The Curriculum

A degree in theology is a prerequisite for one to become a Roman Catholic priest and pastor but it ought not be the sole qualification.  "As R. Fowler White, dean of faculty and professor of New Testament at Knox Theological Seminary, puts it, 'Theological education is necessary, but it is not sufficient for effectiveness in ministry.'" [1]  "To claim that God cannot call and use someone who has not earned a seminary degree...is...in conflict with the way God has worked through history and continues to work today.  On the other hand, no one can deny that the preparation for ministry offered at theological seminaries has supported in immeasurable ways the mission and ministry of local churches and of the church in general." [2]  The article from which the foregoing was quoted argued for the indispensable need for a rigorous theological education and concluded with this statement: "while seminary education is not a universal prerequisite to becoming a pastor, its contribution to effectiveness in pastoral ministry is virtually incalculable." [3]

In order to find out if the conclusion is well-founded, one has to examine the courses offered by the institutions that educate seminarians.  This entry examines three of these institutions.  Examples of the course work to be taken for the Master of Divinity Curriculum of Studies at Notre Dame [4] and at Pontifical College Josephinum [5] were provided by Joe Fessenden (July, 2014) [6].  Saint Mary's Seminary and University has a catalog of studies for the 2014-15 school year online, accessed April 30, 2015. [7]

None of the three institutions listed offered lessons in faith, fishing, forgiveness, humility, hypocrisy, poverty, overeating and alcohol consumption.  In reverse order, this entry addresses each course that is missing from the typical curriculum at a seminary:

Alcohol Consumption

None of the Gospels specifically identifies inebriation as a sin therefore it is reasonable to assume that a good number of clergymen do indulge in alcohol and that some are alcoholics and former alcoholics, perhaps even alcoholics-in-training.  The paragraphs quoted below, "by Daniel J. Gross Special to the News-Post,"  were published on Mount Saint Mary's website, accessed April 30, 2015:

"A recreation room also lines the basement of the seminary and is complete with a seminary bar that serves beer and wine at least four nights per week.

"Bar conversations during a recent December evening included anything from a class's final exam, to the history of Santa Claus, to the process of brewing beer, to such lessons from other priests as how to properly react to seeing an attractive woman enter a room.

"A pool table, pingpong table and large flat-screen television with leather lounge chairs are also in the room.

"Bartender Brian Bursott, in his second year at the seminary, said he is brewing his own beer and hard cider at the seminary. He expects to serve them at the bar in the spring.

"Tending bar is Bursott's house job, something each seminarian is assigned while living at the seminary." [8]

Serving beer "at least four nights a week" with hard cider to follow is good preparation for pastoral care?  If so, then there ought to be guidelines as to how much alcohol ought to be consumed before consumption becomes an addiction.

Overeating

Overeating is related to excessive drinking. While neither is condemned, both can fall under the sin of gluttony.  Overeating, like alcoholism, is detrimental to one's health.  Therefore, courses on nutrition and proper exercise ought to be part of a seminarian's curriculum.

Poverty

An education is expensive, a seminarian's education is no different.  Perhaps there ought to be a course on comparative poverty since many priests like to use the phrase made famous by Teresa of Calcutta: "poorest of the poor."  What is more important, buying medication and food for indigents or paying tuition for seminarians to be educated and have beer "at least four times a week"?

Hypocrisy

How can one preach about poverty when one is living with all the comforts of life, often exceeding those of the average worker?  Perhaps hypocrisy is not available as a course for seminarians because both professors and students are in denial.

Humility

How often are seminarians assigned to mop bathroom floors and clean toilets, pull weeds and get on their knees to wash the feet of the sick and the elderly?  Perhaps humility is not a course that is taught because it is extremely difficult to expect one to be humble when one is so bright, so articulate and so educated.

Forgiveness

Do all seminarians have perfect parents, perfect siblings, perfect friends, perfect colleagues, perfect superiors so that none of them has the need to forgive those whom they know so well?  Whether or not that is the case, can seminarians preach forgiveness when they become pastors without first learning to forgive those who are the most difficult to forgive?

