Fifty years a Catholic in 2021

 On April 10, 1971, I was received into the Church during the Easter vigil Mass as a new convert.  I was fifteen years old.

I read and prayed my way into the Church.  I'd "met" St. Therese of Lisieux in my mother's Manual of Prayers, and was pretty sure I wanted to be a Carmelite nun.  In order to do that, I had to be, you know, a Catholic, so I pursued getting conditional baptism.

The Church that I entered in good faith was beginning to change, but the depredations of Vatican II hadn't yet gotten traction in our parish.  Our Monsignor, a crusty old guy, likely fought them as long as he could.

Easter vigil 2021 will be the fiftieth anniversary of my reception into the Church.

 

Yesterday I read about the Pachamama coin minted by the Vatican.

 

Had the Catholics simply risen from the pews when the deformed liturgy and weird practices started in the 1970s, and filed out the door, taking their wallets with them, the whole thing would have ended in about six weeks.

But we didn't have the Internet.  We didn't know they were lying - the avid new priests, the nuns in pant suits, the bishops.  "The Pope said."  "Rome requires it."  Some of the innocent ones were really involved and accepting.  The experienced Catholics knew it was all wrong.

It's still wrong.

A church is in schism when it is no longer the same church.  It veers into theology and practices that are different from the original, with the intent of separating permanently.  You can tell when this happens because of the gaslighting and scorn about the church they're leaving.  You know what a cult does, right?  It keeps you away from your family.  Hard truth:  the bullies who tell you the SSPX is in schism are lying to you to keep you from finding out what you lost due to the "Vantifa" who went around jack-hammering altar rails and tossing altar Missals in the trash and tearing rosaries out of old ladies' hands.  They're still out there today, shaming and scolding people who kneel for communion, or women who wear veils, or anyone who reads Romans 1 and asks uncomfortable questions.

The "Catholic Church" of today - oh, sorry - "Catholic Community" - no longer resembles in any meaningful way the Church I entered fifty years ago.  There is no longer even a dotted-line correspondence between the two "forms" of the Latin rite Mass.  (I'm so old I can remember when there were only four Eucharistic prayers in the new form.)  The new church has a new calendar, a sprawling lectionary (except, you know, Romans 1:26-32), all new values, new vestments, vernacular language, new architecture, a new catechism, and is very progressive - meaning you never hear about hell or purgatory.  There is no dress code.  No rectory, where diocesan priests were watched over by fierce Irish widows abundantly aware of the temptations of the world and determined to stop them at the door.  Et cetera.

How are Catholics who continue to give money to, and attend, today's putative "church" not in schism from the original Roman Catholic Church, although they don't realize it?  It's fixable.  It's happened before.  The changes unfold, everyone just goes along... Just leave.  Go where you can be Catholic again.

Who still seriously thinks the SSPX is in schism?  Explain exactly how, please; show all your work and make no unnecessary assumptions.  Oh, and as you do so, remember:  I lived through it as a young woman.  There was a family on my street that attended the SSPX chapel.  There was another family that despised them.  Both sets of kids were my friends.  It was a terrible time.  I vividly remember reading in the newspaper about Cardinal Suenens et al imposing the sacrilege of communion in the hand, and the dismal scandal that followed.  (Pope Paul VI may certainly be a saint - that's between him and God - but I'm really puzzled about the choice as a model for progress in holiness.  I can do "dithering coward" all on my own.  I don't need an example.)

Jesus brought me into the Church.  Jesus has watched over me and preserved me to this moment, including sending angels a couple of times that I know of.  I report to Him, not to the men in nighties who flock around the altar with women in pant suits and sing banal songs to the waving hand of the cantor.

Because of the fallout from the brutally-imposed changes that took place in the Church in my diocese, I left off trying to be a Catholic after only about eight years.  I am at this point ineligible for any sacraments.  But I still mark the day, with sadness.  I mean, seriously, people ... modernism.  Fatima.  Quito.  (h/t with thanks to Steve Skojec, who has the fortitude and the writing chops to set forth these excellent resources at 1 Peter 5.)

It only took fifty years.

The Church was very dear to me.  I was only fifteen; it was a huge life choice to make.  Bait and switch.  Ha, ha, you idiot!  Today I cannot do anything novus ordo-ish.  It's a proximate occasion of sin for me.  I was told by my betters that we were to use our informed conscience; well, my conscience is informed, and I don't want anything to do with any of it.  It still hurts, though.  It always will.

If you want to know more about how it happened, read The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff.  Part 1 is a great "Cliff's Notes" about the bad philosophy used to break down our Church by infiltration through the universities.  Someday I'll do a post about that.  People really need to understand that this is not something new or weird.  It's planned, it's a mortal error, and it can be stopped.  Can Catholics figure this out in time?

