usually gentle and they limit their communication to a request for spiritual help in the form of prayers and Masses.  For that reason they are also the easiest to discern their authenticity.  In fact it might be said that there is no discernment necessary—if one has a ghostly encounter then they should simply pray for the dead person and have seek no further interaction.

Ghost and Demons

The ghostly elephant in the room is the action of the demonic.  This is an area, especially because people are in an emotionally vulnerable place, that the devils are particularly active.  They are bullies that like to prey on the weak.  It is for that reason that we need to have our understanding clear about this.  Demonologist Adam Blai says that the demons usually come to places where souls have previously communicated with the living asking for prayers so that they might manipulate the living.  That is why we should never seek information from the dead other than the need for prayer.  Any messages we do receive we should submit to a thorough process of the discernment of spirits, including asking God to verify it in other ways. 

In truth, we should be very suspicious of paranormal communications to the point of rejecting them whole cloth.  This is not because we don’t believe in them, but because our capacity to be deceived is very high.  We can do no wrong in praying for the dead but can easily get pulled into something more through extended conversation.  Better to reject it out of humility and obedience, two virtues particularly pleasing to God, than to succumb to the tricks of demons.  Once we have opened the door for them and inviting them in, it can be very difficult to chase the legalistic demons away.  

Ghosts continue to remain a fascination for many of us.  There are good reasons for Christians to believe in their existence, but they should avoid encouraging any interaction with.

Purloining the Pagans?

Anthropology, Apologetics, Church, Defending the Faith, Devils, Paganism, , ,

History, some will have us believe, is riddled with myths of dying gods who in their rising, restore life.  The renewed popularity of these myths is but a thinly veiled attempt to debunk the truth of the Resurrection of Our Lord.  The implication is that Jesus is just one more in a long line of these myths and therefore most certainly false.  So common are these attacks, especially among adherents to the cult of the New Atheists, that it is important for us to have a ready defense.

We need not go into specific examples, but it is worth mentioning that whether it is Osiris (who became king of the underworld and didn’t actually come back to life) or Dionysius, the Christian concept of Resurrection is something that is totally foreign to Pagan mythology.  Witness the response to St. Paul’s preaching of the Resurrection in the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34).  The wise men of Athens have never heard of the Resurrection and thought it another god that should be added to their pantheon.  So nonplused are they by the mention of it that they blow St. Paul off to hear of it another time.  Christ’s resurrection is not a resuscitation in the manner of some of the Pagan myths, a mere return to life, but an introduction of a profoundly new way of life.  This way of life was not just for Christ, but something that could be communicated to all mankind.

There is also a gap in the logic of the argument as well.  Just because there are other things that are similar to a given thing does not mean that the new thing is simply derived from those other things.  This is especially true when there are important distinctions that render the two things very different  such as afore mentioned concept of Resurrection.  But it may suggest some deeper connection than mere plagiarism.

The Flip Side

It is this flip side cannot be easily dismissed.  If Jesus Christ truly is God incarnate and by His resurrection, He offers to all mankind salvation and life everlasting, then why should we be surprised that there are hints of it found throughout all times and places?  A message that is meant for all mankind from an omnipotent God would be expected to be delivered to all mankind, even if the method of delivery is different.  In other words, this is exactly what we should expect.  If God’s offer really is for everyone in every age, then He would leave traces of it in nature and in human reason so that men would come to know the saving truth. 

In fact, this is not only what would be expected, but is what Divine Revelation tells us to expect.  As the sun was setting on Adam and Eve’s Edenic abode, God made clear to them what the consequences of their actions were.  These consequences and knowledge of them would be passed down from one generation to the next.  No doubt they would be distorted at times, but they would never be wholly forgotten.  This includes both the bad news of division within and without as well as the Good News. The last thing that God tells our first parents before shutting the gates of their earthly paradise is that He will redeem them.  In other words, mankind would never live under a regime devoid of hope.  And just as the bad news is in “our genes” the Good News would be as well.  They are a package deal because God has ordained them as such to suit His purpose of drawing all men to Himself.  If sin cannot change His plans, then neither can something as accidental as time and place.

