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Friday 5 September 2014

Another Timely Repeat

 

Sunday, 30 December 2012

 Sunday Sermon

Today, it is more important than ever that I shall my Sunday sermon experience. The priest who said the Mass at St. John's Co-Cathedral noted that today, on the Feast of the Holy Family, that parents should make the home a place of  (GET READY FOR THIS) silence and composure.

I could not believe it, but was so delighted with his admonition, that I think I wished I had the computer out taking notes.

The Canon stated that the family must be a place which is conducive to the growth of the Catholic Faith.

Wow. And, this is so true. That, unless the Faith is preserved and encouraged in the family, it will die.

Not only is prayer important, and the sacramental life essential, but the entire atmosphere should allow for reflection.

His ideas fit neatly into the post from earlier today wherein I stressed that the laity must also pursue perfection as well as the religious person. We cannot believe the lies of some of the clergy from the past 50 years, a Siren's call which allowed the laity to be content with a second-class citizenship of holiness. This attitude, so often given in the Confessional,  (not by the excellent priests in Bayswater, by the way, who are great). That priests have encouraged sins, such as contraception, is documented and witnessed by some many of the laity. One cannot be holy and commit mortal sin.

The Canon this morning pointed to this haven of a home of silence and composure. What does this mean in practical terms for us?

One, simplifying life. The kids do not have to do everything.

Two, simplifying life. You do not have to own everything or have the perfect living room or state-of-the-art kitchen.

Three, simplifying life. Mom stays at home and you all take a lower standard of living.

Four, being orthodox in your beliefs; that is, conforming your minds, hearts and souls to the Church.

Five, not having a television, or at least, restricting viewing. We did not have one in my little family and we learned to have times of silence.

Six, why silence? One cannot hear God, nor experience the movements of the Holy Spirit in noise.

Seven, why composure? Anger and hatred, rudeness and lack of manners have no place in the home. The world needs yet more gentlemen and gentle ladies. Composure in a home creates an atmosphere of peace so that children may grow up in respect and love. Noise is not respectful.

That this priest could see the problem is a grace for us and him. Let us all pray how to make our homes places of silence and composure so that the children can learn to hear God and not the noise of the world.

St. John the Baptist went into the desert. So did Christ and St. Paul. Our homes can be "desert homes".

Create a place where holiness and perfection can take root and grow.









Buy Rosaries Here

https://www.etsy.com/shop/tiggawild

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Very, Very Important on Satanic Rosaries

http://gloria.tv/?media=432164&language=KiaLEJq2fBR

Of course, for some reason I cannot download this video onto my blog.

You MUST watch it.

I saw one of these in England about two years ago. I did not exam it but should have.

Please read and throw away NOW

From A Reader This Morning; Just Saw It

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2014/09/sheen-update-peoria-issues-additional-clarifications-on-sainthood-cause/

A Good Priest Going on Marcus Grodi

http://www.catholicmessenger.net/2014/09/fr-kneemiller-to-appear-on-ewtn/

Clear and Concise

http://www.churchmilitant.tv/daily/?today=2014-09-05

STM Takes A Stand on Sheen

I made this comment on Fr Z:
 
Several points.
One, the cause began in Peoria and I personally know the monsignor responsible for that beginning. Many patrons have supported financially this cause coming out of Peoria.
Two, there are many more practicing Catholics in Illinois and the Midwest who would benefit from going to a shrine, rather than the Church in NYC, which frankly is falling into ruin and disgrace. A shrine is for believers, a shrine does not make believers usually.
Three, the family is the Church not merely the relatives, who may or may not even be Catholic, as far as we know. What should count is the benefit for the Church at large and not private interests.
Four, there are many saints, including Nicholas, whose bodies were fought over. Nothing new here.
Five, as I see Cardinal Dolan as a liberal, he may not support the type of cult of a saint which happens with shrines and relics. Sorry, I do not trust his judgment on traditional things.
As you can see, I am on the Peoria side of this fight. If there is contradiction, it seems to be in NYC.

The Real America One Never Sees on The News

(CNSNews.com) - A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The labor force participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent in six of the last twelve months, but prior to last October had not fallen that low since 1978.
BLS employment statistics are based on the civilian noninstitutional population, which consists of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home.
In August, the civilian noninstitutional population was 248,229,000 according to BLS. Of that 248,229,000, 155,959,000—or 62.8 percent--participated in the labor force, meaning they either had or job or had actively sought one in the last four weeks.

