By Richard John Neuhaus
Friday, August 31, 2007, 6:32 AM
We are all uncertain about what God wants us to do. That is to say, we do not know for sure. Of course it seems silly, when you’re well past middle age and have spent your life doing what you believe you’ve been given to do, to get up in the morning or suddenly stop in the middle of the day’s work and ask, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”
The answer is that we act in the courage of our uncertainties. I am fond of pointing out that the word decide comes from the Latin decidere, to cut off. You face choices—whether to be a priest, whether to go to this school or that, whether to marry a certain person, whether to pursue this line of work or another—and then you decide. And, in deciding, you have cut off the alternatives and pray you have decided rightly. But you do not know for sure. Alternatively, you are trapped in the tangled web of indecision.
In this connection I have had frequent recourse to one of the most liberating passages from Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 4. He has been trying to explain himself and his apostolate to the Christians in Corinth. He doesn’t know whether he has succeeded, and then he says this: “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. . . . Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”
Do not judge before the time! I do not even judge myself! These are the words of a life set free from the tangled web of introspection and indecision.
August 31, 2007
August 23, 2007
The World As I See It
By Albert Einstein"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
Commitment Without Compromise
The peace of Jesus is the fruit of a constant struggle against evil. The battle that Jesus has decided to fight is not against men or human powers but against the enemy of God and man, Satan. Those who desire to resist this enemy, remaining faithful to God and the good, must necessarily deal with misunderstandings and sometimes very real persecution.
Thus, those who intend to follow Jesus and commit themselves without compromises to the truth must know that they will face opposition and will become, despite themselves, a sign of division among persons, even within their own families.
Benedict XVI
Thus, those who intend to follow Jesus and commit themselves without compromises to the truth must know that they will face opposition and will become, despite themselves, a sign of division among persons, even within their own families.
Benedict XVI
August 20, 2007
August 16, 2007
All Symphonies Remain Unfinished
In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we eventually learn that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished.
Karl Rahner
Karl Rahner
August 13, 2007
L'Etat, C'est Dieu
It occurs to me... that true theocracies are really quite rare in human history: I mean rule by priests, with the civil order entirely subservient to the demands of the faith. People on the left in our country will throw that word "theocracy" around, but all they mean by it is "any attempt to overturn various court decisions, and a few legislative decisions, allowing untrammeled sexual license." By their definition, America has been a theocracy throughout its history, until the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; and anybody who thinks, let's say, that the court was wrong to interpret dirty pictures as "speech," and that the court compounded the wrong by curbing exactly those forms of speech that the First Amendment was written to protect most zealously (political and religious speech), is automatically the equivalent of a mullah or a muezzin calling the people to break out their prayer rugs or else. Idaho, Iran -- what's the difference?
It's easy to dismiss that sort of absurdity, but it does obscure a truth that is easy to overlook. The danger, in human history, is not so much that a religion will take over the state, as that the state will become the object of cultic veneration. The man who ceases to believe in God, as Chesterton famously said, will not believe in nothing; he will believe in anything. And the biggest anything out there right now -- and this is not a new thing in the world -- is the State. Our form of the idol is the State Omnicompetent, the State All-Wise, the State that doles out bread and circuses, that will instruct our children better than we can imagine, that can make us eat what we should and not smoke what we shouldn't, the State that will claim our money as its own to save us from destroying our planet, the State that will bring Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men.
March 29, 2007
Link here
It's easy to dismiss that sort of absurdity, but it does obscure a truth that is easy to overlook. The danger, in human history, is not so much that a religion will take over the state, as that the state will become the object of cultic veneration. The man who ceases to believe in God, as Chesterton famously said, will not believe in nothing; he will believe in anything. And the biggest anything out there right now -- and this is not a new thing in the world -- is the State. Our form of the idol is the State Omnicompetent, the State All-Wise, the State that doles out bread and circuses, that will instruct our children better than we can imagine, that can make us eat what we should and not smoke what we shouldn't, the State that will claim our money as its own to save us from destroying our planet, the State that will bring Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men.
March 29, 2007
Link here
August 6, 2007
Danger and Opportunity
Excerpts from Danger and Opportunity: A Plea to Catholics By Robert P. George
Monday, August 6, 2007, on the First Things blog. I highly recommend the entire post.
“....for those of us who believe that the Church is a reliable teacher of truth, and that her doctrine is fundamentally sound, the last thing we desire is a transformation of the Church’s historical teachings. (If we wanted that, we would become Unitarians or join the United Church of Christ or, at least, cast our lot with the Episcopal Church in the United States.) What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.”
“The Church doesn’t need fundamental transformation; it needs to be about the business of transforming us. This is a task for the whole Church: bishops, priests, and other religious, and the laity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, this work of transformation of minds and hearts necessarily includes work of cultural transformation. For better or worse, culture is character-shaping and, thus, person-forming. That’s why the task of cultural renewal and reform is part of the Christian task—an essential part. It may not be rejected or neglected by the Church or her leadership in the name of evangelization of individuals; indeed, it is crucial to the project of evangelizing individuals. The task of evangelization is immeasurably more difficult where culture works powerfully against the witness of the Church by fostering, facilitating, and encouraging sin and undermining the efforts of religious communities and families to encourage in their members, especially young people, respect for themselves and others and fidelity to the law of God and moral truth.”
“There are many profound respects in which our culture is in need of transformation. Work is needed in every sphere. There are two issues, however, that are so central to our future and, indeed, to the future of mankind that they must, surely, be given a certain priority. Both are on the table now and will be resolved—for better or for worse—in the next decade or so. Critical (possibly irreversible) decisions will be made in the next year or two. I speak of the issue of marriage and the complex set of issues sometimes referred to compendiously as “bioethics.” In respect of both matters, things will go one way or the other depending on the posture and actions of Catholics."
