Posted on 03/23/2014 8:35:40 AM PDT by markomalley
What Francis of Assisi and every other great saint discovered in their time is that we become who we really are -- we experience life most vividly -- when we allow Jesus Christ to transform and work through us. Each of us as disciples receives a call to share in God’s power to give life. That’s the meaning of the prayer we all learned as children:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and we will be created, and You will renew the face of the earth.
Blessed Pope John XXIII described the Church as our mother and teacher. And in that role, the Church gives us a blueprint for accomplishing God’s work of renewal. Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council’s great Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, argues beautifully for the dignity of the human person; for economic and social justice; and for true peace and human development. And it offers us an examination of conscience that we can apply during Lent to just about every aspect of our lives:
Do we reverence and defend the dignity of the human person from conception to natural death?
Do we really love our enemies? Do we even try?
Do we teach our children to have gratitude; to take responsibility for their time, choices and actions; to feel the suffering of others; and to understand their role in building up the common good? Do we encourage that by our own good example?
Do we preach, by our actions, the dignity of human labor and the importance of human free will, work and creativity? Do we live our lives with a clear moral purpose – the purpose of co-creating with God a world shaped by the Gospel?
Do we promote the nobility of marriage and the integrity of the family?
Do we practice justice and mercy in our own social and economic relationships? Do we try to root out the prejudices in our own hearts? And do we encourage justice in our friends, business associates and leaders?
Do we take an active hand in the public square? Do we demand that our leaders promote the sanctity of the human person? And do we do everything in our power to correct or replace them if they don’t?
Finally, do we cultivate in ourselves and in our children an appetite for simplicity, humility and solidarity with others? The word “Catholic” means universal. We live most of our lives in our families and parishes, and that’s where our first priorities should always lie. But there’s no such thing as a merely “parochial” Catholic. Baptism makes all of us members of the global Christian community. That’s why issues like hunger, poverty, economic development, human trafficking, the rights of migrant workers, religious persecution – even when they’re happening on the other side of the world – are happening to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. And so they involve us.
We’re in the world as agents of God’s love and joy. And we need to live in a way that honors each other, and honors the mission of the Church -- because in us and through our actions, both individually and as a community of faith, the outside world will judge the Gospel we claim to believe.
Two images are worth remembering as we move more deeply into Lent.
Here’s the first image: The Gospel of John, 19:26-27, says that on Golgotha “when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple that he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘woman behold your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother.’ And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home.”
Each of us this Lent is that disciple Jesus loved, and loves. And from the cross he’s asking us to take the Church into our hearts as John took Mary into his home; to love, defend and care for her, and to advance her mission in the world.
The second image comes from Robert Frost and the last few lines of one his greatest poems:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Following him may be “the road less traveled,” but as every great saint learned, it’s the road that leads to the joy and light of God’s love.
In these days of Lent, and every day of our lives, that road should be ours as well.
Excellent questions — almost an Examination of conscience.
Archbishop Chaput is among those bishops who refuse to obey Canon 915. Like the rest of them, he pretends that Denial of Holy Communion is a “penalty.” That is, he pretends that he has the authority to decide whether or not to deny Communion to notorious grave sinners.
But Canon 915 forbids giving Communion to notorious grave sinners BECAUSE doing so is ALWAYS SINFUL. If Canon 915 did not exist, giving Communion to notorious grave sinners would always be sinful, because to do so is always: 1) to cause grave scandal; 2) to collaborate deliberately in a sacrilegious act.
No bishop has the authority to command or to pressure his priests to commit these mortal sins, but Archbishop Chaput does so, by having a “policy” of not obeying Canon 915.
It is mortally sinful to pressure another person to commit a mortal sin. That means that Archbishop Chaput, like Cardinals Wuerl, Dolan, O’Malley, and many others, is walking around habitually in the state of mortal sin!
These bishops—the majority of those in the U.S. and around the world—need to repent. And the ONLY sign of repentance will be when they deny Communion to Nancy Pelosi and all other publicly pro-abortion “Catholics.”
