Icon-Crucifixion -----c 2009 Joann Nelander
St. Justin Martyr: First Apology: chapters 48 -59
Day 16 Lite Version
St. Justin Martyr: First Apology:54-60
Printer-Friendly Version of Outline: Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan PDF
“In Lent, we grasp our humanity” says Fr. Jeffrey Whorton. That we need a reminder at all amazes me. I am in awe of the fact that I, a soft bodied creature, am still alive, after more than half a century, in this universe of whirling planets, exploding stars and expanding space. Extrapolating from today’s Gospel, Fr. Whorton points to the hedges God places around us for our survival. In Jesus’ parable, He tells of a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it (Matthew 31: 23)
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In nature and the Cosmos, Earth is protected by natural laws which set the rhythms of the tides, confine the seas to their basins and keep the very air we breath from drifting off into space. While in the spiritual life, God’s children also have a hedge. Before we knew the Grace of God, we were given the Law of God. God’s people were to live not unfettered by human respect but by a Golden Rule which revealed the freedom of morally. When the Grace of God arrived incarnated in Jesus Christ, love went beyond this Law to lead us to lay down our lives for one another, the supernature wed to the natural. Lent points to our failure in this respect. It is precisely here, that we find another hedge protecting us from the Accuser and self-condemnation by an Incarnated Mercy, Whose love and forgiveness knows no bounds.
In daily life, the teachings of the Church provide a hedge against a license and an immorality that would favor the animal side of our natures. Without the hedge of revealed Truth and instruction, we are deprived, and left to our sinfulness, which is more an inhuman nature. Our humanity was glorified by Christ once Jesus put it on as a mantle clothing His Divinity. However, it still needs the individual response of our consent and cooperation. Now, we are hedged by the very flesh of our Savior, and called to be truly human as revealed by Christ.
According to Fr.Whorton, “The glory and the tragedy of the Church is that the Church is on display.” In our world of brute forces and competing philosophies and errors, we are called to shine like stars (Phil.2: 15), like sparks among the stubble (Wisdom 3:7). Fr. Whorton asks, as does Lent, itself, “Am I displaying the glory or the tragedy?”
“Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible.”
Although Charles Krauthammer is wrong on where to draw the line in stem cell research, I think you will find his stance against President Obama’s stance a must read. Krauthammer is “not religious” and so to his mind sees no definitive guideline as to when person-hood is bestowed. To my mind the science of it tells the tale. Peering into the beginning moments of life with powerful cameras records the change from ova and sperm entities to new being with all the where-with-all to command the hormones and functions of the mother’s body to make possible its continuance and growth. It has not only presence but power to command.
The Truth of the matter, and our relationship to the Creator from the instant of our becoming a unique individual at the conjoining of ovum and sperm, is still hidden from Krauthammer. It does help to have the Truth that is revealed by the Creator through the Scriptures, the Church and the Tradition of both Church and Man (Natural Law.) I leave this as another issue for another day. Krauthammer does believe in Evil. He opposes Obama’s replacing Bush’s line with “no line at all.”
This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of “science” and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom. [My emphasis]
Though Krauthammer does not know when to confer person-hood, he says:
“I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research — a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.
Krauthammer judges Obama as morally arrogant in the extreme, dismissing “his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.” Or so Obama expects us to believe.
Krauthammer says of President George W. Bush:
“Bush’s nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.”
I am reminded of the recent movie, I Am Legion, a futuristic nightmare with basis in possibility if not history for a scenario of science run amok. Krauthammer concludes his dismembering of Obama’s so called reasoned logic:
Dr. James Thomson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” Obama clearly has not.
“Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible.”
As the 14th day of Lent draws to a close, Nelson shares these thoughts from the letter of Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch (Melkite) for Lent that I’m passing on:
“Indeed, if the cross, with all that it represents, with all that it signifies, symbolises and indicates, of sufferings, sicknesses, disasters, various afflictions, catastrophes, pains and injuries to which all people are subject, if the cross is a constituent reality of all human life, there is an obligation for all people, like Jesus, to carry the cross together, in order to disburden the one charged with it and together to bear it with love and solidarity. In this letter, I am urging my faithful sons and daughters of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Arab world and throughout the world to be in solidarity with each other and stand shoulder to shoulder with their brethren, friends, neighbours and fellow-citizens to bear the cross together on the way of the cross, especially during these days of Great Lent on our common spiritual Lenten way towards the Feast and the joy of the glorious Resurrection.”
I pray that all Christians may be one and bear faithful witness to the One who is all in all.
The good news is that people took action. There is no sleeping for Connecticut Catholics.
FIC Action President Peter Wolfgang will be on the Laura Ingraham show at 10:35 March 12th to discuss the anti-Catholic bill S.B. 1098, the two legislators–Lawlor and McDonald–who were behind it, and the incredible response by outraged citizens of all faiths at the state Capitol on March 11th. You can listen to Laura’s program here
“There were about 5,000 people at the state capitol yesterday– a weekday!–to protest this blatantly unconstitutional attack on religious liberty. Legislators of both parties are suddenly showing a greater level of deference and respect toward the Catholic Church and other faiths than FIC Action has ever seen.”
“Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your follow believers throughout the world undergo the same suffering.” 1 Peter 5: 8-9
Connecticut Catholic and the bishops of the Catholic Church had better get their ducks in order for the next volley.
Ed Morrissey writes that Connecticut lawmakers “finally got around to reading the founding documents”
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
As a result of the mass outcry,the bill that would have deprived bishops of legitimate power in their parishes was cancelled on the grounds of it being clearly unconstitutional.
As soon as word spread about the bill, the Legislative Office Building was flooded with telephone calls and e-mails on Monday. The bill, virtually overnight, became the hottest issue at the state Capitol.
The cancellation came less than 24 hours after Senate Republican John McKinney of Fairfield called for the cancellation, saying that his caucus was unanimously against the bill because they believe it is clearly unconstitutional.
The bill itself according to Morrissey, and the agreeing protesters, was “a piece of work”
(a) A corporation may be organized in connection with any Roman Catholic Church or congregation in this state, by filing in the office of the Secretary of the State a certificate signed by the archbishop or bishop and the vicar-general of the archdiocese or of the diocese in which such congregation is located and the pastor and two laymen belonging to such congregation, stating that they have so organized for the purposes hereinafter mentioned. [Such archbishop or bishop, vicar-general and pastor of such congregation and, in case of the death or other disability of the archbishop or bishop, the administrator of the archdiocese or diocese for the time being, the chancellor of the archdiocese or diocese and the pastor of such congregation shall be members, ex officio, of such corporation, and, upon their death, resignation, removal or preferment, their successors in office shall become such members in their stead. The two lay members shall be appointed annually, in writing, during the month of January from the lay members of the congregation by a majority of the ex-officio members of the corporation; and three members of the corporation, of whom one shall be a layman, shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.]
(b) The corporation shall have a board of directors consisting of not less than seven nor more than thirteen lay members. The archbishop or bishop of the diocese or his designee shall serve as an ex-officio member of the board of directors without the right to vote.
We do live in interesting times. Sleep only with one eye open!
Be Holy! 