Jesus is asleep on a cushion. Let's wake him up! (Mark 4:36-40)

And sending away the multitude, they take him even as he was in the ship:  and there were other ships with him.  And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled.  And he was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awake him, and say to him, Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish?  And ising up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea:  Peace, be still.  And the wind ceased:  and there was made a great calm.  And he said to them:  Why are you fearful?  have you not faith yet?  And they feared exceedingly:  and they said one to another:  Who is this (thinkest thou) that both wind and sea obey him?

(I use the Douay-Rheims b/c it's out of copyright, like, since ever.  Please note that the American Bishops forbid quoting the NAB-RE at all, even a little bit.  "Read the Bible!" - but pay for it.)

This morning I'm led to say to all Catholics:  WAKE JESUS UP, PEOPLE!  We hesitate to do this.  "He'll scold us!  We'll be rebuked!!" 

So what?  WE ARE PERISHING!  The waves of modernism and stupid wayward bishops and confused priests are lapping up over the boat, and we can't bail fast enough.

We do have Jesus on a cushion in the back of the boat, don't we?  We tend to take comfort in daily life and we don't see him as real, walking with us.  We let him sleep - "You rest, we'll take care of it."

I'm a codependent.  I would never wake up someone who was sleeping unless I absolutely had to, preferably by pre-arrangement.  I've known people who have no compunction doing so... "hey, wake up!"  If I'd dared to do that, the rage would have been off the charts.  "How dare you?!"  One of my earliest memories is of being soundly rebuked for calling from my crib when I didn't really need anything.

So I imagine that the apostles felt like that.  They knew he'd rebuke them.  "Oh ye of little faith!"  They heard that a lot!  But this time they were about to drown, and he was asleep!

So they woke him up.  And he stood up in the boat and spoke a word to the sea and the wind...

... and there was a great calm.

And then he lit into them.  "Why are you fearful? have you not faith yet?" 

Did they even notice the rebuke?  They were utterly in awe.

Maybe we need to risk it.  If we wake him up, and he scolds, we should say:  "Jesus, we DO have faith.  We also know our limitations.  We are NOT YOU.  We are only the image and likeness of God, not God himself!  We are perishing.  Wake up and save your church!  We have absolute faith that YOU can save YOUR CHURCH.  Wake up and DO IT!"

We can also pray to our Blessed Mother, on this anniversary of her appearance at Fatima, and ask her to give him a nudge, too.  "Mother, we remember what happened at Cana.  You pointed out the problem, but he said it wasn't time!  You put him on the spot anyway, and he came through!  Mother, help us!" (John 2:1-11)

We are showing faith when we do this.  We cannot fix it ourselves.  Sitting around and wringing our hands and talking about it and comforting ourselves with prayers, not quite sure if he really wants us to suffer, etc. is childish.  There are very serious opponents, who want us faithless and dead, installed at every level in the only organization that counts on this earth.

Stand up (or straighten up as you kneel) and wake him up!  Yell at him in prayer (even if it must be silently) and tell him we're perishing.

I'd rather have him scold me, than put up with the demons infesting the Church.  How about you?

Bari Weiss resigns ... read her letter

Resignation Letter - Bari Weiss.

This is why I both fear writing for public consumption, yet am impelled to do so.

People in a Republic cannot vote intelligently if they do not have enough information.  That is why the presentation of certain information is being stifled today.  Those who shut down, silence, censor, and cancel have no good ideas.  There is nothing they can offer to persuade.  Their only useful alternative is intimidation and force, because no one who wanted a normal life would accede to their goals.

It happened to the Catholic Church in the 50s and 60s.  I lived through that. Once they had the Church, the rest looked easy.

Maybe not.  Maybe not this time.

Best wishes to Bari, with thanks for a very clear explanation.

Today is the day

Today is the day when I start my work as a writer.

I just looked up the day in the Calendar:  St. Pope Pius V.  The fifth Pius, May the 5th, the fifth month.  St. Pope Pius V seems like a good one whose prayers to ask as I begin.  He had a long and busy reign and oversaw some momentous stuff.

"What do you write?"  I've identified as a writer for decades, even though I still was employed full-time at work which is all wrong for me, for reasons I've only very recently begun to understand.  I usually respond, "Christian metaphysics," as it seems to be an effective way to shut down the conversation instantly.  If the reply was, instead, "Wow, I thought I was the only one!" or something like that, perhaps a new friend.  We get cagey as we age.

However, the actual form and goal of the writing has been eluding me.  Last year I made good progress toward figuring it out; just the latest iteration of mindful discernment undertaken seriously in 2017.

I had the idea of memoir.  It is mine to tell, and some aspects might be of interest.  During the last few weeks on Twitter, the goal became clear:  to tell about my experience as a Roman Catholic.

With COVID-19 keeping folks indoors and people feeling restless, spats broke out, even among friends.  One topic generated plenty of threads and hurt feelings:  the SSPX.  Of all the rude questions to ask at a table of strangers at a Catholic wedding, "what's your take on the SSPX?" is a surefire way to wake up the group and distract entirely from bride, groom, toasts, food, everything.

