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Monthly Archives: January 2014

God’s Timelessness

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in C.S. Lewis, Thought for the Day

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Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Timeline like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call ‘tomorrow’ is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call ‘today’. All the days are ‘Now’ for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not ‘foresee’ you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow’s actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already ‘Now’ for Him.

From Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

No comment from me because there is no need for one.

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Excommunication – A Form of Brotherly Love?

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Politically Incorrect, Pro-Life, Thought for the Day, What's Wrong with the World?

≈ Leave a comment

Last Sunday, the day of the Pro-Life Rally in downtown San Antonio, I had intended on writing a post in regards to abortion. Part of my idea for that post would have included this question: why aren't pro-death 'Catholic' politicians excommunicated? But since I have a very limited understanding of excommunication I have decided to study about it before writing about it.

I already had a book on the subject: Excommunication and the Catholic Church by Edward Peters. I have only just started it but have already found something worth sharing. In the foreword to the book, written by Bishop Thomas Paprocki, he states the following:

…a censure such as excommunication is not at all vindictive, but may be seen as a sort of 'tough love,' just as loving parents discipline their children to teach them the difference between right and wrong. In fact, it would be most unloving to allow someone to persist in their wrongdoing without pointing out the fault.

That last sentence is especially important. If we knowingly allow someone we love to go on sinning without saying anything then we become at least partly responsible for their sin. And that is not even to mention the fact that their continual unrepentant sin could very well be endangering their eternal soul. Therefore it makes me wonder, if excommunication is done for the good of the sinner, why is it not applied to unrepentant pro-death Catholic politicians? And this question is especially valid in light of the fact that we are not talking about the soul of just one person (the politician) but also of countless other people that they influence with their immoral, unethical and even, dare I say, satanic beliefs. Perhaps in the remainder of the book I will find the answer.

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Unbiased Media?

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Politically Incorrect, Pro-Life, What's Wrong with the World?

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If you watched the Sunday edition of the 10:00 p.m. news on Channel 4 in San Antonio you would have seen a piece done by the news crew in the picture above. They were there covering the Pro-Life Rally at Milam Park in downtown San Antonio. In the very short of on-air coverage they gave equal amounts of time to both the Pro-Life and pro-death sides. The woman you see above was at the event and being interviewed because she likes to kill babies. (Well I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything of that sort, but I have to assume she likes the killing of babies because she was holding up signs with the usual pro-death slogans – pro-choice, pro-women's rights, etc.) I suppose they were giving equal time to both sides in order to 'be fair' – to be unbiased. Although, I cannot figure out why it was so important to interview this woman during the actual event. Also (if I remember correctly) they kept filming even during a prayer.

My question is this: what was so important about what this woman had to say that couldn't have waited until after the event was over to interview her? After all this was a Pro-Life and not a pro-death event. More importantly, why were they even interviewing her at all?!?! What you cannot see in this picture is that there were at least 300 Pro-Lifers at the event (and that is a very conservative estimate because I really think it was close to double that amount). Is it really unbiased to give this crazed, blood-hungry, pro-death woman equal air time when the group she represented at the event was outnumbered by 100 to 1? (Just to explain: there are five people in the picture but two of them are interviewers.)

 

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Mass(ive) Overhaul Needed

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Liturgy, Thought for the Day

≈ 2 Comments

The article found here deserves a look. The quote below is one of the main points of the article and is definitely something to think about. This paragraph has to do primarily with the Vetus Ordo (what is now called the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and also referred to as the Tridentine Mass). But even though I am not a member of the FSSP or other community that uses the Extraordinary Form, nor can I even say that Mass (primarily because I cannot speak Latin and I don't know all the rubrics), nevertheless what he has to say below is important for all Catholics because as he says, “the de facto situation (we find ourselves in)…ought not to be regarded as normative.” Why is this important, at least in my opinion? Because the state of the sacred liturgy in the Latin Church, at least what I have experienced of it, is in sad shape. Many (most?) of the Novus Ordo Masses I have experienced do not give our Lord the proper dignity and respect that He deserves in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. (By saying this I suppose I will have to expound on what I mean in subsequent posts.) Therefore, as I already said, the quote below deserves our consideration.

