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Catholic Realism

2/23/2015

Catholic Realism: A Framework for Refuting Atheism and for the Evangelization of Atheists is a new book by me, Dr. Ronda, and Dr.Sebastian Mahfood, published by En Route Books. I wrote chapters coming out of my atheist background such as Types of Atheism and Stories of Converts from Atheism, and about Catholic Ethics and how there can be a God of Love with all the Suffering in the world. Dr. Sebastian who is familiar with the New Atheism wrote chapters about Science and Theism.

Check it out.

On horror of ISIS pictures of Christians being de-capitated, of course, I think it is horrible, but I keep asking around “If we saw photos of all the babies being chopped up in the womb in US each day would we dare to present out horror of ISIS as if we are the good country? And, if there was such a thing as a country with no abortions (I think Malta is the only one) would we think they should fly into the US to rescue the babies? I do think we should fly in and rescue the Christians about to be martyred but I don’t like the look on people’s faces talking about ISIS as if we are the good guys!!!

Haj Amin al-Husseini and Heinrich Himmler

Andre Dubus, a 20th century Catholic writer, in a tale called “A Father’s Story,” has a daily communicant with many distractions in prayer, musing this way: “I can receive at Mass and at other times, moments and even minutes of contemplation. But I cannot achieve contemplation, as some can; and so, having to face and forgive my own failures, I have learned from them both the necessity and the wonder of ritual. For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.”

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Here is a comment on this quotation ( "Ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual." ) from Rev. Dennis Kolinski of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius who teaches and resides at Holy Apostles College and Seminary where I teach also:

“This is not just a 'fascinating analogy.' It is a profound truth. That's why the ritual of the Mass is so important and cannot be left to the whims of whomever to do whatever. It must lift one out of the secular and be eminently transcendent in nature. If not it is not fulfilling its purpose--an encounter with God, who is not of this world. But if, on the other hand, it doesn't lift one out of the secular because it wraps itself in forms that evoke only things of this world, then it just keeps those people in the secular 'who cannot will themselves out of the secular.' A great tragedy!”

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The Poetry of Rigorism

2/16/2015

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Sometime ago I put in my blog quotes from Heschel, one of the most famous orthodox Jewish sages of the 20th century, who left Europe right before the Holocaust and lives in New York City most of the rest of his life. Here is something else I found provocative (writing about how the orthodox rabbis are mocked by other Jews for paying so much attention to details):
"The poetry of rigorism jars on the ears of the cynic. But, perhaps, the question of what benediction to pronounce upon a certain type of food, the problem of matching the material with the spiritual, is more important than is generally imagined."

"Man has not advanced very far from the coast of chaos. A frantic call to disorder shrieks in the world. Where is the power that can offset the effect of that alluring call? The world cannot remain a vacuum. We are all either ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. The only safeguard against constant danger is constant vigilance, constant guidance."

I found this passage helped me understand the way those who are trying to restore a sense of the sacredness of the Mass in our Church now put so much effort into getting the details perfect of how it is to be celebrated.

The Rector of the Los Angeles Seminary where I taught years ago used to warn me not to write people off as swiftly as I tend to do. For example, priest professors with whom I disagreed about certain teachings of the Church showed enormous love to me and the family at the death of my son and of my husband, which took place while I was teaching there.

Another instance came up this week. For various reasons I had a conflict with the moral views of a medical doctor in the parish in North Carolina. He is presently the doctor of the daughter in remission from cancer but still with great pain from other ailments. My daughter told me that he told the parish priest to pray more for Carla since she was suffering so much. He also begged one of the pharmacists who had left work and was cooking dinner to come back and give Carla’s husband the medicine she needed for pain on Saturday night so she wouldn’t have to wait until Monday.

Centurian

Syro-Phoenician

More from God Alone,
thoughts I allegedly received from the Holy Spirit in the summer of 2008. (For an explanation of how to judge such thoughts, see my blog here of 12/18/2014.)