Perfection Series V: Part Eight; Mary




Recently, an excellent holy man said something which resonated with me. He said that the incessant searching after one's vocation is a symptom of pride. This holy man stressed that the so-called "lost vocation" and the person pining after such, is a sign of pride. Pride is self-absorption. It is making one's self into God. It is playing God.

I know many people who are old and middle-aged who keep going back into the past regretting "lost opportunities". These could be turning down a marriage proposal, turning down a job which would have meant a huge move, turning down a vision from God because the spouse did not support that vision, not going into the seminary or being kicked out, not going into the convent and so on.

Some people think they must keep praying about vocations forever, and this is pride. Why?

Several reasons, the first being that maybe they did not have that vocation to which they thought God was calling them to pursue. It is prideful to think one must be a priest or a nun to be holy. It is prideful to think that not being married is some sort of failure.

Maybe all their efforts failed because God was trying to show them another way.

Perhaps the real vocation was staring them in the face and they did not have the humility to say, "Yes, God, I accept this."

I have never been comfortable with the idea of a lost vocation. Yes, seminaries did kick out and still do kick out conservative, traditional young men. But, God allowed these things to happen for a reason, which we may never understand in this life.  Now, there are alternative orders which did not exist in the past.

Some women who want to get married simply have not met "Mr. Right". In this day and age, sadly, this is a norm, as the society falls into neo-paganism and there are less and less Mr. Rights available.

Complaining to God and keeping up the search is prideful. 

This second aspect is important. God has a perfect will for us and His permissive will. Either way, we can obtain heaven. The first may be easier, less stressful, as those who are in God's perfect will have a deep peace despite difficulties. The second may be more difficult, more purgative, leading one away from self into the Dark Night, and finally to Illumination and Unity. Some call the first the way of affirmation, the affimative way, while the way of suffering is the via negativa, the way of negation.

To keep going over and over one's failures or to feel one is not "fitting in" to an ordinary, historical role shows a lack of humility, the virtue which states, "Thy will be done."

What is happening in one's life right now, if one is in sanctifying grace, and one is following God IS God's Will.

It may be extremely painful. Pride needs to be destroyed. Pride is one of the most common predominant faults.

Look at Our Lady. Her life was not easy. Her vocation to be the Theotokos was rifled with strife. Yet, she was peaceful and calm in her acceptance of God's will.

I shall list her details as if she lived in a contemporary society.

A single,virginal woman had a profound religious experience of unity, for which she was prepared all her existence, and is, at first, misunderstood by her fiance.

She then marries and has to have her child in a foreign town away from family, only with her husband and God. She is in ecstasy.

She understands all, but cannot share the wonder, pondering all things in her heart.

In the middle of the night some time later, her husband awakens her and they have to flee immediately to a foreign land. She is obedient, humble.

Her husband leads the little family back to her home town and sets up a small business, but they are very poor.

The husband dies, and, soon, at her bequest for helping friends, she asks her Son to begin His work away from her.

She lives alone in solitude, only able to share with God her interior life. She lives in the Unitive State, higher and most perfect, in silence.

Her Son is killed. She endures the pain and encourages the choice to suffer.

He is restored, and finally goes to heaven, leaving her with her appointed adopted son.

She must leave her family again, and go to another city, full of pagans, in order to live with her new adopted son who is persecuted. She has to make yet another new life around her.

Of course, there is only one Mary, one Lord, one Incarnational moment and history, but my point is that Our Lady accepted all of this chaos and pain, suffering and even hatred for the sake of Love for God. She obeyed constantly.

She lived in obedience and humility and never thought, "Why me, Lord?" "Did I do something wrong, Lord?" "Was there a missed opportunity?"

See how humility is not only obedience but purity of mind, heart, soul. It is perfection. It is peaceful acceptance of God's will for you today.

Do not keep going over your lives, moaning or complaining at lost opportunities or blaming yourself for not following some vocation you think you lost. All things happen for a purpose.

One of my favorite quotations is from St. Thomas More. I use to write it in the beginning of my Bibles.

I paraphrase this, as I do not have the book with me where I found the quotation: Do not be afraid of anything which happens. All that happens is God's Will. 

