A Deo et Rege

It is nearly 2005 (already is in some places), but it seemed like 2004 just started. I visited my old university town yesterday and it’s hard to believe I’ve been gone from there almost five years.  Wow, does time fly!

2004 was memorable for me in many ways and it’s hard for me to remember a time when so many important things in my life changed so much. First, my faith is very important to me and I made a huge step in this area in 2004: I left Anglicanism and converted to Catholicism. Secondly, I made a huge career decision. I had planned on being ordained in the Anglican Church with the idea of mixing a teaching and ministerial vocation. In 2004 I realized that my vocation was in teaching in the Catholic Church and decided to start my return to graduate school for that purpose. Finally, I knew that when it comes to forever being with the one I love, there is no time like that present, and asked my girlfriend to marry me. We are planning the wedding for the next year or so.

I’m not sure what resolutions I have in 2005, other than taking off a few of those holiday pounds. By God’s grace, I hope to get married in 2005 and get into graduate school with a big enough financial package to support a family. I would also like to to grow in the calling God has for me in his Catholic Church.

I want to wish everyone a wonderful 2005 filled with God’s grace and his many blessings!

Image from Kid’s Domain

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, remembering those children who were killed by King Herod who was enraged that one of them (Jesus) was the real King of the Jews and thus a threat to his power. In his selfishness for power, Herod completely disregarded innocent human life.

Today, we are apalled at the barbarity of Herod since we are civilized people. However, the main difference is the use of civilized euphemisms to cover up our own barbarity. We use words like choice, right to privacy, mercy-killing, and euthanasia (meaning good death) to describe the taking of an innocent human life. Maybe a modern day Herod would be preferrable to wake us up from our comfortable tolerance.

I was born in 1978, five years after Roe v. Wade, so it is my generation that has been destroyed through the right to "choice." These could’ve been my classmates, my co-workers, those kneeling next to me at mass. They could’ve found the cure for cancer or taken us to Mars, but they weren’t even given a chance. They were simply treated as an expendable mass of cells.

We need to fight harder to make abortion illegal. Legalized killing of the unborn is a blight on our national soul, a horrendous injustic. Combined with birth control, it could literally lead to the death of our culture and way of life.

We also need to work to change people’s hearts about abortion now. We need to teach a respect for the sanctity of unborn life to all people from the earliest ages. We need to make it easier for couples to adopt children. We need to strengthen marriage as an institution beyond personal fulfillment of the husband and wife. We need to reach out as a community to provide for the needs of scared single mothers who feel they have no other options. We need to instill into our young men a respect for and responsibility towards women and children. We need to not only tell our teenagers negatively why sex before marriage is wrong but positively why sex within marriage is the right, godly, and best way for them. In short, we must work to outlaw abortion, but also to create a society and a citizenry where abortion isn’t even considered a valid choice.

Have a blessed feast of the Holy Innocents.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family, a time to celebrate and remember the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus as well as to teach and remind us that the Holy Family is the model and highest example for all families.

The family is under total assault in the secular Western world, which is not surprising.  However, the family is no safer among many Protestant communities that claim the name of Christ.  Although one would expect gay marriage, divorce, contraception, and abortion from the secular world, it is unfathomable that in the last 100 or so years large chunks of Protestant Christianity have officially embraced divorce, contraception, and abortion as acceptable and are on the way towards acceptance of gay marriage.  It’s no wonder that the Feast of the Holy Family seems so counter-cultural.  As we approach 2005, the family is in serious trouble, among the secularists and large segments of Christianity.