June 2, 2008 6:30 AM
Family

Jacob and Esau Reconciled

Abel and Cain Conflicted

Holy Spirit:

You would like it to be all the good part: the long understandings from proximity through the generations; the physical closeness; the built-up gratitude for all the helps. We understand that, after all, we created the family. But, then, there are the swift judgments born of long knowledge; the resistance to compromise as each digs in with prideful self-defense; the love dished out in spoonsful that more be not demanded. And from this you flee back to friendship love, lighter, less painful but less primordial, less of the gut.
We understand, We created friendship. You hope your own marriage and children would have all the best of family and friendship; in the image and likeness of what was best in your past families, but free from all the tangled grief and disappointments. We don’t dash your hope. We wanted, by Our grace, to transform everything natural, through supernatural virtues and gifts into its best form. Each time anyone in the family opens to grace there is more love, more joy, more peace. Each time one in the family closes the heart to the others and to us, there is less love, joy and peace. We urge you into the arms of forgiveness, to heal the rifts, and to make new beginnings. Even when on earth the bonds break, we aim for final restoration in our home, which is called heaven.

June 3, 2008
Closeness

Holy Spirit:

You are ambivalent about closeness. Sometimes two of you can work together, your gifts complementing each other, but very often to try to do things together is to clash; each one slowed down by the resistance of the other, such as trying to put the collar on the cat’s head while she is trying to keep it off. You transfer this ambivalence to your relationship to Us. You think if you get closer to the Father He will try to make you do what doesn’t fit your personality, as your human fathers sometimes did. You think if you get closer to God the Son you will be crucified; you think if you let Me guide you moment by moment My fire will burn up all your own precious goals.

Try to think of it more like a cello and a violin in a duet. Yes, there is a score, but the violin has a different part than the cello. It is not drowned out by the cello and there comes about a beautiful harmony when each one does its own part well; much more beautiful than if the violin player just plays his or her own melody unrelated in any way to the will of the composer. To avoid frightening you, We don’t tell you moment by moment what Our part is in your thoughts, words and deeds. We want you to learn the main pieces We can play together “by ear.” We want you to hear when you are playing off key: reacting instead of responding, lashing out rather than forgiving…Yet We have no trouble with the harsh notes, We can gather them up into a high harmony if you let Us. To see if you are playing with Us, listen. When you are playing with Us the sound is called love.
“The greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

June 4, 2008
Means and Ends

Holy Spirit:

You become insecure often because you make means into ends. These messages are a means, not an end. Think of St. Faustina, told that the new order would be founded before she died. (It wasn’t physically founded but it was spiritually founded and then started after her death.) We propose a means and if you accept, we move with that, but if there is too big an obstacle, then we try another means. Other possibilities are other means for furthering the end, which is union with Us. So, you must become closer to Us right now and not cling to specific means. The messages are good means, but they might not go on the rest of your life. Jesus wasn’t on earth until the end of time!
We understand that you cling to a means because you experience closeness to Us through it or you think you will get closer through it. That is fine, but We don’t want you to be frightened if there is a change.
(Ronda: But the sacraments and the Church aren’t just changeable means, are they?)

Holy Spirit:

No, they are Us. However, we also work through other paths as John Paul II explained in Threshold of Hope with the Catholic Church being the direct beam of light to the world but other rays off it participating in that light. “That all may be one.” (John 17:11)

June 5, 2008
Spiritual Warfare

Holy Spirit:

You cannot help wishing for rest from the combat and you are startled to
have to go back to the battlefield when you thought that victory was won. Only in heaven will that battle be over. On earth, how can you win at all if your guard is down? If you don’t call for reinforcements? That doesn’t mean that you need to be tense. More that you must be aware. The sign that the enemy is near is that sense of disequilibrium; unexpected hostile winds; change of moods in those usually friendly. But your weapon is not the sword, or the shield; but sacraments and prayer; unexpected love piercing through another’s defenses as we pierce through yours. All these weapons we give you for free, for we are an army of liberation; liberation from your fear and theirs. “You know not the day nor the hour.”( Revelation: 3:3)

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Super bowl Seminary Style

2/2/2015

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How hilarious to see 90 seminarians dressed in clerics with white collars drinking beer and yelling at the Super Bowl game in our cafeteria! It happens that they came right after evening prayer where seminary formal is required so they didn’t change into civies, which they probably could have.

