Saturday, December 31, 2011

PRAYER - Fr Ron Rolheiser on Prayer - 4 part series

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Dear Reader, Merry Christmas! 

Yes, Christmas Eve and Day are past, and today we come to the end of the Octave of Christmas with the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, but we are still in the heart of the Christmas Season as we celebrate, ponder, and contemplate deeper each day into the Mystery of our God who has come among us in the Person of the Divine Son. 

He is now and forever Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, Jewish man of Nazareth and Galilee, but also our Messiah, our Lord, King of Kings as so beautifully expressed by Haendel in his "Messiah" overture sung so often all over the world at this time of year. 

So it is still time to wish you and your family, friends, work and school colleagues, neighbors, and even enemies, a Merry Christmas, and of course a Happy, Healthy, and Holy New Year 2012! 

 I am pleased to offer you the gift of a link to a wonderful 4-part reflection by Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI, columnist and speaker, on prayer, which is so essential to our growth in faith and in a living and lively relationship with the Living God through Jesus and in the Holy| Spirit. 

2011-11-28 | Prayer as Seeking Depth

2011-12-04 | Praying So As Not To Lose Heart

2011-12-11 | Prayer as Seeking God's Guidance

2011-12-18 | Praying So As To See God's Glory Inside Of Humanity 

As in all things given or offered to us by Jesus, it is in the actual doing of it that we can and do and will go on experiencing the benefit and the blessing. It is not enough to hear and agree, we must pass into action and practice what we have heard, not being dismayed by our emotional or intellectual impressions of inadequacy, but being content to be poor in the presence of our God. 

It is God who is infinitely rich and who loves nothing more than to bestow upon us his riches and even his own self, which the Father does in offering us his Son Jesus again and again in his Living and inspired Word and in the Holy Eucharist, the gift of himself as food for our soul, food for the journey.... 

May you and your loved ones accept to ever dwell in the Love, Peace, and Joy which are the life of the Holy Trinity from all eternity, and into which they are drawing us, if only we continue to humbly give them our consent, as did Mary when she responded "Let it be done to me according to your word!" to the Angel Gabriel's message of proposal from Almighty God....              Fr Gilles

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Tuesday, August 02, 2011

America is out of control - its citizenry has been betrayed and given up to the "sharks" - money has substituted human life as the highest value

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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So much is being made in the media of the wrangling by American legislators about their need to raise their debt ceiling that it is difficult to avoid making some comments and observations. It appears that America - the U.S.A., the United States of America - long deemed a great nation has become a nation careening out of control and destined for a crash, a very damaging collision with unchanging realities that seems unavoidable if they continue on their present course. 

It could be said that the motto of the USA or of their people is "America is the land of opportunity, the land of freedom for all where anything is possible." In their culture, in their beliefs, in their practices, and in their institutions this has come to be expressed in the avoidance of controls and restraints in order to avoid limiting those freedoms and opportunities. 

A corollary belief is that Americans can accomplish anything they set their mind to do; therefore, those who do not succeed fail to succeed because of their own lack of imagination, creativity, will, discipline, or effort. It follows then, according to this generalized line of thinking, that all those who have failed, who are without work, who have lost their homes, who have lost their health, who are down and out or homeless, that is, all those who do not enjoy the full realization of the American Dream, are in that state by their own fault and only by their own fault. 

That is why American culture and politics generally consider a country like Canada to be a socialist state, a short step from the Communist or Marxist states. In recent discussions about their Medicare system Americans resisted extending coverage to every citizen in the USA. There continue to be in the USA what are called working poor, those citizens and families that work one, two, even three jobs but are barely able to sustain themselves, cannot afford medical insurance, and are one hospital visit away from losing their home and being on the street. 

Representatives of their association told me personally in the Fall of 2004 that there were at that time in the USA 75 million working poor, that's 75,000,000 Americans without medical coverage. I don't fully understand their system, but it seems that those who are actually poor and reliant on government welfare payments are eligible for Medicare support if they are hospitalized, but the working poor earn too much to be eligible for those benefits. 

The only way working people can have medical coverage is by buying medical insurance. Not only that, but those on welfare and the working poor generally seem to have to resort to what we could call "B" hospitals - as in "B" movies - hospitals that may still come under the public system or hospitals founded and still managed by what are considered neither public nor private institutions such as the Catholic Church or other Christian churches, where funding may not be as abundant, where there may not be found all the latest in medical technologies and practices, where the best medical practitioners may not normally be found. 

Since the privatization of hospitals and medical institutions in the USA the costs have increased well out of reach of ordinary citizens. Medical procedures and any hospitalizations now cost more than what ordinary people earn in a year or more. The costs have been aggravated by unrestrained technological developments and further aggravated by unrestrained exploitation by the legal system. There seems to exist in the USA what we could call "perfect storm" conditions that came into being when unrestrained exploitation of the legal system by greedy lawyers and legal firms converged with unrestrained increases in investments in advanced medical technologies and unrestrained increases in medical profession salaries - which in turn may have been exacerbated by unrestrained increases in the salaries of athletes and entertainers - and unrestrained exploitation of the public by some medical insurance companies, who in their turn exploited with their money and power the legal system in order to refuse and wear down people who had rightful claims to medical coverage. 

