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Truth and Idolatry

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Today’s Mass readings start with St. Paul in Athens. The first verse sounds a bit like an installment in a serial novel… ‘after Paul’s escorts took him to Athens…’ What happened before this?

Paul had been in northern Greece and wasn’t too well received. In fact, Philippi is a city in northern Greece where, you may remember, he and Silas were imprisoned, and miraculously released in the night by an earthquake (a favorite story from my Sunday School days).

His friends thought Paul had better find somewhere else to preach, so he was taken to Athens. He arrives in the city and is distressed by the idols everywhere. Naturally, Paul wastes no time in telling the Athenians about Jesus–both at the synagogue and in the marketplace.

He makes his way to the Areopagus, the place where cases were tried and ideas debated. Upon seeing the altar to the ‘Unknown God’, he delivers his famous sermon.

In reading this passage, I was struck by a couple of things. First of all, Paul doesn’t tell the Athenians how wrong they were to worship their idols, and how foolish they were to believe these idols could control their lives. Instead, he tells them of God the Father’s love for them and his plan from creation throughout all of history to provide the means of repentance and redemption through Jesus. He doesn’t need to set up a ‘straw man’ that he then knocks down to prove God’s supremacy over their idols. The message is enough, and it is what they long for because it is the truth.

Secondly, he didn’t convince everyone. He did his best and left the results with God. This leads directly to the Gospel reading about the Spirit of Truth. God’s Spirit will work in the heart of every person in due course. It’s not our responsibility to determine when that is; it is our responsibility to tell them the Good News so the Spirit can work.

These last months of silence due to closed churches have been difficult to endure, much less understand. Perhaps we should see them as an opportunity to boldly proclaim the Good News. Our secular culture has increasingly embraced death during recent years, not just the literal death of abortion and euthanasia, but the spiritual death of calling good evil and evil good. There is no life in it, and those who live by it are desperate for deliverance and might not even know it.

We don’t need to know every nuance of other churches or religions, to explain why the culture of death isn’t working. We know the truth, and, as Paul says, ‘in Him we live, and move, and have our being.’

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Maranatha

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No matter how much we learn or study, no matter how refined our culture or advanced our science, these are still bound to earth and limited by our human limits. It is grace and the indwelling of the Spirit of God that free us and allow us to understand and judge with right judgment, to love freely, and to participate fully in all God desires for us.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that “unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” to which Nicodemus (who seems to take this literally) replies, “How can a man once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” Jesus explains, “Unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

We have two “births” then: a physical birth from our mother’s womb, and a spiritual birth from the baptismal font of Mother Church. It is this second “birth” that opens for us the door to the Kingdom of God. “What is born of flesh is flesh,” Jesus says, “and what is born of spirit is spirit.” Our physical eyes see the physical world; we need spiritual eyes to “see” the spiritual realities. It is necessary for us to be “born of water and Spirit” in order to participate in the life of the Spirit, which is the life of the Trinity – the Family of God!

How does this happen? It is mystery. As mysterious as the source and direction of the wind, but the effects are obvious in a person.

This is not to draw an artificial division between our flesh and our spirit, or make “spirit” the opposite of “body” – we are embodied souls, physical and spiritual! This is, rather, to help us see that we cannot remain simply on the level of the “flesh” but must turn our attention to our eternal souls; we cannot simply be content to take care of the body, but we must be attentive to the spirit. The Spirit Jesus speaks about comes “from above” and is sent by the Father: the Holy Spirit.

In the Holy Spirit, we are called and empowered to live IN Christ, not just near Him, not just next to Him. John’s words at the beginning of his Gospel give insight to this: “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were not born by natural generation nor by human choice nor by man’s decision but of God” (Jn 1:12-13).

Is sacramental Baptism enough? To be born again in Baptism is the beginning, but we must continue to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature and in favor with God! Let’s pray during this Easter season that God will complete the work He has begun in us and bring us to full maturity in the Spirit!

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Love and Devotion

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It’s odd, isn’t it, that you can read something many times, over many years, and miss the obvious. That’s how today’s Gospel appeared to me. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus had Jesus and his 12 over for dinner after Lazarus was raised from the dead. 

