Unearned Luck

  Lately, I've been reflecting on what G. K. Chesterton said about how the Church is like a fence along the edge of a deep precipice that allows the children within to play as freely as they like comfortable in the knowledge that they are safe as long as they stay within the limits of the fence. He's absolutely right. I've been spending my time focusing on the fence instead of how much freedom I do have and how much fun I can have inside the fence. Perspective is a nutty thing.

Art Rachen on Unsplash Words have meanings. Words are placed together to make sentences that convey a message. The words used in that sentence are chosen to convey a particular meaning. To choose particular words and to place those particular words in a very specific order is an definite act of the will. For one, then, to state that a sentence one has carefully crafted has a meaning that is completely different from the meaning conveyed by the words one has chosen is disingenuous and ridiculous. Or for one to use certain words indiscriminately is foolish and causes trouble. Don't use "love", "best friend", "forever", "always", and the like if one does not mean them. As Proverbs 25:27 teaches, "It is not good to eat much honey, so be sparing of complimentary words."

"And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days." -Revelation 12: 1-6 In the 169 words of this RSV-CE translation of the vision St. John received from Christ, the Evangelist p...

After being assigned to the water rescue tactical house, the department required us new guys to attend a week-long water rescue course in Golden, CO. It was a lot of fun and the experience bonded us even more. One morning during that training we had to float downstream on our backs as part of learning how to navigate the river. We were taught to lie on our backs, feet first, and relax. At no time, were we to attempt standing up, as a foot could get trapped under a rock causing us to be pushed forward by the strong current and drowned. At one point in my cruise down the river, the current pushed me under water, which had happened frequently down that short course. This time, however, the current didn't allow me to surface. As the seconds ticked off an hour at a time, I mastered my fear and panic and just waited to feel the air on my face. The seconds ticked on and I was still under water. Nothing was happening, except I was drowning. Despite what the instructors had said, I started ...

Trusting another person is most difficult for me. When others have suggested trusting God or leaving it in God's hands, I have come away from such advice feeling confused and frustrated. I have never known how to trust God. The other day, though, I was in a tight situation, though not one that was harmful. It was a good opportunity for a lesson. All of my concentration was focused on the bad things that were about to happen at the moment and the mountain of bad things that would result. My stomach was churning. My palms were sweating. My eyes kept moving from one indicator of impending doom to another. My mind was racing through how to get out of the situation once it had turned bad. In the midst of the turmoil, stress, and panic, the image of St. Peter walking on the water took the place of all of the gloom that was filling my mind. The face of St. Peter keeping his gaze on Christ instead of on the storm and the waves became the answer to the bad things that were about to happe...

communications@bishopchatard.org Last night my oldest son, Alexander, played in his first football game in high school as a member of the freshman football team of the Bishop Chatard High School Trojans. I was excited to see how he would do against the freshman football team of the Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School Braves. Alexander's head coach reported to the team during the week of practice leading up to the game that Brebeuf's coaches were claiming that their freshman football team had so few players, it was necessary to bring five members of Brebeuf's JV team to fill out the ranks. This information only inspired Alexander more as he was eager to test himself against some older and more experienced players. Sitting down in the Chatard bleachers, it was as apparent as a dog on the dinner table that Brebeuf's freshman football team had many more players than advertised. Listening to the talk of some of the parents around me who had programs, there seemed to be a who...

In political terms: we became bourgeois and ended the revolution. In cultural terms: we embraced the culture and turned our backs on the counter-cultural. In literary terms: we surrendered our intellects and became Romantics. In philosophical terms: we blew out the flame of Thomism and put on the blindfold of the Enlightenment. In musical terms: we replaced the classical with the contemporary. And we did it all simply for the sake of change and for the new.

Kurt Wallander, an inspector with the Ystad Police Department, is the protagonist in a series of crime novels written by Swedish novelist, Henning Mankell. Nine of the novels were dramatized and presented on the BBC in 2008, 2010, and 2012. Starring Kenneth Branaugh as Wallander, the BBC production, according to critics, did a very good job of presenting the novels and Branaugh did an equally good job of portraying the police inspector. Wallander, tortured by the evils and horrors that confront him in his job, has become detached, depressed, and cynical. In the first story in the BBC series, his wife has already left him and found another man. His daughter seems to have little respect for him and is not at all sympathetic with the sorrow he feels in losing his wife. Having no faith of any kind, trusting no one, and unable to form any friendships, Wallander's only solution to the pain, confusion, and frustration in his life is to spend every night drinking until he passes out, the...

