Prayer, Sine Qua Non

So the sex abuse scandal in the Church is an absolute, world historic, hellish mess of tragedy, betrayal, hurt, and confusion. Lots of people in and out of the Church are furious; the bishops are (at top Ent speed) scrambling; and there's a lot of talk right now about reform, renewal, and how to get there. I even threw in my two cents on a few things.

But one key, essential element that's not necessarily being remembered in the midst of the mess is this: In the life of the Church, true, lasting, transformative reform comes about through the grace, inspiration, and strength of the Holy Spirit, or it doesn't happen at all.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, after all. And yes, that can sound all too abstract and metaphorical. It's easy to believe that references to prayer, grace, and the Sacraments are all a subtle way of saying, "Laity, sit down, shut up, and keep praying, paying, and obeying. Be good little sheep. Don't do anything to rock the boat."

Yeah. That's an incredibly secular read on the call to prayer.

Karl Marx thought religion was the opiate of the masses, when in reality, it's more like medicine that heals, energizes, transforms. It makes us superhuman, because it opens us up to the divine life, to grace and God, to live and love with the strength from beyond the stars. It's all part of sanctification, of making us saints, which is to say making us sons and daughters of the loving God, which means more than human. Superhuman. Divinized.

Prayer can certainly calm a storm, it's true, but it can also kick up a storm. It can work like Jesus rebuking the storm in the boat, or it can work like Moses praying to God, and God sending the plagues on the Egyptians. Prayer can send off accusers, or prayer can raise up accusers pursuing justice.

Prayer is powerful, as powerful as the One who is receiving the prayers, as powerful as the Being sustaining the universe, as strong as Love, as Truth, as Goodness, as Beauty. Prayer brings justice and peace, which means mercy and goodness. Prayer invites in light and love. Prayer sets us free.

Prayer is, at its best, saying, "I love You, God, and I trust You. Come in. Do whatever You will." That's the most powerful prayer--not my will be done, but Thy will be done. Not begging for the outcome that I believe to be right, just, and proper, but rather setting aside all preconceived notions, all expectations, all plans, and simply being like Mary. Simply saying to God, "They have no wine," and then saying to the world, "Do whatever He tells you."

Prayer at its height is radical openness to God, radical communion because you allow Him in, no matter what He wants or plans. Oh, you can certainly come to Him with requests, with expectations, with problems and solutions--but you cannot come to Him as though He was your servant, as though He was in your employ, as though He's a grace and miracle dispensing machine, controllable by your hand.

But you can come to Him as a love, a spouse, and a friend. You can come to Him as a son or daughter to a Father. You can come to Him as you would to Goodness Itself, Beauty Itself, Being Itself, Truth Itself, Love Itself, and expect of Him what you would of those transcendentals. You will never be ultimately disappointed.

Oh, we will be disappointed at times in the short term, because God is the Lord of Heaven and earth, and of history. God is outside of time, and has all the time in the world, and tends to work in patient, subtle ways. Perseverance in prayer and patient expectation, in opening the door of your will, your heart, and your mind to His Holy Spirit--His Love, His Truth, and His Power--is indispensable, We are being trained for eternity, for an endless, steady way of being in love, of living in love. We are being prepared for eternity, and so part of that preparation is training in abiding in communion with God. Abide in prayer. Come to the place where all your life is a prayer, all your works are a dance of delighted love of God and neighbor, all has its place in the giving and receiving that is the life and love of God, and you are doing well, and you shall see miracles.

All of that is a long, wordy way to say--prayer is powerful, but often in unexpected ways.

How do we know this for sure? Look at the lives of the saints. Look at the consequences of lives and hearts radically open to God, open to Truth and to Love, to Beauty and to Being, to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Look at their miracles, their impossible triumphs. Historically, Joan of Arc makes no sense, unless she really was hearing God in prayer; unless her voices really were the saints; unless she actually was sent by heaven

Look at Padre Pio and Jean Vianney, two men whose lives are redolent with the supernatural. They make no sense without the Holy Spirit, without the spiritual combat, without the reality of God.

Look at the Apostles, facing down the world and all opposition to launch a 2,000 year project of faith, hope, and charity.

Look at the saints. The deeper you go, the more you'll understand everything above.

All of this is a long way to say--writing to the bishops, making pointed remarks about "reform now or no more checks," and supporting independent investigations and consequences for malfeasance all have their place. They're all important.

But they must all be accompanied by, preceded by, and followed by prayer.

The Church is more than just those of us walking about on the face of the earth. The Church also includes the Holy Souls in Purgatory and the saints of Heaven. If you want reform of the Church on earth, best get the rest of the Church involved as soon as possible, and continue to hold open the door to their involvement throughout the process.

How?

Take seriously the patron saints, especially the patrons of your parish, your diocese, and your nation. Celebrate their feast days with Masses and devotions, and ask their intercession (perhaps with votive candles, prayers from the treasury of the Church's Tradition and tradition, and regular conversations with them as you go about your day). Get them involved in the problems of your parish. They can act. They can help. They can make change happen in ways that currently seem impossible. They can overcome anything. But they tend not to act unless they're asked, and tend not to remain involved if they are forgotten. As with the Lord, so with the disciples. Free will matters. Invitations matter.