The other topic, just this morning, was a thread of young people jumping in to say things like, "Yeah, I had no idea the TLM even existed, and when I found it - wow!"

For some time now, I've been impelled to commit my life to write full-time.  (By "some time now," I mean 45 years.)  I've never been closer.  :)

COVID-19 has affected some of our employers.  Mine is able to participate in "work sharing," and my team was chosen for it, and I got to choose one day a week when I will devote myself to actually starting to write.  For that one day, that's all I will do:  live the writer's life.  It will look like early morning study and scribbles, per usual, but also long walks, leisurely time in the garden, extensive reading, and - yes - writing.

Before now, I felt constrained from writing while still employed.  Since on this one day per week for a few weeks I will be forbidden to work at all, I feel psychologically free to take the day exclusively for the writing life.

While my memoir will cover all kinds of things, my experience with the Roman Catholic Church seems like it would be interesting, particular for those young persons just now realizing what the Vatican 2 implementation replaced.  I am a convert to the Church who read and studied and prayed her way to Catholicism starting with a close reading of A Manual of Prayers for the use of The Catholic Laity, prepared and enjoined by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore.  Published in New York by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, Printers to the Holy See.  The imprimatur was bestowed by Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Apostolic Delegate, copyright 1888, assigned 1916 to John Murphy Company.  The New Edition from which I read was copyrighted in 1930 by John Murphy Company.

One of the distinctives of the new edition was the addition of devotions to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, "The Little Flower."  In addition to a prayer, there was a litany to her.  She had her spot on the Calendar on October 3.  She died in 1897, was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925.  She was 24 when she died.  It was extremely rare for any saint to be canonized with such speed in those days.  I was very new to Catholicism, but understood from the Litany that I could ask her to pray for me, so I did.  She promptly took me in hand, so to speak, and her sainthood is proven just by that fact, and by her dogged persistence in doing her bit to keep me close to the Beloved we share.

Based on what I see out there on the Internet, it is time for me to buckle down and begin the work I've yearned to do for so long:  tell the story of what it was like to enter one Church voluntarily, after much prayer and study, only to have that same Church brusquely tell me in so many ways that I was unwanted because of my love for God in the way it taught me not five years before.  Pope Francis would much rather Catholics like me slink away and never bother him again, but he slipped up (as he famously does) and said something to some priests and religious in Ecuador once which led me to discover Our Lady of Good Success, who accurately predicted in the 1600s what we are living through right this moment.  God's sense of humor is ever new.

What do you think?  Would a story like mine be interesting?

Steve Skojec: "What We're Fighting For"

After a long time away from One Peter 5, just dropped by and found this outstanding piece by Steve.  Go there, and read it.

I have reason to know that this is pure truth:

What the spiritual life does, as we seek to embrace humility, is to strip away the impediments that keep us from victory.

It has been so long since I've updated this blog.  Sigh.  Sorry.  Reasons. 

For now:  my latest epiphany, this week, was to know that I need to be grateful for Pope Francis.  The reports of his peculiar behavior, and the really appalling reports of things "under consideration," have given me great peace, for reasons that would infuriate him.  Pope Francis has convinced me completely that I do not need to fret or worry about whatever it is he's up to.  Shall I trust him, the fruit of the catastrophic misinterpretation of Vatican II, or the Church which has survived through far worse challenges since founded 2,000 years ago?

Fifty years is a tiny bit of time in the Lord's calendar.  The Left invaded the Church first.  From Pope Francis' bold moves, it's clear that the Left thinks they can finish the job and get rid of that pesky Jesus at last.  Perhaps St. Peter's will be destroyed.  Perhaps Catholics will be hunted and persecuted out of existence.

Yeah, whatever.  Our Founder was flogged until he was unrecognizable, hung on the Cross for everyone to see, a spear thrust through his heart to prove he was dead...

...aaannnd he's alive!  (Acts 14:3 is one of my favorite verses about that.)

I'm following that guy.

"Unity" is a popular term in progressive Catholic blathering these days.  I'm all for it.  Unity with the Beloved, with Christ Jesus.  It is what I fight for.  It is my goal.  It is the only one that matters.

Oh, for the love of God!

Finding Pasture is back on the air.  I've been pried from under my rock in the pasture by reading the comments on various blogs about the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops starting today, October 4, 2015, and to end on October 15, 2015.  In particular, Hilary White's What's Up with the Synod?, and the story behind it, has confirmed my own growing sense that I need to wade back in.

Some posts and comments of late, on various sites and blogs, express dismay at various reported words and acts of Pope Francis.  People are concerned, uncertain, even afraid, because it is clear that Satan has deceived some Roman Catholic leaders to an extent and degree even greater than some cynics suspected.  The flock is clearly nervous.

This post is intended to be corrective, a bracing reminder of who we are and what we're about.