Secondly: Summorum pontificum confirmed juridically that the Latin Church had lived for some four decades under the dominion of a lie. The Vetus Ordo had not been lawfully prohibited. Much persecution of devout priests and layfolk that took place during those decades is therefore now seen to have been vis sine lege. For this so long to have been so true with regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which lies at the heart of the Church's life, argues a profound illness deep within the Latin Church. And the Big Lie was reinforced by multitudes of Little Lies … that the Council mandated reordered Sanctuaries … that the Council mandated exclusive use of the vernacular … The de facto situation created by the Big Lie and the Little Lies combined ought not to be regarded as normative. Its questionable parentage must give it a degree of provisionality, even (perhaps especially) to those who find it comfortable to live with. The onslaught upon the Franciscans of the Immaculate suggests that there are those, high in the Church's administration, who have still internalised neither the juridical findings of Summorum pontificum nor its pastoral call for harmony.

And so what is the way forward? As he later says in the article “it is time simply to move on from the 1960s”, meaning by that the time of Vatican II. This is a new time we live in and there are problems we have right now that need to be addressed. Part of the problems to be addressed, I think, is with the state of the Mass in the Latin Church. I am not saying we must return to the Extraordinary Form (although those who wish to do so should be allowed). What I am saying is that we should and must improve the state of the Liturgy because our Lord Jesus Christ deserves the best that we can give Him.

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Image

If You Have Kids You Know What This Means

23 Thursday Jan 2014

20140123-184145.jpg

29.563630 -98.659953

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Posted by Fr. Moore | Filed under Humor

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How Catholics Can Avoid Cooperating with Evil in Public Life

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Thought for the Day

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How Catholics Can Avoid Cooperating with Evil in Public Life | Crisis Magazine.

At the above link you will find an excellent article. The title aptly describes what the article is about (and something we all need to be mindful of). But there are two paragraphs in particular that can help us understand a way forward in bringing our society back from the gates of hell.

It is impossible to avoid such a view if we accept current understandings of man, the world, and the nature of reason. The industrialization of social life and pervasiveness of mass electronic culture make it hard for people today to avoid those understandings, so if we want to convert others we must first convert ourselves. That conversion has an intellectual as well as a spiritual and moral component, so we need to re-educate ourselves. We need to learn about natural law, read all the social encyclicals, consider how to understand them, study Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic and classical thinkers, and become much more critical of the principles we pick up from our surroundings—from official and popular culture, from the ever more intrusive mass media, and from expert pronouncements and our own formal education.

Once we’ve re-educated ourselves, and developed a more Catholic understanding of the world, we need to speak clearly in accordance with that understanding. That means, of course, that we have to give up the quest for prestige and even acceptability. Those are no doubt good things, but they cannot come before faithfulness and truth. It also means giving the real reasons for what we want, so that our positions will hang together and people will be able to understand what they are and why we hold them.

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Abortion is Murder!

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Politically Incorrect, Pro-Life

≈ 2 Comments

I think the title says it all, doesn't it? I had been planning all day to do a much longer post in regards to legalized abortion but I have run out of time. I have four “inconveniences” (in other words children: but I decided to call them what pro-abort, pro-death people think of them) that need my attention.

By the way, just so you know, and let me be completely clear – I DO NOT VIEW MY CHILDREN AS INCONVENIENCES, BUT INSTEAD GIFTS FROM GOD WHO I LOVE VERY, VERY MUCH!!!

God, please, do what is necessary to end the evil of abortion in this country!

I will try to post the longer article tomorrow.

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That They All May Be One

21 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Christian Unity

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Last Saturday, January 18, marked the beginning of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. In most Catholic parishes this has been shortened to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. But we here at Our Lady of the Atonement still keep the Octave of Prayer because it was started by Fr. Paul (who was a convert from Anglicanism by the way) of the Atonement Friars, which is where this parish gets its name.

