Okay. So if demons or the devil talks to you, don't listen - and never believe what you hear.

Detail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Fall of the Rebel Angels

The devil hates people - and unnatural vice.

The devil is also a liar.  Christ said he is 'the father of lies'.

Which is why I'm thinking - if he tells you something - don't believe him.  (It might be a good idea not to pay attention to any voices - but check with your confessor or spiritual director first to make sure.)

What am I talking about?  I don't know.  Because I'm not an authority on this stuff.

But here's a thought:

"Spiritual deception is the state of all men without exception, and it has been made possible by the fall of our original parents. All of us are subject to spiritual deception. Awareness of this fact is the greatest protection against it. Likewise, the greatest spiritual deception of all is to consider oneself free from it". - Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov

That's interesting, isn't it?


If you disagree - that's fine - I'm just saying.



Song for this post here.

60 Minutes and Cardinal Sean

I've watched 60 Minutes since its debut in the '60's.  I only missed it when I was in a monastery or being a hermit.

This past Sunday, I watched Cardinal Sean's interview.  I thought it was fine, but could have been better.  He wasn't speaking 'ex cathedra' - obviously.  Of course we know the interview was edited down as well.  Interviews are usually edited for time and content.  I think even Fr. Z experienced that and had to do a post explaining what he really said.  (Go here.)  Cardinal Sean expanded upon the content of his interview as well.  (Go here.)

I am continually appalled by what Catholic commenters write in reaction to everything and anything which comes out in MSM on what this or that religious figure said.  I came across a comment calling Cardinal Sean a slime ball.  Worse things have been said, but that is an evil thing to say.

Anyway.  Rorate Caeli has a very good take on the 60 Minute interview.  I cite it because it is a respectful and dignified response to a Catholic who was obviously confused by what the Cardinal had to say in response to some very tough questions.

Cardinal O’Malley apparently resisted being interviewed on 60 Minutes for a long time but finally gave in. In so doing he put himself into an impossible position of trying to make sense of Church doctrine in a purely secular context, that is, a context that sees everything through the lens of personal rights and equal opportunity. When Norah O’Donnell, his interviewer, first brought up the question of why the Church denies the priesthood to women, the Cardinal’s answer was solid: he referred to the Incarnation and the maleness of Christ. He did not follow that through, however, for he was immediately forced to respond to the question in the secular way of thinking as set by the interviewer: power, fairness, exclusion, discrimination against women. O’Donnell, using “gender” terminology as a preface, asked the Cardinal the set-up question: Do you think the exclusion of women in the priesthood is “immoral”? The Cardinal was put in the position of having to respond to the question in terms of “gender”, gender discrimination. And that is where he stumbled, for Catholics do not believe in the ideology of gender theory. We believe in sex: male and female. He could have gone back to the Incarnation and the maleness of Jesus Christ, but that would be talking about theology, about doctrine, something of no interest to secularists, even Catholic secularists. - Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla

Read the rest here - it is a charitable and respectful commentary. 

I'll say it again - Catholics need to apologize to Dan Brown and Ron Howard ...

Transparency.

What you said in the darkness ... what you have whispered behind closed doors ...

Remember when everyone was up in arms because Dan Brown and Ron Howard 'conspired' together to destroy the Catholic Church with the very, very, outrageously fanciful-fictional "Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons"?  They were called anti-Catholic bigots, out to destroy the Church.  Though the plot was clearly fictional and not a few details were so completely far out that it might have bordered on camp in the hands of a lesser director.  I think the films are highly entertaining and delightfully suspenseful.  I love the sets.  (If only Brown would have used the Legion of Christ instead of Opus Dei for the bad guys - it may have been more believable.  What?)

Just a reminder...

The Dan Brown films, along with "Priest" and "Philomena" and other so-called anti-Catholic films and novels pale in comparison to what is happening in real time, in Rome, online, and in mainstream media... I doubt even the most talented conspiracy theorist could come up with greater drama and scandal.  And it's the Catholics themselves doing all the damage.

Ya gotta laugh...

And apologize to Dan Brown and Opie Taylor Ron Howard.

"Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed." - Today's Gospel

Pa, just what did I do that was so bad?

What is the Pope really saying?

When we do not profess Jesus Christ, the saying of Léon Bloy comes to mind:

 "Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil." 

When we do not profess Jesus Christ, 

we profess the worldliness of the devil, 

a demonic worldliness. - Pope Francis

And who is he saying it to?

