Moral Certitude Vs. Moral authority

Pope Francis washing feet

          Today I was speaking to my friend about the new pope Francis, and it brought back to me an observation that I have been thinking about writing on for a while. That is the difference between having moral certitude and having moral authority.  Moral certitude is something that the Catholic Church has enjoyed since like Jesus promised in Matt 18: "the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church". This means that on matters of morality, the Holy Spirit does not let the Church err on its teachings.  This is comforting given the infiltrations of moral relativism that have taken modern society by the storm.  Now when it comes to moral authority, I think the church today have lost its appeal or authority when it comes to morality given the scandals that it has endured from its own. The scandal from some priests, that of politicians who don't honor God's word in their governing or even our individual personal scandal that we cause when we don't live according to the Gospel as Christians have cost us the moral authority that we should have so as to leaven the bread of society.
   If we look at the life of Jesus, we see a great combination of both moral certitude and moral authority.  Jesus taught the truth from a position of authority because his entire life was a model of truth. Now I know that we might argue it was because he was God; and its true, but down throughout Christian history, we see that the people who have won people's hearts to the truth lived holy lives that demanded being heard.  Even in recent times, someone like Mother Theresa of Culcutta although backed by moral certitude of the Church's teaching had great moral authority since she lived the gospel in an authentic manner.  An atheist who had studied the scriptures for 20 yrs and interacted with many Christians had remained unconvinced about Christianity, but spending a few hours even minutes with Mother Theresa led to his conversion.  When he was asked how comes, he said that through out that time of his study, he didn't think Christianity was anything more than a noble ideal, but spending time with Mother Theresa, he saw those teachings portrayed in a manner that he couldn't argue with.  The life of charity that Mother Theresa lived demanded that she be heard when she spoke about truth since her life gave testimony to her words.  This is what moral authority looks like. The same can be said of others like Blessed Pope John Paul II and many others.
    Now going back to Pope Francis, I think he has introduced a new vision for the Church that will however slow start to give it back moral authority.  By inviting people to care for each other and creation, urging us to care especially for the poor and weak of our society and to live an authentic Christian life will help us to start shining in a manner that is undeniable about the Gospel we preach.  If we preach the truth and yet ourselves do not live it, we come out only as using it as a sword of judgment instead of the saving grace that is in Christ Jesus. Jesus said that we shall "be known by our love" and that is the invitation that our new pope is calling us to.  G.K. Chesterton once when asked if there was any argument against Christianity said that "the only argument against Christianity he could find was Christians." Meaning that the Christian message was without blemish but the people delude it by their bad example.  If we practice charity liberally, our message on morality becomes relevant, and we can win the hearts of people towards truth.  Finally we can weave the moral certitude that the Holy Spirit promises with a moral authority that demands following, and take Our Lord from the Cross that we have once again nailed him with our sins.  May God see us into this new phase of history where evil is rampant and relativism on the rise, but also where grace abides all the more. 
Lord Jesus, may your love penetrate the darkness of our hearts and bring us to the light.