Take seriously the devotions in the treasurehouse of the Church, Take seriously the enormous promises attached to the Rosary and other great devotions to Our Lady. Take seriously the promises attached to the Divine Mercy message and devotion. And use them! Something or someone frustrate you in regard to the crisis? Pray a Rosary for them. Faced with insurmountable problems? Bring out the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Pray it before the Divine Mercy Image. Do it at 3 p.m. Jesus promised that the Chaplet could obtain all things; that venerating the Divine Mercy image meant victory over enemies in this life and the next; and that at 3 p.m., the hour of His death for the salvation of the world, the floodgates of Heaven were open so that every grace and blessing could be obtained--well, no problem stands a chance, no matter how big it is.

Take seriously the divine element of the Church. The Church isn't just an organization. It's not just run by men on earth. It's not the property of the cardinals, bishops, and pope. It's the Mystical Body of Christ. That means that the very life and strength of the institution, its very spirit--the Holy Spirit--is a Spirit of Life and Truth, of light in the darkness, of salvation, of conversion. So the organism is self-correcting, if only we open the doors to the Holy Spirit. God loves to send prophets--ask for a few! God loves to overcome the gates of hell--ask Him to do it in our generation! Evil sits uneasily within the Church--very active and present throughout our history, but the Church is sustained and abides through the Holy Spirit. Face down evil. Follow Christ's lead. Accept the Cross and the Crucifixion; the Resurrection is only a few days away.

The Church is a supernatural reality. Any attempts at reform that forget that fact will keep running into brick walls. Reforms and renewals grounded firmly in that reality? Well, they can renew the face of the earth.

"The Christian Life is A Battle"--Fought with Prayer

Moses, putting the warrior in prayer warrior. By the way, the Sacred Page blog is an excellent resource for Catholics wanting to learn more about Scripture, and for non-Catholics who want to know what Catholics teach about Scripture. Excerpts:

...Our First Reading is Exodus 17:8-13:

In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
Moses, therefore, said to Joshua,
"Pick out certain men,
and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.
I will be standing on top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand."
So Joshua did as Moses told him:
he engaged Amalek in battle
after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,
Israel had the better of the fight,
but when he let his hands rest,
Amalek had the better of the fight.
Moses’ hands, however, grew tired;
so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
one on one side and one on the other,
so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.

We should recall the context here. After the Ten Plagues and the Passover, Israel has left Egypt a few weeks ago, crossed the Red Sea, and now entered into the Sinai Peninsula: a vast, rocky, mountainous desert. Amalek was a nation of nomads that controlled the northeastern part of the Sinai Peninsula and the southern part of the Negeb (the south Judean desert). The Amalekites were not happy to have the Israelites moving through the outskirts of the their territory, and they sent bands of scouts to trail them. According to Deut 25:18, the Amalekite raiders killed off the weakest of the Israelites who lagged behind the main camp—the ill, the elderly, poor families with many children, etc. The Amalekites were an ancient expression of the culture of death.

Now on their way to Mount Sinai, in Exodus 17 the Israelites are attacked outright by the bulk of the Amalekite forces, and they are forced to respond, despite the fact that they are not military men but former slaves, and have few if any proper weapons. It is a situation of great peril that could end with the complete annihilation of the Israelite people in the middle of a desert wasteland.

The young man Joshua goes out to lead those forces the Israelites could muster, while Moses goes to the mountaintop to beseech God in prayer. The moral sense of this text is a good example of the complementarity of prayer and action, of ora et labora. The people fight and pray: both are necessary, for the same reason that faith and works operate together.

How curious that Moses’ prayers are necessary! Why doesn’t God just send victory without them? Surely he could! Yet this is the mystery of God’s will: that he chooses to incorporate our participation in the fulfillment of his plans (See Aquinas, Summa 2, 2, Q. 83, art. 2). He ordains to grant victory to Israel through Moses’ intercession. Prayer is a cooperation with God’s will for us.

In the Old Testament, there were no “secular” wars. Every battle was both a physical and spiritual conflict, because the opposing armies always called on their respective gods. The conflict of nations was the conflict of their divinities, and the stronger divinities won. So in Exodus 17 as well: there is a spiritual battle going on here between the LORD God of Israel and the gods of the Amalakites, just as earlier in Exodus the LORD took on the gods of Egypt through the ten plagues, defeating the Nile god, the crop god, the livestock gods, the sun god, etc. In this spiritual conflict, prayer is vital—God chooses to use it as his means to victory. This calls to mind later spiritual conflicts in the ministry of Jesus, when the disciples cannot defeat and demon and the Lord tells them: “This kind comes out only by prayer.”

As a Church, we find ourselves very much in the position of the Israelites on their way to Sinai. We have left Egypt (=slavery to sin by crossing through the sea (=Baptism), but now that we are free people we find we have a fight on our hands.

People are surprised sometimes to discover that the Christian life is a battle. They supposed, perhaps, that things would be easier after baptism, or after conversion. But you see, slaves don’t have to fight. In Egypt, the Israelites weren’t in the army—they just slaved away in obedience to their Egyptian masters. That’s like the life of sin: its not really a struggle. You don’t fight temptation, you just obey it. It’s not slaves, but free men who have to fight, who have to serve in the army. So it is in the spiritual life. When we leave our addictions behind, having experienced conversion, we enter this life of freedom, but discover that freedom entails struggle, that freedom cannot be maintained without fighting.