I believe this, as this is our teaching in the Catholic Church regarding Providence.

Your vocation is NOW. And, if God presents a new opening for love in your life, be it as a celibate or married, do not turn away because of your own preconceived ideas of what your life should have been or could have been.

Live in the present moment and you will find God. Be open to love and you will find God's will.




Repeat from Another Blog


Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Turning against the "inexhaustible surprise of divine love"

The best book I have read in months is The Yes of Jesus Christ by the Pope Emeritus, written in 1989, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger.

I started it as it was a gift from a grateful reader, but it has proved to be a goldmine of spirituality for us in this culture of death and despair.

I cannot give a complete review, although there are some tidbits on my blog. But, on this blog, during this holiest of weeks, I want to highlight one major point.

How many lapsed Catholics have we all met who complain about the Church? I can understand someone complaining who is still in the Church, but if someone has decided to leave, why bother?

The Pope Emeritus has the answer.


It is man's fundamental disconnectedness with himself that as it were takes its revenge on other people because they do not provide what could only be provided by a new opening up of one's own soul. Today it can often be observed in numerous variants even within the Church but it always stems ultimately from the fact that people do not want from the Church what it is its to impart, the grace of being a child of God, and that they are then found to regard as inadequate everything else that the Church is offering, so that one disappointment follows another."

In other words, those who want the Church for social reasons, sound like this, "I am single and find no one my age in my parish. Why should I go?"  Those who want the Church to be that of perfect saints sound like this, "All Catholics are hypocrites, as I know some."

Those who want the Church to be full of social workers and politicians complain about social justice issues, and those who want the Church to be made in their own image of immorality and soft consciences, want the Church to change her stand on marriage or contraception.

The Church exists to impart grace through the sacraments first and foremost, and the preaching of the Gospel. All else follows as is right and true.

Some want to make the Church into their own images and likenesses.

The Pope Emeritus writes later in this section, "Such people now deem this new interpretation both to themselves and to others as the true content of the Christian message, because no one can bear to have to regard himself of herself as an apostate."

In order not to be called an apostate, Luther, Henry VIII, and others created their own churches, made in their images and likenesses.

So as not to wear the condemnation which is justly theirs, they left the great calling of humility and purity of heart, and became hateful towards those who followed Christ and His Church. Hence, the English Age of the Catholic Martyrs.

Benedict notes that the "self-justification in which such a person has taken refuge after the loss of faith" , (which is the same as a holder of a bad conscience), this person wants all to live as he does, in darkness and in sorrow. "Misery loves company" could be the motto of the society of agnostics in which we live.

Horrible, but the society at large has come to this point wherein the majority, who no longer believe, want to drag down into their spitefulness all those who strive to be holy.

Benedict, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, outlines that apathy, faintheartedness, nursing grudges and spitefulness are the great daughters of accidie, that sin of inertia which gives up on the path to perfection.

Such were the sins of Judas which led him to his rejection of love, the Love which he witnessed daily.


One substitutes such morbidity for what Benedict calls, "the inexhaustible surprise of divine love".

How beautiful is the constant call of the Bridegroom to His beloved. Behold my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. Song of Songs 2:20 DR

This is my faith, that of a loving God who calls all to Him over and over, even in our darkness.

I choose that love and want to be surprised daily. Therefore, I choose to turn my back on the society of the agnostics, or engage with such, if anyone in that culture of death really wants an "out".  Love conquers all...really, truly.

We Christians Know The Answer





http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100284741/britains-muslims-are-failing-to-integrate-we-need-to-find-out-why/



John 14:6 Douay-Rheims


Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.



We either believe that Christ is the only true Way to peace, or this will happen. To hate Christ is to hate The Truth.




 


On Catholic Colleges and Universities


I am a Domer. (So is Michael Voris). Many of us deplored the giving of the doctoral degree to POTUS. This evening, I watched Rudy again with a friend who had never seen it. He liked it. He noted the difference in the movie between a Catholic student body and his. Now, the movie is old, and the styles more modest, but the point was being made not about clothes, but an "attitude" which was felt by the viewer.  

There use to be a pride about being a real Catholic.

Going to Notre Dame, being there for six years working on two degrees, I made great friends. But, friendship was based on shared Catholic morals, faith and vision.

My son experienced the same "family" atmosphere at Thomas Aquinas College.


