luminousmiseries :):(

The soon to be canonized Bl. André Bessette, C.S.C expressed the following prayer for the intercession to St. Joseph  to a friend who was in great need:

O good Saint Joseph, grant me what you yourself would ask if you were in my place on earth, with numerous family and financial difficulties to overcome. Good St. Joseph of Mount Royal, be my help, harken to my prayer.

It is a prayer of total reliance, even of abandonment to the will of God. It is my renewed prayer today.

It first spoke to me when I read it in the little book bought for me by a dear old lady and fellow pilgrim to the June 2008 49th International Eucharistic Congress – a trip I paid mostly out of pocket with money earned by teaching a course, money that for all intents and purposes should have gone toward bills and debt – during a time when I was un-to-under employed as a result of our conversion to the Catholic Church. The challenges, while somewhat lessoned, continue to this day.

Yesterday I received some interesting news. I’ve also learned to keep hope alive without, quote unquote, getting ones hopes up. There’s a balance.

For me this prayer, which now becomes the prayer to follow my Morning Offering prayer continues to speak deeply to me. It is a prayer which reflects both our Blessed Lady’s “Yes” and our Lord Jesus’ “not my will but Yours” and it does so under the care of her husband, His adoptive father, a righteous man who must have known what it was both to struggle to provide and to defend Truth in equal measure and who had the kind of faith that only comes with abandonment to the Divine Will.

Bl. Andre Bessette, thank you for your model of prayer, your life of service, your abandonment to the Divine Will, your respect and love of St. Joseph patron saint of our nation and of all workers, employed and unemployed. As I pray the prayer you have given us I also ask for your own intercession on behalf of our needs. Pray that I may more fully surrender to the will of Our Father in Heaven.

Lord, hear our prayer. {illuminate!}

The following has continued to speak to me since I entered it into my journal from the book I was reading at the time. Edits in closed brackets are mine for clarity. Notes in grey type are mine, again for clarity. The remainder is taken directly from the book “as is” except for the text in bold where bold is my emphasis and, if you skimmed down and read nothing but that one line, well, that would be fine as that is the core of why I post this extended quote. {illuminate!}

In Manuscript B [of The Story of A Soul] we have the memorable story of the little bird, in which [Thérèse] saw a symbol of herself in the terrible darkness of her night of faith. The little bird has the aspirations of an eagle but cannot soar as the eagle can to the lofty heights of “the Divine Sun.” Unworried by its weakness, it remains steadfast in its trust that beyond the clouds the Sun goes on shinning. “Nothing will frighten it, neither wind nor rain, and if the dark clouds come and hide the Star of Love, the little bird will not change its place because it knows that beyond the clouds its bright Sun still shines on.”

Continuing the metaphor, [Thérèse] homed in on her human failings, which she never allowed to discourage her. “Being unable to soar like the eagle, the poor little birds is taken p with the trifles of earth. It chases a worm, gets its feathers wet in a muddy pool, becomes preoccupied with a flower.” But instead of worrying, it never loses heart.

For all its lyrical loftiness, Marie [Thérèse's sister to whom she wrote these words in explanation of her love for God and her understanding of her vocation "which she knew God was insistently calling her, "to be love in the heart of the Church." ] failed to understand the point Thérèse was making in her letter. Rather than inspiring her [sister], Thérèse reply only heightened Marie’s sense of her own inadequacy. “I have read your pages burning with love for Jesus. But a certain feeling of sadness came over me in view of your extraordinary desires for martyrdom. They are proof of your love. Yes, you posses love, but I myself! No.” To answer her objection, Thérèse wrote a final letter on September 17, the last day of her retreat. It is regrettable that this letter is not included in Manuscript B of the autobiography because Marie is not alone her reaction. It was in this last letter that Thérèse laid her questioning to rest with a clear statement of what she meant. Her words are revolutionary: Let me tell you, Marie, that my desires for martyrdom are nothing. It is not they which give me the unlimited confidence which I feel in my heart….What pleases God in my little soul is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty: it is the blind hope that I have in His mercy. [The emphasis is Thérèse's.] That is my only treasure. Why can it not be yours?…To love Jesus, the more one is suitable for the operations of (God’s) consuming and transforming love. It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to love.”

That passage in her letter of September 17 is the clearest expression of the Little Way that Thérèse has left us. It puts an end to all the objections which Marie or Maurice or anyone at all might make about his or her human failure. How can someone as mediocre as I, we say, presume to love God? Thérèse answer is bold : “The more one is weak, without desires and without virtues, the more one is suited for the operations of God’s consuming and transforming love.” Discouragement is simply not allowed in the spirituality of Thérèse. We may approach Him no matter how poor we are, in fact, the poorer the better, for the more we may then rely on God. No matter in what situation we find ourselves, the only requirement is that we put our trust in His merciful love.

The Little Way is a whole new way of life, a way of holiness that is open to all because it requires nothing from anyone but the ordinary, day-to-day experience of which every life is made. Steeped in her mission of love, Thérèse saw no reason to take upon herself great penances, which were common n th Carmel of hr day. She soon gave them up, content to offer God the small sacrifices which came in the routine of community life, the little occasions to be kind to others, the apostolate of the smile when smiling at another was the last thing she felt like doing. Such opportunities to demonstrate love for God by showing it to others abound in everyone’s daily life.

- Patrick Ahern, Maurice & Thérèse The Story Of Love, pub Doublday

Way back on Ash Yesterday, a virtual Lenten lifetime ago, I wrote “I was seriously considering giving it up all social networking and blogging for Lent but then God, I think it was he, surprised me.”

Here on this Second Friday in Lent I am subsequently wondering if indeed it was NOT God at all but only my mortal wishes being ascribed to him and overlapped by my own pride and judgemental attitude expressed with a flippancy that is an occasional weakness of mine which I then templated upon others in that post.

There might have even been a good point in there, somewhere, maybe, but I know in my own heart is deceitfully wicked itself and has often aided in the creation of blind-spots or in fact not blind-spots but a blindness I am quite aware of but choose to ignore which is most certainly a near occasion of sin if not resulting in actual sin. There might have been the odd point in there but as it is today I see it’s mostly drivel.

I am dust, that much is clear. I debated removing that post but to do so seems even more vain and self deceiving than leaving it up and offering this self correction here.

