In the Martyrdom, we read how the Roman authorities repeatedly urged Polycarp to save his life by acting against the Christian faith in some seemingly small measure. All he needed to do was swear by the fortune of Caesar and he would be set free, they said, asking “What harm is there in saying, Lord Caesar, and in sacrificing, with the other ceremonies observed on such occasions, and so make sure of safety?”

Polycarp, however, remained firm. “Since you are vainly urgent that, as you say, I should swear by the fortune of Caesar, and pretend not to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian,” he replied. Upon this confession of faith, Polycarp was put to death.

Today, we are called to make that same profession of faith in a particular way.

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One prime example of the threats to our religious liberty is the HHS Mandate, by which the government insists, like the Roman authorities, that we take what it says are just trifling acts, but which we know violate our Catholic faith in substantial ways. Other examples include efforts to force Catholic schools and ministries to employ people who are antagonistic to our Catholic beliefs.

(source: Saintly Heroes)

Some, perhaps many, will be elated by the Pope’s words. But those of us who support and defend the magisterium, in particular the successor of Peter, in their proper roles as guardians and interpreters of the deposit of faith, find Pope Francis and Father Lombardi’s words baffling and troubling. It appears that the Pope has asserted something that is false and contrary to salvation. I very much hope that I have misread the situation.

Whether or not I have, I would like to say two things. First, the extemporaneous remarks of a pope in an interview, and the commentary of his spokesman, do not constitute Church teaching. So these assertions are not guarded by the Holy Spirit and are not invested with ecclesial authority. Catholics have no obligation whatever to render to the pope’s words a “religious submission of mind and will” (Lumen Gentium, 25).

Second, Pope Francis is our beloved father. We esteem him in virtue of his office and will stand by him whenever he is falsely attacked. We wish for his good and for the good of the whole Church. And we certainly will never follow the pathway of Martin Luther into a rejection of papal primacy and apostolic succession. But the Church is Jesus’, not the pope’s or the bishops’ (and certainly not mine).

(source: Pope Francis and Contraception: A Troubling Scenario)

We bow before the martyrdom of those who, at the cost of their own lives, have given witness to the truth of the Gospel, preferring death to the denial of Christ. We believe that these martyrs of our times, who belong to various Churches but who are united by their shared suffering, are a pledge of the unity of Christians. It is to you who suffer for Christ’s sake that the word of the Apostle is directed: “Beloved … rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (1 Pet 4:12–13).

(source: Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill – Vatican Radio)

Man must seek in his own higher nature for the highest gifts; and these are dignity, wisdom and virtue. By dignity I mean free-will, whereby he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them. Wisdom is the power whereby he recognizes this dignity, and perceives also that it is no accomplishment of his own. And virtue impels man to seek eagerly for Him who is man’s Source, and to lay fast hold on Him when He has been found.

Now, these three best gifts have each a twofold character. Dignity appears not only as the prerogative of human nature, but also as the cause of that fear and dread of man which is upon every beast of the earth. Wisdom perceives this distinction, but owns that though in us, it is, like all good qualities, not of us. And lastly, virtue moves us to search eagerly for an Author, and, when we have found Him, teaches us to cling to Him yet more eagerly. Consider too that dignity without wisdom is nothing worth; and wisdom is harmful without virtue

(source: On Loving God – Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

A Catholic who is disappointed with the pope is a disappointed Catholic. This is a common enough state of affairs in Church history. But a Catholic who imagines that he or she participates more fully in the charism of magisterial authority granted by the Holy Spirit to the pope than does the pope himself – and who decides that he or she has the authority to set the spiritual standard by which the official teaching of a papacy can be judged (and judged a failure) – is making the mistake Martin Luther made. It is the same mistake many modern liberal theologians make. They have made themselves the authority, the touchstone, the standard; and the pope, whoever he is, should, they insist, bring himself into accord with what they think or be spit out like a piece of rotten fruit. This is the way of folly and division.

(source: You Don’t Have to Like a Pope)

Even as sun sets and many have already moved into the liturgical day of the Holy Family, a meditation on the juxtaposition of Christmas with St. Stephen’s day:

Merry, indeed, is the notion that our deliverance is at hand; that the defeat of Death itself could ever have been accomplished. Happy, and blessed, must be that occasion, in no small way. Triumphant, necessarily, is that call: even in the cry of Stephen, whose Victory is at hand.

(source: The Day After – The Catholic Thing)

A meditation on some perennial truths of Christian living, with an eye to the last moments of Advent preparation for our Lord’s coming:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life

(source: John 3:16-21 RSVCE)

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword

(source: Matthew 10:26-42 RSVCE)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

(source: John 10:7-18 RSVCE)

In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

(source: John 16:31-33 RSVCE)

convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

(source: Jude 17-23 RSVCE)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.

(source: 1 John 2:15-17 RSVCE)

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.

(source: 1 John 4:7-12 RSVCE)

We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one….Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

(source: 1 John 5:10-21 RSVCE)

as Thomas Aquinas helps us to see, there is a distinction between creation understood philosophically and creation understood theologically. Thomas thinks that it is the discipline of metaphysics that asks questions about the ultimate cause of existence of things, and, as he says, “not only does faith hold that there is creation, reason also demonstrates it” (In II Sent., dist. 1, q. 1, a. 2). The demonstration he offers involves a recognition of the distinction between essence and existence in all creatures, between what things are and that they are, and their identity in the Creator.

…the doctrine of creation, in its philosophical foundations, is not challenged by any discovery in the natural sciences. To do justice to Thomas’s account we would need to examine the metaphysical principles he employs and, especially today, argue for the very existence of metaphysics itself. We ought not to identify a rational account of the world exclusively with what the natural sciences describe. There is an enlarged sense of reason that includes metaphysics.

…the theological sense, in the Christian tradition at least, embraces all that metaphysics discloses and adds a great deal more: not only the temporal finitude of the world, but also the Trinitarian character of the creative act, and the fact that creation is a manifestation of divine love.

(source: Modern Cosmology and Creation)

Timely, in view of this recent post.

The difference between the prophet and the writer of horror fictions is twofold:  first, of course, the prophet speaks truth, not fiction; but second, and more pertinently, the horror fiction evokes our dread of an unnamed sublimity that fascinates us but wrests control of our lives away from us, shattering our mundane delusions, while the prophet knows the name of God, receives His instructions, and tells us what hope lies beyond the destruction of our sins, our follies, our embrace of wickedness and delusion.  As also Randall Smith notes:

‘Tis the season of hope. Not if you’ve been listening to the daily news, of course, but it is if you’ve been going to Mass and listening to the readings. We’ve been showered daily with hope-filled readings from the prophets — mostly Jeremiah, Isaiah, or Zechariah. There’s been a lot of the “wolf being a guest of the lamb” sort of thing; promises of “rich food and choice wines” (indeed, “juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines”); the deaf will hear and the blind will see; God will wipe away tears from every face.

With these, we’ve heard about making the lofty mountains low and filling in the valleys; promises about making the parched land exult and the steppe rejoice and bloom with abundant flowers; about turning the desert into marshland and the dry ground into springs of water; and a whole lot about people singing and shouting for joy, being glad and exulting. These are the readings we get every year at about this time. It’s Advent, and the Church thinks it is a good time to remind us that we’re to be a people “looking forward” to something – something very good.

A colleague reminded me recently, however, that all these very hopeful exclamations were made by men with good reason to view their times as not at all hopeful – whose historical situation was, to put it mildly, less than optimal. Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Zechariah all foresaw or experienced the utter defeat of Judah at the hands of her enemies and the exile of her people to an alien land.

(source: The Catholic Thing)

With little comment, some juxtapositions of language and image that, I believe, are clear enough for anyone with human blood still circulating through a human heart:

Richard Weaver once wrote that “every man participating in a culture has three levels of conscious reflection: his specific ideas about things, his general beliefs or convictions, and his metaphysical dream of the world.” At the level of specific ideas and general convictions, our age has settled into a number of pragmatic prohibitions and exhortations. No smoking! Count your calories! Build your résumé! Save for retirement! Safe sex! Locally sourced food! All this and more testifies to the ongoing and powerful role of behavior-shaping norms.

Yet, underneath all this we find an antinomian sensibility. We are trained to be suspicious of longstanding moral traditions; we are told to adopt a critical attitude toward inherited norms. That’s not just an academic habit of mind. It serves a moral conviction, widespread though often tacit: that human beings flourish to the degree that they’re free to satisfy their personal desires. The same conviction underwrites our therapeutic vocabulary of empowerment, the pedagogy of multiculturalism, and our paradoxical moral code of nonjudgmentalism. What makes for happiness and fulfillment—and here we enter into the metaphysical dream that defines our era—is an Empire of Desire. We affirm countless little disciplines to ensure health, productivity, success, and social harmony. But we push these social mores, disciplines, and restraints to the margins of our souls, creating space for bespoke lives tailored to our desires.

(source: Empire of Desire by R. R. Reno)

There isn’t always something big without sacrifices…but sacrifices of children? Well you can’t judge something so old! Their civilization flourished so many years ago and what they considered good or bad it can only be judged by the ethics of their past and not the present’s! One thing is certain that these mummies reveal a lot about the past!

(source: This Mummy Reveals A Cruel Past…Unbelievable!)

“A policy which would legitimize gender identity issues, particularly according to the interpretation put forward by employees of the Department of Education, would, first of all, abdicate the responsibility of the college community as a whole to act in accord with its fundamental identity as a community which publicly identifies itself as in communion with the Catholic Church,” Abbot Placid Solari, O.S.B., chancellor of the College, told the Newman Society.

He added that, based upon the “essential characteristics” of a Catholic college outlined in the Apostolic Constitution on Catholic universities Ex corde Ecclesiae, such a policy “would abdicate the college’s responsibility as an educational and intellectual community to contribute the insights of Catholic faith and reflection to the public discussion on the issues of gender identity … would contradict fidelity to the Christian message as it comes through the Church” and “would abdicate responsibility to serve the transcendent goal of life by advocating practices which, according to the Church’s teaching, are spiritually harmful.”

“The teaching of the Scriptures as it comes through the Church is clear on the creation of human beings as male and female, which is intrinsically connected in Genesis with being in the image and likeness of God,” said Abbot Placid. “Furthermore, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear on the intrinsic relation between body and soul and the complementarity of male and female in God’s creation.”

Abbot Placid told the Newman Society that “gender identity issues do have the potential to harm students” because of the intrinsic relationship of body and soul. “There is already a psychological disconnect between body and psyche in questions of gender identity. … Because human beings are a unity, psychological and physical issues inevitably impact one’s spiritual life,” he said. “To foster identities which are essentially untrue will inevitably cause spiritual harm.

“Furthermore, the contemporary culture, which detaches sexual activity and expression from fruitful intimate communion, and objectifies the body, and thus the person, can lead to physical harm and danger,” he added.

(source: Belmont Abbey College on Title IX)

I’m not sure I concur that “ISIS is…a civilization” at all, as it seems to simply be barbarism through and through. Anyway, Flynn has a point:

We should all pray that the systematic killing of children might evoke a reaction strong enough to hasten our military response.

But we should also pray that this story might lead to more conversation about the treatment of children with Down syndrome in the West. With few exceptions, disabled children don’t suffer infanticide in the West, but they do suffer abortion, at staggering rates. Some sociologists suggest that nearly 90% of European children prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, and that American figures are not much better. The veneer of civility does precious little to protect disabled children from extermination at the hands of Western medicine.

ISIS is obviously a civilization in which the strong assert violent supremacy over the weak. That problem exists in the West as well, in the forms of abortion, euthanasia, the dismantling of the family, and the “new orthodoxy” of statist control over religious perspectives and activity. Pope St. John Paul II wrote that the “war of the powerful against the weak” runs through each of our hearts, and “goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.“

The “war of the powerful against the weak” is waged under the veneer of religious purity in the Middle East. In our own civilization, it is waged under the idolatrous adulation of efficiency, profitability, independence, and technological advancement.

(source: systematic killing of children with Down Syndrome)

We think well when we understand moral principles and apply them in clear and reasonable ways; we think badly when we ignore or reinvent moral principles, or apply them in ambiguous and unreasonable ways. “Good conscience,” in this way of understanding, means a good grasp and a good application of moral truth—for it is the truth that remains primary, the truth that is grasped and applied by the practical mind.

(source: The Inconvenient Conscience–Cardinal Pell)