To be in a college or university where one can find people who share goals and vision is to find a real community based on faith.

Not all young people live their faith in college or university, but some do. One of my friend's children went to the University of Illinois at Springfield. None of them lost their faith, all married practicing Catholics and all are having children. They joined an active Newman Club and made Catholic friends.

To blame university or college for the loss of faith ignores free will and the opportunities available.

Is it hard to keep the faith in a secular atmosphere? Yes, and it is much better for parents to encourage their children to attend Wyoming Catholic, Thomas Aquinas, Christendom and Ave Maria for obvious reasons.

Just getting to daily Mass is a great help in keeping the faith, staying pure, and so on.


One can create a community at college or university. One can seek out like-minded people.

Faith does not have to disappear.

As the school year starts, pray for students to be true to the gift of faith God has given them in Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation.

By the way, there are now 58 priests who are alumni of Thomas Aquinas College. One more alum is a seminarian in England!



Yearly Rant Part Two

Realizing that Jesus did not wear trousers and Mary did not wear skirts, I am writing about our culture in the last 200 years with regard to dress. I think that the dress culture of Christ's day did change with Christianity and it would be interesting to follow those changes. One can say for sure that civilizations which were not Christianized until late did not see women moving into dresses until the 18th centuries or so.

Also, sems and priests wear cassocks, which is not a sign of transvestite dressing, but an older tradition,  most likely coming from the fact that most priests for centuries were not secular, but in orders, such as Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscan and so on.

I am writing for women in 2014, for the sake of role-modeling for little girls and for the necessity of avoiding the lies of society regarding "gender identity" issues.

Women who get angry when I write or talk about modesty have a problem. This is like the group which gets really angry when I write or speak about Harry Potter. If there was not a deep-seated knowledge that things are wrong in one's pursuit of dress or entertainment, why get so angry?

A few more points on women's clothing regarding the evil of androgyny.

The Cultural Marxists and the Frankfort School of Marxism pushed androgyny. The writings of Antonio Gramsci (many posts on his on this blog) included these two phrases.

“I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution to the cultural contradictions of the epoch.” 

“Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.”

Part of the cultural changes he endeavored to start were the destruction of marriage, the family unit, and the introduction of the acceptance of homosexuality, androgyny and contraception.


The Marxist succeeded in changing the West culturally, as did other "isms" such as radical feminism from Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger.

You can sit and read my many posts on Gramsci, if you have not done so.

But, you may ask, why is androgyny "evil"? Why is this an issue now, in 2014?

A few very basic points:

God created man and woman separately for various reasons. The main reason is that the woman "compliments" the man in her differences. If married, as Eve was to Adam, she is to be the "helpmate".  Many women have rebelled against this helpmate ideal and do not want to help their husbands in their jobs, role as leader and priest in the domestic church, and even in intimacy.

The soul forms the body, not the other way around, and our souls, therefore, are not separate from our being a man or a woman, although these souls do not have gender. In other words, my soul, which is manifested through my femaleness, is that of a woman, and I come to God through that reality. We are not dualistic beings.  We are unified, body and soul. We are not just bodies, but souls, and when the soul leaves the body, we die, we can no longer function as a union of spirit and matter. Only when our bodies are Resurrected on the Last Day, will we be joined again in that unity, which is separated in death. And, we shall get back our renewed bodies, with gender. Mary is our guide in this. She is in heaven body and soul, and recognizable even here on earth.

Our souls work in a way not like those of the angels, who have no gender because they have no bodies. We are created as a man or a  woman and that creation is our identity. Our bodies determine our gender, and our roles, but we cannot separate the two . "Man and woman He created them". We are not angels, we are not genderless or sexless.

Here are a few quotations from the Catholic Encyclopedia to help with this.

 The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated.

And... all our souls are unique, as are our bodies....We are created from the moment of conception male or female. Our souls and bodies are created together.
  • the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;
  • the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i.e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;
  • though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;
  • the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism — later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas's teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence. (Our position now in the Church.)


Even God celebrates gender throughout the Bible and in the teachings of the Church. Christ's relationship with the Church and with the soul is that of the Bridegroom to the Bride, This fact is one reason why women who are feminine have an easier time coming to love God, as they can accept the female role of receiving.

