Unearned Luck

Photo by  Pietro Rancan  on  Unsplash Then came Am′alek and fought with Israel at Reph′idim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Am′alek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” -Exodus 17:8-9 Rightly, we think of God as all-powerful, but then we draw a false conclusion: God, therefore, should eradicate all evil or, at least, the evil we see in our own lives. Sacred Scripture, though, has a different understanding of the way in which God exercises His omnipotence. The battle of Amalek against Israel recorded in Exodus 17:8-13 provides a good understanding of how God wants us to fight evil. Amalek marches on Israel with the intention of killing every last one of them. The Israelites prayed for deliverance, but God did not snap His fingers and make Amalek and his army disappear. No. God fully expected the Israelite army to march out of their camp and fight Amalek's army to t...

Photo by Hanna Morris on Unsplash But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, “ We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.”  For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”;  the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. -Matthew 11:16-19 If you knew for certain, that in five years the anti-Christ will appear on the world stage to inaugurate 42 months of the most horrific, terrifying, and unyielding persecution of Christians in history, a persecution whose heinous excesses cannot be imagined. After these 42 months, you will witness the Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgement. How would you spend those first five years? Looking towards a future of hardship, most people choose to spend their ti...

Photo by  Fynn schmidt  on  Unsplash Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. -Matthew 11:28:30 What goes through your mind, when you read these words from Our Lord? Do you think, “Light?! Easy?! There is nothing light and easy about Christianity”? Do your thoughts then wander to all of the rules and regulations? All of the fasts and penances? All of the guilt and Ten Commandments? Do you begin to complain about Christ calling you to die to yourself, become a new man, be poor in spirit, meek, humble, sacrificing and merciful and think, “I don’t have time for all of that. I’m living a different life in a different time.” Don’t be surprised. You’re in the majority. It’s so much easier to do nothing, while feeding ourselves a steady diet of excuses, justificat...

Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash Peter said to him, "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” ⏤Acts 8:20:23 There seems to be no viable argument against the contention, that Catholics in the United States do not know their faith beyond what they may have picked up as children. If any of us had, would we be going through the mess and confusion we are right now? It would seem equally incontrovertible, that those willing and able to educate their peers in the faith are to be encouraged and supported as much as possible. Especially useful are attempts to supplement or reinforce average Catholics' thin grasp of Chris...

Photo by Ewelina Karezona Karbowiak on Unsplash The monthly meeting occurred, and, like has happened for the past four or five months, the discussion focused on the problems with the United States and the Church using Anthony Esolen’s Out of the Ashes as a starting point. This month, though, the participants were charged with finding a solution. Beginning with Ireland’s referendum vote on May 25th, within three minutes and after a question about the lack of quality catechesis being ultimately to blame for the direction that vote took, the discussion switched to school shootings. How each person responded was predictable, since it was how each person has always responded. The gentleman, who blames the media and the pervasiveness of electronic devices, blamed the media and the pervasiveness of electronic devices. The gentleman, who blames the atmosphere of children’s competitive sports, blamed the atmosphere of children’s competitive sports. The gentleman, who shows up o...

Photo by Sunyu on Unsplash Last Friday, May 25, the Irish people voted 2 to 1 to repeal the Eighth Amendment to their constitution, an amendment ratified in 1983, and meant to protect the lives of unborn infants. In so doing, the Irish people have opened the door of the henhouse to the fox of "choice," a predator who will not stop until the Irish have killed themselves off, much like the Japanese and most of Europe are already doing. Having the fox's slyness without the dove's innocence, the  "pro-choice" crowd have begun with the unborn, since no one is nauseated by what can't be witnessed. Soon, though, this fox will have the Irish supporting the killing of everyone deemed "enslaved" by life, so long as these mercy killings are kept out of sight. It doesn't take an experienced tracker to see the bloody tracks this fox has left throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, yet, millions are entranced by his innocent gaze and soothing r...

