Be Happily and Uncomplicatedly Catholic

We do indeed need to show joy as Catholics.  

My motto — “Be happily and uncomplicatedly Catholic.”

Michael J. Sheehan Archbishop of Santa Fe

 

 

 Regarding Mary’s relationship with Jesus during the time of his ministry, (which was Frank Cerillo’s suggested topic), here are a few comment from you lay theologians:

          – I am certain there were countless times that Mary and Jesus had private times together and that she was a worthy source of inspiration and encouragement for him.       Jim,Orlando,FL.

          - Although she was interested in the things Jesus was doing, Mary was not a typical Jewish mother who wants to have a never-ending intimate involvement in a son’s adult life. I picture her as being a quiet and approving witness. AJC, New York, NY

          - I picture Mary often getting word to Jesus, “Hey, Son, I’ve made a large stew you and your buddies would enjoy. So, come and bring them along for supper tonight.” Maria, Toledo, OH

          – When Mary’s neighbors would tell her about the miraculous things Jesus was doing, she would nod with a little smile.Regina, Queenstown, NZ

- They had such a phenomenal mother-son relationship that Mary was an invisibly witness to all that Jesus was doing.  Rev. Ron.

          (And for voices from the past)

In 410, St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, Mary is indeed the Mother of Christ’s members, that is, of ourselves. For it is by her work of love that men have been born in the Church, faithful men who are the body of the head, whose mother she was in the flesh.

          Mary was more blessed in having borne Christ in her heart than having conceived Him in the flesh.

  In 1450, Saint Antoninus, a Dominican priest and archbishop of Florence, wrote, Mary visited the places where her Son had done any miraculous deed, and there she contemplated the sacred mysteries. Sometimes in Nazareth she went to the place where the angel had made his announcement to her and she had conceived the Son of God, and there she contemplated God’s boundless charity.

In 1722, Saint Veronica Giuliani, the Capuchin Poor Clare outstanding mystic, wrote in her diary about Mary, She participated in the same torments, not by way of the executioners, like Jesus, but she, by way of love and sorrow, participated in all the torments, one by one. The heart of Jesus and the heart of Mary both stood united in suffering and in love, and this they offered to God the Father for all of us mortals.

 

   

 Other recommended Catholic blogs

-         Patrick Madrid

-         Standing on my Head

-         The Hermeneutic of Continuity

 

 

Recommended Readings

-         “Muslim on Main Street” U.S. Catholic (May)

-         “Divided on Torture”  America (April 18)

-        “Time to Take Religious Freedom Seriously” The Catholic World Review                  (April)

 

Those Frigging Militant Moslems

  - After the Easter Mass in theSacred Heart Churchin Bagdad, a bomb exploded, wounding seven parishioners. Fr. Hanna Sirop, a Chaldean priest who had been a 2006 kidnapped victim, said, “Our life inIraqis full of fear, but we have to live in faith and trust.” (Note that in the past ten years, 2/3 of the Christians inIraq have departed.)

 

Big Correction ! 

In the last issue, I credited Israelas being the only Middle East Country to come to the aid of stricken Japan. I was dead wrong. AlthoughIsrael made an excellent contribution, here are the other countries which sent aid:

    Qatarsent $100 million

    Saudi Arabia$20 million

    Hong Kong$5 million

    Iran- 50,000 canned goods

    Kuwait- 240 footballs and relief goods

     Bangladesh – 2,000 blankets, plus shoes, boots and gloves

We do indeed need to show joy as Catholics.

 “Be happily and uncomplicatedly Catholic.”

Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe

News Flashes

A Christian village in the Philippines province of Mindanao has been torched by a small Islamic rebel group. Although there were no reported casualties, dozens of families were routed from their homes.                                                   

Milwaukee became the eighth U.S. diocese to declare bankruptcy because of lawsuits and expenses related to sexually molesting of children. Archbishop Dolan did an excellent job in proving false the stupid statement of tort lawyer Jeff Anderson who claimed the Archbishop had hidden $130 million of archdiocesan funds.

A bishop in England has challenged the idea that the Virgin Mary intercedes for the faithful, and suggested that two Marian dogmas were influenced by political considerations.

(Comment: Doesn’t he realize that 99 and 9/10% of our devotion to Mary is from revelations, apparitions and visions?)

 

Pope Benedict XVI socked it to the Middle Eastern governments with this message: “I would like to state once again that the right to religious freedom is not fully respected when only freedom of worship is guaranteed, and that with restrictions. Abstract proclamation of religious freedom is insufficient: this fundamental rule of social life must find application and respect at every level and in all areas; otherwise despite correct affirmations of principle, there is a risk that deep injustice will be done to the citizens wishing to profess and freely practice their faith.”