Sometimes I just don't know.  A lot of people seem to be confused, and many of us point fingers insisting he's calling out this or that group.  I think we are all reading him wrong.  I also think the majority of journalists are blindly misrepresenting what he says.  Trads feel picked on, of course - they've been the persecuted minority since the Council, right?  But so called "liberals" seem to me at least, to be the ones the Holy Father frequently indicates - something he has done right from the start.

Shortly after being elected he said something about prayer and worship.  He said something like, 'if you do not pray to Christ (God) you pray to the devil'.  Many remarked about how he frequently pointed to the existence of the devil - Satan.  Very liberal people do not do that.  Many liberal religious people go beyond Christ and pray ... to what?  The Pope suggested the devil.  Catholic new age retreat centers ring a bell?  Cenacle sisters retreat centers?  The guy always gets naked retreat centers?  Beyond Christ spirituality?  Ommmm, reiki me over the coals for saying it, but I think the Pope might have been talking to New Age Catholics.  (Sorry - bad Phil Dunphy puns, you'd think I write copy for local news.)

So anyway.  The Pope mentioned the devil again.  

That's so not progressive or liberal.

“We are all tempted because the law of our spiritual life, our Christian life is a struggle: a struggle. That’s because the Prince of this world, Satan, doesn’t want our holiness, he doesn’t want us to follow Christ." - Vatican Radio

So, if you are not praying to Christ, who are you praying to?  Somewhere in the Prophet Hosea it says "Turn to the Lord, take with you words."  Human beings communicate using words - Christian prayer uses words.  When you are lost for words, you can use the psalms, the rosary, the Our Father.  When you pray quietly, you are focused on the one you are with.  When your faculties are suspended, it's a grace.  The prayer of quiet is a gift from Christ.  We don't know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit within us intercedes for us.  Christ is the Word, made flesh - get it?  Of course there are artificial states of prayer, induced states - they are not supernatural, despite the 'levitation' of spirit it brings.

I didn't mean to go off on this, but I've come across some stuff online about prayer which I found kind of weird.  One woman said in an emergency with a family member she began praying for God's help, to heal, to help, to remedy the situation - adding a sort of apology, "I know prayer is supposed to be silent, listening, but I wasn't able to do that."  Well of course you weren't.  And that brings me to the next topic.  The pope on intellectualizing the faith.

Too many theologians?

The Holy Father didn't say that, but he's made remarks suggesting he knows that we know so much about theology and canon law and rubrics and social issues, but maybe lack common-ordinary-mysticism.  Even priests.  Perhaps that's why some of their homilies can be so boring - and maybe - just maybe - why they find the new translation so difficult to say/pray.  This kind of ties in with Francis' campaign against clericalism as well - especially of the laity - too many deacons?  He didn't say that, I'm not saying it, but he did kind of sort of praise simple lay people who pray.  But I digress.

Speaking to representatives of the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute.

The other aspect that I wish to share is that of the relation between study and the spiritual life. Your intellectual commitment in teaching and in research, in study and in the broadest formation, will be that much more fruitful and effective the more it is animated by love of Christ and of the Church, and the more solid and harmonious will be the relation between study and prayer. This is not something ancient, it is the center!

This is one of the challenges of our time: to transmit knowledge and to offer a key to vital understanding, not a cumulus of notions unconnected among themselves. There is need of a true evangelical hermeneutic to understand life, the world and men better, not of a synthesis but of a spiritual atmosphere of research and certainty based on the truths of reason and of faith. Philosophy and Theology enable one to acquire the convictions that structure and strengthen the intelligence and illumine the will … but all this is fruitful only if it is done with an open mind and kneeling. The theologian who is content with his complete and closed thought is a mediocre 'theologian'. The good theologian and philosopher has an open thought, that is, incomplete, always open to the maius of God and of the truth, always developing, according to that law that Saint Vincent of Lerins described as “annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate” (Commonitorium primum, 23: PL 50, 668): it is consolidated with the years, it dilates in time, it is deepened with age. This is the theologian that has an open mind. And the theologian that does not pray and does not adore God ends up in sickening narcissism. And this is an ecclesiastical sickness. The narcissism of theologians, of thinkers does so much harm, it is sickening. -  Zenit

Traditionalists might believe the Pope is going after them - again.  I'm not at all sure of that.  As a priest and bishop, the Holy Father went through all the changes in the Church that we did.  He was often considered to be too conservative during the course of his priestly life, and I believe somewhat marginalized for a time.  Liberal/progressive dissent is fairly well embedded in the post-Vatican II Church. I think the Pope may be talking to them just as much as he is talking to traditionalists.

I also think the Pope recognizes the crisis in [Catholic] education.

