The CatholiCity Message
Volume X, Number 3 – July 26, 2006
"Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
nor yet the last to lay the old aside."
Alexander Pope
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Our warmest greetings, to readers new and readers faithful. Today's message will be longer than usual, and, we hope, worthy of your time, containing, we pray, that which edifies and delights. We don't hear that word--"edify"--very often anymore. Its best definition is "to supply with spiritual or intellectual light." Usually, the context is a relationship.
That is, time we spend with friends and family ought to be edifying. In fact, most of us can judge our friendships by whether or not they provide edification. We suppose you can judge this ancient-by-Internet-standards e-letter by the same measure. With such an introduction, let us begin with the Most Important Thing, which isn't a thing at all. It is a He. Jesus.
1. JESUS, PART I
We will address the subject of the very man Himself, though not so much Who He Is but instead How We Hang Out with Him. Jesus, the one who lived, breathed, sweat, ate, spoke and eventually died in Israel two thousand years ago. Jesus.
A distinguishing feature of being a Catholic is not merely our claim that Jesus is the "head" of the Church and that we are members of His Mystical Body. Even our Protestant friends recognize that Jesus is (or should be) the king and focus of our daily lives, even if they are blinded to the idea that the Catholic Church is His Church and His only church. Our non-Catholic brothers will rightly claim they encounter Jesus by studying the Bible, through direct prayer, and through interaction with each other (what they refer to as "fellowship"), and, so do we as Catholics. Most of them sense or believe that He connects us to each other as part of His body, though they don't always use our Catholic theological precision.
But we, Christians all, run into a significant barrier, at least in terms of having a satisfying day-to-day relationship with Jesus the person. The barrier is that the three "methods" of prayer, fellowship, and the Bible are indirect. While prayer can feel "direct" (and we all must admit that it often also feels quite "distant"), it is not the same as speaking to a human being in the flesh, the way we would talk to a family member at a dinner table. Talking with your mom on the front porch is a "solid" connection. Holding your five-year-old daughter's hand during a walk to the park is a solid encounter. Making love to your spouse is about as solid as human interaction gets.
What particularly distinguishes us as Catholics is that our everyday means of "interaction" with Jesus are sacraments. Each of the seven sacraments is an encounter with Jesus. In general, however, Baptism, Marriage, Holy Orders (the ordination of priests), Confirmation, and (usually) the Sacrament of the Sick are singular encounters.
Then there are the two ongoing Sacraments, namely the Eucharist and Confession. Of course, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is somewhat "indirect" in that Jesus is not on the other side of the screen, but it is also quite solid because there is a real human being, acting "in the person of Christ" sitting there, listening to us and talking to us, and at the ending, taking his human hands with five fingers each and placing them on our heads, and if not exactly that, at least making the Sign of the Cross over us. We hear the voice of the priest-man, yet it is also Jesus' voice, whispering into our ear those sweet, consoling words of absolution, telling us exactly what Jesus said to so many sinners when He walked on this earth, "Your faith has saved you. Go and sin no more."
Thus the ancient Catholic hymn affirms the paradoxical words of Adam, referring to Original Sin as "O Happy Fault!"
The only good thing about sin, like pain that sends us to the dentist, is that it can be a precursor to Meeting Someone for those willing to humble themselves to seek the hand of a friend. Have you sinned? So have we. How hard can it be to walk or drive to your parish this weekend to Meet Him There?
Quite hard. But worth it, if only for the company. If you need inspiration to help you make the trip, we recommend the Mary Foundation's free recording, Confession:
https://secure.catholicity.com/order.html
In our next message, Jesus Part II, we will address meeting Him in the Eucharist.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"There is no such thing as a defensive battle or a defensive campaign, save in the sense that we may begin on the defensive, but only with the fixed object of turning to the offensive at the right moment." Hillaire Belloc
2. PEPPERONI POPPERS
Yes, this is a recipe. You only need two ingredients: pepperoni slices and mozzarella cheese. Place seven slices on a plate in a circle (for even microwave cooking) and top them with seven half-inch cubes of mozzarella cheese. Top the cheese with seven more slices of pepperoni. Microwave for 15 to 25 seconds until you hear the pepperoni "pop" yet before the cheese melts into liquid. Remove, wait for the poppers to cool just a tad, then pop them into your mouth. A chewy, salty, fatty delight ensues. Or, a 100% sugar-free snack. Pepperoni pizza without the dough.