I would hope and do believe there are medical insurance companies out there that tend to honor their policies and do compensate claimants and avoid the shameful practices of putting them through the ringer and exploiting them in their pain and vulnerability in order to dissuade them from following through on their claim or in the hope that they may die and in that way put an end to their claim. 

The perfect storm of which I speak then is the convergence of greed, lack of regard for justice, and the lack of moral restraints in the legal profession and its institutions - both public and private - in the medical profession and medical institutions - both public and private - in government institutions, and finally in citizens themselves. 

The sharks are circling out there, and in the USA if you look at someone the wrong way there may be a lawyer out there capable of convincing that person to sue you. If that other is crazy enough, or sufficiently without principle, and has enough money, they could sue you and destroy you by wearing you down in the courts; which seem no longer able to distinguish true justice from frivolous action or unjust exploitation of a system that has lost its ability to recognize or render true justice. 

That is a perfect storm, and if you're in the wrong place and the wrong time and a shark bites you, or if you lose your job and have a hard time finding another, or if you or a family member gets sick, has a baby or an accident and is hospitalized, you can find yourself with a debt you can never repay or even find yourself losing your home. 

A whole new private enterprise has cropped up in infomercials whereby they show you how to buy up the homes of citizens temporarily defaulting on mortgage payments - often because they are out of work or have a medical bill - so there are "fire sales" on peoples' homes in America, the land of opportunity for sharks. 

In this article, I contend that the USA is a nation out of control. You will find the link at the title a site that reports the actual philosophy of society and of governance of the "founding fathers" who drafted the Constitution of the United States of America. Their consensus was that only faith in God and moral restraint shown by religious people could control the human flaws and passions and that the constitution was intended for such morally virtuous citizens. 

The USA as a nation is now out of control because as a nation with its public and government institutions it has distanced itself from the mindset and moral outlook of its founding fathers. As a result America in its government and public institutions and many of its own citizenry is incapable of living out of its own constitution. 

Don't get me wrong, there are many wonderful Americans, people of character and virtue, people of faith and responsible for themselves, their families, their neighborhood, and their work. Sadly, the government and public institutions, and much of commerce and industry, and most if not all of their multinational and other large corporations are working against their own citizens. 

The founding fathers enshrined in the Constitution document their values with the intention that their descendants would allow themselves to be guided by it to go on living the life of freedom and moral restraint they were setting up for themselves and their families and all the citizens who joined them in the founding of their new nation. 

The primary good was the welfare of every citizen, to be achieved through their own efforts and with the mutual support they were committed to offer each other as they had done in resisting the British. That primary good has been replaced over time by the profit principle. It is now unrestrained greed that governs the USA. This has become obvious from the countless reports over the past few decades. 

As a nation, the USA refuses to admit that people can come into hard times, that it is possible for thrifty and hardworking citizens to get sick, to have accidents, to lose their jobs, and to need public assistance. Such people are considered a drain on public resources and on those who are healthy, wealthy, influential, and successful. They are considered unworthy of help. 

That the USA considers itself the land of opportunity in actual fact means that it is a land of opportunity for various species of shark. Those who inherit fortunes or influence, those who by their own effort and luck achieve positions of fortune and influence, who are not hindered by moral considerations and have the ability to exploit the system - all of these and others like them - are those who have opportunity because it doesn't matter how many they trample in their reckless pursuit of success and profit. 

At the time of the founding fathers, provisions were made for the state to seize and punish those who showed manifest lack of moral restraint and caused harm to others in their quest for success and profit. However, over time, a complex system of laws and legal practice have seen develop a whole culture of legalism that has little or nothing to do with justice or morality. Those who have the influence, the money, and other means and opportunity to exploit even the legal system can, and money appears for the most part able to wear out and crush the ordinary citizen. 

Money and influence have all but strangled the legislative and well as the judiciary systems. Lobbyists are known to be able to steer the outcome of legislation as well as legal outcomes, reports show that money is what actually determines election outcomes, and the government has all but lost its ability to govern, as it represents interests more often than its own citizens. Greed unhindered by moral or other restraints is also in evidence throughout American and around the globe at the hands of American multinational and other large corporations and sadly also smaller private untraded companies. 

The profit principle has trumped all other considerations for the most part: the good of the worker, the value of marriage and family, the value of building local neighborhoods and living environments - none of it matters - which is blind greed careening out of control. 

It is possible to merge new technologies with commerce in the development of living neighborhoods and in the establishment of cottage industry but the citizens must make those choices and support them. Too often large financial interests establish cut price businesses that drive small businesses to closure because the population supports them and buy there, endlessly pursuing discounts, and people just don't seem to realize there are costs. 

