Pope Benedict XVI on a "new evangelization"

Pope Benedict XVI explained why we need an effort for a "New Evangelization." Here are three paragraphs from a recent statement (from the address Benedict XVI gave on May 30 2011 to members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, who are concluding the council's first plenary assembly) with a brief commentary.

[1] The crisis being experienced bears in itself traces of the exclusion of God from people's lives, of a generalized indifference toward the Christian faith itself, to the point of attempting to marginalize it from public life. In past decades it was still possible to discover a general Christian sense that unified the common feeling of whole generations, growing up in the shadow of the faith that had molded the culture. Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the drama of a fragmentation that no longer consents to a unified point of reference; moreover, we often see the phenomenon of persons who wish to belong to the Church, but are strongly molded by a vision of life that opposes the faith.

We need restore some points of reference, particularly for the young people today. A passage from Fides et ratio frequently comes to mind on this matter: "For it is undeniable that this time of rapid and complex change can leave especially the younger generation, to whom the future belongs and on whom it depends, with a sense that they have no valid points of reference. The need for a foundation for personal and communal life becomes all the more pressing at a time when we are faced with the patent inadequacy of perspectives in which the ephemeral is affirmed as a value and the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life is cast into doubt. This is why many people stumble through life to the very edge of the abyss without knowing where they are going. At times, this happens because those whose vocation it is to give cultural expression to their thinking no longer look to truth, preferring quick success to the toil of patient enquiry into what makes life worth living." §6 Whose vocation is it to give cultural expression to truth, to embody the points of reference such as veneration of God, respect for moral law, authentic love? Teachers, artists, journalists. We need to teach the teachers.

[2] To proclaim Jesus Christ the only Savior of the world seems more complex today than in the past; but our task remains the same as at the dawn of our history. . . . A dynamic continuity exists between the proclamation of the first disciples and our own. In the course of the centuries the Church has never ceased to proclaim the salvific mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but that same proclamation today needs a renewed vigor to convince contemporary man, often distracted and insensitive. Because of this, the New Evangelization will have to be responsible for finding the methods to make the proclamation of salvation more effective, without which personal existence remains in its state of contradiction, deprived of the essential.

Pope Benedict does suggest a way forward -- to discover and identify those points of contradiction and incoherence in modern life and personal existence -- then perhaps one becomes receptive to the gospel. Again, Blessed John Paul II gave us a great account of this message in his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis: "Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer 'fully reveals man to himself'." §10

[3] Even in one who remains linked to his Christian roots, but lives the difficult relationship with modernity, it is important to make it understood that being Christian is not a sort of uniform to wear in private or on particular occasions, but is something alive and all-encompassing, able to take up all that is good in modernity.

Politicians frequently split their faith from their everyday activities; their lives become incoherent, a living contradiction. But this can be true of us if we fail to discovery that profound unity of faith and life. Blessed John Paul II wrote in his Ecclesia in America,  "On a continent marked by competition and aggressiveness, unbridled consumerism and corruption, lay people are called to embody deeply evangelical values such as mercy, forgiveness, honesty, transparency of heart and patience in difficult situations. What is expected from the laity is a great creative effort in activities and works demonstrating a life in harmony with the Gospel." §44

Authentic Womanhood: A new web resource on Blessed John Paul II

A new website and blog, Authentic Womanhood, may be found at the following web address:

http://www.authenticwomanhood.org/


This website and blog features Pope John Paul II’s thought and writings on "woman." One of their aims is "for this site to be a 'green house' in which those of us endeavoring to become authentic women may grow and blossom!" I assume that men will find this site of interest as well, since each man bears responsibility in love to women -- spouse, mother, sibling, friend.

Here is a sample from the site relevant to our blog posted earlier this day:

We know that God has revealed himself as a Trinity of Persons: Father Son, and Holy Spirit, in an eternal exchange of love. The Trinity is a communion, a shared relationship, of love. Just as earthly children share similarities with their parents, as God’s children we too, share his similarities. "Man and woman are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God. Human love finds in Trinitarian love a model of perfect loving and giving" (Address to an International Meeting on the Well Being of Women 6). And so as man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God means they are called to exist "for" others, to become a gift (Mulieris Dignitatem 7). This is a fundamental point in John Paul’s thought, because it is in this gift of self, which so closely resembles the relationality of the Trinity, that women must put to service in renewing the culture. While this concept of self-gift is the nature of both women and men, it is included in this section as a background for the feminine "genius."

I am delighted to recommend this site to those who wish to deepen their reflections on the Philosopher-Pope in his great initiatives to highlight the special dignity and mission of women. Please spread the word; share with it with your sister, your mother, your spouse, your friend . . .

