Blog Posts

Mind Over Matter-- Gender/Sexual Identity

11/11/2014

It’s no secret, the Catholic Church teaches unpopular doctrines about sexuality. The Church is accused constantly of being obsessed with the hot button issues.

Surprisingly the media have essentially conceded abortion to their list of “things we’ve-finally-realized-the-Church-is-never-going-to-change-on.” In their coverage of the Synod on the Family, I saw nothing about abortion, they were still holding out for contraception and divorce, but far above any of those issues, it was gay marriage that the media were going nuts over and making the strangest extrapolations.

I think it's time we admit it, the Church isn't obsessed with homosexuality or any of the hot button issues. We are.

Almost every time I hear someone go on a rant against opponents of gay marriage, there’s a mention of “It’s the year 2014 for crying out loud, it’s not the middle ages anymore!” The connotation being that we know better, we’re more tolerant and evolved, and it’s the most insane thing that gay marriage is not a constitutional right like the freedom of speech. The problem with those sayings is that, quite frankly, they’re indicative of what a thoughtless age we live in. The watchword is always ‘tolerant’ or its bumper-sticker brother:

Coexist

The problem being that if you’re going to stake a claim on an issue that pertains to truth or goodness (in this case, the goodness of gay marriage) it means that you are now intolerant of claims to the contrary. Thus, we lose our ideal of tolerance, a tragic irony since this issue is always pegged as a matter of tolerance.

The whole tolerance game results in the degradation of the moral argument. What happens is that anyone who offers opposition to something seemingly good in the public eye (i.e. gay marriage) is labeled a bigot, intolerant, and hateful. Then the conversation stops there. It means that we can never disagree with each other without continuing to respect the dignity of the human person. We’ll get back to that in a minute.

I think I’ve figured out where this all stems from. A guy from the 18th century named René Descartes, who gifted (not really) the world with this little number, “I think, therefore I am.” It epitomizes the rationalistic Enlightenment ideal. It is pure mind separated from body. We use our minds to observe nature and exert control over it. It is mind over matter. That means one thing for the development of the sciences, another thing entirely for the human person.

Over time and especially with philosophers like Nietzsche furthering modernism, rationalism, and individualism, and then with the Existentialists developing their philosophies on authenticity, our phrase “I think, therefore I am” has been turned into “I am what I think.”

This is where we get the LGBTQ gender ideologies from. Someone thinks to themselves “I am a man in a woman’s body,” and therefore, because they have thought it, that is the case. It is mind over matter. It is Mind exerting power over nature. It is ideology, the rule of an idea. Our identity as human beings is not informed by our given bodily reality, it is determined entirely by what we think we are, and therefore must manipulate the bodily/material reality to reflect what we think.

It does not end there though, because only a few people ever reach the over-educated level of a radical feminist with a quintuple degree is Women’s Studies, Psychology, Sociology, Human Sexuality, and Philosophy and Politics of the 20th Century. Those are the ones who have the mind-numbing explanations of the different gender identities and rant endlessly about gender fluidity, patriarchy, and agency.

What it looks like to attempt explaining cis-gender vs. transgender vs. gay vs. lesbian vs. questioning vs. bi-sexual

No, as a whole we’re not at the level of the mind anymore. We are an entertainment-driven society and we’ve thrown ourselves without reserve into the arms of the media, and the media do not work on the level of the intellect. The media work on feeling and have mastered its ability to manipulate our feelings. Our phrase has been transformed once again. Now it goes “I am what I feel.”

The West has not thought since the 1960’s, in other words, since the sexual revolution. That is the time when the West lost its mind; when the human person became a mere piece of meat to be sexually consumed by each and every other person, governed by mere primal instinct, the lowest level of feeling. We’ve thrown ourselves into the roiling pot of “me and my desires and what I want.” The culture we live in does not recognize the human person anymore; there is no more human dignity of the other to respect when we disagree now.

This is why there’s such disconnect between the Church and the modern world. It’s not that the Church is irrelevant, on the contrary, people’s vitriolic reaction to Catholic teaching is a testament that it is more relevant than the hippest mega-church letting people sip lattés while they get warm and fuzzy feelings from their pastor’s “positive message” (again, culture of feeling). The Catholic Church has never lost its mind the way the West has (thanks especially to spiritual and intellectual giants such as Bl. Pope Paul VI, Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI). The Church will say something, an idea or an act, is wrong, but will still respect the dignity of the person. The Church sees the person, a child of God meant to share His abundant life given to us through His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, that’s not where we are with gay marriage. We’re at the level of “I am what I feel. If you’re saying that what I feel is wrong, then you’re saying you think I, as a person, am wrong.”

Where do we go from here? The New Evangelization. We must do the New Evangelization well, and if we do I’m making this prediction; the New Enlightenment is coming. The Old Enlightenment of the 18th century is tired and worn out and has run its course. It’s over, dried up; it wasn’t true enlightenment. The New Enlightenment will be a time when the mind is re-united with the body. We will take nature as a given, and then use our minds to deepen our understanding of our given identities as whole, integrated persons. It will be a time when the conventional wisdom of the world: fame-seeking, hyper-sexualization, power grasping, and money hoarding will yield to the fullness of joy in living lives of service to others, especially the poor. People will live heroic lives of self-sacrificial love, whether it’s a red martyrdom or a white one. The New Enlightenment will be the society-wide realization that the Catholic Church has had it right since 33A.D., it all depends on if we who believe decide to live the New Evangelization now.

