Faith Check 31 – Faith and Reason

Faith and Reason

“Come let us reason together, says the Lord” – Isaiah 1:18.

Many in our day strictly divide faith and reason, seeing science as based on logic and objective truth, but religion as solely emotional and subjective.

Not so, says the Catholic Church.  Faith and reason complement and assist one another in the pursuit of truth.  All truth is God’s truth and ultimately leads to Him who is Truth itself, Jesus Christ, so there is nothing to fear from scientific inquiry.

In fact, for centuries the Catholic Church was the patron of the arts and sciences.  St. Thomas Aquinas used Greek philosophy to show the logical foundation of the Catholic Faith, many of the great scientific discoveries have been made by Catholic priests or scientists, convinced that the universe operated by fixed laws established by the one true God, not the mere whims of the gods as the pagans had previously believed.

Of course, faith is a gift and is not based on reason alone.  Nevertheless, as Sir Thomas More says in the classic film A Man For All Seasons, “God made the angels to show His splendor, the animals for their innocence, and the plants for simplicity, but God made man to serve him wittily in the tangle of His mind.”

 

IP#130 Fr. Milton Walsh – In Memory of Me on Inside the Pages

What is the “Roman Canon”?  Fr. Milton Walsh helps us to answer that question and enter deeply into the mystery found in this beautiful Eucharistic prayer.  Drawing from the best of biblical and liturgical scholarship, Fr. Walsh offers a beautiful meditation that can help priests, religious, and laity deepen their understanding of the text that for centuries was the only Eucharistic prayer used in the Roman Rite.  This is a great book to give those in Catholic Adult Formation programs, like the RCIA, Diaconate training, Religious Education Catechist, as well as to the average “pew person” who longs for a deeper encounter in the depths of our Sacred Liturgy.

 

You can Fr. Walsh’s book here

With a revised English translation of the venerable Roman Canon, many Catholics will be hearing it with new ears. This book will help them hear it with a new heart. Don’t just study the new words, step into the soul of Eucharistic Prayer I. —Rev. Paul Turner, Former president of the North American Academy of Liturgy

 

Pope Benedict on Prayer 19 – The Prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper

 VATICAN CITY, 11 JAN 2012 (VIS)

Jesus’ prayer during the Last Supper was the theme of Benedict XVI’s catechesis during his general audience, which was held this morning in the Paul VI Hall in the presence of 4,000 faithful.

The Pope explained how the emotional backdrop to the Last Supper, in which Jesus bade farewell to His friends, was the immanence of His approaching death. Moreover, in the days in which He was preparing to leave His disciples, the life of the Jewish people was marked by the approaching Passover, the commemoration of the liberation of Israel from Egypt.”It was in this context that the Last Supper took place”, the Holy Father said, “but with an important novelty”. Jesus “wanted the Supper with His disciples to be something special, different from other gatherings. It was His Supper, in which He gave something completely new: Himself. Thus Jesus celebrated the Passover as an anticipation of His Cross and Resurrection”.

The essence of the Last Supper lay in “the gestures of breaking and distributing the bread, and sharing the cup of wine, with the words that accompanied them and the context of prayer in which they took place. This was the institution of the Eucharist: the great prayer of Jesus and the Church”. The words the Evangelists use to describe that moment “recall the Jewish ‘berakha’; that is, the great prayer of thanksgiving and blessing which, in the tradition of Israel, is used to inaugurate important ceremonies. … That prayer of praise and thanks rises up to God and returns as a blessing. … The words of the institution of the Eucharist were pronounced in this context of prayer. The praise and thanksgiving of the ‘berakha’ became blessing and transformed the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus”.

Jesus’ gestures were the traditional gestures of hospitality which a host would extend to his guests, but in the Last Supper they acquired a more profound significance, Pope Benedict explained. Christ provided “a visible sign of welcome to the table upon which God gives Himself. In the bread and the wine, Jesus offered and communicated His own Self”. Aware of His approaching death, “He offered in advance the life that would shortly be taken from Him, thus transforming His violent death into a free act of the giving of Self, for others and to others. The violence He suffered became an active, free and redemptive sacrifice”.