A word about who I am:  I was a new and ardent convert to the Church immediately before the changes imposed on the Church after Vatican II.  While my relationship with the Church was derailed, my relationship with its Founder was not.  I renewed the prayerful research that led me to the Church in the first place.  I have been "going in and out" of various Christian pastures in my study for forty years.  I came close to joining a different church only once; but, during the meeting where the pitch was made for joining, it became clear that, indeed, the fullness of faith can be known only in the one Church founded by our Lord. Some of my experiences and conclusions are recorded in older posts in this blog. 

Now then. To review:

God created all there is, including ourselves.  God's creation of the human experience was completed; it is not ongoing.  Our discoveries and learning are ongoing.  God gave us a clue to guide us as we learn:  what God made was and is very good.

God has built in the capabilities we need to make good decisions.  We are made in the image and likeness of God.  What we call a "mirror" is a crude analogy.  In essence, God is unknowable to us except insofar as we respond to Him appropriately.  If we do not reflect God, we cannot perceive him at all, because he acts through his Spirit, intangible, and immeasurable, because he is everywhere.  We have free will and can choose thoughts and actions that do not reflect God.  Our ability to reflect God is impaired, in the same way a mirror is misty.  Our understanding of God's purpose, and therefore our ability to follow his rules, is equally clouded, not least by our susceptibility to sensory input needed for our discoveries and learning.  It always will be whenever we mistake knowledge about good and evil for "wisdom."  We need discernment to distinguish good from evil.  God's desire is to have a relationship with us in which we trust him so deeply that we truly do reflect his goodness.  We have to remember what we know about him.  In the end, clarity will come only through Jesus.


Satan is real.  Since falling from heaven, he has wandered around, leveraging human curiosity and pride to distract and confuse, tempting even the people who do great things for him to do things that are evil, or even attacking people outright.  He is our adversary.  He means to capture that which is God's image and likeness, the human soul. 

Jesus is a real person.  IS, not was.  Satan tried to distract and deceive Jesus, but it didn't work.  Satan was as determined then as he is now to wreck everything.  Jesus was eventually arrested, insulted, savagely beaten, mocked, and executed by crucifixion.

Satan has no power not given by God.  In fact, Satan is used by God to fulfill God's ultimate plan of salvation.  For example, Jesus' trial, abuse, and crucifixion, even down to its specific details, could not be a surprise to anyone who knew the Bible.

The Point:

We need to quit focusing on fallible men, and proclaim Jesus.  Jesus is real, Jesus is alive, Jesus works among us, Jesus died for us.  The Bible is as clear about what is right and what is wrong as it is about how much God loves us.  We can turn from God if we want; why in the world would we?  Didn't Jesus show us exactly how important it is to God that we choose good??

Ann Barnhardt, God bless and protect her, shows how it's done (as reported at What's Up with the Synod?:

...Still glaring at me, the bishop then launched into the first of his two defenses of the September 8th catastrophic Motu Proprio. First, he complained about the “stack of paperwork” backlogged on his desk from all of the annulment requests he had to deal with.

I interrupted him with, “Yeah, that’s just awful – almost as bad as being nailed to a cross….”

Thus ended the episcopal bitch-fest about the unbearable existential burden of backlogged paperwork.

(Read it all.)

What is our standard?  What matters?

(Image source.)

Do not worry.  Do not fret.  Satan didn't win then.  He won't win now.  Even if they come today and strip us of everything, flog us and nail us up to die, Satan has lost.  Pay no attention to him.  Focus on the One who is All.  Strive to see him so clearly, and live the life he gives so abundantly and joyfully, that you begin to see who he really is.  When your body dies, shuck it off like an old tent and go straight into the arms of the One whose image and likeness you are,-- ... and so loved.

Thoughts on reading the Bible

 In exploring how the evangelicals think, I learned to read the Bible in its entirety. We Roman Catholics still, to this day, are not taught to do this.  It is one of the great unmentioned scandals of the implementation of the "spirit" of Vatican II that, despite the frequent assurances from Those In Charge that we use more Scripture in our worship, we are actually being starved of the Word through targeted selection and, in America and to some degree in England and Europe, Bible translations that are frankly dodgy, at best.

As an example of how Protestants immerse their thoughts in Scripture, Robert Murray M'Cheyne prepared a Bible reading plan which I have used for some years.  Many are the times that two or more of the readings speak to one another, deepening my awe for the "scarlet thread of redemption" that can be traced through our Bible.  While M'Cheyne's plan does not encompass the Deuterocanonical books (the Apocrypha), one could do worse than to follow it as a daily practice.  For Catholics, it is important to do so in a reliable Catholic translation, of course.  For this purpose, the RSV-CE version is my preference.

However, Catholics would benefit from proper Bible study materials.  By that I do not mean long articles written from the leftist viewpoint about this or that aspect of the Bible.  I own a great many Bibles (it's been 40 years, after all), and, at one time, I had a NAB Study Bible.  No more, and never again.