Blessed John Paul II on marriage

Parents of Karol Wojtyla

Pope John Paul II defines marriage in light of the Triune God as the primary point of understanding communion of persons. The self-giving and self-sacrifice that constitutes this communion of persons is not derived from the philosophy of Aristotle. Life long fidelity in marriage and openness to procreation are not derived from Aristotle, but from the covenantal relationship between the husband and wife. The highest purpose for procreation, according to Aristotle, is to perpetuate the species as an imitation of the eternal being of the separate substance: in De Anima Aristotle said, "the most natural act is the production of another like itself, an animal producing an animal, a plant a plant, in order that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal and divine. . . . Since then no living thing is able to partake in what is eternal and divine by uninterrupted continuance (for nothing perishable can for ever remain one and the same), it tries to achieve that end in the only way possible to it,  . . . so it remains not indeed as the self-same individual but continues its existence in something like itself-not numerically but specifically one."

John Paul II discovers the authentic meaning of the sexual union of male and female, neither in sheer perpetuation of the species (as in Aristotle), nor the expression of personal affection or self-identity (as in contemporary liberalism), but in self-giving and communion.

Here is his definition in Familiaris consortio:

God created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love. God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.

As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love.

Consequently, sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact he or she would not be giving totally.

This totality which is required by conjugal love also corresponds to the demands of responsible fertility. This fertility is directed to the generation of a human being, and so by its nature it surpasses the purely biological order and involves a whole series of personal values. For the harmonious growth of these values a persevering and unified contribution by both parents is necessary.

The only "place" in which this self-giving in its whole truth is made possible is marriage, the covenant of conjugal love freely and consciously chosen, whereby man and woman accept the intimate community of life and love willed by God Himself which only in this light manifests its true meaning. The institution of marriage is not an undue interference by society or authority, nor the extrinsic imposition of a form. Rather it is an interior requirement of the covenant of conjugal love which is publicly affirmed as unique and exclusive, in order to live in complete fidelity to the plan of God, the Creator. A person's freedom, far from being restricted by this fidelity, is secured against every form of subjectivism or relativism and is made a sharer in creative Wisdom.  Familiaris consortio §11

Summary of the Virtues of Philip Neri

By his disciple Antonio Gallonio, in Life of St Philip Neri [first published in the Holy Year, 1600] (Ignatius Press, 2005) pp. 243-248

Humility
He made a particular point of humility; he loved it always, and embraced it, being constant in his practice of it. He used to say that it was through humility that virtues are retained, whereas once humility is lost all virtue is destroyed and comes to nothing. . . . He always did all he could to avoid honors and dignities, for he knew that honor does the soul no good and brings no happiness. . . . when he had done some great thing, he would conceal his wisdom under the guise of foolishness.

Love of Poverty
He constantly prayed God to bring him to such a pitch of poverty that if he were in need of a silver coin he might find no one to give it. This, however, he never achieved.

Constancy in Prayer
He also had a great longing for prayer, so that had it been possible he would never have ceased praying. Whatever spare time he had, he dedicated to prayer. . . .when he kindled a fire of meditation he would tremble all over, and become heated with the force of the heavenly flame. . .  He was readily able to spend much of the night in prayer. . . He always tried to find himself a place that was distant and high above ordinary business, to be a more suitable place for contemplation.

The Gift of Tears
His tears flowed so readily that almost every time he prayed he would burst out weeping. . . . He could hardly listen to anyone talking about the passion and death of Christ without tears starting from his eyes.

Gentlemess
His manner was so gentle that he was incapable of anger. When it was necessary to correct his disciples or anyone else, he did so with the greatest tact and tenderness. . . . he vanquished and restrained every impulse towards anger. . . . It was that joyous countenance that drew everyone towards him, conjoined with his delightful manner.

Prudence
God adorned Philip with great prudence, which was most noticeable in the things he did for the glory of God , and in giving spiritual advice. . . Men of every type flocked to him as their master, guide and spiritual director. . .

To avoid the danger of being prolix and tedious I shall keep silent about his virginal chastity, patience under adversity, perseverance in the projects he undertook, and charity for his neighbor (he was so afire with longing to reconcile sinners to Christ)

John Paul II on St Philip Neri

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
ON THE OCCASION OF THE IV CENTENARY
OF THE DEATH OF ST PHILIP NERI
    Reverend Father,

On the occasion of the fourth centenary of the dies natalis of St Philip Neri, Florentine by birth and Roman by adoption, I am pleased to address you and all the members of the Confederation of the Oratory, to recall its founder's example of holiness and to strengthen in each one the commitment of faith, active charity and enduring in hope (cf. 1 Thes 1:3).