How amazing to have dinner with Jesus, let alone with someone who had been dead. What did they talk about? Despite the tradition that Lazarus never smiled after he was restored to life, I imagine this dinner was a foretaste of the last banquet of the Lamb, where the redeemed will sit at table in the heavenly kingdom. 

The Gospel continues with Mary’s act of love and devotion, anointing Jesus with oil. She pours out her love for him, over the objections of Judas, who thinks it too extravagant. 

I always think that everyone in the New Testament who followed Jesus was so poor they barely had enough to eat, but here there’s a dinner thrown for 15 or more. I always picture the stories in scripture like those images from Sunday School where Jesus is on one side, and the crowd is across from him, listening to him, but with a definite divide between them. Not Mary– she’s kneeling at Jesus’ feet, massaging them with scented oil.

How could I have missed the story that was written? Probably because we hear God’s word, then file it away in our memory. Next time that passage comes up, it’s ‘oh yes, I know that story. Isn’t it …sweet or quaint or powerful–fill in the adjective.

But this year, as we begin the final days of Lent, and enter into the Triduum, all of the external busy-ness of life has been put on hold. The days have run together, making it hard to know which day this is, exactly. We have the gift of sitting with Jesus in this present moment and listen carefully to his love story. We can marvel at God’s mercy and experience his grace in a more intimate way. We long for the Sacrament of his Body but offer our act of Spiritual Communion until the time when we can receive him again.

The important thing is to know Jesus is with us, even as we engage in self-isolation and social distancing. We don’t live in the despair of the days between the Crucifixion and the resurrection. Jesus is with us now.

In the movie, Risen, a Roman officer, Clavius, is charged with finding the body of Jesus, which mysteriously disappeared from its guarded tomb. Pilate needs to produce the body to stop the rumors of resurrection. So he searches Jerusalem, coming to a house where he suspects Jesus’ followers are hiding. He breaks in, and finds the apostles joyfully gathered around a man–the man he is searching for. Jesus is engaged with them—looking, listening, smiling–fully present with them. Their fear of the Jewish authorities and the Romans doesn’t matter. Jesus is with them. As he is with us.

Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy… 1 Peter 1:8

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Thoughts on Waiting and Fasting

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It seems the Feast of the Annunciation can often be underplayed. It has great drama, with the angel Gabriel’s announcement and Mary’s humble reply. Our thoughts may go to what we would do if we saw an angel, or would we maybe be a little proud if God chose us for such a task.

This is the day God becomes Man Incarnate. I imagine that from the time Eve was banished from the Garden, with every baby she nursed, she wondered, hoped, and prayed this would be the one to undo her sin. Is it Abel? Could it be Cain? How about Seth? But God was silent.

Through the long years, babies were born, but God was silent. We come to the story of Abraham. God promised a baby to Abraham, but again He delayed. When Isaac was finally born, God asked Abraham to give him up–to sacrifice him–incomprehensible to Abraham, but a picture of God’s love that would be shown to us. But when?

Isaac wasn’t the one, and the years marched on. Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David—all these furthered God’s plan but were not the one that Eve had longed for. The kingdom of Israel is divided, and more kings rise up, with prophets to call them back to God–even Elijah, who called down the Fire of God, is not the one. About 700 years before today’s gospel, the prophet Isaiah tells the wicked king Ahaz to ask for a sign. He will not, but God speaks and promises a virgin will be with child, and that child, her son, will be named ‘God is with us.’

The Jewish calendar numbers our year 1 A.D. as 3761 since the beginning of the world. Three thousand years since God promised he would rid the world of Eve and Adam’s sin, and restore us to his friendship. And Mary says, “Yes, I will.” No complaints about what took you so long, just yes–whatever you want, I want.

As I write, we’re a week into social isolation in the U.S. Seven days–days marked by fear, loneliness, anger, boredom–all of the things we usually experience, but without any distractions.

Masses are shut down, and Jesus seems far away. Two Sundays without the Sacrament and now not even daily Mass is allowed. How shall we survive?

