Friday, October 26, 2012

Fortitude from the Holy Spirit


Recently, my niece’s teenage daughter received the Sacrament of Confirmation and she, as well as the family, was very excited to receive it.  That got me to reflecting about the Sacrament of Confirmation and what it means.  I think Confirmation represents fortitude given to us by the Holy Spirit to defend, protect, and evangelize as well as to give us the peace of the Lord.

We all can understand how the Apostles and disciples of Jesus felt after He ascended into heaven after being with Him for some 3 years.  Can you imagine - they had been with the Son of God for that time and He gave them comfort, wisdom, strength and purpose; and, then, He was gone?  We can imagine their uncertainty, fears, anxiety and confusion over what they should do next.  Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit who did come upon them on Pentecost. 
This gave them the fortitude, strength and purpose to spread the Gospel and they did so immediately going out on the street and converting many people to Christianity.  Within a few years, Christians faced the test of ostracization and persecution not only in the Roman Empire but, also, in other places where they went to spread the gospel.  But, fortunately, they had the fortitude of the Holy Spirit to help them.

I think of the fortitude that all of us need to be Christians in the contemporary world.  I think of the challenges that young teenagers face from society as well as their peers to stay strong in their faith.
Do we demonstrate our Christian faith in the smallest of things such as saying grace before meals in public and making the sign of the cross? 

Or, are we embarrassed to do so?  But, we do condone public displays of affection to others.  So, why not public displays of affection to our Lord?  One of my very favorite sayings comes from St. Francis of Assisi to his followers who asked him what they should do when he told them to go out into the streets and villages.  He said, “(p)reach the Gospel!  If necessary, use words.” 

In our daily lives we not only need the peace of the Lord but we, also, need the fortitude to live as practicing Christians.  We are inundated by all sorts of temptations on an unprecedented scale as a result of modern technology.  So, we need this fortitude and comfort offered by the Holy Spirit just as much as the early Christians but in a different way in order to avoid temptation and sin but, also, to evangelize and spread the Gospel without words.

Let me know what you think.

Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Being Offended - On My Soapbox!


Being offended has gotten a great deal of attention in the media over the last quarter-century.  This person is offended by this and that person is offended by that, etc.  The end result is that no one wants to offend anyone.  So, this political correctness (pc) causes many people to hide or suppress their real beliefs so they don’t offend anyone and this is especially true of politicians.

Well, guess what?  I am offended.  I am offended by all politicians who fail to stand for their own religious beliefs because they don’t want to “impose” their views on others.  What brought me to discuss this and to be on my high-horse and soap box was Joe Biden’s response in the recent Vice Presidential debate about what his Catholicism means to him.

He spoke about what a devoted Catholic he was and how much it has meant to him during his lifetime.  The, he offended me by saying that in the matter of abortion he does not follow the teachings of his Church in public life because he does not want to “impose” his views on others.  Well, that comment was like a bomb going off under my seat!

In my last blog I wrote that we, Christians, should never be intimidated with the idea of being intolerant when being accused of trying to “impose” our views on theologically unacceptable behavior.

Remember, so were Abraham Lincoln and those who opposed slavery.  They drew the line and what was wrong.  So, should we today. Bishop Sheen wrote that tolerance does not apply to principles.  Remember, also, Biden is the same person who announced this administration’s commitment to same-sex marriage and who has been supported of his administration’s imposition of contraception devices and abortion in healthcare on religious based organizations including his own Church. 

So, in his failure to support his faith, he has opposed its ability to exercise “its free exercise” of beliefs as required by the First Amendment.  Consequently, the question is - do Biden and other leaders like him believe in anything by failing to “impose” or stand up for their own beliefs?  Will they go back to tolerate slavery?  Will they tolerate polygamy as many Muslims practice it in their own countries and allow the immigration of Muslim men with their multiple wives into this country?  Where does it end, Joe and Nancy (Pelosi) and others like you?  Do you believe in anything and will you do anything to be proactive against the policies of your administration on healthcare?

Readers - pardon me for being “offended” and for letting me get on the soapbox this time.

Let me know what you think.

Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!