On Prayer

     This past Tuesday evening, about 10 of my friends got together and had a bible study focused on prayer. Now I know what you are thinking; we met at a central location and opened our bibles like a normal bible study? Not this group! It ended a little before midnight, and everyone could jump into their beds if not already on them since we did it on a Video conference through skype, each one at the comfort of their home.  Seeing this, I know Sts. Peter and Paul are probably asking the Lord in Heaven why they couldn't have lived in a time with that kind of technology for they could have reached millions with the Gospel? Well atleast, I am sure St. Peter might ask that.  Beside the details sorrounding this bible study, my purpose is to explore this topic of prayer for since then, I have been in 3 more meetings and the focus was prayer which tells me maybe the Lord want me to share my humble reflections on it. Lets take the journey together.
     Like any journey, you must have a map and a destination. Having this in mind, I wish for us to accomplish 3 goals on prayer; The What, The Why, and The How of prayer.
Why?
   I have decided to start with this question since if we don't know why we should do something, we will do it half heartedly or not at all. Another reason is to make sure that I don't waste your time, for after this, if you can't answer that question, it serves you no purpose to read any further.
   My memory is still vivid when about 5 years ago, I sat with my newly found spiritual director, a Benedictine monk who had been recommended to me by a priest as a suitable spiritual guide.  I was in a place in my spiritual journey where my faith had been revived with great vigor and I was seeking direction on how to recognize, listen and do God's will, whom I was seeking to please above all. I was narrating my dissapointments, my aspirations and even my desparations, seeking great advice from someone I sensed to be very wise in spiritual matters. After my narration, I waited patiently to hear the words that would change my life. Well to say the least, I was dissapointed when after hesitating for about a minute, instead of giving me advice, he just asked me a question; how is your prayer life? After answering, he went ahead to explain to me how everything good I seeked could only be found in God, and prayer is the intangible access to Him.  Five years later, I am still contemplating and unpacking the truths confined in that simple statement.  This was confirmed  by the Master himself (Jesus) in the Gospel of St.Matthew 7:7 when he told his followers, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."  If you ask me why we should pray, I would say that if you seek anything that is good, you not only should pray, you must pray for God is the source and summit of all that is good, and He has promised that whatever we ask in the name of His Son, he would give it to us. 
       Well is it as simple as that? the answer is Yes, but let me let you in on something further I have learned.  In the book of Psalms, we see King David complaining to God that those who were neither seeeking nor loving Him seemed to be enjoying great proseperity.  I have asked this question myself on why those who seem not to pray still enjoy good things.  Simply put, God in His generosity has seen it fit to "let the rain fall on the good and evil as well," but like we hear in the book of James 4:3, "you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions."  With this in mind, I have realised that the separation of generosity of God's gift comes when we know what to ask for. One thing for sure, God will never give us holiness without us asking for it. Sure He will grant us the grace to know to aspire for it and seek it for if He doesn't give us that, we won't be able to even take the first step, but to move forward and persevere, He will not grant to those who do not seek. With this in mind, we should therefore ask The Father to grant us the grace to become what our Lord commanded us to be; "Perfect as your Father in Heaven is Perfect." (Matthew 5:48).  For those ambitious type in the spiritual matters, this should be the greatest reason to pray: to become Holy, for as St. Paul tells us to strive for "holiness without which no one will see the Lord," (Hebrews 12:14) and which without prayer is simply impossible. You will never meet a saint who didn't pray. 
      I can write a thousand pages on why we should pray, but from this, any person of reason should be convinced of the neccesity of prayer. This is only a start, but let us move forward to our next question

   What?
   During our bible study, this question of what prayer is was brought up and the various answers that were given all seemed to have a common denominator of "it is communication with God." Indeed, prayer in the simplest of terms is a conversation with God.  A more official defination according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church is that"Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."  (CCC 2559)
   We see two ways that prayer is expressed throughout salvation history.  The two arms of prayer are public prayer and private prayers, since "there are two sides to our nature, the individual as well as the social". Public prayer simply put is the prayer we pray collectively as the body of Christ.  This could be during the Liturgy where the one sacrifice of the Son of God and the prayers of his bride the Church are raised to the Eternal Father. It could also include any prayers offered to God with another as Jesus said "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) .  Private prayers would then include those prayers which we pray alone in following the words of the Master that  "when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you" (Matthew 6:6) 
    I wish to explore private prayers since many of us can go to Church on Sundays, but it's in the daily prayers where we find ourselves struggling the most and without which, the Sunday Worship "would degenrate into empty ceremony" (Frank Duff).
In this context, we find the 3 expressions of prayer; Vocal prayer, Meditation and Contemplation
2722 Vocal prayer, founded on the union of body and soul in human nature, associates the body with the interior prayer of the heart, following Christ's example of praying to his Father and teaching the Our Father to his disciples. 2723 Meditation is a prayerful quest engaging thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. Its goal is to make our own in faith the subject considered, by confronting it with the reality of our own life. 2724 Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love. It achieves real union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it makes us share in his mystery.
    These three expressions of prayer as explained in the catechism goes to explain and summarize what prayer is by exploring how we enter into that presence of God either using vocal prayer, meditation or finally when God draws us to himself through contemplation. 
   Without further ado, let us move on since we can spend an eternity talking about what prayer is and looking at all the different ways and types of prayer.