Verso l'alto!

Written by:
Marty Arlinghaus

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The Media, Pope Francis, and "The Changing Church"

10/28/2014

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Recently, thanks to the Synod on the Family, the Catholic Church has received a lot of press from the media. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the media reported very little fact, and mostly just pushed their agenda on the Catholic Church. Homosexuality, premarital sex, divorce, and cohabitation were all topics at the Synod, so naturally there were easy journalistic opportunities to be had.

I’ve assembled a few examples of Articles floating around the internet regarding the Synod:

Great hooks, except for the fact that the Church is not locked in some Mortal Kombat match between Pope Francis and the rest of the Catholic Church. If you go to this site, you will see a picture of a plaque that traces the lineage of the popes.

This plaque is a list of every Pope in direct lineage going back to St. Peter. The thing about Papacy, which is so often ignored, is Papal Succession. Papal Succession does not just mean there will be another Pope after the current one dies – it means that the teachings of the Catholic Church will be upheld by the next Pope. And the next. And the next (andthenextandthenextandthenext…)

There are indeed matters of opinion and simple traditions in the Catholic Church. These things are subject to change, such as the changes seen in the Mass after Vatican II. Some matters, however, are Dogmatic. Dogma is defined as “a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful.” You see, the Catholic Church defines itself based on the belief that there is one truth, and that our lives should be formed around it. It’s inclusive of all people, but not all beliefs or ideas. In other words, in order to consider oneself Catholic, one must adhere to Dogmatic teachings declared as truth by the Catholic Church. One is free to pick and choose what to believe in his/her life, but choosing non-Catholic things and labeling them as “Catholic” is simply incorrect.

Something the secular world has a hard time accepting is that in these dogmatic matters, the Church will never change. Indeed, if the Church did change in these areas, it would cease to represent the Catholic Church, as it would…not be Catholic. As was put most poignantly in a homily I recently heard, the Church and Her teachings do not change, they develop. The distinction was made clear by St. Vincent of Lerins (died c. 445):

Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.

Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.

The problem now becomes looking at Pope Francis and trying to view his efforts of development as efforts of change. (Note: If you do this, you’re gonna have a bad time.) You see, Pope Francis (believe it or not, media) upholds the Church teaching. Since the media focused so much on homosexuality and “gay marriage” during the Synod, I’ll quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

First, the Catechism states:

2357 "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Then:

2358 [Homosexual Persons] must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

This is the Church teaching that Pope Francis is upholding – and, contrary to what is presented by the media – you can indeed love the person without condoning the action.

Finally, Pope Francis, who I’m sure has been made aware of the “hubbub” caused by the Synod, made this statement in an address on October 25th.

“The family is being hit, the family is being struck and the family is being bastardized,”

He remarked on the error of the secular world’s view that “you can call everything family, right?”

He went on to say: “What is being proposed is not marriage, it’s an association. But it’s not marriage! It’s necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!”

He spoke of the many “new forms” of unions, describing them as “totally destructive and limiting the greatness of the love of marriage.”

Try as they might, the media just isn’t able to fit Pope Francis into their agenda-specific box. When Pope Francis first started his service as Pope, he didn’t have very many statements on controversial issues besides “lol you guys always talk bout dat” (paraphrased) – as time goes on however, Pope Francis and his statements make it incredibly clear: He’s Catholic – The Church is Catholic – The Catholic Church upholds Catholic teachings. He doesn’t care about your agendas. He’s too busy calling people to The Truth, like the pope before him, and the pope before him, and on, and on (andonandonadonandon). You know - doing pope stuff.

In conclusion:

Go away, media. We’re too busy being Catholic.

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The Battle of Lepanto--Why We Are Free

10/7/2014

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Let me tell you the story of the Battle of Lepanto.

The year is 1571.

The Ottoman Empire has been expanding by method of jihad (in other words, military conquest).

This is the extent of the empire at the beginning of the battle:

“The inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with their ships.”

“The Ottoman Turks yearned to bring all Europe within the dar al-Islam, the ‘House of Submission’ — submissive to the sharia law. Europe, as the land of the infidels, was the dar al-Harb, the ‘House of War.’” (From Lepanto, 1571: The Battle that Saved Europe by H. W. Crocker, III posted to CatholicCulture.org. Copyright by Morley Publishing Group Inc.)

Meanwhile, Christendom was divided by the Protestant Reformation.

“The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom.”

The scene is set.
On the Christian side we have a strong leader in Don John of Austria, a handsome 24 year-old son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. At his command were 206 galleys, 40,000 oarsmen and sailors, 28,00 soldiers and knights, the thousands of rosaries said by faithful Christians as requested by Pope Pius V, the ministries of the religious and priests who accompanied the fleet, and the entreaties of the hosts of saints and angels in Heaven.

On the side of the Turks, led by Ali Pasha, there were 328 ships, 77,000 men (including 10,000 Janissaries—Christian boys taken from their families as tax payment when they were about the age of 6. They were forced to convert to Islam, taught the art of war, and given the opportunity of advancement in the Turkish army.), and 50,000 oarsmen—many of them Christian slaves.

