Danger Arises Neither From Progress Nor Science, But Within Man

As Paul VI said: “The appeal to the moral conscience of man has never been as necessary as it is today… For the danger comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well, they can help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind ... The real danger comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests”

Pope Francis in his address to the UN on September 25, 2015

People Considered Disposable Because Treated As Statistic

The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic.

Pope Francis, Speech to the UN, Sept. 25, 2015

Love Experienced in Families Empowers Us to Love Others

Pope Francis speaking to Festival of Families, 2015
Photo Credit: KCRA.com -- Getty Pool Image

Pope Francis in Philadelphia on September 26, 2015 Address to Festival of Families

Summary: One encounters God through love. One encounters God through beauty and one encounters God through truth.

Even before creation, God loved because God IS love. God loved and could not contain himself within himself; He overflowed with love. God loved so greatly that all of creation flowed out of this love. This is why it is so important not to misuse or abuse the environment: it is a gift of God's love.

But all was not perfect; through turning away from God Man learned how to divide himself and fratricide began. Mankind is pulled in two directions: Man is pulled in the direction of love, beauty and truth, on the one hand, and hatred, war and destruction on the other. We are pulled in two directions and we must choose. We cannot escape this choice; at every moment of our lives we must choose.

So great is God's love that when men and women turned away from Him, God did not abandon them. So great was God's love that He began to walk with humanity through His people. He walked with them through history, gradually revealing Himself -- revealing his nature. He did this until the moment came when He made the highest expression of His love and his highest self-revelation: He gave humanity His own son.

Where did God send His son? He sent him amid a family. He sent him to a family that had a truly open heart. The family had to be open and receptive to God, even when they did not understand what was happening.

Even now God knocks on the door of families to be open to love, beauty and truth. If the family opens itself then love, beauty and truth will grow within it.

None of this is to dismiss some of the tensions, frustrations and problems that come with being a family. Relationships are hard. Being a family is often difficult. But there is also the hope of "resurrection" from these difficulties. The difficulties of families are overcome by Love.

Hatred cannot overcome difficulties. Divided hearts cannot overcome difficulties. Only Love has the power to do this. Love is about celebration; Love is joy -- Love is moving forward.

I leave you with two points about the family: We have to take care of children; they are young, and are the future and strength that moves us forward. We place our hope in them.

We also have to take care of grandparents; they are the living memory of the family. They transmit the faith to us.

To look after the children and the grandparents is the expression of love. A people who do not take care of children or look after grandparents is a people who have no future because they lack the strength for it and they lack the memory and the faith to move forward.

Laudato Si: Society Treats Environment As It Treats Human Beings

Image credit: Interestingimages.com

Dr. David Cloutier, a Knott Professor in Catholic Theology at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, gave an insightful summary of Pope Francis' Encyclical, Laudato Si, on over-consumption, the environment and social justice. His talk was part of a panel discussion on the encyclical at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, on Wednesday evening, October 7th.

Clouteir, echoing the Pope's message, discussed human subordination to technology when technology becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to other ends. He also discussed how technology sets patterns for our lives and begins to take on a logic of its own.

One of the themes Cloutier focused on, from a theological perspective, was the interconnectedness of all things and the idea that human beings require harmonious systems for physical and spiritual survival.

Dr. Cloutier
Photo credit: Mount Saint Mary's

From and economic perspective Cloutier pointed out that we live in a culture where self-centeredness has become a virtue and our penchant for inexpensive things (clothing, electronic devices, and cheap food) as well as luxuries (fresh cut flowers out-of-season) and over-consumption creates economies that destroy the lives of the world's poorest populations.

Cloutier said, "A culture that throws away things will also throw away people." He argued that there is a relationship between the way a society treats people and how it treats the environment. "If we put profits above people then we end up putting profits above creation," he said.

He was joined by Carolyn Woo, President of Catholic Relief Services who discussed the need to address the three obstacles that prevent people from actively promoting social justice:

1. Denial: "There is no problem"

2. The Illusion of Separation: "Maybe there is a problem, but it's not MY problem."

3. The Illusion of Helplessness: "Maybe there is a problem, and maybe it is also MY problem, but there is nothing I can do about it."

Carolyn Woo
Catholic Relief Services

The speakers called on those in attendance to become involved in efforts for social responsibility. Websites that they mentioned, where people can find ways to become involved in efforts to promote social justice, included the Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Climate Covenant and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Lonnie Ellis, OFS, of Catholic Climate Covenant was the third speaker on the panel. The discussion was moderated by Mark Rohlena, Director, USCCB Committee for Domestic Social Development. The Most Reverend William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore, introduced and participated in the event. Rev. Thomas Hurst, P.S.S., President-Rector at St. Mary's Seminary and University gave the welcome and opening prayer.

