|
|
|---|
"Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2:42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort.This post is a follow-up to yesterday's post, especially the part about the crucial difference between our inability to live the truth fully, which is precisely what gives rise to our need for a Savior, and the outright denial of the truth, which sometimes and sadly extends as far as our insistence that the Church is in error on fundamental matters. To rail against some aspect of Church teaching one finds difficult, maybe even impossible to live, shows our fallen-ness in that, kind of like our first parents, we want to save ourselves by being perfect.
"But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed. The first duty of the Church's teaching office.
"It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls" (par.10).
Propositio 2
The Word of God
The Word of God is the soul and foundation of the Christian life and of all pastoral work; we hope that every family would own a Bible.
The synod fathers encourage daily reading of and meditation on the Word of God, especially "lectio divina", and the creation of a website about the Bible, including Catholic explanations and commentaries which are easily understood by the faithful. We would also like to see the preparation of an introductory booklet to the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, which could offer a simple way to help people read the Bible.
They also encourage eparchies / dioceses (throughout the document, the word "diocese" also applies to an "eparchy", the equivalent term in Eastern terminology) and parishes to introduce and promote Bible studies in which the Word of God is meditated upon and explained in such a way as to answer the questions the people have, and help them to become more familiar with the Scriptures, deepening their spirituality and apostolic and missionary commitment.
Propositio 3
A Biblical Pastoral Programme
The synod fathers urgently recommend that work be undertaken to place the two Testaments of Holy Scripture at the centre of our Christian life by encouraging the faithful to proclaim them, read them, meditate on them, interpret them in the light of Christ and celebrate them liturgically, as did the first Christian communities.
We propose that a Year of the Bible be proclaimed after due preparation and that it be followed by an annual Week of the Bible.
"But not even Google can tell us exactly what Mel’s religious position is. His friend the Jesuit scholar William Fulco says that Mel denies neither the Pope nor Vatican II. Mel Gibson is obviously a religious nut, however, and there must have been times when, as a loyal son, he embraced his father’s sedevacantism. It is possible that he remains a sede. But so far as I know he has never questioned, far less rejected, any part of Catholic teaching. That’s more than can be said for a lot of Catholics, including priests and bishops. Surveys show that most Catholics in the comfortable West do not accept the Church’s teaching on (for example) birth control. They don’t just ignore it – the way we all ignore moral teaching from time to time – they believe the Church is in error. So it could be that some of those accusing Gibson of sedecavantism may themselves be heretics, or at the very least recalcitrant dissidents. I am not defending sedevacantism – on the contrary – but I am suggesting that sedes are sometimes more faithful to Church teaching than respectable Catholics in the suburbs."Reid's point here is simple and demonstrative of the point I am trying to make, namely that it is one thing to find something difficult, maybe even impossible, to live, to adhere to. In such instances we have recourse to God's mercy given us in Christ Jesus, a grace we can most directly access in and through the sacraments. But, it is a wholly different thing to deny the truth outright, which is not to say we can't ask the most searching and necessary of human questions- Why? Asking Why? is not only permitted, but required.
"The life of men is made of many and varied activities. Deep in the heart of men is the longing, fitfully glimpsed and but half realized, to gather up all these strivings into an intense pursuit of one all-embracing objecive worthy of the toil and tears and devotion of the human heart. Such is the half-shaped dream; but the reality is a picture of heaped-up activities where the trivial jostles the less trivial and less trivial elbows the important things, and there is no unity of design, nor intensity of single, concentrated purpose...what is essentially trivial but immediately urgent, looms large and commands attention; while what is essentially important but not immediately urgent or insistent, is relegated to the hazy recesses of the background."So begins Karl Rahner's short book, which bears the English title The Need and the Blessing of Prayer. I remember reading a book of compiled interviews that Fr. Rahner gave towards the end of his life, Faith in a Wintry Season. He was asked in one interview which of his works he was most pleased with, or the least displeased with, as the case may be, he cited this "little book on prayer" as his favorite. Prayer is vexing for many people, at times it is vexing even for those of us committed to praying. Our vexation leads us not so much to ask the question, Why pray?, as it does to wonder about the practicality of prayer, or the question, How do I pray? It is true that there are as many ways of praying as there are people who pray. It is equally true that there are effective ways of praying and perfunctory ways of praying, that is, better and worse ways to pray. Nonetheless, the prayer uttered perfunctorily, even just mentally, is far superior to not praying at all. The question What do I pray for? often accompanies the question about how to pray. These questions are as simple as they are direct. One can offer a lot of advice about prayer, even good advice, especially on the importance of praying. However, I think most people who read my blog are already convinced that praying is important. I am equally convinced that many of my readers are well-versed in prayer. One can also discourse on how to pray, citing many holy and learned people. I think the best any of us can offer to each other is to share from our own experience.