One of the most admirable aspects of the relationship between St. Ambrose and St. Augustine during the time that St. Augustine was taking instruction from St. Ambrose was the willingness of St. Ambrose to let St. Augustine leave and return to North Africa without being received into the Church. St. Augustine understood everything that St. Ambrose had taught him and thought all of it made perfect sense. He just couldn't believe it. Instead of telling St. Augustine that he didn't have to believe all of it or that he could decide for himself what he believed, St. Ambrose respected the truth of the Catholic faith and St. Augustine's dignity and did not receive St. Augustine on a kind of "conditional" basis. For both St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, everything the Church taught was vital to and necessary for salvation and, therefore, had to be believed. The reason St. Augustine had not become a devoted follower of any other religion or philosophy at the time was this v...

I remember a cousin of mine who was slaving through Latin at her Catholic high school in Fort Wayne, IN, telling me a rhyme: Latin is a dead language, Dead as it can be First, it killed the Romans. Now, it's killing me. We laughed, and since I wasn't taking Latin at my Catholic high school in Indianapolis, I agreed with her about the futility of the classes she was taking. In light of the disunity within the Catholic Church, though, we were wrong.  Like many things in the Church in the United States today, the reason for Latin is not explained to anyone. Language is an important way of keeping people united.  Canada and Belgium, countries with more than one official language, have been fighting for many years to keep their countries together as linguistic groups have been fighting against each other for independence.  For the Church, Latin serves a similar function.  Since the Church is universal and most people can't speak many foreign languages, if any a...

Most groups seem to do whatever they can to create cohesiveness and unity among its members.  From secret handshakes to technical terms understood only by those who practice the profession, doctors, physicists, plumbers, and Moose all have ways of staying together. One of the most impressive examples of this to me was the way in which the existing Jewish community in Indianapolis in and around 1860 helped other Jewish immigrants to the city regardless of where those immigrants began their journeys.  Again, the Jews living in Indianapolis did not care in the least whether the immigrant was from Spain, Hungary, or Palestine.  He was a Jew and they were going to help him become established in his new home.  The wonderful part of this story is that the Jewish community in Indianapolis is still doing this kind of work for both Jews coming to Indianapolis as well as Jews moving to Israel. Catholics, on the other hand, seem to be doing all they can to divide themselves ...

About a month ago, Matthew lost a tooth, put it under his pillow, and the Tooth Fairy gave him two quarters.  Two weekends ago, Nicholas lost a tooth, put it in a sandwich bag and placed it on my dresser.  This past weekend, I asked Nicholas, if he was going to place his tooth under his pillow, so the Tooth Fairy could visit him. Matthew looked up at me from his bed and said, "Dad, is the Tooth Fairy real?" "What do you think, Honey?" "Well, I don't know.  When I lost a tooth at Mom's, I got four quarters and when I lost a tooth here, I only got two quarters." "Well, Matthew, the Tooth Fairy works on the principle of adaptive economics.  She knows the relative wealth of a particular household and pays for teeth accordingly." "Oh," Matthew said, as my oldest was shaking silently in his bed from laughing so hard. Now it seems I'm going to have to develop an economic theory, and I know almost nothing about economics...

So much is being put out there in the Catholic blogosphere right now about how bad divorce is, the deleterious effects of divorce on children and that married Catholics should never consider divorce.  Most of this, though, seems to be written by young married Catholics who are much more committed to their faith and to the reality of marriage than many of their brothers and sisters in the faith to whom they are writing.  While what they are writing is not inconsistent with Catholic teaching, such columns are doing very little to address the problem of divorce among Catholics.  If anyone is truly interested in ending or greatly reducing divorce among Catholics, we need to start by telling people not to get married in the first place. Divorce is largely a product of a marriage that never should have happened in the first place.  In my own case and in the case of so many others with whom I have spoken, one or both of the parties involved was absolutely convinced that t...

On New Advent today is a  link  to an Italian newspaper's allegations that there is "evidence of a homosexual network within the Vatican" and that "some Vatican officials were subject to blackmail." There are four possibilities: First, the story has been made up by the Italian newspaper to force the Vatican into some kind of action. Second, the story has been made up by someone in the Vatican to force the Vatican into some kind of action. Third, the story has been made up by someone unassociated with either the newspaper or the the Vatican to force the Vatican into some kind of action. Fourth, the story is true and has been leaked by an untrustworthy member of the Vatican staff to force the Vatican into some kind of action. Regardless of what the truth is, there are four important lessons for us here. First, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) Second, since all have sinned, then like us, even those in the ...