What gives us the power for this fight? Prayer. That’s the true source of our victory. But it must be persevering prayer that continues until the final victory is won.

Benedict XVI points out that Moses, with both arms lifted up in prayer, strikes a pose on the mountaintop much like Christ on the cross. So we can see Moses here as a type of Christ, prefiguring the great prayer to the Father that was the Passion and Crucifixion, the great prayer which defeated the Enemy of God’s people definitively. We participate in that great Prayer of Christ on the cross at every Mass...

Happy Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church!

Pope Francis greets the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima in St. Peter's Square ahead of the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary tomorrow.

Here's a prayer by Pope Francis, prayed before the statue of Our Lady Aparecida in Brazil:

Mother Aparecida,
today I feel like you once did
before your God and mine,
who proposes for our lives a mission
whose contours and limits we ignore,
whose demands we only glimpse.
Yet in your faith that "nothing is impossible with God,"
O Mother,
you did not hesitate,
and so I cannot hesitate.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Let it be done unto me according to your word!"

In this way, O Mother, like you,
I embrace my mission.
Into your hands I put my life
and we will
– you-mother and me-son –
we will walk together,
believe together,
fight together,
win together as your Son and you always walked together.

"Woman, behold your son! Son, behold your mother!"

Mother Aparecida,
You once took your Son to the Temple
to consecrate him to the Father,
that he might be fully available for the mission which awaited him.
Lift me up today to the same Father,
consecrate me to him,
all that I am and all that I have.

"Here I am! Send me!"

Mother Aparecida,
I put in your hands,
and so take to the Father, our and your youth, and World Youth Day:
so much strength, so much life,
so much dynamism sprouting and bursting,
which can be at service of life, of mankind.

"Father, welcome and sanctify your youth!"

Finally, O Mother, we ask you:
stay here,
always welcoming your son and daughter pilgrims,
but also come with us, be always by our side
and go along with us,
the great family of your devotees, in our own missions:
especially when the cross weighs heavy,
sustain our hope and our faith.

"Keep faithful, and I will give you the crown of life. Amen!"

"Suffering is Suffering"

An interesting point. Excerpts:

...suffering is suffering. Recently, a first world friend complained of a truly difficult week (dealing with car problems, home repair, doctors, teachers, and so on) and then appended the ubiquitous, "I know, first world problems," implying that she wasn't really suffering at all. And my sister Abby Tardiff, who has the ability to cut through B.S. without breaking a sweat, answered,

'By that logic, only one person on earth would be allowed to claim he was actually suffering. We can always find someone who is worse off than us. That doesn't necessarily prove that we're not suffering, just because we're suffering less than someone else.'

But still, didn't Pope Francis recently tell us to quit complaining?

'A] Christian who constantly complains, fails to be a good Christian: they become Mr. or Mrs. Whiner, no? Because they always complain about everything, right? Silence in endurance, silence in patience.'

Of course he's perfectly right. Constant complaining drains the life out of everything that is good. It lets the darkness seep into everything that is good, until you have nothing left but darkness.

But does that mean we need to go around with a cheerful grin pasted on our mugs all day long, no matter what? I don't know about you, but that would not help me in the slightest (and yes, I have tried!). If we find ourselves in a situation that tries our patience, exhausts us, makes us angry or helpless, it really doesn't help to say, "Yes, but at least I'm not starving in a lice infested mud hut!" All I get from that is deeper in my funk: not only am I better off than 90% of the women in the world, I'm an ungrateful, whiny brat! Somehow, this thought does not catapult me into good cheer.

Here's the key: there's a big difference between admitting we're suffering, and constantly complaining about it...

Scalia on Pope Francis and Prayer

Elizabeth Scalia, that is.  Excerpts:

The Holy Father continues to speak with a sharp sense of urgency:

“Yes, you have to come to know Jesus in the Catechism – but it is not enough to know Him with the mind: it is a step. However, it is necessary to get to know Jesus in dialogue with Him, talking with Him in prayer, kneeling. If you do not pray, if you do not talk with Jesus, you do not know Him. You know things about Jesus, but you do not go with that knowledge, which He gives your heart in prayer. Know Jesus with the mind – the study of the Catechism: know Jesus with the heart – in prayer, in dialogue with Him. This helps us a good bit, but it is not enough. There is a third way to know Jesus: it is by following Him. Go with Him, walk with Him.”

It is necessary, “to go, to walk along the streets, journeying.” It is necessary, said Pope Francis, “to know Jesus in the language of action.” Here, then, is how you can really know Jesus: with these “three languages - of the mind, heart and action.” If, then, “I know Jesus in these ways,” he said in conclusion, “I involve myself with Him”:

“One cannot know Jesus without getting oneself involved with Him, without betting your life [on] Him. When so many people – including us – pose this question: ‘But, who is He?’, The Word of God responds, ‘You want to know who He is? Read what the Church tells you about Him, talk to Him in prayer and walk the street with him. Thus, will you know who this man is.’ This is the way! Everyone must make his choice.”

...The prayer is the key. Without it, we can know the Catechism back and forth, and we can seek to serve others and look for Christ in each other, but the root of all of that — the root that feeds our understanding of the books and helps us to see Christ in others, and to recognize the promptings of the Holy Spirit — is prayer. Daily prayer is what nourishes all of the rest: feeds it, supports it, connects it, grounds it, as Mary grounded Martha...