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI writes that perhaps fasting from the Eucharist could help us to deepen and renew our relationship with the Body of Christ:

Today too, I think, fasting from the Eucharist, really taken seriously and entered into, could be most meaningful on carefully considered occasions, such as days of penance…

“A fasting of this kind…could lead to a deepening of personal relationship with the Lord in the sacrament. It could also be an act of solidarity with all those who yearn for the sacrament but cannot receive it. It seems to me that the problem of the divorced and remarried, as well as that of intercommunion (e.g., in mixed marriages), would be far less acute against the background of voluntary spiritual fasting, which would visibly express the fact that we all need that ‘healing of love’ which the Lord performed in the ultimate loneliness of the Cross Naturally, I am not suggesting a return to a kind of Jansenism: fasting presupposes normal eating, both in spiritual and biological life. But from time to time we do need a medicine to stop us from falling into mere routine which lacks all spiritual dimension. Sometimes we need hunger, physical and spiritual hunger, if we are to come fresh to the Lord’s gifts and understand the suffering of our hungering brothers. Both spiritual and physical hunger can be a vehicle of love.”

May our fast from the Eucharist bring us closer to the joys of Easter!

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Photo Courtesy of Henry Ossawa Tanner

Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Love and Mercy

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The parable of the prodigal son is one of Jesus’ better known even in the culture at large. The drama of the ungrateful son callously calling for his inheritance, squandering it, and humbling himself to return to his father resonates with each of us in some way. Who hasn’t arrogantly been sure they didn’t need the authority God has set over them, and gone off to try their own way?

These days, though, it seems the focus of homilies on this parable doesn’t dwell on the blatant sins of the younger son so much as the arrogance and anger of the older. Perhaps we’ve become so complacent about the excesses of modern life that we no longer name as sins, so we focus on our contempt for our ‘brothers’ and our outrage that the father will forgive those heinous sins, never thinking of the enormity of our own disconnect from God’s will.

I think we miss the point. If we ‘fall short of the glory of God’, we’re still short, whether by a mile or a millimeter. Both brothers disrespect their father, and need his love and mercy. And he is ready to take each of them in to give them what they need, not because of their worthiness, but because of his love. In his Lenten Letter of, 2014 Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Diocese of Paterson, NJ writes:

“When we tarnish our dignity as children of God by our sins, the father is ready to clothe us again in his grace through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. However, just as the prodigal son, we need to confess our sins. We are body and spirit. We live by word and deed. We have the need to be seen and to be heard. We need to say our sins out loud to the priest and to hear the words of forgiveness spoken by him in the name of Jesus.”

As St. Athanasius teaches, “Just as a man is enlightened by the Holy Spirit when he is baptized by a priest, so he who confesses his sins with a repentant heart obtains their remission from the priest.”

It is not so much that God cannot forgive us without confession to a priest. Rather, he has given us this great sacrament precisely to meet us in our humanity. Whether we sin like the younger brother, grievously separating ourselves from God, or like the elder brother, separating ourselves from others, frequent confession opens us up to the love of God and helps us to appreciate that we are members of the family of God and not isolated individuals.

The same love that the father shows the younger son, he extends to the elder brother. To his selfish insistence on his own rights, the father tenderly gives a gentle reprimand. He invites him to be seated at table, celebrating the joy of being one family. He waits for his response. He waits for ours.

Taking our place at the Lord’s Table! Being part of the family of God! This is where our observance of Lent leads us. During the forty days of Lent, we deepen our prayer, practice fasting, and increase our works of charity (cf. Matt 6:1-18) to prepare for Easter. On that solemn Feast of feasts, we gather, with the newly baptized, to join with Jesus in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Through the Paschal Mystery, Jesus makes real in our lives the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Jesus goes to the Cross, taking upon himself our sins. He is the son who knows the infinite mercy of the father who says, “This son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found” (Lk 15:24). His road to Golgotha is the way to glory. And so Jesus “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Phil 2:8-9).