He said that it is every child’s right to grow up in a family “with a father and a mother” capable of creating “a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity”. The Pope also called for an end to what he termed as “educational experiments” with children and young people, pushing a “dictatorship of one form of thinking” on them in the name of a pretended “modernity”. 

The Pope noted that the “horrors of the manipulation of education that we experienced in the great genocidal dictatorships of the twentieth century have not disappeared; they have retained a current relevance under various guises and proposals”. 

To counter this he urged the BICE members to foster a true anthropological formation of the child respectful of the reality of the person, to enable children and young people to respond to the problems and challenges posed by contemporary culture and widespread mentality propagated by the mass media. - Vatican Radio

 I bet he knows kids are being screwed up in Catholic schools.

"What does Satan do to distance us from the path of Jesus? Firstly, his temptation begins gradually but grows and is always growing. Secondly, it grows and infects another person, it spreads to another and seeks to be part of the community. And in the end, in order to calm the soul, it justifies itself. It grows, it spreads and it justifies itself.” - Pope Francis

Just saying.

What?

What's wrong with that? Is there something wrong with that? 

Why, why, why is that something wrong to do? I don't understand that. 

Why are you pointing the finger at other people all the time? 

Why don't you point the finger at yourself? 

Do a little more reading, maybe? 

Some time in court - maybe that would be effective for you!

"Behold, a little cloud rising from the sea" ... Kings 18:44

Image depicting Kings 18:44

"In the bush seen by Moses, we recognize the preservation of your glorious virginity, O blessed Mother of God." - Antiphon; Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Church Fathers tell us the advent of the Messiah was foreseen by the Prophets in the scripture I've cited here.  For centuries, iconographers have depicted these events by giving form to the prophecy of Isaiah, "The virgin shall be with child"; and from another place, "The woman shall encompass a man." - Jer 31:22   Hence, the archetype, prototype of the Virgin of the Sign is frequently included in icons of the Virgin of the Burning Bush, Carmelite icons, and so on.

Consider the passage from Kings, the cloud rising from the sea - no bigger to Elijah's sight than a man's fist... So how is it?  How, O how, does one see the Holy Virgin in that manifestation?  Or in the bush seen by Moses?  Or Gideon's fleece?*  I say it is by faith.

Yet today - when the ordinary and simple, but devout, are convinced they see an image of the Virgin in a tree trunk, they are roundly mocked and called 'loons' and are an embarrassment to the sophisticated Catholic 'hierarchy' of the highly educated and pedigreed... the 'magisterium of approved Catholic bloggers'.  I'm reminded of one of the canticles or psalms from the Liturgy of the Hours, "This is the one I approve, the lowly and afflicted man, who trembles at my word." - Isaiah 66:2

"I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, even the stones will cry out.” - Luke 19:40 

Or, why not a tree trunk?

Personally, I'm not 'into' pareidolian phenomena, nor would I even try to promote this type of spirituality or devotion, neither do I suggest people ignore diocesan authority:  Although, as I suggested in an earlier post, such incidents may have happened in the past - from whence approved devotions developed, and fervor spread.  Nevertheless, I find it odd that ordinary people who struggle, often like sheep without a shepherd, can be so easily dismissed and mocked for their simple piety and cultural instincts.  Especially considering how Medjugorje continues to be promoted amidst investigations and allegations of fraud; or dubious mystics are promoted for sainthood (Cora Evans); while New Age spirituality infects diocesan programs and parishes, retreat centers and convents, all over the country.  Indeed, in our day, even those who should know better, deny the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so it is nothing to mock 'the lowly and afflicted', who show reverence before what is holy.

*       I will put this fleece of wool on the floor: if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as thou has said, thou wilt deliver Israel. And it was so. And rising before day wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew. And he said again to God: Let not thy wrath be kindled against me if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece. I pray that the fleece only may be dry, and all the ground wet with dew. And God did that night as he had requested: and it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. (Judges 6:37-40)

"When the Son of Man returns will he find any faith on earth?"

Our Fascination With Exorcism and Exorcists.

