Newest Companion

Time for confession. It's been a little over a week since Jessica, my secretary, brought her over to me in the office. I was expecting her to come, but not just then; but it's been uninterrupted and unexpected pleasure since. Slim and graceful, a brunette with just a hint of red deep in an almost otherwise dark walnut color, she has a steely beauty that engages the eye. When she speaks, she does so with a natural authority. She is versatile, able to carry out any task for her that has come to my mind. I have to say that the first time I took her by the wrist I was amazed by its unexpected delicacy. Since that day we been out twice socially, causing a bit of a stir at whatever gathering she has been seen on my arm.

I'm speaking of course, about the new Early Rustic Arms French Trade Gun built for me by Mr. Terry Williams. I ordered her well over a year ago. She is not late; Larry Williams, who heads Early Rustic Arms, told me when I placed my order that he had a huge backlog of orders, which he was doing one at a time. At that time he was working alone. He's had some hard times; he lost his wife to cancer last year, and has been a bit lonely, I fear, in his shop. His son Terry has recently entered the business, and is actually the one who turned out my trade gun; which I am very happy with. I think the plans are to bring the entire operation out of Kentucky, to his son's place in Camdenten, MO.

My gun is not advertised by Early Rustic Arms as a Tulle fusil-de-chasse; it actually has the look, I think - but of course I'm no expert - of something that might have come out of the St. Etienne works. The furniture is later 'D" type French trade gun styling ( i.e., pre-1763). She has a 42 inch octagon to round smoothbore barrel, made by the Williams', in .62 caliber/ 20 gauge; she has a walnut stock stained very dark, and steel furniture, all antiqued in a gray finish. It's going to be much easier for me to maintain this gun than my other 20 gauge fusil de chasse, which metal is armory bright. She's also lighter in weight than the other gun, so I think she will be a great companion for me when I hunt. As a smoothbore, ( that is, possessing an unrifled bore like a shotgun) she will take either shot or ball, so I could use her to take and put down any game in North America from a gray squirrel to a polar bear. Loaded with a .600 caliber roundball and wad, or .595 caliber roundball with a greased patch and 70 grains of FFg black powder, she should be as accurate as a rifle for me out to at least 70 yards. The same powder load and an equal volume of #7 shot will do for small game like squirrel; switch to #4 shot and pump up the volume of it a bit, and I should have a tighter pattern and more knock-down power for hunting turkeys.

I did something I shouldn't of with this gun; I shot her out of the box without sighting her in. It was our first time out. And what I shot her in was the local muzzleloading club's smoothbore competition, in which I finished second place! She's already won me 2 pounds of black powder! Her balance is extremely sweet, and she holds on target like a rock.

The next day, Sunday, I went out with some friends to shoot trap. I haven't shot trap in 20 years. I hit three of every four birds flown; I'm not sure how many we shot, but we were there all afternoon. It was an informal family get-together of one of my parishioners who is a member of a huge clan, which I came to as an invited guest. Shooting a smoothbore flintlock successfully against all those people missing their clays with pump shotguns caused a bit of conversation, you can imagine!


I think this one going to become a favorite hunting gun. She needs a name, but I haven't thought of one yet. As you can tell, I'm very happy with her performance so far. Next week, we will go to the range to become more intensely acquainted with each other. I'll probably post a range report when I have one. And for sure, I'll be going squirrel hunting very soon!

A Busy Summer

My sister reminded me that I have not blogged since the end of June. It's been very busy with one thing and another.

We run a youth conference in Louisville at the end of July. Every year through the Dominican Fraternity in New Hope (no, "Fraternity" in the Latin sense, not the "Greek" sense! - it's what we have to call the Dominican Third Order now.) We had 200 wonderful young men and women attending, and nearly another hundred staff, chaperones, speakers, and other adults involved.

After that, I had to get ready and work the Dublin Irish Festival in Columbus, Ohio; that's always a lot of work, as I am authenticity officer, and they never seems be enough time in the year to prepare everything we really need to have to re-create 10th centuryViking Age Ireland.

I used to take the whole month off in August; it's now down to a week and two weekends. I count the Festival as time off, even though it's crazy busy: I do two cultural workshops, say the Mass in Irish on Sunday, and spend the rest of the time portraying a Gaelic nobleman in the age of Brian Ború.

We took down the cultural exhibit on the Monday after the festival; but that took the first day out of War Week for me at Pennsic. We finished take-down in the early afternoon, and I should've left; but I was bushed and then crashed at friend's house for a few hours. By the time I got on the road to Pennsic it was evening; I didn't get there until about 10:30 p.m., and had to set up my tent in the dark. The Baroness Brise informed me the next morning that I have exactly 48 stakes in my tent set up, and of course she is correct (how did I know she was to be sleeping in camp that night??)

As I have been so derelict about heavy weapons practice, charging right into four and more hours of heavy fighting a day, to say nothing of hauling my 68 pounds of gear up and down the hill we camp on, took a certain physicaltoll. I actually was in good shape for fighting, and founded this one to be easiest war in that regard that I have attended a long time. The difficulty is that my armor no longer quite fits me, and especially around the thighs, my cuisses are chafing in a most distressful way. At the end of each day I found myself going to bed early; I stayed in camp, socializing with the other members of the Duke's household. I don't think I went to town once except as I passed back through it once in armor to pick up a canvas satchel at Panther Primitives.

I was back on deck In Kentuckyfor Sunday Mass, and then the week hit, harder than usual because of all the work that had landed on my desk while I was away. The first week back I had two major funerals to organize, finish a writing project that didn't get done until this week; prepare an end of the year report for the Angelic Warfare Confraternity; organize the festivities for the Feast of St. Rose, which include a festival Mass and a parish picnic on the lawn; and of course, last weekend was the fourth weekend of the month, which means I had to prepare a Spanish sermon in addition to everything else. This does not include beekeeping meetings and duties, a class in basic brewing for some of the young men of the parish, and the usual desk full of letters, correspondence, forms, sermon preparation, and the rest of my usual duties. At this time we also have to renovate the electrical system for the parish as the utility poles are shot and need to be re-figured it replaced. its going to cost a bundle. So that's why I haven't blogged.

I'll get back to it, never fear. And I hope to be more efficient in writing it. Shorter, more concise articles, are ,I think are called for.

I found my weight after Pennsic had fallen to 295 pounds. That's 32 pounds from the start of my program. A good thing, certainly; it's just too easy to fall back into that old habits.

A Milestone

Today is weigh-in day for my Weight Watchers program, and from a starting weight of 327 pounds, I now weigh 299, as of today, officially. I'm now down 28 pounds, 26 on the website, since I "started" two pounds lower than my actual weight. (Vanity, vanity, thy name is Tigernach!)

I think it helps to visualize these things as concretely as possible. To get an idea of the weight loss that that 28 lbs. involves, think of 3 gallons of milk and 3 pounds of butter sitting on the table. Now imagine these things strapped to your body and walking around with them all day.

There is a great additional psychological kick I'm getting from the change in the "odometer" today- I haven't seen a "2" in the hundreds column on a scale in a very long time. I have 59 pounds to get the 240 pound level that I've set myself for riding a horse, but that means I am more than a third of the way there. This is good. Last time I checked I was only a quarter of the way there.