But, the greatest saints, like St. Bernard and St. Augustine, allowed Christ to love them in the transcendent love which God pours into the soul. The Unitive State is one of receiving and being in Love.

This love is holy, is agape, is the complete sacrificial love of the Crucified One.


However, here is the real reason, the core of the evil of androgyny and why one can see this is from satan. Three connected points:

Androgyny denies the Incarnation.

Satan wants us to forget that Christ is both God AND Man, forever, in His Resurrected Body in heaven.

Androgyny also denies the Biblical account of Creation. Androgyny denies who we are as a person. I am unified in my femininity, body and soul.

Androgyny confuses the different roles of men and women, created by God.

The purposeful mixing up of the sense of identity makes people closed to the Incarnate God and to God the Father, and to the Spirit, Who was present at Creation.

Christ is fully Man and fully God. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, as Spirits, do not have gender, but Christ, obviously, does.

He is not some odd transcendent, sexless, genderless being. That is the creed of some Gnostics and Neo-Gnostics.

In addition, through the Passion and Resurrection, we are made new. We are one nature, not two.

Christ redeemed humans on the Cross and redeemed nature. Gender differences are a great Good.

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day." Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.


We were restored to grace in our bodies as well as our souls, through Christ's Redemptive Act.

Women who refuse absolutely refuse to dress like a woman in our society, to see the beauty of the feminine, are denying Christ's Redemption of the entire female person in our times and falling for the lies of androgyny. We women were made new, to rejoice in our femininity
as Catholic women and in the West, femininity is expressed through dress.

I am sorry, but I suspect something wrong about women who only wear men's clothes. It is unnatural and reflects not only a blind spot in the spirit, but perhaps severe sins, such as manipulation, rebellion, control.

Obviously, a woman may sin in these areas of emotional manipulation, rebellion and wanting control while wearing feminine clothing, but the constant expression of maleness can refer to a deeper problem.

Among my best friends, all wear dresses or skirts only.

Some change into trousers because of work around the house, but they only wear pants at home.

That is their decision. I wear skirts when washing windows on a ladder and when painting, or cleaning, or scrubbing floors.

Nuns manage to so all these things in long habits and so do I.

For a woman to deny her body as feminine is for her to deny her relationship with God as a woman.

If you are a woman and this article makes you angry, please stop and pray to Our Lady. Ask yourself this question: "Who am I?"


It is time to change, literally, your clothes.

I do not want to add to the misogyny I see on some other, even famous, Catholic blogs, but as a woman who learned to appreciate who I am before God and express myself through clothes, (even from the Good Will), I believe what I am writing needs to be addressed.

May I add that people have seen persons from heaven, hell and purgatory in visions or impressed upon the imagination. These people, without their bodies, are recognizable in their souls. The dead do not lose their gender-identity, as it were. If your great-grandmother is in heaven, she is there as a woman, not some odd transgendered soul. How do we recognize someone who is a man or a woman? Not merely by their bodies, but also, by their souls. We become holy through both our bodies and our souls. There is a mystery in this union.

More from the CCC.


PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION TWO
THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

CHAPTER ONE
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER

ARTICLE I
"I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"

Paragraph 6. Man
355 "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them."218 Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is "in the image of God"; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created "male and female"; (IV) God established him in his friendship.
I. "IN THE IMAGE OF GOD"
356 Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator".219 He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake",220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.221
357 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.
358 God created everything for man,222 but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him:

What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honor? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his salvation that he did not spare his own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to himself and made him sit at his right hand.223
359 "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear."224
St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ. . . The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life. . . The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last."225
360 Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity, for "from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth":226
O wondrous vision, which makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God. . . in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; in the unity of its immediate end and its mission in the world; in the unity of its dwelling, the earth, whose benefits all men, by right of nature, may use to sustain and develop life; in the unity of its supernatural end: God himself, to whom all ought to tend; in the unity of the means for attaining this end;. . . in the unity of the redemption wrought by Christ for all.227
361 "This law of human solidarity and charity",228 without excluding the rich variety of persons, cultures and peoples, assures us that all men are truly brethren.

II. "BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE"
362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.
363 In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235
367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238
368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.239
 
* III. "MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM"
Equality and difference willed by God
369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.