You can save by purchasing at a cut price outlet, but the cost is the loss of local business and in time of your neighborhood, your living environment. America is increasingly becoming a land with devastated inner city cores, sterile suburbs, and rural ghost towns as small businesses crash, victims of large profit driven cut price outlets that have little consideration for their own workforce. 

America is beginning to look like the third world, with the gap between rich and poor widening, relentless impoverishment, erosion, and diminishment of the affluent middle class, increasing numbers of wealthy (many of whom have been able to prosper unhindered be consideration for those they in effect exploit), and increasing numbers of the working poor, and in the end, of the helpless poor on welfare or worse, on the street. That's the new class of poor, those who no longer even have a home or address and hence are ineligible for welfare, and find themselves homeless. 

Americans who continue to live the kind of life intended by their founding fathers, a life of character and virtue, of faith and morality, are still able to experience the fruits and benefits of such a life, but they must be on their guard against the innumerable sharks out there. They can do their best to influence their government and public institutions for good, but realize they will often experience defeat at the hands of those bodies and individuals governed exclusively by profit. Even they can find themselves out of work, on welfare, or even on the street, if they find themselves in the kinds of conditions that put Job in total misery. 

This is for them an extreme test of faith, to continue relying on God, trying to help themselves, turning to others for help, and trusting that in the end the Lord will rescue them. The massive scale of the American economy and the trappings of their government and public institutions has allowed the USA to maintain what has increasingly become a fiction of success, a travesty, an illusion. Their public debt has become so huge that they appear unable to pay it down. There is no manifest public will to even acknowledge the debt, let alone pay it down. The dominant concern at present seems to be to continue increasing spending and the debt without any consideration for the future. 

If the government of the USA is not yet financially bankrupt, morally it is. It no longer reflects the character, morality, and virtue of its founding fathers, nor do many American citizens, businesses, corporations, and countless self-interest and lobby groups. Not until responsibilities receive equal measure with rights will this situation ever change. 

If America continues on this course, it is only a question of time until they collide with undeniable reality. A nation unconcerned about its weaker and more defenseless citizens is not worthy of its founding fathers. This remains true even if we don't mention the "selective genocide" of abortion. Only God can help them now, but they must first overcome those adhering to the profit principle who have all but succeeded in banning God from public life and discourse, and return to the character, values, morality, restraint, and faith of the founding fathers.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Friday, July 02, 2010

To genuflect and bow or not to genuflect and bow

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The Sacred Liturgy – Reverent Gestures toward the Holy Eucharist

In various times and places it is said that the current standard for Liturgy would have minimal distractions during the Mass: hence no genuflections, crossings, etc. The context for this statement would have been the changes brought about in the Liturgy by Vatican II and the subsequent reforms in the Liturgy. In the Mass celebrated since Trent, the priest made many crosses over the bread and wine, crossing also himself, and so on. 

The truth is that the Latin Rite then was closer to the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites, which have always made a point of making the Blessed Trinity visible throughout the Divine Liturgy. It is true that since Vatican II our Church did simplify the Liturgy, and what the priests and deacons are to do is spelled out in the relevant rituals and accompanying documents. 

Another truth is that by simplifying the Liturgy and reducing the elements that spoke of the august Mystery of God present among us, we have widened the gap with the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy and hence with those sisters and brothers, making their Liturgy even stranger and more incomprehensible intellectually. But the simple truth is that whenever we attend one of their Divine Liturgies, the visuals are so eloquent and the accompanying words so significant that it takes a hard heart or an extreme intellectual not to be moved to tears.

The fundamental principle governing the Roman Sacred Liturgy is the full and distinctive participation of all the members of the Body of Christ, each with his or her own particular part, without infringing on the parts of others; so that the variety, multiplicity, and distinctiveness of the roles during the Sacred Liturgy reflect the variety, multiplicity and distinctiveness of the members of the Body of Christ. It is in truth the Risen Christ Jesus who makes himself visible, speaking, and acting in varying degrees in each and every member of the sacred assembly.

You may or may not know this, dear Reader, but there are currents in the Church invoking Vatican II in order to promote agendas that are actually the opposite of the reform of the Liturgy as it has taken place, by people who are frustrated that the reforms did not go far enough, that is, did not incorporate changes they favor. These tendencies would reduce our Liturgy to something much closer to the sterile evangelistic worship service that is full of words and almost devoid of symbols and visuals as has been the case in many churches of the "Reform" over the past five centuries. 

For example, Bishop De Roo of Victoria BC, now retired, almost forbade people kneeling at any time during the Mass, and would refuse permission for new churches to include kneelers in them, except when there was intense pressure of devotion from ethnic communities, but even for them he only allowed kneelers for pews in the first few rows. I know this from good friends who have lived in that diocese since the late 1980's or early 1990's. That is an example of open rebellion, which is not too strong a term, given that the proper authority to interpret Vatican documents on the Liturgy belongs to the national episcopal conferences, never to individual bishops, and certainly not to individual priests, and even then, only a few aspects are up to the bishops. 

