January 2006 Archives

Pope Benedict XVI just released his first Encyclical letter called Deus Caritas Est or God is Love. The Encyclical is available online to read here.

Protestants (or all non-Catholics) probably are wondering what exactly an Encyclical is. An encyclical letter is essentially a teaching document of the Church. As the Encyclopedia of Catholic History notes:

Encyclicals bear full authority regardless of whether they are letters or epistles. While an encyclical is not considered an infallible pronouncement by the supreme pontiff, it should always be noted that it does belong to the ordinary teaching authority of the Church, the magisterium, and therefore merits the respect and interior assent of all Catholics.

In other words, an Encyclical is a teaching document that should be accepted by all Catholics. Many encyclicals lay out infallible teaching of the Church.

This specific Encyclical letter deals with God and Love (as obvious by it's title). It isn't overly long and is very readable, so I recommend everyone take a few minutes and read through it. From God through Marriage to charity, the encyclical covers a range of topics and does a great job of identifying the types of love and rejecting some things that are called love. From Deus Caritas Est:

Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.

God bless,
Jay

The posts this week seemed to all (in some way) work around our struggle to grow, to live, to love. I think everyone will find something of interest:

Sometimes we are called to struggle to find joy and The Lovely Dancer at Perfect Work explains her struggle with Yoga as part of this. Very interesting post.

In Italy, a priest was sued for suggesting Jesus was real. When Jesus Returns, Boy Oh Boy . . . from TMH’s Bacon Bits takes a look at the case and asks, “Could it happen here?”

One of the toughest things to blog is an intensely personal experience, especially when it’s a problem with our lives. Brewing in My Soul at A Song Not Scored for Breathing gives us a life changing experience of coming through the darkness into the Light.

Freedom from and for God focuses on the meaning and importance of the “authority” that Jesus shows in casting out demons from Sunday readings. HMS Blog even ties it in to our marriage vocation (for those of us who are married).

The recent Vatican announcement on copyrighting Encyclicals has raised some questions. Red Guy in a Blue State is concerned about the message it sends in On Vatican Copyrighting. Why the change? Red Guy takes a look.

In a post all Catholics should read, A Penitent Blogger takes a look at our potential reaction when the Church is attacked (or even when we are insulted). The Insulters is a meditation on reacting in a balanced, Christian way.

Pro-Life Values are On the Move according to Ramblings of a GOP Soccer Mom. New statistics look promising for the pro-life movement and this post has some interesting points.

The fad in contemporary culture is to think of Jesus as our "best friend." Our Word and Welcome To It points out that we shouldn’t overlook Jesus the Brother. What’s the difference? I’ll let you read about it.

Are Charismatics more likely to get caught up in Liturgical abuses? Charismatic Question at Crusader of Justice explores his experiences regarding this.

In apologetics, much debate centers around the Eucharist. Our submission is The Eucharist in the Age of the Fathers which offers an interesting look at how the early Church fathers saw the Eucharist.

Hope you enjoyed it!

God bless,
Jay

The following is from a book that I stumbled upon called The Holy Eucharist: From the New Testament to Pope John Paul II, by Aidan Nichols, OP. The book is now out of print but used copies can be found on Amazon. There has been a lot of discussion on this site about the Fathers and their understanding of the Eucharist. Some attempt to use the Fathers to downplay or make insignificant this fundamental pillar of the Church. Nichols provides a good reflection on the matter. In a few days I will be posting on St. Augustine and the Real Presence, but I thought this would be a good beginning since it deals with some of the linguistic issues we've discussed. Warning! This is a lengthy piece, so grab a comfortable chair and a cup of coffee before diving in....Enjoy!

The Eucharist in the Age of the Fathers
In dealing with the patristic theology of the Eucharist, I propose to divide the material which has come down to us into three blocks: the words of the Fathers about the real presence, about the real sacrifice and about the relationship between the Eucharist and the Church.

