Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein

Today is the Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein. I reproduce for readers this biography of the Saint, courtesy of the Vatican website. With Blessed Titus Brandsma, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross stands as a martyr in defence of life, love, liberty the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us...

"We bow down before the testimony of the life and death of Edith Stein, an outstanding daughter of Israel and at the same time a daughter of the Carmelite Order, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a personality who united within her rich life a dramatic synthesis of our century. It was the synthesis of a history full of deep wounds that are still hurting ... and also the synthesis of the full truth about man. All this came together in a single heart that remained restless and unfulfilled until it finally found rest in God." These were the words of Pope John Paul II when he beatified Edith Stein in Cologne on 1 May 1987.

Who was this woman?
 
Edith Stein was born in Breslau on 12 October 1891, the youngest of 11, as her family were celebrating Yom Kippur, that most important Jewish festival, the Feast of Atonement. "More than anything else, this helped make the youngest child very precious to her mother." Being born on this day was like a foreshadowing to Edith, a future Carmelite nun.

Edith's father, who ran a timber business, died when she had only just turned two. Her mother, a very devout, hard-working, strong-willed and truly wonderful woman, now had to fend for herself and to look after the family and their large business. However, she did not succeed in keeping up a living faith in her children. Edith lost her faith in God. "I consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying," she said.

In 1911 she passed her school-leaving exam with flying colours and enrolled at the University of Breslau to study German and history, though this was a mere "bread-and-butter" choice. Her real interest was in philosophy and in women's issues. She became a member of the Prussian Society for Women's Franchise. "When I was at school and during my first years at university," she wrote later, "I was a radical suffragette. Then I lost interest in the whole issue. Now I am looking for purely pragmatic solutions."

In 1913, Edith Stein transferred to G6ttingen University, to study under the mentorship of Edmund Husserl. She became his pupil and teaching assistant, and he later tutored her for a doctorate. At the time, anyone who was interested in philosophy was fascinated by Husserl's new view of reality, whereby the world as we perceive it does not merely exist in a Kantian way, in our subjective perception. His pupils saw his philosophy as a return to objects: "back to things". Husserl's phenomenology unwittingly led many of his pupils to the Christian faith. In G6ttingen Edith Stein also met the philosopher Max Scheler, who directed her attention to Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, she did not neglect her "bread-and-butter" studies and passed her degree with distinction in January 1915, though she did not follow it up with teacher training.

"I no longer have a life of my own," she wrote at the beginning of the First World War, having done a nursing course and gone to serve in an Austrian field hospital. This was a hard time for her, during which she looked after the sick in the typhus ward, worked in an operating theatre, and saw young people die. When the hospital was dissolved, in 1916, she followed Husserl as his assistant to the German city of Freiburg, where she passed her doctorate summa cum laude (with the utmost distinction) in 1917, after writing a thesis on "The Problem of Empathy."

During this period she went to Frankfurt Cathedral and saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief prayer. "This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot. "Towards the end of her dissertation she wrote: "There have been people who believed that a sudden change had occurred within them and that this was a result of God's grace." How could she come to such a conclusion?

Edith Stein had been good friends with Husserl's Göttingen assistant, Adolf Reinach, and his wife.
When Reinach fell in Flanders in November 1917, Edith went to Göttingen to visit his widow. The Reinachs had converted to Protestantism. Edith felt uneasy about meeting the young widow at first, but was surprised when she actually met with a woman of faith. "This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it ... it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me - Christ in the mystery of the Cross."

Later, she wrote: "Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that - from God's point of view - there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes."

In Autumn 1918 Edith Stein gave up her job as Husserl's teaching assistant. She wanted to work independently. It was not until 1930 that she saw Husserl again after her conversion, and she shared with him about her faith, as she would have liked him to become a Christian, too. Then she wrote down the amazing words: "Every time I feel my powerlessness and inability to influence people directly, I become more keenly aware of the necessity of my own holocaust."

Edith Stein wanted to obtain a professorship, a goal that was impossible for a woman at the time. Husserl wrote the following reference: "Should academic careers be opened up to ladies, then I can recommend her whole-heartedly and as my first choice for admission to a professorship." Later, she was refused a professorship on account of her Jewishness.

Back in Breslau, Edith Stein began to write articles about the philosophical foundation of psychology. However, she also read the New Testament, Kierkegaard and Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. She felt that one could not just read a book like that, but had to put it into practice.

In the summer of 1921. she spent several weeks in Bergzabern (in the Palatinate) on the country estate of Hedwig Conrad-Martius, another pupil of Husserl's. Hedwig had converted to Protestantism with her husband. One evening Edith picked up an autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila and read this book all night. "When I had finished the book, I said to myself: This is the truth." Later, looking back on her life, she wrote: "My longing for truth was a single prayer."

On 1 January 1922 Edith Stein was baptized. It was the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, when Jesus entered into the covenant of Abraham. Edith Stein stood by the baptismal font, wearing Hedwig Conrad-Martius' white wedding cloak. Hedwig washer godmother. "I had given up practising my Jewish religion when I was a 14-year-old girl and did not begin to feel Jewish again until I had returned to God." From this moment on she was continually aware that she belonged to Christ not only spiritually, but also through her blood. At the Feast of the Purification of Mary - another day with an Old Testament reference - she was confirmed by the Bishop of Speyer in his private chapel.