Of course without continuous revelation to remind them of the meaning of the “hope that is in them“ along with the continued presence of the Serpent, the tree of hope can become twisted and gnarled.  Man, in speaking from the depths of his hope will make up myths to fit the true story as he comes to understand it.  Believers are accused of wishful thinking, but that merely glosses over the question as to why the wish is there to begin with.  The wishful thinking is the residue of the hope that is simply a consequence of God’s promise.

Therefore this plan of attacking the truth of Christ is ultimately false.  There are no myths that precede the “myth become fact” as CS Lewis once called it. For this true myth is found throughout salvation history.  It is a “tale as old as time” because it was “in the beginning.”  The Chosen People simply kept the facts straight, but they lived with the same hope as the pagans.  It is no mere story, but history.  God promised it over and over and then delivered “in the fullness of time”.  The power of prophecy, this calling of His shot long before the actual event, is ultimately what sets Christ aside and renders all the other resurrection myths as weak prophets at best.  It is time we finally bury the myth of the resurrection myth to hopefully never arise again!

The End Times and the Anti-Mary

Advent, Devils, End Times, Family, Mary, Spiritual Warfare, The Life of Jesus, , , , ,

Christians of every age have wondered whether they were living in the End Times.  Each of these ages had their own reasons to believe that Our Lord’s return was imminent.  In that regard our own age is no different.  But our times are unique in a very specific way, one that is not often spoken of.  The Second Coming of Christ will be like a negative photographic image of the first.  He came in weakness, He will come in power.  He came in silence, He will come with trumpet blasts.  He came as Redeemer, He will come as Judge.  He came as Lamb, He will return as Lion.  Just as this principle of photographic negative applies to the New Adam, it also applies to the role the New Eve will play as well.  And in this, we find signs that the end is near.

Mary’s First Coming

The future Queen of Heaven and Earth was the Queen of the Hidden Life during her earthly sojourn.  She “kept all these things in her heart” rather than shouting them to the housetops.  The only time she “let loose” of both her mission and her Son’s was in the privacy of her cousin Elizabeth’s home.  And even after the Resurrection she remained in prayer, preferring not to speak and to avoid any chance that a cult were to rise up around the Mother of God.  She who was a true wonder of the world, lived in the temple of her heart in ancient Ephesus while the pagans streamed to the Temple of the virgin goddess Diana in that same city.  She was not only humble, but silent with only a single spiritual counsel—“do whatever He tells you.”

As Queen and Universal Mother she has not abandoned her children.  Throughout the ages she has left her throne in Heaven and appeared to her children to give them an urgent message.  These apparitions have been a regular part of the life of the Church over the past millennium.  In the last few centuries however, they have grown in both frequency and publicity. She is no longer the silent maiden, but the regal Mother voicing her concern for her children.  When we view this in light of the “photographic negative” principle, this makes sense.  If she played a primary, albeit silent, role in the First Coming, we should only expect that she play a more visible and vocal role in the Second Coming.  And the messages of her apparitions seem to suggest that the time is short.  We may not know how short is short, but it is safe to say that she is clearing the way for His second Advent.

Reading the signs of the times and seeing the Marian apparitions in this light means we should treat the messages, especially at Fatima where the most visible public miracle ever occurred, with the utmost seriousness.  But there is another sign that is related to this that ought to give us pause.

The Spirit of the Anti-Mary

We know that one of the signs of the Second Coming is the reign of the Antichrist.  We aren’t told when but we are told how long he will reign (42 months).  Throughout history there have been types of the Antichrist that gave us a glimpse of just how dark those days will be.  But they have all passed.  Eventually the true antichrist will rise and I would like to suggest that this eventuality is closer than we may think.

The Devil is the great ape of God, trying to “be like god” and mimic what He does.  The Antichrist will be his greatest facsimile of the true Christ, for he will dupe many people into thinking he is the real thing.  But being the great counterfeiter, we should expect that he will try to replicate the life of the true Christ is every way, but especially in a specific way—by having the anti-Mary precede him.

Who can doubt that the spirit of the anti-Mary is already rearing its ugly head among us under the guise of feminism?  But only Mary is the true feminist, receptive in everything God has to give.  Feminists reject femininity as receptivity and try to seize everything for themselves, including masculinity.  The “handmaiden of the Lord” was the most liberated woman who ever lived, finding freedom in living out her feminine calling.  The anti-Mary must liberate herself from even her own feminine nature, ending in absolute slavery.  Mary modestly hid her beauty behind a mantle and veil, anti-Mary wears little except a pink cat hat on her head.  Mary humbly “ate the bread of dependence” provided by Joseph at Nazareth and was filled, anti-Mary is gluten free and looks out only for number one.  Mary loved God and submitted to Him in her Jewish religion, anti-Mary hates God for making them a woman and sees religion only as a weapon in the hands of oppressors.  Mary prophetically whispered, “this is my body given for You,” anti-Mary shouts “my body, my choice.”  They speak only of women’s rights, but Mary speaks of a woman’s unique duties.