The Cross of Jesus is the return of the Prodigal Son, all of us, into the home of our father. For, in the arms of the Crucified Christ, we encounter the father who runs to meet us. He embraces us with his love, even as we try to utter our words of repentance. His love overwhelms us. He invites us to the Eucharist. Seated at our rightful place at the table of the Lord, we already share in the eternal banquet of the Lamb, slain, and raised from the dead, where one day, we will know a joy that never ends.
May our journey through the purification and enlightenment of this Lent bring us to the loving arms of the father who “removes guilt and pardons sin… Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency.”

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Memento Mori

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In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s protagonist embraces a life of complete hedonism, participating in any debauchery that presents itself. His saving grace, or so he thinks, is that his face is not affected by his sins: he still looks young and beautiful and believes people perceive him as such. It’s only the picture in his attic that shows the depths of his degradation.

It’s a great example of the delusion most of us hold when we think of our sins. I’m not such a bad person, people like me. I may forget to pray some days, and sometimes I have to skip Mass (if I have someplace to go). I’m not sure when I went to Confession last, but then, I don’t have any mortal sins to confess. I look pretty good–no one needs to know about my anger at my neighbor, or my skimming from petty cash at work. 

We’re like the pseudo-righteous in today’s gospel, keeping up appearances for the praise of others. It can be difficult in our clean, well-fed, comfortable world to think we need to repent. Our ‘’problems” aren’t sins–they’re addictions or genetically predetermined personality traits, or hey–what’s the big deal— culturally normalized behavior. 

In his mercy, God gives us Ash Wednesday, a day to remember that we are on our way to death–to dust we shall return. The Church proclaims a fast so we can rediscover how far short we fall from God’s glory, and how much we need redemption.

Our lives, not to mention our world, will never be transformed if we don’t see our need for penance that leads to the conversion of heart and deeds of righteousness. In his apostolic exhortation on Penance and Reconciliation,  St. John Paul II wrote: ‘Penance is …a conversion that passes from the heart to deeds and then to the Christian’s whole life.” This Lent, ask God to open your heart to penance, so that you will be reconciled to him, and then to our brothers and sisters. Some day, the picture in the attic will be revealed.

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Everything is Grace

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The Parable of the Sower has always seemed pretty straightforward. If you sow your seeds in the right place, you were in for a good harvest. Let them scatter to the roadway, or on rocks, or where thorns grow, and not so much.

Not being a farmer, I have been inclined to think the soil is at fault here. But reading the church fathers on the parable, they thought differently. The disposition of the soil, whether it’s rocky or on the roadway, is determined by grace. Our redemption is by God’s grace, and the seed even falling on one of the soils is the first act of grace in an individual’s heart.

In the first reading, Nathan has a word from the Lord for David, who can show us how God’s word–the sower’s seeds work in one man. Will David’s heart be the thoroughfare, the rocky soil, or the thorns?

David wants to build a temple, but God says no, it’s not his calling. Nathan recounts how God had worked in David’s life. He took him from the pasture, went with him through all of his battles, and now would give him rest. David did not need to build God a house, that house would be built by David’s heir, God’s true Son.

The fruit that God raises up in David didn’t spring up instantly–it was the product of years of following the God of Israel. In some of those times, his heart was fertile soil, as when he was Israel’s champion against the Philistines and killed the blasphemous Goliath. He would not usurp Saul, who was God’s anointed king. But his heart was not fertile soil for God’s grace when he took Bathsheba and had Uriah killed. Yet God still sends his grace, and David repents when confronted with his sin.

The workings of grace are a mystery. We can only know that God is gracious and loves us and is merciful toward us. Let’s ask him to keep us in his grace, so that we will bear fruit for him.

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Perhaps Today

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Your all-powerful word, from heaven’s royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,
bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.
And as he alighted, he filled every place with death;
he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.

Wow-what an image of the Logos – the Word of God who was God and the maker of all things (John 1: 1-5). I don’t know about you, but as I look around me at the culture, the church, and individual behavior, I think I’d like to see Jesus return as a fierce warrior, filling the earth.

Growing up in a conservative Protestant church, we heard about Christ’s imminent return quite a bit. A famous church leader, M. R DeHaan, even had a motto on his desk that read, “Perhaps today.” He wanted to be reminded daily that Christ could return – would he be ready? I’m not sure I’m as ready as I should be, but I would like to see Him bound from Heaven and fill the earth.