Fishing

Leave the fishing to the fishermen even though eating fish on Fridays is recommended.  How can seminarians be fishers of men when they do not even know how to fish?  Fishing ought to be a hands-on course that occurs every Friday.  If no fish is caught, then no meal will be served.  The objective of this course is to teach students patience and ways to deal with frustration.  Practically speaking, if a seminarian does not have the skill and patience to lead sinners onto the path of Christ, then no degree will be awarded, and he ought to do something else.

Faith

No amount of studying will increase one's faith in God.  One can become extremely knowledgeable and be proud of what one knows and what one can teach others, but how unfulfilled is his heart if a seminarian goes back to his room alone and finds emptiness, sees the kind of darkness that light does not penetrate and hears no reply from his prayers because he drinks too often, eats too much , lives too comfortably, sins behind closed doors while being virtuous in public, wears an invisible crown of superiority, holds grudges, has no genuine interest in those seeking guidance and mostly because he does not truly believe in God, and thinks that everything about being priestly is the precise adherence to the procedures, going through the motions that are required while his mind goes blank.



[1] http://www.seminarygradschool.com/article/Is-Seminary-Education-Always-Necessary-for-Pastoral-Ministry%3F
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://nds.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/M.-Div.-Curriculum.pdf
[5] http://www.pcj.edu/files/9414/0432/2346/Curriculum_Plan_for_Master_of_Divinity_Degree_June_2014.pdf
[6] http://www.quora.com/What-is-a-curriculum-for-a-Catholic-seminarian
[7] http://www.stmarys.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SOT-catalog-2014-1.pdf
[8] https://www.msmary.edu/about-the-mount/news-and-events/newspaper-articles/B-article342DayInTheLifeSeminary.html
 

An Unexpected Lesson Learned

The last few Sundays I have gone to different churches around the city to again look for the priest who would counsel his flock, lead them all to God, gently, humbly, patiently, egolessly, dreamily  and lovingly.  With the exception of one [1] whom I find to be so blessed, he, unfortunately, is not always the priest designated to deliver the homily.  I was happy to hear him speak last Sunday.  Not wanting to be disappointed that he would not be the homilist this Sunday, I went to a different church.

I did not like this church for reasons I cannot pinpoint, perhaps it was the seeming lack of solemnness, perhaps it was some of the attendees I observed, who did not seem to be reverential by their body language, who seemed that they would rather not be there, or perhaps it was the music, the unfamiliar surroundings, the standing (nobody was kneeling) before, during and after the receiving of Holy Communion. (Can one supplicate while standing with their hands on their sides?) Perhaps it was a combination of everything that had led me to think that I would not go back there again.

All that had nothing to do with what I was to take away from the Mass.  During the homily, I caught most of what the priest was saying, but not everything, because the sound system was not all that good and I was spacing out a bit. What I heard was all that I needed to hear.

He said something to the effect that not everyone in the Catholic church in the past was good, that perhaps not everyone with a role in it today is good, that everyone is a sinner, that even the disciples of Jesus were not perfect, that Jesus knew of it but that He loved them anyway, that Jesus would prefer us all to be good but that He still loves us even though we continue to sin.

Here I was being judgmental and trying to escape from those priests and other religious whom I considered to be self-absorbed, egoistical, pompous, self-aggrandizing, hypocritical, political, materialistic, greedy, thankless, and on and on, and finding myself in an unfamiliar church at Mass listening to someone I had never met who was addressing precisely the issue that I have been having: priests who are too much like the ordinary sinner and no holier than the rest.

Does that mean that even though they wear a collar and a habit, who are supposedly celibate (despite the millions and millions of dollars the Catholic church paid out to settle lawsuits that arose from sexual improprieties) and who supposedly have enough self-control to keep their hands off the bodies of others who are usually much younger and who are unwilling or unable to express their disgust as a result of a priest's slimy touch, that their reprehensible behaviors, sexually explicit and sexually inclined, ought to be forgiven?