The Grand Lady of Roland Avenue

The Bishop has accelerated my process of discernment for the priesthood by allowing me to move on to a major seminary after just one year in the minor seminary in Pittsburgh. Usually guys with advanced degrees are required to spend two years at St. Paul's before moving on.

The major seminary that the Bishop assigned me to was St. Mary's Seminary and University in the Roland Park section of Baltimore, Maryland.

Toward the end of July I drove down to St. Mary's for an interview. I drove a vehicle that was owned by the seminary and had GPS installed inside of it. I was also using the Google GPS on my cell phone. The two systems did not agree with each other about which route I should take to reach St. Mary's.

On the way down I relished the "debate" between the virtues of taking the toll road for most of the way down as opposed to the virtues of the non-toll interstate, but I began to get frustrated once I arrived in the Baltimore metropolitan area and the two systems were still debating with each other, each telling me to go in the exact opposite direction from the other. Since I followed the directions that Google gave me to get down to Baltimore I decided to follow the directions from the car's GPS now that I was in the city.

I was already late for the interview so I wasn't very pleased when the car's GPS took me to a fancy gated community and insisted that it had done its job and that I had arrived at my destination. I shut the car's system off and vowed never to doubt the wisdom of Google again.

Google brought me promptly to my destination.

Now, let me tell you something about St. Mary's; before seminarians are given their assignment they are required to do their own research on the prospective schools and write a summary of the merits of the top three schools they would like to attend, ranking them from most desirable to least desirable. I had done my homework on the three schools that I was considering. I talked to people who were attending each of the three schools and gathered as much information as I could from the internet. During this process I am sure that I saw every picture that was ever posted about St. Mary's. I knew the building was impressive, in fact that's what everyone said about it in their comments, but nothing could have prepared me for the sense of awe I felt as I drove down the narrow, tree-lined lane that Google was guiding me through, to the sudden opening that made all of those internet images come to life. There she was. There was no mistaking the building from all of the pictures I had seen, yet somehow she seemed much larger, much grander, than anything in my imagination.

There she stood, the grand Lady of Roland Avenue.

Since it was after hours when I arrived I knew I would have to find some way to catch the attention of the Vice Rector, Fr. Griswold, who was scheduled to meet me. As soon as I stood up to get out of the car I realized I had a problem -- I had to go to the bathroom. I had to go badly and my body was not going to give me much time to resolve the situation. I ran up the steps, banged on the door and rang the doorbell, with visions of making a first impression by wetting my pants.

There was no sign of life coming from inside the building and I could feel my body telling me that it couldn't keep the floodgates closed much longer.

I fumbled with my cell phone to call the vice rector, but my body was letting me know that my time was up. I looked over at some bushes that were off to the side of the building -- if I could just make a dash for them before the vice rector, or anybody else, answered the door ---

I ran for the bushes. Then I heard the front door of the building opening and the vice rector called my name.

(more, later...)

How Lectio Divina Might Very Well Be Thought of As Being the "School of Prayer"

As is true of most people, I found it relatively easy to learn prayers by rote, such as the Our Father, at a very early age. Once I was a little older and got the hang of it, the Holy Rosary came fairly easily too, by keeping in mind that I should have a kind of "soft focus" on the theme for each decade while I allowed the repetition of the Salutation to Mary to detach me from my immediate surroundings so that I may enter more deeply into the mysteries of sacred scripture.

The Liturgy of the Hours was a bit more difficult, and required greater maturity. The hardest part was becoming accustomed to the mechanics of this prayer, knowing how to flip back and forth between the pages and find the appropriate text for each section of the prayer. Once I got the hang of the mechanics of the thing the prayer itself was rather straight-forward; all I really had to do was read and listen for the voice of God. Of course, even this was more difficult that it might seem at first. Frequently the Psalms for a particular hour of liturgy did not fit my immediate mood or state-of-mind; the challenge was to subordinate my thoughts to those of the Church and of Christ speaking to me through the ages. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours is an act of shifting one's attention from oneself to the Mind of the Church.

Contemplative prayer and Eucharistic Adoration took yet another level of maturity. These were more easily done with the assistance of a spiritual text, to pull my focus back to Christ when my mind started to wander, but to simply dwell in the presence of Christ required a solid background in contemplating and becoming familiar with the voice of Christ that comes through frequently reading sacred scripture. In fact, I found that praying the Holy Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours helped prepare me for more fruitful contemplative prayer.

In all honesty, the prayer that came to me most grudgingly was Lectio Divina. I understood the Lectio as being a slow and contemplative reading of a small section of scripture, followed by silence and focusing on a passage, image or word that resonated with me. The technical aspect of the prayer was to become accustomed to the rhythm and pacing of reading and silence, reading and silence -- but unlike the Liturgy of the Hours, I was never really sure which part of scripture I should read at any given time and there was always the temptation to turn contemplation of sacred scripture into a Bible study characterized by analytical reading.

