I completed my presentation, Why Should I Go to Mass (Weekly)?, last night. This video isn’t just for people who don’t go to Mass. It will help you reflect on why it is important to go to Mass.
Every time Mass is celebrated we all join together in saying the Lord’s Prayer. Why include it at Mass? The whole of Mass comes from the Lord and is rooted in the Bible. In Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus teaches how to pray. Then, in verses 9-13, He explicitly gives us the Lord’s Prayer. What prayer could be better than the one Lord teaches us?
We say the Lord’s Prayer at Mass. Do you actually pray the words or do you just say them? Do you think about what they mean? Do you live what the words mean? It is not always easy to do the Lord’s Will? That’s why the priest says, “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say.” Please take some time to think about what the words mean.
Last week I wrote about the hope I saw in the Alabama State Supreme Court’s decision that “embryos are children” (“There is Hope in Alabama”). Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that many people do not get the significance of the decision that “embryos are children.”
What makes it clear that they don’t get it? I am not surprised that those who support abortion don’t get it. If they did get it, they won’t support abortion because they would understand that abortion ends the life of an innocent child.
What does surprise me is how many politicians who are against abortion are now rushing to enshrine in law a right to IVF (In Vitro Fertilization). It seems they don’t understand that the use of IVF involves the creation of “extra” embryos that are frozen and/or destroyed. Is this the way we treat our children?
I’m not surprised that in the past that some people who are pro-life may not have understood all the issues involved in IVF (see my article from last week, “There is Hope in Alabama,”) but I would hope that the Alabama’s State Supreme Court declaring “embryos are children” would make them think and, hopefully, change their thinking on IVF.
Does this take away the hope I saw in the court’s decision that “embryos are children.” I would say that it does lessen my hope in humanity for an immediate change to end all abortion and procedures that end the lives of embryo children. However, it does not take away my hope. Why? First and foremost, because my true hope is not rooted in humanity. My true hope is based on my faith and trust in God. “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). I know God is prolife.
There is an aspect of what is going that keeps some “hope in humanity” alive for me. I have heard of no one arguing that the decision of the Alabama State Supreme Court that “embryos are children” under Alabama law. Why don’t they argue against it?
Perhaps it is because they know it is true.
I think of how many times in the Old Testament people tried to silence the prophets. The story of the prophet Jeremiah in the book in Old Testament that bears his name is a good example. (See my article, “Jeremiah Today”) At times the people tried to silence him. They did not like what he was saying. If he was right, they would have to change their lives. They didn’t try to prove him wrong. I suspect this is because they knew what he said was true. So, they wanted to silence him. Following the decision in Alabama that “embryos are children,” I think they don’t argue against because they know they can’t win and they don’t want to draw any attention to the statement that “embryos are children.”
I think what we are seeing is the fulfillment of what Paul wrote in 2 Timothy. I used the following quote in my presentation, Where Do We Go for Truth.
People have stopped listening to the real Truth and have begun making up their own truth. They declare the truth to be what they want it to be. Then, they expect us to “tolerate” their position (see my article “Tolerance, Hate Speech, and Dialogue?“)
Relativism says everyone must be free to decide for themselves what they believe. I agree that we shouldn’t force our beliefs on others. As I quoted in my presentation, Where Do We Go for Truth, the Catechism of the Catholic Churchsays
Yes, people have a right to follow their conscience. With this right, they have a duty to have a well-formed conscience.
This means we can’t just say we believe “X” and declare it to be based on our conscience. Contrary to what Justice Kennedy said in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (Reilly, Robert R., America on Trial A Defense of the Founding. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 2020. 6. interior quote “Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. et al,. v. Casey, Governor of Pennsylvania, et a, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZS.html.“), our meaning has to flow from something greater than ourselves.
Christians say in the Lord’s Prayer, thy will be done. We do not pray solely for our own will. We recognize that God is the one who is all-knowing. To ask for something in Jesus’ name is not to ask simply for what we want. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray that God’s Will be done just as Jesus prayed in the garden, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).