REM (Ray Makowski) Co-Founder, Director and Secretary-Treasurer

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Broadmindedness, Tolerance, and Intolerance - Further Thoughts


In my previous blog on this subject I stated that my observations have led me to the conclusion that Western societies have engaged in self-destructive behavior by their misplaced view of this subject.  So-called political correctness or pc  has developed into a form of pc tyranny.  I quoted at length from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen from his writings some 80 years ago in which he wrote, “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not.  It is suffering from tolerance...Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded....There is no other subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance is always supposed to be desirable because it is taken to be synonymous with broadmindedness. Intolerance is always supposed to be undesirable, because it is taken to be synonymous with narrow-mindedness. This is not true, for tolerance and intolerance apply to two totally different things. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine.
We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God's. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.

Unfortunately, pc has caused this confusion to take very regrettable and dangerous turns of events - the killing of the unborn is viewed by many as acceptable and the advertising consultants gave it the attractive name of “pro-choice” instead of pro-abortion; the acceptance of homosexuality unions to be synonymous with the Divine anointment of men and women in “marriage;” the idea that all religions are co-equal contrary to the commandment against false gods; the idea that tolerance applies to principles and to all behavior. The unintended consequences of many of these pc ideas over the last 50 years is manifested by such things as the high number of people living together instead of getting married, the high number of children born out of wedlock, the fact that Protestantism is no longer the largest denomination in the United States because such a large number of people no longer identify themselves with any religion, and the widespread acceptance of homosexual unions being called “marriages.”  Abortions and birth control in Western countries as well as the U. S. and Canada have caused the birthrates in those countries to decline radically. 

On the contrary, Muslims families have large birth rates.   It is in the foreseeable in Western European countries that there will be Muslim majorities.  If so, then what happens?  Will there be an imposition of Shari’a law which forbids the practice of free speech?   The Muslims are not restrained by our ideas of broadmindedness and could outlaw Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and all other faiths.  And, then, look at what has happened and is happening now -  the burnings of Christian churches in the Middle East the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt.

Do we, as Catholics and Christians, have the fortitude to draw the line?  It seems as though we do not and that our broadmindedness and misplaced tolerance has taken us past the breaking point for this country and the Western world to save itself.  Charles Colson in his book with Harold Fickett The Faith Given Once, For All writes of this - “All societies experience what Lincoln in his Lyceum Address called ‘the silent artillery of time;’ that is, there is built-in inertia as a culture matures.  People get comfortable in their ways and become less creative and inventive - and certainly less adventuresome.  In later generations people lost their drive and become self-indulgent.  Entropy and decadence sets in.”    But, the authors quote Chesterton for the idea that Christians are “change agents” because we are optimists and are always trying to do good things. 

We, Christians, should never be intimidated with the idea of being intolerant when being accused of trying to “impose” our views on theologically unacceptable behavior.  Remember, so were Abraham Lincoln and those who opposed slavery.  They drew the line and that was wrong.  So, must we do so.

Let me know what you think.

Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!

REM (Ray Makowski) Co-Founder, Director and Secretary-Treasurer

Friday, October 5, 2012

Broadmindedness, Tolerance, and Intolerance


One of my closest friends regularly refers to the idea from Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun.  It is so true.  As I was thinking about this blog about the consequences of misguided broadmindedness, I received an email which contained a quote from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.  A little investigation about the original source document revealed that it was a quote from his 1932 book entitled "Moods and Truth." 
The reasons that I had for writing a blog on this subject has to do with the fact that my observations have led me to the conclusion that Western societies have engaged in self-destructive behavior by their misplaced view of this subject.  It has come to be called political correctness or pc but it has developed into a form of pc tyranny.  I will comment further in another subsequent blog but I don’t think that I can or need to express some key thoughts on the subject better than Bishop Sheen did some 80 years ago.  
The email that I received contained these quotes from this book regarding his assertion about the curse of broadmindedness: “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not.  It is suffering from tolerance...Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.”