The ritual itself is not open to interpretation or changes except by the proper authorities at the Vatican. Specifically about kneeling or genuflecting, the ritual of the Mass states in red ink (rubrics) when the priest genuflects, that is, right after the consecration of the bread into the Body of Christ, and again, after the consecration of the wine into the Blood of Christ, and finally, just before presenting the Body of Christ for Holy Communion to the assembly. That is the proper protocol specifically spelled out in the ritual for the Holy Eucharist. 

There is nothing in the ritual itself about going to the Tabernacle, but this is not because nothing should be done but rather because it is considered so obvious that it need not be spelled out everywhere. What is spelled out is that those approaching or leaving the sanctuary at the beginning and end of Mass should genuflect at or towards the Tabernacle, depending on where it is situated; the only exception being in a large church such as St Peter's in Rome, where the Reserve of the Blessed Sacrament is nowhere in the church but deep in a side chapel beyond the pillars on the right side. Hence, the Real Presence is nowhere to be seen; so no genuflection. 

Also, anyone passing by the Tabernacle is to genuflect at all times; however, this is generally meant for outside the Liturgy, since people generally don't pass by the Tabernacle during Mass. In any church where there is much commotion near the Tabernacle, repeated genuflections would make no sense and actually distract from the Mass. Definitely no genuflections at Communion time when the focus in on Jesus as we approach and receive Him. Any who are specifically passing by even during the Mass could genuflect, as it is proper to bow to the Altar whenever crossing over the center aisle from one side to the other, as a sign of respect to Jesus who is the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of Sacrifice according to our Liturgy. In our Church where the Tabernacle is visible, unlike St Peter's, the genuflections at the beginning and end of Mass are considered standard practice, whether or not they have actually been practiced in recent history. 

The role of the pastor is to preserve and hand on the tradition and rituals, so if I have stood out like a sore thumb with these genuflections, it is not to be difficult or irk everyone or offend the pride of local tradition and practice, but all for the glory of the Lord and the growth in faith of the people. The Liturgy not only celebrates, it also teaches and forms. Anyone going to the Tabernacle during the Mass, usually before and after Holy Communion, opens the Tabernacle door, genuflects, takes out ciboria, closes the Tabernacle door, brings the ciboria to the Altar.... then after Holy Communion, returns with the ciboria to the Tabernacle, opens the door, replaces the ciboria inside, genuflects, and closes the door. 

These gestures are spelled out in the various rites related to the Holy Eucharist and generally contained in what is called the Roman Missal. In English until the Roman Missal comes out in Advent 2011 we only use what is called the Sacramentary, which is a partial extraction of whatever is needed from the Roman Missal for celebrating Mass in a Parish setting for all occasions. The Sacramentary spells out what priests and deacons do. Some of the details are not in the Sacramentary but only explained in detail in the General Introduction to the Roman Missal. 

The proper gestures when doing something at the Tabernacle are spelled out in the rite for Eucharistic Adoration, but are mostly taken for granted as standard practice and passed on. In a family, for example, when parents give specific task related instructions to their children, the fact that they omit reminding the children to say Please and Thank You does not annul those practices, because they are so common and obvious that they may be taken for granted. So it is with much that is traditional regarding the Liturgy and church Sanctuary. 

It is traditional practice, which expresses our faith in the True Presence of Jesus, that anytime we approach the Tabernacle to extract the Body of Christ in one or more ciboria, one genuflects after opening the door - acknowledging Jesus and adoring Him - and again just before closing the door after having returned one or more ciboria to be reserved. This practice both expresses and teaches our faith in Jesus truly present in his risen Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist and reserved in the Tabernacle. 

It is an abuse of the respect, reverence, and obedience we owe to the Lord to deliberately refuse this practice or teach others to ignore it. To do so opens the door to the erosion of the faith and attacks against the faith by beliefs, ideas, and practices in the culture and society in every time and place that militate against the Lord and his presence, word, and work or salvation in the world. There are those who would make the presence of Jesus in the whole assembly, with the Presider at the head, the exclusive point of focus, annulling any form of reverence for the Body and Blood of Christ either on the Altar or in the Tabernacle. 

Reality is not so monolithic, but multifaceted. It is no contradiction to have the Presider genuflect at the Altar during the Singing of the Lamb of God as he says the relevant priest's prayers before Holy Communion, and simultaneously for a deacon or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion genuflect upon opening the door to the Tabernacle. On the contrary, this merely makes visible the many facets of Jesus' presence, word, and action among us. None of this is open to interpretation or change, because no one but the bishops together with the Pope can make major changes, and the pertinent Congregation can give interpretations and publish duly designed and authorized reforms. 