370 In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.241
"Each for the other" - "A unity in two"
371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 None of the animals can be man's partner.243 The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another "I", sharing the same humanity.
372 Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh",245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work.247
373 In God's plan man and woman have the vocation of "subduing" the earth248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator "who loves everything that exists",249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.

IV. MAN IN PARADISE
374 The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ.
375 The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original "state of holiness and justice".250 This grace of original holiness was "to share in. . .divine life".251
376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die.252 The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman,253 and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called "original justice".
377 The "mastery" over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence254 that subjugates him to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reason.
378 The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden.255 There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden,256 but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.
379 This entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God's plan, will be lost by the sin of our first parents.
IN BRIEF
380 "Father,. . . you formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures" (Roman Missal, EP IV, 118).
381 Man is predestined to reproduce the image of God's Son made man, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), so that Christ shall be the first-born of a multitude of brothers and sisters (cf. Eph 1:3-6; Rom 8:29).
382 "Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity" (GS 14 § 1). The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.
383 "God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning, "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27). This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons" (GS 12 § 4).
384 Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.

218 Gen 1:27.
219 GS 12 § 3.
220 GS 24 § 3.
221 St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue 4,13 "On Divine Providence": LH, Sunday, week 19, OR.
222 Cf. GS 12 § 1; 24 § 3; 39 § 1.
223 St. John Chrysostom, In Gen. Sermo 2,1: PG 54,587D-588A.
224 GS 22 § 1.
225 St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 117: PL 52,520-521.
226 Acts 17:26; cf. Tob 8:6.
227 Pius XII, Enc. Summi Pontificatus 3; cf. NA 1.
228 Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus 3.
229 Gen 2:7.
230 Cf. Mt 16:25-26; Jn 15:13; Acts 2:41.
231 Cf. Mt 10:28; 26:38; Jn 12:27; 2 Macc 6:30.
232 Cf. 1 Cor 6:19-20; 15:44-45.
233 GS 14 § 1; cf. Dan 3:57-80.
234 Cf. Council of Vienne (1312): DS 902.
235 Cf. Pius XII, Humani Generis: DS 3896; Paul VI, CPG § 8; Lateran Council V (1513): DS 1440.
236 1 Thess 5:23.
237 Cf. Council of Constantinople IV (870): DS 657.
238 Cf. Vatican Council I, Dei Filius: DS 3005; GS 22 § 5; Humani Generis: DS 3891.
239 Cf. Jer 31:33; Deut 6:5; 29:3; Isa 29:13; Ezek 36:26; Mt 6:21; Lk 8:15; Rom 5:5.
240 Cf. Gen 2:7,22.
241 Cf. Isa 49:14-15; 66:13; Ps 131:2-3; Hos 11:1-4; Jer 3:4-19.
242 Gen 2:18.
243 Gen 2:19-20.
244 Gen 2:23.
245 Gen 2:24.
246 Gen 1:28.
247 Cf. GS 50 § 1.
248 Gen 1:28.
249 Wis 11:24.
250 Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1511.
251 Cf. LG 2.
252 Cf. Gen 2:17; 3:16,19.
253 Cf. Gen 2:25.
254 Cf. 1 Jn 2:16.
255 Cf. Gen 2:8.
256 Gen 2:15; cf. 3:17-19











Has Any Reader Read This Book?

http://www.liberalismisasin.com/

If so, comments are welcome.

Yearly Blog Rant Part One

Zelie and Louis Martin, pray for us
OK. I moved from trousers or pants into skirts in the 1970s. The community to which I belonged had a dress code. I never turned back except for a few months in the nineties. Then, I repented and went back completely to skirts and dresses. Why? I re-discovered my femininity in my twenties and was happy to be a woman.

Always.

I have never wanted to be or act like a man. Why should I when God made me to know, love and serve Him in this world and to praise Him and be happy with Him in the next as a woman.

I am ranting today because of something I began to see clearly in England in 2011. I was shocked at the change in society there from late 1995 and 2011; the defeminization of women. And, since I have been in the States, I see it even more clearly.

Androgyny is from satan. It is evil. I shall write more of that in a second rant.

If a Catholic woman no matter what her age cannot wear skirts and dresses daily, there is a problem with her spiritual life.

I am sorry to say this boldly, but wearing trousers has nothing to do with being cold or having certain types of jobs. One can always change at work and after work if one must wear trousers.

