.St. Cyril: Not Trying to Take it All In

Today is the feast day of St. Cyril, a fourth century orthodox bishop who fought the Arian heresy. I came across a quote of his that I find appealing. He was asked why he bothered trying to write about a God he, admittedly, couldn't fathom.

"But some one will say, If the Divine substance is incomprehensible, why then do you discourse of these things? So then, because I cannot drink up all the river, am I not even to take in moderation what is expedient for me? Because with eyes so constituted as mine I cannot take in all the sun, am I not even to look upon it enough to satisfy my wants? Or again, because I have entered into a great garden, and cannot eat all the supply of fruits, would you have me go away altogether hungry?.. I am attempting now to glorify the Lord, but not to describe him, knowing nevertheless that I shall fall short of glorifying God worthily, yet deeming it a work of piety even to attempt it at all."


(The words in red are hyperlinks from the piece on the website from which I took this.  I was unaware that they would remain red when I published this and don't know how to change them.  So please know that as hyperlinks on this site, you might think of them as eunuchs -- contributing to prayerful thought, but themselves unfertile.)

Bienvenidos al Papa! (We've much work to do)

On Wednesday, the Catholic Cardinals elected the first pope ever from the Western Hemisphere – Francis I. Let's hope that this new world pope can spearhead a new type of vision for a church that very much needs one. It's time to address a church culture that has allowed drift, corruption and the horrors of the sex abuse scandal that's rocked the faithful for the last ten years and its victims for decades – and presumably, much longer.

Several years ago, I expressed to a good Protestant friend my horror, anger and reflected shame at the scandal. He counseled me that perhaps this would be an occasion for the Church to examine it fearlessly and come to grips with it through a collective penance and purging of its soul. I certainly hope he's right, though I've yet to see that to my satisfaction.

I continue to pray for the victims – primarily those who suffered the abuse directly – but also the Catholic faithful (especially good and innocent priests who are left to suffer the consequences; my former pastor once told me that the collar has been made to sometimes feel like a target) and the wider world. Non-believers whom the Church seeks to evangelize are only left less prone to receive Jesus as a result of this monstrously counter-productive activity. This, of course, is just a polite euphemism for what it really is – perhaps the gravest of sins.

I'm left to constantly remind myself that the Church is made up of very imperfect people who continue to betray the truth of the Christian message of love and forgiveness that promises salvation to the world. Here's hoping that that message, and the Church, can somehow rise above and beyond the sins of her children.

St. Francis of Assisi, our new pontiff's patron, pray for us.

Young Man v. Young Earth

As a Christian, I wish that everyone would come to know Jesus Christ, but evangelization is not a function of our public schools. And the myopic, stupid notion that a literal reading of the Bible can be seen as a scientific text or the basis thereof – or that a literal reading is even a valid interpretation of sacred Scripture in the first place – is not only childish but dangerous.

I have no truck with atheism but am in agreement with its proponents that religious instruction has no place in the public classroom. And the dumbass brand of Christianity that promotes fundamentalist, Creationist, so-called “scientific” theories is an embarrassment to the faith that I know and believe in.

Jesus loves us all. He loves the fundamentalists and, as with everyone else, wants to save their souls. But when they claim that the universe is 6,000 years old and that, therefore, man and dinosaurs must have co-existed, I think he must roll his eyes at the idiocy his saving presence has inadvertently spawned.

All of this is not to say that the young man in this interview is an atheist; the interview doesn't address his belief in God or lack thereof. And frankly, I'd never heard of the kid before seeing this interview. But whatever his spiritual convictions (or again, lack thereof) I'd be proud as hell if my kid was doing at his age what this young man is doing.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/zack-kopplin-on-keeping-creationism-out-of-public-classrooms/

Lord of the Starfields

As a catholic, I'm very proud of the fact that there's an astronomical observatory on the grounds of the Vatican. We find no cowardly and anti-logical fear of the spectacular findings of science in the holy city-state. People criticize the Church for that very thing in its suppression of Galileo in the seventeenth century.

But the Catholic Church has recanted of its treatment of Galileo and, unlike much of Protestant Christianity today, has embraced the universe he proposed. As this article states, it was a Catholic priest/scientist who first proposed the theory of the Big Bang. Today, another catholic priest -- the just-retired Pope Benedict XVI -- recently established an institution which seeks to resolve the perceived conflicts between science and religion – the Vatican's Science and Faith Foundation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-giberson-phd/pope-benedict-science_b_2679021.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP_CwMr7yvc