To get a feel for how Protestants (those who are recognizably Christian) get their bearings in Scripture, the Thompson Chain-Reference Bible is a good resource.  Its premise is that the Bible can speak of and to itself.  There are no doctrinal articles.  I have used it for many years and have found nothing that is blatantly anti-Catholic.  It works with the text only to group verses by topic and to set out things like the prophecies realized by Jesus' life.  The Thompson has not been published using a USCCB-approved translation, but I think a fairly literal version like the New American Standard Bible or the New King James Version would be safe for use.

In my experience, it is downright dangerous to trust mere men in the matter of what scriptures to read.  It is foolish to restrict one's exposure to the Bible to the smattering of verses presented in the liturgy through the three-year cycle, or even the Liturgy of the Hours (as revised after Vatican II, of course), in which alert readers have discovered the intentional omission of verses that are "uncomfortable" for some in today's environment.  The Episcopalians did this in their daily reading plan in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.  For example, in the second reading for the Daily Office Year One, Wednesday of the Week of 2 Lent, the reading from Romans 1 goes from vv. 16-25.  The reading on the next day, starts at Romans 1:28.  Two verses were left out, Romans 1:26 and 1:27.  Was it just an oversight?  Let's see.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, ²⁷ and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

There's another gap, ironically also from the readings for the same time of year (Lent!).  Look at Daily Office Year 2, Week of 2 Lent, this time between the Wednesday and Thursday.  Wednesday's second reading does from I Cor. 5:9-6:8, while Thursday's picks up at 1 Cor. 6:12.  What could be in vv. 9-11?  Can you guess?

⁹ Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, ¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

In practical terms, this means is that, even if an Episcopalian is honest, devout enough to at least include the readings from the Daily Office in the day's spiritual diet, he or she would never see those verses.  In the case of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, that's really spiritual malpractice, because they show the effect of grace that redeems the sinful soul.

If a priest or any minister does not "spend time in the Word", may he not end up preaching tripe like, "the point of the multiplication of loaves and fishes is that everybody shared"?  Really, the Church would be healthier if such absurdities had resulted in people leaping to their feet and yelling "Get out of here!" and running him off the property.  In Protestant churches where the Bible is read searchingly and thoughtfully, this kind of thing is not unheard-of.


The Protestants are more or less sharply divided these days between those who search the scriptures to find out what's true about God, and those who prefer their own ideas.  The churches where the Scriptures are taken seriously are multiplying with stunning speed; the others are dwindling into oblivion.  Sadly, the most devout Reformed Protestants still categorically deny even the possibility that what Jesus said in John 6 is simply what Jesus meant to say, and convey, no more and no less.  I'll write about that in a different post sometime.

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”  -- G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World Part I, Chapter 5, “The Unfinished Temple.”

resipiscence

resipiscence
n. acknowledgment that one has been mistaken

from Futility Closet

Anthony Esolen's powerful article

Anthony Esolen has written a powerful article in Crisis Magazine.  Read the whole thing.  H/T Rod Dreher.

It is a rebuke to the bishops who would smooth people's feelings by turning against our Lord's clear teachings.

When will we learn that the answer to hard teachings is not to soften them, but to impose them upon ourselves, to force our selves to grow into our true image?

Anthony Esolen names in his excellent piece several identifiable groups.  I belonged to the "adult child of divorced parents" group, and the "young woman living a faithful Catholic life" group, and I experienced all that he describes so evocatively.

The "sexual revolution" and the wolves in religious garb set the context in which my dear friend and ideal husband was taken from me.  He was suspicious of the Catholic Church.  The woman who abstracted him from me made sure to have an extravagant Catholic wedding.

God works in mysterious ways, and I never doubted His presence, for which I thank Him, because I am a quite clueless sheep.  Maybe my early experiences were given by Him for the result He knew they would have:  I have always clung to Him, because all the ones I loved or relied on became unavailable.

The recent Synod has shaken many of those who are faithful, and younger than I.  They have no memory or concept of what it was like after Vatican II:  the swift changes, the sneering disrespect, the scoldings.  This time, the lines are clearly drawn.  No priest can pretend that "Rome says it must be like this," because we have the Internet, and we know exactly what Rome says.

Rome had not changed then, either.  The use of the vernacular in the Mass, the turning around of the altars, the deformation of the Mass - not required by the Council.  Those who imposed them so brutally on the parishes were either lying, or deceived.

They cannot lie.  They cannot deceive.  Not now.  We know the truth.

But what is required is courage and resolve.  No more complacent Catholics.  We - I - need to know who I am, and be unafraid to show it.

For me, the courage is to attend Mass in a most uncompromising place, in the Extraordinary Form, and not hide about it.  To write, here and wherever I can, to add my words in feeble imitation of writers like Anthony Esolen.  To speak the truth around family, clearly, but always with love, and to convey to the best of my ability my willingness to discuss, to talk seriously and quietly about these things.