The Church is God’s instrument on earth. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor, “the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to “exhort consciences” and to “propose values”, in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices” (Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993, access date 3/5/24, paragraph 4).
As we read in Exodus 23:2, “You shall not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When testifying in a lawsuit, you shall not follow the crowd in perverting justice,” the real Truth is not deciding by majority rule. The Truth comes from the One who is greater all of us together.
As “Peter and the apostles said in reply, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
God gives us the gift of reason to learn and understand. However, that doesn’t mean we are going to understand everything. It doesn’t mean we get to pick and choose what we belief (see my article, “Cafeteria Catholic? Not!”). When we don’t understand, we are called to trust in God.
It is time to end the partisan politics. It is time to end the war between Israel and Hamas as well as the Ukraine and Russia. It is time to end religious murders and persecution in Africa. It is time to end the hatred in our country towards illegal immigrants. It is time to love God and to love our neighbor.
The truth? The truth is not a burden. The truth is a gift.
As Pope John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor, “Those who live “by the flesh” experience God’s law as a burden, and indeed as a denial or at least a restriction of their own freedom. On the other hand, those who are impelled by love and “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16), and who desire to serve others, find in God’s Law the fundamental and necessary way in which to practise love as something freely chosen and freely lived out. Indeed, they feel an interior urge — a genuine “necessity” and no longer a form of coercion — not to stop at the minimum demands of the Law, but to live them in their “fullness” (18).
3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 12 (John 6:68c) 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 John 2:13-25 March 3, 2024
At times, Paul tells us that as Christians we are not under the Law. Rather, we are under the Spirit. This does not mean that we get rid of the Law.
The Law was given by God. Thus, as Psalm 19 says, “the ordinances of the LORD are true, all of them just.”
Paul tells us that “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” Jesus loving act of giving his life for us on the Cross reveals God’s absolute love for us. Because of his love for us, we can count on his wisdom.
Jesus himself observed the Law as demonstrated by his going to Jerusalem for the Passover.
As Psalm 19 also says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul.”
The Ten Commandments are not just a bunch of rules. They are a way of life (see my presentation, Are They Rules or a Way of Life?).
The First Commandment to have no other gods calls us to ask if God is our greatest priority or is there something else that is more important to us. Sports? Money? Career?
The Third Commandment to keep holy the sabbath day calls us to ask if Sunday a day for the Lord for us or do we spend the day doing something else? Do our actions make other people work without real need on the Sabbath?
The Seventh Commandment says, “You shall not steal.” Do we use pirated software or illegally download music or videos without paying for it, robbing the composer of their rightful pay?
The Eighth Commandment calls us to tell the truth? Do we gossip?
Just as we are called to individually examine our consciences, we need to collectively look at how society is doing. I am not encouraged by what I see. When we are so fortunate to have a secular court declare that “embryos are children,” many fail to see the significance of this decision (see my blog article, “There is Hope in Alabama”).
How are we doing as a church?
In today’s gospel, Jesus goes to the temple for the Passover. What does He find there? He finds people selling oxen, sheep, and doves as well as finding money changers there. What are they doing in the temple area?
People went to the temple to offer sacrifice. Theoretically, the money changers are there to exchange currency for those who come with coins of other nations. The oxen, sheep, doves are there to be purchased to offer as sacrifice.
On the surface, this might seem convenient. We may think what is “convenient” is “good” but the problem is they have made our Father’s house a marketplace.
This should lead us to think about how our two parishes are doing. We have been surviving for a long time but is just “surviving” enough?
Jesus did not tell us disciples to maintain what He had started. It is not enough just to maintain. Jesus told them, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
Jesus has given us a mission to share the gospel. Our mission as a parish starts with us allowing ourselves to be transformed by the gospel. As, not after, we are transformed, we must take the gospel out to those who don’t come to church. It’s what Jesus asks of us.
It starts with seeing ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to the people in the temple area, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
They thought He meant the temple building. In that thinking, it would seem impossible to rebuild it in three days. “But he was speaking about the temple of his body.”