And if I may, here are some books to get you started (scroll down). Or if that's too much, just say, "Jesus, my Lord and my God! Help! Thanks! Love you!" Rinse, repeat...

Or "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner."

Or the Our Father. Or the Sign of the Cross. It's not hard to get started. Make it a habit. Do it as needed, and do it daily even when you don't think you need to.

Other great prayers:

• the Rosary
• the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

A few excellent basic guides to prayer:

• Fr. Thomas Dubay, Prayer Primer : Igniting a Fire Within
• Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners
• Mark Shea, The Heart of Catholic Prayer: Rediscovering the Our Father and the Hail Mary 

For an overview of the life of prayer/interior life/spiritual life/life in the Spirit:

• Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire
• ed. by Mike Aquilina and David Scott, Weapons of the Spirit: Selected Writings of Father John Hugo
• Fr. Thomas Dubay, Deep Conversion/ Deep Prayer 
• Fr. Robert Barron, The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path
• Dan Burke, Navigating the Interior Life: Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God
• Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life

For in-depth explorations of Christian prayer:

• Father Jordan Aumann, OP, Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition
• Father Thomas Dubay, Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel-On Prayer
• Fr. Harvey Egan, SJ, An Anthology of Christian Mysticism (Pueblo Books)
• Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of the Interior Life (2 Volume Set)

Syria, Peace, and Prayer

Elizabeth Scalia, as always, is awesome.  Excerpts:

...When I read that we weren’t even looking at accurate images coming from Syria, I must admit to getting chills. We don’t know what’s real, anymore, and if the Secretary of State is using bad images, that’s bad enough; if he doesn’t even know he’s using them, that’s even worse, because it suggests a level of systemic incompetence that is terrifying to contemplate. It feels like no one actually has a good handle on any of our steering mechanisms, anywhere — like gyres are widening and centers are not holding. And what rough beast is slouching forward while our wheels are spinning?

But back to my original question: is the president being publicly goaded into attacking, by Assad? And if so, to what purpose? If “precise” US bombs are flying in Syria, does it give cover to Assad and “justify” a destructive responsive action? How big is this damned thing going to get? If we learned nothing from Iraq, we should have learned that strategies and tactics in the twenty-first century are not what they were in the twentieth; predictability has diminished, particularly in that region, and I’m not sure how many war historians and tacticians even get a full and thoughtful hearing in Obama’s very protective, very insulated, very politicized White House...

She ends with a call to prayer, reiterated by other sources.

...Feel helpless in the face of so much violence and hatred around the world? Don't know how to respond to such information? There's no time for that! Those who love Mary have been given a special role to play in bringing peace to the world.

"At Fatima, Our Lady didn't ask us to go to Mass daily," said Fr. Dan. "She didn't ask us to make pilgrimages. She didn't ask us to read a lot of books. She asked us to do something that was easy and accessible to everyone — to children; to the educated; to the uneducated; each of us in our own way: to pray the Rosary for peace in the world."

Our Lady said to the three shepherd children at Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917, "Continue to say the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war, because only she can obtain it."

She reiterated that call throughout her apparitions there, saying in May 1917, "Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war [World War I]," and in September, "Continue the Rosary, my children. Say it every day that the war may end."...In these days when people are using chemical weapons against each other, Christians across the world are being savagely persecuted, and wars and rumors of wars abound every day, let all Marian Helpers live up to their name — help Mary bring peace to the world! Pray the rosary for peace in the world and spread devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart...

And the Pope has spoken. Excerpts:

...Speaking ahead of the traditional Angelus prayer with pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square this Sunday, Pope Francis said, “On [Saturday] the 7^th of September, here [in St Peter’s Square], from 7 PM until midnight, we will gather together in prayer, in a spirit of penitence, to ask from God this great gift [of peace] for the beloved Syrian nation and for all the situations of conflict and violence in the world.” The Holy Father also invited non-Catholic Christians and non-Christian believers to participate in ways they feel are appropriate. “Never again war!” said Pope Francis. “We want a peaceful world,” he said, “we want to be men and women of peace...."

Mystery Priest at Crash Site

The story:

The sketch:

The strangest part of this whole thing for me is the man is universally reported to have been a Catholic priest, and yet the only two possibilities appearing in all the reporting are either he was a priest at the right place at the right time or he was an angel appearing as a priest. While both those are true possibilities, did it never occur to anyone to mention that according to Catholicism, he may very well have been a saint from heaven? Bueller? Bueller?

Funnily enough, you do get some such suggestion from The Blaze, but I don't know why on earth they fixated on Padre Pio. 

Cause Padre Pio has a beard when he appears and wears his Capuchin habit.   Excerpts:

...A woman from St. Madeline’s in Ridley Park, gave her five prayer cards for people who were in the process of beatification and needed a miracle. Every day after Mass, she and her mother would go to the hospital and pray the rosary over Paul, then say the five prayers. “Whenever I came to the Padre Pio prayer, Paul blessed himself, even though he was totally unconscious,” Betty said.

Several people witnessed the phenomena, including a few nurses. Betty decided to call a local group of Padre Pio devotees and report what was happening. They decided to send someone to the hospital with one of the gloves worn by Padre Pio over the bloody stigmata wounds in his hands. On Monday, March 12, Paul was blessed with the relic and within days, one of his many serious ailments had miraculously vanished.