The Battle
Spies warned Ali Pasha of the Christian advance thus he had time to set up his fleet in a battle line. This fleet was more experienced and stronger than the Christian one. The naval battle began. The galleys fired cannon balls at each other.

When ships got close, a floating hand-to-hand combat was commenced with scimitars, bows, and muskets on the Turk’s side and swords, pikes, and arquebuses on the Christian’s side. An unexpected strong wind allowed the Christian fleet to pin part of the Ottoman fleet against some shoals; this wind seems to have been a gust of the Holy Spirit. Some of the Christian galley slaves on the Ottoman ships revolted, incapacitating those galleys.

But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!

The Christian fleet was victorious. The Turks lost 170 ships, 33,000 men to death, wounds, or capture, and 12,000 Christian slaves. Christians endured 7,500 men killed and 22,000 men wounded.

The turning of the tide of the Ottoman advance is due to the prayers of the millions of Catholics in Christendom. October 7th, the day the battle took place, is now the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the month of October is the month of the Rosary.

Are we not facing similar battles today, if not even greater ones? Christians are being massacred and exiled from their homes where they have dwelt for nearly 2,000 years in Iraq and Syria by Islamic groups such as ISIS (or Islamic State). Christians in other Islamic countries continue to face anti-Christian laws that prevent them from freely practicing their religion on pain of imprisonment or death. Unlike in the 16th century when Lepanto was fought, these atrocities are met with apathy by the modern Western culture, which is experiencing its own anti-Christian secularization which thinks Christians cannot possibly be persecuted. The overt culture of death advanced by the Islamic State has just as strong a hold in the hearts of Westerners who accept abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia and other life-denying practices such as contraception that continues to cause populations of developed countries to plummet to the point where future generations will collapse under the weight of the much larger older generations. Christianity itself continues to suffer from splintering and a lack of unity of believers. The odds seem to be overwhelmingly against the Church.

But we are the Church Militant. We are united as members of the Body of Christ. We are the Catholic Church. Just as 500 years ago Christians united in prayer to defeat the Ottomans, we can unite in prayer now to combat the spiritual and physical evils in our world today.

For more exciting information on the Battle of Lepanto: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7391

To read the poem G. K. Chesterton wrote about the battle: http://www.bartleby.com/103/91.html

To listen to a chant of the Templars as they march to war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0d4qM7gCH8

Written by: Ashley Ladouceur and Marty Arlinghaus

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"God's Not Dead" and what Atheists aren't Like

9/1/2014

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Every so often the secular world will see some type of media that results from a Christian group pumping out a lot of money to send a message. Sometimes this message can be good, other times not so much.

So there’s this movie out right now called “God’s Not Dead”. I saw a preview for it, and not even 1 minute into the preview I knew how the entire movie would go (and it’s not because I’m a genius or have the gift of foresight). Kid goes to school, professor makes him claim that God is dead to pass the class[1], kid doesn't, kid has to debate professor, kid wins, professor storms out in defeat. You may have seen this exact scenario in Facebook posts and chain-emails going back to 1997.
[1] note: illegal

The professor, you see… is an ATHEIST (boooo, hisss). And what are atheists like? They’re those mean argumentative people who always scream at Christians that God is dead, and do things like make them publicly forsake their religion in order to pass a class, right? They’re rage filled debators who high five each other when they make Christians cry. Most importantly – atheists aren’t ACTUALLY atheists, they’re just mad at a God they know deep down exists, but just don’t want to admit it because of some personal problem they’ve had with God in the past. Also, all it takes to break them from these vices is a good ol’ Christian to remind them of this. This is the picture that “God’s Not Dead” (and several other films/books/stories) like to paint.

Unfortunately, “God’s not dead” just re-affirms this misunderstanding and divide between theists and atheists. Real life atheists are, for the most part, NOT like these caricatures. When creating a movie about a group of people that you’re trying to base on real-life events, it’s a good idea to picture what the reaction of that group of people to the film would be. For instance, I’d say an audience of atheists watching “God’s Not Dead” would look something like this:

Kind of something like how I look when a film portrays Christians as science-hating, logic fearing bible-thumpers who use their faith as a crutch.

The fact of the matter is, many people, both theist and atheist, struggle their entire lives searching for truth. For many atheists, they have seriously struggled with atheism vs. theism, put a lot of thought into it, and came to the conclusion that theism just doesn't make sense. This is especially the case when theism is presented to them in a way that dismisses logic. When Christians use “faith” as an excuse to dismiss natural laws and/or common sense, it is the least appealing and helpful thing to a person who is trying to assess what it is all about.

As Christians, we are called to evangelize. It is impossible to evangelize to a group of people if we totally misunderstand them. Atheism cannot be written off as a non-contemplative fleeing from Christianity. More so, as Christians, we must be diligent in presenting Christianity in a truthful way. If Christianity is presented as a religion that dismisses science, reason, logic, and understanding - instead replacing it with blind faith - people will rightly turn away from it.

In summary, let’s stop promoting the caricature that all atheists are closet theists, lazy, or unintelligent people. Let's instead realize that many atheists, like many theists, are striving for the same goal – truth. Let’s meet them there, and start our evangelization from that premise.