Does that mean that those who are sheep are to forgive those entrusted with the duty to care for the flock even as they pervert their duties as a shepherd?  Certainly, that would make the forgiver more like Christ even as the supposed followers of Christ continue to reveal shades of Satan's characteristics.

Would that be my lesson today, to forgive those who are in charge of leading the flock toward God even though they themselves are on the path away from God?  If indeed that is the lesson, it is definitely a difficult one to internalize.  But then what words that Jesus had expected all to live by were ever easy?


[1] There is another priest whom I find to be close to what I hope to be looking for but this one is not a dreamer but very much a realist.

Bridge Building

About 19 months ago, on September 19, 2013, the Good Lord delivered to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA, a then 54 year old young-looking, intelligent, charming and what I believe to be a spiritually blessed bishop, one of God's beloved sons, Frank Joseph Caggiano [1].  I recall watching the Bishop's installation on EWTN and was impressed by his homily on Youtube beginning at approximately 2:00:40 on building spiritual bridges.  It was down-to-earth, humorous and edifying. Today, I was compelled to listen to his words again [2] and like to take this opportunity to introduce to the few readers of this blog who may not yet have heard of him.

This year, Bishop Frank Caggiano's Saturday Vigil homily on April 4, 2015, the evening before Christ's Resurrection, delivered without notes was passionate, inclusive and spiritually arousing [3]. The recording is difficult to hear due to too much echo inside the chapel, but it is still worth struggling through, trying to understand as much as possible despite the poor sound. [4]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Joseph_Caggiano

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqQW3JPDw5k The homily begins at approximately 2:00:40.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBcS8Q69Hdo  Bishop Frank Caggiano's Holy Thursday's homily on April 2, 2015, like his Saturday Vigil homily two days later, was just as memorable.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-lMXHIWUOw
[4] I thought about possibly trying to transcribe the Bishop's Saturday Vigil homily but decided that words in print would never have the effect of those delivered with the earnestness and passion of Bishop Frank Caggiano.  Therefore, it is probably better to leave alone something beautifully imperfect than to change it into something boringly plain.

Sloth - The Most Prevalent Sin In These Times

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins.  It is "defined as spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken." [1]  "Apathy is a state of indifference." [2]  In short, sloth is defined here as indifference to God.  This indifference encompasses but is not identical to what Pope Benedict XVI termed as "[t]he dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires..." [3]

Not recognizing God as absolute good and Satan as absolute evil are not prerequisites of the sin of indifference to God whereas they are prerequisites of "the dictatorship of relativism."  However, the sin of indifference to God does include within it the definition of "the dictatorship of relativism."  In other words, one who is indifferent to God can recognize God as the definitive Creator but chooses by his Free Will to ignore God, so much so that if he were to witness Christ's raising of Lazarus from the dead and the resurrected body of the crucified Jesus, he could care less.  He would have his own ideas of what life and world are about, focusing on his own ego and desires in a universe separate from and parallel to God's.

Arguably, therefore, that one who is indifferent to God is quite aware of God but considers himself not of God's creation, but a god himself, one who does not believe in miracles and cannot perform them, who cannot triumph over Satan but overlooks the Satan's works and takes them in stride, even when he and his loved ones become statistics of heinous crimes, and who is loved by Satan because he brings to life these deceitful words: "and you will be like God" [4] once uttered by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden to his first parents.

The self-fated creatures of sloth are everywhere, disappointed, saddened and embittered by the trials of life, not by their own volition but by circumstances and pervasiveness of evil over which they have no control.  They need compassion, not accusation; they need to be saved, not blamed; they need to be shown the path, not to be lectured. It is up to those who have been touched by the grace of God to help them heal their spirits broken by their individual pains, and lead them back to God so that they would have the strength to question their minds that have been distracted and dominated by evil.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth_%28deadly_sin%29
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apathy
[3] http://thinkexist.com/quotation/we-are-moving-toward-a-dictatorship-of-relativism/348264.html
See also http://keysofpeter.org/book/pope.htm
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A5&version=NIV