After her conversion she went straight to Breslau: "Mother," she said, "I am a Catholic." The two women cried. Hedwig Conrad Martius wrote: "Behold, two Israelites indeed, in whom is no deceit!" (cf. John 1:47).

Immediately after her conversion she wanted to join a Carmelite convent. However, her spiritual mentors, Vicar-General Schwind of Speyer, and Erich Przywara SJ, stopped her from doing so. Until Easter 1931 she held a position teaching German and history at the Dominican Sisters' school and teacher training college of St. Magdalen's Convent in Speyer. At the same time she was encouraged by Arch-Abbot Raphael Walzer of Beuron Abbey to accept extensive speaking engagements, mainly on women's issues. "During the time immediately before and quite some time after my conversion I ... thought that leading a religious life meant giving up all earthly things and having one's mind fixed on divine things only. Gradually, however, I learnt that other things are expected of us in this world... I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to `get beyond himself' in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it."

She worked enormously hard, translating the letters and diaries of Cardinal Newman from his pre-Catholic period as well as Thomas Aquinas' Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate. The latter was a very free translation, for the sake of dialogue with modern philosophy. Erich Przywara also encouraged her to write her own philosophical works. She learnt that it was possible to "pursue scholarship as a service to God... It was not until I had understood this that I seriously began to approach academic work again." To gain strength for her life and work, she frequently went to the Benedictine Monastery of Beuron, to celebrate the great festivals of the Church year.

In 1931 Edith Stein left the convent school in Speyer and devoted herself to working for a professorship again, this time in Breslau and Freiburg, though her endeavours were in vain. It was then that she wrote Potency and Act, a study of the central concepts developed by Thomas Aquinas. Later, at the Carmelite Convent in Cologne, she rewrote this study to produce her main philosophical and theological oeuvre, Finite and Eternal Being. By then, however, it was no longer possible to print the book.

In 1932 she accepted a lectureship position at the Roman Catholic division of the German Institute for Educational Studies at the University of Munster, where she developed her anthropology. She successfully combined scholarship and faith in her work and her teaching, seeking to be a "tool of the Lord" in everything she taught. "If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him."

In 1933 darkness broke out over Germany. "I had heard of severe measures against Jews before. But now it dawned on me that God had laid his hand heavily on His people, and that the destiny of these people would also be mine." The Aryan Law of the Nazis made it impossible for Edith Stein to continue teaching. "If I can't go on here, then there are no longer any opportunities for me in Germany," she wrote; "I had become a stranger in the world."

The Arch-Abbot of Beuron, Walzer, now no longer stopped her from entering a Carmelite convent. While in Speyer, she had already taken a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. In 1933 she met with the prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Cologne. "Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it."

Edith Stein went to Breslau for the last time, to say good-bye to her mother and her family. Her last day at home was her birthday, 12 October, which was also the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Edith went to the synagogue with her mother. It was a hard day for the two women. "Why did you get to know it [Christianity]?" her mother asked, "I don't want to say anything against him. He may have been a very good person. But why did he make himself God?" Edith's mother cried. The following day Edith was on the train to Cologne. "I did not feel any passionate joy. What I had just experienced was too terrible. But I felt a profound peace - in the safe haven of God's will." From now on she wrote to her mother every week, though she never received any replies. Instead, her sister Rosa sent her news from Breslau.

Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne on 14 October, and her investiture took place on 15 April, 1934. The mass was celebrated by the Arch-Abbot of Beuron. Edith Stein was now known as Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce - Teresa, Blessed of the Cross. In 1938 she wrote: "I understood the cross as the destiny of God's people, which was beginning to be apparent at the time (1933). I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf. Of course, I know better now what it means to be wedded to the Lord in the sign of the cross. However, one can never comprehend it, because it is a mystery." On 21 April 1935 she took her temporary vows. On 14 September 1936, the renewal of her vows coincided with her mother's death in Breslau. "My mother held on to her faith to the last moment. But as her faith and her firm trust in her God ... were the last thing that was still alive in the throes of her death, I am confident that she will have met a very merciful judge and that she is now my most faithful helper, so that I can reach the goal as well."

When she made her eternal profession on 21 April 1938, she had the words of St. John of the Cross printed on her devotional picture: "Henceforth my only vocation is to love." Her final work was to be devoted to this author.

Edith Stein's entry into the Carmelite Order was not escapism. "Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone." In particular, she interceded to God for her people: "I keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This is great comfort." (31 October 1938)

On 9 November 1938 the anti-Semitism of the Nazis became apparent to the whole world.

Synagogues were burnt, and the Jewish people were subjected to terror. The prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Cologne did her utmost to take Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce abroad. On New Year's Eve 1938 she was smuggled across the border into the Netherlands, to the Carmelite Convent in Echt in the Province of Limburg. This is where she wrote her will on 9 June 1939: "Even now I accept the death that God has prepared for me in complete submission and with joy as being his most holy will for me. I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death ... so that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His Kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world."

While in the Cologne convent, Edith Stein had been given permission to start her academic studies again. Among other things, she wrote about "The Life of a Jewish Family" (that is, her own family): "I simply want to report what I experienced as part of Jewish humanity," she said, pointing out that "we who grew up in Judaism have a duty to bear witness ... to the young generation who are brought up in racial hatred from early childhood."

