The Sheepcat

Prophetic Voices

I've been reading Jeff Mirus's reflections at Catholic Culture regularly for a while now and have found them pretty consistently illuminating in one way or another. This one on a proposal to make Catholic universities focus more on cultivating prophetic voices for social justice hits the nail on the head.

Point 1: If it ain't from God, it ain't prophecy, it's cant.

Point 2: At the age when most students go to university, the characteristic vices are ones that social activism (of whatever political stripe, I'd interject) does little to hold in check.

I've heard it said repeatedly in one Christian writers' group that our society needs prophets, by which declaration this person is inviting us to step up to the plate and tell the world about God. But while Christians should not be afraid to speak in the public square, I beg to differ about what's most needed. The prophetic role, at least as it is commonly understood, is one that easily feeds a person's sense of entitlement, and here I speak ruefully from personal experience. It's easy to style oneself a prophet and find something that someone out there is doing wrong, because there really is a lot of evil in the world. It's harder to radically submit everything in our own lives – our petty self-indulgence, our fits of whininess and ingratitude, our sloth – to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Reformers come and go; saints endure in their influence.

Said St Francis of Assisi, "Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society."

Archbishop Chaput of Denver concludes this very fine essay on religion and the public good by saying, "The only thing that matters is to be a saint. At least we can try. And if we do, God will take care of the rest."

Progressive Judges, 1927

Two decades ago I learned from reading Stephen Jay Gould about the case of Carrie Buck, who was eventually sterilized against her will on grounds of feeble-mindedness. Eighty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favour of compulsory sterilization in the case of Buck v. Bell. The lone dissenter on the bench was Catholic.

Link via CAEI.

Archbishop Burke Speaks Out

Archbishop Burke explains his principled objection to having singer Sheryl Crow, a prominent advocate of abortion and embryonic stem cells research, appear in a Catholic charity's fundraising concert. God bless him.

Johnny Hart, Presbyterian

A ‘fundamental’ problem in ‘B.C.’ obits � GetReligion.

Link via CAEI.

Beyond the Numbers Game

In terms of the traffic I get here, I'm running a little minnow of a blog, but I take some pleasure in seeing my site meter reach a total of 20,000 page views since the inception of The Sheepcat nearly two years ago. Still, I'm at least as glad that the numbers have less of a hold on me than they used to. The blogosphere, and the world more generally, will chug along just fine whether or not I somehow manage to hit one out of the park through some feat of epistolary brilliance. That's freeing.

Anyway, thank you, dear readers, especially those of you whom keep coming back even when my blogging has been light. I'm gratified and encouraged.

A Lutheran Pastor Comes Home to Rome

A former Lutheran pastor in Australia tells his story of finding the fullness of faith. He doesn't like the term "conversion," incidentally. One nugget:

A God who says, “I came to save you, but I’m not going to show you how exactly – have a guess and we’ll all find out on judgement day” can hardly be described as a gracious God.

After he became Catholic he found himself at a conference chock full of erroneous teaching.

What surprised me was not so much the blatant disregard for Church teaching, nor the almost universal ignorance that they were doing so, but my own lack of concern.

I couldn't understand my own reaction! Such concentrated error would have sent me into a tail spin only a year earlier, so why was I so calm (if a little sad for them and their future contacts) about this monumental rejection of Christian teaching? I realised that, for the first time ever I was completely sure that these people did not represent Christ's teaching, and that it wasn't up to me to prove that! Even when a religious sister gave an astoundingly horrid interpretation of the account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I sat watching calmly. I was sad for her and for those listening, but I felt no compulsion to leap up and shout the defence of the Bible or Church teaching. Not that I did this much before, but I always had to fight the compulsion!

I realised I was peaceful in that nothing I could say or do could make the truth any more true than it already is! In those days I actually felt a heady thrill at being so completely secure in the truth of the faith. I still feel it now. I now hold two different roles involved in upholding and teaching the faith in Scripture and of Marriage and the Family, but I am free to do so now out of love for the people I interact with, and not in a kind of desperate attempt to convince myself of the 'truth' I am arguing for.

Talking as I often do with conservative Anglicans who feel frustrated by their communion's moral confusion, I'm thankful I can have confidence the dissidents and revisionists are never going to take over the Catholic Church. They're just not.

From the sounds of things, the authorities he dealt with in the Lutheran Church of Australia treated Peter pretty shabbily as he was on his way out. God bless him for his fortitude.

Over on his main blog, cum grano salis, the father of five considers possible retorts to strangers making inane remarks.

Comment: "You won't have any more children, surely!"
Response from 6 year old: "Yes! We still have two spare seats left in the Van!"
and just when I thought the interfering ladies eyebrows couldn't get any higher, my sweet daughter added an aside to me... "Daddy, can you drive a bus?"

Link via Standing on My Head.

Wanting Something Big and Glorious from God

Okay, so this is out of order, but felix hominum has these sermon notes for Maundy Thursday, see, that only just came to my attention.

Seriously Cool Optical Illusion

Big Spanish Castle.

Botched Catholic Hymns: Plus Ça Change?

The New Liturgical Movement: Who Botched Catholics Hymns and Why?

In Love, Descend

The Easter Vigil at Holy Family transported me to cloud nine, as did last year's, one of the most awe-inspiring pieces of liturgy I've ever seen. All that bliss is given to us for a reason, though, so that we may then go out into the world, life-preserver and rope in hand.

Pope Benedict explains.

This is the joy of the Easter Vigil: we are free. In the resurrection of Jesus, love has been shown to be stronger than death, stronger than evil. Love made Christ descend, and love is also the power by which he ascends. The power by which he brings us with him. In union with his love, borne aloft on the wings of love, as persons of love, let us descend with him into the world's darkness, knowing that in this way we will also rise up with him. On this night, then, let us pray: Lord, show us that love is stronger than hatred, that love is stronger than death. Descend into the darkness and the abyss of our modern age, and take by the hand those who await you. Bring them to the light! In my own dark nights, be with me to bring me forth! Help me, help all of us, to descend with you into the darkness of all those people who are still waiting for you, who out of the depths cry unto you! Help us to bring them your light! Help us to say the "yes" of love, the love that makes us descend with you and, in so doing, also to rise with you. Amen.

I think once again of St Paul's cry in Romans 9: "I could wish that I were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh." We who have experienced Christ's superabundant mercy, will we not freely descend with him into the depths for the sake of those who are still estranged from him?