The Ultimate Dilemma: Free Will Or No Free Will For Man

As if I have no fear of Hell, I will step into the shoes of my Creator and take on what I believe to be the ultimate dilemma in the creation of man: whether to make him infallible by confining his choices to those that are good or to make him perfect by allowing him the Free Will to choose good over evil every time.  If faced with that decision, I would not be able make up my mind by the sixth day and rest on the seventh.  As a result, no Adam will ever be made, and the Serpent will forever be coiled around the Tree of Knowledge, motionless and bored, waiting and waiting until it is ossified [1].

But if I must make a decision as man's creator, I will take away man's Free Will and make him infallible since it would be better to be for him to be truly holy than to let him become Satan' prey and be truly sinful.

If man cannot excercise his Free Will, can he be "truly holy"?  I think not.  If man is programmed to be holy, he becomes a human robot of the creator.  A human robot cannot be truly holy even though he does everything in accordance with the teachings of Christ since true holiness requires the conscious rejection of all of Satan's temptations.

What is so wrong with having human robots that are not truly holy?  At least they would not destroy the world and themselves and suffer the consequences of their sins.  That is true and therein lies the ultimate dilemma: I, as creator, would insist on taking away man's Free Will because man simply cannot handle the gift and  the corresponding responsibilities of Free Will.  But I, as man, enjoy my Free Will, and am paying for it with the consequences my sins.  I would not have it any other way.  Thus I, as man, am in disagreement with myself, as creator of man.

I am glad that I am not my own creator, that God is my Creator, that I was created in God's image, that I have the same Free Will as God does.  Like the Son of God, I am able to reject all of Satan's temptations, but I have chosen not to. With the Free Will [2] that I have been given, I have the sole power to accept and have accepted Satan's offers.  There is no excuse for my continual failings, but there is a merciful and loving God Who forgives those who seek forgiveness, Who loves those who love the Son of God and the Mother of God.


[1] Bored stiff, literally.
[2] Free Will is not to be blamed for man's sins.  Free Will is perfect; man is not.  Man is perfect with Free Will but he is also fallible with it.  To be like Christ, man must grow up and become strong like the humble Jesus, to refuse Satan's enticements and submit freely to the Hope of the Creator which is for man to reject evil and return to good, and return to the Serpent all kinds of appealing Apples that are being continuously offered, untouched  and uneaten.

The Pains Of Existence

No life is perfect.  It does not matter how talented, intelligent, successful, beautiful, powerful and wealthy one is for talent is subject to misuse, intellect is subject to manipulation, success is subject to volatility, beauty is subject to inconsistency, power is subject to politics and wealth is subject to meaninglessness.  The value of each of these supposed life assets is conditioned upon the unpredictability of vigor, the certainty of aging and the inevitability of mortality of the body, all of which are a result of the Serpent's temptation, for prior to the fall of Adam and Eve, life was without illness, old age and death.  Everyone therefore has to live with what cannot be changed, and what cannot be changed are the works of man in conjunction with Satan whose goal is to continue ruining lives God has made.

Not every life is equal.  Even if life is restricted by economics, logistics and opportunity, limited to mediocrity and mundanity and filled with pains and disappointments, challenges and loneliness, one still has the capacity to love. What is equal in life is the Free Will to choose good over evil, to be forever grateful for an existence in the flesh.

It is not recommended to bemoan one's existence, to be tired of life, to take it for granted, to be reckless with it, to look forward to death, no matter how difficult or painful life might be [1], even if death leads to eternal life, even if the passage from the known to the unknown, or the largely unknown, is not feared, for wishing insistently for death is to hasten its arrival.  When the angel of death arrives, it is to end a life.  It is not about to be shooed away to return another day should one's mind change from wanting to die to continue living.  Thus, be very  careful with what is wished for.