- – -

I could have, maybe should have, maybe still should just take a total break from blogging (writing and reading) during Lent; I have moderated all of that quite dramatically but I still suffer from distraction and allowing myself to be too taken up in what amounts to the pointless arguments and godless chatter (my dear and fellow plurk friends should not read anything into this statement for that little community is one of the best things about being on-line for me these days) .

I am bringing this to my spiritual director soon and quite frankly if there isn’t a clear mandate and permission for me to blog here or on my art blog then that will be that. In fact I think I do have a mandate to write and create art on-line but I am just as certain I am operating outside of it. Little wonder James 4 speaks to me in swift, deft blows.

6 But he gives more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. [James 4 - RSV-CE]

I can play the mental gymnastics game in truly Olympian proportion telling myself that I am not being judgemental or critical and that we are called to examine, to judge in a certain sense, the actions and beliefs of others and especially those who are of the Faith but when the lights go out only I know that I am standing in the empty arena of regret and self doubt and what my motives were or weren’t.

The consolation in recognizing oneself as dust, as having failed, again, is found in the words of that Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the giant of littleness:  “The more one is weak, without desires and without virtues, the more one is suited for the operations of God’s consuming and transforming love.”

Priest and writer Patrick Ahern {Maurice & Thérèse The Story Of Love, pub Doublday} comments on those words of St. Thérèse [emphasis mine]:

Discouragement is simply not allowed in the spirituality of Thérèse. We may approach Him no matter how poor we are, in fact, the poorer the better, for the more we may then rely on God. No matter in what situation we find ourselves, the only requirement is that we put our trust in His merciful love.

And I shall leave it there. {illuminate!}

Last year for the 15 days leading up to Ash Wednesday I was in hospital following what should have been an out patient procedure. Things went very wrong. I received the final sacrament, twice.

During that time, when not tricked up on the wrong pain killer and the wrong anti biotic i.e. when I was with it, I thanked my nurses for what they did for me and for the others on the ward. One nurse, I gathered, was a survivor of the ethnic cleansing that took place in the former Yugoslavia. She’d seen it all. Here she was caring for others, most of whom, from what I observed, showed no appreciation for all she and her kind did for them; few of their “loved ones” said thanks. I wanted to be sure these nurses knew someone, even if only one was grateful.

So one terrible, delusional night I rallied some inner stuff and said to that kind Serbian or Croatian women (I confess my ignorance on her exact nationality) and as she put a needle expertly home and gave me pills and straightened sheets and answered a call coming in from somewhere while adjusting my IV and wiping sweat from my face and chest – I said “Thank you.”

In her soft voice she answered, “For what?”

“For all you do for us.” Large dark eyes hesitated over mine for a moment, then glanced at her watch then back up again and after a beat without the slightest hint of her small warm smile she said, “I’m just doing my job.” This was factually true but there must be more to it all than that, after all, it’s the job she chose. I know she saw the tear slip out. She only barely prevented herself from wiping it. And, she was gone. I didn’t see her again. Maybe her shift and room charge changed. Maybe we frightened each other. All I wanted to do was say, Thanks. {illuminate!}

P.S. Yes, this is NOT the story of the nurse who tried to kill me and that will come as these 1 year ago today stories find there way here.

P.P.S. You can read a nurse story from the other side of the bed written byThe Crescat

In October of 1979 I walked into a “Christian” bookstore for the first time ever. I was freshly born-again and was in need of holy tunes. I had a rather large music collection but my new Pentecostal pals told me that the question, which up to that moment I had never heard —”why should the devil have all the good music?”— had been answered by a growing crop of Jesus-peeps like Larry Norman (who was the one who asked and answered that same question in a rocknroll song) and Uncle Rand, Sweet Comfort Band and dear Ms Herring and her 2nd Chapter of Acts (not only a book but a band name) and a host of other early CCMers (Contemporary Christian Music) including Amy when she was still the girl next door who hand’t crossed-over yet (cross-over at the time being not an accolade but a finger pointing condemnation).

I didn’t know any of them from Adam (or AdamAgain) —and most of my gentle Catholic readers today (apart from some old charismatics) won’t have a clue either (but nostalgia caught me up briefly into a sort of third heaven)— yet I walked right on into that store hoping to get myself armed with a big KJV copy of God’s Word, in black preferably, because that was fullatheHolyGhostandpower and of course I wanted some righteous tunes.

What I walked out with was in fact a translation I could actually understand and two LPs that might surprise. Bob Dylan and John Michael Talbot. I know.

In those mom n’ pop Christian bookstore days most often you couldn’t sample music before buying. You just had to trust the Lord and lay down your cash, sorta thing. If you didn’t dig it when you got home, tough but you could always be glad you had supported the work of the Lord and momnpop’s table.

In that non-sampling vein I picked up Bob’s LP. I had no idea what a born-again Dylan would sound like but given that I knew most of his work to date and loved it and given that I was myself born-again, how far off could my selection be? But what was up with the other choice?

John Michael Talbot, the name meant nothing to me but I loved the moody looking jacket in somber tones picturing a guitar lying on it’s side behind a nifty looking goblet sort of thing next to some grapes and a couple of pieces of flat round bread. “The Lord’s Table” was subtitled “With Choir and Orchestra” and heck, I loved classical music so this couldn’t be too bad a choice. The back of the jacket sported the unhip song titles of, Prelude, We Shall Stand Forgiven, Creed I and Creed II, Holy Holy Holy, Communion Song, The Lord’s Prayer and finally Lamb of God. I roughly knew what Communion was (at least the “this is just a metaphor” version) and of course who didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer? But, Creed I and II? Weren’t they characters in a spaghetti Western?

Anyway, I bought it. I loved it. I played it over and over. It “spoke” to me. It was WAY different than what I was hearing in those praise and worship services I was attending twice on Sunday and mid-week bible study and especially different from Youth night. I tried to like that P&W, no, I did try. I made an effort to raise hands and clap like everyone else and in all the right places too. *sigh*

Now, not a few dear Catholic readers will know that that Talbot album is the prayer of the Holy Mass in song. It is the prayers of the Mass and I was singing those prayers along with John Michael, his choir and orchestra. I was cluesless that it had anything to do with anything Catholic but I loved it.

Imagine, I was singing the words of the prayers of the Mass including those powerful words centering around the reception of the literal presence of the Lord Jesus according to the ancient ritual of the Church. “Lord, I am not worthy but say the word and I will be healed.” Wow. I had no idea! In a way it’s beautiful, it’s GRACE in capitals and in another way it’s just hi-freaking-larious.