The Eucharist as presence
First of all, the real presence. In the period before the First Council of Nicaea, assembled in 325, we encounter three kinds of language for what is given to us in the Eucharist. In the first place, we can overhear the Fathers using a relatively vague language, which speaks in rather general terms of a spiritual gift. Thus the Alexandrian writer Origen (c. 185-254) refers to the ‘flesh and blood of the Word’ as ‘drink and refreshment’ give by God to ‘the whole human race’. (1) The (third century?) Egyptian Church Order describes the purpose of the eucharistic consecration as

the holiness (of the communicants), and filling them with the Holy Spirit, and for strengthening faith in truth, that they may glorify and praise you. (2)

In the second place, we come across statements to the effect that the eucharistic bread and wine are the sumbolon, ‘symbol’, or figura, ‘figure’, of Christ’s body and blood. Thus Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) remarks that ‘Scripture called wine the mystic sumbolon of the sacred blood’, (3) while the North African Tertullian (c. 160-225) explains the words ‘This is my body’ as ‘This is the figura of my body’. (4) How can such language be reconciled, if at all, with the exegesis of the Institution Narrative offered in the last chapter, where it was maintained that, at the Last Supper, Jesus identified his body and blood with the Passover bread and wine, rather than declaring them to be mere tokens of his sacrificial death? The word sumbolon in ancient times had very different connotations from those it bears today. The (Lutheran) historian of doctrine Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) put the matter clearly. In his history of dogma he writes:

What we nowadays understand by ‘symbol’ is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time, ‘symbol’ denoted a thing which in some kind of way really is what it signifies. What we now call ‘symbol’ is something wholly different from what was so called by the ancient Church. (5)

Evidence for the truth of this statement will be forthcoming if we look briefly at how the Latin Church in Tertullian’s time used his favorite phrase for the eucharistic gifts: figura. Where Paul says of the Lord, in the Letter to the Philippians, that he was “in the form, morphe, of God’, (6) the old Latin Bible, picking up the quasi-aesthetic connotations of that word, has it that the Son was in God’s figura. (7) Again, the Latin version of the Creed used in Gaul translates sarkothenta, ‘and was made flesh’, with the words, ‘and took the figura of man’. (8) Tertullian himself, when stressing that the Word truly took flesh in Mary’s womb, speaks of him as taking caro figuratus: not ‘figurative flesh’, evidently, but the distinctively formed flesh of a human being. So, just as sumbolon means the manifestation of a reality in a fresh medium, figura signifies the distinctive of a reality. And similarly, when Tertullian calls the Eucharist a representation of Christ’s body and blood, we must bear in mind that, in general, repraesentare means to make present (re-present) that which is now unseen. (9)

Just wanted to update everyone on the issues we've been having on the blog. Our previous host (adthosting.com) gave us a very little time to move the blog away from their servers. Because of that, we had some issues this weekend - and early this week - with errors on the blog. However, thanks to the great folks at LivingDot.com, we seem to have all of that behind us.

That being said, there are still a few posts that include links to earlier posts that aren't valid. Over time that will be fixed (email me at jay [ a t ] deo omnis gloria [ d o t ] com if you notice any). Thanks for hanging in there with us.

On a personal note, we at Deo Omnis Gloria would like to thank those who contributed funds to Darius' family. I was moved by the amount given and the number of donations - I thank you for your kindness.

One other note: we experimented with Google advertisements in an attempt to defray some of the costs associated with the blog. However, the ads shown were not acceptable from our religious point of view, so we have removed them. I gave them a couple weeks to see if the content would improve, but it did not. Sorry for the mixed messages.

Thanks again for reading our blog.

God bless,
Jay

To all of our beloved readers, "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 1:7). I am writing this full of loss and sorrow, yet with joy. Joy because my dear friend and brother in Christ is now with He whom he loved with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind (cf. Lk 10:27).