He writes further, “There is no other subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance is always supposed to be desirable because it is taken to be synonymous with broadmindedness. Intolerance is always supposed to be undesirable, because it is taken to be synonymous with narrow-mindedness. This is not true, for tolerance and intolerance apply to two totally different things. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God's. And hence the Church in her history, due reparation made, has always welcomed the heretic back into the treasury of her souls, but never his heresy into the treasury of her wisdom.

“The Church, like Our Blessed Lord, advocates charity to all persons who disagree with her by word or by violence. Even those who in the strictest sense of the term-are bigots, are to be treated with the utmost kindness. They really do not hate the Church, they hate only what they mistakenly believe to be the Church. If I believed all the lies that are told about the Church, if I gave credence to all the foul stories told about her priesthood and Papacy, if I had been brought up on falsehoods about her teachings and her sacraments, I would probably hate the Church a thousand times more than they do.

“Keeping the distinction well in mind between persons and principles, cast a hurried glance over the general religious conditions of our country. America, it is commonly said, is suffering from intolerance. While there is much want of charity to our fellow-citizens, I believe it is truer to say that America is not suffering so much from intolerance as it is suffering from a false kind of tolerance: tolerance of right and wrong; truth and error; virtue and vice; Christ and chaos. The man, in our country, who can make up his mind and hold to certain truths with all the fervor of his soul, is called narrow-minded, whereas the man who cannot make up his mind is called broadminded.

And now this false broad-mindedness or tolerance of truth and error has carried many minds so far that they say one religion is just as good as another, or that because one contradicts another, therefore, there is no such thing as religion. This is just like concluding that because, in the days of Columbus, some said the world was round and others said it was flat, therefore, there is no world at all.

“Such indifference to the oneness of truth is at the root of all the assumptions so current in present-day thinking that religion is an open question, like the tariff, whereas science is a closed question, like the multiplication table. It is behind that queer kind of broadmindedness which teaches that any one may tell us about God, though it would never admit that any one but a scientist should tell us about an atom.

It has inspired the idea that we should be broad enough to publish our sins to any psychoanalyst living in a glass house, but never so narrow as to tell them to a priest in a confessional box. It has created the general impression that any individual opinion about religion is right, and it has disposed modern minds to accept its religion dished up in the form of articles entitled: "My Idea of Religion," written by any nondescript from a Hollywood movie star to the chief cook of the Ritz-Carlton.
“This kind of broadmindedness which sacrifices principles to whims, dissolves entities into environment, and reduces truth to opinion, is an unmistakable sign of the decay of the logical faculty.”

Let me know what you think.

Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!

REM (Ray Makowski) Co-Founder, Director and Secretary-Treasurer

Monday, October 1, 2012

Actions of Christians - Christianity in Action


A theme of quite a few of my blogs have to do with actions. Not necessarily just the theological issue of works and faith but, more so, our daily actions as people. The theme of this week’s scriptures at Sunday Mass was that whoever helps another will be rewarded while whoever leads another astray will be punished.  St. Francis would tell his followers to join him in teaching the Gospel and to use words if necessary.

It is very important to act in a civil and, moreover, a Christian way in our daily lives from greeting our family first thing each morning with a smile and throughout the day to all people with whom we are in contact.  At a reception after a dedication ceremony at my parish yesterday after the Mass, I noticed that our Bishop greeted everyone in attendance with a most winning and genuine smile.  I could not help but to think that was leadership in action.  I was considering this blog at the time and knew, at that moment, that I must include that observation of the Bishop in this blog.  He was never aloof but was a most kind and warm shepherd of his flock.  A wonderful example for us all.
It is not a matter of doing great things at all.  It just starts with a smile, being on time, saying please and thank you.  Let me share with you a couple of my favorite sayings of Mother Teresa: “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echos are truly endless” and “God doesn’t require us to succeed; He only requires that you try.”  The theme of her life is love - love of God and love of each other.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Sounds like the theme of the life of our Lord, Jesus.
But, love is meaningless if it is not put into actions on a daily basis.  Not just in great or cosmic actions but in the small acts of our daily life done with the love of God and of each other.  I will close with a final saying of Mother Teresa: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not yet come. We have only today.  Let us begin.”

Let me know what you think.

Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!

REM (Ray Makowski) Co-Founder, Director and Secretary-Treasure