"There are very definite and practical benefits to prayer. Prayer promotes a sense of unity or wholeness in life. In the course of a day we do so many different things: getting up, grooming and dressing ourselves, preparing food, going to work, becoming engaged in different tasks, and so on and so forth. You could say we live very dispersed lives. Our energies are scattered over so many different things. In fact, sometimes the busy-ness of the day can seem like one thing after another after another. There can be a lack of unity, a lack of wholeness to the day and perhaps to our lives. Our lives can seem altogether broken up, sometimes completely fragmented, leading to a sense of drift, with no integration and no direction... Prayer can bring a unity and a wholeness into our existence."Indeed, our lives can easily become nothing but distraction (i.e., one damn thing after another- as Arnold Toynbee once described human history), thus depriving us of the transcendental context of our existence that the Gospel imparts to us as a great gift. If nothing else (it has the potential to be so much more), prayer is a reminder, not just of what really matters, because the things we do every day matter. After all, God saves us in and through our lives, not over and above them. The simple act of lifting our minds to God in prayer has a way of putting things into perspective. As both Cummings and Rahner point out, prayer is the way we let God bring unity and coherence to our otherwise fragmented existence.
The Hill: You know the Democrats are in trouble when Steny Hoyer hits the airwaves in his campaign to retain his seat in Congress. Hoyer, whose seat was generously drawn for him by Maryland Senate President Mike Miller, usually uses his campaign largesse to benefit his Democratic Party colleagues with little thought of himself.
That changed due to an aggressive campaign by first-time candidate Charles Lollar, who is making inroads into previous Hoyer strongholds in Charles, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s counties.
Lollar, who served in the Marine Corps, is taking the same no-nonsense approach to going after the previously unassailable Hoyer that has earned the U.S. Marine Corps worldwide respect and, yes, a little bit of fear. [MORE]
TWS: THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the results of a private poll conducted last night in Ohio-10, the Cleveland-area district held for seven terms by Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich has been widely viewed as safe—even though he fell short of 60 percent of the vote in 2008, and the district has a Cook PVI of only Dem +8.
The poll (based on a small but respectable 319 person sample, with a margin of error of 5.6 percent, weighted to eliminate gender bias) shows Kucinich ahead of his opponent, Peter Corrigan, by only 4 percent. The profile of undecided voters suggests they may break for Corrigan by about 3-2. And Corrigan's 4 percent deficit turns into a 4 percent Corrigan lead when voters are given information on Kucinich's ties to corrupt local Democratic leaders, and on Kucinich's support for illegal immigration. These are signs that undecided voters could be pushed to go Corrigan’s way. Furthermore, Corrigan is running even with Kucinich among those who've already requested their absentee ballot, as early voting has already started in Ohio. [MORE]
"Maybe some of you will say to me, Saint Paul is often severe in his writings. How can I say that he was spreading a message of love? My answer is this. God loves every one of us with a depth and intensity that we can hardly begin to imagine. And he knows us intimately, he knows all our strengths and all our faults. Because he loves us so much, he wants to purify us of our faults and build up our virtues so that we can have life in abundance. When he challenges us because something in our lives is displeasing to him, he is not rejecting us, but he is asking us to change and become more perfect. That is what he asked of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. God rejects no one. And the Church rejects no one. Yet in his great love, God challenges all of us to change and to become more perfect."
“I would argue there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist belief.”