He lived daily his commitment to God and family. He and his wife Marianne have six living children (Aaron, Jacob, Hannah, Rachel, Mary, and Rebekah) who are all signs of their parents' great love and faith. To be around this great family was to experience Christ's love and the joy of having a large family. He was a man for the family sacrificing any career aspirations to stay home and homeschool his beloved girls. He took his girls to Mass almost every morning, saying that the most important lesson of their day was the Mass and that all other learning would stem from that. He was so focused on raising his children to be holy. He was so proud of his children and found great joy in watching their lives unfold. And Marianne...Marianne was the love of his life. He would tell me that she was his comfort, his support, his life, and that her courage, devotion, determination, compassion, and love kept their family together. I wish I could express the great loss Marianne and her beloved children are experiencing now but it is impossible...so instead I wanted to put in words my memories and thoughts of Darius, my dear, dear friend.

Darius was a devout Catholic who had traveled a long road of faith. Darius came to Christ through Protestantism, and then, through years of prayerful discernment and indepth study of Sacred Scripture, historical writings, theological and philosophical works, and the teachings of the Catholic Church he came to believe, without any doubt, the absolute truth of the Catholic Faith. His life was a shining example of what it means to be Catholic. He was a man of the sacraments, being a daily communicant, an instructor of those preparing to baptize their children, a believer in frequent confession, a living witness of the power of the sacrament of marriage, and a man who deeply valued and respected the priesthood. He was a lector, considering it a great honor to be able to proclaim the Word of God at Mass. He was a man with a Eucharistic heart, placing the highest value on the Mass, where he would say he goes to be strengtened and refreshed for the journey and to encounter the Lord Jesus.

He was an "active" supporter and promulgator of the right to life, living it in a "contraception-free" marriage. He participated in first Saturday prayer services outside of abortion mills. He was involved in the pro-life marches here in Atlanta as well as elsewhere. He proclaimed the Gospel of Life from the roof tops to all who would listen or who had a mailbox. We could all learn much from his example.

Darius was a great intellect. I have met few men or women who could hold a candle to the wisdom and understanding of Darius Lecesne. He was an avid reader and seeker of truth. He had an extensive library and was always ordering new books. When Darius tackled a topic or issue he studied it thoroughly and sought out the ideas and opinions of others as well, always listening and trying to understand where the other was coming from. We would have long discussions on such topics as contraception and the dignity of the human person, priestly celibacy, feminism in the Church, the Eucharist, the culture of death, the works of Flannery O'Connor, conversion, the family in the modern age, etc. Oh I will miss our conversations....how I will miss them.

Darius was an artist and a writer. He combined the two, drawing beautiful cards of his favorite men and women and then writing wonderful letters. He was a man of letters. Darius wrote extensively to friends, family, as well as members of the government, the Church, and academia. It was a treat receiving a letter from Darius. Each time I would go to my mailbox and pull out one of those signature cards of his, a smile would come to my face, knowing that he only lived about four miles down the road. He loved to write...or rather type, and not with any state of the art computer but with his old beat up typewriter with its unique lettering. How I will miss his letters....

Darius was an athlete. He loved sports, but most of all he loved to run. Many of his visits would be after he had finished his evening run at the county park adjacent to my neighborhood. He'd walk in with his running suit and worn out UGA cap (he recently got new one that he was quite proud of). He also enjoyed swimming, soccer, basketball, and football. The last time I saw Darius we discussed at length the upcoming NFL playoffs.

Darius was a friend. He was a man devoted to his friends. He wouldn't hesitate to give you the shirt off his back, but best of all he would always take time to listen to you. Many a day I would stop by the Lecesne house to talk with Darius about this or that problem. I valued his counsel and always heeded his advice.

That's all I can put down for now....I am exhausted. I invite all his friends and family to add your recollections of Darius here. It is important that we honor his memory and that we continue to cherish the life of this great man, this holy man.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in Your peace.
Amen.

UPDATE: Marianne was the primary income earner for the Lecesne family. For the time being, she will be staying at home with her children. Any and all financial support that any of you can provide would be greatly appreciated. The Donation button below will take you to a PayPal page which will allow you to make a donation. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

In Christ,
Joe

Please pray for a close friend of the site, Darius Lecesne. Yesterday he suffered what appears to be a stroke and the doctors have only given him hours to live. The power of prayer is such that anyone can be healed and we hope it is God's will to heal Darius.