What we mean by authority is not power to impose in the midst of conflicted views, but rather faith in Jesus' ongoing presence among us, and in particular his own will to speak and act through the sacrament of Holy Orders in the roles and persons of the Pope and bishops, who are after all successors to the Apostles to whom Jesus entrusted all his authority. In order to respect the full magnitude of Jesus' presence, word, and action among us, we must respect them all. That includes zealous attention to the rituals and other manifestations of our Church's traditions, the handing on of rituals, teachings, and practices of faith as handed on by our parents, teachers, catechists, and pastors, and as interpreted and corrected when necessary by the competent and pertinent authorities. 

This entire network is Jesus speaking, acting, and present among us. In view of the constant erosion factor from our culture, I'd love all of our collaborators at St Luke St-Luc to adopt with one mind and heart what I began over a year ago with regards to the Our Father sung in English, namely, regarding the 5 repetitions of Amen at the end and the related gestures. This is the only part that never made sense to me: the gesture for the 4th Amen is just a repetition of the 1st, i.e. a lifting up of the hands towards Heaven. It would make sense for the gesture accompanying the 4th Amen to point towards Jesus truly present in his Body and Blood on the Altar, which we are about to partake. 

1st Amen - hands lifted up side by side and arms fully extended towards the heavens = Amen to You O Blessed Trinity! 

2nd Amen - hands lowered to the horizontal and arms fully extended straight ahead, then fanning out on either side in a sweeping embrace and inclusion of of everyone = Amen to everyone here and in the world and all creatures in the universe! 

3rd Amen - hands lowered to the ground and arms fully extended on either side = Amen to your   presence in me, Lord! 

4th Amen - hands and arms fully extended towards Jesus on the Altar = Amen to You Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist! 5th Amen - hands folding and joining at the chest in the traditional prayerful gesture = Amen to your holy will in all things Lord!

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Saturday, April 10, 2010

When friends feel they are losing their faith....

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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When friends feel they are losing their faith... and they call upon you, trust in God, listen with great interest until they have poured out their heart, only then share from your mind and heart, and put your confidence in God to save them from their trouble and bless them through it. 

Question: What do you do with a friend or anyone who comes to you with doubts about their faith or feelings they are losing or have lost their faith? When I try to reassure this person and tell them we all have doubts so it's not a big deal, to try to diminish their distress, it doesn't work, doesn't help. 

Response: First I must say it is commendable that you care about your friend, and he or she is blessed to have someone like you willing to be touched, moved, and concerned with their faith struggle. Now, there really is no ready made answer or strategy for such situations. However, I can tell you how I approach these things with people. So far, from what you have written, if you don't mind my saying so, you have been far too quick to try to supply answers to her questions. That is not what she needs from you, and you can get out from the burden of feeling responsible to make her feel better. That is not our calling in life as Christians, to make others feel better, although we are called to give comfort, but not by resolving other people's struggles for them. 

1. She must find her own answers, as we must all do. We are called by God to give meaning to our lives by the decisions we make, by the questions we ask, and by the answers we find, sometimes in what others have said but most often in reflecting on our own experience and questions. 

2. Make more effective efforts to take interest and show your interest in what she is experiencing. Gently and with interest ask her to tell you more about what she is experiencing, thinking, wondering, feeling, and so on. As she sees you are really interested and will no longer try to stuff your own answers into her, she will slowly open up and share with you what it is she is experiencing, feeling, thinking, asking, wondering..... 

3. Before you even approach her again, fast, do penance, and pray intensively to God with all the love you have for her. As you pick up the phone or go over to her place or anticipate seeing her at work or wherever, pray for her some more. While you are with her, keep prayer and love for her simmering on the back burner of your soul deep inside. In other words, let the Holy Spirit keep prayer going on inside you for her constantly... and you will find the Holy Spirit guiding you in your approach to her. 

4. Don't worry about making a fool of yourself, or not knowing what to do or say next.... We are called to make fools of ourselves for Christ, as Jesus made a fool of himself before others for our sake. This is how the love of God makes itself known in the world, through the faithful hearts of those who have been touched by the love of God and are not ashamed to let their faith, hope, and love show. 

5. Know that in the journey of love, faith, and hope, even our mistakes are used by God for his glory and the good of others.... Be at peace dear friend.... in Jesus....
“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Christ is Risen ! Alleluia ! Alleluia !

Christ est ressuscité ! Alléluia ! Alléluia !

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Thursday, April 01, 2010

Sexual abuse - let's make room for the truth, all of it and avoid misdirected anger or rage

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The truth will better serve the safety of children and all those at risk from abuse of all kinds.
Any children or anyone hurt by us priests or bishop need our immediate protection and help.
Anyone responsible for hurting others must face the consequences, but they need help too, since most often such heinous acts are not only crimes, but they are also manifestations of profound psychological dysfunction and illness.