1. The loving figure of the "saint of joy" even today still maintains intact that irresistible charm that he exercised on all those who drew near him to learn to know and experience the authentic sources of Christian joy.

Leafing through the biography of St Philip, in fact, one is surprised and fascinated by the cheerful and relaxed method he used to educate, supporting each person with fraternal generosity and patience. As is well known, the saint used to put his teaching into short and wise maxims: "Be good, if you can"; "Scruples and melancholy, stay away from my house"; "Be simple and humble"; "He who does not pray is a speechless animal"; and, bringing his hand to his forehead, "Holiness is three fingers deep". Behind the cleverness of these and many other "sayings", we are aware of the acute and realistic knowledge he had acquired of human nature and the dynamics of grace. He translated the experience of his long life and the wisdom of a heart inhabited by the Holy Spirit into these immediate, terse teachings. These aphorisms have now become a patrimony of wisdom as it were for Christian spirituality.

2. St Philip appears against the background of the Roman Renaissance as the "prophet of joy", who had decided to follow Jesus, even while being actively involved in the culture of his time, which in many respects is particularly close to that of today.

Humanism, which was completely focused on man and his remarkable intellectual and practical abilities, offered the rediscovery of a joyous naturalistic freshness, without obstacles or inhibitions, as a reaction to a certain ill-conceived medieval dourness. Man, considered almost as a pagan god, thus became the absolute protagonist. Furthermore, a sort of revision of the moral law was worked out with the objective of finding and guaranteeing happiness.

St Philip, who was conscious of the aspirations of the society of his time, did not deny this yearning for joy but undertook to propose its true source, which he had discovered in the Gospel message. It is the word of Christ that traces the true image of man, revealing those features that make him a beloved child of the Father, accepted as a brother by the Incarnate Word and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It is the laws of the Gospel and the commandments of Christ that lead to joy and happiness: this is the truth proclaimed by St Philip Neri to the young people he met in his daily apostolate. His was a message dictated by the intimate experience he had of God especially in prayer. His nightly prayer in the Catacombs of St Sebastian, where he often withdrew, was not just a search for solitude, but rather a desire to spend time conversing with the witnesses of the faith, to question them - just as the Renaissance scholars used to weave conversations with the Classics of antiquity: and from knowledge came imitation and then emulation.

In St Philip, to whom the Spirit gave a "heart of fire" as he kept vigil on the eve of Pentecost in 1544, it is possible to glimpse the allegory of the great and divine transformations brought about through prayer. A productive and sure programme of formation for joy - our saint teaches - is nourished and rests on a harmonious constellation of choices: assiduous prayer, frequent Communion, rediscovery and use of the sacrament of Reconciliation, daily and familiar contact with the word of God, the fruitful exercise of fraternal charity and service; and then devotion to Our Lady, the model and true cause of our joy. In this regard, how can we forget his wise and efficacious warning: "My children, be devoted to Mary: I know what I am saying! Be devoted to Mary!".

3. Called by antonomasia the "saint of joy", St Philip must also be recognized as the "Apostle of Rome", indeed as the "reformer of the Eternal City". This he became almost by a natural evolution and development of the choices made under the guidance of grace. He truly was the light and salt of Rome, in the words of the Gospel (cf. Mt 5:13:16). He knew how to be "light" in that culture which was certainly splendid, but often only because of the indirect, glancing rays of paganism. In this social context, Philip was deferential to authority, very devoted to the deposit of truth, intrepid in announcing the Christian message. Thus he was a source of light for everyone.

He did not choose the life of solitude; but, in exercising his ministry among the common people, he also wished to be "salt" for all those who met him. Like Jesus, he was equally able to enter into the human misery present in the noble palaces and in the alleys of Renaissance Rome. He was, at the same time, a Cyrenean and a critical conscience, an enlightened adviser and a smiling teacher.

For this reason, he did not adopt Rome so much as Rome adopted him! He lived for 60 years in this city, which meanwhile was becoming populated with saints. Even if in the streets he met suffering humanity, and comforted and sustained it with the charity of a wise and very human word, he preferred to gather young people in the Oratory, his true invention! He made it a place of joyful meeting, a training ground for formation, a centre of artistic enlightenment.

It was in the Oratory that St Philip, together with cultivating piety in its traditional and new expressions, undertook to reform and elevate art, restoring it to the service of God and the Church. Convinced as he was that beauty leads to goodness, he brought all that had an artistic stamp within the realm of his educational project. And he himself became a patron of various artistic forms, promoting sound initiatives that led to truth and goodness.

The contribution made by St Philip to sacred music was incisive and exemplary; he urged it to be elevated from a source of foolish amusement to being a re-creation for the spirit. It was due to his initiative that musicians and composers began a reform that was to reach its highest peak in Pierluigi da Palestrina.