I was doing some journal writing this weekend and happened to be playing that very album, all be it in it’s mp3 format these days, and was swept back to that memory to make a connection I had not yet made, even after being Catholic for four years now.

Hindsight is sometimes a marvellous way to grasp the foreknowledge of God.

Could it be that back in ‘79, still wet behind my born-again ears the Lord Jesus Christ was beckoning me on home to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, the Catholic Church? Yeah, I think so too. {illuminate!}

I was seriously considering giving it up all social networking and blogging for Lent but then God, I think it was he, surprised me.

Yesterday following reception of the Ashes I thought the harder thing to do might actually be to learn how to moderate my time better; to work on growing that self control thing specifically by NOT just taking the problem away because, really, the problem is me.

A total abstinence, while seeming super righteous, might really be the easier of the two.

If one way is to altogether stop doing something then I am not doing it at all because I have made it 100% verboten which effectively means I can just fahgeddaboutit, period, and while it would be best to then fill that time with something I view as more helpful to my spiritual growth during Lent chances are good I might not.

Now, if the other way is to learn to exercise prudence and self control over 40 days by moderating my time on-line and still accomplishing those other Lenten add-ons then THAT IS SPIRITUAL GROWTH in and of itself, at least, it’s one important aspect of it and, I’ve got some actual working out of my own salvation to do. In turn that requires further, GREATER not lesser, reliance on God as it is he alone who can give me the kind of grace I’m going to need to even want to do his will —which is, I agree, a fairly loose translation of Philippians 2:12,13:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

And, um, another thing.

For days, as I thought about ditching my preoccupation with being online, I was not above considering how I could post to all my friends about on my blog or social network, tell them all about my pious act, (ahem) which in the end is maybe, sort of, don’t you think a bit like doing the very opposite of what we are told to do in the Gospels when we fast from something? Well, I thought so.

Oh, I know, in fairness telling people about our intended cessation of being on-line for 40 days could be sincere, a kind of courtesy to let people know we haven’t simply dropped of the ether planet. True enough. I just know my own heart is a very trixy thing a.k.a. Jeremiah 17:9; The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?.

At any rate, for some reason I kept stalling the decision and when Ash Yesterday arrived for real and I was going to do “it” right after Mass but then I had this little internal prompting, or what ever, that seemed to present to me a version of me I didn’t like so much and an alternate way of bringing correction and improvement; the way I mentioned above. So, you know, in a moderated fashion, here I still am. {illuminate!}

P.S. A long time on-line friend who hasn’t posted hardly a jot or a tittle for the better part of a year on her blog suddenly comes back specifically because it is Lent and intends to post daily. What’s  a goy to do?

Enjoy this little Ash Wednesday emoticon that I just made. If you’d like to give credit where it’s due, I’ll be fine with that.

Today is Ash Wednesday. God bless you.

Convert cleric Fr. Dwight Longenecker, writes What shall we do with the convert clergy? in a post on catholic.org Yeah, convert clergy, that’d be me.

He talks about those Anglicans, he was one, and those Lutherans too but he also raises the matter of the rest of us non liturgically based former ministers, yeah, what do you do with us? You don’t hear people in the Church talking much about us. It’s a good article. I can’t believe there is so little discussion. Ah well. I added a comment of my own this morning. As it hasn’t posted yet, or maybe it won’t ever be for some reason, I’ve decided to plunk it down here. What I say here will make more sense if one reads the original article but hey, it’s not like I can force you too.

As a former ordained Protestant minister of 18 years —”…theologically trained and pastorally experienced.”— but from a non liturgical setting who, along with my entire family, was received into the Church in January of 2006. Since then I have been somewhat ontologically challenged and without a doubt financially wrecked. We knew this could happen but knowing the fullness of truth made it impossible for me to remain Protestant despite the cost. After all, we are talking eternity not just the here and now. So, from where I reside in Canada I can only say, Amen! to the bold vision you have presented and am reminded of the words from Acts {here offered in the spirit of “one interpretation yet many applications} “for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.”

As if this past autumn I am working as a part time adult catechist in a local parish and I thank God for this and for the local priest who has made this possible and for our Bishop and since our conversion I have been asked a number of times to share that story with both men’s and women’s groups. To my very real surprise I am humbled to have been invited to be the Lenten Mission speaker at a local parish. None of this came quickly, nor should it have, though I admit to wanting it to have come about faster and continue to learn to overcome discouragement and even depression by faith, submission and learning “offer up” all things to God through Christ.

I would love to take “Catholic” moral, theological and liturgical training” but haven’t a Canadian Loonie (dollar) to spare toward that cause. Similarly, being financial less than sound, I am aware that I am not a candidate for considering the diaconate.

That said, I do not agree with those who say that married priests are in any way an *ipso facto* answer to the perceived North American vocational crisis in the Catholic Church. Rather it seems where there is doctrinal orthodoxy, holy priests and holy men and women religious, and perpetual Adoration there is little vocational crisis. I am here reminded of the 2006 book, The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism.
And finally {boy, I even sound like a preacher} being a former ordained minister does not automatically make one suited or called to be a priest. I think you make this clear in all that you have said in your article.

May God continue to grant grace and wisdom to his Church through the leadership and authority of our Pope and those bishops and laity who are faithful to the Church.

For the record, I would not have seen this article but for a dear lay person and champion of convert clergy who forward the link to me. JR – if you happen to read this; thank you.

{illuminate}

Conversation overheard in the Narthex:

“Is he new here?”
“Think so, yeah.”
“He’s carrying a bible. Is he a deacon or something?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Probably just some Protestant visiting family then.”

The guy holding the bible was me, the new Catholic convert.

P.S. The story will continue.

[Part 1] The final blow was waking up on a ward floor instead of out-patient recovery with curtains partially drawn and me having no idea of what time or day it was or why I was there, apart from the excruciating pain in my lower back, upper legs and my entire GI. A nurse checked vitals, asked me questions such as what was my name, where I lived, what religion was I. What religion was I? Catholic, why? Did I want to see a priest? What the hell? My wife was on the way. What? I went out.