I'm really psyched, and set to lose the next 2 pounds -which will bring me to 30 pounds weight loss. Losing weight is like streetfighting - you move from house to house, bit by bit, constantly denying ground to the enemy, worried not about the long-term battle or the course of the war, but just about the gritty upfront and personal combat for the next street or house next in line.

My BMI is 39.5, measured electrostatically. The chart says it should be 43, so I am somewhat denser (no cracks!) than I should be for this weight. I still obese, but the thought that I have a disproportionate excess of muscle however slight, encourages me that this will increase the energy demand from the body against my fat reserves. Every little bit helps.

I don't have a blood sugar or blood pressure for today, as I said some things I had to get done before Mass again, and after Mass and communion I can't get a reliable result on these. I'll post what I have tomorrow.

Witness Is Personal

(The following little story has been slightly edited in its facts in order to tell it in front of an audience and to protect the guilty.)

I think if we're honest, we have to admit that children grow up in a universe inhabited by other small criminals. Bullies are part of their lives. There are a lot of things we got into, growing up, that we never told our parents. This is one of those stories I never told my parents.

When I was in fifth grade, there was a bully from the other school in town who used to shake down kids from my school for their lunch money. He must have been in seventh grade or so, and was much bigger than us physically. One day, when I was walking home with a friend from my class, we met him on the road. I have to admit that his technique of grade school robbery was practiced, effortless, and even elegant. He came up to the two of us, and, without saying a word, punched my friend in the face, and then turned to me to begin his explanation of his financial needs, and the difference between our fighting weights. I'll always remember my friend's face, as he turned away from me without a word and started walking in another direction. The look in his face said :" Sorry, but I can't stay. I'd like to, but I don't have the heart for it. Right now it's too hard to be your friend. Good luck." And he left me alone, with only my enemy for company.

In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus continues to instruct his disciples, whom he is sending out to preach. He tells him, "Do not fear." What they have heard in secret, from his own lips, they are to proclaim on housetops. And yet these are the same men who will leave him alone and bereft in the Garden of the Agony, while they run to save their skins. Yet after the Lord forgives them, and brings them back in the glory of Easter to the intimacy of friendship with him, and finally welds their hearts to his own in the fire of the Pentecost, they will go forth and preach without ceasing what they have heard from the heart of him whom they love. Peter and Andrew, who will die crucified themselves, will preach even from the crosses on which they die what Jesus had done for them, faithfully eager to the end to testify to him who loved them even when they betrayed him.

It is this kind of testimony that changes other people's hearts. It is this kind of testimony that the Lord is talking about in this gospel. It is this kind of testimony that he wants you and me to give when we talk about him to other people, when we witness to him by the shape of who we are and what we do. He is not asking us to give testimony in this gospel to the teaching of the catechism , to the shape of authentic morals, or to the fact that the fullness of grace and teaching about God is to be found in the Catholic Church. All these facts are true and important, but they are not the heart of the testimony we need to give. The testimony you and I must give about Jesus is first of all about our own personal friendship with him,- our knowledge of him, not our knowledge about him. And we can only give his testimony if in fact, we know him from the heart; if we are standing with him in friendship.

The secret room of our heart is where we come to know him, and where he will speak to us if we let him. It's our personal knowledge of his presence that enables us to testify with authority and authenticity about him. The testimony we give about Jesus , which we shout "from the housetops," is given in words alone, but even more powerfully in our actions. We show that we really know him and his heart when staying close to him costs us. And that's why the world never gives up trying to separate us from Christ and his friendship. Like the seventh grade bully, the wicked spirit that rules this world punches us in the face, regularly, to distract us and separate us from standing with our Jesus.

This assault comes in many ways: it can come through our own weakness and attachment to habits of sin, the way Judas' treason began in his greed for money. It can come through our own laziness and distaste of putting ourselves out for Christ - the reason some people stay in bed on a Sunday, or, if they attend, make no effort to make the Mass their own act of worship. Sometimes a crisis seems to get too hard for us to handle: the unexpected pregnancy, an addiction to drink or drugs or sex, infertility, a marriage that's failing,-and the world tempts us to go in a different direction than Jesus leads us, to find an easier way through it than the path of the Gospel and the Cross.

The assault on our friendship with Christ can also come from outside us, by making our testimony to Christ harder, sometimes subtly harder - by making us pay a price for being publicly recognized as Catholic Christians and friends of Jesus. Many of the people in my parish are descendents of English Catholics who suffered centuries of persecution, fines, and even martyrdom to retain their Catholic faith. My own Kerry Irish people can take you out from our village of Killorglin out towards Cahirsiveen and show you the Mass rock where our ancestors worshiped, risking arrest by soldiers, the Mass being said by a priest with a wolf's bounty on his head, dead or alive.

It's more subtle in our own day. A friend of mine was once applying for a position with a big Boston law firm. The interviewer noted that my friend had included his service with the Knights of Columbus on his resume. "You realize," he said, "that at this firm, we leave religion at the door. You work when we say to work, and you take the cases we tell you to, regardless of your religious sympathies or personal morality." My friend thanked interviewer for being so upfront. " Obviously," my friend said, " You're really not the kind of people I want to spend my professional life with." He got up and left. He stuck with Christ at the expense taking a job most young lawyers dream about. But he would not desert his Jesus; he would not turn away from his heart's best friend.

By clinging to Jesus and his way in good times and bad, we show ourselves the personal friends of a risen and living Lord whom the world would prefer to be still dead; and we give testimony to his power to bind our hearts to his by standing with him, no matter what comes.

That's why our time with Jesus every week at Mass is so important. In this blessed hour when Heaven bows low to Earth, this holy banquet contains Jesus himself present to us under the appearance of food and drink to feed us really and truly in the depths of our person, at the core of who we are. In this sacred meeting, he knocks on the door of our heart, - that secret room the Gospel talks about, - and asks us to let him in; and not only him, but the other friends of his heart as well. The life of holy Communion is not just an individual thing; it is for building up the body of Christ we call the Church. He calls us together to eat as one family, one body, one community formed from his own Heart, and strengthens us there so that we may stand by him as each other's hearts' best friends. That common life with him and each other as the Church is where true testimony about Christ begins.

Rethinking Preaching

Last Wednesday I attended a conference on preaching given by Father Peter John Cameron, OP at our Dominican house of St. Dominic's in Youngstown Ohio. It was 14 hours of driving to get there and back, but eminently worth it.

Father Peter John began his presentation by focusing on the relevant Vatican II documents on the liturgical homily, and provided a cogent analysis of the homily as it should be given according to these documents. In doing so, he presented a vision of preaching rather at odds with the way most Dominicans, in my experience, preach.

When I was assigned to St. Rose in Kentucky, the Prior Provincial told me that part of my purpose in being assigned to St. Rose was to instruct the people. Now, any Catholic pastor will tell you that the only place you will ever see about 90% of your congregation is at Sunday Mass. And for that reason, I've always tried in my preaching to balance the need for touching the heart with the need for feeding the mind with instruction in Scripture, doctrine, and morals. Father Peter John's approach is radically different. Sermons instruct; homilies bring the Person of Christ close to the hearer. The readings of the last few weekends have been bringing this home to me in a very firm and unmistakable way; first of all, Christ sits down with sinners so that they may come to know him personally before he begins to instruct them in sainthood.