Betty called the group again and on April 6, 1984, the glove was once again brought to Paul and laid on his head. “I knew immediately something happened because it was like an electric shock went through him,” Betty said. “He opened his eyes and looked around the room, very clear-eyed. Then he fell back into the coma again but I just knew something had happened.”

She was right. The next day, when she returned to the hospital she was shocked to find her son sitting in a chair and watching television. He turned and said “Hi Mom.”

The nurse rushed in and told Betty: “He’s been talking all day!” When she called the neurosurgeon to tell him Paul Walsh was talking, the doctor said, “It’s not possible’ and hung up on her.”

But it was true. “They gave Paul another cat scan and all the doctor kept saying was, ‘I don’t believe this. I don’t’ believe this.’ The frontal lobe of his brain wasn’t smashed anymore.”

Even more inexplicable was what happened days later, on Easter Sunday morning, when Paul and his roommate woke up to find a man standing at the foot of Paul’s bed. Described as “an old priest in a brown robe,” Paul thought it was Betty’s brother, Charley, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Padre Pio.

“I remember being very certain that my Uncle Charley had been in to visit me,” Paul said. “I did see him. He was very happy and smiled at me. And then he left the room.”

Betty knew it couldn’t have been Charley because he lives in Boston. She folded up a picture of Padre Pio, hiding the name, and showed it to Paul. “That’s who visited me,” he said. “Isn’t that Uncle Charley?”

Weeks later, Paul Walsh walked out of Crozier Chester Medical Center, completely healed...

More awesome in the above story at the original link.  There are tons more stories about Padre Pio, both during his life and after his death, so I suppose turning immediately to him as an explanation made a little sense, but it's not as though we've had any shortage of holy priests these past 2000 years who might be answering prayers as God's delegates sent from heaven.  Honestly, ask a Catholic!

Infrastructure of Tyranny--Solutions

So, in light of this long list of unthinkable realities, what is to be done?

• Pray, especially the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  Pray for our politicians, our military and law enforcement personnel, our allies overseas, our enemies at home and abroad--everyone.  Pray for their conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit in their hearts and minds, the transformation of the Indwelling Trinity for them now and into eternity.  Pray!  As grace is unleashed into the world by our inviting God in, more people will become holy.  A civilization of love depends upon a society of saints--a whole generation of people who answer the universal call to holiness.  That's how the culture of death and fear will be confounded and the culture of life will win out.  We won't be able to discern light from darkness without prayer.  Nor will our actions have supernatural power or our words be full of truth if we aren't regularly getting in touch with God, the way, the truth, and the life.  Don;t forget to fast, as well!
• Accept the antique maxim "Give me liberty or give me death!"  We must remember that if we surrender all our liberties for security, we shall have neither liberty nor security.  Be willing that there should be casualties in a free society, or else we shall give all our rights away for no sure security.
• Know and love your neighbors.  Join groups.  Form networks of friends, acquaintances, relatives, that cannot be sundered if you lose your phone or are offline for a time.  Get to know the people around you.  Love them.  Pray for them.  Go to church, or temple, or mosque, or whatever house of worship you choose--but join.  Join the Knights of Columbus, or the PTA, or a book club, or something, just to better know and love the people around you.  Take local community and family seriously.  They're the ones who'll be around for you when you're old or ill or in need.  If you haven't built those relationships, you will truly be all alone with no attachments to anything larger than yourself should the bottom ever fall out of your life.
• Do works of mercy and don't stop.  Find the needs which your time, talents, or treasure can best answer, then meet those needs.
• Get involved in local politics.  It's the local politicians of today who, in a few years or decades, will be the national and international powerhouses.  If you want to see good, honorable people in national politics, start encouraging good, honorable people to get involved in local politics.  Get involved yourself!  Stop complaining about the people on offer and get your name or the name of the best and wisest human beings you have ever known on the ballot.
• Join one of the major parties and stand your ground.  There must be criticism from within.  There must be pro-life Democrats and Republicans who refuse to accept "anything in the name of national security."  There must be people who will not go with the flow, who will be living things and go against the current, to paraphrase Chesterton.  Only then will the parties come to their senses.
• Speak the truth.  Write letters to the editor.  Write blogs.  Post on Facebook.  Don't go quietly into this looming night.  Speak!  If enough of us talk about these impossible, insane, unthinkable realities which are falling into place around us, then we will live in an educated electorate.  There will be hope for real democratic change based upon a knowledge of the severity of the situation and, at the same time, a sense of empowerment to make a change.  Remember the methods used by Vaclav Havel, Pope John Paul II, Solzhenitsyn, and others to fight the doublethink and the culture of the lie they faced.  Take to heart the wisdom of George Orwell:  “In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”  The truth is powerful--always has been, always will be.  "And then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."  John 8:32.
• Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy.  Here's how, and here, and here, and here.

The Power of Prayer, Persistence, and Offering Up Pain

Monsignor Charles Pope has some encouraging words.  Excerpts:

...something tells me that a special joy of heaven will be to know and see what prayer did for us, and what our prayers did for others. For now, things can seem discouraging at times. The effects of our prayers may seem subtle or even non-existent. But God is working his purposes out and collecting and dispensing the fruits of our prayer in due season.