And to pray.  Daily, humbly beseeching the Lord to protect me from those who seduce and lie ... "but God did not mean ..."  "you will not surely die ..."

We need to know, and rely on, God's love.  Today's society is quick to label self and others as "victim."  To change the Scriptures to ease the pain of victims is not the Christian way.  The Christian way is to start with the real Victim, the One who hung on the cross, put to death unjustly, mocked, despised, then and now.  We Christians ought to all be prepared to share His fate.  It is an honor and a grace to be chosen to suffer for Him.  But those who suffer in that way are those who accept the terms of His teaching, and would not change it - even, as for me, it means separation from the Church I love, so long as my domestic situation is irregular.  But I can pray for it to be regularized, and I can pray for those who would perpetuate the ills that Esolen so clearly describes.  No one can stop me.  And only God knows how powerful my prayers might be, if He joins them to the blood of the true victim whom I follow, by His grace.

Reveling

Just enjoying being in the pasture.  The Lord invites me to rest, and makes a nice place for that, and I bounce all over it spiritually, loving it and Him and everything!

Words matter: the Bible

Words matter.  Changes to words in Bible translations into English make a big difference to the way they're heard and understood, and sometimes can change the meaning.  I've done examples of this before, and will likely do so again, so will name the series "Words matter."

The Douay-Rheims Bible is a translation into English of the Latin version of the Bible known as the Vulgate, which was prepared from the original languages by St. Jerome at the end of the fourth century.

The New Jerusalem Bible is an updated version of the Jerusalem Bible, a 1966 translation of La Bible de Jerusalem.

In Divine Intimacy, today's meditation starts with a meditation on Matthew 9:1-8.

In Matthew 9:2, Jesus says to the paralyzed man, --

Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee.  (Douay-Rheims)

Contrast that with:

Take comfort, my child, your sins are forgiven. (New Jerusalem Bible)

"Be of good heart"

In the Latin: confide, which is the root word for confidence.  This is a command.  It is spoken by Jesus the Christ, Messiah, the Son of God, the Word, through whom all was made, and nothing was made except through and by him. 

In other words, God. 

The Douay Rheims translation refers to the heart, the seat of emotions, courage, all that makes a human person.  Be of good heart:  strong, whole, well, from the inside out.  This is a reliable command, because when God says be about anything, it happens.

"Take comfort"

This phrasing puts the onus on the paralyzed man to reach out and grasp comfort.  He's got to do something:  "take".  What is he supposed to take for himself?  "comfort."  Oh, really?  Lying there, unable to move, probably dirty, hungry, lonesome, maybe in pain? - "take comfort."

I hear some of you say, "Oh, come on.  Everybody knows what it means."

Are you sure?  The plain meaning in English is different.  Frankly, it has a bit of the James 2:16 feel about it, don't you think?  (If you say to someone, be warm and well fed, but don't give them what they need, what good does it do?)

But wait.  There's more.

"Be of good heart, son..." (Douay Rheims)

"Take comfort, my child..." (New Jerusalem Bible)

Let's have a look at the Latin again.  "Confide, fili..."  That is not "my son."  It is, simply, "son."

Nor is it "child."  In Latin, child is puer.  The King James version, and even today's New American Standard (known for accuracy) translate fili as son.

Why the change?

After 1,600+ years, did the Latin meaning "evolve"?  No, it didn't.  It can't.  Latin is a dead language.  Its meaning is static.  It is immune to the changes in common languages.

But there's this:  "Considerable efforts have also been made, though not at all costs, to soften or avoid the inbuilt preference of the English language, a preference now found so offensive by some people, for the masculine; the word of the Lord concerns women and men equally."  --New Jerusalem Bible, General Editor's Foreword, p. v.

In this case, the costs of avoiding offense to "some people" are high.

With "fili," Jesus said "son."  Not anyone's son in particular; just "son."  If Jesus had said "my son," the Latin would read, "fili mi."

The word son conveys many deep meanings.  It explicitly refers to a male person.  It is not sex-neutral.

Sons are important to civilization.  Well brought-up sons are leaders, protectors, providers, and fathers in their turn.  Well-educated men, given their greater physical strength and the inherent ability to focus on getting the job done, have built the infrastructure that supports civilization.  The paralyzed man, beyond the daily physical misery of his condition, endured unspeakable humiliation.  He had to be brought to Jesus on a bed, in public.  He must have been desperate to let his friends do this, or his friends took advantage of his helplessness and just carried him away.  Either way, it must have been awful for him, no matter whether he had hope or not.

In this context, the label of "child" would have been cruel.  A child is weak, undisciplined, helpless, dependent on women.  How in the world would that characterization comfort a man who wanted more than anything to stand on his own two feet, take care of himself, and do man things like build stuff, solve problems, marry?