The diabolical fraud has been perpetrated, clearing the way for the reign of the anti-Mary.  And this is what makes our times utterly unparalleled.  Other times may have had their shadows of the Antichrist, only our age is animated by the spirit of the anti-Mary.  It is this uniqueness that suggests we may be entering into the time of the final battle.  There is a great battle being waged between Mary and the anti-Mary and we must fly to the foxhole of her mantle.  It was with this in mind that St. Louis de Montfort spoke of the Apostles of the End Times as having a particularly Marian spirit and devotion.  It is also why Our Lady has reminded us that even though the anti-Mary is seemingly everywhere, that, in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Spiritual Combat and the Mass

Devils, Eucharist, Family, Grace, Prayer, Sacraments, Spiritual Life, Spiritual Warfare, The Life of Jesus, , , ,

As Christ panned the landscape from His throne upon the Cross, He saw both friend and foe.  The foes included not just the Roman and Jewish leaders that wanted Him dead, but the demons who had incited them to carry out His execution with the maximum amount of cruelty.  Likewise he saw not just His Mother, St. John and the holy women, but also all of His friends throughout the ages that would willingly join Him.  From the vantage point of the Cross, He saw a great battlefield forming before Him.  He saw very clearly who His real enemies were and asked for forgiveness for their pawns.  The spiritual combat that had begun in the Garden with Adam and Eve reached its zenith when the New Adam and the New Eve finally crushed the head of the Ancient Serpent.  A new weapon, the Cross had been introduced.  For the Cross was a key not only heaven’s opened not just Heaven’s gates but a portal into hell.  No longer outgunned, the Christian grasps the Cross like the hilt of sword and chases the demons back into hell.  Calvary is the terrain over which all spiritual combat traverses.  This truth is almost self-evident.  It is perhaps the “almost” that causes us to miss a very important corollary.  Just as the demons were actively engaged on the field of Mount Calvary, they are still actively engaged in the Mystical Calvary, that is, the Mass. 

Active and Conscious Participation and Spiritual Combat

The Second Vatican Council exhorted Christians to “active and conscious participation” in the Mass.  The “activity” is not on the part of more ushers, lectors and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, but in the hand to hand combat begun on the hill of Calvary and continues over the pews of our little parish churches.  If the Mass is what we profess it is, the sacrifice of Christ made present to us explicitly so that we might participate in it, then it also demands that we take a side in the great battle and engage.  This is the activity of the Mass.  The “conscious participation” is the awareness of what we are actually entering into.  The Mass is a great battlefield in which each and every Christian engages in spiritual combat—not just in some abstract sense, but in actual hand to hand combat.  And, as in all spiritual combat, knowing you are engaged in a battle is, well, half the battle.  Once we become aware of it, we realize how we have known it all along.  Obviously there is a great ideological battle that has taken place that has obscured this truth and so we must begin by setting our minds and hearts firmly upon this truth.

Hand to hand combat is never just a “spiritual” thing but something real and practical.  First there is the battle that occurs remotely.  The great enemy of mankind hates the Mass and will do anything he can to keep us from being there.  Obstacles are thrown up left and right to leaving on time.  Otherwise peaceful families suddenly experience strife.  Family members experience agitation and begin to quarrel.  Accusations are thrown back and forth.  The difficult child becomes more difficult while the impatient parent becomes more impatient.  Clothes and keys can’t be found.  The battle lines have been drawn and Pilate is reminding you that he has the power to make it all go away.  Many will fall by the wayside because, after all, “what is truth?”  Then there are those who, having their peace stolen, will set out on the way, leaving the Cross behind.  Calling to mind what the Divine General did, the true soldier of Christ embraces the Cross and sets out on the Way.  Knowing that he is headed to the Front is not enough however.  He will serve as Simon of Cyrene by offering his cross for those in the first two groups who may not have the strength to carry theirs.