I have therefore begun to think that I have got to trash the way I preach and start over again. I've got it wrong. I've been doing it wrong. And I have to trust Christ to help me get it right.

As usual, the Lord himself cuts to the heart of the matter. I'm thinking of the call of St. Matthew, again, that we read last week. On setting out as a rabbi, Jesus doesn't teach Scripture, doesn't explain doctrine, doesn't set forth the moral path to goodness - he goes to dinner with sinners. He begins to relate to them on a personal level, while they are still sinners, before he begins to educate them in sanctity. This is true of his own management of the Apostolic College as well. Jesus calls his his men by inviting them to "come and follow" him and taste life in his presence. It's only when they're in his presence, committed to following him, that he begins to instruct them in the Mysteries of the Kingdom.

So the homily must introduce its hearers to the person of Christ in a similar fashion. In terms of sacred preaching, that is, preaching that is carried on in the context of the Divine Liturgy, - a preaching which is reserved to the apostolic ministry, - Christ becomes present to the hearers through the authentic relationship which the preacher first has with Christ. The preacher himself must have seen and experienced the holy fire of Calvary's sacrifice before he can speak of that to others. Just as the Son of God for the sake of our salvation lowered the heavens that God might walk as man among men, so must the preacher find a way to put aside himself, his ego, and even his humility about his own weak and warped relationship with Jesus so that Christ may make himself visible, through his preaching. And the ordained preacher can trust that Christ will do this, because this is precisely the point and purpose of his ordination, his being "set apart" for sacred ministry.

It's really been this way from the beginning. The founder of God's family in the Old Testament, who gathered his twelve sons about him to found Israel's tribes is not known as "the man who spoke of God" or "the man who taught the path of God, "but "the one who wrestles with God." As the Lord himself wrestled with his Father's will for him, so must the preacher wrestle with the Word of God as it is addressed to him and his flock every Sunday and holy day. It is this hard-fought, hard-won manifestation of the presence of God in his own life that gives the the preacher's preaching authenticity and power to touch souls.

So what happens to instruction? I think that any instruction I give in the future at Mass is going to be tangential. I am going to stop trying to educate my flock with the Sunday preaching. I'm going to trust holy Church and Jesus Christ, who makes his will to me known in her, no matter where that leads me.

So what happens to the instruction of my flock?

The difficulty is, that if my people in the pews have not first committed themselves to following Jesus personally, they will have no real profit from instruction in Scripture, doctrine, or morals. The voice of Christ, speaking in the abstract, will become one voice among many competing for their attention in a world where everybody has a program or something to sell. Unless they have first met Christ and tasted the sweetness of his presence, they will experience life in the Church as a straitjacket rather than a road in which Christ companions them to glory. Unless they first have a contemplative heart, a heart that has heard the summons of Christ's own to them personally, there will be no reason for following the Church's path more than any other human philosophy or ethic.

The other night I had a conversation with a young girl who had been a parishioner while I was assigned at St. Patrick's in Columbus. She told me of how she had been speaking with her non-Catholic boyfriend about God and the shape of living the Christian life, and her real difficulties with it. She mentioned, in particular, her concern as to whether or not everything she had been taught was true. She spoke as though she had never met the Lord truly in her heart.

This is a girl who was subjected to my preaching for the ten years I served in Columbus. And I think I have failed her by not preaching as I should have.

We continued our conversation, and I told her some of my own experiences of Jesus from my own life, including the run-in I had with the Sacred Heart which I have already recounted on this blog. I also pointed out to her that that particular incident in my life didn't happen until long after I had decided to follow Jesus and was permanently vowed into the religious life, and had begun to follow him into the apostolic ministry by ordination to the priesthood. I also told her it was natural, in fact, good, to begin to question what she had been taught, since it's by that means that we commonly make what our parents and the Church have taught us us truly our own; but I told her not to give up, either, on really seeking Jesus from the heart - I had found him, and I know that he wants to heal her heart, too.

I think she was encouraged by hearing about an authentic and personal experience of Christ. It was not her experience, but the fact of my testimony to Christ's work in my own life seemed to encourage her and give her a hope that looks forward to Christ's personal intervention in her own life.

For myself, this encounter was somewhat disheartening. This is a girl from a good and devout family. She was troubled was what she perceived to be the absence of Christ's real Presence from her life; and yet he stands in front of her at every Mass, and comes into her very body with every Holy Communion. Perhaps I have not done my job at all well these past 20 years.

Father Lenehan and brother Bruno Clifton (a student brother of the English province) visited yesterday and this was the subject of conversation at breakfast. Father James Murray, with his usual unselfconscious wisdom, pointed out that "a fire gets started from a spark"; and this really is what I need to be focusing on when I preach a homily. Mere instruction will be useless except to these hearts which already know Christ; I need to do my instruction at a time other than Mass. I can heap all the wood I want to on a pyre, but unless something is burning the pyre never becomes a fire.

So I might start giving instruction at other times, like a catechism class on Wednesday nights. Perhaps a series of lectures on topics that my congregation suggests to me may be the way to go. But in any case, Christian instruction is going to have to happen at a time other than the Sunday liturgy.

More about this later; Father Cameron gave us eight useful points for improving our homily, and I need to think these things out on paper to get them right.

"While I Must Decrease"

No, this isn't about John the Baptist.

At the beginning of my postings I said that I would use this as a log to keep some of my health concerns in order. So I'm happy to report that as of yesterday, I have lost 27 pounds according to my scale, and this over about six weeks. The computer program keeping track of my progress is red-flagging me that I'm moving too fast with my weight loss, but the doctors in my life do not seem to be worrying.

I'm about to go under 300 pounds for the first time in about 20 years - at least. I have made one partially successful effort before this time - losing 70 pounds for a short while on the Atkins diet - but this time I really seem to have accomplished a major change in my habits. At the time I lost the 70 pounds, I was exercising daily, walking several miles, but this time I seem to be accomplishing my goals without having to worry about hours of aerobic exercise every day. I'm finally learning portion control.

It is said that if you can keep up a new pattern of activity for 28 days, it becomes a new habit. At this rate, I have a new habit of approaching the table developed already. I'm happy for this for a number reasons.

First of all, as the old Dominicans used to say, God has given me one horse for the journey (my body) and I need to keep it healthy without cozzening it, for God's sake and that of my ministry.

Second of all, I think I can be a better witness to virtue, if my obesity comes under control. It's hard to preach about fasting (which is not however dieting!) when one looks like Friar Tuck of the Robin Hood tales.

Thirdly, my energy and focus greatly improve as my weight comes under control.

Finally, I will be able to do things I cannot do now as my health improves. When I hit 240 pounds, I have promised myself that I'm going horseback riding. That's 60 pounds away, but at the beginning of this program I was almost 90 pounds away. That's a big chunk of road in the right direction. I haven't been at 240 pounds since high school.

