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I’ve been pins and needles all day today, a lot of little things going wrong etc.
And today we record the Christmas show all about Christ and Christmas and how the media treats the Church.
It’s almost as if someone wants to keep me wound so the show doesn’t go well. Any suggestions as to who?
Update: We’ve forgotten our story
The Advertisers of Christmas continues and outnumbers the days of Christmas.
Considering we will be taping our very Catholic Christmas show tomorrow Mass Citizens for life Fitchburg / Leominster chapter is a perfect fit for this the 4th Sunday of Advent.
Remember when you support life you are re-arming your soul and the souls of others.
In addition to the other problems that the establishment has with Sarah Palin. She also calls out their religious “personally believes” nonsense. It so rattled Kathleen Kennedy Townsend As Patrick O’Hannigan reports, had to respond:
Washington Post editors gave Townsend 1,500 words to defend her uncle’s attempt to compartmentalize his faith, but the “coulda been a contender” lament that they got for their trouble only exposed Townsend as another palooka in a family full of them.
Townsend asserts that she gave America by Heart a careful reading, from which she came away sure that Palin supports an unconstitutional religious test for public office. Inconveniently, we have to take Townsend’s word for that, because Palin actually says no such thing: the closest she gets is to express disappointment at John F. Kennedy’s failure to reconcile his “private faith and public role,” and his unwillingness to tell fellow countrymen “how his faith had enriched him.”
Well who knows faith better, a non-Catholic like Palin or a member of as far as the media is concerning the Catholic family of America? Let’s ask archbishop Chaput:
Speaking this past spring at Houston Baptist University, Archbishop Chaput noted that “Real Christian faith is always personal, but it’s never private.” That was one of the things about which John F. Kennedy was mistaken. Moreover, said Chaput, Kennedy’s remarks in Houston “profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation.” And “Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.”
In other words, Sarah Palin’s criticism of the Kennedy approach to faith accords substantially with criticisms offered by another Christian of unquestioned acumen. Not only that, but Chaput came loaded for bear, quoting another scholar to buttress the point that John F. Kennedy “secularized the American presidency in order to win it.”
But what does he know? He’s only an Archbishop.
That’s why they fear Palin she and the tea parties that support her, they threaten their entire way of life and force them to face realities beyond it.
Update: Cleaned up the first sentence and added quotes. Let me clarify what “Personally Believes” stuff means. It is when a pols says he “personally believes” something but votes a different way due to a separation between their religious belief and their public life. This is nonsense since we are the sum of our beliefs and if we are willing to turn them off like a light switch then we are hollow.
About once a month Fr. Bob decides to have a seat and Deacon Sal gives the homely at St. Anthony of Padua. Today was that day and he reflected on the Gospel and an interesting question from it.
The full Gospel is here but the relevant part are verses 2 and 3
When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to him with this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
Deacon Sal talked about how all his life he has been one to ask questions. So the question came to him: “Since John baptized Jesus and saw the Glory of God, why did he need to send his disciples to ask if Jesus was the one to come?”
Sal’s idea was that John’s sent his disciples not for the sake of himself but for their benefit so that they would come to believe.
I’m not so sure myself, I think it is entirely consistent with Biblical precedent, Catholic tradition, and reality for even people who have seen to doubt.
Consider the children of Israel, they saw the plagues, they saw the Red Sea Parted, they saw God come through for them over and over again and what was the result? They doubted and rebelled over and over again.
And of course over and over again they repented and God forgave them. The cycle of faith, falling, repentance and forgiveness is not only repeated but is prophesied.
Consider Peter: He saw a miracle at his first meeting with Christ, He saw Christ walk on water and then lost faith and started to sink himself. After seeing everything that happened he denied Christ three times yet became the leader of the Apostles.
And during the time of persecution as tradition tells us Peter was fleeting and only turning back when he encountered Christ, asking “Domine Quo Vardis?” (Lord where are you going?) and getting the reply “Eo Romam iterum crucifigi.” (I go to Rome to be crucified once again.) Rising, failing and trying again, Peter was in the same boat as the rest of us.
As her diary tells us even Mother Theresa had her doubts on occasion, yet she continued to work through them and even in death reminded the world of the difference between fame and faith.
And of course it reflects the Sacrament of Confession, we fall, we repent, we are forgiven and we rise again.
And so we are back to John the Baptist. John after spending a lifetime serving God and preaching repentance finds himself in jail and destined for death. This is his lowest point, how strange would it be for him to despair (Remember Christ himself asked for the cup to be taken from him if possible). If a disciple like Peter who was with Christ every day could still have doubts, how odd would it be for John to have the same particularly at his lowest point?
And this is where verse 11 comes into play:
Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Why is this true? It’s true because the least in the Kingdom of Heaven has completed the trial of life, they have completed the race and stand before the glory of God.
Our atheistic friends would love to make our doubts define us but for centuries some of the most educated and greatest minds man has seen went through the same circular process only to arrive back home to faith.
John the Baptist was simply doing what we all should, when faced with doubt asking Christ for reassurance. May we always follow his example.
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