Anyway, I thought of all this yesterday as I was reading from The Dialogue of Catherine of Siena. And therein, the Lord speaks to her of what the prayers of the faithful do and how they release grace and set souls free. Here are some excerpts:

The sufferings you endure will, through the power of charity, suffice to win both atonement and reward for you and others…The stains of your foolishness will be blotted out, and I will no longer remember that you have ever offended me.

As for the others, because of your loving charity, I will pardon them in proportion to their receptiveness….They will come in this way to truly know and regret their sins, and so, because of my servants’ prayers they will receive the fruit of grace….They will receive both forgiveness and its gifts, unless their stubbornness is such that they despair….

I look on them and give them light. I rouse the dog of conscience within them. I make them sensitive to the perfume of virtue and give them delight in the fellowship of my servants. Sometimes I allow the world to show them its true colors….that they may know how inconstant it is and be more eager to seek their homeland in eternal life.

The eye cannot see nor the tongue tell, nor can the heart imagine how many paths and methods I have, solely for love and to lead them back to grace so that my truth may be realized in them. (Dialogue # 4)

Yes, here is what prayer and sacrifice unleash. Continue to pray and do not doubt the words of the Lord who says that our heart cannot imagine all the paths he can open for others back to grace, the Church and the Sacraments, back to Him...

For an example of the above, see here. Excerpts:

How is it that a Supreme Court Justice keeps two pictures drawn by a little girl who died six years ago on the desk of his office? Or that the head of an influential Washington D.C. think tank prayed to the same girl for his father to be saved from a brain tumor? Or, that a noted Washington thinker has a regular devotion to her?

Margaret Leo was painfully crippled from spina bifida, paralyzed from the waste down. Parts of her cerebellum and brain stem were pushed into the opening of her spinal column. A painful shunt in her brain ensured her spinal fluid circulated. Without it, her head would have swelled, causing death. Titanium rods were inserted to straighten her spine, but bent instead. Over time, one of the rods poked out of her neck...

But there was something that drew the powerful to her who had no power at all. And she drew total strangers, too.

Her special gift was joyful friendship. In an elevator, she would pepper strangers with questions, with a steady gaze and big smile. “What is your name?” “Where are you going?” “What is your birthday?” They sensed she really wanted to know. The girl had no artifice. Even Supreme Court Justices can be attracted to that.

What they did not know, because she never mentioned it, even to her family, was that she was likely in unimaginable pain. Think of a titanium rod being bent by your spine, and about to poke through the skin of your neck. Or a shunt inside your brain.

No one describes her as a “spiritual athlete.” Her faith was profoundly childlike. Her whole life she prayed out loud the simple prayer her mother taught her as a child, “Jesus, thank you for coming to me in the Eucharist.”...

The funeral Mass for this 14-year-old was packed to the rafters and stories about her began to circulate. Grown men left deeply moved. Some carry her prayer card to this day.

Then things began to happen. Some call them miracles...

Peter Kreeft, Prayer, and Patience and Perseverance

Yeeps. My problems exactly, all in one paragraph. Excerpts

Patience and perseverance are two aspects of the same virtue, which is fidelity, or faithfulness. We sometimes mistakenly think of patience and perseverance as opposites because we think of patience as resignation and perseverance as stubbornness – as if patience were almost despair and perseverance were almost pride. In the same way, we mistakenly think of holy humility and holy ambition as opposites, when in fact they are two complementary aspects of the Godlike soul. God is both humble and ambitious, “easy to please but hard to satisfy”. He is simultaneously patient and persevering, gentle and persistent, like water wearing away rock. The strongest forces in the universe , both physical and spiritual, always have that Godlike Character. It is only because our minds are fallen and broken in two that we break this character in two and use two contrasting words for it.--Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners, (Ignatius, 2000), pg. 121

Behold! An American Pope!

By the standard of the Church, that is.  Pope Francis !  His first words (in rough translation):

Brothers and sisters good evening. 

You all know that the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother Cardinals have come almost to the ends of the earth to get him… but here we are. I thank you for the welcome that has come from the diocesan community of Rome.

First of all I would say a prayer pray for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI.. Let us all pray together for him, that the Lord bless him and Our Lady protect him.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory to the Father…

And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood . My hope is that this journey of the Church that we begin today, together with help of my Cardinal Vicar, be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city.

And now I would like to give the blessing, but first I want to ask you a favour. Before the bishop blesses the people I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me – the prayer of the people for their Bishop. Let us say this prayer – your prayer for me – in silence.

[The Protodeacon announced that all those who received the blessing, either in person or by radio, television or by the new means of communication receive the plenary indulgence in the form established by the Church. He prayed that Almighty God protect and guard the Pope so that he may lead the Church for many years to come, and that he would grant peace to the Church throughout the world.]

[Immediately afterwards Pope Francis gave his first blessing Urbi et Orbi – To the City and to the World.]

I will now give my blessing to you and to the whole world, to all men and women of good will.

Brothers and sisters, I am leaving you. Thank you for your welcome. Pray for me and I will be with you again soon.

We will see one another soon.

Tomorrow I want to go to pray the Madonna, that she may protect Rome.

Good night and sleep well!

Man, that brings together my college experience rather dramatically--the first Jesuit ever elected Pope, the first Pope from the New World, and the first Pope named Francis.