The charts say I should be shooting for a final weight of about 170 pounds. My brother Michael (a doctor) thinks that's a little extreme for me given my bone structure and my peculiar hobbies. I am likely to weigh more because muscle is denser than fat; right now, the charts say my body fat ratio is at about 45%; electrostatic measurement suggests that it is in fact close to 39%; which means that I'm bearing a lot more muscle on me than the charts initially suggest. But I think I'll worry about that kind of thing when I get closer to 180 pounds. And that's a way off yet.

I think I would be a better witness to the religious life if there were less of me. When I was planning to enter the Dominican order, I attended the ordination to the priesthood of the Dominican who had become a Trappist at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. The Trappists, who spend their time in agriculture, dairy farming, and other manual labor are as thin as rails; this is not usually true of Dominicans, who spend a huge amount of life at the desk or in the parlor in an age where we expected to get from place to place not by foot (as in the primitive fashion of the age of St. Dominic) but in motorcars, for efficiency's sake. Many of us end up with a substantially different body type than that of Trappists. I had traveled up to this ordination with an acquaintance who was also considering the priesthood. When we walked into the parlor near the main offices at St. Joseph's, we found four Dominicans sitting in the parlor. Each of these particular men, God bless them, was at least 300 pounds, and so among the four chairs we had a good half ton of Dominican flesh in the room. My companion noted, with disapproval, the contrast between the Dominicans and the Trappists in this.

I should hasten to add that most Dominicans do not run to this kind of avoirdupois; but I do. And I think I would be a better witness to self-discipline if my body, which after all, is the physical manifestation of the life of my soul, should also show forth the shape of discipline in these matters, which for me have been a battleground since I was a small child.

It would be nice if I could hit 297 pounds by Wednesday - which is my weigh-in day. But that might be too fast. I think I can certainly hit that by the week after. In Spe Vivamus.

The Fifth Disciple

When a young doctor puts out his shingle, he has to get staff privileges at a hospital. When a lawyer opens up for business, he has to get a client funds account set up. In every profession, there are some things you have to do to begin business in that profession. What you do if you are a first century Jewish rabbi? You take disciples. How many disciples before you're a real rabbi? Five; the same number as the Books of Moses.

So in the Gospel today (Matthew 9:9 -13), Jesus takes his fifth disciple. That makes him a real rabbi in Jewish eyes. He's already taken the brothers Peter and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee John and James. The fifth disciple is Matthew, also called Levi. And Matthew is a real piece of work.

Matthew is a tax collector for the Romans; he has turned his back on his country, his family, his friends, and his religion in order to make money. To get his commission as a tax collector, he would have had to pay a substantial sum of money to the Roman governor, because this was a way to get rich. With a squad of Roman soldiers at his back, he would work very hard to get his quota of taxes demanded by the Roman government and would work even harder to make use of his position to squeeze his fellow Jews for money; for this was an extortion racket. The Romans didn't care how rich Matthew became as long as they got their share of tax money. And Matthew could growvery rich this way.

So it is all the more surprising that when Jesus walked by his customs post and called Matthew to his side, that Matthew actually came. He turned his back on his money and his former life, and chose this new life with the penniless Master who from this moment becomes a rabbi of Israel in earnest. What a powerful grace! What an amazing motion of the Holy Spirit! He turns twice; once away from sin, and the life he had before Jesus; and secondly to Jesus, whose loving Heart has made the first motion towards Matthew's own.

Now, what is the next thing Jesus does? What's the first act of the new rabbi, the teacher in Israel? Does he open a yeshiva? Does he distribute the five books of Moses to his disciples and begin a study of those holy Scriptures? No. He goes to dinner - at the house of his newest disciple.

Matthew is a lowlife. He has no decent respectable friends. No Jew worthy of the name would be seen dead with him. And so when Matthew entertains Jesus at his home, he brings all his lowlife friends - other tax collectors, ladies of easy virtue, ne'er-do-wells and public sinners.

And the righteous start gossiping about it. "What does your Master mean by eating with tax collectors and sinners?" the Pharisees ask Jesus' disciples. Jesus answers : " Learn the meaning of the Scripture, ' I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' I have come not for the righteous but for sinners."

If you are righteous by yourself before God, you don't need Jesus. There is no need for him to save you, because you don't need saving. If you've never robbed, stolen, cheated, committed adultery, been angry, let fear, avarice or desire overrule your judgment; if you have never gossiped, never let an uncharitable words slip your lips; if you have always and at every second of your life loved the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and you have loved your neighbor at all times and moments as your very self - then you don't need Jesus. But I know I'm not there; I doubt you, dear reader, are either; in fact, I don't believe that anyone has avoided these sins entirely except the Lord Jesus himself, and by the saving grace of his Cross, his Blessed Mother. And but for him, even she would be marked by sin.

So like Matthew, I am unrighteous and need the physician Jesus Christ for my healing. And like Matthew, I need to make the double turn which is an authentic repentance: a turning away from sin, and the turning to the person of Jesus Christ, who is life and healing. And Jesus begins this process in us not by teaching us morality, but by bringing us to table with him, to eat and to drink. The repentant Mathew and his sinner friends become table companions of the Lord. The Lord still does this in every Mass , inviting sinners to sit down, kick back, eat and drink, and come to know him better from the heart.

"I desire mercy and not sacrifice." The Old Testament line goes to the priority of what God demands that we must have if we are to approach him properly. If we start with the objective requirements of justice - and every rational creature owes a debt of worship, praise and glory to its God - we can treat God objectively with our code of morality - "do justice" - and miss the point of the relationship he demands of us, which is that of a personal union. God is love, and the inner life of the One God is of Three Persons united in a single existence of love and knowledge.

I often think that we are shortchanged as Christians by being English speakers; that English has so many inferior ways of talking about things that are most important about being human - a problem that other languages do not have. There is the distinction in Latin, for example between "scire" and "cognoscere"; the first implies an objective, authoritative, and taxonomic intellectual appropriation of reality, and the second, a knowledge of a person based in a shared experience of life. Spanish has the same distinction in the difference between the verbs "saber" and "conocer"; French "savoir" and "connaître"; German "wissen" and "kennen." It is too easy for us in English to miss the distinction between knowing about God and knowing God.

For instance, when we pay our electric bill -a debt we owe in justice - we generally don't worry about how life is going for the person who takes our money. We pay our bill and are done with it. Some people treat Mass as that - an obligation to be paid and be done with. But if we maintain this frame of mind, we never actually get to know the person behind the counter, or the Master behind the Mass. If we take the employee of the electric company to dinner, and listen to him talk about his wife and kids, and his hopes for life and his frustrations with his work; if we spend with him an afternoon of fishing or a night of bowling, we come to "know" him in a radically different, and very personal way than we did before. He will be on the way to becoming a friend, one with whom we share our own heart. And it's this kind of relationship that Jesus wants with us first, before he makes us saints.

And so, when he offered the perfect sacrifice for the world's sins on the Cross, when he paid that debt of justice once and for all on behalf of you and me, he permitted his Heart to be torn open by the soldier's lance, and established two great milestones in the life of each of us in the water and blood that poured from it.

The water we know as the sacrament of Baptism that purifies our hearts that we may sit down with the Master at table. It is a sacrament especially aimed at mortal sin; the person who passes through this holy bath is made fit table company for him who is the Sinless One, and marks our entry into His presence as his disciples. In Baptism we make the same turning away from life without God and life with sin that Matthew made when Jesus called him away from the customs post.