In Echt, Edith Stein hurriedly completed her study of "The Church's Teacher of Mysticism and the Father of the Carmelites, John of the Cross, on the Occasion of the 400th Anniversary of His Birth, 1542-1942." In 1941 she wrote to a friend, who was also a member of her order: "One can only gain a scientia crucis (knowledge of the cross) if one has thoroughly experienced the cross. I have been convinced of this from the first moment onwards and have said with all my heart: 'Ave, Crux, Spes unica' (I welcome you, Cross, our only hope)." Her study on St. John of the Cross is entitled: "Kreuzeswissenschaft" (The Science of the Cross).

Edith Stein was arrested by the Gestapo on 2 August 1942, while she was in the chapel with the other sisters. She was to report within five minutes, together with her sister Rosa, who had also converted and was serving at the Echt Convent. Her last words to be heard in Echt were addressed to Rosa: "Come, we are going for our people."

Together with many other Jewish Christians, the two women were taken to a transit camp in Amersfoort and then to Westerbork. This was an act of retaliation against the letter of protest written by the Dutch Roman Catholic Bishops against the pogroms and deportations of Jews. Edith commented, "I never knew that people could be like this, neither did I know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this. ... I pray for them every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress." Prof. Jan Nota, who was greatly attached to her, wrote later: "She is a witness to God's presence in a world where God is absent."

On 7 August, early in the morning, 987 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. It was probably on 9 August that Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, her sister and many other of her people were gassed.

When Edith Stein was beatified in Cologne on 1 May 1987, the Church honoured "a daughter of Israel", as Pope John Paul II put it, who, as a Catholic during Nazi persecution, remained faithful to the crucified Lord Jesus Christ and, as a Jew, to her people in loving faithfulness."

We are Living in a Time of Great Persecution and Schism

It is time to wake up the neighbors and the family members who have been quietly going about their business and saying that it could never happen.  It is already happening.  It is happening now.  The 'it' is the schism in the Roman Catholic church between, not liberals and rad-trads, but between the faithful Catholics and those who are contributing to the schism and persecution.

The following links will demonstrate the global nature of the persecution and resulting schism.  They are in no particular order.

• Catholic Hospitals forced to allow admitting privileges to abortion providers.
• Sterile heterosexual marriages encouraged by Time magazine
• Coptic Christians have been persecuted for years, but now their situation is far worse.
• Homosexual activists are taking Christians to court in record numbers in most Western Countries.  This is just one example.
• Even school children are being forced to accept exposure to acts against nature.
• The twisting of gender into a choice rather than a reality will only get worse.
• Some countries are funding forced sterilizations.
• And of course we've become so accustomed to stories of forced abortions, I can't even read them anymore.
• People who serve in the United States military are being persecuted by the atheist regime in which we live.
• And don't talk too loudly about your Christian faith on a street corner unless you have the time to go to jail.

These articles represent the tip of the iceberg.  These are the ones that come to my mind this morning.  I haven't really touched on the abuses within the church that are causing the schism.  If you have time, add some links in the comments box.  Awareness, education, and fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic church will be our weapons as we experience the white martyrdom of this persecution in Europe and the United States.  Let's remember to pray for those who are experiencing the red martyrdom in Muslim and Communist countries.

Hidden with Christ

Whilst on a recent holiday in Italy my family and I were taken by our host to visit a lively family of four girls. The eldest, a girl with an intelligent and gentle face, looked about ten years old.

She had a series of epileptic crises about two or three years ago, and after months of hospital, and trekking to and fro to neurology clinics the length of Italy, her parents brought her home to look after her. She sits in a wheelchair, and has been unable to talk or eat or move by herself since the crises, and is fed through a tube into the stomach, a P.E.G. tube. It is difficult to know how much she takes in of what is passing around her.

My wife's cousin, a young priest, visits the family when he can, and we had the privilege of joining him to celebrate the Eucharist at their home. It was brief, simple and reverent, with the sounds of the little ones playing in the garden drifting in. We had a short and pointed homily on the reading about Moses going out of the camp to the Tabernacle where the Divine Cloud of God's presence descended, and where Moses spoke to God as his friend - and how we must leave our daily round to enter into the place of holy and quiet in the presence of God, where we are brought in a hidden way into Heaven's inner court, the Sacred Heart of Christ.

The girl who sat in the wheelchair, Caterina by name, is loved by her younger sisters who do not behave as if there is anything odd or embarrassing about her being there in that way. They talk to, shout at, caress her in the most natural and unfussy way. It was impossible not to come away happier, humbler and with a sense of grace received in that place; perhaps even from that girl. What stuck with me was the sense - and I think the behaviour of her rowdy sisters had something to do with it - that there could be not be the shadow of a doubt in one's soul that Caterina was a person, no less than you or I.

St Paul: 'Your life is hid with Christ in God'

It set me thinking. An idea for an argument has been stirring in my head for a few years, which I have never quite been able to articulate. The simple and theological truth behind it, as I was reminded by a friend recently, is that "your life is hid with Christ in God". What follows might be a valid rationalising of that simple truth, and if it isn't, then you can always disregard what I will say and keep the words of St. Paul who spoke through the Holy Spirit.

There are two common notions of what a person is - one I will call performative, the other socially objective.

The performative notion says being a person is acting like one. The actions we normally expect from a person, the inner life of thinking and feeling, the outer life of communicating and willing, are what makes us who we are. If something does not perform these activities, it cannot be a person. In its crudest form this kind of philosophy would seem to say that we cease to be persons when we fall asleep, so it is usually modified by some kind of appeal to the notion of our potential capabilities. If I fall asleep I am still a person because I am still capable of waking up and doing things: if I were in a coma, i.e. utterly unable to wake or be awakened ever again, well, that would be a different story.