If the media feeding frenzy turns its voracious appetite on people like Pope Benedict XVI, who is leading the way for us in dealing with sexual and other forms of abuse, it is not surprising. This time of year we commemorate and enter deeply and personally into the events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, because through these events He has obtained for us salvation, rescue from our mortal human condition. The feeding frenzy existed then, as it will until the end of time, and though He was perfect, that did not deter the sharks from devouring Him. Once He was swallowed up by hatred, evil, sin, and death, He burst out and destroyed their hold of fear on us.

We must be wary. The unfettered frenzy with which we turn on others, at even the possibility they may be guilty, may be a function of our own fear of being caught, or if not guilty of the same thing, then of being found out to have at the very least thoughts and temptations of which we are not proud. The most likely person to accuse others is the one who refuses to accuse himself or herself. As Jesus himself said, our vision can only become clear enough to see the truth about the other once we have taken the log out of our own eye, that is, once we have admitted to ourselves and to others our own faults and sins.

Then beyond our actual sins, there is always the realization that in the end I am capable of doing much harm, and the only thing that saves me is opening myself up to the grace and mercy of God. You remember the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I"? Lord, have mercy on us, on our children, and on all those among us who carry from infancy or childhood hurts that twist our personalities out of shape and make us dangerous. As a Church, as a society, as a family, as parents, as pastors, as any with responsibility to care for others, open our eyes to see those around us in need of protection and in need of help, and those in need of careful, strong boundaries, for the safety of those in vulnerable states. In Jesus' Name we pray.            Fr. Gilles

Please check out the Ottawa Citizen via the link at the end of this piece.

Pope deserves better credit

 
 
BY DAVID WARREN, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMARCH 28, 2010 9:57 AM

Palm Sunday is as good a day as any to be defending the Catholic Church against the latest onslaught of media smears, and the tireless efforts to tarnish Pope Benedict personally.

I desisted from writing this column for St. Patrick's Day, when the issue was whether in 1979, Joseph Ratzinger, then Archbishop of Munich and Freising, had knowingly transferred a pedophile priest to another assignment where he could abuse more children.

The truth was that he had removed the offending priest from his station promptly, and sent him into therapy; and that without Ratzinger's knowledge, that priest's parochial vicar, no doubt falsely believing he was "cured," later put him back in a parochial setting. To suggest that Ratzinger had knowingly put other children at risk was a calumny. But I notice the journalists are still combing old cc'd memos to find mud that will stick.

As I write, the latest -- originating in the New York Times, amplified by the BBC, and thus carried in some uncritical form on most wire services -- is that as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the 1990s, Ratzinger had failed to reply to a letter about a child-molesting priest in Wisconsin. The story is self-refuting: the Vatican did not intervene because U.S. civil authorities had themselves dropped the case.

The BBC website headline reads: "Pope Benedict faces child-abuse cover-up queries." I have written before about the deceitful journalistic practice of waving such insinuations about in headlines and leads. Only those who read carefully to the end of the piece discover how empty, and how unsubstantiated, are the implied charges. But the great majority of readers, who merely scan with half-attention, are left with the impression of accumulating grievous wrongs.

Here in Canada, the National Post gave prominent play to a characteristically smug, malicious and factually reckless attack on the Pope by Christopher Hitchens, which originally appeared in the Slate web magazine. Readers who believed a word of it should be referred via Internet to a carefully referenced point-by-point refutation by the Canadian Catholic layman Sean Murphy.

As Mark Twain (himself notoriously fast and loose as a journalist) is purported to have said, "A lie can travel half-way round the world before the truth has put its boots on." Or words to that effect. I am inclined to stone my reader with innumerable other quotes about the salience of half-truths -- how, like half-bricks, they are easier to hurl than whole ones, etc. But in the end the world is the world.

These half-brick thrusts are mounted from the top of a much bigger groundswell. A number of past cases of pedophile priests, and other male and female church figures, have been exposed in Ireland, and the journalistic taste for uncovering more has spread across Europe.

While the ground is littered with allegations that are hearsay, and while the scandal has been magnified by a routine failure to supply qualifications and context, it must be painfully admitted that there is also much truth mixed in with the charges.

The best way to appreciate this is by (actually) reading the Pope's excoriating letter to Irish bishops, sent on the Solemnity of St. Joseph (March 19) to emphasize its gravity. The letter was airily dismissed in the liberal media with, "Pope Offers Apology, Not Penalty, for Sex Abuse Scandal" (New York Times). This is a total misrepresentation of the contents of a document that is proposing to tear the Irish church apart in pursuit of malefactors and of the people who covered for them.

Nor is it an empty threat, given the scale on which North American dioceses, seminaries and religious congregations were scoured by "apostolic visitors" after scandals came to light here.

Pedophilia is by no means confined to the Catholic Church -- and the Boy Scouts -- though they are the exclusive institutional targets of liberal media. Nor is there evidence, beyond the selectivity of news coverage, that the plague is not worse in secular institutions. It is a problem to be confronted throughout our society, wherever children are left in trusted adult care; and it is a problem that would seem to have been vastly compounded by the collapse of traditional sexual morality over the last couple of generations.