The blood and life of Christ is received in the holy Eucharist, which contains the person of Christ himself, who comes as the sacred Meal which is first movement of his tutelage of us. The Eucharist is aimed at venial sin: the sins committed in inattention and human weakness, the habits that we can't seem to control on our own; the sparkings to sin which remain in us, even after we have deliberately renounced a life without Christ. Healing these is the work of a lifetime; and the Eucharist works first of all, not by instructing us in goodness through the mind, but healing us by Christ's persistent presence in our heart, by feeding us at the very root of our person where he has joined himself to us.

And so any given moment we find ourselves on a road to holiness stretching between our Baptism and our Eucharist- between the font and the altar, between the life of deliberate and unrepentant sin and a spiritual living death which we have left behind us, and the splendid undying life that flows from the heart of the immortal Christ urging us on on our pilgrimage to the new and heavenly Jerusalem.

Matthew's penitence in the Gospel prophesies the shape of our own daily conversion. Since this is a journey, it is a conversion that needs to be renewed daily. Baptism is the beginning but not the end of conversion. The Eucharist is the summit of holiness, but a holiness not completely achieved until we pass fully into the depths of the Sacrament which signifies and effects undying life for Christ and those who follow him.

There are many moments, of course, in which we renew this conversion, but for me, one of the most important has always been my participation in the Sacrament of Penance. When I make my confession, I look back to my Baptism, and essentially renew the vows of that commitment, rejecting sin and choosing again new life in Jesus Christ. I also look forward to my participation in the Eucharist, and specifically how to avoid the traps that I have been following into, the actual matter of my present confession. It is, here, I think that many Catholics make a mistake by not taking seriously the need to make a firm purpose of amendment. This isn't just a commitment to avoid mortal sin; it's a concrete commitment to avoid all sin. And that means, if I'm committing venial sin as a habit, I need to be specific about how I plan to avoid this in the future.

To take a specific example, let's say that I have difficulty with gossip. Now normally Christians do not run out of church to gossip about everyone and everything. Usually it's specific people who get talked about, in the company of other specific people. So if I have a problem with gossip, my formation of my firm purpose of amendment should be something like this: "Every time Aunt Minnie visits, she wants to talk about how rotten Cousin Bob is. So what I'm going to do in the future is, when she mentions him, I'm going to praise him to the skies. " (Gossips generally cease having fun when other people refuse to join in their hobby of character assassination.) Now I have a" firm intention", and a concrete plan of how to avoid this sin. In a month, when I come back to confession, I can check my plan and see how well I've done. If it's not working, I may have to try different strategy - like just telling Aunt Minnie that I don't want to talk about Bob, and would she like a glass of iced tea? Either my besetting sin is under control, or it's not. If it's not, I continue to tweak the situation until it is. If the sin is now under control, then I reevaluate my conscience to see what sin as taken its place as that which is giving me the most trouble. Thus from confession to confession, I continue to grow concretely in the conquest of my various sins and weaknesses, and continue to come closer to the heart of Christ. In this way, instruction in morality and the law of God serves its true purpose, which is to bring my heart and Christ's together, to bind his life and mine into one life - a mercy that transcends the obligations of mere justice.

And if this glory can happen in a life like Matthew's, then it can happen in mine.

The Cord of St. Thomas

Last year, the Prior Provincial, with the approval of the Provincial Council gave me the job of Director of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity. Of the three confraternities that have been important in the life of the Order in the United States, the Holy Name Society, the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary, and the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare of St. Thomas Aquinas, the latter has been the most moribund in recent times. At the end of the Second Vatican Council, many of the traditional devotions which were the backbone of Catholic piety in times past were at least temporarily discarded, as the Church tried to both update herself and rediscover the traditional sources of her sacramental and devotional life. If you stop to consider it, this was a most natural development; prior to the Council, the Eucharistic life of the church was conducted entirely in Latin, to which only the educated members of the Church had real access (and in this number I do not count certain of the priests, some of whom seem to have struggled with only the barest rudiments of Latin throughout their years of devoted priestly service.) The devotional life of the Church, on the other hand, - the world of holy hours, rosary devotions, wakes and funerals, May processions, - these were all conducted in the vernacular; and yet these devotions are secondary to the real sacramental center of the life of the Catholic Church, which is Holy Mass. After the Council, as I recall it, it seemed impossible for a while for Catholics to meet for any purpose without having a Mass, preferably on the coffee table. I remember going to one vocation event sponsored by the Dominicans, where Mass was celebrated on a coffee table in spite of the fact that 50 feet down the hall there was a completely appointed chapel suitable for celebrating Mass as the Second Vatican Council desired it to be celebrated.

But I digress. I am discovering in the present moment a spiritual current in the people of God, especially among the younger priests and laity, which is moving them to rediscover some of the older devotions. The Angelic Warfare Confraternity is one of these.

When St. Thomas Aquinas was a novice in the Dominican Order, he was stolen away by his powerful relatives, who were officials in the Holy Roman Empire, to their family castle of Rocca Sicca, where his sisters, egged on by their mother, tried to get him to forsake his Dominican vocation. It's not that the family was opposed to a priestly vocation; they actually preferred him to join the Benedictine Order; with their personal connections within the Empire, they outright told him that they planned to make him Abbot of Monte Cassino- a very powerful and potentially lucrative position profitable for him and for the influence and importance of the rest of the family. But for Thomas to become a ragtag mendicant preacher was out of the question for them! When, however, his sisters finally came out of the room where Thomas was imprisoned, they did so convinced by him that they themselves should become nuns. Thomas' mother and brothers then decided on a more sinister tack. If they couldn't destroy his desire to become a Dominican, perhaps they could destroy his innocence, self-respect, and willingness to seek any kind of vocation in vowed chastity at all. And so his brothers, who were soldiers in the Imperial Army, introduced one of their camp followers into Thomas's room with a purpose of seducing him and destroying his innocence. Thomas, on seeing the girl in his bed, snatched a flaming brand from the the fire heating the room and, yelling, chased the seductress out of his chamber. Slamming the door after her, Thomas used the torch to burn the mark of the Cross on the door, and throwing himself upon his knees begged Jesus for protection for his chastity. He related later to this confessor that, at this point, two angels appeared, who bound him around the waist with a knotted cord, and promised him that from now on his chastity would be secure. His sisters eventually helped him escape by lowering him down the castle walls; he rejoined his brethren and made his profession.

What is particularly wicked about the temptation given to Thomas, of course, is the malice with which it was presented by those family members who in a particular way ought to have been careful and desirous of his perseverance in virtue. Instead, you see a real diabolic wickedness in the attempt to corrupt one whom they should have loved as their own flesh and blood. Hence, the peculiar name for this confraternity in English: The Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare of St. Thomas Aquinas.

This cord, the story of which was confided by St. Thomas to his confessor Raymond during his lifetime, was discovered on his body at his death, and is preserved in a church in Chieri, in the archdiocese of Torino, Italy. It contains 15 knots, which Dominican devotion has subsequently associated with the 15 mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary, and therefore is understood to signify a girding of oneself spiritually with the truth of the Gospel, after the fashion of Saint Paul's words in Ephesians ( Gird yourself with truth...).