One can see, if this is the only kind of philosophy around, where the twilight will fall: on the very old, especially those who have lost their mind; on those badly injured or incapable of communicating; and on those so young that they appear not to have any capabilities at all. There is, I think, something somewhat Cartesian and dualistic about this way of thinking: the body (apart from the inner life of thinking and willing) can be discarded from considerations about the person. Rather like a computer which won't load up anymore - once one has extracted the information from the hard disk, the husk of metal and plastic had better be dumped - a person is really just the bit that processes and communicates information, and the machinery of the body (if it doesn't do its job) is so much rubbish. Respect due to someone e.g. with profound dementia, in this philosophy, is a kind indulgence to their relatives' sentimentality.

The socially objective notion, often a noble and valid reaction against the apparently cruel logic of the performative notion, is that every human being is a person, because of the kind of thing that human beings are together. We are objectively and en masse beings who feel, think and communicate, and are at bottom social beings. Part of the fact of being a person is to bear the responsibility of looking after others. If someone - at a certain stage of their life, or due to a lack of the usual human capabilities - is unable to think or act they are nevertheless part of human society, and we ought to look after them. The appeal in this notion is mostly, I suppose, to the Aristotelian notion of man as a social animal, and therefore an animal with social responsibilities. While one wouldn't object to the conclusion, I think that there is a step missing in this kind of argument. It isn't immediately obvious why every human being is a person, if by a person one means someone who thinks, feels etc. Surely the argument works by sleight of hand, concealing the fact that "person" and "member of the human species" do not have the same definition, but pretending that they do? We may or may not, says the critic, have a duty to all our fellow humans, but do we have a duty to respect every human as a person specifically?

The answer, I believe, lies in the definition of person, thrashed out in twelve centuries of theological dispute over the doctrine of the Trinity and the unity of human and divine in Christ, and present largely in its modern form when St. Thomas Aquinas laid down his quill for the last time. One of the greatest contributions, however, was made a generation before Aquinas, by Richard of St. Victor in his De Trinitate. There are three points from that seminal work that I would like to pick up on.

His first contribution was profoundly simple: when we think of things, we ask the question "what?" (e.g. what kind of thing is this?) When we speak of a person, we ask the question "who?" (e.g. who was that man?) The unique name of a person cannot be given to someone else: they are who they are, and who they are is - in his technical terminology - incommunicabilitas: their personhood cannot be someone else's, for they are themselves and no-one else. I think this makes a great deal of intuitive sense, for even if dementia or madness can be a frightening and alienating thing for the family of a sufferer, there is never a point at which the relatives say, "No, this is not a person any more". They may say "I have lost the person that he was", but that is something quite different: it is a loss of remembered characteristics (personality) of which they feel so bereaved, but the sense that this is a "who" is distinguishably a different matter.

The second point that Richard makes is that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished wholly by their relation to each other. Because the Father, Son and Spirit are eternal, they are not distinguished by any of the generic distinctions by which we tell each other apart - our height, the colour of our hair, etc. - but by the relation each has to the other. The Son is not the Father because the Son is begotten of the Father, and is filled by the Spirit which "is not given in measure [is not given partially, but utterly] unto him". While we are indeed partly who we are because of the colour of our hair etc., I think it is worth considering how little of our own person is a matter of our own making, and how completely our existence is found relation to others. Like the Son, we receive our existence from another. In fact, the conscious exercise of our will and thought depends utterly upon the datum or the gift of what we already are when the exercise of that will and thought is awakened in us. What we are in our freedom is what we do with the life given to us ultimately by our parents, the food they fed us, and what was fostered in us.

We are, from head to toe, from each atom and cell to total organism, from inmost desire to the blinking of our eyelid, relational beings embedded within our inheritance and the cosmos. Within this radical relation that is our existence, there is freedom and will, yes: but even that turns out to be exercised by virtue of the others around us. Because there are other talking beings who taught us to speak, we are free to talk to them - and only then to talk to ourselves (i.e. to think). We are only free to act as "social beings" because there are other social beings with which to act. In fact therefore, both our will and our inner life and its imaginative apparatus is parasitic on relation: our inflated notions of solitary selfhood are largely illusory projections. The only freedom to be ourselves is not actually to live in isolation, but to be a self in relation to others, and whether we like it or not that is our identity as person and the very seat of our individuality.

A pertinent moral lesson flows from the radically relative nature of our personhood, which is that the capabilities we think of as most central to us as persons are in fact not our primary reality. Having an "inner life" of thought and will is secondary to having been conceived and nourished and spoken to by others. Our reality as persons is in operation firstly by the gift of our existence, not by our self-awareness. The intuitive sense of a mother that their child, though so injured that they cannot move or speak, is a person, is rooted in this truth. The question about the personhood of embryos is also subtly shifted when this truth is accepted. It is no longer an argument about when an embryo attains sentience, or about the possession of the genetic material and potential of human development. For an embryo is not merely an abstract thing of science, it is something with two parents, and it is therefore a person through its relation to them. Their responsibility is continuous with their knowledge of the formation of that embryo.

The third and final point that I want to draw from Richard of St. Victor is that he sees the Holy Spirit as fully personal Love. "Relation" is a somewhat abstract and colourless term and does not describe something that exists at all: rather like Newtonian empty "space" (although Newton saw space as "location" to be fair to him, and as fact because of God's omnipresence). We would do better to speak instead with Dante of l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle, the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

There are fathers and sons, mothers and children, lovers and spouses, friends and enemies, all in some way or other entering into Love, or seeking to frustrate it. Our acts are not mere flailing around in a vacuum-like space called relation, but are either like light, beams pregnant with the energy of creation, or they are like darkness, horrible black holes of destructive self-imprisonment.