For these reasons, I thought of Lectio Divina as being the prayer that one should try to become proficient at last, after establishing reasonable proficiency in the other forms of prayer, but I think a reasonable case can be made for seeing the Lectio as the school of prayer, that helps to deepen the other forms of prayer in one's spiritual formation.

The point at which I became more comfortable with the lectio was when I moved away from an analytical "Bible study" approach to reading scripture during the prayer to listening for that single word, phrase, thought, emotion or image that I mentioned above, and turning it over and over in my mind until I heard what God was telling me.

It seems to me that the lectio might be thought of as being the school for other prayers because this skill of extracting a detail and turning it over and over in one's mind is also a fruitful practice when praying memorized prayers, the Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours. Frequently one is tempted to treat all four of these forms of prayer as something that requires a hard focus -- identifying each segment of the text and placing it, cognitively, in relation to the whole. The method of the lectio, however, suggests another approach. All that is required of one is to grasp the strongest impression or detail and to explore it deeply. This, again, is transferable to contemplative prayer because it provides the person in prayer with something to focus on and to open paths to contemplation.

In this sense, Lectio Divina helps us to slow down and savor sacred scripture. It is the difference between our attempt to have mastery over the text as opposed to allow the text to reveal to us what is in our soul and to speak to us of what God wants us to hear.

How Do Catholics Pray?

Okay, so that was quite a bit of a hiatus from blogging. I will try to pick up and extend earlier themes from last autumn, including posting more of my spiritual autobiography and commentaries I have written that have been published in Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper over the previous 12 months. I also want to write more posts evolving from the work I have been doing this summer with pastoral work, the new evangelization and intentional discipleship, but today I want to share my notes from a young adults meeting at St. Benedict the Moor in Pittsburgh on the role of prayer in the life of the Catholic Church.

Prayer has been a topic that has always had deep meaning for me. In explaining Catholicism to non-Catholics and to non-Christians I don't find it as helpful to get bogged down in questions of religious doctrine or apologetic -- that can come with time -- I think it is generally more fruitful to focus on the Catholic prayer experience. I believe that focusing on prayer life is a way to have constructive interactions across denominations and communions within Christianity, as well as inter and extra-faith dialogue.

Brother James Watson, OFM Cap., conducted the session and led the group in the practice of contemplative prayer. He also provided the group with an introductory course in Lectio Divina. My notes for this blog post focus on a quiz he gave the group about Catholic prayer. These notes provide a general outline of things one should know about Catholic prayer life:

What is a Catholic understanding of what prayer is? Prayer is a response in faith to the promises of God, it is raising one's heart to God, allowing God to know the depths of our hearts, and it is a covenant relationship between a person and God.

The virtue that is the foundation of prayer is not faith, hope or love, although each of those virtues is important; the virtue that is the foundation of prayer is humility -- it is submission to the will of God and the realization that nothing that we do of our own power will endure.

Is there an official prayer of the Catholic Church? Yes; the official prayer of the Church is the Liturgy of the Hours, which contains nine prayer sessions for different hours of the day, each day of the year. This is a way of liturgically experiencing the different phases of each day. The Liturgy of the Hours consists mostly of Psalms, but also readings from the Old and New Testament and passages from writing from Christian tradition.

Is there a prayer that is the source and summit of the Faith? Yes; the Mass is the prayer that is the source and summit of the Faith.

What book of the Old Testament is the "masterwork of prayer"? The book of Psalms is the masterwork of prayer, which is why we pray it during the Liturgy of the Hours. The early church prayed the Psalms, as did Jesus and his disciples and observant Jews 2,000 years ago.

What, for Christians, is the perfect model of prayer? There are a lot of impressive models of prayer for Christians, including Mary's Magnificant at the Annunciation and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo by the angels at the birth of Jesus, but the perfect model of prayer is the Our Father, which Jesus taught the disciples.

What is the right method for personal prayer, is it spontaneous prayer, formulaic prayer, or a combination of the two? Actually, the right method of personal prayer for Catholics is to pray as your heart dictates, in whatever form it takes.

How can we make sure God hears our prayers? Catholics believe that we can be sure that God hears our prayers by praying in the name of Jesus. We believe in the power of the Name.

Why do Catholics pray to Mary and the saints? Catholics pray to Mary and the saints because we want them to pray with us and for us. We do not pray to them in conjunction with God, nor do we pray to them because we believe they can answer our prayers.

When do Catholics believe it is appropriate to offer a prayer of thanksgiving? Catholics do not believe that the only time to offer a prayer of thanksgiving is when we receive something we want, or something that was unexpected, from God. We believe we should offer prayers of thanksgiving under all circumstances and that we should live in a state of thankfulness and praising God -- again, this is something that the Liturgy of the Hours helps us with.

Prayers of praise most immediately recognize that God is God.