This Octave of Prayer is very important to me in part because I, like Fr. Paul, am a convert from Anglicanism. But more importantly, it was my own desire for unity that helped bring me into the Catholic Church.

One day while I was getting ready for a daily Mass as an Episcopal priest I was reading over the Gospel lesson for the day. The Gospel was from John 17 and when I read verse 21 it was like a light had suddenly been turned on in a dark room – Jesus prayed to His Father for His disciples, “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in me and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.” After reading this I immediately understood, for the first time in my life, what Jesus meant about the unity of His followers. And this is not what people usually think nowadays about unity. When people today think of Christian unity they think of different denominations getting together, holding hands, singing “Kum Ba Yah” and then doing a service project together – all the while maintaining their divergent views on the Christian Faith.

But that is not what Christ was praying for – He was praying that we might have the same unity that He shares with the Father: an organic and unbreakable communion of all that is True and Good that is founded on love. I had already come to realize by that point that where Truth or Goodness was concerned within the Episcopal church it was just my opinion against another's opinion. Outside the protection of the Catholic Church there is no safeguard for true unity because there is no ultimate Authority; not even in regards to Holy Scripture because outside the Catholic Church everyone is their own pope – determining for himself what Scripture does and does not mean.

The only way we can have true unity, the unity for which Christ prayed, is to have that Authority which Christ Himself supplied to His one and only Church: “I say unto thee, thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church.” The Pope, the successor to St. Peter, is that source of Authority that all Christians need if we are to truly be one as Christ intended.

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Still Writing 2013 on Your Checks?

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Humor

≈ Leave a comment

Check out this guy’s problem.

20140116-153800.jpg

29.587366 -98.645007

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Virtue & Sin

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Fr. Moore in Thought for the Day

≈ 2 Comments

Christians are supposed to practice virtue and avoid sin. But what is virtue and what is sin. Someone might say that virute is doing that which is good and sin is doing that which is bad. True, but what makes one thing good and another thing bad. I think this is one of the major problems with modern society – due to our secular mindset we have no common ground on which to determine whether something is good or bad.

There must be an objective standard by which we can determine if something is good or bad. So what are we to do? We cannot rely on governments for that objective standard. Look at what has happened in America because the government has tried to determine good and bad: legal killing of the unborn, promotion of homosexuality, banning of prayer in public places, forcing employers to provide insurance that goes against their consciences (HHS Mandate), etc. No, the government is not good at determining right and wrong. Of course, that was never supposed to be the purview of government. Government is only meant to support that which is objectively good and enforce laws against that which is objectively bad.

There is only one Person who can give us the objective standard which we need to truly know that which is good and that which is bad: God. Yes, but which one, someone might say. The only One that exists, of course: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for the sins of the world. (Many might want to complain, “What about all the other religions?” If we have the right conception of God then we must admit there can only be One. And with one God there can be only one Truth. And with one Truth there can be only one Faith and religion by which to practice that Faith. Besides all that the question of which God or religion is the right one is outside the purpose of this post. And in addition to that I am a Catholic priest – would you expect me to say anything else?)

Therefore, taking into consideration that the God of the Christian faith is our objective standard for that which is good – because He is all Good – what is virtuous and what is sinful? Below is a quote from St. Basil the Great that can help us to understand.

This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commands. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God’s command.

The key to understanding this has to do with God's command – or His will. What is it that God wills for us? Whatever He wills is necessarily that which is good and therefore virtuous. Whatever He does not will is therefore necessarily bad, sinful and should be avoided. Of course, the individual's conscience comes into play in the determination of what to do and what not to do. But all too often people will do something objectively sinful saying, “I didn't go against my conscience.” What such people do not understand is that each individual conscience must be formed by the objective standard of the Good set forth by God. And what is that? Jesus, who is God and therefore can be trusted, has revealed it to us. And the fullness of that revelation resides within the one Church that Jesus founded – the Catholic Church. So, if you want to know what virtue to practice and what sin to avoid then learn the teachings of the Catholic Church.

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Fr. Moore

Fr. Moore

Parochial Vicar Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio, Texas FrMoore@truthwithboldness.com

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