Suicide, assisted suicide [2] or reckless living such as overdosing on drugs is a waste of life, a rejection of God's gift and a wish-come-true for Satan.  The souls that had left the gift of flesh in any such manner are hopefully in Purgatory awaiting Heaven and not in Hell.  Since Hell is unimaginably more painful than the most painful earthly existence, that is why Our Lady of Fatima had revealed to all the Prayer of Fatima, "O my Jesus, forgive us our sins.  Save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven especially those in most need of thy mercy" [3].  It is to be recited at the end of every decade of the Holy Rosary after the Glory Be prayer [4].

[1] Praying humbly for the forgiveness of God, the healing of Christ and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary always ease the burdens of pain and lifts the spirit.
[2] Proponents of suicides and assisted suicides do not believe in God.  They think that their lives are theirs alone and have nothing to do with God when God is the One Who unites spirit with flesh to give life.  Because God is the One Who has the sole authority over life, God retains the sole authority over death.  To take away God's authority over death is to surrender the most important part of one's existence to Satan: one's eternity.
[3] http://www.how-to-pray-the-rosary-everyday.com/fatima-prayer.html
[4] Whether the Fatima Prayer precedes or follows the Glory Be prayer should not matter so long as it is included as part of the Holy Rosary.

"It's Not Over" By Joel Osteen -- A Resurrection Sermon

The May 11, 2014, sermon, "It's Not Over," by Joel Osteen [1] is one that will likely last through the ages.  It is uplifting and is especially appropriate to listen to on Resurrection Sunday [2], even by a Catholic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf6GAv70L8E

[2] From this point forward, I no longer wish to call Jesus' day of resurrection Easter Sunday after learning that Easter has pagan origins.  See http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/ancient-pagan-origins-easter-001571  Easter is also about chocolate Easter eggs, Easter lilies, Easter egg hunts and Easter bunnies, all of which detract from the miracle and joy of Jesus' resurrection.  Anything that redirects one's focus away from Christ is contaminated by Satan, even lilies, when they are no longer wild but cultivated and sold in the stream of commerce.

Confession - A Refrain

This blog laments often the paucity of holy followers of Jesus, but a priest, however imperfect, is divinely perfected when he sits as a confessor, who after listening to the confessions of penitents, uses the power invested in him by the grace of God to absolve sin.

When sins trouble the heart, confessing them lifts the burden that weighs on it, allowing one's interior to accept God's forgiveness (embedded in the wounds of Christ), Christ's peace and the Holy Spirit's fulfillment and inextinguishable love, when one is ready for them.

Confession is a gift from God that is too often ignored, not unlike the rest of God's gifts that are frequently wasted. Confess, and be blessed!

A.D.

A.D. is the abbreviated form of Anno Domini, Latin words that mean "'in the year of our Lord,'" [1] not "after the death of Christ" as some may mistakenly think.  A.D. "indicat[es] years numbered from the supposed year of the birth of Christ. (Italics original)." [2]  Thus, A.D. does not  begin with the resurrection of Jesus but the birth of the Savior.  This makes sense since B.C. "indicat[es] years numbered back from the supposed year of the birth of Christ," [3] despite the fact that scholars cannot agree as to the year in which Jesus was born. [4], [5]

For this blog entry, "AD" (used without a period after A and after D) is to mean "After the Death of Christ."  Using this fictional definition, then AD would begin after Jesus took His last breath on the cross (assumed to be at noon on Friday), not after His resurrection (assumed to be right after midnight on Saturday, the "third" day when Jesus rose from the dead [6]).

The first questions this entry asks are where was Jesus and what was He doing during the 36 hours between noon on Good Friday when He died and right after midnight on Saturday when He resurrected.  According to the Vatican, Jesus descended into Hell so that "'the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.'" [7]

Here, more questions follow:  Are 36 hours enough to go through all 9 Circles of Dante's Inferno? [8]  Should each Circle of the Inferno get 4 hours each?  Should Jesus spend more time in each Bolgia of Circle 8, especially with the corrupt politicians in Bolgia 5, the hypocrites in Bolgia 6, the "divisive individuals" in Bolgia 9 and the falsifiers in Bolgia 10? [9]  And what about in Circle 9 where the envious murdurers and jealous killers like Cain, and betrayers like Judas Iscariot are being punished?  If Cain did not agree with God Who favored Abel's offering over his, and Judas Iscariot did not learn from Jesus and betrayed Him while on earth, why would they pay attention to the Son of God in Hell?  Would it be because of the suffering?  Would they be forgiven or was forgiveness intended only for those who did not know God or the Son of God?