4. May St Philip, loving and generous man, chaste and humble saint, active and contemplative apostle, remain the constant model of the members of the Congregation of the Oratory! He offers all the Oratorians a plan and style of life that even today have a particular timeliness. May his so-called "quadrilateral" - humility, charity, prayer and joy - continue to be a most sound basis on which to build the interior edifice of one's spiritual life.

If they can follow their founder's example, the Oratorians will continue to carry out a significant role in Church affairs. I therefore exhort all the sons and daughters of St Philip Neri always to be faithful to the Oratorian vocation, by seeking Christ, following him with perseverance and becoming generous sowers of joy among young people, who are so often tempted to discouragement and lack of confidence.

With these wishes I wish to invoke the heavenly protection of St Philip Neri on the whole Oratorian Community, while expressing my cordial wish that the jubilee celebrations will become an occasion for a stimulating rediscovery of the figure and work of this special witness to Christ, who can still teach so much, at the close of this century, to all Christians involved in the new evangelization.

I accompany these wishes with a special Apostolic Blessing, which I sincerely impart to you, to the members of the Confederation of the Oratory and to all those who draw from the spirituality of the "saint of joy".

From the Vatican, 7 October 1994.

Vatican II and a "debt to the Holy Spirit"

"The Second Vatican Council was a great gift from God" - John Paul II

Pope John Paul II attended all of the sessions of the Second Vatican Council; in Crossing the Threshold of Hope he speaks of the council primarily in terms of it being a gift from God and a corresponding debt we owe to the Holy Spirit. Pay it forward. For while his European confreres may have worried about the intra-Church politics, Wojtyla was just glad to be there, given the communist oppression and restrictions he experienced in Poland: "I had the particular fortune of being able to take part in the Council from the first day to the last. This was in no way to be taken for granted, since the Communist authorities in my country considered the trip to Rome a privilege and entirely under their control. If, then, under such  circumstances I was given the opportunity to participate in the Council from the beginning to the  end, it can rightly be judged a special gift from God." 

His book Sources of Renewal was written, he says, to repay the debt to the Holy Spirit for the council. In that book Wojtyla explained that the council was to deepen the Catholic awareness, or consciousness, of the faith; it was to renew our fundamental outlook and attitudes. Indeed, John Paul II makes the interesting observation that the tendentious interpretations of Vatican II, using a priori categories of optimism and pessimism (or left and right), simply reflect the skewed and limited predispositions of the people using them: "In a certain sense the Council already found them in the world and even in the  Church." John Paul II is suggesting here that we  must be formed anew, not hardened in our prior attitudes or ideas about the future tasks of the Church: "the Council contained something of Pentecost -- it set the  bishops of the world, and hence the whole Church, upon the paths that needed to be taken at the end  of the second millennium." Huddled against the modern world, the Church experienced a sending forth by the Holy Spirit. And Wojtyla was soon to lead the mission into the new millenium.

Wojtyla also called the Council the "seminary of the Holy Spirit," for he was formed and was taught much during his years with the men at the Council. The new evangelization, the hallmark of John Paul II's pontificate, "originated at the Second Vatican Council." 

In the subsequent chapter, entitled "A Dialogue of Salvation," he reiterates the theme of avoiding the polarizing complaints and look to the splendor of truth and our responsibility to the work of the Holy Spirit: "This style and this spirit will be remembered as the essential truth about the Council, not the  controversies between "liberals" and "conservatives"-controversies seen in political, not religious,  terms-to which some people wanted to reduce the whole Council. In this spirit the Second Vatican Council will continue to be a challenge for all Churches and a duty for each person for a long time to come." In other words, it is up to the faithful to put a hand on the plough and open new furrows in the world for the seeds of the faith. Now is the time!

We find ourselves faced with a new reality. The world, tired of ideology, is opening itself to the truth. The time has come when the splendor of this truth  (veritatis splendor) has begun anew to illuminate the darkness of human existence. Even if it is too  early to judge, if we consider how much has been accomplished and how much is being  accomplished, it is clear that the Council will not remain a dead letter.  The Spirit who spoke through the Second Vatican Council did not speak in vain. The experience of these years allows us to glimpse the possibility of  a new openness toward God's truth, a truth the Church must preach "in season and out of season" (cf. 2 Tm 4:2). Every minister of the Gospel must be thankful and feel constantly indebted to the Holy Spirit for the gift of the Council. It will take many years and many generations to pay off this debt.

We find ourselves in debt to Blessed John Paul II and the Holy Spirit. 