Once the Christian arrives at the Front, he is confronted with a new temptation—“to come down off the Cross” (c.f. Mk 15:30).  In fact this is the primary weapon that the demons use against us.  He will throw every distraction he can before our imagination.  “What are they wearing?” , “Look at her!  Look at him!”, “why doesn’t she pay attention to what her kid is doing?” “What do I need to do after Mass?”, “What is Father talking about?”.  The demons coordinate their attacks, tempting one person to do something and then setting the judgment in the mind of another.  You may have made it to the Front, but they can neutralize you through distraction.  Again in recognizing it for what it is we have won half the battle.  And with recognition, we derail the train of thought and hop back on the Cross with Christ Who has been waiting there for us from all eternity.    This is a battle and each time we join Christ on the Cross we not only draw deeply from the fruit of the Tree of Life but are dealing a blow to the Evil One. 

Take note Pastors, Liturgical Coordinators and Music Directors.  This is why the liturgy should be completely devoid of any novelty.  A well-disciplined army, one that has drilled so often that the battle itself becomes second nature, is a successful army.  The war may be over, but we are trying to limit casualties in the mop-up operation.  Novelty on the part of priests and coordinators only serve to distract and cause the army to fall from formation.  So too with the music, it should be chosen not for its entertainment value, but for its ability to keep us engaged in the battle.

In all that was said so far it might seem then that the whole purpose of us going to Mass is to avoid distraction so that we can focus on what is going on.  That is to see the battle only in terms of defensive tactics.  The primary purpose of the Mass is to enable each one of us and all of us (that is the Church as a whole) to make the sacrifice of the Cross our own by way of participation.  And this participation involves three different postures, each one based on those found at the Foot of the Cross on Calvary.

The Three Postures

The first posture is the Marian posture.  Those who unite themselves with the Mother of God and adopt this posture are those for whom Mass involves personal suffering.  Think for example of the special needs parent and child.  Or think of the person who had great difficulty in crowds.  Or the person who is undergoing a great personal crisis.  Or even the parents of young children for whom 60 minutes sitting still in one place is a great challenge.  These people are actively suffering with Christ

Those with the Marian stance are not only suffering with Christ, they are in a very real sense, suffering for Christ.  They could just as easily decide that it is simply too hard to go to Mass and skip it.  They may even be justified in so doing.  But their love for Him precludes it.  That is why the second posture, that of the holy women, is also necessary.  The holy women at the foot of the Cross were there not only because they loved Christ, but because they also loved His Mother.  It was not just His suffering that moved them, but hers as well.  Their offering to Christ was one of prayer and support for Him and His Mother.  The holy women (and men) of the Mystical Calvary, rather than giving in to the temptation to judge the Liturgical Marys in their midst, they support them through their understanding glances and prayers. 

Finally, there is a Johannine posture.  Motivated by a deep friendship, the Church’s first mystic was moved to great sorrow for his sins and a loving contemplation of the events unfolding before him.  The Liturgical Johns work hard to remain in this posture throughout the entire Mass, moving from sorrow to thanksgiving as they try to penetrate ever deeper into the Mystery unfolding before them.

Before closing, it is important to mention that although the three postures are mutually exclusive, it does not mean you must select one each time you go to Mass.  Very often God makes it abundantly clear which role you are to play in a given Mass and, even, during a particular part of a given Mass.  In other words, you will always be playing one of those parts, but not always playing the same part.

How Do You Talk to an Angel?

Angels, Devils, , , , , , ,

When the Son of God came down from heaven and became the Son of Mary, He did not come alone.  He brought many of His friends, the angels, with Him.  Throughout His earthly sojourn we find the angels playing a pivotal role.  Whether it be in glorifying God at His birth, ministering to Him in the desert, strengthening Him in the Garden or joyfully announcing His resurrection, the angels were His constant companions.  He did this not because He “needed” their help, but because we do.  He wanted to reveal to us just how vital angels are to our eternal well-being.  It seems fitting then that we take an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with them.

In a very real sense we were made for friendship with the angels.  Any time that Our Lord mentions the eternal reward He is promising, He always mentions the angels in the same breath (c.f. Luke 12:8-9, Mt 25:31-46).  But this friendship begins now; the angels are “all ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).  But this community with the angels can remain entirely abstract unless we have a means to communicate with them.

