CSVF Blog

April 2012

Monthly Archive

On Women Religious

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 30 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture, Miscellaneous

The always thoughtful and accessible Fr. Barron on the Vatican’s assessment of the state of the US’s Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

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Celebrate at St. Catherine’s Tonight

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 27 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture

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Word to Life – 3rd Sunday Easter (B)

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 21 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Word to Life

Along with Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, Fr. Luke Fletcher, CFR.

3rd Sunday Easter Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The Acts of the Apostles Are Now

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 19 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts

In our continuing catechesis on Christian prayer, we now turn from the prayer of Mary and the Apostles awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to the “little Pentecost” described in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. After the arrest and release of Peter and John, the community joined in prayer and “the place where they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (v. 31).

This prayer shows the unity of the early community, which asks only to proclaim the word of God fearlessly in the face of persecution. It seeks to discern present events in the light of God’s saving plan and the fulfilment of prophecy in the mystery of Christ.

It also begs God to accompany by his power the preaching of the Gospel. May this prayer of the early Church inspire our own prayer. May we seek to discern God’s loving plan in the light of Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who bestows the hope which does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5).

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Freedom From Religion?

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 12 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Culture

It may be something many of us do not want to admit, but the ostensibly enlightened advance of secularism is so twisting our society’s self-understanding, that the most significant “organized religion” left — the faith of the Catholic Church — is being attacked. If She is eviscerated of her strength, the dogma of “anything goes” can then be peddled by anyone with enough power to promote his own vision of just what precisely should go.

To be sure, the Church’s own have done enough to disembowel Her of moral authority and authenticity. (But thanks be to God that our Church, necessarily hierarchical, is more fundamentally Christological–with Jesus Christ as head, who remains with us who remain in Him until the end of the ages.)

And now, the Church–in a country with puritannical roots–is furthermore (… or appositely…?) being directly attacked where her faithful’s commitment is manifestly the weakest: sexual and family morality.

While audacious, the world and its powers are yet shrewd enough to reduce the Church’s religious and mystical claims to challenges of moral evidence: “How many Catholics actually use birth control?” (One can hear the dark one in the background questioning, “Did God actually say…?”) And of course, if Church teaching is but another ideology or political party and platform supported by an alternative power structure, the worldly power will win–for its very terms are those of seductive rhetoric and coercive power.

Much could be conjectured (as well as reasonably argued to conclusion) about how all this has been allowed to happen, particularly in our country. But for now, the important thing is to see reality as it is confronting us; and for believers, this means two things, rooted in the first testimony of the first Christian community: “They devoted themselves to [1] the teaching of the apostles and the communal life, [2] to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” (Acts 2.42). We too must be properly informed by the Church’s (2) priestly and (1) prophetic ministries, which She extends through time by virtue of Her Lord’s personal commission–i.e., by virtue of Him whose kingly sovereignty is as Priest and Prophet. Toward the former, the sacramental life must be paramount. The Catholic is nothing if he is not one who finds everything in his concrete sacramental discipline. Toward the latter, the doctrinal life must be paramount. The Catholic is nothing if he is not one who finds the true source of wisdom in the concrete apostolic preaching. To that end, with particular reference to our country’s situation, please consider this statement on religious liberty by our bishops, Our First and Most cherished Liberty.

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The New Creation – Our Holy Father’s Easter Homily

Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 11 Apr 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts

Below is the text from Pope Benedict’s Easter Vigil homily. I’ve marked a few insights in bold that I found particularly arresting (7 April 2012).

Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a “no”.

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.

Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.

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