The Catholic Church correctly opposes the secular assaults on the family, life, and the body and also promotes the strong importance and high value of the family.  I leave you with the Catholic Catechism’s comments on the Christian family:

"The
Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of
ecclesial communion, and for this reason it can and should be called a domestic church." It is a community of faith, hope, and charity; it assumes singular
importance in the Church, as is evident in the New Testament. (2204)

The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the
communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. In the
procreation and education of children it reflects the Father’s work of
creation. It is called to partake of the prayer and sacrifice of
Christ. Daily prayer and the reading of the Word of God strengthen it
in charity. The Christian family has an evangelizing and missionary
task. (2205)

The relationships within the family
bring an affinity of feelings, affections and interests, arising above
all from the members’ respect for one another. The family is a privileged community
called to achieve a "sharing of thought and common deliberation by the
spouses as well as their eager cooperation as parents in the children’s
upbringing." (2206)

Image from the Art Gallery of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo (Picayune, MS)

My fiancee got me some excellent books for Christmas, including The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (by the Holy Father John Paul II) and Splendor of Love (Walter Schu, LC).  Both of these tackle the Theology of the Body.  I’ve blogged on the issues of pro-life causes, traditional marriage, and sexuality before, but now that I’m reading these books and learning more about the topic, I figure I’ll have more to say about issues related to the Body.  So, I’ve created a new blog category: Family, Life, and the Body.  I believe that in the contemporary post-modern West, there may be no topic more relevant and important than the Theology of the Body.

For TODAY the Maker of
the world was born of a Virgin’s womb, and He, who made all natures,
became Son of her, whom He created!

TODAY the Word of GOD appeared
clothed in flesh, and That which had never been visible to human
eyes began to be tangible to our hands as well!

TODAY the shepherds
learnt from angels’ voices that the Saviour was born in the
substance of our flesh and soul!

And TODAY the form of the Gospel
message was pre-arranged by the leaders of the LORD’S flocks, so
that we too may say with the army of the heavenly host: "GLORY IN THE HIGHEST TO GOD, AND ON EARTH PEACE TO MEN OF GOOD WILL!"

From the Sermon on the Feast of the Nativity (VI) by St. (Pope) Leo the Great.  I’ve added  most of the capitals and the exclamation marks to capture the joy of Christmas Day.

Image The Nativity  by Gerald Hornebout from CGFA: A Virtual Art Museum

I would like to wish everyone who regularly reads, occasionally visits, or happens to come by this blog, a very Merry Christmas!  Thanks to everyone who wished my Fiancee and me congratulations as well.  God bless!  I’ll conclude with a snippet of a poem by Gerald Manley-Hopkins

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity

Dwindled to infancy

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk, and all the rest

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race—

Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess’s

Was deemèd, dreamèd; who

This one work has to do—

Let all God’s glory through,

God’s glory which would go

Through her and from her flow

Off, and no way but so.

The Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe from the Poetry Connection

Image from Kid’s Domain Christmas Clipart

Jeff Miller, at his blog The Curt Jester has provided more hilarious social commentary with his post entitled Greetings.  An excellent take on the phenomenon of "Seasons Greetings." 

I’ve always had a certain fascination with airports, but my relationship with them has been very much love/hate.  Being involved in a long distance relationship, the airport is the scene of both great joy and also great sorrow.  Since my fiancée normally flies into and out of the same airport, visiting it neutrally conjures up very mixed emotions indeed.  Today, my brother had to leave his girlfriend and it was a very sad affair and believe me, I know the feeling.  I look forward to the day when an airport conjures up only feelings of joy. 

I had the blessing of visiting Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada this past week.  Although the GST was annoying and the area was quite touristy, the falls were downright amazing, especially when lit up at night.  God has given us some beautiful wonders and Niagara Falls is one of them.

Photo by yours truly, Jonathan Bennett

After 2 and a half years of being together, today I asked my girlfriend to marry me and she said yes!!!  I’m so excited and happy and now we’re going to start thinking about the wedding plans, especially since we’re so far apart most of the year.  Prayers are greatly appreciated.

My brother was the photographer who caught the happy event in the photo to the left. Maria was a witness.