Because of the ongoing problems following the gall bladder operation, including another emergency trip to the hospital late in January, I had been scheduled for an endoscopy; a little exploratory camera work down down the pie whole toward the stomach to be followed by, as necessary, a little internal vacuuming out. I had to sign a waver saying that I understood that in a very small percentage of the population this standard procedure could actually cause a gall bladder / pancreatic attack which in still smaller proportions could be a serious attack. Guess what percentage of the population I was in? That’s right, the percentage in  which God knows that we can be tempted beyond what we thought we could endure.

Just what I didn’t need but then, who does? Turns out my “levels” were off the map, tests were scheduled, intestinal and upper bowel ultra sound, CAT scan, possible blockage, something on the upper bowel that yadda yadda blur of medispeak, all routine —sure.

When I woke again it was to find my DW there at the end of the bed, she looked stressed —that’s polite. Fr. M was on his way and then instantly, like an angel, there he was. In fact, I think I went out again. The look on Father’s face told me how I must look. I knew how I felt. He spoke to me and I tried to respond but the drugs were making it so that my mouth was now speaking the language of the foreign country of which my body had become.

Then this priest did something so respectful, honouring and compassionate I will remember it forever. He looked to DW and asked us both if it would be OK if he spoke with me through her. Somehow loved ones seem to be able to communicate with each other even in the extremes in ways others cannot break through. I gave some indication of my Yes and DW also. Thus he honoured me, I was not a third party.

He began the Sacrament of healing and of preparation for the potential end of things here and entrance into the life beyond. The words he spoke came from a small prayer book, words steeped in grace and theology both, words not being made up on the spot, not “storming heaven” —whatever people think that means or does— but words of quiet authority and of mercy, words not meant to impress God or patient with spiritual acumen, words not telling God what to do but of confident surrender to God’s will, words of Confession and of absolution. The oil was applied to forehead and hands and while I would face 14 more days of varying degrees of pain before the medical professionals would finally let me go, a wave of peace, the kind that passes human understanding filled me.

I assure you I understand the reasons for the change of the name and somewhat of the nature of this Rite of the Church but I can also assure you, on that day I fully believed it was entirely possible I was receiving my last rites.

Now, one year ago today, the 15th of February 2009 it was the day before Ash Wednesday and I finally got to go home. Since February 1 through to today I have not been able to stop thinking that one year ago our personal world was very, very different and daily I have given thanks for where we are, where I am today. In continuing to write about this, as I will in the days ahead, I finally have enough distance (and improved health to be) processing those days and my hope is that by doing this here, on-line, some small thing may connect with and help or bless even one dear reader. Or maybe I just need to work this out, for myself?

Still to come, the nurse who tried to kill me (really?) and the grace of the Rosary on a desperate day, my return for Ash Wednesday, the place of redemptive suffering and my DD1’s dying friend and perhaps other stories.

From my hospital sketch book from January 2009 during recovery from one of the post gall bladder removal attacks. I was in for a nearly a week following Christmas before I saw solid food and I felt more comfortable drawing it than eating it.

One year ago today at roughly 4:45PM I was discharged from hospital following a fifteen day stay that began with what should have been an “out-patient” procedure until something went very wrong and culminated in my receiving the final sacrament.

On the second weekend of October I suffered an unexpected attack at my mother’s place where family had gathered for Canadian Thanksgiving. Unexpected because at just shy of 49 I was in excellent health, as far as we knew. I ate little red meat, ate no fatty foods and was considered a non drinker by life insurance standards and while in no way a sports fanatic I was a year round bicycle commuter. I was later told that some of us are just hard wired for these things, the theological implications of which I am not that interested in pursuing.

Unexpected because there was no lead up of any kind, no progression of warning pains, of signs. Suddenly I was writhing on the floor like a baby, dripping in a cold sweat, having trouble breathing and feeling as if someone had just taken my entire GI and rammed it into a spike toothed vice grip. It lasted 45 minutes. I promised to see my doc when we got home.

Multiple attacks would follow, fourteen within two months, three of which would be 911 calls to transport me to ER before it was determined that I was experiencing gall stones and pancreatitis and surgery was confirmed for just ahead of Christmas.

At that time I was given the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick as is not uncommon for a Christian facing an operation. I was later told that four “stuffed olive” sized stones were found in my gall bladder as well as not a few small stones, which are in fact the real hellions. I was in for just over a week as busy medical people worked to stabilized my liver enzymes and pancreas whatnots and all manner of things that made me feel like my own flesh was a foreign country that I had been visiting in unawares.

I lost weight. I prayed the Office and the Rosary daily. I began drawing daily in my sketch book and writing in my paper journal. I wore ear plugs nearly 24/7 to drown out the mindless drivel emanating from a roommate’s TV and loud relatives. The drawing, especially the drawing helped me to remember that every day matters and helped combat an increasing disappointment with God, a secret I was careful to hide. Sure, I was relieved to be on the planet but deeply discouraged because this seemed to be a final blow in a very long decade of disappointments that had begun with an act of (some people tell me a heroic) faith and one which, frankly, I had expected to be rewarded by God for having taken —or if not rewarded per se, at least somewhat treated with affection, even a tiny divine pat on the back. The best thing to have happened in that decade was our conversion to the historic Christian faith, the Catholic Church and yet this had also been only the beginning of further trials, more financial hardship and a kind of ontological displacement that I am processing to this day.

However, that operation was not the final blow and I was to receive that Sacrament again in just over month at a moment when, in my mind it’s former name was far more fitting; the Last Rite. {to be continued}

I love you because, you, first, loved, me. While I was your very enemy, opposed to everything you lived and died for, even then —perhaps, especially then— you loved me.

I love you because when, one year ago, I walked through what I thought was my shadow-valley —and oh, but I *did* fear— you walked with me, comforted me, anointed me.

I love you because in all the times I have ignored your love, having tasted of its first fruits only later to go slack with sloth you still knew my name, a name you gave me that even now I do not know.

When our son was dying and the greatest thing I feared was not the loss of him —though it was to break my heart— but the loss of you by my own anger and bitterness, even then your unrelinquishing love for us was not shaken.

When I have most poorly imaged your love to others you (ironically?, sovereignly) poured your love back to me specifically through them, yes, you lavished love on me.

And, when I loved you as one who by my own ignorance was separated from the great love expressed by you though your one, holy, catholic and apostolic church you danced me to the beginning of love until I came Home.

When it comes to love, you are *not* a spend lift. Your extravagance embarrasses me even as it comforts.