The wearing of a knotted cord in the tradition of St. Thomas seems to become a popular though private devotion of Dominicans as well as a number of other Christians. The Renaissance and Baroque periods see the reorganization of a number of medieval devotions as formal confraternities; I have mentioned before the peculiar rage for systematization and organization which is part of the cultural shape of that moment in history. The Rosary Confraternity has its first formal organization from these times; Father Jacob Springer,O.P, famous inquisitor and author of the Malleus Maleficarum also happens to be the founder of the Rosary Confraternity, turning out a rosary book for meditation with 365 Mysteries of the Rosary.

In the first part of the 17th century, at the University of Louvain, Father Francis Deuwerders, O.P., instituted a Confraternity of the Cord of St. Thomas aimed at the clerical students and faculty of this university; it subsequently became popular with the faithful spreading from thence to Maastricht, Vienna and many other European cities. In 1652, Pope Innocent X, issued a brief sanctioning the confraternity and giving it a place in the devotional life of the Universal Church (22 March, 1652). Benedict XIII confirmed the devotion, and enumerated its indulgence and privileges in the Bull "Pretiosus" (26 April 1727, section 9.)

The heart of the devotion is the wearing of the Cord of St. Thomas (in the present age, a medal may be substituted for the cord), the enrollment of one's name in the registers of the Confraternity, the recitation of 15 Paters and Aves, and a commitment to living a chaste and holy life after the example of St. Thomas.

I personally have experienced great blessings in the realm of increase of continence and the practice of chastity once I was enrolled and started wearing a medal of the Confraternity. (Right now my apple-shaped body does not easily maintain the Cord in its position, especially if I am exercising vigorously!)

Any rate, I need to be working on this devotion more than I have been; although I take the position that I have been studying the theology behind the devotion as best I can given the fact that I have full-time pastorate. But that's certainly an excuse. We have been receiving many inquiries about this devotion recently; there seems to be, oddly, more devotion among the people of God to this Confraternity than the brethren traditionally have had interest in it, at least during my time in the Order. But the times, they are a changin'!

I will have to write more about this another time.

Cor Sacrum Jesu

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, and it's been one blessed thing after another. Absolutely, sincerely, and truly. However, it's been a productive day. I managed to get done a set of annulment papers that has been hanging fire on my desk for a good long time, as well as saying Mass, processing the daily mail (ordinary internal audit coming in July or August), and having a special holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, all by one o'clock. At one o'clock, I came off the altar to find Father Crotty of the Fathers of Mercy waiting for me. I had promised him lunch, and had forgotten that I had. So I got lunch twice - which I wouldn't mind so much about if I wasn't really trying to lose weight. Father had a number of needs, including the need to check his e-mail for which he used my computer. No problem, he is a traveling missionary, who has a healing ministry that is very effective and successful.

I took him out for Mexican food and ordered myself a vegetarian quesadilla since, even though it's a solemnity, I like to try to keep Fridays meatless. We talked a lot of shop, which I am not going to go through here; suffice it to say, we exchanged information on the spiritual state of our various ministries, and I got to hear a little bit about how "interesting" -- in the sense of the old Chinese curse -- life in other places in the Holy Catholic Church in America can be. There's always a certain amount of spiritual warfare going on, of course, and working as he does in a milieu of charismatic gifts and open blessings, he runs into that kind of thing probably more than most priests.

I'm trying get the Angelic Warfare Confraternity moving, although it seems to have a power to do this by itself. I need to think about promoting it more specifically in my own parish.

Anyway, before I knew it, it was time for Vespers. I finished my correspondence, but not in time to get out to the post office before it closed, as I have to send some letters out by Priority Mail. First thing tomorrow, I guess.

But I'm avoiding talking about Jesus. Growing up, I always associated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart with the Jesuit order, and a certain style of devotion rather too sentimental for my personal taste. I am happy to say that I have rediscovered the scriptural roots of the devotion, with much spiritual profit. Particularly as a priest and Pastor, the Sacred Heart is a model to me for understanding my own priesthood. I think I've always doubted my own capacity to love, as I tend to be rather unsentimental, and led by my head rather than my heart. On the other hand, sentiment and passion are really not at the heart of what love is, according to the Scripture. The Latin word for heart, "cor" is the basis of our word "core"; the notion of the heart, biblically, has much more to do with raw, steely spiritual commitment of one's whole person to another than it does warm sentiment. Think of marriage as it is a day-to-day reality, after the wedding dress is put away, the photos are dusty in the album and the garbage needs taking out. Think of Jesus' love. Indeed on the day Christ loved us most powerfully, the day of his Passion, I doubt he was feeling warm fuzzy thoughts. We sinners were busy putting nails into his hands and feet, after all. But he refused not to love; he refused to be refused. And that's the model for me as a pastor, I think - based on the Pastor Bonus himself.

And Jesus himself taught me that.

In the year I was ordained priest, I had an opportunity to go on pilgrimage as spiritual director to group visiting a certain place in the Balkans, where Our Blessed Lady was supposed to be appearing. I don't have to mention the name in print, and won't, because it was, and still is not, officially approved by Holy Church. And that doesn't matter for the purposes of my story. I had promised her blessed Lady that if she kept me safe for ordination, I would go on pilgrimage in her honor at a place of her choosing. It had to be a place of her choosing, because I hadn't any money to go on my own. At any rate, when the notice for this pilgrimage went up on the priory board, I ran to the Prior, and then said, "Father Prior, I'd like to go on this pilgrimage; they are looking for a priest, and although I'm not a priest yet, next week I will be." I didn't make that one (somebody else had beaten me to it); but there was another one that needed to be filled and I went on that.

It was a very irritating pilgrimage. I warned my pilgrims about the spiritual dangers of going to a place to see "signs and wonders" without a heart that was really aimed at contrition and conversion; then was chagrined to find signs and wonders happening all around us. To make a very long story short, and to come to the point in an uncharacteristically abbreviated fashion, the pilgrimage culminated with me leading our group up the side of the local mountain, where there was a war memorial in the shape of huge carved stone cross. We made the Stations of the Cross as we went.

Did I mention that that was the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the apparitions? We had 25,000 pilgrims in a tiny Slavic village. There were literally traffic jams at the crossroads of the town with pilgrims moving in national bodies from one place to another. The mountain was no different. There was a party of Polish pilgrims ahead of us led by a Franciscan friar, who insisted on preaching (with warm devotion, and at great length - I am assuming the former and am certain of the latter) at each one of the Stations. The Stations of the Cross are not something you can really "play through" as in miniature golf, so we American pilgrims waited patiently at each station for Father to finish before we could make our own meditation there ourselves.

At the top of the mountain, there was time for peace and private prayer. I committed a few civil felonies while I was waiting (as in hearing confessions away from the parish church - this was still the time of Communist Yugoslavia) and then settled down to say my Rosary. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and we would have sunlight until approximately 9 o'clock at night at that season and latitude. There were broken clouds here and there, but the sun was bright, shining gold in the clear blue sky. Then a cloud passed over the sun, and things changed.