The philosophy of the person is in its form and import Trinitarian, partly because the formation of Trinitarian dogma and clarity about the philosophy of person came in tandem in the thirteenth century. One is a person because of one's relation to God: or, translated by Richard, one is a person because one is loved into existence by God. Whether waking or sleeping, whether one has lost one's mind or is sane, whether one cell or billions, the Holy Trinity is the centre and guarantee of one's personhood. Caterina is a person, I suppose, as are her sisters, because they exist in the life of the Holy Trinity. They are begotten by the Father in Christ, by the Spirit of Love. The difference between her and her sisters is that Caterina's will is more deeply hidden in Christ - like Moses in the tabernacle, she talks to God as a friend, and her dwelling is in the Shechinah, the Divine Glory of God's inner chamber. But one glimpses the Love in which she dwells by the way that girl is loved in that house.

No school girls "gone wild" because of high humidity.

Some ridiculous studies in the U.S. have been tracing the higher rate in crime to heat waves. Now, my ancestors on the prairies of Iowa did not have air conditioning, nor did my ancestors on the ranches in Oregon.

People slept in the heat, ate in the heat, worked in the heat. They got rich in the heat, had lots of babies in the heat, and died as good Catholics in the heat. Women wore heavy. long sleeved blouses, and copious layers of skirts. Men wore long shirts to shield their arms from the sun. They lived a long time. My great-grandmother on the Oregon Trail died a week before she reached 100 years of age. She never had "air" in her life. My grandmother died at 94. She had "air" for a few years.

And, if one grows up on the Mississippi River, one knows what humidity is.

So, modern people need air conditioning to sleep, and get irritable in the heat. What happened to the life of virtue? What happened to coping with being uncomfortable? We have become soft, but not for long.

When I was in grade school, there was no air conditioning. We managed. By May 1st, temperatures in Iowa could easily be in the high 80s Fahrenheit. We managed. Same was true for high school, and we wore uniforms. We never thought of complaining. The weather was just that. The climate was just that. Nor did we commit horrible crimes after school in our green, heavy pleated skirts and blazers. No school girls gone wild because of high humidity.

So, why are social-psychologists making a connection to heat and crime, blaming sleep deprivation, stimulated hypothalami, and general grumpiness on the heat?

One simple reason: those in the world of science or, pseudo-science, if you prefer, cannot deal with the simple fact that two generations have been raised without a moral framework or without moral consequences.

The "time-out" bench did not work. And, the omitting of Faith-based education has created many malformed consciences, consciences which have no means of determining right or wrong, except for how persons "feel" at any particular moment,

To blame crime on the heat borders on magical thinking-like the pagans, who read signs and saw omens in the "entrails of an owl". To blame nature in general, (or climate or darkness), for bad behaviour has become a popular trend in psychoanalysis. Now, I have two members in my family who suffer from what is called seasonal affective disorder or SAD. For years, one travelled to Arizona on a regular basis to get away from the long, dark winters of Iowa. She never committed a crime, however. She knew her moral boundaries. The other coped, staying in cold, dark Iowa during the winters, and remained a virtuous woman as well. SAD was, for both of them, a personal cross.

I think the so-called modern world is falling back into pagan ways of thinking and a moral softness. The ancients prayed to their gods for prosperity, rain, abundant harvests, victory over their enemies, and then blamed the gods if their prayers were not answered. Only, now, modern gods are socialist governments.

The Hebrews were the only people who blamed themselves for disaster, and if one reads the Pentateuch, one sees the ebb and flow of sin and punishment. But, the People of God did not blame the heat-never. Read Joshua, Maccabees, and so on. God punished His People. We are possibly entering into a great time of purification of the Church, that is, the People of God. But, Catholics must think like Catholics.

We are sliding back into magical thinking in many ways. Any type of thinking which exonerates each one's personal responsibility to create a peaceful and ordered society will lead to more and more societal dysfunction.

Social dysfunction is the name of the game in Great Britain and in the States. When we remove the traditional, glorious Rule of Law based on the Greco-Romano-Judaic-Christian traditions of Western Civilization, and when we depart completely from natural law philosophy, whatever a government, or a people, or a cult suggests is law will be law. The law will be what Parliament or Congress or the President or Supreme Court decides it will be. The law will be what the EU Court of Justice will decide it will be. No framework of morals outside the relativism of the lawmakers and judges will determine laws.

Neo-paganism,  polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, and  animism are on the rise in what used to be Christian nations. The growth of these "isms" is directly related to relativism and individualism. Some of these "isms" fall under the larger grouping of New Age religious beliefs, many of which involve magical thinking, and, sadly, many which are followed by so-called Catholics.

As Catholics, we need to be aware of these types of faulty thinking and any magical thinking. 

We need to think like Catholics. Get strong..

DISCLAIMER--I had not read Chesterton's Essay found here  http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/misc.html#2H_4_0010 which was just bought to my attention.

Persecution Watch-Great Britain

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/gay-couple-to-sue-church-over-gay-marriage-opt-out/

Many of us bloggers warned about the repercussions of this same-sex-"marriage" bill earlier this year. See my other post earlier this year on this blog.