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A Tale of Two Sufferings

8/21/2014

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The news in these late days of summer seems only to get darker and more shocking. The genocide that’s developing from Islamic extremists in Iraq is horrifying: beheading, crucifying, raping, selling women into sex slavery, and plundering Christians and other religious minorities. It’s well-known that ISIS (now simply called the Islamic State) gave Christians an ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay the jizya tax, or die. The jizya tax is worthless because the Islamists take the Christians’ money and then take their wife and children for themselves anyway. So it’s actually convert, or die. For the first time in 2,000 years, ancient cities like Mosul are devoid of Christians.

Then, we hear about the tragic death of our beloved comedy icon, Robin Williams. Growing up, I knew him especially as Mrs. Doubtfire and still love watching that movie. Often times I like to enter a room and, with my best Mrs. Doubtfire voice, go “helllloooo!” Later on, in High School, we watched “Dead Poets Society” in English class. Some of us started calling our teacher “O Captain my captain” and probably for the first time ever thought of poetry and theater as pretty cool. (Not to mention crying “Carpe diem” and not the dumb person’s version, #yolo)

This news is a big...

...where suffering is real and a part of our broken human condition. Everyone who has ever lived knows what suffering is and has experienced it. What’s alien and needs a punch to the face is the Western mindset that we can eliminate all suffering, enjoying a life of perfect happiness, and worse, that we can allow ourselves to be ignorant of others’ suffering because it’s inconvenient to our self-centeredness. This is our wake-up call to human suffering. Are we hearing it?

What we have is a tale of two sufferings, and it is OK to be sad about both.

The Iraqi Christians’ suffering started externally, from an unprovoked enemy that wants to see a group of people wiped off the face of the earth. Their external suffering becomes internal suffering from the loss of life, family, friends, home, livelihood, and so on. Meanwhile, their physical suffering intensifies as food and water run out and few countries have opened their boarders to these refugees. Few of us in America can even fathom that kind of torment.

For Robin Williams, his suffering came from the internal, unseen by his fans watching in the audience. No one could, the guy was hilarious. His comedy would give the impression that he’s happy and content. His is the kind of suffering millions of people deal with and it goes unnoticed by the others around them, because it is on the inside, in the mind, hidden from the outside world. I’ve read many posts from people recollecting an experience they had with Robin. They all talk about his wild energy on stage, his deeply compassionate, caring heart, and even timidity and shyness off the stage. Many fellow comedians have spoken up saying they suffer the same thing. One post from a standup comic said that for a lot of people in the field, him included, their stage presence is a façade, hiding their real suffering self from the world. That kind of social isolation, where the high of making people laugh wears off and the true friends who will stick around when the ‘funny guy’ is turned off are few (or non-existent), combined with an illness like depression, can leave a person in such a dark place that they think it will never end. Lets not be naïve about depression. It is an illness of the mind just like cancer is a disease of the body. For people like Robin, that darkness becomes so overbearing that the internal suffering becomes external in the taking of his own life. That in turn has led to the external suffering of his family, friends, and fans as they mourn his tragic death.

Our own Andrew Gangidine put up a great response to a post that said “At least he had it his way.” But the fact is, Robin Williams did not have it his way. The person who commits suicide never has it their way. Read Andrew’s post here: http://imgur.com/gallery/eBVkJ1m

In the face of all of this suffering, the external leading to the internal, and the internal leading to the external, is there any hope? Will there ever be any kind of respite? Will there ever be a time when no one suffers any more?

Yes.

In the face of this suffering, Christians have the One who took on the face of our suffering.

Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross by Roman soldiers. He led a peaceful life. His enemy was unprovoked, but still nailed his body to a cross to hang and die at the insistence of men who wanted to create the world in their own image. Little did they know that they were looking upon the image of their own suffering condition when all was said and done. When the members of ISIS behead, crucify, and rape Christians, do they see the image of their own condition?

Christ was abandoned by nearly all of his closest friends and followers. He agonized alone over His approaching passion in the garden as his disciples slept, unable to stay awake for one hour with him. Only a few stood at the foot of His Cross to be with him in his final moments of pain and humiliation. The agony He must have felt when Peter first promises to go to his death with Jesus, but then denies him three times when push came to shove came to crucifixion. Jesus knows not only the suffering of the external attacks, but the internal isolation and darkness as well. It comes out externally when he cries “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

When Christians look upon the face of the Crucified, we see not only the image of our broken human condition, but also God himself who completely shares with us in our suffering, and gives it meaning. It is given meaning because He passed through the suffering into death. On the third day He rose again gloriously, destroying suffering and death, and winning for us eternal life in his glorious resurrection. We will enter into that life if we follow his command “take up your cross daily and follow me.” He promises from the cross, “Amen, I say to you, this day you will be with me in paradise.” Do we still suffer in this world? Yes, but it no longer has the last say. It is a passing through death to life.

That is why I think we especially need the Church, that institution that Westerners love to hate. We need to share our sufferings together and to share them in Christ’s sufferings. It is a parallel to what Jesus says is the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” All of us are implied in the One individual who took it all on for all our sakes, which makes it so that each individual no longer lives for him/herself, but for the whole, as Christ died and now lives for all. St. Paul expresses this when he says “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."