After the cloud passed, the sun was different. It was no longer gold, but kind of dark rosy pink color; it was surrounded by a halo of white-blue light, and shot out purple and rose rays into the sky around it. There was an irregular band of something across its breadth, it was no longer round, and it was pulsing. I saw it and realized it was familiar to me in some way, something that I was used to seeing but not just there. And I wasn't the only one seeing it. A Filipino lady in another group cried out with joy and wonder, "El Sacrado Corazón!" And all of a sudden I realized exactly what I was looking at. The badge of the Sacred Heart - the pulsing human heart crowned with thorns that Jesus showed St. Margaret Mary in the Convent of the Visitation in Paris, the pierced , crowned, flaming Heart that every Catholic has seen a million times on statues of Jesus displaying his Heart,- that was what was pulsing in the sky overlooking the mountain and the town below it. It seemed strange in another sense; I had never imagined the Sacred Heart beating before.

I'd like to say that I was overcome with warm sentiment and emotion, but I wasn't. The feeling was actually more like terror. What was happening was beyond human power, but I didn't want to be deceived. I remember kneeling and praying in a confused fashion something like: " Jesus, if this is from you, I praise and bless you for your glory; and if it's from the Evil One, forgive me for kneeling and I reject it utterly." After a few minutes I realized I was looking into the sun directly without any protection for my eyes, without pain, and apparently without effect to my retinas. I looked over to the carved cross. No bright points on my retina, no sunspots! I had heard people saying that like things had happened to them, but it had never happened to me before. After about 15 minutes of this of this watching the Heart of Christ pulsing in the heavens, shining in glory, another cloud passed over the sun, and when it passed, the sun was back in its golden normalcy, in a clear blue sky.

I am celebrating my 20th year of priesthood this year, and I have seldom talked about this, deeming it a private blessing and revelation, which it is. My personal experience of God is certainly less reliable and probative than the witness of Holy Church. But perhaps I have been remiss in not proclaiming sufficiently the great deeds of God in my own life. In retrospect, the experience for me (I have no idea what the place of the vision in anyone else's life would be) was an answer to the specific prayer that I had been making on becoming ordained as a priest: that Jesus should teach me how to have a pastor's heart. And the point he made that afternoon, apart from many other graces I could name, is that a pastor's heart must be like the Sacred Heart itself- that it must shine like the sun unfailingly upon the hearts of the people Jesus has sent his priest to serve. That has been a very useful teaching for me again and again in my ministry. To seek to be untiringly bright, cheerful, warm, to illuminate souls with that power of Christ's heart, to refuse to be refused - this is to be a pastor after the shape of Jesus' own Heart. There's more I could say, but this is already too long.

Jesus has a peculiar sense of humor, which, the longer I know him, the more I recognize it when it pops up; I find myself invariably and simultaneously instructed and humbled. This feast is become very important for me; what began as a "mere Jesuit devotion" in part of my life has become my own private Sinai, my personal Signadou - the mysterious sign from God St. Dominic saw in the sky at Fanjeaux that confirmed him in his mission to found the Dominican order. Christ is risen, he is truly risen, and the deathless Lord has shown his love-pierced Heart to Peter, to the apostles, and, -last of all -to me, his most unworthy servant. So today is blessed for me, every year.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Truth Is Irrepressible

I subscribe to Origins, which is the official document service of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It's a good way to keep track of what's going on in the Church here and abroad. Today I was reading a piece by Archbishop Castro on peacemaking, and in the course of describing the four "legs" of the "table of peacekeeping" he mentioned "truth," and reminded me of the meaning of this particular form of the word in Greek, the language of the Scriptures. "Truth" in Greek is "Alētheia": and that word has a specific connotation. Alētheia is the truth that cannot be hidden, that keeps coming to the surface like a body that won't stay conveniently buried, a truth that keeps breaking into history again and again, because God's power is behind it. The Easter greeting, "Christ is risen! He is truly risen! (Greek: Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!" preserves this notion of the resurrection as a truth that cannot be hidden, cannot be ignored, because it keeps breaking into our lives by the mercy of the risen Jesus.

"Your Word is truth;" ο λογος ο σος αληθεια εστιν. ( John 17:17)

The Greek really has an emphasis not caught by the English translation: The Word which is Yours is Truth (of the kind that keeps breaking in, and that cannot be hidden.)

The Word, is of course the other name for the Son... who is Truth: "I am the way and the truth and the life" (Ego sum via et veritas et vita.) He keeps rising, leaping into people's lives, changing hearts, healing wounds, refusing to stay conveniently out of the world's way. Thank God!

In contrast, of course, the world keeps trying to keep Christ buried. A small case: I was reading the newspaper a few weeks ago, which referred to the town of Bethlehem as "a place believed by some Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ." Now, I ask you, what is this phrase trying to do? Is the author suggesting that some people think that he was born in Chicago? Is there any other town on the face of the earth than Bethlehem that claims to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ? So the point of this fuzzy reference is to refuse to give credence or place to Christ as a historical actor in the history of the world. The necessity of making religion a purely private affair, which is fundamental to the modern project since the 18th century, require writers of a modern sensibility to try to destroy or dismiss the objective reality of what Christ has accomplished by his life, his death, his resurrection, his glorification, and in his establishment of the Catholic Church. The Church is part of that inconvenient truth that keeps surfacing again and again. In spite of the world's attempts to bury him, he keeps showing up in the lives of those who live in communion with him by the Holy Spirit he has sent upon them.

In today's Gospel, the apostles John and James tried to finagle the top seats in glory, much to the chagrin of the other apostles. The Lord points out that what they desire is a noble thing: to share his life and suffering and death and glorification, but that the heights of glory and are for those for whom they have been reserved by the Father. In the meantime, Jesus' people are to seek greatness by imitating the Master by serving each other as he did, he who is willing to take the position of the lowliest slave in the household, for whom no task is too dirty, thankless, or low to do for those whom he loved, whether washing the filth of the street from their feet at the Last Supper, or passionately pouring out his life's blood on Calvary for hearts too cold or preoccupied to make the slightest effort to love him back.

Jesus is the Truth that will not stay buried. May he keep turning up in our life, serving us even in those times that we have forgotten him for a bit. Christ is risen! He is Truly risen!

Baptizing Babies

I got a question about infant baptism today. Living in Kentucky, our Catholics get hit by Southern Baptists especially, who are working out of the Reformed tradition of John Calvin whether they know it or not - and of course most of the Protestants say they're " simply working from the Bible." Unfortunately most of them know a few Bible passages upon which their pastors construct a theology in accordance with the Calvinist pattern.

Protestants pick and choose among Bible passages; Catholics view Scripture as a totality - you cannot ignore passages you do not like - and furthermore, Catholics interpret Scripture as a community, not individuals.

At any rate, this particular difficulty is the "believers baptism" controversy. Protestants disagree with each other on whether infants can be baptized; Lutherans, for instance, have no difficulty with the practice. Certain other radical groups, such as Mennonites, and I believe some of the Reformed tradition, hold that because an infant cannot make an act of the will, it is unable to receive baptism validly. To put it another way, to receive baptism validly, certain Protestant sects demand that the recipient be of age to be able to make an affirmative act of belief in Jesus.
Notice, in passing, that it is impossible to baptize, according to this theory of the sacrament, not only an infant, but a person in a coma, or person suffering serious mental retardation.