I can't believe that Jesus would do anything to make the poor fellow feel any worse.  I trust the original account:  Jesus looked directly into his eyes, man to man, and said, "Be of good heart, son."

My speculations about the emotional freight aside, there is even more insidious fallout from the use of the despicable word "child" instead of "son" in this report.

Can a child - puer, below the age of reason - really sin?  While exasperated parents might conclude otherwise, it's generally recognized that children aren't capable of grasping the concept of sin.  That's why calling the man "child" makes no sense.  Using that word corrupts the whole point of what follows.

"Your sins are forgiven."  The power of Jesus' statement was in the forgiveness of real sin - the kind that adults commit.  The scribes got it!  They thought it was blasphemy, because only God can forgive sins.  How it must have startled them when Jesus asked, "which is easier - to say 'your sins are forgiven,' or say, 'get up and walk'?  Here's how to know that the Son of man has the power to forgive sins."  Jesus turned to the paralytic and said, "Get up.  Take up your bed, and return to your house."

The paralytic - not a child, but a fully restored man - did just that.

If Jesus is made to say, "Take heart, child," the story is, well, neutered.  It is warped from reporting the reviving of the spirit of a dejected man, the redemption from the weight of sin and the return of masculine selfhood, to blithe pat-on-the-head condescension by a young itinerant carpenter saying "feel better, kid."  The subsequent healing is immediately, and rightfully, suspect.  Moderns might say, well, he wasn't really paralyzed, people in those days didn't have the medicine we have now, etc.

The word "child" tells the hearer that Jesus demeaned and infantilized the sufferer.  It tells men and women that Jesus sees people as little children.  We all know little children aren't really responsible for their actions; therefore, our sins are easily forgiven, because we're just kids and don't really know what we're doing.

No!  We are not children.  We are sons and daughters, and we sin, and suffer, and then flee from Jesus and all things Christian, because ... because ... why, exactly...?

Here's how I imagine it happened.  Jesus saw the man, being dragged on his bed by his friends, and knew what everyone was thinking, just as he knew what the scribes were thinking later.  Jesus knew the man's intense shame at being dragged out in public like that.  Maybe his limbs were drawn up awkwardly.  Maybe he hadn't been bathed or dressed or even changed, because his friends were in such a hurry to get him to Jesus. And in order to get him through the crowds, they naturally made a scene.  It was horrible.  Jesus knew that, and also knew the man's thought, his deep sense of sinfulness.  Only God knows what that was all about.  Jesus knew.  He looked at the poor fellow with love.  "Be of good heart, son.  Your sins are forgiven."

That, right there, would have been more than enough.  The paralytic forgot all about everything but the steady gaze of the strong carpenter standing before him.  Bed, body, dirt - none of it mattered at all.  The Son of man had just assured the child of God that the dark things were forgiven.

I've known those moments, thank God.  Words fail to describe the awe, the joy.

Possibly he was aware of Jesus saying something to the scribes who were watching.  Unexpectedly, Jesus turned back to him.  "Get up.  Take up your bed, and go to your house."  What??  Yet, somehow, it happened:  the muscles warmed and worked.  He stood up.  People gasped.  He sought Jesus' gaze once more.  Jesus, already busy with others, felt that look, and glanced back.  Warm, amused.  Then he disappeared into the crowd.

The man - strong again, whole, sure of himself - bent down, picked up the bedding, gathered it into his arms.  Standing tall, he walked through the crowd.  He held his head up high:  forgiven.

When we sin, and our ability to act is paralyzed, and we hurt and ache and suffer and fret, this account helps us remember that Jesus knows our need.  He sympathizes as no one else can.  He can restore, in all kinds of ways.

Take your heart to him.  Do not be afraid.  Submit it to his gaze.  He who made your heart cannot hate it, or you; only your rebellion, your doubt, your snark, the mean and selfish acts.  Allow him to clean your heart so it can move again, feel tenderness and love.  Let him touch you deep inside, in the place that's beyond the reach of medicine, therapists, loved ones:  your own, individual, unique self.

Too scary?

In prayer, ask Jesus to show you his hands.  Make yourself look at the gaping holes made by the huge blunt nails from which he hung on the cross.  Look at his side where the soldier thrust in the lance, to make sure Jesus was dead.  The wound is so large that Thomas was able to put his whole hand into it.

Admit it:  Jesus has the right to take care of your sins, your fear, your loss.

In fact, he already has.  But you must accept his love.

Be of good heart, daughter.  Be of good heart, son.

Re-beginning.

A friend's questions, and subsequent observations about my replies, have made me think again about to Whom I belong, and where I need to go to connect with that Person and my heavenly family.

No saint, I've been wandering around, getting spiritual nourishment here and there.  My struggles with the Roman Catholic church are adequately described elsewhere in this blog.  But, when pressed, that is the understanding I have.  No other well-meaning interpretation will do.

We all want church to be what we need it to be.  Actually, it's not our choice.