The Christians of Iraq are showing us what this looks like. On their tents they wrote “Jesus is the light of the world.” Even in the midst of suffering, they bear it together, they bear it for Christ, and they do not crumble, their faith stands strong.

Going back to Robin Williams, we don’t need to speculate about the “what if’s.” The tragic fact is, he’s gone. What we need to do now is wake up to the suffering in the world. It’s everywhere and it’s not going away. In responding to the suffering of our brothers and sisters consistently, we will find that in the midst of the suffering, there is hope, and at the end of it, joy.

“Yeah there’s a sadness and then you have to go with that there’s also hope…You wished they hadn’t happened, but they did, and the purpose is to make you different. It’s what they call a Buddhist gift, I would call it the ultimate Christian gift. It’s that idea of… you’re back. And you realize the thing that matters… are others, way beyond yourself. The self goes away. Ego, bye-bye. You realize there are a lot of amazing people out there to be grateful for, and a loving God. Other than that, good luck. That’s what life is all about.” –Robin Williams

Written by:
Marty Arlinghaus

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The Eucharist - The Church's Cornerstone

7/2/2014

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So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. (2 Thes. 2:15)

The fact of the matter is, from the time that Jesus died until the mid 1500s, Christians were on the same page regarding the Eucharist. Mass was celebrated, during which bread and wine were consecrated into the body and blood of Jesus. People believed this – in fact, people died for it. Several accounts from Roman historians cite the reason for early Christians being put to death as “Cannibalism”, in reference to them truly believing to be eating and drinking flesh and blood.

A few weeks ago, After successfully navigating through the Vatican’s website (which was in turn named as the 2nd confirmed miracle of St. John XXIII), I stumbled upon a document that was cited at the bottom of a page in the Catechism. Upon opening the document, I found that was it several hundred pages long.

Since I was pretty sure the Catholic Church wouldn't use the “Maybe-if-I-cite-something-really-long-nobody-will-actually-bother-to-check-it-for-the-cited-content” approach, I began to sift through the document, occasionally trying to Ctrl+F what I was looking for (Note: doesn’t work)

The document I had stumbled upon was the Patristica Denzinger – a comprehensive list of all Church dogma, where they came from, heresies that formed, and a line-by-line dissection of the exact quotes from the heretics, as well as an explanation for why exactly the heresies were wrong, and what the correct Christian understanding was. The document starts in the first century AD, and spans all the way until the late 1900s. As I was sifting through the document, a real sense of wonder came over me. I was reading the preserved, unabridged words of the forefathers of the Church, defending against heresies and defining what the Church actually believed in great detail, even 1900 years ago. The number of times the Eucharist was mentioned and clarified was also telling that the Church has not only always believed in it, but that it was a matter of great importance. A quick glance at the document will be enough to show that to the Church, the truth has always been worth fighting for.

The early Church fathers spoke frequently of the Eucharist – some died defending it. I will share a few of my favorite examples:

In 155 AD, a little more than a century after Jesus’s death and resurrection, a man named Justin sat down with the Roman Emporer, Antoninus, to talk with him about the Eucharist. The following is a quote from St. Justin to the emperor:

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist] - For not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”

Justin, for these words, was beheaded.

Another prominent theologian who preceded St. Justin, St. Ignatius of Antioch, also spoke of the Eucharist, most notably in his "Letter to the Smyrnaeans", paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.

Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox[1] in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.

[1] heterodox - any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position

Even after St. Justin and St. Ignatius suffered their matrydoms, the Eucharist was still being proclaimed by other theologians, such as St. Irenaeus in his "Five Books on the Unmasking and Refutation of the Falsely named Gnosis". Book 4:18 4-5, circa 180 A.D.

For just as the bread which comes from the earth, having received the invocation of God, is no longer ordinary bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly, so our bodies, having received the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, because they have the hope of the resurrection.

The reality is, either these people were right, or they died for a lie. Either they were right, or the writings of the early Church, as well as the words of St. Paul and Jesus Himself were completely misinterpreted until 1500 years after their works, when the reformation came along (where even Martin Luther did not argue the real presence in the Eucharist).

Statements come with consequences. If you are willing to state that the Eucharist is not the true body and true of Christ, then you must be also willing to state that as soon as Jesus left us we messed everything up. You must be willing to state that the early Christians who celebrated Mass were wrong, and that they died for a lie. You must be willing to claim intellectual superiority to Theological Giants such as St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, St. Ignatius, and Thomas Aquinas, who spent their lives writing and evangelizing on the Eucharist.

To separate oneself from the Eucharist is to deny the history of Christianity, as well as the sacrifices, beliefs, and structures that so many died to pass on. It is to break away from a physical encounter with Jesus Christ Himself at every Mass.

As Peter Kreeft mentions in his book Jesus Shock , the Eucharist must either be what the Catholic Church describes it as, in which case non-Catholic Christians are missing the most key, integral, and important encounter with the Lord, or that modern Catholics and early Christians have been completely wrong, and have stooped to idolatry. When Jesus mentioned this in John 6, he knew it was a difficult thing to accept (Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?"), and many turned away. If the Eucharist shocks you, it should. The only remaining question is whether or not you choose to turn away.