But, the blame is to partially be put on the shoulders of those who did not speak up at the time. My pastor in Sussex did, daily, for almost two weeks. An excellent priest, he said the passage of the bill, (and he was speaking while it was before the House of Commons), would effect everyone's lives, men, women, children, grandparents.

And, those who will be hit with fines and even imprisonment will be the clergy first.

Time for all of us to examine out consciences and pray for holiness and perseverance. We have seen all of this before.

St John Fisher said these things:

"The fort is betrayed,even by those who should have defended it."  


"Not that I condemn any other men's conscience. Their conscience may save them, and mine must save me."

Feast Day of the Maccabees

from the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, Troparion, Tone I

By the pangs of the saints,/ which they suffered for Thee, O Lord,/ be Thou entreated, and heal Thou all our infirmities,// we pray Thee, O Thou Who lovest mankind.

In this icon, some of the martyrs are holding crosses, as this day also celebrates the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church. In the Tridentine Liturgy, the EF, this feast of the martyrs is still celebrated today as well.

I love the Books of the Maccabees and read these every so many months. If you have not read or studied these inspired texts, do so, as the messages within are timely. Here is one of the readings from the Orthodox Divine Liturgy today.

Hebrews 11:33-12:2 (Epistle, Martyrs)

33	who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
34	quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35	Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
36	Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
37	They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-
38	of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
39	And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise,
40	God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
1	Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2	looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

A Good Jesuit....Gerard Manley Hopkins

On 28th July 1844, Gerard Manley Hopkins arrived upon earth.

As a young priest he lived and worked in North Wales for a time and, being a fluent Welsh speaker, translated several major works of the Welsh language into English.

He also wrote, copiously, poetry; some like it, some do not.

I believe that GMH formed the main part of Dylan Thomas's poetical inspiration, 100 or so years later.

Here is another famous Welshman reading 'The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo' by Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Maiden's Song from the Welsh Lourdes, St Winefride's Well.

                           

  The Leaden Echo

HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none,	5
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay	10
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,	15
Despair, despair, despair, despair.
The Golden Echo
Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,	20
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet	25
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,	30
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.	35
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold	40
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder	45
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder. Richard Collins - Linen on the Hedgerow

Please Watch EWTN's On Assignment, This Wednesday, July 31st

This week, Cardinal Burke spoke in an interview about the connection between liturgical abuses and moral corruption. 

My son was involved in the Totus Tuus program at a parish with a modern church.  I attended adoration.  I could not find the tabernacle. 

However, there was a chair for the priest in the center of the sanctuary.  I was struck by how completely this design choice put man front and center, and left Jesus hiding in the shadows.

I'm asking all who read this to assist in restoring the sacred to our liturgies.  This doesn't have to be a TLM Mass.  We use the Novus Ordo, but it is profoundly different than the 4-hymn-sandwich at so many parishes.  One simple way you can support bringing the sacred back to liturgy is by following the examples documented below.  May God bless our efforts.

Try sending this link to your pastors: http://www.storytel.org/screening/ then watch

Where Heaven Meets Earth: Restoring the Sacred at St. Peter Church
 
or

St. John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred.

This little film company has this mission:

Despite the amorality of our day, people are seeking intelligent, honest, spiritual and moral leadership. This desire has led many to begin restoring the sacred traditions that have been all but abandoned by society; but these efforts, and their amazing results, are rarely documented and portrayed on television or in other media.

StoryTel is working to fill this void by telling these stories in high quality media productions that present heroes of the past and present in powerful and entertaining ways. Through these godly role models, we inspire our viewers to pursue opportunities and solve problems that require a vision bigger than themselves.

If you prefer, you can watch on EWTN International. Click here to find the schedule for On Assignment: Where Heaven Meets Earth. The Times should sync to your computer for your local times.

St. Peter's is my parish. We are in a temporary chapel, set up in the parish hall. Even so, look at how we strive for keeping the space holy:

Titus Brandsma on Faith

Titus Brandsma and Thoughts on Time

In the Carmelite Church on Whitefriars in Dublin, the sacristan has moved the statue of Blessed Titus Brandsma from its place in a small shrine, to the front of the church, in honour of his feast day tomorrow. Already, dozens of candles have been lit for intercessions.

In the small shrine, at the back on the left-hand aisle, are now placed a few letters from Blessed Titus to various people, concerning his stay in Ireland in the 1930s. I read the translations, and was reminded of the letter in the Church of the Circumcision in Valletta, from St. Ignatius of Loyola.

I find it moving to see the handwriting and read the words of saints. These men were doing what God asked them to do on earth. Now, their letters are second class relics.

And, I was reminded at how fast the world changed from the writing of these letters of Bl. Titus to the day he was murdered. Freedom of speech was taken for granted when he wrote his letters in the mid 1930s. How quickly things changed for him. He was actually killed today, July 26th, in 1942, less than eight years from the dates when he was writing freely in Ireland, just before his trip to the States in 1935.

How fast things can change, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Bl. Titus was arrested on January 19 and died on July 26th. Not much time to prepare for martyrdom...

We have more time to think of freedom of the press, freedom of speech for Catholics; perhaps a year and half will pass before we are fined for writing on certain subjects. I am extrapolating from recently passed laws.

Blessed Titus is a great saint for modern times. May he bless all of us who pray and write for the glory of God and His Kingdom.