Blessed John Paul II on the Dominican Order

Rev Thomas Joseph White, OP

Last weekend I visited the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. I spent some time talking with Father Thomas Joseph White, OP. He is a convert who was attracted to the faith by Flannery O'Connor. See this website for the following statement: "He discovered Catholicism in the writings of a fellow Southerner, particularly her letters to an anonymous correspondent, Flannery O'Connor. 'I was struck by the tenacity and purity of her convictions,' he recalled, 'her truth convictions she had found something very substantial in Christ and she was unapologetically Catholic.' He was 'intrigued, and touched by her brilliant portrayal of God's working in ordinary circumstances.'" 

Fr White has recently initiated the Thomistic Institute. Its purpose is to promote "research into the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the subsequent Thomistic tradition. The research of the Institute is both historic and systematic, deeply rooted in the classical Catholic tradition while engaging contemporary discourse and thought. It recognizes also the importance of the philosophical heritage of the Common Doctor of the Church as a well-spring that can enrich the study of theology."

I was led to find this letter from Pope John Paul II to the Dominicans.

Dear Friar Preachers,

With you I feel at home. I am sure that the Church and its universal pastor can count on your collaboration, as you have always done, in the arduous task of the evangelization of the world. Saint Dominic founded your Order precisely for this task. It is for this reason that it was approved and sent by the Church. Your "mission" is always the same one. My predecessor Honorius III, writing to Saint Dominic on the 18th of January 1221, acknowledges that it was inspired by "Him who allows His Church to bring forth a progeny that is always new". It is the mission "of consecrating oneself to preaching the Word of God, proclaiming throughout the world the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ." In fact, "the Order of Friars Preachers, founded by Saint Dominic, ‘is known to have been established, from the beginning for preaching and the salvation of souls, specifically’. Our brothers, therefore, as the founder prescribed, ‘should everywhere behave uprightly and religiously, as men intent on procuring their own and other people’s salvation; they should behave as evangelical men, following in the footsteps of the Saviour, speaking to God or of God, among themselves or with their neighbours’" (Constitutio Fundamentalis, § II). "To ensure that by following Christ in this way we would perfect our love of God and of our neighbor, we consecrate ourselves entirely to God by profession, thus becoming members of Our Order and dedicated in a new way to the universal Church, fully committed to preaching the word of God in its totality" (Ibid § III). In so far as the Order remains faithful to such demands, tomorrow as in the past, it will participate intimately in the work of the universal Church, and will be particularly close to the Bishop of Rome. In order to fulfil its mission, your Order has to remain faithful to those guidelines that go back to the fundamental text that I have read to you. They are the principles of faith which theology has developed along with the great Doctors, among whom Saint Thomas Aquinas shines with a special light. The Church continues to propose these principles as the foundations of Christian wisdom and as the axis of apostolate. 

The first of these principles is that which affirms the absolute primacy of God in the intelligence, in the heart, in the life of man. You know well how Saint Dominic responded to this requirement of faith in his religious life: "He spoke only with God or of God." You also know how, on the level of doctrine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, beginning with the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, envisioned this primacy of God and how he supported it with the force and consistency of his metaphysical and theological thought, using the analogy of being which permits the recognition of the worth of the creature, but as dependent on the creative love of God. And then, on the level of spirituality, Saint Thomas is completely of the school of his Father, Dominic, when he defines the religious as "those who place themselves totally at the service of God, as if offering a holocaust to God." (S. THOMAE Summa Theologica, q. 186, a. 1 et a. 7). 
March 9, 1983

A radical understanding of human freedom and dignity

Fr Donald Keefe, SJ and Pope John Paul II

What is the foundation for human dignity? For many in our secular and post-modern society  the foundation is gone, and so there is questioning or outright denial of the very notion of human dignity. So too is the notion of freedom cheapened by the lack of a standard for authentic use of freedom. The capacity for truth (intellect) and a capacity for self-determination (will) provide a philosophical foundation for human dignity. The spirituality of the human soul is the root of human dignity. But when truth is denied and deconstructed at such time human dignity is obscured and lost; when the reality of love is denied or distorted at such time human dignity becomes hollow. How do we retain the notion of human dignity when the philosophy is eroded? We can argue ourselves or others back to the beginning points of personal existence -- but the arguments become tedious or gratuitously denied. The effacement of reality of personal existence (knowledge of truth/God and fulfillment in love) cannot be brought back by argument alone. This is in part because personal existence requires the habit of social practice and a lived truth. The radical source of human dignity is the Christian response to the sacrifice of Christ. It is lived in worship. I learned this approach from Father Donal Keefe.