When we see our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, then we will observe all that the Lord has commanded us (see Matthew 28:20) and teach those we see outside the church to do the same. We need to do it as individuals and together as a community of believers.
As we make the effort, remember Jesus’ words, “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
The Eucharistic Prayer ends with the priest saying, “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”
Everything that happens in the Mass happens through the Lord. The bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Jesus. “We celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice” (Eucharistic Prayer III).
What we celebrate in the Eucharist is beyond “amazing.” How do we respond? With one word, “Amen.” Amen means we believe what has been said and done.
After three months of much work, my website has a new look. Those of you who know me, know that I normally update my website myself. The change started when my old blog crashed in November. It didn’t work for three days. From there, my website hosting provider required a change of software (I knew this was coming at some point). This required copying over the entire website. This required more work than I had time for. So, I hired them to do the redesign. The good news is I had been wanting to give the website a fresh look for some time.
It’s the same content as before and I will continue to add continue. The look is different. Perhaps the biggest visible change is that my blog and website are now one.
Perhaps the most beneficial change for people using my website is the addition of a search bar at the top of every page. You can enter words and it will show you where to find them on the website and the blog.
The menu bar near the top is different. If you look at the upper right corner, you will find three horizontal lines stacked on top of one another. That is the new menu bar. Just click on the three lines to see the menu bar. If you prefer a traditional menu bar, you can find it at the bottom of every page.
If you were subscribed to my old blog, you will need to subscribe to the new blog. However, that doesn’t seem to be working yet…please be patient. For those unfamiliar with this, when working, if you enter your email address in the subscribe box, whenever I publish a new article to my blog, you will automatically receive it in an email.
Lastly, you will notice the addition of the “s” in the website address (https://www.renewaloffaith.org). This is an added level of security. If you used to get messages that my website was unsecure, this should eliminate that.
As I said, the blog subscription doesn’t work yet. You can also see that links in my blog articles aren’t in color yet. They are working on that. If you notice any other problems such as missing text or links that don’t work, please let me know.
I was overjoyed that a court has finally pronounced the embryos are children. In their decision, Payne reports, the court even cited passages from the Bible.
The court was responding to a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of embryos that were accidentally destroyed. Since the court decided that embryos are children, that lawsuit can move forward. The court decision made no comments on fertility treatments in general (Daniel Payne, “After Alabama Supreme Court’s Embryo Personhood ruling what comes next,” 2/23/24. Catholic News Agency. Accessed online on 2/27/24 at https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256907/after-alabama-supreme-court-s-embryo-personhood-ruling-what-comes-next.)
Since the court decision was announced, the news has reported that some IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics in Alabama have either closed or temporarily ceased activity while they examine what this court decision means for their work and the embryos in storage. I find it curious, but not surprising, that the secular news seems to assume IVF is a perfectly acceptable procedure.
I think some people might assume the Catholic Church would be in favor of IVF since the Catholic Church supports parents having children. The Catholic Church does support treatments that help couples address fertility issues. The following slide from Part II of my series, Treating Life With Dignity and Love, provides a quote from Humanae Vitae (Pope Paul VI, 7/25/1968), on the church’s position on medical efforts that actually address fertility issues. The second part of the slide points to the St. Paul VI Institute that provides fertility treatments that are in accord with Catholic teaching.
Why does the Catholic Church disapprove of IVF? (see Donum Vitae by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, February 22, 1987). Before answering this, I want to be clear that any child born through IVF is a child of God, loved by God, and has the same dignity as a child conceived naturally. Again, these children are loved by God.
We need to understand that when a female decides to use IVF to become pregnant, the clinic creates not just one embryo but several. So, because we see the embryo as a child, our Catholic faith is greatly concerned about the extra embryos that are created.
When the procedure to implement the embryos in the mother’s womb is done, it is not just a single embryo that is implanted. To increase the chances of successful implementation several embryos are inserted. This can result in multiple pregnancies at once. When this happens, abortions may be performed to reduce the number of children in their mother’s womb. Abortion is never a good thing.