“In contemplating Jesus’ words and gestures that night, we can clearly see that it was in His intimate and constant relationship with the Father that He accomplished the gesture of leaving to His followers, and to all of us, the Sacrament of love”, said the Pope. During the Last Supper Jesus also prayed for His disciples, who likewise had to suffer harsh trials. With that prayer “He supported them in their weakness, their difficulty in understanding that the way of God had to pass through the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection, which was anticipated in the offer of bread and wine. The Eucharist is the food of pilgrims, a source of strength also for those who are tired, weary and disoriented”.

Benedict XVI went on: “By participating in the Eucharist we have an extraordinary experience of the prayer which Jesus made, and continues to make for us all, that the evil we encounter in our lives may not triumph, and that the transforming power of Christ’s death and resurrection may act within each of us. In the Eucharist the Church responds to Jesus’ command to ‘do this in remembrance of me’, she repeats the prayer of thanksgiving and blessing and, therewith, the words of transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord. Our Eucharistic celebrations draw us into that moment of prayer, uniting us ever and anew to the prayer of Jesus”.

“Let us ask the Lord that, after due preparation also with the Sacrament of Penance, our participation in the Eucharist, which is indispensable for Christian life, may always remain the apex of all our prayers”, the Pope concluded. “Let us ask that, profoundly united in His offering to the Father, we too can transform our crosses into a free and responsible sacrifice of love, for God and for our fellows”.

At the end of his catechesis the Holy Father delivered greetings in a number of languages to the pilgrims present in the Paul VI Hall, inviting them to participate with

“faith and devotion” in the Eucharist which, he said, is indispensable for Christian life as well as being the school and culmination of prayer. Addressing young people, the sick and newlyweds, he pointed our that last Sunday’s Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord is an occasion to reflect upon our own Baptism. “

Dear young people”, the Pope exclaimed, “live your membership of the Church, the family of Christ, joyfully. Dear sick people, may the grace of Baptism ease your sufferings and encourage you to offer them to Christ for the salvation of humanity. And you, dear newlyweds, … base your marriage on the faith which you received as a gift on the day of your Baptism”.
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St. Andre Bessette – God’s Doorkeeper…holding the door open for the rest of us

“Do not try to have your trials taken away from you, rather, ask for the grace to endure them well”.

Pope Benedict XVI at St. Andre’s caniozation –

“Brother André Bessette, born in Quebec, in Canada, and a religious of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, knew suffering and poverty very early in life. This led him to turn to God for prayer and an intense interior life. Doorman at the Notre Dame College in Montreal, he showed boundless charity and did everything possible to soothe the despair of those who confided in him. With little instruction, he nevertheless understood what was essential to his faith. For him, to believe meant to submit freely and lovingly to Divine Will. Everything existed through the mystery of Jesus, he lived the beatitude of the pure of heart, that of personal rectitude. It is thanks to this simplicity, he showed many God. He had the Saint Joseph Oratory of Mont Royal built, where he was the faithful guardian until his death in 1937. There, he was the witness of many healings and conversions. “Do not try to have your trials taken away from you”, he said, “rather, ask for the grace to endure them well”. For him, everything spoke of God and His presence. May we, following his example, search for God with simplicity to discover Him always present in the core of our lives! May the example of Brother André inspire Canadian Christian life!”

Heres is a wonderful post by

by Fr. Andrew Gawrych, CSC
Associate Director, US Office of Vocations
Notre Dame, IN

The Seven Crosses of St. Andre Bessette

Growing up, I feared that my life might be meaningless.  In fact, it was the search for a truth and a love that could give my life eternal meaning that led me into the arms of Jesus and of the Church.  Eventually, on March 29, 2010, I became a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross – the same religious family of Brother André Bessette.One of the main lessons I have drawn from my saintly brother is that no life is meaningless in God.  There were countless reasons why Brother André’s life should have ended up meaningless, and yet here we are celebrating his canonization.  His life is the powerful story of how our crosses can be borne as a gift and transformed into our hope for true meaning and life.  I invite you to join me in praying with this hero of our faith so that our lives, like his, might take on an eternal, life-giving meaning.