Talking with the Angels

Our side of the communication is rather straightforward.  We can invoke the angels and speak to them directly, knowing that they hear us.  How we invoke them however is also important.  We should never invoke an angel by name.  The Church has cautioned the Faithful about this and in recent times the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has spoken against the habit of asking your Guardian Angel his name:

“The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.” Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 216

This can be a dangerous spiritual practice as you have no assurance that the name you have discerned is not, rather than your Guardian Angel, a demon.  Once you repeat the demon’s name, you are inviting him and giving him a certain power over you.  In fact, because the Church, whose authority binds even those in heaven, has spoken definitively you can be sure that the name you “hear” is either the result of an over-active imagination (hopefully) or the name of a demon.  It is most assuredly not the name of your obedient Guardian Angel.  Better simply to address him as “Guardian Angel.”  The only exception to this rule are the names of the angels revealed in Scripture—Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

Of equal greater interest to us is how the angels communicate with us.  To answer this question we must first look at how it is that man receives any communication.  When words are spoken to us or read by us, the words themselves are merely symbols that are meant to invoke concepts.  We hear or see the words and then we form images (or phantasms as St. Thomas calls them) in our imagination, supplement those images with other images from our memory, and abstract the concepts from the images with our intellect.

A similar thing would obviously happen if an angel was to audibly speak to us (either by gathering matter together to make a body) or by simply moving air to make sound waves that form the spoken words or even writing us a message.  But this would not be the normal way in which they would communicate with us.  The angels’ normal mode of communication, that is when one angel communicates with another, is to simply place the idea they want to convey in the mind of the other angel.  They do this because of the manner in which angels naturally come to know things—the infusion of ideas directly into their minds.

There is a principle of with Scholastic philosophy that “whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver.”  What this means is that when angels communicate with us, they use not their mode of receiving communication, but ours.  They do not infuse ideas directly into our minds, but instead they move our imagination and memory with certain images that will set off a chain of thought.  The angels, especially our own personal guardian angel, know us well enough to know what images it will take to move our intellects in a certain direction.

A Hidden Corollary

This is, by the way, is why we have difficulty knowing that the angels have communicated with us.  We would tend, because it is so “natural” for our imaginations to actively provide images that come out of nowhere, to think it was just the result of our own thinking.  But there is an important corollary to this as well.  The fallen angels retained this power to move the material faculties of the imagination and memory and thus they too can set us off on a train of thought of their design.  Again, this is why we do not always know whether a particular temptation comes from us or from a demon.

In the information age, we spend a lot of time and resources making sure our personal data is secure.  We would not want hackers to get access to highly sensitive material.  The demons are like hackers.  They can easily hack into our memory and imagination and pull up particular memories or images to tempt us with.  This means we must constantly guard against putting any images there ourselves that could be used against us.  Many men report being able to remember a single pornographic image from 20 years ago and this is part of the reason why.

But we are not left unprotected.  Our Guardian Angel, whose main role is to protect us from the demonic invaders can guard our imagination and memory.  We should regularly seek their help so that the moment one of these images arises, we turn it over to them.  As this habit grows, we will reflexively turn them over and the demonic will seek another means of attacking us.

In a sermon he wrote for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Blessed John Henry Newman articulated one of the dangers of an “educated age” such as our is that we take little account of the angels.  When all thoughts are explained as simply the result of the firing of various synapses we can ignore that our friends the angels are still there and desiring to communicate with us.  Let us not fall into this sin of the educated age and rely ever greater on our heavenly ministers.

The Glory of God

beauty, Devils, God's Love, God's Will, Grace, Heaven, ,

Within the Christian vocabulary there are a number of terms that are regularly bandied about, but cry out for definition.  Grace immediately comes to mind as one of the most common.  A close second however is the term glory.  We know it is something that we are supposed to give to God in everything we do (1Cor 10:31).  Short of that however we are hard pressed to describe what this actually entails.  For something so important then it behooves us to reflect on exactly what we mean when we speak of the glory of God and how it is possible that we could actually “give” it to Him.