Darius does have a wife and six children (four girls, two boys). He is only 45 - your prayers are appreciated. We've written before about Darius here.

God bless,
Jay

UPDATE: Darius has passed away. Please pray for his soul and for his family.

On Friday I read an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal: Eight is not Enough. It mainly discusses the recent depictions of large families in Hollywood, but makes a few interesting points:

Today fewer than 10% of Americans live in households of five or more people and only 1.8% in families of seven or more. That means that if your family consists of a mother and father and five children, you live where I do, which is statistically on the lunatic fringe. "Omigod, five kids?" people gasp when I tell them. "Are you nuts?"

There is, however, one corner of the U.S. where family size has suddenly expanded to titanic proportions, and it isn't Utah. It's Hollywood . . . So what is the appeal of these supersized families now? Last year, cultural commentator David Brooks declared of children that "three is the new two," and anecdotally you can find evidence for this. Thirty years ago it was not uncommon to see a wooden-sided station wagon with lots of arms and legs poking out the windows. Then came the de facto "one child" policy of the Me decades. Today it's not uncommon to see a gleaming SUV hurtling down the HOV lane with three or four heads in the back seats.

Interesting. In my personal experience, I believed that American families were growing in size. Even my non-religious friends seem to be more interesting in having three or four children than the previous generation. Is this a sign of blessing from God? Since all children are a gift and a blessing from God it would seem so at first glance. But of course, this blessing has always been available, it's just that Americans have decided to use contraception in order to prevent these blessings from occurring (or abortion to outright reject the blessing once it has occurred). In other words, God has always sought to bless us with more children and larger families, but we haven't been open to these blessings.

But of course, Hollywood can't positively depict this phenomena:

In this latest litter of movie features, we are shown that the more children in a household, the more deranged and uncivilized it becomes. A parent must be either fabulously wealthy or some kind of control freak (or, like the boastful Murtagh in "Cheaper by the Dozen 2," both) to have a clean floor with a horde of young 'uns around. To cope, a nanny must be either a witch, like La McPhee, or, as in last spring's Vin Diesel vehicle "The Pacifier," a Navy SEAL.

Of course, those of us in the 10% have the last laugh:

The odd thing is that, off the screen, large families are seldom the ones with wildly misbehaving children. In real life, they tend to be the orderly people with the polite children, the families in which older siblings can be seen caring for their little brothers and sisters without griping about it. Indeed, onlookers are so taken in by the popular stereotype that they are often surprised to see a large family acting peacefully.

The recent return of big families to the screen is both telling and pleasing. It will be more pleasing still when those families are able to appear not solely amid zany pandemonium but also in orderly accommodation with the rest of society. Then reel life will be a whole lot closer to real life.

Here's hoping you allow God to bless you with a "quiver full of arrows" (who can cite that verse ;-)

God bless,
Jay

I've been meaning to address evolution as it applies to Christian thought for a while now, so I've made it a New Year's resolution to do so. In our society, the theory of evolution is taught as fact in schools as well as throughout secular media. But is it real?

There are actually two theories of evolution: macro-evolution and micro-evolution. Micro-evolution is fact and I won't address it here. Macro-evolution is the issue that is debated throughout our society and now being handled by the courts: did we as humans evolve from lower species to what we are now.

The issue is really a religious one at heart. The problem: If macro-evolution is proven false, then there must be a god (in the sense of a superior being who put us on this earth - it doesn't necessarily follow that it was the Christian God). So the argument for evolution has become a religious argument among atheists and believers, which is why it is so heated (unlike other scientific arguments).

My posts will address some of the scientific problems of evolution as well as the religious issues behind it. I'll update this post with links each time I add another post on evolution (I've started a long post before, but it gets very long very quickly). Hopefully Joe and Dave will jump in and add their posts as well.