And what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. 2:2)

Note: The book mentioned in this blog post, Jesus Shock, as well as the book Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor, are available for free through the UC Society of Saint Paul. Both deal extensively with questions about the Eucharist. If you would like either book, please contact us at ucsocietyofsaintpaul@gmail.com

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Modernity's False Martyrdom

6/30/2014

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There are two catchphrases of college culture (although not limited to it) that dominate students’ mentality, “I don’t care what others think of me” and “I don’t give a f***.” I can’t stand hearing these things because they express a mentality deeply rooted in the culture of individualism and the culture of “meh.” The funny thing is, though, is that they have a deeper root, which is the Christian martyr mentality.

The Christian martyrs in all times and places perplexed the world around them, because they accepted their deaths with dignity, purpose, honor, bravery, and even glory. One of my favorite examples is St. Lawrence, who was grilled to death, and while he was on the flames told them, “Turn me over I’m done on this side.” When Christians were thrown to the beasts in the Colosseum to be ripped to shreds, they were often times the ones laughing at the Romans.

So what’s the deal with Christian martyrdom? It comes down to love of Christ. For the martyrs, nothing could separate them from their faith, that is, being in relationship with Jesus. Nothing was worth more than that. They clung to God’s Truth and Love so firmly that they were able to detach themselves from worldly concerns that normally dominate our lives: how do I look, what do they think of me, will I get in trouble for saying this… When the world around them reacted so violently to their testimony to the Christ’s death and resurrection that they were sent to their deaths, not even the fear of pain or death affected them anymore because they were so wrapped up in God’s eternal love, and so they accepted their martyrdom willingly as the most powerful witness to the Truth. They died for the sake of Christ, the king of martyrs, who died for the sake of the world, and for the sake of his Church, the Catholic Church, so that others might be inspired to enter into that same life of perfect love.

As inadequate as that was at explaining Christian martyrdom, lets get back to our modern phrases. Essentially, they are expressions of a false Christian martyr mentality. “I don’t care what others think of me.” That’s a strong statement to a world that certainly wants you to care what it thinks of you. It proclaims your detachment from worldly concerns. The problem is that its root is individualism, which is not transcendent at all the way Catholic Christianity is.

Catholicism accepts you just the way you are, but calls you forward toward perfection. To say I’m perfect just the way I am is a glaring denial of my countless shortcomings in how I live out my life. It leaves me no room for improvement, no way to grow and become even better, and that is not living, that is not freedom if I put that limit on the possibility of loving even more deeply. When it comes down to it, the modern individualistic expression is a copout that let’s me be exactly how I am without having to make an effort to be greater, to try harder, to love deeper.

“I don’t give a f***.” Saying that drives a person nuts who really wants you to care. Again, not at all the way Catholicism sees detachment. Catholicism cares, a lot. The Christian martyrs cared, a lot, just not about their own bodily comforts, but rather the love of God. The modern mentality of “I don’t give a f***,” is so dull, apathetic, and boring. It is truly the opposite of love. It plunges itself into the tiny, dark, lonely world of me, me, me. Love is to will the Good of the other and to do something about it; by its nature Love cannot be self-concerned, but involves reaching to someone other than myself. This saying is also a copout like the first one, it allows me to be the dullest, flattest, least dynamic person ever, and masks it as the defiance of St. Lawrence. It denies my purpose, my ultimate end, and once again denies my ability to love. It lets me get away with everything and accomplish nothing.

So we as Christians need to learn a thing or two from our martyrs about true detachment. Are we witnessing to the Truth in our detachment, or glorifying self-serving individualism and “meh”? Are we allowing the world to get away with twisting the most powerful witness there is, martyring itself for the dull, boring, and flat? Or are we calling it through Beauty, Truth, and Goodness to transcend into the life wrapped completely in the love of God? Are we wrapped up so much in the love of God that we are ready to witness to the truth of Christ crucified and resurrected like the true martyrs?

Written by:
Marty Arlinghaus

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Ideologies— The Plague of the Human Mind, Heart, Body, and Soul

6/20/2014

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Are you liberal or conservative? Are you for economic equality or for the 1%? Are you for LBGTQ or are you against marriage equality? Are you a Catholic Democrat, or a Catholic Republican?

We llloooooovvvve debating these questions. It takes up the majority of my Facebook newsfeed that has become more of an alternate front-page news source if I can get past those endless “16 things you forgot to thank your high school friends for, I will always remember number 6!” (I totally don’t remember number 6.)

These debates rage in the Catholic Church (in America) as much as they do everywhere else in the country/world. Specifically in Catholicism there’s the liberal “social justice” Catholic and the conservative “doctrinal” Catholic, fighting for control of the Church. According to this binary, label-making way of thinking, Pope Francis takes the side of the first, and Pope Benedict XVI takes the side of the second.

I think a lot of Americans subconsciously picture the liberal/conservative debate like World War II, and of course whatever side we pick is the Allies, the winning team, the right side of history, and the opposition is the fascist Nazi Axis that tried to conquer the world but is now collapsing in on itself.

How the debate actually looks is more like World War I. We dig our trenches and every now and then we try to charge across no-man’s land to storm the other side to win the war. Then, through the machine gun barrage of articles and tweets and blogs posted in the media we get mowed down by the defenders on the other side and retreat back to our own trench where we regroup and wait for the other side to attack to mow them down.