3. THE LAW of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
You've probably heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It refers to the unanticipated later results of earlier decisions or actions. We saw a television report of an unintended consequence of "sperm banks"--organizations which sell male sperm to lesbians or other single women who want pregnancy "without a father," and couples who want to have children despite male infertility of the husband.
You will be shocked, as we were, to discover an estimated 40,000 children are born each year using this repulsively modern means. Apparently, anonymous "profiles" of the sperm donor are used to market the donor-male, with most parents choosing donors who have high IQs and successful worldly careers. This makes sense in a coarse way. One donor in the report–a brainy scientist–claimed that he had confirmed having become the biological father to over four hundred children. Biofatherhood, without responsibility, for pay, in spades.
Now the children of these anonymous biofathers are growing up. The focus of the report was on a brilliant young man seeking to find his biological sperm-donor father. This kind of result could have been anticipated two decades ago. What was not anticipated was that the children of these biological "unions," many of which took place in California, would be so numerous and super-smart that there is now a danger that they will meet each other and fall in love at the same elite colleges and grad schools.
The following was not in the report. Consider another cultural trend: a generation which today prefers living together and conceiving children without the benefit of civil marriage, which means, among other things, that no blood test is required as insurance against the dangers of unintended incest. It's only a matter of time before a sperm-donor half-brother and half-sister conceive a child, if it hasn't happened already. These kinds of bio-ethical horror stories will only increase over the next two decades as more Sexual Revolution Chickens–especially the feminist pipedream of motherhood without fatherhood–come home to roost.
Let us return to Belloc, and his quote above about being on the defensive. Stories about 40,000 sperm donor children per year and headlines about battles to "defend" one-man/one-woman marriage through legislation, elections, and amendments only make it *feel* like we who resist the prevailing post-Christian cultural assaults on the family are "playing defense." Likely Belloc was emphasizing the truth that a war can either be won or be lost.
If you win the war, then all your preceding defensive battles were simply offensive battles on the road to victory. As the U.S. Marine Corps likes to say, "There is no such thing as retreat. There is only fighting while moving backwards."
Resistance is therefore a kind of offense, even though it feels otherwise. Being a loving, responsible, faithful, and (dare we say) holy Catholic is the offense that helps win the war. The fact that battlefields are active is a sign that the war is not over, and, if it's not over, it is not lost.
Every Hail Mary counts in the meantime. Every book, CD, or other invitation you distribute in your evangelization efforts really, truly contributes. Aren't you reading this today because of the then seemingly-small effort or action someone took to recruit you to the cause?
We may be in for fighting while moving backwards for a long time, perhaps until our dying day. Take heart. When Jesus died fighting the battle for our souls, it seemed pretty hopeless. Even after He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, it would take another three hundred years before being a Catholic in public was no longer against the law.
We suppose the establishment (and we presume, legalization) of Sperm Banks in the 1970s likely seemed a "win" in the overall war to the Enemies of Family. It has the "feel" of a nuclear bomb, dropped fast and cleverly before the good guys knew what hit them. All these years later, their potentially deformed grandchildren will illustrate how the radiative fall-out remains quite deadly. One should anticipate offensive-minded good guys calling for a ban on the disgusting practice before too many years pass. Eventually, defense will turn to offense, and it will be banned.
4. EVERY HAIL MARY COUNTS
With all this in mind, let's go on the supernatural offensive and pray one Hail Mary, all sixty thousand of us, with the intention for each one of us to never despair, to never lose hope, no matter how dark the battlefield, in the war for souls. We need each other. So in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we pray:
"Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen."
Finally, if you need prayers for a particular intention, you can let our volunteer prayer partners know online here (you can also join the prayer partners on the same page):
http://www.catholicity.com/prayersdevotions/
Oh, the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, Lady in the Water, is simply terrible, and is definitely not for little kids, even though it it being advertised as a "fairy tale."
We'll be back soon. Enjoy Jesus.
With Christ,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
