Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Only Answer to Same-Sex "Marriage" is Caritas in Veritate
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
You probably are aware that, at the end of last week, the state senate of New York passed, and the “Catholic” governor of New York signed, legislation which makes same sex “marriage” legal in the state of New York. Early this past week I received a news article by email, the headline of which stated The majority of New York bishops praise state passage of same gender marriage. The article said, in part….At least one…Church bishop in the state of New York has said that clergy in his diocese may solemnize same-gender marriages as soon as the state's recently passed Marriage Equality Act goes into effect…The Bishop…of Rochester said in a statement…that he would soon set up a diocesan task force…to help us chart our course to engage this journey reverently, deliberately and in congruence with church law….(The bishop)....had actively campaigned for at least two years for passage of the law….Bishop Mark Sisk said in a statement that…the legislation, as enacted, appears to be closely aligned with the long standing views of this diocese that the civil rights of all people should be respected equally before the law….Sisk noted in his statement that the new law…does not determine church teaching about the nature of sacraments….That is our continuing work, he said. However, nothing in the unfinished nature of that work should cause us to hesitate to give our most profound thanks for the step that has been taken in affording equal civil rights for our brothers and sisters….Sisk had written to the New York Times in May to note his and the diocese's long-standing support of allowing same-gender couples the right of civil marriage.
You have probably figured, by this time, that these are not Catholic bishops (they are bishops of the Episcopal Church, the USA version of the Anglican Church). The Anglican Church has been fighting within itself for a number of years about this and other issues relating to the nature of human sexuality and of marriage, and they are sharply divided, on these types of issues, into opposing camps.
This Sunday, the ordo for the extraordinary form of the Mass allows for a choice—an unusual situation for the extraordinary form. The priest is free to choose from among three celebrations: the Mass for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart—last Friday’s feast—or the Mass for the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul—last Wednesday’s feast. I chose Ss. Peter and Paul for several reasons. The feast of Ss. Peter and Paul on June 29th is one of the four universal holydays of obligation which, by indult, have never been observed as days of obligation in the United States (the others being Epiphany, St. Joseph, and Corpus Christi). Ss. Peter and Paul is by far the more ancient of the two feasts. But, more significantly, we here at St. Thomas More have just this past week, in union with the Church throughout the world, had sixty hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in observance of the 60th anniversary of the ordination to the priesthood of Pope Benedict XVI on the very day of this Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. Today we should—and every day we must—give thanks to God for the gift of the papal office to the Church; likewise, we must give thanks to God for our current Holy Father. We have been blessed in all our lifetimes to have holy popes at the head of the Church, and Pope Benedict continues that succession of holy popes. We can be thankful today, now, here, in the United States, in 2011 and onward, that we will never awaken to a news headline stating, with any accurate meaning, The majority of Catholic bishops praise same gender marriage. In giving the Church this guarantee of faithfulness—this needed authority—Our Lord makes it possible for each of us to know and to believe what is true, in spite of our own sinful inclinations caused by the sin of Adam—our inclination to believe as true what we would like to be true, what would appear to suit our own needs. The essential, the core, the substance, of our Catholic Faith is “apostolic,” meaning it comes from the apostles who received it from Our Lord Himself. The Church’s teaching, its sanctification, and its governance, have been passed on to us in an unbroken Tradition from the apostles over the past 2000 years. On this Independence Day weekend, it is particularly important to observe this, because the United States in its current perilous moral state can only be saved by the truths of Christianity, and all the truths of Christianity have been preserved perfectly and fully taught only by the Catholic Church.
The only answer that will move society away from the acceptance of homosexuality and thus same-sex “marriage” is–caritas in veritate–love in truth; the title of Pope Benedict’s most recent encyclical. And it is up to the Church fearlessly to preach this difficult, but beautiful message. It is not love to allow your children to rampantly misbehave without correcting them. It is often easier to turn the other way and purposely fail to notice misbehavior. But out of love, parents must correct and discipline their children, lest they come to harm. So too the Church, and especially her shepherds–the fathers of souls—must feed the flock, must teach the truths however difficult and politically incorrect. That is true love. The Holy Father has instructed bishops and priests to do exactly this, again and again. Perhaps some priests and some bishops shy away from this because of the reaction they know they are certain to get: from those in the pews, from other priests, from ecclesiastical superiors, from the media. It is easy for me to say these things here; I have found, in only one of my past pastoral assignments, that whenever I would speak about the Church’s teaching on practically any moral issue, opposition would come from a loud vocal minority, but one with some serious powerful connections. So I appreciate the difficulty other priests may have. It believe it was St. John Vianney who said something like…there are no bad priests, only priests for whom not enough people have prayed enough….