As to being cold, my close friends know that I suffer horribly from the cold. My son use to call me the "lizard" as I cannot create warmth in my body if it is cold outside. I have had frostbite three times (which stays with one forever) and chilblains, from which I suffer all the time. So, cold is not an excuse.

To ignore one's femininity can come from many sources. And all of these are bad.

1) Self-hatred, thinking one is ugly, fat or unattractive and therefore one "dresses down";

2) Control issues-one wants to be in charge in the family, literally, as the old saying goes, "wearing the pants in the family";

3) Sexual sins, such as lesbianism and other sins related to sex make a woman more of a man;

4) Sexual manipulation of men. All men I have asked about this question tell me they are more "turned on" by jeans and capris than by skirts or dresses. As a friend of mine from California states, "Women's clothes now are all about sex."

5) Modesty, which is a virtue, is not merely covering up parts which should not be shown, it is an attitude. Modesty is part of temperance, which controls concupiscence. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

 The virtue of modesty, as ranged under temperance, has as its task the holding in reasonable leash of the less violent human passions. It brings into service humility to set in order a man's interior. By transfusing his estimates with truth, and increasing his self-knowledge it guards him against the radical malice of pride. It is averse to pusillanimity, the product of low views and a mean-spirited will. In the government of the exterior of a man modesty aims to make it conform to the demands of decency and decorousness (honestas). In this way his whole outward tenor of conduct and method of life fall under its sway. Such things as his attire, manner of speech, habitual bearing, style of living, have to be made to square with its injunctions. To be sure the cannot always be settled by hard and fast rules. Convention will often have a good deal to say in the case, but in turn will have its propriety determined by modesty

If you are a Catholic woman and wearing trousers daily, stop and pray. Your interior disposition is out of whack and maybe God wants to reveal a predominant fault concerning rebellion, control or lust.

To be continued...


Repeat Post from Last Year


Sunday, 25 August 2013

Labor Day in the States: A Goodbye to Summer

Labor Day, a secular holiday in the States, is the end of the summer season. This year, it is Monday, week.

Now, I mention this for two reasons, as a housekeeper and as a woman raised in the Midwest. And, I use to make this flag cake as the American Mom.

After Labor Day, a woman in the Midwest put away her summer sandals, her white shoes, white handbags, white summer dresses, and prepared for Autumn. This quaint custom is still followed in some places. Even though my wardrobe is minimalist, I shall not use my straw hat or my straw purse for Mass after this day.

It is the done thing in my family.

And, it is the day which officially marks the end of the vacation season.

Unlike Europeans, who seem to vacation at will and who have much longer Christmas and Easter holidays, Americans, who is my opinion, are excellent workers, still, just still, with a good work ethic, which means that one puts in a day's work for a day's pay, Americans, I repeat, have limited holidays. We work hard and we play hard.

Labor Day is one of the last family holidays until mid-term school breaks, which are so scattered in scheduling and so short, that families do not holiday in America until Thanksgiving Day weekend.

So, Labor Day is a big deal.

A formal goodbye to summer is a good thing and the present generation in Europe, who are bred and led into the entitlement attitude, and cannot understand a real commitment to work. One should not work for vacations. Perhaps the loss of an agricultural society in Europe has something to do with this. Perhaps the God-given rhythm of the seasons has been sacrificed to technology.

We are called to work by God for two reasons: one, as good stewards of the things of the earth given to us by God, and two, as punishment for Original Sin,

Obviously, when a culture does not recognize either Original Sin or the duties of stewardship. when a culture has fallen into the sin of socialism, which undermines the dignity of human work, this Labor Day will have no meaning. Catholics should understand what duty and good stewardship mean. For many of us, it is in the blood.

In the meantime, I put away sandals, white clothes, straw hats and bags, and prepare for the long winter. It is appropriate that humans see the ebb and flow of the seasons as a good thing, and that work and rest also have a place.

So much is being lost in Western Culture so quickly. I know my 85 year old mom will not wear white until her heavy white wools at Christmas. Her mother, my maternal grandmother, was a milliner, as well as an expert seamstress, and writer. She was also one the first women to study for a law degree at St. Louis University after WWI. I loved her independence and great mind. But, growing up in a time of appropriateness in dress, we were always conscious of dress and the symbolism of dress, which she passed down to us.

So much symbolism and appropriateness in dress has been lost....