Then we read the Gospel and find a parable that seems somewhat simple compared to such apocalyptic words from Wisdom. A poor widow woman needs justice, and a corrupt judge is her only hope. Although he’s disinclined to listen to her, she wears him down until he finally delivers a just decision just to get rid of her. But Jesus doesn’t leave his disciples (or us) scratching our heads. He explains:

“Will not God secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

So there it is. Do we have faith? Do we pray? If so, do we believe God will answer us and work on our behalf? Does God love us enough to actually take care of us? The Israelites were trapped, with the Egyptian army behind them and the Red Sea in front of them. God showed his love and care and delivered them. He’ll do the same for you and for me–call on him, and don’t grow weary. Marvelous things are in store.

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Pamela joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Feast of All Saints!

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Catholics are a curious group. More than any other Christian believers, they have a culture filled with saints. They name their children after saints, they invoke them in their speech, and they have holidays for them.

Yet, if asked, any given Catholic is not likely to sign up for sainthood. After all, in spite of their ubiquitous presence in Catholic culture, saints are a little suspicious. How could a ‘real’ person–one who enjoys the pleasure of food or drink, or Notre Dame football, whose life is marked by bursts of temper and a preference of friends over the needy–be a saint? No, thanks. Sainthood requires works of charity, continuous prayer, and a generally austere life. We’ll leave sainthood for the spinsters and milquetoasts, whose vocation is akin to being a doormat. Or maybe to the wild-eyed prophet who rebukes society for its excesses, and whose ascetic life justifies his self-righteousness.

Of course, it’s possible that our suspicions about saintliness are wrong. Perhaps the saints are actually people who have the most fun and are the most like what we all long to be. Maybe they just know something we don’t.

In his book, A Third Testament, 20th-century journalist Malcolm Muggeridge calls saints “God’s spies.” Like the “stay-behind agents” in occupied France, the saints are on a mission to ‘relate their time to eternity.” Muggeridge writes:

This has to be done every so often, otherwise, when the lure of self-sufficiency proves too strong, or despair too overwhelming, we forget that men need to be called back to God to rediscover humility, and with it hope. Between the fantasies of the ego and the truth of love, between the darkness of the will and the light of the imagination, there will always be a need for a bridge and a prophetic voice calling on us to cross it.

If we let them, the saints will use their voices to call us. But we need to get to know them, in order to understand the joy that they embraced.

One of the first places to become acquainted with the saints is in Scripture. The stories of the Old Testament are stories of God speaking to individuals and how those individuals respond to God. It is one of the best places to lose the notion that the saints are just goody-goody. Jonah running away from God’s leading, or Balaam beating his donkey, or David turning from God to adultery and murder are not stories of sweetness and light.

Yet when God called these people to Himself, they believed in His love and mercy, named their sins, and repented. Saints aren’t people who don’t sin; they are people who believe in God’s forgiveness.

Well, good for them, but what does this all have to do with me? The Church teaches we can have communion with these saints, who, unlike us, contemplate “in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is.” (CCC 954). We may not understand his will or how to pray. But the saints do, and, just as we ask our friends and family on earth to pray for us, we can ask those in glory to pray for us as well. The Catechism describes their role:

The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom,especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were ‘put in charge of many things.’ Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world. (CCC 2683).

The ‘example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today’: these are the gifts the saints can give us. Knowing their life stories can show us that our difficulties are not unknown to God and not impossible to overcome. Reading their writings can teach us lessons that may not be popular in our culture and our time. And asking for their intercessions will join us to the Church Triumphant, who already lives in the presence of God and serves God’s plan perfectly.

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Pamela Pettibone joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Pray for Ireland!

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Much has been written about Mary, the young woman of Nazareth who said ‘’yes” to God. The gentle Mother who calls us to her Son, known by so many names–the Morning Star, Immaculate Heart, Our Lady of Good Counsel to name a few. We place crowns on her statue, and maybe say a rosary–it’s all so peaceful.