TRADITIONAL PRAYER (ENGLISH)
V. Let us pray for Francis, our Pope.
R. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

Our Father, Hail Mary

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Francis, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pray for the Cardinals Gathered in Conclave

An interesting piece of analysis here, by the way, and images of the Domus Sanctae Marthae (the place where the Cardinals are living for this conclave) here.  But pray, saints of God, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

God the Father, have mercy on us.
Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Triune God, have mercy on us.

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, pray for us.
St. Peter, rock on which the Church was founded, pray for us.
St. Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, pray for us.
All you holy Apostles and Evangelists, pray for us.

St. Benedict of Nursia, patron of Europe, pray for us.
St. Boniface, apostle to the Germans, pray for us.
St. Peter Canisius, great catechist, pray for us.
St. Robert Bellarmine, curial cardinal, pray for us.

Bl. John Paul II, predecessor to Benedict, pray for us.
Bl. John XXIII, convoker of Vatican II, pray for us.
St. Pius X, patron of pilgrims, pray for us.
All you holy popes and patriarchs, pray for us.

That we may have the pope of your choosing, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the cardinals may be attentive and open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the universal church be guided, guarded, and suffused with divine life throughout this transition period, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the successor to Benedict be a man after God's own heart, Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Catholics! The Cardinals Have Called Us To Prayer!

Explained here.  Excerpts:

...There are times in any family when all hands need to be on deck, when everyone is called to pitch in. The clean up after my grandma’s epic St. Patrick’s Day parties comes to mind.

Our Church family's great uncles, the Cardinals who are gathering in Rome to elect the next Pope, seem to think that this is such a time. They have put out a request for all hands on deck, actually, more like all knees on deck.

They have called for prayers on Wednesday, March 6^th at 5pm Rome time (that’s 11am Eastern, 10am Central, 9am Mountain and 8am Pacific). The Cardinals will gather at the altar of the Chair of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica and will pray the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary followed by adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Vespers.

So, what should you pray? The answer? Something. Anything. As long as you keep in mind the intentions of the Cardinal-Electors and the upcoming Conclave...

Pray, people of God!

Want a Good Pope? Adopt a Cardinal!

A cool initiative--it picks a cardinal for you to pray and fast for, asking the Holy Spirit to bless them and help them in the conclave.  And someone's probably praying for the future Pope this way!

Pope Emeritus, "Two Popes," And Facepalm

This is what happens when a media without a substantial understanding of Catholicism starts trying to do some serious reporting on the Church--they keep on trying to force an institution with its roots in the eternal communion of the Trinity into the flat, horizonless secular perspective dominant in the West which sees all power emanating from money, sex, and political power.  Which then leads to serious chin-pulling speculation about the inevitable future difficulties of a pope emeritus walking the earth while a present pontiff serves as the rock.  Cause, well, you know...

All right, I suppose I can't blame them entirely. Some blame has to go to Catholic commentators such as Mr. Michael Walsh.  Mr. Walsh--really? Really? Excerpts:

...Catholic author Michael Walsh told CNN he was unsurprised by Benedict's desire for more privacy.

"He's a rather private man. He wants to get back to his books and his cats, he wants to get back to prayer," he said. "He's obviously coming towards the end of his life -- he's 85 -- so I understand that."

But, Walsh added, "what I don't understand is that he says he wants to be part of it all, which could be disastrous if you take it at face value," referring to Benedict's promise not to abandon the church.

"The notion that you have two people that claim to be pope, in a sense, is really going to be very confusing," Walsh said.

Vatican officials have said they don't anticipate any interference from Benedict as a new pope takes office.

Okay, so why is this such a bad bit of commentary?  First of all, because the quote as included from Mr. Walsh makes it sound like the Vatican has announced that the Pope intends to be gadding about, peeking in now and then, just to give a little input, nothing too overbearing...like some Dowager Pope of Vatican City.  Someone here is totally missing what's actually being said.

Hint: Catholicism does not accept that the only way to influence world events is by the use of power (political influence) or wealth (economic influence) or even worldly culture (even though that last was one of Blessed Pope John Paul II's greatest tools).  What's this strange source of Catholic power that the Pope intends to use in order to have influence on the Church and the world?  Gee!  What on earth could it be?  I mean, it's not as though he's indicated what that power was in his last statements these past few weeks.

Come, Anchoress! Make things well again! Excerpts:

...You might call it a supernatural gambit (and it wouldn’t be Benedict’s first) as in one move Benedict is both teaching by example and subverting the world in a way perhaps only the evil one understands; the prayers and penances of a Vicar of Christ, unimpeded by the trappings and distractions of an office, will be powerfully efficacious.

Those who think Benedict has simply lain down his staff do not understand that he lays it down to pick up a flamethrower of sorts. For however long he lives as a monastic, he will be a conduit of prayer, praise, adoration and supplication for the rest of the world. He is taking on huge duty.

In faith he will have delivered the powerful lesson that a life of faith is never without resources, because prayer extends beyond time and space, through darkness and into light.

And perhaps we will need to learn that lesson well, to face our future, together...

...We’ve never seen this before in our lifetimes; it’s remarkable to ponder that the pope, along with monastics around the world, will be so very focused on the selection of the next pope.