WARNING!  Video content disturbing and sexually suggestive. 
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Ed. note:  I posted the video because it is a fascinating interpretation of a historical case of possession of an entire convent of Ursuline nuns in France.  The story as we know it is based upon the non-fiction novel The Devils of Loudun, by Aldous Huxley.  The film clip is a bizarre representation of repressed sexuality, religious fervor, exaggerated mystical piety, and the idealization of priests; climaxing in sadistic public exorcisms as well as the bewitched, promiscuous, errant priest burned at the sake.  Somewhat analogous - in an exaggerated sense of course - to what is going on today.  I know many of you will most likely disagree.  I don't mind.
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Authority
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Most of us have a certain awe of exorcism.  That is one reason why movies are made on the subject.  It is also why strict protocols are established for the ritual, only to be conducted with authorization from the local Ordinary.  The local bishop.  As Catholics we hold our priests in great esteem, and exorcists seem to hold a very special fascination for most.  This is understandable since Canon Law states that the priest, chosen by the local Ordinary to perform exorcisms must be a priest 'endowed with piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life.' [C. 1172]  Thus we tend to have what appears to be a higher regard for someone we perceive as a holy man, a man of authority and power.  Frequently, it seems many people place more credence in what an exorcist says or writes publicly, about such things as apparitions of the Blessed Virgin or private revelation, than we do in what our bishops teach and caution about the same.  This demonstrates how much power and authority the exorcist can hold over the public imagination.
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Abuse.
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Exorcists are permitted by the local ordinary, therefore the priest does not act on his own initiative.  The ritual is public, although it is conducted in private with witnesses.  To conduct an exorcism without permission, and without witnesses is an abuse.  Therefore, I should think the vulnerable subject can rightly be considered a victim of abuse - even before sexual encounter.  Exorcism is a public rite of the Church - therefore, any abuse becomes a matter of public concern.
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My concern.
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I think I mentioned before that I have a friend whose vulnerable condition and state in life - an obedient novice -  had been taken advantage of by a priest she went to for counsel - this woman is still screwed up.  Like I said, I don't know who the priest is.  She wasn't a candidate for an exorcism, and to my knowledge, he was not an exorcist.  My point is that women seem to be the forgotten victims in abuse situations, and priests seem to be easily excused when it comes to heterosexual misconduct - consensual or not.
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When I think of my friend and her suffering, I get angry.  Prayer helps me through it.
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Please don't demonize the victims or the messengers.

Another reason some young people may decide to avoid a church wedding.

Aside from a lack of faith.
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I was reading Fr. Z's post regarding wedding stipends or stole fees to the priest witnessing a marriage ceremony in a Catholic church.  Fr. Z suggested that $100 dollars is not an excessive 'stole fee' given to the priest in appreciation for his services.  Father indicated it could be more.  Ordinarily this offering would be on top of that given for the use of the church, the music director's fees, and if servers are used - tips for the altar boys.  It dawned on me that young people, who can be somewhat apathetic about religious services in general, not to mention conventional etiquette, may not want to bother with such formalities.  I'm not just talking about the unchurched kids of fallen away Catholics either.  College kids and young urban professionals, although they or their families could afford it, may not want to bother with the added expense of a church wedding.  What I'm trying to say is that a lot of unmarried couples use the money angle as an excuse either not to marry at all, or to opt for a simple civil ceremony.  (I have no idea what civil fees amount to.) 
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Anyway - when I first read the post, a fee of $100 or more seemed a bit steep to me.  (I've never been married and so the practice of paying the celebrant never even occurred to me.)  I checked around however and it does appear a stipend reflecting the level of grandiosity for the wedding extravaganza is expected, and $100 may indeed be on the cheap side. 
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Normally, diocesan priests are salaried and housing is offered/provided by the parish or institution to which they are assigned, hence the priest does not necessarily live off the stipends received - unless he lives in the third world.  So naturally I just assumed... 
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I believe it is the responsibility of the bishop of the diocese to regulate matters concerning monetary offerings involving Mass stipends and the like.  (Of course a Catholic is not expected to make an offering for the sacrament of penance, or the anointing of the sick, the blessing of sacramentals or other such things.)  As to be expected, parishes are supported from regular offerings by the faithful through collections, donations, endowments and fundraising events.  Each parish may be budgeted differently, but I'm quite certain a portion of the income received supports the priest and his residential requirements in addition to his salary.  I might be wrong about that however. 
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Regardless, the most important thing for non-practising Catholics and non-believers to understand is that the Mass and the sacraments are not for sale - Catholics do not pay for the sacraments - but we do provide support for our priests.  Discussions about fees, stipends, offerings, and 'price-fixing' is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Catholic Church for 'outsiders' and critics of the Church to pick up on.  Very often lapsed Catholics and non-believers hear this stuff and convince themselves the Church is just after their money - we've all heard it.  Unfortunately trying to defend the practice can sometimes make the priesthood sound like an ordinary career with a pay scale for different levels of service.
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Generally I think weddings are overdone anyway - they are usually much too extravagant and ostentatious. 
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"All you who are thirsty, come to the water; You who have no money come, receive grain and eat;  Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk." - Isaiah 55:1 
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Links:
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Pittsburgh - St. Paul's Cathedral Wedding Costs
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Edmond, OK - St. John the Baptist Wedding Costs.