Our Lady of the Rosary, however commemorates the victory of Christendom over the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century, in a bloody battle at Lepanto, Greece. Pope Pius V called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and history recounts that Christians gathered in villages and churches to pray during the epic battle. Over 30,000 lives, both Christian and Muslim, were lost but the Ottoman forces were turned back from Europe. This Is Mary Victorious–she who praised the God who showed ‘’the strength of his Arm…He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.”

Just last month–the month of Mary–the island nation of Ireland voted to ‘reform’ it’s abortion laws. Their constitution made abortion legal only if the life of the mother is at risk, but on May 25 they voted to allow abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

We’ve been down this road before. Already, the pro-abortion lobby is claiming abortion restrictions are ‘cruel, inhuman, and degrading.’ The culture of death prevailed, and more innocent lives will be lost. Why were the prayers of the faithful, entreating Our Lady to intervene in Ireland, not answered? Why was this battle lost?

Who can deny that the evil one has an advantage in our day–causing confusion and distorting the truth. As W. B. Yeats wrote:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

This is exactly when we must call out to God to strike a blow to the enemy, and show that the victory has been won. Our prayers for Ireland have indeed been answered, although we can’t see the victory just yet. But the victory is won–Christ has harrowed hell and risen from the dead.

Let’s rise up with our rosary beads in hand, and continue to  invoke the Blessed Mother, Mary, Queen of Victory, to turn the tide on the culture of death.  Blessed Pope Pius IX said: “Give me an army saying the Rosary, and I will conquer the world.” Let’s put out the call for warriors on our Facebook, and Twitter accounts and join that army in praying the Rosary for an end to abortion. And remember, ‘greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.’ (1Jn 4:4)

Pamela Pettibone joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).

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Pray for Ireland!

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Much has been written about Mary, the young woman of Nazareth who said ‘’yes” to God. The gentle Mother who calls us to her Son, known by so many names–the Morning Star, Immaculate Heart, Our Lady of Good Counsel to name a few. We place crowns on her statue, and maybe say a rosary–it’s all so peaceful.

Our Lady of the Rosary, however commemorates the victory of Christendom over the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century, in a bloody battle at Lepanto, Greece. Pope Pius V called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and history recounts that Christians gathered in villages and churches to pray during the epic battle. Over 30,000 lives, both Christian and Muslim, were lost but the Ottoman forces were turned back from Europe. This Is Mary Victorious–she who praised the God who showed ‘’the strength of his Arm…He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.”

Just last month–the month of Mary–the island nation of Ireland voted to ‘reform’ it’s abortion laws. Their constitution made abortion legal only if the life of the mother is at risk, but on May 25 they voted to allow abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

We’ve been down this road before. Already, the pro-abortion lobby is claiming abortion restrictions are ‘cruel, inhuman, and degrading.’ The culture of death prevailed, and more innocent lives will be lost. Why were the prayers of the faithful, entreating Our Lady to intervene in Ireland, not answered? Why was this battle lost?

Who can deny that the evil one has an advantage in our day–causing confusion and distorting the truth. As W. B. Yeats wrote:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

This is exactly when we must call out to God to strike a blow to the enemy, and show that the victory has been won. Our prayers for Ireland have indeed been answered, although we can’t see the victory just yet. But the victory is won–Christ has harrowed hell and risen from the dead.

Let’s rise up with our rosary beads in hand, and continue to  invoke the Blessed Mother, Mary, Queen of Victory, to turn the tide on the culture of death.  Blessed Pope Pius IX said: “Give me an army saying the Rosary, and I will conquer the world.” Let’s put out the call for warriors on our Facebook, and Twitter accounts and join that army in praying the Rosary for an end to abortion. And remember, ‘greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.’ (1Jn 4:4)

Pamela Pettibone joined Diocesan’s staff in 2006, after a number of years in the non-profit sector. Her experience is in non-profit administration including management, finance, and program development, along with database management and communications. She was a catechist in her parish RCIA program for over 15 years, as well as chairperson of their Liturgy Commision. Received into the Catholic Church as an adult, Pamela’s faith formation was influenced by her Mennonite extended family, her Baptist childhood, and her years as a Reformed Presbyterian (think Scott Hahn).