In response to the Marxist attempts at a liberation theology, generating human dignity and freedom from political action, Rev Donald J. Keefe, SJ formulated a profound argument for the priority of the gift. It is found in his "Liberation and the Catholic Church: The Illusion and the Reality" Center Journal, Winter 1981, pp. 45-63. [It is found on our website here] He says that the despair over the lack of human worth and dignity is a pagan perspective that has been "pushed back" over the centuries by Eucharistic worship. But the pagan despair is reclaiming society. Here is a key passage from his article:

A Christian and Catholic political theology can have no other foundation than the social reality which is the worship of the Lord of history. Only this is responsive to the reality of or human existence -- for our existence is in Christ, as Paul insists. We must take this fact with absolute and literal seriousness.  The only meaning which freedom and justice and dignity have is that which they have in Christ, and this they have, not in clear and distinct ideas, but in sign and sacrament. . . . the justice and peace and the freedom of the children of God are present in this world only sacramentally, in the worship of the Church. But that fulfillment for which we long  is actual and real with the reality of the risen Christ, the reality of the Eucharist, by which our historical existence in Christ is sustained in Christ. This is a sustenance in truth, in freedom, indignity, in justice; it is the single source of our legitimacy; it is the gift of a future which fulfills and does not nullify the present and past.

This gift has caused and causes the radical human community which is the Church. It makes to be present in the world the freedom without which the Church cannot worship, cannot exist. Out of that worship, in which the gift is appropriated by the people of God, a new understanding of the dignity and meaning of our humanity has entered the world, against an enormous resistance -- the resistance which is our fallenness, our fear and dread of our own reality, our own history, our own freedom and responsibility

Over the nineteen hundred and fifty years of this eucharistic worship, the pagan despair of human worth has been pushed back, not by theory, not by law, not by charismatic leadership, but by the continual and cumulative appropriation by the people in the pews of the reality which is given them in this worship. It is this dawning consciousness of the reality of dignity and freedom which has been and continues to be the one principle of novelty and ferment in the world: it is this which church doctrine and law and mission articulate and defend and propagate, but do not create.  This slow, often hesitant, often betrayed but finally irreversible and indefeasible history of our common salvation is at the same time the entry of every human being informed by that worship into that realm of responsibility for a uniquely personal concreation of the kingdom of Christ; it is an acceptance of personal responsibility for the future which bars as sinful, as a rejection of the good creation, every resubmergence of that individual into the anonymity of a faceless mass and a featureless, meaningless present.

John Paul II on the Catholic Character of the College

Most Catholic Colleges and Universities invoke the term Catholic to describe their institution. That term can be filled in with any number of meanings such as social justice, humanism, integration etc., etc. Sadly, it is a term used with little specifity.

Pope John Paul II spoke to the third International Meeting of Catholic Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning on April 25, 1989.He said: "This Catholic character -- perhaps Christocentric is a better expression -- does not distort the the university or restrict its legitimate autonomy."

WHat strikes me about this sentence is that "Christocentric" is a good term to use to specify the Catholic identity. The vague notions of integration or humanism can actually mean something. Is integration specifically through a Christian understanding of history? Is philosophy measured against the word of God? Is humanism and Christian humanism?

Blessed John Paul II would remind us that Catholic identity entails a specific reference to Christ as the defining aspect of the educational efforts of the institution:

From Ex corde:
21. A Catholic University pursues its objectives through its formation of an authentic human community animated by the spirit of Christ. The source of its unity springs from a common dedication to the truth, a common vision of the dignity of the human person and, ultimately, the person and message of Christ which gives the Institution its distinctive character.

Even the term "integration" must mean specificcally "Christo-centric" theology and philosophy as a defining aspect of the curriculum:

Aided by the specific contributions of philosophy and theology, university scholars will be engaged in a constant effort to determine the relative place and meaning of each of the various disciplines within the context of a vision of the human person and the world that is enlightened by the Gospel, and therefore by a faith in Christ, the Logos, as the centre of creation and of human history. Ex corde

The Confrontation on the Vistula

Cardinal Wojtyla at Shrine of Our Lady of Orchard Lake

In 1976 Cardinal Wojtyla visited Orchard Lake Schools in Michigan

I found an account of his visit in For God, Country and Polonia: One Hundred Years of Orchard Lake Schools, by Frank Renkiewicz. This book tells the story of Polonia (Polish culture in the U.S.) from the time when Fr. Moczygemba (founder of Panna Maria Tx) entrusted a papal charter to Fr. Joseph Dabrowski (founder of the Orchard Lake Schools). The Felician Sisters of Madonna University are important to this mission. Renkiewicz concludes with some reflections of Pope John Paul II. This speech is sometimes quoted with no reference to its origin at Orchard Lake with the references to Polonia.