Because we cannot know God as He is in this life, we spend time contemplating His attributes—His goodness, His power, His wisdom, His omniscience, His Immutability, and so on.  But God Himself “spends His time” contemplating only one—His beauty.  That is, His beauty captures all of His attributes in their wholeness, proportionality, and radiance.  Sacred Scripture has a word for this undiminishing beauty, glory.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Glory

In theological terms God’s beauty, that is, what He is eternally contemplating, is referred to as His intrinsic glory.  From a human perspective this might seem the very height of narcissism, until we call to mind that all goodness and truth are found in God.  The Father, in gazing upon (or knowing) His perfection generates the Son.  From the mutual love of the Father and the Son for the Divine Perfection proceeds the Holy Spirit. Basking in the light of His infinite perfection, God has no need for anything other than Himself and yet, still He created.  Without any need, the only reason for creation must be found in Himself, that is, it must be because of Who He is.  Out of love of His own goodness, He desired to communicate that goodness to creatures.

No finite creature could ever “hold” the infinite goodness and so He makes a multitude of creatures, each with the purpose of reflecting His goodness, even if to a lesser or greater degree.  Or, as St. Thomas says, “the entire universe, with all its parts, is ordained towards God as its end, inasmuch as it imitates, as it were, and shows forth the Divine goodness, to the glory of God” (ST I, q.65, a.2).

From this notion, theologians develop the term extrinsic glory.  This is the reflection of the intrinsic glory that is found in creatures.  The Psalmist proclaims “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1) and St. Paul reminds the Romans that “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Romans 1:20).  Simply in existing, all things reflect God’s glory.  But He also willed to make creatures who not only reflected His glory, but could bask in it with Him.

The proof of this is within the story of creation, as elucidated through the scholastic dictum, “first in the order of intention is last in the order of execution” sheds further light on this.  The last act of creation, that is, the first act of the Seventh Day, is God’s “command” for man to bask in it by joining in God’s rest seeing all things as “good, very good” in reflecting the glory of God.  Man is invited to set aside this time specifically for basking in the “after burn” of God’s glory as a perpetual reminder of his purpose.

Man, then, among all visible creation is the only creature with the capacity to “give” God glory.  Like the rest of visible creation he reflects it, but with his unique powers of knowing and loving he can also give it back by acknowledging it and willing his participation in it.  This is what we mean when we say that man gives glory to God—not that God doesn’t already have it, but that through adoration and praise he may willingly return it to God.

Glory as a Temptation

Man is constantly confronted with two temptations.  The first is to see only the glory and to forget the One Whom it points to.  God has put just enough traces of His glory in creation so that man will seek out the true source.  But even these mirrors are so beautiful that there is always the temptation that they eclipse the One whom they were meant to image.  We can fall in love with the creatures and forget the Creator.

While this temptation is ever-present in our fallen world, it is the second temptation that is the more serious of the two.  With the capacity to give God glory comes the (seeming) ability to keep it for ourselves.   This is the sin of Lucifer and his minions and forms the seeds of pride within us.

Now we see that St. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians to do all for the glory of God is no pious sentiment, but a program of life.  Every thing that we think, do, and say should find its reference point in magnifying God’s glory.  Our Lord too wanted this to be our program of life.  He told His disciples that their light, that is their reflection of God’s glory, should so shine that when other men see what they are doing they know immediately that it is not their own work, but a manifestation of God’s glory (Mt 5:17).  This constant referral of all things to God’s glory increases our share in it both now and in eternal life—“ whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”

Making Up Your Mind about Mindfulness

Anthropology, Culture, Devils, New Age, Paganism, , ,

As Christians we are somewhat conditioned to look east, for east has long been believed to be the direction that Our Lord’s triumphant return.  While we wait however there are some of us who have looked further east and sought to adopt spiritual elements from the religions in the Far East.  The latest practice to be pondered is Mindfulness.

One of the most vocal proponents of Mindfulness is Dr. Gregory Bottaro.  As a practicing clinical psychologist and Catholic, he has sought treatments to help his patients in ways that are consistent with the Catholic vision of man.  To that end, he has been using Mindfulness within a clinical setting and has even written a book called The Mindful Catholic defending its use.

Mindfulness finds its origins in modern Theravada Buddhism and purports to create within the practitioner an awareness and acceptance, without judgment, of what he or she is thinking or feeling.  Or, to use Dr. Bottaro’s simple definition, mindfulness is “paying attention to the present moment without judgment or criticism.”  It is this inherent connection to a “New Age” practice that has many people concerned about its use.