How?
  This is the simplest of the questions and one that I will go over quickly. If you ask me how you ought to pray, I would give you the advice of the apostle Paul "pray without ceasing." That is how we ought to pray. But I know that it is not that simple so let us explore further.  When the Lord was asked that question directly, he gave us that great prayer of "Our Father" (Matthew 6:9) Indeed, this is one of the most efficacious of all Christian prayers, and in it contains all the qualities of what prayer should be. From the Praise and acknowledgement of God's sovereignty, to the petition, there lies the great wisdom of God himself on how we ought to pray.  Whether it's formal prayers like "the Our Father" or the rosary which is a meditation on the life of Christ through the eyes of His mother, and any other prayers which are handed to us, or whether it is sponteneous prayers that comes from us, we should make sure "they have in common the recollection of the heart."
     This indeed is how we ought to pray. By following the "three principal parables on prayer as transmitted to us by St. Luke:
"The first, "the importunate friend," (Lk 11:5-13)  invites us to urgent prayer: "Knock, and it will be opened to you." To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will "give whatever he needs," and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts.
- The second, "the importunate widow," (Lk 18:1-8) is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith. "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" - The third parable, "the Pharisee and the tax collector," (Lk 18:9-14)  concerns the humility of the heart that prays. "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" The Church continues to make this prayer its own: Kyrie eleison! " (CCC 2613)
      With such great wisdom, my formula is to simply approach God constantly with contrition for our sins, humility of heart and unwavering confidence in His goodness.
        Having come to this point where I knew why I should pray, what prayer was and how I ought to pray, I came seeking advice from my spiritual director frustrated that despite my knowledge on the necessity of prayer, I was finding myself not being consistent. Waiting for advice, he asked me, where do you put your shoes? Again dissapointed, I told him like everyone else, I put them on the shoe rack or wherever my hands lets them go. He went ahead to tell me, "why don't you put them under the bed." Seeing the puzzled expression on my face, he explained to me that by putting them under the bed, every morning when I bent down to get them, I would remember to kneel and say my prayers before my day started. Again in simple practical advice, I tried it and it worked. Soon, the grace of habit took over, and my shoes went back to the rack, but my prayer life continued.
       since I know a great reading on prayer does not eliminate the weakness of the flesh which must be forced to comply with the desire to pray, I will give you that same advice that I was given by my spiritual director.  Remember that whatever practical steps you must take to make your prayer life consistent, take them for the good you seek can only be found in God, and prayer is the intangible access to God.

Dress and God: A call for modesty

Recently, I've been thinking about modesty in the light of the virtue of chastity. I admit that was it not for the assurance from the scriptures that "where sin abides, grace abides all the more," (Rom 5:20) I would have despaired by now. All it takes one to see how deprived we are of this virtue is to open his eyes. May it be sitting in the comfort of one's home and watching television, or being out in the markets of modern society, the observant man will conclude just from the fashion trends that we have either abandoned the once revered sense of modesty, or that we have abandoned it all together in search of a pseudo freedom that is not only destructive, but which has robbed many of the dignity that is due a person. I must confess that I have thought about writing on this topic for a long time but my procrastination syndrome to downright lack of ideas has kept me from it. This however was recently put to rest after reading an article titled "a letter to women" by my friend Brendan a university student whose courage has at least inspired me to give it a shot. Let me give you a taste of his no nonsense approach to the subject in a quote from his letter.
   "It is increasingly difficult for me to look at you without disrespecting you with my eyes. What else do you want me to think of when you wear skin-tight clothing? You have stripped yourself of everything that made you beautiful. You have offered yourself to many men and wonder why I do not treat you like the only woman in the world." You can read the rest of the letter here
    Before I continue, let me just make you aware that the this article was published in a university newspaper. Without saying anything further, you can already guess what kind of reaction this stirred to the credit of my friend whose courage was not deterred by an anticipated anger and downright lunacy. I am oft of the thought that especially for a young man and especially when it comes to chastity, being in a college campus is like "having one foot in hell and the other on a banana peel; either way you are going down." But like I stated before, where there is plenty of darkness, the light shines forth all the more, so in the same sentence, I think that the occasion to exercise the virtue of chastity is greatest in this circle.
 Since my friend has already addressed this topic with a forthright approach of which you can read in its entirelity here, I will take an alternate route and ride on the caution for the sake of the weak minded and the undiscerning hearts that may mistake the call to truth with personal attack.
    Now, why put God and dress in the same sentence? The answer can be found in 1 Corinthian 6:19; "do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit." This statement by the inspired Scripture writer forms the fundamental connection between God and how we dress. The first and foremost reason of why we should dress modestly is in honor of God whose love is so great that He has made our bodies a temple of His Holy Spirit and anything that is contrary to this truth is a lack of gratitude on our part of His gracious love. This alone should encourage all people of good will to take care of how they dress, and even in our hedonistic society where we think we have the sovereign right to our bodies to do with whatever we will, there lies a silent voice that tells us otherwise. I have often observed, especially in young girls whose consciences have not been fully desensitized, whereby while wearing either short dresses or tight clothing, there entire engagement when they sit is to try to pull their dresses to cover themselves more. This sense of shame goes to show that deep down inside, when we wear immodestly, we know that we have deviated from the good and our consciences condemn us. 
     However, our society has become so accustomed to this deviation, that we think it is the norm and even a good to let loose and wear or not wear anything and to think otherwise is to repress personal freedom that we have worked so long for.  This mindset goes to show that just like our first parents, in search for freedom apart from God, we succeed only to enter into the bondage of sin.  Unfortunately, the social sin of fashion trends that are meant only to deceive and to tempt have become the norm today.  Although not exclusive to women, this immodesty in clothing is at cancerous stages that only the grace of God and a rediscovery of truth can cure.  These days, the dress that was meant to be worn and sheepishly so in the nightclubs in now worn in the Church and revealing attire that only the unscrupulous of past generations wore has become the dress of choice regardless of where it's worn. The sense of shame is long gone and what is private in one's body has become public display as if it's a commodity to be admired by all.  Oh lost generation we are. So quickly to forget that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and if undeterred by that to remember the words of Our Lord in Matthew 18:6 that; " whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy milestone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." With words like these, we can see the dangers of immodesty both for the one dressed so and for the one who falls in the hands of their temptation. 
   I must say that dressing immodestly is not exclusive to women. While men are more prompt to fall from the women wearing short skirt, tight clothes and revealing tops among other things, men pulling their pants to their knees and showing their undergarments may be a cause of temptation for women. I however think that it might annoy them more than it tempts them. Men however fall mostly in their speech. The way they describe women and loosely use sexual terms in a disrespectful way does the same damage.  So what then?
    While I might point out multiple ways in which we have failed as a society with the promotion of immodest fashion trends to the point of leading some to despair, the prudent thing is to start addressing this issue in a truthful way. Being fallen like the rest, I can say that the premier step is to seek God's help first so that you yourself do not become an object of temptation for another, but also that you may not succumb to the temptations presented to you on a daily basis. This, pampered with speaking the truth in love whenever possible to those whose sense of modesty is all together eroded by society and trying to charitably arouse their consciences to the good that can be found in respecting one's body and not using it as an object of pleasure and allurement but rather as a temple of the Holy Spirit always ready to accept and give love both to God and neighbor. 
    Truly the damage has been done and it's great but once more we should not loose courage of acquiring the holy virtue of chastity which immodesty is its biggest casualty. I therefore urge you ladies to give thought to your dignity as the temple of the Holy Spirit  before you dress and how you ought to respect your body and you guys before you open you mouth to think of the same. It doesn't go without mentioning that the Purity of Jesus Our Lord and that of His holy mother Mary should be our standard. God help us all.