A monastery is a kind of powerhouse of prayer, but with distractions and impediments removed from its functioning; in enclosure, Benedict will become “a house of prayer and a temple of intercession” for us all. His hope and ours may reside, as it has before, in the simple yet profound reach of a monk.

And the Cardinal Secretary of State has made public a letter to the contemplative communities of the world in the last few days. It reads in part:

...His Holiness Benedict XVI has asked all the faithful to accompany him with their prayers as he commends the Petrine ministry into the Lord’s hands, and to await with trust the arrival of the new Pope. In a particularly urgent way this appeal is addressed to those chosen members of the Church who are contemplatives. The Holy Father is certain that you, in your monasteries and convents throughout the world, will provide the precious resource of that prayerful faith which down the centuries has accompanied and sustained the Church along her pilgrim path. The coming conclave will thus depend in a special way on the transparent purity of your prayer and worship.

The most significant example of this spiritual elevation which manifests the most authentic and profound dimension of every ecclesial action, the presence of the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, is offered to us by His Holiness Benedict XVI who, after having steered the barque of Peter amid the waves of history, has chosen to devote himself above all to prayer, contemplation and reflection...

This confusion on the part of some authors and the media is rather like the section in Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi's His Holiness about Pope John Paul II. There was one section in the book where they give a run down of all his great work, his many accomplishments, and wonder how on earth he does it all. Then a few paragraphs later, in a very casual, throwaway line sort of way, they mention how much he prayed. As though the two had nothing to do with each other.

How To Be A Christian In A Church Full of Sinners

I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do – if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge player or the man with squeaky boots is a miser and an extortioner – then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?’ You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won’t come into his head.--C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter 2

John Allen has addressed the latest rumor and scandal out of Rome.  Excerpts:

...I've received numerous requests to comment on the sensational story in an Italian newspaper Thursday suggesting the existence of a shadowy "gay lobby" in the Vatican, linking it to the prospect of blackmail and suggesting that such dark forces may have factored into Benedict XVI's decision to resign.

For what it's worth, I'll lay out my initial reaction here...

In terms of the story's specifics, I don't know whether it's accurate that a commission of three cardinals created by Benedict XVI to investigate the Vatican leaks affair, composed of Cardinals Julian Herranz Casado, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi, actually considered possible networks inside the Vatican based on sexual preference, but frankly, it would be a little surprising if they hadn't.

Here's why. In 2007, Msgr. Thomas Stenico in the Congregation for Clergy was suspended after being caught on hidden camera making contact with a young man posing as a potential "date" in gay-oriented chat rooms, then taking him back to his Vatican apartment. In 2010, a "Gentlemen of the Pope" named Angelo Balducci was caught in a wiretap trying to arrange sexual hookups through a Nigerian member of a Vatican choir. Both episodes were highly public and caused massive embarrassment.

In that context, it would seem odd if the cardinals didn't at least consider the possibility that somebody with a big secret to hide might be vulnerable to pressure to leak documents or spill the beans in other ways...

In the comments, "CAELewis" shares a common complaint:

It is so (expletive) difficult to focus on the good that the global Church does when the "leadership" is embroiled in all the evil and corruption that is constantly reported. It's hard to remain a proud, faithful, involved member in this institution when its leadership doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to a picture of a Christian based on the Gospel. Apostolic succession or not, can this really be Jesus' church?

Which prompted me to add my two cents.

Yes, since it's the Church of he who came for sinners, not for the righteous; for the sick, not for the well. We keep on going out to the nations to draw in the rest of the sinners of the world to join us--of course there will be scandal. Of course there will be trouble. It's a Church-full of sinners on the long, slow road to Calvary to die and be raised again.

What do we do? Walk the road to Calvary, fasting and praying, doing penance for our sins and the sins of others. We pour ourselves out to God and receive him in return, then, deified and sanctified, strengthened beyond our own finitude into everlasting grace and strength, we can be God's face in the word, God's hands, God's feet, doing works of mercy, mediating divine life and love into the cosmos at large. We can raise up our neighbors, our brothers, our enemies, our friends, into communion with the life and love of God.

See Father Barron's The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path; Dorothy Day's retreat master Father John Hugo's writings in Weapons of the Spirit; Ralph Martin's synthesis of the teachings of several doctors of the Church in The Fulfillment of All Desire; Father Michael Gaitley, MIC's The One Thing Is Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything; Pope Benedict XVI's What It Means to Be a Christian: Three Sermons; and Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange's The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life to see the road to be walked laid out in clarity.

Looking at my list, I see I've neglected to include a few key books--see below for the rest.

Novena to St. Peter for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

This certainly seems timely.

Novena Dates February 14-22, Feast Day February 22

O Holy Apostle, because you are the rock upon which Almighty God has built His church, obtain for me I pray you, firm hope and burning love; complete detachment from myself, contempt of the world, patience in adversity, humility in prosperity, recollection in prayer, purity of heart, a right intention in all my works, diligence in fulfilling the duties of my state of life, constancy in my resolutions, resignation to the will of God and perseverance in the grace of God even unto death; that so, by means of your intercession and your glorious merits, I may be made worthy to appear before the chief and eternal shepherd of souls, Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever. Amen.

Who told you that it is not manly to make novenas? These devotions are manly, when it is a man who performs them in a spirit of prayer and penance.--St. Josemaria Escriva