Dr. Bottaro believes, like the Church herself, that even if a technique is borrowed from a New Age religion, it does not automatically make it wrong.  Instead we must look to see whether the technique can be stripped of its spiritual elements so that it can be “baptized” and used and prescribed licitly by Catholics.  In the case of Mindfulness, Dr. Bottaro claims that it is possible and that Mindfulness is not just a therapeutic technique, but one that all Catholics should be practicing.  This, of course, has been met with serious opposition questioning whether or not it can be severed from its Buddhist roots, including a book written by Susan Brinkmann as well as those at EWTN.  We will not add another voice to that particular debate here, but instead will examine Mindfulness from a different angle, namely Catholic anthropology.

Mindfulness and Catholic Anthropology

In the opening line of Appendix I of his book, Dr. Bottaro makes the claim that “Catholic mindfulness is built on Catholic principles.”  It is not clear from the rest of the article which principles he has in mind.  He seems to spend the bulk of his time defending its use against New Age claims that he never gets around to discussing how mindfulness harmonizes with Catholic anthropology.  It is in this arena of Catholic anthropological principles that mindfulness fails.  Rather than leading to mental health, it can facilitate further mental illness.

In anticipation of an immediate objection, what qualifies me, a theologian, to answer the question as to whether Mindfulness can lead to mental health?  To ask the question is to admit just how steeped we have become in the empirical mindset.  There is a distinction of vital importance to be made between what I will call the philosophy of psychology and the science of psychology.  The philosophy of psychology is concerned with, to use Dr. Bottaro’s terms, “Catholic principles” while the science of psychology is concerned with the clinical application of those principles through various techniques.  The theologian or philosopher can ask whether a given technique can lead to mental health (i.e. it leads to actions in accord with human nature) while a psychologist, once he knows the answer to this question, can ask if a given technique does in practice lead to mental health.

Foundational to Catholic anthropology is the fact that each one of us, to greater or lesser extents, is mentally ill.  This is said not to make us all victims or belittle those who suffer greatly because of serious mental illness.  Instead it is to point out a fundamental flaw in that we have a tendency to embrace the brokenness that comes from the Fall.  We equate natural (what we are) with normal (what everyone around us is doing).  This means that mental health can only come about through practices that restore what is natural and not necessarily what is normal.

Man, by nature, is an intellectual creature.  This means that he was made to rule himself by right reason to do the good passionately.  In other words, the intellect in man was to reign supreme, guiding the will to the good which had full cooperation from the bodily powers including the emotions, memory and imagination.  Post-edenic man finds his intellect darkened by ignorance, the will weakened and the bodily powers running amok.  The Fall left man in disarray, but not beyond repair.  God, using supernatural means such as actual and sanctifying grace can heal us.  But there are also natural means at our disposal to heal these effects.  Primary among those means are the virtues by which we develop habits that overcome the effects of the Fall.  The virtues rescue what is natural from what is normal.

Secondly because man is (and not just has) body and soul, the soul depends upon the body for its operation of knowing.  It does this primarily through the imagination and memory.  They provide the “raw material” upon which the intellect works.  The intellect abstracts the contents of its thoughts from the image (called a phantasm) provided it by the imagination, an image it received either from the outside world or from the memory (or both).  It is not just productive, but also reproductive in that it exercises insight and control to produce images as reflections of ideas.  This puts flesh to concept so to speak.  When we think of a concept, say like God, some image comes into our mind, even though we have never seen Him.  The images we form greatly affect our thoughts.  Imagine a demon who looks like a terrible dragon.  Now imagine a demon wearing red tights with horns.  Which of these reflects right thought about demons?

Given the material prominence of the imagination and to a slightly lesser extent the memory, one can readily see how important they are to mental health.  Whether we like it or not, they affect not just what we think about, but also how we judge.  A trivial example might help.  Suppose I fall out of a chair because I wasn’t being careful.  The next time I see a chair that memory will be invoked and I may recall the pain of the fall.  Chairs (and not just that one chair) will become associated with pain and something to be feared.  My intellect must then make a judgment on the phantasm that the chair poses no danger.  If I do not make that judgment, or I judge wrongly that chairs are bad then the association becomes stronger causing fear each time the phantasm is present, reinforcing the idea that chairs are dangerous.  A feedback loop is created and mental illness is comes about.  This can only be corrected when the judgment that chairs are not harmful is adopted and the intellect “corrects” the phantasms attached to chair.  Until the imagination comes under the complete control of the intellect, the person will still be torn between reality and perception.