Striking a balance between Idealism and Reality

    "The world is ruled by its ideals, those who create the higher ideals lift all mankind."  The same author who wrote the above words has been a big influence in my life after reading a small book he wrote called "can we be saints." In this book, Frank Duff, who is the founder of one of the largest lay organization in the Catholic Church called the Legion of Mary invites the reader to ponder that question. He presents the ideal of Christian perfection and how we are all called to become saints. The first time I read that book, I was ready to get on a plane and go somewhere in the world where they were persecuting Christians and lay my life down as a martyr. The voice of reason persuaded me otherwise, but a few years later, I still realize the importance of subscribing to the ideals that will lead us to fulfillment and bring us to our end which  is union with God.  I have also come to realize the imminent danger of the Church not taking seriously its mission to spread the Gospel.
    In my late teens when most people are looking hard for an identity, I was presented with the ideology of self-help and materialism. Although I am not downing self-help, there lies within it great dangers. Being a nominal "malformed" Catholic who hadn't subscribed to the identity of Christ, I followed suit and that became my identity. Instead of stating that "I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me," I would claim that "I can do anything I set my mind to." The statements are close but while the first attributes its abilities to Christ, the later attributes them to self. Such is the condition of our society today. The bookstores are filled with books that seek to help us become the best we can be even at the expense of our souls. While some have a spiritual component to them, and they are written on the right foundation of becoming what God has destined for us, many if not most of them pull us away from this ideal and lead us on a path that while it promises self-actualization, it leads us to selfish ambitions that bring us to ruins. All was not lost on my part since at the same time, the Lord was penetrating my heart with His grace and started showing me a new set of ideals and heroes. While the wheat and the weed continue to grow together, today I toil on a field whose fruits I pray are eternal.