The Holy See has specifically warned against silence on the hard truths of homosexuality. The man who is now our pope, while he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a letter directed to the bishops, stating that silence about the Church’s teachings regarding the spiritual harm of homosexual acts stems from a false charity which he states is …neither caring nor pastoral…. There is no real choice but to speak out, with conviction and love, the truths of Christ, especially in these hard areas of human sexuality. Priests will be criticized for it, but they must trust that God will see to it nonetheless. And it is important that Catholic faithful support priests who speak the truth especially in places where that message is opposed or ridiculed. As I said, it is easy to speak thus here; for that and for you, I am grateful. But in every Catholic parish church, love demands it and the future of the Church depends on it, because in this battle of homosexuality, a time of persecution of the Church is near at hand, and indeed, in many parts of our own country it has already arrived.
A few weeks ago, Malawi’s Ambassador to the United Nations said privately that the Obama administration had threatened to withhold $350 million in aid unless Malawi’s government struck down its laws on sodomy. Among Malawi’s roughly 16-million inhabitants, the life expectancy is a paltry 51.7 years, which is the 211th lowest life expectancy in the world. Malawi has the eleventh highest infant mortality rate in the world. And 44 percent of the population does not have safe sanitation, meaning they very well might be peeing where they drink. Malawi is also among the poorest countries in the world. A $350-million aid package goes a long way there, yet here are President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holding Malawi hostage to the new U.S. homosexual agenda. Make sodomy legal or your people can twist in the wind. Within days, Malawi’s government committed to changing Malawi’s sodomy laws. President Obama hailed this as a great victory. Yes, you can usually get your way if you are strong by threatening the world’s weak. And take note that this story was characteristically overlooked by the media.
The successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, in an address given only 18 days prior to his election as pope, and one day prior to the death of Pope Blessed John Paul II, then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said…Very soon it will not be possible to state that homosexuality, as the Catholic Church teaches, is an objective disorder in the structuring of human existence…. As so many of our modern popes—as Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae—Pope Benedict has proven himself prescient. The time may be coming shortly when we are forbidden to state the basic truths of the Church. Will we then have the courage to proclaim Christ’s truth with the possibility of losing our jobs, our homes, our friends, our freedom, or perhaps even shedding our blood? If we choose silence now because of cultural pressures, the loss of human respect and political calculations, how can we imagine that when the penalties are increased to include imprisonment, and possibly even torment and death, we will dare to speak the truth of Christ? Our Catholic Faith is not a religion that provides a formula for not sinning. Rather, it teaches If you do sin – and you will – repent, get up, and then go on. Our Lord knew we needed doctrine, grace, habit, purpose of amendment, penance, and forgiveness. And He knew we needed certainty and assurance. That’s why He gave us Peter, then Linus, then Cletus, then Clement—all the way down to our own Benedict.
Especially in America, too many ministers and purveyors of religion tell the world in every way that everything is fine, especially themselves – just do what others do. Do not judge. Do not distinguish. If something is wrong, it is not your fault. It’s the system. It’s no one’s fault. You are ok. Don’t worry. Be happy. Who needs God in all that, let alone penance and change of heart? That’s why all this is not the work of God; it is the work of the Enemy, the Devil. The successor of Peter is not pleasing to the Enemy. He speaks caritas in veritate—truth in love... The devil hates all that. That’s precisely why our prayers for the pope must increase in our lives, in the life of the Church. The Enemy just hates Peter and his successors; that’s why we must love him, and never cease to pray for him.