Quieting the Interior Chatter

Obviously the memory and imagination are necessary faculties for mental health and therefore we can’t simply shut them off.  Instead they must be schooled so that they do not, as Adolphe Tanqueray says in his classic book The Spiritual Life, “crowd the soul with a host of memories and images that distract the spirit” but fall under the control of the intellect and the will.

Although he never says so explicitly, it is these two faculties, memory and imagination, which mindfulness attempts to govern.  Dr. Bottaro says that the goal is to turn away from the “interior chatter.”  This interior chatter comes from overactive memories and imaginations that lead to wrong ways of judging reality.  He suggests that by focusing on the present moment through mindfulness exercises you can begin to bring these powers under the control of the “mind.”

In this regard Dr. Bottaro is no different from many of the spiritual masters who say that one of the best ways to mortify the interior senses of memory and imagination is by focusing on the present moment.  However, there is one important difference—none of them would say that you can learn to govern the interior senses by “paying attention to the present moment without judgment or criticism.”  Mental health consists in the right judgment of reality.  The remedy to judging incorrectly is not to cease judging.  Any exercises that promote this lead away from mental health and not towards it.

Why is this the case?  Because the mind judges “automatically.”  It judges because that is what it does.  The mind has three acts—understanding, judgment and reasoning.  Once the mind has grasped what a thing is (understanding), it immediately attempts to relate it to other things (judgment).  As Blessed John Henry Newman put it, “It is characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgment on the things which come before them.  No sooner do we learn that we judge; we allow nothing to stand by itself.”

Inevitable Path to Buddhism?

Dr. Bottaro says that “mindfulness does not meaning turning off the thoughts in your mind, but using them as a door to greater awareness of yourself.  This is actually one of the essential differences between Catholic mindfulness and Eastern-based forms of meditation.”  But one cannot simply turn off judging without doing violence to the natural process of reasoning.  In essence by trying to abort the second act of the mind, it shuts down the mind completely, precisely what the Eastern-based forms are proposing.  It seems the very thing he is trying to avoid, he inadvertently brings about.  Perhaps those who are concerned about the spiritual traps of Buddhist practices are right after all.  Mindfulness may be not just a practice that Buddhist use, but a Buddhist “sacrament” that brings about the desired outcome of emptying the mind.  This happens regardless of the intention of the practitioner.  Perhaps there is a “genius” in the technique that, by doing what a Buddhist does, it causes the person to think like a Buddhist.  And once they think like a Buddhist they begin to act like one.

This may explain why, given that the doctor is also a “patient” of mindfulness that his book has a number of New Age red flags in his book when he attempts to articulate some Catholic principles.  Under the sub-heading Finding Peace, Dr. Bottaro sounds more New Age than he does Catholic.  He describes Jesus as “the human person of God, Jesus Christ.”  As Nestorius found out in the 5th Century, Jesus is not a human person but a Divine person who took to Himself a human nature.  One might excuse this merely as a lack of theological precision except he goes further making the reader wonder whether the label Catholic can be applied.

In the same section he also says “You have heard that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, but you are also more than that.  You exist in the form that God Himself would take if He were to enter into the created universe…”(emphasis added)  To say that we are more than temples of the Holy Spirit has a very Buddhist “feel” to it.  The only thing “more than” being a creature with the indwelling Holy Spirit is to be God Himself, something a Buddhist would readily accept.  Christ did not take to Himself a human nature because human nature was so great, but because He is so great.  In other words the doctor gets it backwards by putting man at the center instead of God.  We should not be surprised then when he says that “the central being that is consistently in your awareness in each present moment is you.  Therefore, mindfulness is a journey to find peace with yourself.”

Buddhism is a journey to find peace within yourself.  Catholicism, however, is a journey to find peace with God; peace that is only found outside of man.  The two are not compatible.   You will look forever, perhaps we might say eternally, for peace with yourself and you will never find it.   For Buddhists peace is found within because God is found within.  But for Catholicism the interior division that we experience is caused by our division with God and only when that is healed, can be even begin to experience the “peace with surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7 ).  Perhaps it is better not to let our gazes go any further east than Rome and leave Mindfulness to the Buddhists.