The sides we take are ideologies. Neither will win. Neither has true power . Whatever gains one side makes and vice versa will be wiped out when the grindstone of time turns the Roman, oops I mean American, Empire into a fine powder in the annals of history. It will all come to nothing. These ideologies are our modern mind’s equivalent to the idols of the ancient world. We idolize these camps of thought by elevating them, and America, to the eternal, as if it will all last forever. We serve them to death, but ultimately for the gain of nothing.

Their trick is they disguise themselves as being all good by using parts of the Truth but not the whole of it. Using only parts of the Truth leads to dysfunction, decay, and suffering, but it seems good enough to bite the worm on the hook. Even Hitler made people happy by giving them some good things: for example, the Autobahn, which is the reason America has its highway system, because it’s actually a good idea. We can’t allow ourselves to be deceived by the disguise of ideologies, though. They’re the slavery of the “free” world.

If nothing we build using these ideologies will last forever, what will? Well, let’s look to something that has stood firm for 2,000 years, has seen the rise and fall of nearly every kind of power and principality, and has only grown when the powerful try to wipe it out. It’s the Catholic Church!

The early Christians saw right through the political customs of the Roman Empire, the Roman way of life, which was wrapped up in its mythology, and decided not to participate in it. (By that point, Ancient Roman religion was an outward show, inwardly they didn’t really believe in the gods or used them as metaphors for life lessons and interpretations.) Believe it or not, the early Christians were accused of being atheists because of their refusal to be a part of this outward show. The Christians lived outwardly according to their inward belief in the one true God, the God who is being itself, the God who is substance itself, existing through the fading of all of our puny little human inventions and actions into nothingness.

Here’s the shocking thing, though, because the Roman and Greek philosophers believed in that same God, the God who is being itself, or at least the concept of it. The Christians believed that true God above all the myths to be personal, close at hand, loving, even… becoming a human himself, dying a real death on the Roman Empire’s most effective death device of state-sponsored terrorism ever, and rising from the dead gloriously three days later. The Christians believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living, true God. He is true substance. Whatever is built on Him will last for eternity. Worshiping Him is uniting oneself to eternity, to freedom from the nothingness of ideologies. The Catholic Church has professed this faith in Jesus Christ for 2,000 years, since Peter said of Jesus, “you are the messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Fast-forward to 2014 to Pope Francis, the successor of St. Peter in an unbroken line of successors to St. Peter. He professes that same faith. He does not take political sides; he sees right through the ideologies of the liberal “social justice” Catholic and the conservative “doctrinal” Catholic. He doesn’t participate in that outward show that comes to nothing. In fact, he even condemns those ideologies outright. “When a Christian becomes a disciple of ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought.” –Pope Francis, in a homily given on October 7, 2013.

In reality, liberal and conservative don’t exist in Catholicism. The question is about the true God. Are we living in the Truth? Do we know the One who is forever? Have we completely allowed His Son, Jesus Christ, into our lives? And do you know who’s been saying the same thing as Pope Francis? Pope Benedict XVI. You can read it in his Introduction to Christianity, Chapter III, sections 1 and 2.

So how about we make like Pope Francis and start following Christ? No more self-referentialism. No more ideologies. No more trenches. No more enslavement. Lets live outwardly according to the true faith that we believe in inwardly and call the world to that faith.

Verso l'alto!

Notice they're all in procession in the same direction, toward the Triune God

Pictures taken from:

http://catholicradiodramas.com/radio-productions/sermons-of-the-saints-narrated-by-frank-dugan/

Written by:

Marty Arlinghaus

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Two Books

6/6/2014

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I’m in the middle of reading this excellent book called The Frontiersmen by Allen W. Eckert. It’s a narrative of the American frontier and the men and women who conquered them. He wrote a whole series of these books but this one is specifically about the Midwest (that’s us! Woot woot!) But anyway, I’ve learned a lot about the Native Americans (mostly the Shawnees) and I was astounded by their knowledge of nature, their ability to produce all natural (and extremely effective) medicines and their efficiency in everything they did. What shocked me most, however, was the fact that the god they worshiped, whom they called Moneto, was strikingly similar to our God – the God of the Bible. For them, Moneto was the one supreme being that was all powerful, all knowing, and the one who created the universe. Of course there were many dissimilarities as well but it struck me as odd that these people, who were without Jewish heritage or influence from Christians, could come up with a god that was so similar to our God. Even a lot of the guiding rules of their religion were reminiscent of Christian morals. So how did this come about?

The answer is simple actually. God reveals himself through nature just like He does through Sacred Scriptures. As Peter Kreeft would put it, “God wrote two books: nature and the Bible. We should read them both.” When we watch the sun set on a summer evening it would be a pity to think that all those brilliant colors are simply the culmination of bazillions of ultraviolet rays coming from a burning ball of gas 93 million miles away, through our gaseous atmosphere, projected onto the backs of our eyes and interpreted by our brain. It would also be a pity to think that it’s simply a beautiful piece of artwork produced by God for us to look at. No, when we look at that sunset we aren’t simply reminded of God; we actually see God! Not God in his entirety of course (that would be pantheism) but something of the great mystery of God is revealed to us when we look at his marvelous creation; rather through his creation and into Him. When we are exposed to such beauty as a resplendent sunset, a picturesque mountain landscape, or the warmth of the beach on a sunny day, our hearts cannot help but be drawn into that beauty – and in that beauty a bit of knowledge of Something Beautiful is implanted in our minds. It should cause us to say “how beautiful you are, Lord God” rather than “what great an artist you are, Lord God.”

