Sunday, October 30, 2016

Christ the King

The Feast of Christ the King. Pius XI instituted this feast in contradistinction to the rise of Stalin, Hitler, Mussulini. He instituted it in contradistiction to the cult of political saviours, of earthly aspirations, of materialistic explanations of the cosmos. No, Jesus Christ is King, He has the dominion not only of the world and all that therein lies, but perhaps most importantly of the poor little kingdoms of our poor little beleagured hearts: yes, may He reign.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Considering Trump and the Gospel

I realize I'm going out on a limb here. But I must confess that I am liking Trump more and more.  Here is a fallible human being who needs the tremendous influence of God's amazing grace just as we all do. Yes, I wonder at all those who have written him off as someone who has sinned (haven't we all)---and isn't there something in the Gospel about forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and isn't there something about beholding the splinter in your brother's eye and neglecting the beam in your own? And isn't there something about the King that forgave his servant the massive 10,000 talent debt and that same servant who wouldn't forgive his servant's debt of a mere penny? I just wonder what 'puritan' spirit has taken hold of this otherwise licentiousness whoremongering culture to sew the scarlet letter upon this man? All for an indiscretion of what was private speech? All at the risk of promoting the election of one who would drop the Supreme Court's gavel on the frail form of religious liberty? All for the promotion of such progressive progeny as Planned Parenthood where babies are extracted from the sacred space that God Himself put in the central part of a woman's anatomy? Can we not see? Are we indeed blind and deaf and dumb in our politically corrected senses? I just hope and pray that we will not, in the end, suffer from a Hitlarian hangover after election day.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Ten Thousand Talent Debt Applied

We heard in today's homily of the servant forgiven by the King of his 10,000 talent debt. After this act of mercy the forgiven servant went out and beat his own servant who owed him the smallest fraction of what he'd been forgiven. On hearing of this the King renegged on his cancelling of his servant's debt. He then sent the unforgiving servant to the torture chamber until his debt was paid. So are we indebted to the Father's mercy in our own lives. So how is it again that we hold on to a political candidate's past indiscretions? I wonder at a culture that promotes license, perversion, the destruction of the unfortunate consequence of our sexual liberation, and yet somehow cringe at a man's language, admittedly crude, as if they were all suddenly persuaded of puritan purity. And what ever happened to the thou shalt not judge mantra so often proclaimed from the secular pulpit?

Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Fundamentalist Darwinist

A trend has been happening ever since the Scopes Trial and that has accelerated recently even among those who would consider themselves fairly conservative: And that is to caricature the fundamentalist as a Neanderthal who is simple-minded (actually a compliment when biblically considered). I find it ironic that the current culture has made us a critic ourselves that have imbibed a fundamentalism as well. Go to any academic setting and you will find an ironclawed fundamentalist Darwinism. What for me is disheartening is that such a dogmatic approach in favor of the Origin of Species seems to have so infected many in Catholic circles as it has in liberal Protestantism---so much so that our own fundamentalism is not even noticed. Have we been so indoctrinated that we don't even recognize our dogmatic Darwinism? Can it be said that our lampooning of those who held the Bible so high that they often kept to a literal reading of the Bible is not the best exercise of fraternal correction, if indeed correction be needed. For isn't it the fundamentalist reading of Scripture which is the one that actually makes a case for the great behemoth (book of Job). And can we not thank the fundamentalist as well for keeping alive the literal resurrection of Christ and the importance of the Bible when so many were 'educated' out of it?