When a beloved thing smashed in pieces at my feat and I raged, cursing and flailing like some base creature without the capacity to chose to exercise self control, as if without a will, and this before the eyes of those I love, when the shame of it filled my soul, when it was evident I could indeed fail in a way I thought I had long overcome, oh yes, even then when later, at the Holy Mass, I spoke the words of the Centurion, you filled me again with your love, your body, blood, soul and divinity and we prayed with the whole Communion of Saints who express your love beyond the limitations of time, beyond the separation of death, beyond comprehension, but not beyond your Love.

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

To the beloved of Christ, every day in him is Valentine’s Day. {illuminate!}

Not owning a TV I’ll have to wait for the clip (you know the one) to appear on YouTube.

DD1 (early 20s) went to the autumn come and see there (we live just across the border in Canada) and continues to discern her vocation in life (which may or may not end in a religious vocation —THAT is what discerning means; it does not mean she WILL become a sister or a nun, ipso facto on which point many good hearted and well meaning Catholics are seriously misinformed, often to the point of causing harm to those discerning and indeed to the cause of Christ).

We were treated to a tour by Sister Martin Therese — what a blessing! What a beautiful spirit is evident among the women religious there, what an absence of hagiography in the making but rather full bodied evidence of normal people, extraordinarily called, living daily for our Lord, Jesus Christ.

If my vocation wasn’t marriage and if I wasn’t male, I would consider a come and see with these dear souls myself!

Now, I don’t know how the Oprah version of a look at these Dominican sisters shakes down, as I say, I’ll have to wait for an eventual Youtube posting but I do know from meeting them in person that they and other such orders, both female and male religious put the lie to the comment laments about the various and nefarious causes and cures for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.

In the book, The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism, I believe it was there that, I was made aware of a fact about vocations to the (various) religious life worldwide: where there are these three combined, (doctrinal) orthodoxy, holy priests & religious and Adoration, one finds an increase in vocations.

Who knows? perhaps the goddess of daytime TV herself might one day become an actual Christian and even a woman religious? Yeah, I know but look what happened to that bad boy St. Augustine. {illuminate!}

UPDATE:

Good review of the Oprah episode with the sisters here in an article from catholic.org

View the Sisters on Oprah on YT http://bit.ly/aOkAmy p1 http://bit.ly/d4nJJm p2 http://bit.ly/aGevo1 p3 http://bit.ly/cniOap p4 Gotta give to her, Oprah did a great job of honouring the sisters and the religious life by being respectful yet inquisitive. Good job.

h/t to fellow convert and frequent commentor Mandrivnyk for linking (in a comment below) to celledoor miscellany who posted that they had uploaded the clips to YouTube.

OK, challenge: fit the Traditional Latin Mass, the Novus Ordo Mass, your wife, Proverbs 31, your marriage, your conversion and the word Septuagesima into a single post. Easy eh? It is.

Today, (Septuagesima Sunday) it happened that none of us could make it to our normal 11AM mass, which is a N.O. mass yet also solemn and beautiful thing (as it was always meant to be) so DD1 and I decided to attend the Traditional Latin Mass which is from 2 to 4pm at our parish while DD2 and my wife elected to make it to the evening contemporary music styled N.O. because DD2 was at a sleep over until midday-ish.

Now, DD2 arrived home much earlier than expected, still too late for us to all make it to our normal 11AM N.O. but not too late to all go together to the T.L.M. I knew the chances of that were about as good as a 150 Catholics in one room being able to pray the Our Father in unison but still, I thought I’d ask, after all, I hadn’t asked for more than a year. I was met by a spectacularly flat response. I knew where I stood anyway. I clamped it. Yes, occasionally men can be not daft.

DD1 and I headed off to Mass and had a wonderful, other worldly two hours.

It’s probably that knee-jerk reaction going on but DD1 and I have an aversion, me especially, to the external trappings, the cultural stylin’ of things that, for us —and I stress for us as I am NOT making a anti anything polemic here as if I were any kind of liturgical authority— resemble that which we left behind (and oh could I play with “left behind” but I’ll be good).

Therefore Protestant choruses, their lyrical content and musical style, old charismatic ’70s stuff or newer hip non denominational contemporary stuff and all those things that go along with such (no, no I’d rather not detail that for you) do not work for me, not in the Mass, not even when they are written by Catholics. In a different setting, sure thing, though in all honesty I will probably avoid it but I don’t dig it in the mass even though it’s valid and licit and therefore good and holy thing at its Eucharistic Lord core and, even though John Paul the Great himself new how to get down wid da yoot —bless his soul (and pray for me JPII)— it just ain’t me, if in fact it ever was (I think I was always something of a closet contemplative; wait, is there any other kind?).

Now, thing is, my DW, my awesome, Proverbs 31, fellow convert DW while OK with smells and with bells isn’t so big on lots of words she can’t understand (and she’s a language teacher!) and two hour anything unless maybe it’s a movie. I think there’s other challenges but I haven’t placed them. Well, God bless her, eh? She really is my best friend and as much as I would love to have her beside me in a Latin Mass (like I understand anything that’s being said beyond say the Gloria which we didn’t even get to sing today because it’s the beginning of the beginning of Lent, at least according to the Old Calendar) I would much rather remain happily married. Last I heard the Catholic Church was still as big on the sacrament of holy matrimony as it is on a licit mass.

BUT HERE’S THE REDEEMING POINT: It’s on days like today and the little choices we make that I am reminded of how much we really do love one another and I am called in my whole being to respect the one with whom I’ve shared nearly 27 good years. DW has given up a lot, for me and for God. The Latin Mass is not something to push on anyone.

Short on time? Skip the indented bit:

Married one year, I felt called to train for “the ministry” so, it was off to “bible college”. We left family, friends and local church to do that. Along the way we lost a home, lived in a one bedroom loft in a sibling’s house, lost our first born son to a rare genetic disease, lost jobs and eventually graduated me then moved to another new city where I took up employment in a local church. That church happened to be one where the pastor suffered moral failure and we moved again. More moves and different humble-pie paying pastoral charges, kids, moves, kids, and then a most surprising move to the city we now live in which is too long a story for today but which culminated, strangely, in first a move to a different Protestant denomination and then, more strangely, to conversion to the Catholic Church; a move which while not physical was in no way the last of significant moves or changes or costs to be paid since August of 2005, specifically for having become Catholic.

Getting the picture?