St. (Pope) Leo the Great from Sermon 12, Section IV ( On The Fast of the Tenth Month) [this period is similar to our Advent]

But there are three things which most belong to religious actions,
namely prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in the exercising of which
while every time is accepted, yet that ought to be more zealously
observed, which we have received as hallowed by tradition from the
apostles: even as this tenth month brings round again to us the
opportunity when according to the ancient practice we may give more
diligent heed to those three things of which I have spoken. For by
prayer we seek to propitiate God, by fasting we extinguish the lusts of
the flesh, by alms we redeem our sins: and at the same time God’s image
is throughout renewed in us, if we are always ready to praise Him,
unfailingly intent on our purification and unceasingly active in
cherishing our neighhour. This threefold round of duty, dearly beloved,
brings all other virtues into action: it attains to God’s image and
likenessand unites us inseparably with the Holy Spirit. Because in
prayer faith remains stedfast, in fastings life remains innocent, in
almsgiving the mind remains kind. On Wednesday and Friday therefore let
us fast: and on Saturday let us keep vigil with the most blessed
Apostle Peter, who will deign to aid our supplications and fast and
alms with his own prayers through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the
Father and the Holy Ghost lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Read the whole thing at New Advent.

Image used above and information on St. Leo at Doctors of the Catholic Church: St. Leo the Great.

My girlfriend, known in the blog world as winterr has arrived in the USA safely from Australia, praise God!  We always have a wonderful time together, especially since our relationship is long distance.  We have learned how important it is to cherish the time we’re given.  Another amazing thing is that for the first time in our relationship we’re in communion with each other!  I was Anglican and she was non-denominational and now we’re both Catholic.  For me it’s a conversion and for her it’s a reversion.  It’s wonderful how God works!  Both of our stories can be found on the Ancient and Future Catholic conversion page.

Flag images from Graphic Maps.Com

Once again, the Pontificator (in the real world known as Fr. Al Kimel, an Anglican priest) has given us another thoughtful essay, this one called O Higher Than the Cherubim.  In my opinion, the best insight:

I suggest that something is very wrong with Protestantism at this point. Our ecclesial communities do not generate a devotion to Mary. This absence of Marian devotion suggests to me a theological flaw…The Protestant, of course, immediately protests. “I believe in the Incarnation as strongly as any Catholic or Orthodox Christian!” But the fact remains that all of Protestantism has lost Mary, and many forms of Protestantism are now on the verge of losing Christ.

He is on the money!  Have a visit and comment away!

Image from Ace Religious Gallery

My brother has penned a new article called We’re All Waiting For Something: Advent Reflections.  Using the example of the Israelites waiting for the Messiah, he discusses how prayerfully and expectantly waiting can not only be a good spiritual discipline, but also a good way to lower holiday induced blood pressure.

I raked leaves for my grandmother today.  I had already raked them about two weeks ago, but those darn leaves just keep on falling!  Two weeks ago, in order to quickly finish the job, I just used the mower to blow the chopped leaves into the flower beds, bushes, etc., basically any place I felt could conceal the leaves.  Well, today grandma asked if I would go to her house and not only rake up the freshly fallen leaves, but also to clean out the bushes, flower beds, and other places where I had conveniently blown the old leaves.  So, I raked and raked and  both the new leaves and the old mess I had blown in there previously were properly disposed of.   A lesson for doing it right the first time!

As I was raking the leaf bits out of those hard to reach places where I had casually blown the leaves two weeks before, I reflected on the the Sacrament of Reconciliation and how wonderful and beneficial it is.  For so many years, I would non-chalantly sweep my sins, especially habitual ones, into areas where I thought they were well hidden.  It was easy to blow them there, but, of course they weren’t really hidden, just festering and cluttering my soul, especially as sin upon sin piled up.  Becoming Catholic forced me to confront my sinfulness, especially those hidden away.  In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, through confession and words of absolution, they are removed from their dark hiding place and forever and properly disposed of.

Image of rake from Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources.