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Good article NYer, thanks for the ping.

What he says about the mysticism or the supernatural/spiritual aspect of Catholicism is part of its great beauty.

So many don't outsiders and/or protestants don't understand the communion of saints until it's explained to them. That we are all together, one family who pray together and are at one with the Great Trinity.

Even liberals like that! Hehe

Today's Mass Readings include St. Paul's discussion on 'love'. In his homily, Fr. Robert Altier makes an astute comment about catholics.

"One of the things we need to be exceedingly careful about is that God in His mercy has given to each one of us a desire – and, I trust, a love – for His truth that what we want is the fullness of His truth. But we also must realize that the average Catholic these days does not know very much about what that truth is. They have not been taught and it is not their fault. Certainly, they bear some responsibility to be able to learn the truth just as each one of us has had to do. But the question has to do with our attitude toward them. Do we stand in a judgmental way looking at them? In a prideful way? Do we put them down? Do we think that somehow we are better than they because we have “got it” and they do not? Imagine standing before the Lord one day and hearing Him say, “You had faith, but you had not love; therefore, you had nothing at all.” That would not be a good day. If we have faith, it must be exercised in love. "

"Look once again at the characteristics of love and ask yourself, “Is this me? Is this what people see when they speak to me, when they see my example? Am I patient and kind and gentle and selfless? Am I enduring all things and bearing all things and accepting all things? Am I truly seeking only the good of the other? Am I doing it in a way that will build them up rather than tearing them down?” That is what love requires. Each one of us needs to look extremely seriously at this matter because Saint Paul makes it exceedingly clear: If we have not love, we have NOTHING. Jesus commanded us to love; He did not make it an option. He did not say, “If you have faith, you don’t need love. If you have the gift of prophecy, you don’t need love. If you have found the truth, you don’t need love.” Nowhere will we find that. But love encompasses all of these other things, which is why, if we do not have love, we do not have the fullness of faith, the fullness of truth. If we have no love, we have no part in Jesus Christ, because God is love and only those who love can know God. "

FULL TEXT

Even liberals like that!

Very true. I once heard a Bishop, whom I respect a great deal as a holy man, say something that has stuck with me.

He said something like this: The main root of so much of the division in the Church right now is the utter absence of significant, deep, and profound preaching and teaching of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. The Church will be healed of her divisions as soon as Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity become the primary focus of preaching, teaching, evangelizing, prayer, worship, and action. Yes, even liberals like it (or perhaps do not know how to react) when the message is Jesus and the Holy Trinity. They react with fear and anger when the first message is sexual restraint, Church authority, or some ecclessiological doctrine dissacossiated from the truth of the Trinity and Incarnation. For too long Catholics have been obsessed with the state of the Church. We have been preaching competing ecclessiologies to each other, and the whole Church is drowning in a self-reflecting, self-absorbed, introspecting mode that leaves Christ and the Holy Trinity off to the side or in second place. We preach the Church, but not Christ. In reality, we should first proclaim Christ and the Holy Trinity, and the ecclesiology will take care of itself. How many "conservatives" do that? How many "conservative" Catholics are people whose whole lives are obviously and undeniably centered on, aimed at, and absorbed in the Holy Trinity and Jesus. As soon as the conservatives become living icons of the Holy Trinity, liberalism will evaporate. Until then, liberalism will continue to exercise its pernicious influence.

Let me give an illustration. Imagine joining a club the whole purpose of which is to talk about the club. You go to the club's meetings, and people talk about the club, and what the club should do. Eventually, it becomes clear that the club is about nothing if it is only about the club. Same with the Church, the Church is nothing unless the Church is first and foremost about Christ and the Trinity.