I am not willing, nor is there any need to ask my DW to make another monumental change. Besides, our N.O. is a beautiful thing. DW is finding more relationship connections in this parish than in our, and I mean this, much valued first Catholic home parish. DD2 loves the solemnity of our N.O. mass and is “OK” with making the evening mass when required, like today. DD1 and I also love our 11AM mass and have decided that as we can we will get to the T.L.M. once a month or so. Well, that’s the plan as of today —that and staying happily married.

So I wonder, if our little family can find a meeting place, make acceptable concessions for the love of one another and for our Church, why it can’t happen more often on a larger scale in the family of God? Oh heck, I don’t mean some truth compromising doctrinally eculameical, —come-on-people-now, everybody-get-together-etc— kind of way but in an authentic, sacrificing one for another while Magisterially honouring, kind of way, a way which my DW exemplifies and that upholds good and the Christ in each of us.

Gosh, this got long. I’m sorry there’s no indulgence I know of for having read this far. {illuminate!}

Back in late 2006 while still in those heady days of being a recent convert to the fullness of the faith, a.k.a. the Catholic Church, I REALLY needed solid employment. My Protestant pastor pay cheque days had been null and void since August ‘05.

I interviewed for the lofty position of “Custodian” at a local Catholic parish (not my own) and mentioned two key points to the priest, 1) I had just finished a six month gig as a janitor (finished because the firm went potty) and 2) I mentioned that I was a convert to Catholicism. I suppose I was hoping that by clearly tipping my convert card it might give me a little edge over the, um, competition. As I say, I REALLY needed a job.

So what did the fine Catholic priest say to the former Protestant minister who’d become a convert to his Church? Not, “Welcome Home, me son.” but, and I quote, “Why would you want to do that?”

I laughed, good one Father, but then I noticed he wasn’t laughing at all. Uncertain and embarrassed, and well aware I had not purchased the edge I’d hoped for, I tried to give a quick rendition of how the Eucharist “did it” to us and we had to convert but when I noticed the priest’s practised, polite inattention I quickly moved to a lame finish.

The experience was also another uninvited lesson in what it can mean to offer our sufferings over to God for his own redemptive ends. Further it was a lesson in being gracious toward folks, including priests, who after all are no less broken pilgrims on the great journey than are we (didn’t score so great on that one I’m afraid, not immediately anyway). Not to mention learning about having to continue to rely on God without co-mingling that work of the soul with an embittered heart; how could God screw us over, again again, especially now that we were in his authentic Church?

If I hadn’t been in the midst of vying for a job with the parish and had I had my wits about me I might have said, politely, what do you mean by Why would I want to go and become Catholic? Are you saying there was no real need, that it’s all the same spiritually speaking, that Jesus didn’t factually institute the Catholic Church as the one, holy catholic and apostolic church and by the way, didn’t you take holy orders and profess significant things? But, I was shocked, gutless and REALLY needed a job.

Meekly I clamped it, inheriting neither earth nor job. Though, on consideration, thanks be to God, eh. {illuminate!}

An online friend, who I’ve known, virtually, for nearly five years, I believe, wrote by e-mail:

Something about your last comment struck me as divinely inspired. I must have read it a dozen times today and will likely do the same tomorrow. I don’t want to over-think it but your words went to the heart and soul of what is happening in my life and I needed to hear it. Thank you so much for being open to the Spirit and for sharing that with me.

*sigh* I struggle with affirmation.

Of course I want it as much as anyone else but I struggle with really believing and am as surprised as anyone when God seems to work through me, as it were —and especially when I cannot seem in my own life to do the things I want to do and not do those things I do not want to do (H.T. St. Paul to the Romans).

So, I wanted to say silly self deprecating things about how God can use anyone, after all he once spoke through an ass (Numbers 22) but instead I said, God bless you Friend – and left it at that {illuminate!}

I can’t recall the last time I put a video on any of my blogs.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8knMYK-IX4U]

Media Malpractice at March for Life

Please, make this one viral.

They call if the Reformation. I call it the Reforbellion (a newly minted term as of this post, no less).

Thing is, reform has always been taking place in Mother Church to greater and lesser degrees throughout salvation history. Sure enough, the Church of the late 1400s and the 1500s was in rather serious need of rather serious reform and there were reformers who loved Her, not a few of whom today are recognized as saints and even as Doctors of the Church.

But what the Church, what the Body of Christ, what unity didn’t need was rebellion and that’s what we got and the spirit of Protestantism which has been mutating at an alarmingly rapid divisive rate to this day.

St. Catherine of Siena, a reformer of the Church well before the “Reformation” is but one example of many true reformation makers. She was also a woman (just saying, for those who think they know all about how the Church is repressive). Martin Luther might have been an excellent reformer but for the rebellious and heretical ideas he came up with along the way and by which he separated himself from the graces of the Christ as given through the sacraments of the Church and might have better helped him to bring true reform.

Then there are Christians who lived their lives in service of our Lord and our Church in quite grace and obedience. While others were thrashing it out and wrangling with one another there were others like Angela Merici the virgin from Desenzano. What struck me hard (in a good way today) is that while the Reforbellion was well under way Merici just went about doing her thing which was Jesus thing which was love and, it still is. In the midst of rebellion the love of Christ continued to reign.

St. Angela Merici, pray for us that we might learn of the force of love. {illuminate!}

P.S. I did an Internet search for the word reforbellion prior to posting this and reforbellion appeared nowhere on the www. I thought the term while responding to a Plurk note.

Let love be the force we use in living the Gospel before all people.

“I beg of you again, strive to draw them by love, modesty, charity, and not by pride and harshness. Be sincerely kind to every one according to the words of our Lord: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Thus you are imitating God, of whom it is said: He has disposed all things pleasantly. And again Jesus said: My yoke is easy and my burden light.

You also ought to exercise pleasantness toward all, taking great care especially that what you have commanded may never be done by reason of force. For God has given free will to everyone, and therefore he forces no one but only indicates, calls, persuades. Sometimes, however, something will have to done with a stronger command, yet in a suitable manner and according to the state and necessities of individuals; but then also we should be impelled only by charity and zeal for souls.

- Saint Angela Merici, virgin, foundress, d.1540

Except taken from the 2nd Reading in the Office of Readings for January 27 in the Liturgy of the Hours.