Bl. Titus' Press Pass from http://carmelnet.org/brandsma/html/biog6.html

Pornographic Britain

To gauge a sense of how prevalent a culture of pornography has become in the United Kingdom, we need only reflect on David Cameron's decision to 'soften' his tone in the debate about how far Government can go to regulate online pornography.

Telegraph writer, Tim Stanley has written a good post welcoming Mr Cameron's idea. It got me thinking. I am sure I am not the only Catholic who has been through a 'phase' of addiction to adult online pornography. In my case, it was a relatively short phase, fuelled mostly by loneliness and, of course, personal sinfulness. The culture of moral relativism that surrounds pornography, however, is extremely dangerous. The idea that Britain is raising a nation of children with unstable and often broken families, as well as a nation with a high percentage of porn-addicted teenagers and, in some cases, children, should be disconcerting to all of us, whether we have religious faith or not.

The anonymity and accessibility of pornography online is a ghastly temptation to anyone - but most surely especially to boys and men. Of course, for the Catholic, viewing pornography is gravely sinful and offensive to God. To the non-Catholic, viewing pornography becomes an illusory transient thrill with no immediate accepted implications in terms of placing one's soul in peril. Yet, you do not have to be a Catholic to understand the dangers so obviously attached to viewing this kind of material.

Recently, I met a garrulous young man in a pub in Hove who told me of how he had to overcome his addiction to porn for the sake of his personal life. With him having said this, I was able to say that through the Sacrament of Penance, otherwise known as Confession, I had by God's grace managed to overcome this particular vice myself, even if chastity in the single state continues to be a struggle that is taken up daily. So, a non-Catholic - a non Christian, indeed - and a Catholic were both able to agree that pornography was harmful and damaging. He described to me, much to my acknowledgement, that pornography began to replace real relationships - that it became his relationship, but one based solely on fantasy. He described too how it affected his perception of women as sexual objects of personal gratification.

Common ground on sexual morality is not always easy to find with people without religious faith, but in terms of human experience, like in Alcoholics Anonymous and Cocaine Anoymous, objectively disordered patterns of behaviour can be acknowledged by the religious and non-religious alike and, while the religious man may take himself to Confession, receive Communion and pray in order to overcome a particular vice, the non-religious will find his own way of dealing with a particular habit.  Both are, of course, always in danger of falling back into it.

The problem with a relativist culture is that when a culture is so soaked in sexual messages and is in fact hyper-sexualised, largely through media, the message on pornography becomes so mixed that finding objective truth concerning its dangers becomes more difficult. While it remains, to a degree, taboo - since you have to be a certain kind of person to discuss your porn viewing habits in public - there is widespread acceptance of it despite its most obviously negative effects being transparently and abundantly clear.

Caught in 'the web': Addiction to pornography has trapped many

Of course, we Catholics can all sit back and say how right public figures like Mary Whitehouse were. The moral campaigner who became the enemy of the liberal establishment for decrying the effects of pornography was of course right that a culture of porn would have disastrous effects on children, adults, families and marriages.

The Church, however, is right about everything, since everything She teaches is infallibly correct concerning Faith and morals. Being right concerning the public danger posed by pornography - a public danger far more pernicious and deadly than tobacco now hidden from public sight - does not necessarily improve the Church's acceptance in society and we are promised that She will always be a sign of contradiction. Why? Because even if swathes of - particularly men - appreciate that viewing porn is problematic on a personal basis, many are yet to accept, like the alcoholic who attends his first meeting, that viewing porn is inherently damaging or problematic.

This can be seen in reaction to David Cameron's suggestion of regulating internet porn. Almost immediately, though understandably, concerns were uttered in the media that 'soft' porn may be regulated as well. Indeed, a proportion of men, a percentage of women, and young adults and even children are so attached to pornography that it could indeed be that people don't want 'their' porn to be taken away from them. This can also be seen with the distinction being made in the media between demonstrably and visibly cruel kinds of porn - like child abusive pornography or sadistic, violent porn - and 'soft' porn.

The objective reality, however, is that there is no such thing as 'good' pornography. It is available and visible in even high street newsagents and stationers. Few will doubt that child pornography is evil, but more will contest the idea that all pornography is objectively evil and an attack on the gift of sexuality, the institution of marriage, the family, men, women, children, fatherhood and indeed, society as a whole.

Pornography is a scourge of men - of manhood - luring men into a false image of women driven by self-satisfying desire and lust. It is a scourge of women, lured into an industry that treats them as fresh meat only for their outward beauty and accords to them little value and no moral dignity whatsoever. It is the scourge of childhood and childhood innocence, as children are brought into an adult world long before they are even prepared for it. It is a scourge of marriage, as men are lured into a fantasy realm, searching for sexual satisfaction divorced from their spouse. Thus, addiction to pornography can lead to marital breakdown and even divorce. Pornography keeps men in a state of perpetual adolescence as men are unable to develop a true appreciation for women that is deeper than surface beauty and fleeting sexual pleasure and is therefore a scourge of fatherhood, as men are brought low by their obsessions with pornography and potentially good fathers find they lack the virtue to accept the responsibility of being a good husband and a good father to children.

While pornography enslaves the viewer as quickly as cigarettes enslave the smoker, Government has little interest in tackling or hiding from public view 'soft' porn, or even 'not so soft' porn. Cigarettes are damaging to personal health, but pornography is damaging to society, the family, individuals, marriages and, of course, children.