In the speech Wojtyla said the following

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel. . . . We all realize it is not an easy matter, and a great deal of it depends upon the outcome on the Vistula. I think that Polonia is perhaps the most aware of it, and it seems to me that other layers of American society are less enlightened in this respect and simply eliminate the problem from their sphere of interests. Polonia, which shares Poland's sentiments, feels the significance of the confrontation going on at the banks of the Vistula. It is a trial of not only our nation and Church, but in a sense a test of two thousand years culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, human rights and the rights of nations. As the number of people who understand the importance of this confrontation increase in Poland and America, we can look with greater trust towards the outcome of this confrontation. The Church has gone through many trials, as has the Polish nation, and has emerged victorious even though at a cost of great sacrifice.

It was during this visit to the United States that he visited the Catholic University of America. Few Americans understood the confrontation of cultures; I certainly did not understand these matters as a graduate student at CUA, nor did I hear professors address the root crisis. But the Poles knew. Wojtyla knew. This is why we needed a Polish Pope. The confrontation on the Vistula -- the river running through Krakow is a fault line between communism and Catholicism; it was a strategic line during the twentieth century. The Poles heroically and single handedly battled the barbaric and atheistic totalitarians forces. And ultimately they prevailed. Through faith,  hope, and love.

Concerning the victory of the Church, John Paul II said in Crossing the Threshold of Hope: "Mary's participation in the victory of Christ became clear to me above all from the experience of my people. Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me that his predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond, had spoken these prophetic words as he was dying: "The victory, if it comes, will come through Mary." During my pastoral ministry in Poland, I saw for myself how those words were coming true."

[Note: On July 27, 1920 with the Russian Bolshevik army close at hand, the Polish Episcopate met at Jasna Góra and proclaimed Mary, Queen of Poland. When the Red Army reached Warsaw, thousands of Poles travelled to Jasna Góra to their Queen to beg her for victory, which duly came on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption. This victory, called the "miracle of the Vistula" was attributed to Our Lady's intercession.] 

Weigel explains it this way: "History viewed from the Vistula River basin looks different; it has a tangible spiritual dimension. Looking at history from that distinctive angle-of-vision teaches the observant that overwhelming material force can be resisted successfully through the resources of the human spirit— through culture — and that culture is the most dynamic, enduring factor in human affairs, at least over the long haul. Karol Wojtyla, whom the world would later know as Pope John Paul II, applied this lesson of the priority of culture in history in resistance to the two great totalitarian powers that sought to subjugate Poland between 1939 and 1989." From his Templeton Lecture.


The spiritual and cultural battle continues and the moderates and liberals continue to "eliminate the problem from their sphere of interests" -- most politicians, educators, and Church leaders are oblivious to the culture of death and the primacy of the pro-life issues. Too many fail to support the mission to promulgate and inculcate the whole truth about man and God and thus plant the seeds Catholic culture. The Pope John Paul II Forum exists to raise awareness of this spiritual and cultural confrontation and to cultivate the legacy of Blessed John Paul II -- so that we have the spiritual, philosophical, and cultural principles we need to advance and to prevail.

On the day of the beatification the John Paul II Forum sponsored a talk on Pope John Paul II's devotion to Mary. "The victory, if it comes, will come through Mary." A summary of the talk may be found here.

The full image of the statue at the shrine was cut off so I provide a complete picture by Patricia Drury below. This Polish Madonna conveys the image of the strength needed to sustain a victory over the evil one:

Our Lady of Orchard Lake, Michigan

Thank you, Mother, for faith

Anne Hittinger (1927-1972) Grotto, Notre Dame 1971

"Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God's own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child's first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life." Pope John Paul II, Letter to Women

Forty years ago I was a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame. My mother traveled from Alexandria, Va. to visit the campus for a beautiful fall weekend. We stopped for a prayer at the Grotto. She had a bad cough that weekend and she told me that it was bronchitis.  Six months later she died of lung cancer. In facing her cancer (she had smoked multiple packs from the time she was seventeen), she went through the classic stages of denial, anger, and fear. She was prepared for death by a Dominican sister, an evangelical nurse and the parish priest.  The Dominican (Ohio) was Sister Mary Catherine, a member of the True House community at Notre Dame. She came home with me from Notre Dame and spent over a month with our mother. I am still astonished at her generosity of spirit. 

Faith was her anchor and she was an anchor for us along the journey. My mother died peacefully, in faith and hope, the evening of April 30, 1972. We celebrated a funeral Mass at the chapel at Fort Meyer and laid her to rest on a green and rocky hill in Arlington cemetery.