Rome has, in fact, taken the lead in dealing with it, and has already put in place the most exacting safeguards against the depredations of sexual perverts inside the Church. Pope Benedict has, personally, done more to this end than, so far as I can see, any other living human, and is thus the least appropriate target for attacks.

Within the church, the need of renewal remains much deeper than the pedophile scandals. In the time both leading up to and since Vatican II, the faithful have experienced one of her greatest historical crises: a catastrophic retreat before, and compromise with, the "Zeitgeist" of modern worldly "libertarian" moral values and norms.

The answer isn't more retreat and compromise. The answer is to return to the splendour of the Mandate of Christ. And this necessarily involves implacable opposition to that Zeitgeist.

David Warren's column appears

Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
 

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Lord purify my heart to look upon all my sisters with pure, life-giving eyes! O may beautiful Spring not afflict us yet again with the perennial "parade of the flesh"....

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Spring is not yet here, but already the parade of flesh is beginning, and what about the heart that is behind my eyes? Is it Spring itself, are hormonal levels what they have always been, or then again, maybe it gets worse with aging? There are such days even for celibates when the mind plays games with one's inner peace.... 

Lord, I give you thanks for all the wondrous creatures You have made.... Each more beautiful than the other, they provoke my imagination and rush my heart, and how easily I can forget each is your child too.... 

In our culture and time, as in other times and places, those who have allowed themselves to become obsessed with profit and influence, greed and serving their own self, have abused even the image of woman, yes and even of man, in various marketing ploys, appealing to the baser instincts of the herd. 

 It has become so grave that little girls are deeply troubled in their imaginations and spend many years searching for their identity, often losing their dignity or never even having a taste of it.... They become what the marketers have made them to be, and they exhibit themselves for the thrill of manipulating the passions of others.... 

Most of the time, they have no clue about what depths of dignity, true intimacy, friendship, and interpersonal love that they have lost, or have never yet tasted. 

 And what can we say about little boys? What has happened to their imaginations? Have they ever tasted the dignity that is theirs as children of God, and have they been offered examples of manliness, which draw us to become life-giving wholesome minds, hearts, eyes, and hands for others? 

Everywhere a good and just man walks, people are lifted up and catch glimpses of their best inner selves struggling to emerge into the light of day.... 

 Grant us a heart to command our eyes to look upon them with manly, fatherly, brotherly love, and give them the gift of a look that will give them a taste of that dignity which is theirs, and which they were perhaps prevented from tasting. Lord, make the world new, and let it begin with me.... Shalom....

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“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Suivons Jésus Christ, Lui donnant la 1ère place en 2010 !    Let us follow Jesus Christ, giving Him 1st place in 2010!

PAX + CARITAS Year for Priests – Année Sacerdotale L’abbé / Fr. Gilles Web Site: http://fathergilles.net/

Operation Renew to propose Jesus Christ to all – 2009–2014    Opération Relance pour proposer Jésus Christ à tous – 2009–2014

Visit Madonna House Visitez Madonna House!

“Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32    «Notre cœur n’était-il pas tout brûlant au-dedans de nous, quant Il nous parlait en chemin, quand Il nous ouvrait les Écritures?» Luc 24 :32

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A friend wrote: 

Perils of a Catholic upbringing? As I walked down the busy sidewalk with my wife, knowing I was late for Mass, my eye fell upon one of those unfortunate, ragged vagabonds that are found in every city these days. Some people turned to stare. Others quickly looked away as if the sight would somehow contaminate them. 

Recalling my old pastor, Father Gilles, who always admonished me to "care for the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the naked," I was moved by some powerful inner urge to reach out to this unfortunate person. Wearing what can only be described as rags, carrying her treasured worldly possessions in two plastic bags, my heart was touched by this person's condition. 

 Yes, where some people saw only rags, I saw a true, hidden beauty.. A small voice inside my head called out, "Reach out, reach out and touch this person!" 

(Then there appeared a suggestive photo of an ill clad beautiful person
carrying two plastic grocery bags....) 

So I did. .. . .    I won't be at Mass this week. 

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In response to this playful email message from a friend, I wrote the blog above it.... Given all the torment around sexuality, I find that even playful stories & images are no longer appropriate. 

As a species human beings are profoundly wounded in our apprehension of our own dignity as conferred by God in both our spirit and our flesh. We are inclined to view things amiss, and tempted to make wrongful use of the power of tenderness inscribed in our human sexuality. 

We must resolve to do nothing to encourage such wrongful use and do all we can to work towards the restoration of our human dignity and both of our capacity and willingness to live in the truth of that dignity in both ourselves and in others, all others, especially the most vulnerable. Fr. Gilles

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Saturday, March 06, 2010

Elderly Adolescents – Senior Teenagers – a new phenomenon

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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What do you do when one of your parents, especially in a situation where they are separated and divorced, enters into an "affair" or illicit relationship with another person, a situation which at face value at least very much resembles adultery?