No Government minister, however, will consider tackling pornography because naturally he or she would be laughed at by the media, too much money is made from it and he or she would be derided by the public despite the fact that all pornography objectifies women, strips women of their dignity, makes commodities of women, encourages the enslavement of men to their passions, makes teenagers out of adults and can even destroy relationships and marriages. The fact that a high percentage of the nation's children are now addicted to internet porn paints a dramatically disastrous forecast of the nation's future.

David Cameron has said he would like the Government to act on pornography because, as he so rightly says, it 'corrodes childhood'. The reality is that the moral relativism that dominates this country is now so extensive, that even the Prime Minister cannot see that it does not just merely corrode childhood, but corrodes adults, men, women, mothers and fathers, marriages, families and, we would say, souls.

I personally find it difficult to believe that a Prime Minister who has introduced legislation that paves the way for a complete perversion of the institution of marriage is genuinely concerned for children. I find it easy to believe that Mr Cameron may desire to use the issue of pornography as a way of managing or regulating the internet more generally. I find it hard to believe that in a country in which the unborn child is routinely slaughtered in his or her mother's womb, that Mr Cameron desires to act on any issue that 'corrodes' childhood.

With all this said, however, any move that is aimed at curbing the scourge of pornography is surely to be welcomed. If only the principle that he was working from was the danger of the commodification and objectification of the human person for personal gain. If he were a man of genuine principle, working from moral principles, this would perhaps be a very different country indeed. This country desperately needs moral leadership. It needs moral leadership so badly, that a significant proportion of the country we can assume would detest the idea of pornography being removed from them even if children may be protected from it - that's how low we have sunk as a nation.

The family: What makes us happy and brings us true joy?

Let us pray that, given that it is unlikely to be found from the arena of politics, that it is found, at least, in the Catholic Church. 'Whoever hears you, hears me,' said Our Lord. Pray hard that God sends to His Church more Shepherds who will speak the truth clearly enough for people not only to be offended, as they may well be, but to hear and, at the very least, to understand.

Pornography enslaves men, exploits women, even destroys marriages and lives. There is no reason why it should not be banned since it does no good. Pornography does not satisfy the human heart. It does no good to anybody or for anybody. Why should it not be banned wholesale if it corrodes not just children, but adults and exploits and makes commodities of women? Would a truly moral State working from moral principles ever permit it to be available knowing its danger to society? Sexuality is a gift from God intended for most people in marriage. What makes most people genuinely happy and contented? Their husbands, their wives and, of course, as we have seen yesterday, their children. The wisdom of the ages teaches us that apart from God, seeking happiness much outside of the family - seeking vice instead of virtue - leads only to misery.

The One Thing Necessary And The Kakure Kirishitan

Thanks to wikipedia for Japanese Blessed Virgin

With all the chaos and sharp decline of democracy in Great Britain, Ireland and America, I have pondered on the one thing necessary at this time. But, I have come up with two. The first is obvious in St. Alphonsus Ligouri's prayer. We all must be dedicated to becoming saints . But, I add a second thing which is also of primary importance. We, you and I, not priests, or bishops, or cardinals, or nuns, we the laity must pass on the Faith to the next generations. This is our duty, stemming from our baptismal promises. We have no choice. To pass on the heritage and all the cultural trappings of Catholicism, the doctrines, the dogmas, the liturgical rites as far as we can, such as the Liturgy of the Hours, is our duty. We shall have no one to blame but ourselves if the faith continues to dwindle and disappear from some areas here, and in other countries.  This is our Faith. Pass it on.

Pius IX  declared it a miracle when the missionaries came back to Japan and found the

  隠れキリシタン kakure kirishitan, the hidden Christians, laity who had kept the Faith without a priest for about 250 years. Bishop Bernard Thadee Petitjean,  the first missionary priest back to Japan after 1853, and the first Vicar Apostolic of Japan, discovered these hidden Christians. They had passed on the Faith through  a 100 generations. Are we strong enough and intelligent enough about our Faith to do this?

Here are two pages from one of the first modern Catholic Catechisms in Japan, 1865. The very first came out in 1860.  From 1614 until 1860, the laity had to be responsible for their own faith and Catholicity. I assume they baptised their children and converts, prayed, honoured Mary (there were statues of Mary found), and keeping customs. Could we do this? In 2010, there were almost seven billion people in the world and 118,990 major seminarians. Who do you think is going to keep the Faith in the not-so-distant future? You, I.....

http://laures.cc.sophia.ac.jp/laures/www/media

ONLY ONE THING IS NECESSARY

A Prayer of Saint Alphonsus Liguori

O my God, help me to remember - 

That time is short, eternity is long.

What good is all the greatness of this world at the hour of death?

To love You, my God, and save my soul is the one thing necessary.

Without You, there is no peace, no joy.

My God, I need fear nothing but sin.

For to lose You, my God, is to lose all.

O my God, help me to remember - 

That to gain all I must leave all,

That in loving You I have all good things: the infinite riches of Christ

and His Church, the motherly protection of Mary,

peace beyond understanding, joy unspeakable!

Eternal Father, your Son has promised that whatever we ask in His Name will be given to us. In His Name I pray: give me a burning faith, a joyful hope, a holy love for Jesus Christ. Give me the grace of perseverance in doing Your will in all things. Do with me what You will. I repent of having offended You. Grant, O Lord, that I may love You always and never let me be separated from You.

O my God and my All, make me a saint!

Place of worship of the hidden Christians discovered in 1973 in Miyagi Prefecture Tome Towa town Chi-nai Location:http://www.city.ichinoseki.iwate.jp/index.cfm/6,25773,111,78,html