St. Angela Merici was addressing her fellow women religious but “in Christ” but she could just as easily have been addressing every Catholic blogger, my self included, naturally – don’t you think? I say it again, if only to myself: Let love be the force we use in living the Gospel before all people.{illuminate!}

Unlike the famous Mark Shea I haven’t been asked to share my thoughts on how to make a good Confession but why let that stop me?

• Do go often (monthly is good – once a year folks are either supermen and superwomen or they are fooling themselves)
• Do keep it short (we can do that if we go often)
• Don’t pad it (cut the filler)
• Do accuse yourself (not someone else & cut the gossip)
• Don’t lie (don’t lie)
• Do tell the truth (in case the point of don’t lie was missed)
• Don’t expect the priest to remember later (we’re telling our dirty little secret to Christ who is really present to us in the person of the priest. Jesus is about to toss our rot into the sea of forgetfulness; you think the priest is going to remember – or want too?)
• Do the penance (it’s actually a part of receiving that remission of sin we so desire so why skip it?)
• Do be grateful (it’s a gift of grace, for Pete’s sake, not a punishment)
• Don’t save the big poop to the end (get right at it – we feel better and so does the priest)
• Do remember you can talk to Jesus any time, any where (but also remember it’s in Confession that we receive certain absolution and the graces of Christ to assist us in the future)
• Don’t just confess “mortal” sins (if you sliced your finger tip off chopping onions would you say, “No need to go to ER. My whole body won’t die from a little slice n dice)
• Do confess venial sins (little sins pile up and all sin hinders our intimacy and communion with Jesus)
• Don’t make up “sin” (no doubt there’s real enough rot present so…)
• Do use an examination of conscience as a guide (see below)

I’m sure there’s so much more than could be said in a manner so much more complete (footnoted and annotated and such) but I’m not pretending to be perfect – which is why I go to Confession and try to make it a good one. {illuminte!}

P.S. Here’s some selected smart links to smart articles by people much smarter than me.

Be Reconciled to God :: An Examination of Conscience based on the 10 Commandments :: My Personal Favourite E of C from Fr. John Hardon:: Another based on the 10 Commandments ::

Recently our eldest daughter, early 20s, asked how is it that many people read and research and consider and dance around the edges of the fullness of the faith for years and yet do not enter the Catholic Church while others seriously consider the faith and enter it in a relatively short time?

Some folks say, and I believe some of them, that they have extensively read the Early Church Fathers and various documents of the Roman Catholic Church, even the Catechism and yet they remain ever the spiritual enquirer, having tried all things Protestant they test the Western Church then East then shuffle off elsewhere, tasting from the smorgasbord yet never settling at His Table.

However, another confronted with the literal words of John 6 and with no pre-existing Catholic influence or Catholic friends and ironically acting as a bible-only Christian seeking only the guidance of the Holy Spirit (here I describe precisely our DD1’s experience) are drawn inexorably and quickly to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church Jesus instituted for all time. Again, how is this?

My only answer was and is, it is an act of Grace. A grace that is much larger and fuller than anything I understood grace to be as a Protestant. This may sound ironic to a Protestant but there it is. As another said, it takes a great deal of humility. Yes, and I would add, it requires a certain amount of abandonment to the divine will and that amount is nothing, nothing I could summon up of my own will.

Father, that none would be lost help us not to neither hold someone so close that we withhold them from You. You alone know our hearts, our very souls and what we each most need, that which is the “needful thing” for each soul as was said of Martha by our Saviour. Than The hand, the eye, the foot cannot live without one another, none can be a part of the Body of Christ while trying to live the Christian life outside of it. We share each other’s joy and pain and even each others sin. Even the weeds are left to grow among the wheat until the end of days. Why do I tell You these things, things You already know. Really I am telling myself and as I do asking for your grace, your peace and a confidence in You, enough to let go.

Father, forgive us our sins as we forgive those of who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation.

In a failed attempt to do whatever it was I thought good, doctrinally orthodox and faithful Catholics do, and no doubt to try to gain a smidgen of popularity with various traditionalist bloggers, I admit that I have tried to loath the Novus Ordo Mass.

Interestingly we are blessed to have as our home parish what is also the home of the, until very recently, only TLM in the area, short of crossing the river to the USofA.

We also have a very solemn, beautiful, quiet Novus Ordo Mass with no glad handing,  if you prefer not especially the 11am mass which my family attends. This mass also includes sung prayers, some Latin, some Chant and stunning music (organ with nigh on professional choir) and celebrants who follow “do the red and say the black” without addition or exclusion. These men are pious, reverent and good homilists and at least one is, in my opinion, is an outstanding catechetical homilist.

I apologize, love this Mass.

The daily Mass is also a gem. It is so still and reverent it really is a little piece of heaven. I love to bicycle to and from it completing a time of quiet reflection.

As it happens I am quite interested in the TLM, have been twice and tried to simply absorb rather than “follow.” It was wonderful and I look forward to being a part of this again as I can and as it fits with my whole family but, and I preface the following by saying again we are fortunate to have the kind of N.O. mass that we do, I really am sick to death of hearing what universal and unequivocal and just shy of evil crap the N.O. is. It’s a valid Mass and when celebrated properly is in its own way a thing of beauty.

I am so very grateful that we, incoming Protestants, were able to enter via the Novus Ordo. Maybe I’m just another convert who is too dumb to appreciate all that has been stripped from the Mass in the Novus Ordo as compared with the Extra Ordinary form or at the very least maybe I’m still too appreciative of being able to receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord to get my 1962 Missal ribbons in a knot.

I’ve tried to hate the Novus Ordo but failed, perhaps because I’ve been uniquely fortunate in where we make our home parish.

I respect Fr.Z very much. I love our Pope. The Church has changed my life. Sadly, I remain a failure.

Honest? OK. Yes, I think I am less tolerant toward what isn’t orthodox as a Catholic than I was as a Protestant. I’ve always been a person to hold the line when it comes to truth and never a fan of gushy-wushy wishy-washy so called love that is absent of truth. Cathy was writing about this, that is, about this worry of being too “rigid.”

I’ve wondered the same thing, have I become too narrow, of being less than giving in spirit since become a convert? But then I didn’t convert for wishy washy unorthodoxy, feel goodism or whatever. I had plenty of that from whence I came. I converted because I was confronted with love, real love, love that’s finds its home in the fullness of truth. Sheesh, I was converted by truth, what can I say? Heterodoxy don’t rox.