Fr. Robert Behnke
The External Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul
Monday, July 4, 2011
Gift of the Body and Blood of Christ
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
This Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ began in the 1200s. It was begun in order for the Church to be able to express a joyful gratitude for the Gift of the Blessed Sacrament in a way that was not possible on Holy Thursday because of the nearness of the horrible events of Our Lord’s passion and death commemorated the following day. The first Holy Thursday, the day Our Lord gave the Church Himself in the Holy Eucharist, was a day steeped in sadness, because the next day was Good Friday–the day of the cross, the day of Our Lord’s atoning death on the cross. The Mass given to the Church on Holy Thursday was an anticipation of the sacrifice of the cross on Good Friday–an anticipation of earth at last being able to touch heaven. The purpose in instituting today’s feast was to focus specifically on the Gift of the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. The Mass and the Office for Corpus Christi were composed by St. Thomas Aquinas upon the request of Pope Urban IV in the year 1264. It is unquestionably a classic piece of liturgical work, wholly in accord with the best liturgical traditions—Pange Lingua and Tantum Ergo, O Sacrum Convivium, Ecce Panis Angelorum—all these hymns were composed and used first for this feast day. It is a perfect work of art. So on this feast, we are invited to contemplate the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament in Itself: What It is; what It does – and, what happens to you and me when you and I receive Holy Communion
How many Catholics really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion; how many Catholics really expect to be changed by the Mass they attend? How many expect to hear a Word proclaimed and preached that will powerfully change the way they think and the way they see the entire world? How many expect actually to encounter Jesus Christ and be changed forever by that encounter? How many expect to receive Holy Communion and to be marvelously helped by this reception in ways far beyond what Tylenol or Advil or Prozac or any other medicine could ever achieve in the physical order? On this Feast of Corpus Christi, what do you expect from receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion?
Some people put more faith in Aleve and Tylenol than they do in Holy Communion. That’s because when they take Tylenol they expect something to happen. But many people don’t really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion. But consider this: According to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, God did not have to redeem us by assuming a human body. There are bound to be, Thomas opines, other ways in which God could have saved us. The sisters told us in school that, by a simple thought, by a momentary act of His divine will, God could have effected man’s salvation. The humanity of Christ, then, becomes an especially significant instrument of our redemption. The humiliated and then raised and glorified body of Christ becomes a visible sign of redemption that stretches out across time and space to reach all creation, beginning with Adam. Consider the following passage from an ancient sermon read during the Office of Holy Saturday…The Lord goes in to them [in Hades] holding His victorious weapon, His Cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees Him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'May the Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand, He raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light….
In this passage the hand of Christ, his Body, raises Adam to life. As Catholics we all believe in the true humanity of Christ; the consequences of that belief are even more radical: Christ makes all His followers members of His Body, the Church, and gives us physical, bodily signs: the sacraments. …Take this and eat it, this is My Body; take It and drink It, this is My Blood….. If we believe in something so unimaginable as God Himself becoming one of us for our salvation, if we believe something so astonishing that, imperfect as we are, we are made members of that holy Body, the Church, why would we ever doubt yet another amazing grace which is, through His own promise, Christ is really and truly and substantially present in the Eucharist?