This would all be fine if only Benedict XVI had made this a clear obligation to become a definitive interpretation of Canon 915, or for that matter current Cardinal Raymond Burke. This should also apply to active gays and lesbians.
It applies to all people who are publicly known to be living in some ongoing situation of grave sin.
There is NO excuse for Cardinals and Archbishops of the Catholic Church to be allowing notorious grave sinners to be receiving Communion.
Pope Benedict was explicit about this to the American bishops in 2004, but Cardinal McCarrick lied to them about what the Pope had written. But this is irrelevant. A properly-instructed Catholic child knows the answer to these questions. The majority of bishops just don’t want to do the right thing. And they deliberately obfuscate the issue with political blather.
Giving Communion to notorious grave sinners is ALWAYS A MORTAL SIN. The existence of Canon 915 has nothing to do with it. The canon forbids it BECAUSE it’s a mortal sin, not the other way around. There is NO NEED for any interpretation of the canon, because moral theology answers the question already.
It is a mortal sin for a bishop to pressure or threaten his priests to induce them to commit this mortal sin.
This means that Cardinals Wuerl, Dolan, George, O’Malley, an others, and Archbishop Chaput and most other bishops, are walking around habitually in the state of mortal sin—because pro-abortion politicians continue to receive Communion with these bishops’ approval.
This is true. The part of the Scriptural injunction to “Go and sin no more” is left out. It is one thing to fall repeatedly into sin and beg forgiveness, its quite another to embrace and glorify the sin. because you cannot serve two Masters.
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Cdl. Bergoglio's Lenten Letter, 2013
Your Guide To A Catholic Lent
Following the Truth: Lent: Becoming Uncomfortable About Being Comfortable [Catholic and Open]
Following the Truth: Spiritual Exercises – Week One [of Lent] In Review
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How Lent Can Make a Difference in Your Relationship with God (Ecumenical Thread)
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On the 40 Days of Lent
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Opinion: Lent for Redacted [Ekoomenikal]
Ash (or Clean) Monday - Lent Begins (for some Catholics) - February 20, 2012
[Why I Am Catholic]: Lent And Holy Week (A Primer) [Catholic Caucus]
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St. Vincent Ferrer - Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent [Ecumenical]
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St. Andrew of Crete, Great Canon of Repentance - Tuesday's portion (Orthodox/Latin Caucus)
The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete (Monday's portion) [Orth/Cath Caucus]
Penance and Reparation: A Lenten Meditation(Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)
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Lent -- Easter 2010, Reflections, Prayer, Actions Day by Day
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Christ's temptation and ours (Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent)
Pope Benedict XVI Message for Lent 2010 (Feb 15 = Ash Monday & Feb 17 = Ash Wednesday)
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Prayer, Fasting and Mercy by St. Peter Chrysologus, Early Church Father [Catholic Caucus]
History of Lent (Did the Church always have this time before Easter?)
Beginning of Lent
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Everything Lent (Lots of links)
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Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ [Devotional]
On Lent... and Lourdes (Benedict XVI's Angelus address)
Lent for Newbies
Lent -- 2008 -- Come and Pray Each Day
Lent: Why the Christian Must Deny Himself
Lenten Workshop [lots of ideas for all]
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Forty Days (of Lent) [Devotional/Reflections]
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40 Days for Life: 2008 Campaigns [Lent Registration this week]
Vatican Web Site Focuses on Lent
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Conversion Through Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving [Lent]
Lenten Stations -- Stational Churches - visit each with us during Lent {Catholic Caucus}
Something New for Lent: Part I -- Holy Souls Saturdays
Reflections for Lent (February, March and April, 2007)
Lent 2007: The Love Letter Written by Pope Benedict
Pre-Lent through Easter Prayer and Reflections -- 2007
Stations of the Cross [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
For study and reflection during Lent - Mind, Heart, Soul [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Fast-Family observance Lenten season [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Pre-Lenten Days -- Family activities-Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras)[Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
40 Ways to Get the Most Out of Lent! [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Lenten Fasting or Feasting? [Catholic Caucus]
Pope's Message for Lent-2007
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The History of Lent
The Holy Season of Lent -- Fast and Abstinence
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