Best news is birth of my first great grand-daughter, Teresa, nickname Katsi in Michigan last week. She is the daughter of the grand-daughter whose husband was converted from atheism in the Peace Corps in Malawi, Africa. You have read some about him on previous blogs. It was a 34 hour labor!!! This was partly due to slow down methods such as labor in a bathtub.

My daughter Diana was present during this long labor and birth. I asked her if she noticed that when you give your whole self to help those you love, you feel the most fulfilled. Saint Pope John Paul II puts it that the purpose of this life on earth is "the sincere gift of self."

Go to 12/18/2014 for more about these “words in the heart” I am adding at the end of each blog.

May 30, 2008

Breaking Down Barriers

Holy Spirit:
In the Trinity and in Paradise there were no barriers. Satan created the first barrier in his revolt and then Adam and Eve set up a barrier by disobeying God.
They exiled themselves from Us in this way. The physical exile was an outward barrier, the closed gates guarded by angels. Jesus’ “all will be one” prophecy and vision removes the exile. “The veil of the Temple cracks” at the moment of His crucified death. You, as humans experience this pattern in microcosm. You begin a friendship with joy, feeling kinship and openness. Then come the surprising negatives and you exile yourself from each other. Instead you are to run to the heart of Jesus, dragging your image of your friend with you, and beg for healing love. Beg that the love of God in both your hearts can leap over the barriers or break them down.

Simply, you could pray: O God, I delighted so much in the light and goodness I saw in my friend. Now he or she seems like a knot of anger and fear with no room for me. I feel pushed out. I don’t know how to be with this person. And, perhaps, you could hear Us say something like: Keep lifting him or her into our light and trust that either now, soon, or in eternity, the love you had for one another will be purified and free of all barriers. Then forgive whatever part the other one has in that barrier and ask forgiveness if you are at fault, also. Then ask simply: Today is there anything I can do to show love and understanding to my friend? A prayer, a word of empathy if nothing else? And when you see your friend, ask Us for a clue about what is still possible between you. For example, you might not be best friends, but occasionally you can be an oasis of understanding for each other. Love is a gift from Us, not a bargain the other failed to fulfill, where you got damaged goods for a high price! In a way it is like that, but you were also damaged goods. (As the poet Auden wrote) “Thou shalt love thy crooked neighbor with thy crooked heart.”

May 31, 2008
Retirement
Holy Spirit:
You think of this with emotions that waver between relief and doubt. We think of it as a big time of preparing you for your eternity. For many of you it is a time of increased physical pain and woes. These we use as purifications and ways to detach you from the earth and ready you for your

voyage to your true home. It shortens the time of purgatory which is a purging of the vileness that narrowed your hearts. You need so much more space for graced love for your hearts to be ready for heaven. It is a wonderful time for witnessing to those younger than you. By your joyful eagerness to be united to us in heaven, they get to see the deeper meaning of life, beyond survival and coping.
Of course, they cannot see this if they think of Our faces as filled with judgment of them. When you cannot avoid seeing their sins and faults, let that look from you be more sad rather than angry. “Dominus flevit.” (The Lord wept -looking over Jerusalem) (Luke 19:41)
Think often of the older days in the lives of our saints.
(Ronda: I thought of Teresa of Avila dying with her head on the lap of her favorite Sister-friend. I thought of old Cardinal Newman doggedly persisting, hearing confessions for hours in cold confessionals, of Mother Teresa on her death bed telling us to be grateful for the beautiful things in life such as being able to walk. I thought of John Paul II asked why he still showed himself to Audiences in such terrible condition saying: They must see how I suffer for them.)

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Online courses at Holy Apostles

2/2/2015

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Click here for info

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Catholic Realism

The Poetry of Rigorism

Super bowl Seminary Style

Online courses at Holy Apostles

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