The Body and Blood of Christ in Their sacramental, mystical Form under the appearances of bread and wine are left for us so that our lives as members of the Body of Christ, the Church, may be strengthened and nourished by the Body of Christ, the Eucharist. This again is part of Jesus' promise: …Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…. This is the radical consequence of the seemingly simple act of receiving Holy Communion, eating what appears, to the uninformed and to the unbeliever, a tiny small piece of unleavened bread—That Which, when I received my first Holy Communion 56 years ago, we approached, with a simple faith and childlike understanding, What we together called, in our child’s prayer, our Little White Guest. That Little White Guest repeatedly affords us an extraordinary level of intimacy with God Who not only walked on earth 2,000 years ago and established us as members of His Body in the Church but also feeds us with Himself. How can an intimacy greater than any other intimacy we can possibly experience this side of heaven not possibly change us? How can that intimacy not but change the way we think and change the way we see the entire world? How can we not be changed by this, our own personal encounter with the intimacy of God? Only by the mistaken use of the power of our own freedom, a freedom given to us by God which allows every man to reject even the intimacy of an encounter with God. And our own world proves to us the truth of this intimacy with divinity—proven by the many souls who strive to live as God has taught us to live: sins are put to death; they have more joy in the Lord, more confidence and serenity, less anxiety and resentfulness. They love more, are more compassionate and have more understanding. They do not fear most of the things that they used to fear. They are less greedy and more generous. And they do not boast, since it is not they who have done any of this. It is Jesus in them. They are not yet fully what they want to be but they are also not what they used to be. Likewise our world proves to us the truth of the ability to reject this intimacy—proven today by the sins made possible by the misuse of our freedom—so many evils that cry to heaven for justice—all wars: the war of our culture against marriage and the family (late last/Friday night, same sex marriage became legal in New York state by the action of the state legislature and the signature of the “Catholic” governor); the casual approach by many—in the government, some medical providers, some politician and too many citizens—to the elderly, the terminally ill, those challenged mentally or physically; most of all the rejection of divine intimacy no more obvious in our own time than by the continuing evil of the murder of the bodies of the unborn in the wombs of their mothers—the sin of abortion that, with more agony than any other evil in our own time, cries to heaven for justice; an act that is a total rejection of intimacy with God.
Again, St. Thomas Aquinas instructs us: …My dearly beloved, is it not beyond human power to express the ineffable delicacy of this sacrament in which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its very source, in which is brought to mind the remembrance of that all-excelling charity which Christ showed in His sacred passion? Surely it was to impress more profoundly upon the hearts of the faithful the immensity of this charity that our loving Savior instituted this sacrament at the last supper when, having celebrated the Pasch with His disciples. He was about to leave the world and return to the Father. It was to serve as an unending remembrance of His passion, as the fulfillment of ancient types — this the greatest of His miracles….
Today, and always, let us use our freedom to be thankful for the Gift of the Body and Blood of Christ that so perfectly corresponds to our needs as it nourishes our hearts and our spirits, and as It feeds and purifies all our senses: touch and vision, smell, taste and hearing. …He gave Himself, what more could He give? O, how He loves you and me….
Fr. Robert Behnke
Corpus Christi, June 26, 2011
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Delving More Deeply Into the Holy Trinity
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
Trinity Sunday is, for me and I suspect for many who preach, a particularly challenging Sunday. How can one say anything helpful, nourishing, spiritually significant let alone spiritually challenging, about the Mystery of God the Blessed Trinity, when in the first place man could never have figured out that God is a Trinity? God had to reveal supernaturally the mystery of what theology calls His “Godhead.” Though man can reason to the existence of God and following that, some truths about God, it would be utterly impossible for man on his own to have come to the conclusion that God is Three Divine Persons in one; God had to reveal this truth to man, because our reason cannot adequately wrap our minds even around the idea, let alone the reality. And the great blessing we celebrate, surely every day, especially at every Sacrifice of the Mass, but particularly on Trinity Sunday, is that we don’t have to figure God out on our own. Surely He has not, and will never, reveal to us all there could be to know about Himself; we would need to be God to know God in His fullness. But the blessing is that we who have met and believed in the Son of God Our Lord Jesus Christ have been told by Him all that we need to know about God. Anything that is true—any truth—can be either external or internal in relation to our own lives. We may know and be able to rattle off the names of the capitals of the fifty states, but that information remains really external – peripheral – to our lives until, perhaps, a person may become first a little curious, then mildly interested, and then passionate, about the history of America and her fifty states: how they came to be, how the boundaries were determined, how they were named, when they entered the union. Then that same knowledge that was once external – peripheral – incidental – now has become internal – important – significant – crucial – to the man who has come genuinely to breathe the study of American history. For one man, knowing the fifty capitals is merely incidental to his life; for another, it becomes like the marrow in his bones.