Any remaining embryos are frozen and placed in storage for future use. They are not treated as children. The lawsuit concerning the accidental death of some embryos demonstrates why storage of embryos is a moral problem.
Our Catholic faith is also concerned about the unnatural way in which the embryos are created. An egg is obtained from either the woman who seeks to become a mother or, if she does not have healthy egg cells, from a “donor female.” Sperm is obtained from either the man who seeks to become a father or a “sperm donor male.” They are combined in a laboratory clinic. Then embryos are inserted into the mother’s womb. It is a laboratory procedure rather than a loving act of sexual intimacy between a married husband and wife. In fact, there doesn’t even need to be a male involved except to donate the sperm. In this case, IVF has nothing to do with fertility treatments.
While the next slide quotes the Catechism as to God as the one who is the author of life.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I was overjoyed to hear that a court had decided that embryos are children. While I have used this opportunity to write about what our Catholic faith teaches about IVF, my joy lies in the declaration for life. The following slide from Part II of my series, Treating Life With Dignity and Love, shows what the Catholic Church teaches and what I believe, that life begins at conception.
With this in mind, I find it interesting that the news story I have seen do not argue the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that embryos are children. Could it be that they know the court is correct?
I do not know if this court decision that embryos are children will have any bearing on court decisions or new laws concerning abortion. The second article I cited by Payne, “After Alabama Supreme Court’s Embro Personhood ruling what comes next,” explains while it is unlikely that this decision will be appealed to the federal courts.
However, we can pray that those who support abortion hear the Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring embryos are children and come to realize the errors of their past. We also pray that every child, regardless if they were conceived naturally, through IVF, or other means is always loved and cherished by all people as they are loved by God.
How would you fair with the same test? Last week I spoke about our struggles to resist temptation. Who you do any better with the test that Abraham faced when God told him, “Take your son Isaac, your only whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust” (first reading for today)?
Abraham had waited a long time for a son. When Isaac was born, Abraham loved him dearly. Yet, when God told him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham was willing to do it. He “built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.”
Abraham was willing to make the sacrifice God commanded of him.
Would you have been willing to do the same?
Abraham loved Isaac but he also loved God and fully trusted God. In his love and trust for God, he was willing to do whatever God asked of him.
Are you willing to make a sacrifice for God?
Where would you draw the line?
Of course, the good news is that God stopped Abraham before he killed Isaac. God then provided a ram for that day’s sacrifice. While Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Isaac that day, the day would come when God would sacrifice his Son Jesus for us on the Cross. God makes the ultimate sacrifice for us.
Why? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).
Being a disciple of Jesus requires us to make sacrifices. From the sacrifices can come blessings. Remember God’s words to Abraham ” in our first reading, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly.”
Today’s responsorial psalm begins, “I believed, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”” Suffering happens but it does not mean that God has abandoned us. And we should not abandon God because we suffer. As Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all…” The world is full of suffering. The devil tries to strike against us but we need not fear the suffering or the devil for God has made the ultimate sacrifice for us and will always be at our side as we make sacrifices and accept suffering throughout our lives.
Jesus knew that it would be hard for his disciples to see him suffer. After He told them what was to come, He “took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.” Why? So, they could see him transfigured into his glory to know his divinity. He wanted them to see him with Elijah to know that He is the fulfillment of what the prophecies foretold. He wanted them to see him with Moses so that they would know He is the fulfillment of the Law. He wanted them to hear God’s voice say, “This is my beloved Son, Listen to him.” Jesus is the Son of God. We need to listen to him.
Do you listen to Jesus? Are you willing to make sacrifices for your faith?
Last night I offered a new presentation, Why Should I Go to Confession?. The recording of the video and the slides are now available on my website at http://www.renewaloffaith.org/whyconfession.
The Eucharistic Prayer ends with the priest saying, “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”
Everything that happens in the Mass happens through the Lord. The bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Jesus. “We celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice” (Eucharistic Prayer III).
What we celebrate in the Eucharist is beyond “amazing.” How do we respond? With one word, “Amen.” Amen means we believe what has been said and done.