By the way, if there is any particular topic you'd like addressed just let me know.

God bless,
Jay

The new year is upon us! And here’s the first Catholic Carnival of 2006. Hope you enjoy:

The new 2006 Church Calendar(s) are at the front of church, and the side entrances, and at the back. Unless they're already gone. From Kicking Over My Traces.

As we continue our celebration of Christmas, we must not forget that The Shadow of the Cross extends over the manger scene. It points us to the path Christ is to take and the path we must all take if we are to be followers of Him. From Our Word and Welcome To It.

EmergentPDX is an inquirer to monastic life as explained in 2006: The Novitiate. His words: I think it is something that would suit me, that would allow me to live my life fully for Christ. But I can only guess at that based on what I have read and studied. This next year of my life is to be a personal novitiate. It is a year for me to take active steps toward the religious life while learning what that means through education and experience. [Ed: we’ll pray that God helps light the way]

In In Truth, Peace, Nathan Nelson, one of the contributing editors for Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, takes a look at Pope Benedict XVI's message for World Peace Day and how it can apply to our own national circumstances.

You do not need anyone to teach you is a brief reflection on our need as Christians for teachers from A Penitent Blogger.

Herb Ely points out that warfare has declined markedly in the past 20 Years. The decline is so great that the Washington Post just published an op-ed piece titled "Is Peace breaking out?" For the most part the mainstream press has overlooked this data. This means that The Challenge of Peace Document Needs Revision.

South Dakota: Not an Abortion Utopia examines news that there aren't enough abortions happening, because there aren't many doctors who will do them. Naturally, Planned Parenthood is disgruntled. So why don't they build their own clinic and bring in their own doctors? Or is there not enough profit in it? From On the Other Foot.

A fair number of Hymns in the Liturgy of the Hours are worded differently from the Crusader of Justice is used to hearing them. This post looks at two such hymns for Christmas.

Living Catholicism explains – using Pope John Paul’s Familiaris Consortio - What Makes a Catholic home truly “Catholic”?

From this blog, we ask, “Are there Secrets of the Bible?”

God bless,
Jay

Are there “Secrets of the Bible?” We are constantly (in America at least) being told that someone has discovered the secrets of the Bible. We are told to buy a book or subscribe to a particular website so that these “secrets” will be revealed.

Is this legitimate?

Well, we can look to the Bible to determine if there is any indication of hidden “secrets” within – if you are a sola scriptura Christian, this is the first and only source to look to. The Bible does not indicate secrets anywhere. It does however tell us what we really need to know:

Ephesians 3:8-12. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all men see what is in the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him.

This is powerful passage. According to St. Paul, the plan was hidden until now when it is revealed through the Church. Which Church? Well, only the Catholic Church existed at that time (up until the protestant reformation, in fact). In other words, there was a “hidden” mystery in the Old Testament. There are secrets buried in the events. But now, because we have a Church run by the Holy Spirit, these mysteries are exposed. We know what Noah’s journey prefigured. We understand how Abram’s willingness to sacrifice his son prefigured Christ’s sacrifice. Now we don’t have to search for “secrets” in the Bible: we have God’s wisdom poured out to us through the Church.

Don’t search for “secrets of the Bible,” search for the truth of the Catholic Church.

I know some of you are saying ‘Not this verse again’ (I do enjoy the verse and not only because it exposes the fallacy of sola scriptura). But this is the heart of the matter. God gave us a Church and promised (Matthew 16:18) that Satan would not prevail against it. The Bible explains the position and power of the Church and yet many revolt against it. Or were taken in by Martin Luther’s errors. Ultimately this verse (and the others like it) provide a barrier against protestant thought.

In summary, there were secrets in the Bible, but now we have an authoritative institution to interpret them. That institution is also the one that gave us the Bible and has existed for almost 2,000 years since the death of Jesus Christ: the Catholic Church. Search for the Truth of the Bible, not the “secrets of the Bible.”

God bless,
Jay