A sunset, beach, and mountain all in the same pic! Oooohh yeeah! 0_o

It’s like walking by a picket fence and seeing someone, through it, on the other side. We only see little slices of the person behind the fence but as we walk by we see more and more slices of that person and our mind puts them together to form an image. In the same way we can put together an image of God by reading his book of nature. Of course this image is incomplete and blurred just as our image of the person is through the fence.

However, if you know something about the Native Americans you’ll also know that they could be quite savage. They seemingly were always waging war against the neighboring tribes and when they went on these killing sprees they were merciless. Of course they aren’t the only ones who can be savage. History very clearly shows that all men are capable of extreme evil (just take a look at the 20th century). But if these Native Americans had such similar knowledge of God and similar moral standards why were they so barbaric? … It’s because they only had one book. When you read the book of nature you inevitably run into lots of animals which have a fully animalistic nature (duh!). Animals have a lot of seemingly pointless fights and they will ruthlessly kill each other in order to stay alive. Reading only the book of nature, the first book God wrote, will most certainly lead to insights of God but they will be blurred at best; like trying to seeing someone through an old window pane (before we had the technology to make them almost perfectly clear). Looking through this glass we can know that the person is there and see the person’s basic form but we won’t ever fully be able to get to know the person by looking at him through the wavy window pane. We have to go out and meet him face to face. As St. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, “We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face.”

To get a fuller understanding of God we must put these two books together and only then will we be able to know God really well. In the book of his Word we are embraced by His infinite love and mercy while in nature we take a glimpse at the beauty of His kindly countenance. So go outside and immerse yourself in God’s other book – and find Him in its beauty.

PS – If you found anything in this blog to be insightful or inspiring, thank God for that and not me. “He must increase; I must decrease.” Also, as Pier Giorgio once said to his friends, so I to you, “I beg you to pray for me a little, so that God may give me an iron will that does not bend and does not fail in His projects.” Verso l’alto!

Written by: Jesse Badinghaus

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New SSP Program Director, Martin Arlinghaus

5/21/2014

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The UC Society of Saint Paul officially welcomes its new Program Director, Martin Arlinghaus.

In the Summer of 2012, Marty approached me after Mass at St. Clarence, the parish we grew up in. He told me he had a great idea for a group he thought of, called “The Society of St. Paul” that would be based on the New Evangelization and would become a strong Catholic presence on campus. I said it sounded cool, and did not give much thought to it after that. As fate would have it, summer plans led to us living together the next year, along with two others from St. Clarence, including my older brother.

The year began, and Marty once again brought up The Society of Saint Paul. I had forgotten about it, but he was indeed still set on it. He told us about a nice parish he had been going to for Mass called Annunciation. We started going to Annunciation for Mass every Sunday, and then we would come back to our house for brunch and some Catholic discussion.

The first few meetings consisted of the four of us at the house plus two friends. As the weeks went on, more and more people were showing up. Originally, our meetings had no definitive ending time, leading to us literally talking about Catholicism until around dinner time. We realized a few things from these early meetings:

1.There were strong Catholics on UC’s campus who had a yearning for a dynamic faith sharing experience.

And

2. Nobody would come to a group that had 8 hour meetings.

Our meetings continued to grow and become more refined, with each Sunday meeting being devoted to Scriptural reflection, as well as discussing some of the works of the giants of theology, such as G.K. Chesterton.

The numbers grew, and more and more people joined the meetings in our small house just off of campus.

The next thing we knew, Archbishop Schnurr was sitting in a beat-up lawn chair in our kitchen with pancakes, talking about the scriptures with us.

Our meeting with Archbishop Schnurr.

Fast forward to 2014:

The UC Society of Saint Paul is now an officially recognized campus group, consisting of two off-campus houses, a speaker series that has hosted world-famous speakers such as Dr. Allen Hunt, a vast membership inclusive of all grade-levels, and a firm devotion to both parish life and the New Evangelization.

A recent picture of the group.

As of recent, Marty has been hired as full-time Program Director of the UC Society of Saint Paul, and is now working on building relationships with other Catholic organizations and ministries around the Greater Cincinnati area, building a network of donors, developing more clearly the formational aspect of the society, and setting up the organizational structure for evangelization and sustainable expansion.

Welcome and Congratulations to Marty!

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SSP Blog

Mind Over Matter-- Gender/Sexual Identity

The Media, Pope Francis, and "The Changing Church"

The Battle of Lepanto--Why We Are Free

"God's Not Dead" and what Atheists aren't Like

A Tale of Two Sufferings

The Eucharist - The Church's Cornerstone

Modernity's False Martyrdom

Ideologies— The Plague of the Human Mind, Heart, Body, and Soul

Two Books

New SSP Program Director, Martin Arlinghaus

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