You’ve heard it said before about us converts, how we feel in love with the Church of history and of the history books and then began attending a local parish, or, how we were smitten by the idea of unity, of saying farewell to sect-ism and dime a dozen division but then the holy honeymoon ended up being a lot shorter than one could have possibly imagined. I don’t know if this applies to “reverts” but it seems they also struggle with dealing with their own knee jerk reactions to a lack of orthodoxy in liturgical practice and in doctrine.

Some days I think, if I hear that line about the Church being a really big tent one more time I’m gonna find a peg and drive it deep. But heaven’s for the peacemakers and peacemakers sew seeds of righteousness and I’m under no illusion that I’ve got a peg or two in my own eye. * Sigh *

Yeah – well – you know I read a quote this week in preparation for one of the simple apologetics classes I’m responsible to give and it said this, “…traditional doctrine will always be accused by some of being “intolerant, no matter what…” {illuminate!}

When I converted, because I WAS once an ordained minister I felt entitled to somehow automatically be in a role of importance: if not a priest (impossible, I’m married and from a non liturgical tradition), then a permanent deacon (way too new in the faith for that and hardly financially solvent as required), if not a deacon then perhaps on staff somehow (again, way to new for that at the time).

I thought I could move into some position, some “roll” right away and I certainly needed an alternate source of income (having voluntarily surrendered my Protestant “papers” and therefore my pay cheque). And, I obviously had, at best, a head knowledge of vocation or I might have understood my true vocation (from a proper Catholic perspective) was to the married life and what I “do” come second to that.

When I was told, No, it could not be so, I understood and I THOUGHT I had accepted it. But I had not. Inside it hurt. It hurt bad. I felt ill. I lost my bearings. I thought I’d given up so much to become a Christian and then even more to become a minister and still more over the course of being one and finally more than all of that and indeed all of that to come home to the fullness of the faith. Didn’t God kind of owe me something? OK, a lot? I secretly felt he did. I also knew the truth was No, he didn’t owe me anything but knowing that didn’t mean I didn’t hope for a favour or seven.

Pride is such a damnable tricky sin.

I was thinking about this because of what I was reading at Adoro’s place.

As a convert and former minister I love (can I say that?) the corpus to be on the cross. I’m not daft, I believe he is risen from the dead, if I didn’t I would be among, as St Paul has said, the most pitiable people on earth. I’m not ignorant of the significance of an empty, bodiless cross however, I am impacted far more by the sight of Our Saviour there, captured in that moment of ultimate love, of supreme sacrifice, hanging on the cross. He seems to ever be saying to me, “Remember what I have done for you that you could not do for yourself. Remember what I do for you still. What do you do for me, for others in my name?”

Am I backward or cruel to draw more meaning from seeing the Crucified One before me in his agony?

To be honest I am not a fan of the “risen Christ” either which strikes me as an attempt to make Catholic that wholly Protestant Christ-less cross. I’m not even a fan of that during Easter though I understand the liturgical significance of displaying him “risen” and cheery during that time of year only. But the empty cross? Call it a knee jerk reaction to my past if you like; I’ve seen enough emptiness and I don’t want that in my Catholic life.

Seeing Christ on the cross is a continual reminder to me of all that he has done and is still doing for me. The crucifix makes me think of how we are called to “complete that which is lacking” and how I am called to value suffering in my own life, for his sake. It is so meaningful to me. I worship Christ, I adore Jesus. No, I don’t cry every time I see him there but I never fail to be moved whether looking at the corpus on my rosary or in a church.

Because the Mass, every Mass, is the re-presentation of the once for all time supreme Sacrifice of the only Son of God, the perfect victim, the perfect priest, the perfect expression of sovereign love, it seems wholly appropriate for the Crucifix to be before our eyes, our hearts and our minds. {illuminate!}

[Conversion] refers to a moral change, a turning or returning to God and to the true religion.*

This post is mostly a place holder for the Section called “Conversion” where, God willing (and I actually mean God willing), I will visit the conversion story (from Protestant minister to Catholic Christian) in long form, over time, now that there’s some distance between that tumultuous two years and the present. However, the fact is that I have not stopped converting and none of us ever really does until heaven is our home, again, God willing.

Since you were kind enough to read this page, here’s an excerpt from an excellent article at NewAdvent.org

In the Latin Vulgate (Acts 15:3), in patristic (St. Augustine, Civ. Dei, VIII, xxiv), and in later ecclesiastical Latin, conversion refers to a moral change, a turning or returning to God and to the true religion, in which sense it has passed into our modern languages. (For example, the “conversions” of St. Paul, of Constantine the Great, and of St. Augustine.) In the Middle Ages the word conversion was often used in the sense of forsaking the world to enter the religious state. Thus St. Bernard speaks of his conversion. The return of the sinner to a life of virtue is also called a conversion. More commonly do we speak of the conversion of an infidel to the true religion, and most commonly of the conversion of a schismatic or heretic to the Catholic Church.

Every man is bound by the natural law to seek the true religion, embrace it when found, and conform his life to its principles and precepts. And it is a dogma of the Church defined by the Vatican Council that man is able by the natural light of reason to arrive at the certain knowledge of the existence of the one true God. our Creator and Lord. The same council teaches that faith is a gift of God necessary for salvation, that it is an act of the intellect commanded by the will, and that it is a supernatural act. The act of faith then is an act of the understanding, whereby we firmly hold as true whatever God has revealed, not because of its intrinsic truth perceived by the natural light of reason, but because God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has revealed it. It is in itself an act of the understanding, but it requires the influence of the will which moves the intellect to assent. For many of the truths of revelation, being mysteries, are to some extent obscure. Yet, it is not a blind act, since the fact that God has spoken is not merely probable but certain. The evidences for the fact of revelation are not, however, the motive of faith; they are the grounds which render revelation credible, that is to say, they make it certain that God has spoken. And since faith is necessary for salvation, that we may comply with the duty of embracing the true Faith and persevering in it, God by His only-begotten Son has instituted the Church and has adorned it with obvious marks so that it may be known by all men as the guardian and teacher of revealed truth. These marks (or notes) of credibility belong to the Catholic Church alone. Nay, the Church itself by its admirable propagation, sublime sanctity, and inexhaustible fecundity, by its Catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and irrefragable testimony of its Divine mission (see Conc. Vatic., De Fide, cap. 3).

Something happened.