1. The Cross of Low Expectations

Brother André Brother André, the expectations for you couldn’t have been lower.  They baptized you the day after your birth because they did not think you would survive.  Later on, your physical frailty and lack of education made others expect so little of you, leaving for you only the more menial tasks like tending the door.  Yet you fulfilled these simple tasks with such great love, exceeding the expectations of everyone.  Intercede for us so that God may grant us the same courage to overcome our world’s paltry expectations of us.  May we achieve the true greatness of holiness for which God lovingly created us.

2. The Cross of Wandering

Brother André at the age of 26 Brother André, you knew what it was like to wander through this life.  While still young, you were orphaned and forced from your home.  For many years, you journeyed from town to town and job to job, even leaving your homeland for the textile mills in the United States, in search of a new home.  You only found your home in this life when Divine Providence led you to your vocation to the religious life in the Congregation of Holy Cross.  Intercede for us that we may allow God to guide us towards the vocation to which we are called.  May we, too, find our homes in this life.

3. The Cross of Rejection

Brother André Brother André, you knew what it was like to be rejected.  Your own religious family of Holy Cross did not accept you at first.  You yourself said, “When I first arrived to the college, I was shown the door … and I remained there for forty years!”  Yet even more painfully, when the Lord chose you to be His healing hand in others’ lives, you incurred the misunderstanding and rejection of those who failed to see God’s greatness through you.  Intercede for us, so that we may have the same strength in the face of ridicule.  May we remain steadfast to the mission God has entrusted to us to bring Him glory.

4. The Cross of Others’ Suffering

Brother André healing the sick, crutches Brother André, you truly knew the weight of others’ suffering.  As news of the healings spread, more and more people came to you, often expecting a miraculous cure.  Their burdens became your burdens; their crosses became your crosses.  Your ministry exacted its toll on you, draining your strength and patience and even bringing you to tears.  You revealed to those suffering the hope of the Cross of Christ, the hope of the God who is always with us in our need.  Intercede for us so that we may be able to enter into others’ sufferings and bear their crosses with them.  May we unleash the healing hope of the Crucified One.

5. The Cross of Setbacks

Saint Joseph Oratory Montreal Candles Brother André, even the works God accomplished through your life did not come without their setbacks.  At many times during the construction of the Oratory dedicated to your patron St. Joseph, it seemed that the ambitious project would never be completed.  Yet you continued to place your trust in Divine Providence.  You even had a statue of St. Joseph placed under the unfinished roof so he could raise the remaining funds.  And defying all predictions, St. Joseph did just that!  Intercede for us so that we may have the same faith in Providence.  May the setbacks of our life not distract us from fulfilling God’s will.

6. The Cross of Our Own Suffering

Brother André Brother André, from your birth and throughout your life, your health was frail.  Rarely did you eat more than bread dipped in watered-down milk or soup.  You knew physical suffering and its seeming meaninglessness that afflicted the many broken and ill people who came to you.  But in God, your weakness became your strength, letting you enter more deeply into the hurts and pains of others.  You journeyed in faith with them through the Cross to new life in Christ.  Intercede for us so that we may be able to transform our weaknesses into strengths.  May our sufferings be transformed into a redemptive balm in the lives of others.

7. The Cross of Death

Brother André Brother André, like all of us since our ancestors Adam and Eve, you had to bear the ultimate cross of death.  But death was not the end of your life or your life’s story.  Battling the cold, over a million people came from far and wide to pay their last respects.  Your funeral was just the preview of the millions who continue to visit the Oratory each year, as well as the many ministries to the poor and the sick that bear your name throughout the world.  Intercede for us so that we, too, may have life in God and produce an even greater harvest for God’s people.  May we, too, lay down our lives in such a way that we can be counted among the saints.

Scott Hahn From the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology – Hour 1 Segment 1

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Scott Hahn From the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology – Hour 1 Segment 2

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Scott Hahn From the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology – Hour 2 Segment 1

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Scott Hahn From the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology – Hour 2 Segment 2

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Scott Hahn talking about the “Catholic Bible Dictonary” and “The New Atheism”

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