 

My favorite priest, layperson, breathing saint or organization

 I admire Father Matthew Ruhl, S.J., who is the pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City.  As an avid biker, he formed a group who rode 5,052 miles from Cape Flattery, Wash., to Key West, Florida, to promote Catholic Charities USA’s Campaign to Reduce Poverty. I met him when he and his bikers stopped en route in Denver, and the man exudes the joyful faith of our religion. What a splendid example he is for all of us!

                                           Madeline Evans, Denver

(Now, tell me about your favorite Catholic priest, layperson or organization that is making a difference

aljagoe@comcast.net)

 Interesting Sayings

- Evil does not exist or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.
                                                    Albert Einstein

- Sir Anthony Hopkins, the actor who was knighted in 1993, told the UK Catholic Herald this week that he couldn’t live with the certainty of being an atheist. He said: “Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows.  I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today.”

Don’t worry about your heart. It will last as long as you live.-W.C. Fields
 

Communiqué

-         The author Barbara Elrenreich got a kick out of describing Jesus as a wine-guzzling vagrant. I wonder is she has the guts to call Moses a foundling who betrayed his loving foster parents, became a murderer and then was a poor guide who led his people for 40 years before reaching his destination. If she did, Jewish organizations would have her hide.

Roger Zowinski, Miami, FL

 

-         Regarding your writing about St. Joseph, as a father I find Joseph’s faith amazing. I may go into uncertain situations with a faltering faith but Joseph, not him. He went into a situation with Mary that would have shaken a man like me. I pray that God makes me a father and husband like Joseph.

       (not signed)

-         Those who relish schadenfreude should enlist in the militant Muslin forces.

                                         Dr. Roger Duckworth 

Chuckle Time

The usher tries to discourage an elderly woman from sitting in the front of the church by saying, “The pastor really gives a lousy sermon.”

She says, “Do you know who I am?
“No,” he replies.

“I’ll have you know I am the pastor’s mother.”

The usher then asks, “Do you know who I am?
“No” is her answer.

Then he breathes deeply and says. “Good.”        

 

Special Intentions List

As you pray with a broad brush, please include these loved ones, who have been submitted by our readers. You, too, are invited to send me names of your special persons who are in need of prayer.  My address is aljagoe@comcast.net. They will be on the list for 60 days. At the end of that time, if prayers are still needed, you merely have to renew the name.

 

 Juanita Caldwell, Isola Todd, David Abbey, Linwood “Skip” Williams, Roseanne Somlock, Nicholas Gallagher, Tom Lewis, Donald Whitcomb, Violeta Zepeda, John Aylor, Rev. Joseph Marini, Enrique Portillo,

 Sharon McPike, Tom Ryan, Joseph Normile, Jim Quimby, Russell Edwards,    

Rev. Stephen Huffstetter, Hugh Cannon, Eric Moore, Joan Barrett, 8-year-old Michael Fotta and his parents, Lolita Alvarez, Camilus Musselman,

 Ed Block, Isobel Milligan, Peter Bartkiewiez and his family,

 Joe Toles, Bob Earll, Camilus Musselman,   Ed Cole, Bishop Thomas Olmsted, Jay Parker, William Stephenson, Roger Stoven, Bob Abbott, Denny Kline, Lois Pinkin, Larry Mannino, Cheryl DeSantis, Lenore Sommers

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Laura Marsh, the cholera victims in Haiti, those in refugee camps throughout the world.

To Hell With Trivia!

We do indeed need to show joy as Catholics. My motto — “Be happily and uncomplicatedly Catholic.”

Michael J. Sheehan  Archbishop of Santa Fe

 

To Hell with trivia that is trying to damage my Catholicism. If my treasure chest, filled with gold, gems and wealth of fantastic value, was covered with scratches, dust and rust, I wouldn’t dump it into the trash bin. 

The Church is a treasure chest. During the past 2000 years it has been reshaped and battered, but it is a sturdy strongbox, protecting what is of real essence. During its long history it has been buffeted by heretics, corrupt Popes, schisms and ridiculous decisions and actions.  Today, here is a sampling of the blows it is taking:

- Pope Benedict seems to have stumbled with his discussion of condoms. On this slippery slope, he intended to espouse a tradition of Catholic moral reasoning.

- After spending $500,000 to renovate the church in Lorain, Ohio, the bishop ordered it (and 50 other churches) to close.  In ignoring the protests of parishioners, he refused to engage them in meaningful dialogue.

- The universal scandal of homoerotic priests gets much publicity, even though it involves less than 2% of the splendid religious who are devoting their lives to the Church.

- The Vatican Bank is accused of money laundering.

- In 1996 Catholic Common Group Initiative warned that without addressing polarization, “the Church would be torn by dissension and weakened in its core structures.”

- To the outside world and many Catholics, the Church is so enamored with and dedicated to the Pro-Life cause that it is viewed as merely an anti Pro-Choice organization.