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| Archbishop Francis Chullikatt |
…In providing more than one fourth of all care for those who are suffering from HIV and AIDS, Catholic healthcare institutions know well the importance of access to treatment, care and support for the millions of people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS….The Holy See understands that, when referring to "young people," the definition of which enjoying no international consensus, States must always respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents to provide appropriate direction and guidance to their children, which includes having primary responsibility for the upbringing, development, and education of their children….States must acknowledge that the family, based on marriage being the equal partnership between one man and one woman and the natural and fundamental group unit of society, is indispensable in the fight against HIV and AIDS, for the family is where children learn moral values to help them live in a responsible manner and where the greater part of care and support is provided….The Holy See rejects references to terms such as "populations at high risk" because they treat persons as objects and can give the false impression that certain types of irresponsible behavior are somehow morally acceptable. The Holy See does not endorse the use of condoms/commodities including as part of HIV and AIDS prevention programs or classes/programs of education in sex/sexuality. Prevention programs or classes/programs of education in human sexuality should focus not on trying to convince the world that risky and dangerous behavior forms part of an acceptable lifestyle, but rather should focus on risk avoidance, which is ethically and empirically sound. The only safe and completely reliable method of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV is abstinence before marriage and respect and mutual fidelity within marriage, which is and must always be the foundation of any discussion of prevention and support. The Holy See does not accept so-called "harm reduction" efforts related to drug use. Such efforts do not respect the dignity of those who are suffering from drug addiction as they do not treat or cure the sick person, but instead falsely suggest that they cannot break free from the cycle of addiction. Such persons must be provided the necessary spiritual, psychological and familial support to break free from the addictive behavior in order to restore their dignity and encourage social inclusion. The Holy See rejects the characterization of persons who engage in prostitution as "sex workers" as this can give the false impression that prostitution could somehow be a legitimate form of work. Prostitution cannot be separated from the issue of the status and dignity of persons; governments and society must not accept such a dehumanization and objectification of persons. What is needed is a value-based approach to counter the disease of HIV and AIDS, an approach which provides the necessary care and moral support for those infected and which promotes living in conformity with the norms of the natural moral order, an approach which respects fully the inherent dignity of the human person….It may be true that, on first examination, many Christians think that the Blessed Trinity doesn't connect with anything much in either their life or worship. But our belief in the dignity of every human clearly follows from our belief in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and in particular from what we believe about how the Blessed Trinity interacts in the life of the world. Our Lord spells it out clearly and succinctly in speaking to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel: …God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him….
The action of the Blessed Trinity for us—our creation in God’s image, our salvation by God’s death, our adoption as children of God in the sacrament of baptism—these are the reasons why the Church has always fought—and still fights today—for respect for the dignity of every human person—why the Church fought in the past and still fights today against any power, any culture, any nation, any people, any opinion that diminishes the intrinsic worth of even a single human being. This is why the Church strenuously opposes abortion and opposes anyone who in any way supports abortion or even facilitates abortion; this is why the bishops of the USA just this past week formally reiterated the Church’s opposition to assisted suicide, something now legally allowable in three states, and something that I wouldn’t be surprised to debut soon in the Illinois legislature. This is why the Church has Catholic Charities, hospitals, nursing homes, grade and high schools, senior citizen centers; this is why the Church invented the idea of universities in the Middle Ages; this is why no single institution cares for more HIV/AIDS patients than the Catholic Church—because the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, Which is a mystery of unending, self-sacrificing, eternal, other-centered love—is at the heart of the Church, at the heart of the Catholic Faith. The nations of the West and their UN ambassadors believe that HIV/AIDS can be successfully treated by acting as if narcissistic sexual activity is good but must carry a caution in the form of a condom. The Church knows that HIV/AIDS—as well as every other evil on the planet—can only be fought and defeated with self-sacrificing love—a love that entails both self-respect and respect for the other rather, than by a utilitarian treatment of persons as objects, by passing out free condoms and giving instructions even to children on how to use them. The Church teaches that people have more dignity than the UN or the US government realizes; all people have a dignity that comes directly from their creation by God the Three-in-One—Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul links belief in the Blessed Trinity with the daily practice of Christian living. Being in right relationship with God is the whole point of life as a Catholic:…Mend your ways…writes St. Paul….encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you…. In other words, act and live like what you are, as what God created you to be, a human being created in the image and likeness of the God Who is eternal, unending, everlasting love. If we can decide always to try to live as what we have been created to be, we will, on this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, today have delved very deeply into the mystery of that Blessed Trinity, and in that mystery we will see God ever more clearly.
Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011
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