"If the Catholic community is engaged on these issues, working closely with evangelical Christians, observant Jews, and people of goodwill and sound moral judgment of other faiths and even of no particular religious faith, grave injustices and the erosion of central moral principles will be, to a significant extent, averted. Indeed, with respect to both marriage and the sanctity of human life, earlier reverses may themselves be reversed. If, on the other hand, the Catholic community compromises itself, abdicates its responsibilities, and sits on the sidelines, the already deeply wounded institution of marriage will collapse and the brave new world of biotechnology will transform procreation into manufacture, and nascent human life into mere disposable “research material."
“This is no time for Catholics to be looking inward, gazing at our navels, too embarrassed (or desirous of the approval of cultural elites or fearful of their disapproval) to speak to the moral crisis of the culture. On the contrary, now is the time to bring our Christian witness, the very practical and effective love of Christ, unabashedly to the culture.”
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Monday, August 6, 2007, on the First Things blog. I highly recommend the entire post.
“....for those of us who believe that the Church is a reliable teacher of truth, and that her doctrine is fundamentally sound, the last thing we desire is a transformation of the Church’s historical teachings. (If we wanted that, we would become Unitarians or join the United Church of Christ or, at least, cast our lot with the Episcopal Church in the United States.) What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.”
“The Church doesn’t need fundamental transformation; it needs to be about the business of transforming us. This is a task for the whole Church: bishops, priests, and other religious, and the laity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, this work of transformation of minds and hearts necessarily includes work of cultural transformation. For better or worse, culture is character-shaping and, thus, person-forming. That’s why the task of cultural renewal and reform is part of the Christian task—an essential part. It may not be rejected or neglected by the Church or her leadership in the name of evangelization of individuals; indeed, it is crucial to the project of evangelizing individuals. The task of evangelization is immeasurably more difficult where culture works powerfully against the witness of the Church by fostering, facilitating, and encouraging sin and undermining the efforts of religious communities and families to encourage in their members, especially young people, respect for themselves and others and fidelity to the law of God and moral truth.”
“There are many profound respects in which our culture is in need of transformation. Work is needed in every sphere. There are two issues, however, that are so central to our future and, indeed, to the future of mankind that they must, surely, be given a certain priority. Both are on the table now and will be resolved—for better or for worse—in the next decade or so. Critical (possibly irreversible) decisions will be made in the next year or two. I speak of the issue of marriage and the complex set of issues sometimes referred to compendiously as “bioethics.” In respect of both matters, things will go one way or the other depending on the posture and actions of Catholics."
"If the Catholic community is engaged on these issues, working closely with evangelical Christians, observant Jews, and people of goodwill and sound moral judgment of other faiths and even of no particular religious faith, grave injustices and the erosion of central moral principles will be, to a significant extent, averted. Indeed, with respect to both marriage and the sanctity of human life, earlier reverses may themselves be reversed. If, on the other hand, the Catholic community compromises itself, abdicates its responsibilities, and sits on the sidelines, the already deeply wounded institution of marriage will collapse and the brave new world of biotechnology will transform procreation into manufacture, and nascent human life into mere disposable “research material."
“This is no time for Catholics to be looking inward, gazing at our navels, too embarrassed (or desirous of the approval of cultural elites or fearful of their disapproval) to speak to the moral crisis of the culture. On the contrary, now is the time to bring our Christian witness, the very practical and effective love of Christ, unabashedly to the culture.”
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
August 5, 2007
"Purple" Ecclessiology
I have no sociological data to back this up, but I'm convinced that there's a strong correlation between someone's implied ecclesiology and their overall attitude toward the Catholic church. More often than not, when people complain about "the church" -- no matter what their ideological or theological slant, whether they're inside the church or outside -- what they mean is the hierarchy. Sometimes it's actually just a handful of members of the hierarchy whom they find especially irritating. This sort of "purple ecclesiology," seeing the church almost exclusively in terms of the bishops, is a prescription for grumpiness.
The happiest Catholics I know, on the other hand, have a much broader concept of "church," whether they're conscious of it or not. For them, "the church" is a vast universe of individuals, movements, parishes, schools, journals, international networks, and all manner of other slices of life, engaged in a dizzying variety of activities, from contemplative prayer to feeding the hungry, to striving to translate the gospel into art, politics, finance, medicine, and other realms of secular culture. For those who see the church this way -- again, whatever their political or theological positions -- the bishops play an important role, but command relatively little of their energy and imagination. For every aspect of "the church" that they find frustrating or disappointing, such Catholics can usually reel off dozens of other things they find encouraging.
As then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself observed in 1984, in the long run of history, the best argument for Christianity is not its episcopacy but its artists and its saints.
The happiest Catholics I know, on the other hand, have a much broader concept of "church," whether they're conscious of it or not. For them, "the church" is a vast universe of individuals, movements, parishes, schools, journals, international networks, and all manner of other slices of life, engaged in a dizzying variety of activities, from contemplative prayer to feeding the hungry, to striving to translate the gospel into art, politics, finance, medicine, and other realms of secular culture. For those who see the church this way -- again, whatever their political or theological positions -- the bishops play an important role, but command relatively little of their energy and imagination. For every aspect of "the church" that they find frustrating or disappointing, such Catholics can usually reel off dozens of other things they find encouraging.
As then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself observed in 1984, in the long run of history, the best argument for Christianity is not its episcopacy but its artists and its saints.
August 3, 2007
The Stone
"Look at this stone. It has been lying in this water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it.… The same thing has happened to men in Europe (and America). For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated, Christ does not live within them.”
—Cardinal Lamberto speaking to a Mafia Godfather
from the movie Godfather III.
—Cardinal Lamberto speaking to a Mafia Godfather
from the movie Godfather III.
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