Photo by Tom Roberts on Unsplash Masks are how we protect ourselves or so someone said a long time ago. We wear masks, so others won't come to know the person we perceive ourselves to be. "I don't want you to discover the monster I truly am, so I will pretend to be a jewel around you." That's how it often goes, right? Social media is a great place to observe this. No one ever posts who they really are. The vast majority post who they would like to be. A few post the monsters they believe themselves to be. All of them want someone else to acknowledge the illusion as reality. For example, a Catholic on Twitter tweeted a list of the saints to whom he prays at the end of each rosary he prays and that was it. He didn't ask for feedback or a response of any kind. Why? How are his personal prayer habits relevant to me? Doesn't this seem to violate Christ's injunction to close the door of your room, when you pray ( Matthew 5:5-6 )? Was he trying...

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash The following is a guest post from Michael Einterz , a husband, father, attorney, and a very involved member of St. Alphonsus  Liguori  Catholic Church in Zionsville, IN. One of his many volunteer roles at the parish is as the director of RCIA and adult education. The Catholic Church in America has a problem. This seems to be a universally accepted truth, but the agreement ceases there. The Catholic Blogosphere, including the number of priests and bishops who participate in the discussions, can’t agree on a solution to the problem – and it’s not for a lack of trying.  Although we could drag out volumes of Church History, in my opinion, a review of the attempts to solve the problem can start back in 2012 when Sherry Weddell published her blockbuster Forming Intentional Disciples. Although not the first of its kind, it combined several elements and rightfully became a hit among parishes and Catholic ministers...

Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash I greatly appreciate Fr. Matthew Schneider's (@FrMatthewLC) brief reply to my post, There Is No Secret To Reverse Parish Closings , via his Twitter account on May 11. As before, I wish to address the four points he raises in his reply, then move to a discussion of a larger topic. I greatly respect Fr. Schneider and am eternally grateful for his priesthood and the beautiful witness it is to the world. I will now address his Twitter comments very briefly. 1.     Fr. Schneider first addresses his writing style, describing it as "brief & with catchy headlines to hopefully increase readership." Alright. Increasing readership is an admirable goal for one devoted to evangelizing the masses via Twitter, but shouldn't a little more thought be given to what is being offered to them? While it may be important to form Catholics to evangelize the world, the issues raised in my earlier article requires evangelization and catechesis of t...

Photo by Nathaniel Tetteh on Unsplash On May 8, 2018, Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC, of the Archdiocese of Washington, D. C. published to his blog on Patheos.com  an article entitled,  The #1 Secret to Reverse Parish Closings . While I am not in any way disparaging Fr. Schneider and I do hold him in the highest regard, I do mean to put an end to the lazy, thoughtless, and enduringly unproductive advice he restates, advice which finds relevance only in the small positive feedback loops in which it is circulated like pot at a Willie Nelson concert. We, as Catholics, seem to have a macabre horror of considering as relevant anything that finds Catholics or the Catholic Church at fault for its own problems. Fr. Schneider's oft-repeated trope, that "parish closures come from demographic factors like Catholics moving to the suburbs, ethnic parish attendance dropping, and the population decline of the rust belt," is a perfect example of this mindset.  Other than the ...

Photo by Julien Lanoy on Unsplash A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9 One of the most important aspects of the Catholic understanding of the human person is God's gift to Man of free will. How are we to understand will and free will. The will is that power within the soul, which “must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is happiness…” (S Th, I, q. 82, a. 1). This direction of the will to its last end is “voluntary because it is according to the inclination of the will” (S Th, I, q. 82, a. 1). Although the will is inclined to happiness by necessity as its last end, “we are masters of our own actions by reason of our being able to choose this or that.…choice regards, not the end, but the means to the end…” (S Th, I q. 82, a. 1, r. 3). The individual, furthermore, has free will, because “…man acts from judgement, because because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought…therefore he acts from...

Photo by Zhifei Zhou on Unsplash Wisdom was created before all things,  and prudent understanding from eternity. Sirach 1:4 How important is an understanding of metaphysics for Catholics, but especially catechists? Here is one example. The problem with the materialist world view is that it does not comport with our experiences. A theory asserting that a clump of atoms randomly assorted themselves into Socrates does not account for the individual and personal memories of Socrates. Neither does it account for personal responsibility, since atoms have neither conscience nor a system of morality. Finally, the materialist view cannot account for the unity of the individual across numerous changes, since each new assortment of atoms would be a completely new being. It would be impossible, then, for societies to form and associations to be made. Quantity as an accident inhering in substances can be seen in the various quantities in a human being. For example, there...