There are people who want advice and those who don't, those who look to be guided by authorities greater than themselves and others who are allergic to authorities and want only to follow their own heart, mind, conscience. The problem is original sin, which causes us to delude ourselves, and makes our own hearts unreliable as guides. We need God, we need others, we need to repent as Jesus said in order to welcome and believe the good news.

Your Mom is your Mom, not your daughter, and if it's your Dad, then he too is your Dad and not your son. You are not responsible for him or her, but of course you do care for them. St Monica was not able to tell her son Augustine what to do because he wasn't looking to her for advice; he was trying to find his own way. So she prayed for him, suffered and wept, and prayer some more, fasted, and kept on praying for years....

The only thing the commandments tell us to do with our parents is honor them. You can continue to honor your Mom and Dad for giving you life, and caring for you all those years, but you don't have to approve of their behaviour. You need to have pity for them and have mercy on them in their current state of weakness, confusion, or disorientation, and pray for them.

You know that we must all grow up sooner or later, and for many, it is later. Those who went from childhood straight into adulthood, having children and raising them, never got to fully grow up and discover for themselves the truth of all that they were told by their elders. That is why we find more frequently today the odd situation of "elderly adolescents" or "senior teenagers" who are of retirement age or older but behaving not unlike teenagers, doing strange things, acting as though they suddenly had no conscience, and so on.

It's not all bad news.... By the grace of God they will discover the hard way, if not the proper way, what's true and what's false, what's good and what's evil, and may come around to having room within them to consider what God wants of them.... 

Just as parents must be patient with their teenagers, so must we be patient at times with our parents, since God is patient with all of us, so that we might in time repent and come back to Him with all our hearts....

"Were not our hearts burning within us as He talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us

Suivons Jésus Christ, Lui donnant la 1ère place en 2010 !

Let us follow Jesus Christ, giving Him 1st place in 2010!

PAX + CARITAS       Year for Priests – Année Sacerdotale

L'abbé / Fr. Gilles      

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Friday, December 04, 2009

Serial Email Messages – What’s wrong with them - pressure or reward are poor motivators; Christian love is far better.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Have you viewed a lovely and inspiring power point presentation or slide show sent to you by a friend only to get on the last slide something like the line which follows?

Don't you find this so moving and inspirational? Now send it immediately to twenty of your closest friends, including the one who sent this to you, and you will be blessed beyond anything you could expect or imagine. Do it in the next two minutes and you will receive a special gift. If you don't care then just delete it, and why am I bothering with you anyway?

I strongly dislike this trend in email messages, which seems to originate among fundamentalist Christians who tend to see things as black and white, i.e. you're either saved and gave your life to Jesus once and for all, or you're going to hell. With tyrannical and judgemental thinking like that, you tend to get "send this to as many people as I tell you or you are a schmuck...." It's just a shame that the good intention and the beauty of the message these people compose is marred, in my view, by the serial letter approach.... which basically treats people like kids: "now do what I tell you, or else why am I bothering with you? I know what is good for you and if you don't comply, then just stay in your abysmal ignorance and selfishness…." And so on…. Those who intrude into your space and time with an unwanted and unasked for "gift" by that very fact surrender their rights to that email message and what it contains. This is instant publishing into the public domain, which makes the slide show common property. There is no copyright claim attached to it, so you can edit the thing yourself by simply saving that file to a folder on your PC, opening up that file from inside Microsoft Power Point or similar software, going to the offensive page, and editing the text. Then you can really enjoy sending it around without a second thought, with a more respectful closing that appeals to the recipient's freedom and generosity, but leaves no hint of obligation, like this:

I hope you enjoyed this slide show. Feel free to share it with anyone you please. May the blessing, love, and peace of God remain with you and your loved ones.

As Catholics, we have come to understand that we don't just give our life over to Christ once and for all, after which we must live a perfect life as a Christian or go to hell. They ask "Are you saved?" and "When did you give your life to Christ?" expecting these answers: Yes, on September 21st, 1967, at 10:30 in the morning, as I sat at my desk at work, and I gave my life to Christ. Rather, we understand that like the Apostles, we do decide at some point to follow Christ, and "surrender our lives to Him", but that's not the end of the story, because of our human condition. It's not enough to say it, then I must spend the rest of my life trying to assure that every aspect of my life, thoughts, words, decisions, actions, behaviour, renunciations, commitments, fidelity, falls, getting up again, sin and repentance, and life long conversion continues to go in the same direction. Becoming a saint is the work of a lifetime, and it is God's work in us, which He cannot do without our consent and active participation. God bless you and your family during this wonderful time of Advent preparation for the joy of Christmas, when we appreciate in an ever fresher and deeper way that Jesus has come for all of us and for me.... for each and every one of us. This text in pdf format to read or save to your PC

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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