   Now to come back to our topic, I continue to quote Frank Duff who in the handbook he wrote for the organization he started. "If the young once form the habit of looking for purely worldly or even irreligious systems for the active idealism for which generous natures crave, a terrible harm has been done, for which future generations will pay." Anybody with eyes to see can see that we are already paying for the harm that has been done by the ideology of generations that preceded us and not in the distant past either. The "sexual revolution" of the 60s has yielded the "culture of death" whose influences are a threat to civilization as we know it. This is only one example but not the only one. We must not dwell on the evil since we know that God works out the best in everything for those who love Him, but that does not mean that we close our eyes to the reality and assume everything is okay. 

    The first step is to realize the reality of the opening statement that "the world is ruled by its ideals."  This means that as Christians, we must evangelize the world since we know that the Gospel is the only ideal that will bring about peace. To go even further, we must own to the fact that we are called to become saints, to grow in holiness is not for a chosen few, it's the universal call of all. Like saint Paul put it "This is the will of God, that you may be holy."  

         In my early 20s, I was introduced to this idea of becoming a saint after reading "can we be saints" and my search for something noble which so many young people are looking for came to an end. Like the knights of old who would traverse the lands looking for a worthy king to fight for, and when they found one they would bow down before them and pledge their loyalty, I found a noble King who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Many young people today are searching for an authentic cause and something noble to commit to. I wish to tell them that the answer lies in Christ and should they commit to follow him, they will have found the highest ideal that will transcend both time and space and bring them to everlasting happiness. The practical means of living this ideal is laid our in the doctrines and practices of the Church. 

      Now that we have established this, the reality is that our world today is in dire need of evangelization. The late pope Blessed John Paul II said that this is the time for a "new evangelization".  This presents the young and old alike a great work to engage in. May it be in the home as a mother to her kids, or in the social media, or in the pulpit, "if today you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts."  Our faith constantly calls us to let our actions prove our faith and answering this call is a great opportunity.

    From my restless search of something noble, God has presented to me an answer; in the organization of the Legion of Mary, he has helped me strike a balance between "idealism" and "action"  and I invite the young especially to find a way they can serve the Lord in their neighbor. In the vineyard of the Lord, there is plenty of harvest but the laborers are few. May the love of Christ bring us to peace.

Oh Lord, give us more generous souls who will answer your call.

A call to holiness

 

      "Patience is a virtue!"  Those words still ring in my head years after one of my friends at the time made that statement. Although I had heard that word before, this time it struck me in a very profound way. I can only attribute that to the movement of the Holy Spirit in my soul. To date, I thank God for her. Now in 2011 looking back, I can see how God works in ways we don't comprehend.
   To go further, this statement was said to me by my then girlfriend. At the same time, I was going through a period in my life where I was searching for something but I wasn't sure what it was. I knew I desired something, just wasn't sure what. When she said that however, my first reaction was anger, I was angry because that meant I had to wait for an answer that I wanted.  As much as I didn't like that, the word "virtue" being associated with patience made me think for a long time. I knew that she had said something very wise but I didn't understand. God took that statement however and opened a whole new world to me; one that I had taken for granted or was just ignorant of. Yes the "world of virtues."
   I started thinking what that meant, and the more I thought of it, the more I found the answers. At the same time, I was starting to read the lives of the saints. Their practice of virtues was the one thing that stood out in all of them. They all excelled in different virtues even to the heroic level. The more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I admired them and the more I wanted to imitate them. One question remained however, how were they able to distinguish themselves. That was answered by the great Apostle Paul in the scriptures "It is God's will that you may be holy".   One thing about the saints is that they were never double minded for like we hear in the book of James "a double minded person is unstable in all his ways"  The saints do God's will and they understand that to do God's will is to be holy and to be holy is to do God's will.
    My dilemma was making itself out of my mind more and more as I started realizing that while we are all called to do different things; some to teach, some to  preach, some to be doctors, others lawyers, some parents and others priests and religious, the universal call for all of us is that of holiness. We are all called to be holy without which no one will see God.
     Finally, I was able to make the connection between patience and virtue. Yes patience is one of the many virtues, and when we exercise virtues, we become more like Jesus who is our example and helper in everything. The more I strive to be virtuous, the more I realize that left to ourselves, we can never be virtuous, it is only by God's grace. But strive we must for we are called to be holy and be "perfect as Our Father in Heaven is Perfect."  Virtue simply put is the habit of being righteous. When habit overtakes our good practices, we can say that we grow into being more Christlike and hence become Holy. We ought to answer generously to that universal call to be Holy which God has called all of us to.
   Now whenever someone cuts me off in the traffic, before I react, I recall that statement, "patience is a virtue."