Father Z. writes a very good blog.  I deem it that for the usual reasons, but also because I cannot stay away for long, no matter what other Christian denomination I'm hunting around in at the time.  So he recently posted this quote:

To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant. -- John Henry Newman

... which is from:

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)

• To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.
  • Introduction, Part 5.

• In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
  • Chapter 1, Section 1, Part 7.

 _________________________________
I am so taken with this - knowing it to be true, in my case, for sure - that I may just need to get a daily reminder, a touchstone... a coffee mug!

I also love this quote:  To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

Well, it may be that the Lord wants me to be perfect.  (He knows He'll have to help - a lot.)

In Divine Intimacy, the meditation for today is entitled, "Blessed Are The Peacemakers."

"... the gift of wisdom corresponds to the beatitude of peace, 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'  Only one who lives under the influence of this gift can truly judge and regulate everything according to God, so that nothing, not even suffering, can disturb his interior peace, for he knows that even the most painful happenings are permitted and ordered by God for the good of His elect.  'To them that love God, all things work together unto good' (Rom 8,28)."

 This I know, from actual experience through what is getting to be a long life (Deo gratias).

Furthermore, my patron saint, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, has been doing a very characteristic thing:  she has made herself known to a dear woman who helps many, and who has helped me so much:

Dear Friends,

This week I have been intrigued by the God Breezes that have been filling my sails. From all directions I have been led to study a Catholic Saint. I was raised Church of Christ and the saints have never been a part of my spiritual upbringing. As a teenager I had a St. Christopher medal but I didn't know what it was.

My sister Paddi started our study by watching a video about Mother Teresa in the middle of the night. You know when you can't sleep and the mid-night editor is coaxing you to get up and write or study. The next day she told me about her night.

She said that Mother Teresa took her name from Saint Therese, the Little Flower; that our purpose on this Earth is no less or greater than Mother Teresa's. I knew nothing about St. Therese of Lisieux other than mentions of her in emails from FlyBabies over the years. All of a sudden the image of St. Therese started showing up in my Facebook newsfeed.

First there was a video. I watched it as I was waiting to get my haircut by my sweet hairdresser, Teresa. Then there was a bust of St. Therese from one of the first FlyBabies I ever met, Pam. She posted it on her Facebook page. It had been in her husband's grandparent's bedroom. Then I realized that October 1st was the 117 anniversary of her entrance into Heaven. This started my quest to find out more about her life and death.

I downloaded her autobiography on my Kindle, ordered a movie from Amazon, and then I found the unabridged autobiography in audio. On Friday I had to drive for six hours and I listened the whole way. Saturday morning I got up and looked out the front door. The first thing I saw was an October yellow rose. I took that as a sign to continue my study today.

The movie was touching. The message confirmed what I have always known and taught. We have to find joy in the little things we do every day. When we let go of our martyred attitudes and bless our family with simple actions of love; we can turn the mundane chores into acts of kindness. We all deserve to have a home that blesses us.

When we strive for perfection it bogs us down. We lose the joy; this is why we tell you to "make it fun" and "good enough is good enough". Treating ourselves with the same love and kindness that we would show a little child is the key to letting go of the heartache. This was the story of St. Therese of Lisieux. She found her vocation in blessing others with her smile, a kind word, or a helpful gesture. Her acts of love blessed those around her.

I will continue my study of St. Therese over the next few weeks. At the end of this month, Michele and I have to go to Wisconsin. This journey was not one that I was excited about until I found that the National Shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux is on the way. I can't wait. When I told Michele about the St. Therese God Breezes; she said that St. Therese was her patron saint. God sure does have a precious way to get our attention. Michele is a joy to travel with because she has the heart of a child and is delighted at the things we see along our journey.

So today set about your tasks with a loving heart. Show yourself and your family that love is really all there is! Love is in our actions; not just our words. My God bless your hands and heart as you set about your routines.

FlyLady

St. Thérèse said that she would spend her heaven in doing good upon earth, and she is a woman of her word.  She sought me out long before I dared consider joining the Catholic Church.  For a long time I thought / hoped I had a vocation to Carmel.  It didn't turn out that way, but I've never forgotten what I've learned from her.

 So, assuming God really does want me to work on coming back home, I stopped by Conversion Diary to ask for a saint to help me discern what to do. 

 

 Invoked as Peacemaker.

OK, at this point, there may be a reader or two who says, "Catholic superstitious nonsense!"  Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Bless your heart.  Go run away and play.

Those of us who are Catholic know, from long experience, that this is not unusual at all.  God has a marvelous sense of humor, boundless love, and engages fully in creation every minute of everywhere, and he gets a particular charge out of answering dumb little prayers from stubborn sheep.

So, if I, the sheep, sense something in the spiritual air that says, "no, really, you're meant to be home," and then all of this falls together, neatly, gently, easily... I'd better listen.

So ... listen with me?