At any rate, the traditional scripture passage that Catholics look to deals with the question of infant baptism is Saturday's Gospel of which was from Mark 10: 13-16.

The disciples are discouraging little children from coming to Jesus. Jesus, when he finds out, reprimands the disciples and tells him to let the little children come to him and "do not hinder them." The verb "hinder" is part of the ancient baptismal rite. Peter is asked the same question about baptizing the pagan Cornelius, and Philip is asked the same question by the Ethiopian eunuch who is seeking baptism in the Book of Acts. The question at issue is whether baptism is something we do with reference to Jesus, or whether Jesus is doing something in us through the sacrament. The answer is that Jesus is acting in us. The four effects of baptism can only come by the divine power which he possesses: forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, enabling a life of personal relationship to Father, Son and Holy Spirit by the implantation of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity; the incorporation of the candidate into the Body of the Church and consequent spiritual adoption by the Father; and finally the gift of eternal life.

Jesus finishes with the children by "placing his hands on them" in blessing; this is also the action of Bishop in confirmation which in the ancient Church is always celebrated immediately after baptism.

A small child, therefore, presents no obstacle to receiving The Kingdom of God, and therefore should not be hindered from baptism - this is the same language that we find about baptism in John 3. Little children are indeed passive; precisely because they cannot mount a real act of disobedience they are good candidates for baptism. But they can truly receive things, even before they can make an morally meaningful act of the will; they have no difficulty receiving food, clothing, shelter, the love of their parents, and the love of God.

Baptism is primarily the act of Christ, not our act. In every sacrament we are the recipient of grace. Every sacrament is an act of divine prophecy, making clear the mind of God to the world. In Baptism, Jesus stretches his hand out from his heavenly throne and truly and really plants seeds of the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity in the soul of the child, which he has chosen for himself, and revealed to the world and to the rebellious spiritual powers of the universe, as his own personal possession and beloved. But faith, hope, and charity are habits - powers in a certain state of development as yet unused-which nonetheless have to be used in act before they redound to our moral credit or debit. Nevertheless, Baptism changes us by the power of Christ, and precisely not by our own power.

Extra arguments in favor of the Catholic position:

In addition to the gospel I already quoted, a passage that opens up the possibility of infant baptism in the Scriptures is the story of the jailer in the book of the Acts the Apostles who is baptized by St. Paul "with his whole household". The jailer is a poor man, with his jail in the basement of his house. He is so poor that he has no guards except himself, and when he finds that the jail is wide-open, he is ready to fall on his sword. St. Paul stops him and converts him and baptizes him "and his whole household.) Since he has no slaves (who would guard his prisoners for him), "his whole household" must mean his wife and children. We don't know how old his children were, but it certainly opens up the possibility of an infant baptism (as well as a baptism done by pouring water rather than immersing somebody in the local river. Poor people went to the public baths to bathe).

John 1:9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (KJV)

- And therefore little children, however small, can recieve good things from God, including baptism, according to their capacity. For our birth in baptism that makes us sons of God in the Son is NOT "of the will of man, " "but of God."

In addition, circumcision, which brings people into the Jewish people, happens eight days after birth, by the will of the parents of the child and the command of God - not by the will of the child. Traditionally, the eighth day is also the traditional date for baptism for Christian children, who are in a similar way brought into the new Israel and people of God which is the Church by the faith of their parents and the command of God. There is a perfect consonance here..

Believers' baptism is a Protestant innovation from the early modern period. Nobody for three quarters of 2000 years ever believed such a thing. Besides (Romans 6) "do you not know that those who are baptized into Jesus Christ are baptized into his death?" Death comes at God's command, not the act of our will; doesn't it fit that the power of baptism works by God's command, that it comes not by our will but by God's?

None of the passages of Scripture above imply that an act of faith is presently required at the moment of baptism; rather, if you think about this correctly, you will see that it is the virtue of faith makes the act of belief possible. The virtue has to come first before it can be expressed in act. So whenever we see an act of faith, the gift of the virtue must have preceded it.

In an adult, we can usually see the presence of the virtue which makes possible the act of belief even before the moment of baptism. In fact, in an adult, the gift of the virtue of faith usually precedes the moment of the celebration of the sacrament. The sacrament is the visible sign that supernatural grace has been given. But the gifts themselves can be given before the prophetic sign of that grace is made visible in the sacrament.

In a child, that grace may also be given before the sacramental moment, but by the time the sacramental moment has arrived we know it has been certainly given. The act of belief that flows from the virtue of faith comes later, when the child is able to come to the age of reason on moral matters. (Customarily that's about seven years old - and at that time most children make their first confession as well as their first Communion.)

So children can be quite reasonably and validly baptized even when they're very tiny. Nevertheless, the job of parents and educators remains precisely to show those children, bit by bit as they grow up, how to use the powerful and supernatural gifts they were given by Jesus when he baptized them through the Church's ministry.

Laying the Cornerstone

How obscure can I make my blog's title?

As you can see, pretty obscure.

A "xenodochium" is a house for pilgrims. It is the term used by Pope Innocent II (he actually used the more Latin spelling "senodochium") for the Hospital of St. John near the abbey of St. Mary of the Latins in Jerusalem. Yes, "The Hospital " as in the original institution from which the Order of Knights Hospitallers was founded - now the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It's a word with a Greek root and a Latin form. I've been to Jerusalem several times as a pilgrim, and have always been moved by the holy places I have seen, by the history that still lives in those places, though so many move about ignorant of the glory that God as Man has walked the stones of that place, shed his Blood in that place, and beginning with that place has built a spiritual edifice that stretches between earth and heaven, which is the Catholic Church - who has preached the Holy Gospel "from Jerusalem" to the ends of the earth. And the Church is herself a "Xenodochium"- a house and hospital for pilgrims following the voice of Christ up to the new and Heavenly City of Peace. What the Church is in large, my parish should be. So the word 'xenodochium " has great personal appeal to me on many levels.

I suppose you could translate my blog title as, "Jottings from the Asylum," but that really wouldn't be accurate or what I'm about.

I'm writing this in my religious house behind the parish church that sits on this hill in Kentucky, -today's splendid and my seven o'clock appointment has canceled. So it's time, perhaps, to institute a new little project -- to improve my ability to write, and to overcome my foolish, prideful insistence not writing at all until I can write the absolutely last word on a topic- which of course means nothing permanent gets written.

I'm a Catholic religious and priest, but not, obviously, a Hospitaller. I care for small rural parish of farming people, and so my church really is a Hospital - in both senses of the term. The church is not an assembly of saints, but an infirmary to treat sick souls; and it is a hospital in the sense of the Hospital of Jerusalem in that it is a place where pilgrims lodge on their way to their heavenly destination, which is after all, the new Jerusalem of God. There's a number of things I want to do on this blog for myself and for others: I need to get healthier (I'm far too overweight); I need to put my thoughts more frequently on paper, in preparation for other uses; and I need to make a bit of personal contact with my dear friends and family who are so far away from me.

So we'll see how it goes. My friend Alfedis has been keeping a blog for a couple of years, and has inspired me to start my own. I salute you, milady, from afar!

If I can write a page each day I will be writing a lot more than I have been to this point. And, of course, the more I write, the easier writing becomes. So we'll see what develops.