From her brief life I do recall the importance of faith in her life and for this she was an anchor for me. My mother and father both lived faithful lives -- without any special fanfare. The preconciliar Church was characterized by an un-self-conscious faith. But it was a real faith, a living faith. For the parents to commit themselves and their family to weekly Mass, to say nightly prayer, to support the boys as altar servers, to drill the catechism, to pay for Catholic schools -- this required real faith, and more, a love of Christ and his Church.This real and simple faith, backed by the priests and sisters, and shared with other families in the parish or neighborhood could make a deep impression on the children.

"The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by praying together with their children can a father and mother -- exercising their royal priesthood -- penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface. Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul VI to parents: 'Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian prayers? Do you prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for the sacraments that they receive when they are young: Confession, Communion and Confirmation? Do you encourage them when they are sick to think of Christ suffering to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin and the saints?'" Familiaris consortio §60

With mother,  after Mass,  Quantico, Va. 1961

On Mother's Day I think it fitting to  thank our mothers for that deep impression of faith that future events will not efface. I still continue to use the little prayer cards I inherited -- Sacred Heart, LaSalette, St. Joseph. They are little signs or tokens of that faith of our fathers, and mothers, living still. 

"We will be true to thee till death."

Pope John Paul II recognized the source of living faith in parents: "From the outset they need to have their hearts and thoughts turned towards the God 'from whom every family is named', so that their fatherhood and motherhood will draw from that source the power to be continually renewed in love. Fatherhood and motherhood are themselves a particular proof of love; they make it possible to discover love's extension and original depth. But this does not take place automatically. Rather, it is a task entrusted to both husband and wife. In the life of husband and wife together, fatherhood and motherhood represent such a sublime 'novelty' and richness as can only be approached 'on ones knees'." Pope John Paul II, Letter to Families §7

Blessed John Paul II on Reasons for Hope

Pope Benedict XVI made reference to the words at the event that we all remember so well -- Blessed John Paul II  proclaimed "during his first solemn Mass in Saint Peter’s Square the unforgettable words: “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!” Pope John Paul II was characterized by the virtue of hope, which some mistook for either a shallow optimism or a reactionary spirit. But his hope were founded on the faith, a only true alternative to both Marxism and liberalism. I recall my one time encounter with Karol Wojtyla when he informed me with a confident humor, the graduate student studying Marx,  that the so called Marxist Christian dialogue was nothing but a "monologue." And some years later I realized why the papacy needed the Bishop from Krakow Poland, an inveterate foe of the Marxists. So Benedict XVI rightly points out:

When Karol Wojtyła ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their respective visions of man. This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its “helmsman”, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call “the threshold of hope”. Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends history while nonetheless directly affecting it. He rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an “Advent” spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace. --  Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at Beatification

In his own encyclical Spes salvi, Benedict XVI said of Marx: "Marx not only omitted to work out how this new world would be organized—which should, of course, have been unnecessary. His silence on this matter follows logically from his chosen approach. His error lay deeper. He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and he forgot man's freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favorable economic environment."

In Redeemer of Man, Pope John Paul II urges us not forget man and man's freedom. Freedom requires the warning that freedom can easily be degraded and can appear as a sham freedom leading to self-degradation; this is the truth the liberals forget. But both Marxist and liberals need to find the true measure of human existence; its measure is truth (the truth will make you free) and Christ is the truth. Pope Benedict XVI also said in Spes salvi that progress,

becomes human only if it is capable of directing the will along the right path, and it is capable of this only if it looks beyond itself. Otherwise, man's situation, in view of the imbalance between his material capacity and the lack of judgement in his heart, becomes a threat for him and for creation. Thus where freedom is concerned, we must remember that human freedom always requires a convergence of various freedoms. Yet this convergence cannot succeed unless it is determined by a common intrinsic criterion of measurement, which is the foundation and goal of our freedom. Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.

Pope John Paul II was a man of hope because he affirmed the liberty of man in the presence of God. "This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man." Or most simply stated, Christianity is "a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ." Here we find true hope -- Marxism has failed and liberal progress continues with its diversions or indifference to God, hence it lacks any basis for hope. People continue to live in a bubble, in hidden despair.

The voice of Pascal echoes through the Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI: "Not only do we only know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only know life and death through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we cannot know the meaning of our life or our death, of God or of ourselves. Thus without Scripture, whose only object is Christ, we know nothing, and can see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the nature of God and in nature itself."

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt

From Pope Benedict XVI

Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, thereby forcefully emphasizing the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught by the conciliar Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium. All of us, as members of the people of God – bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious – are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Karol Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Kraków. He was fully aware that the Council’s decision to devote the last chapter of its Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church. This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with Mary, his Mother, at his side. This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyła: a golden cross with the letter “M” on the lower right and the motto “Totus tuus”, drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in which Karol Wojtyła found a guiding light for his life: “Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria – I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 266).

 from Homily of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on the Beatification of Pope John Paul II
(found here)