- “For heaven’s sake, why doesn’t the Church realize we should again have married priests?”

- “When are those old bachelors in clerical garb going to wake up to the times, and ordain women deacons?”

- etc. etc.-etc.-etc.

          That enough for the treasure chest — let’s look inside. There we find items, some over 4000 years old that confirm the birth of our religion; these are the revelations from God to the Jewish people.  Next, there are 2000 years of documentation of our Faith confirming that (a) there is one God, and (b) as Jesus, God became man. Inside, we find the Holy Spirit and nineteen centuries of devotion to the Virgin Mary. There is a recording of millions of martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for our Faith.

          Also, there also are the accumulated thoughts and writings of outstanding theologian, like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Of greatest value is the Sacrament of Communion — the Holiest of the Holy.

         

As Joyful Catholics we think both historically and spatially. We attempt to see things with the lucidity of a child’s eyes. As the French Dominican, Father Bro, stated, “If he so wishes, each of us succeeds perfectly in suffocating the questions that disturb him in anesthetizing them.”

Regarding the endless flow of trivia attacking our Church, we embrace basic truths, We have neither the time or interest in becoming the judge, jury and executioner of our dust-covered treasure chest with its scratches and rust. It will survive ’til the moon is no longer.

          In 1481, in Florence, Father Girolamo Savonarola, O.P., wrote: “At the end of the life of reason is the contemplation of divine things. So the more perfect a man abstracts himself from earthly things and devotes himself to the contemplation of that which is divine, the more perfect will be his life.

          With our pertinacity to basics, we Joyful Catholics put aside the peripheral and focus on essential truths.  We nod in agreement to this statement by Saint Francis de Sales, “My God, what a shame that we are so inconstant! Surely, there is no stability in us and yet this is the most essential quality in the spiritual life.”

 

 

And let me have your thoughts. (aljagoe@comcast.net)

 

Other recommended Catholic blogs

Sacred Space (the Jesuits in Ireland) Saint Louis Catholic

Shepherd of Fort Worth (a new blog by Bishop Kevin W. Vann)

 

Recommended readings

-         “Dead and Back Again”, by Marilyn Prever in the November/December Touchstone.

-          “Cash-cowed” by Margaret O’Brien Steinfels in the November 19 Commonweal.

-         “Courageous creativity and rigorous fidelity” in the November Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

 

Last week, the winner of the autographed copy of Light Reading for Good and Wayward Catholic is Sheila Rassmen in Calmar, IA. Here are the answers:

1.     Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s maiden name was Bayley

2.     John was not one of the missionary companions of Paul.

3.     Next to Warsaw, Chicago is the city with the largest Polish population.

Aftermath of “The Pope is pregnant

 

We do indeed need to show joy as Catholics.  

 My motto — “Be happily and uncomplicatedly Catholic.”

Michael J. Sheehan

Archbishop of Santa Fe 

 

Aftermath of “The Pope is pregnant” 

I have compiled the comments about this issue into 3 sections.  It is interesting that the messages have been equally divided between the pros and the cons, providing I don’t include two threats.  Here there are:

1.  You have your nerve to poke fun at the Pope!

As a great admirer of Pope Benedict XVI, nothing could have been further from my mind. As you may recall, in a previous issue (“I could have baby-sat the Pope”), I confirmed my admiration and respect for this great holy man. Over 2000 years ago when God wanted to become man, he chose the most perfect human being to be the means of accomplishing this goal—the Virgin Mary. Today, if God wanted to repeat this miracle, He would again select that most perfect person on earth, whom I identified as our beloved Pope. If that is being critical, be my guest.

2. Thanks you for this great thought provoker.  I’ll admit at first I was dumbfounded. After re-reading it three times, I absorbed its most powerful messages.  I only wish our parish priests had the guts to use this in discussion groups with their parishioners.  If they did, what would you suggest as lead points?

- Do you believe that this could have happened—that God could have produced this miracle?  I imagine that only a handful of Jews in Bethlehem believed in Mary’s virginity. In your thinking, is there a glass ceiling on the will of God?  Are you a sincere believer in miracles?

- In your belief, how important is gender?  Do you think of the first person in the Holy Trinity as only God, the Father—or God, the Father, Mother and Essence of all Being?  Should the Parousia occur during your lifetime, would you accept a female baby as the Messsiah?

- When you receive Communion, do you sense the miracle of a new inner life?

3.  This is a real shocker and most Catholics are too complacent and provincial not to be offended.  What fun do you get by rocking the boat?       I admit I enjoy being a boat-rocker.  If someone doesn’t do it, the comfortable passengers might nap off and miss the beauty and experience of sliding through the blessed waters of life.  In the spiritual life of a Joyful Catholic, there should be no role for complacency.  Unless we constantly sense the ecstasy of our faith, we are poor receivers of God’s treasures that he showers upon us. A complacent Catholic is third rate.