Of course there are many more questions to be asked.  The one for producers of movies and television shows is why not focus on these fictional 36 hours of Christ in Hell?  With a total of at least 36 one-hour episodes which translates into 3 to 4 seasons with more or less 10 episodes per season ought to draw quite an audience and a number of high-paying advertisers.  Forecasts such as these live and die in the temporal world and are out of place in this blog which strives to peer into the eternal one but they are a part of life.

All kinds of wheeling and dealing take place in the "real" world [10] every day on every level in the fantasy AD and in the official A.D., sometimes charitably in the name of Christ, sometimes greedily in the currencies of Satan (like power and profit) and sometimes sordidly without compunction. Whichever the case maybe, Jesus, the Light of Life, is no longer alive in the flesh, so the surrounding present-day environment is by comparison not much different from the immediate dark period that blanked the world that began at noon on the first Holy Saturday.

In a sense, Holy Saturday has not ended and is continuing in the imaginery AD.  Without authoritative figures in the flesh like the Son of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary to remind the banished descendants of Adam and Eve of their predispositions to Sin and Sin's consequences, everyone, on every continent, from the very young with their innocence lost to the near-death with no innocence to spare, are in essence either on "Spring break" on the beaches of the Americas or in the battlefields in the Mideast and Africa ("Arab Spring"), doing whatever they please away from the Light, away from the watchful eyes of Christ and the protection of the mourning Blessed Virgin Mary.  The unbridled sinful acts are taking place in this fictional AD, a period equivalent to an extended Holy Saturday in which everything goes, and all Hell breaks loose, turning earth into Satan's sinister merry-go-round playground of alcohol, drugs and debauchery (in the Americas) and destruction, torture and death (in the Mideast and Africa). [11]


[1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/Anno-Domini
[2] http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ad#ad_4
[3] http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bc
[4] http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/in-what-year-was-christ-actually-born.html
[5] http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/what-year-was-jesus-born-the-answer-may-surprise-you
[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2024
[7] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p1.htm
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_%28Dante%29
[9] http://historylists.org/art/9-circles-of-hell-dantes-inferno.html
[10] The word "real" is in quotation marks because nobody knows what is truly Real.  Only by knowing God's Truth which is coextensive with time will the word "real" reveals its true meaning.  Because nobody can define time and tell when it began and if it ever ends, therefore nobody knows the Truth which leads to the full knowledge of what is real or not. Taking a bite of the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge has apparently done nothing to reveal the light of Truth, nor did Jesus during His lifetime disclose the whole Truth, for good reason (below), although He did show everybody the way there by His humility, His compassion, His forgiveness and His unconditional love.  In a way, Jesus' life, suffering and crucifixion were part of God's Truth that was revealed.  With this body of evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the Truth can be rather harsh and no sinner is prepared to live It after knowing It for certain.  Perhaps that is why the images in Book of Revelation are being denied by the United States Conference Of Bishops with this statement: "symbolic descriptions are not to be taken as literal descriptions, nor is the symbolism to be pictured realistically."
[11] In this fictional AD, as in the official A.D., prayers can save souls.

Good Friday Means Forgiveness

In response to a reporter's question: "what are your feelings toward those who drove you out of your home and caused you hardships?"  Myriam, a ten year old girl who escaped ISIS said, "I won't do anything to them, I will only ask God to forgive them."  And to a follow up question: "And can you, too, forgive them?"  She answered, "Yes." [1]  She was speaking the words of Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." [2]

It is interesting to note that a hashtag #PrayForMyriam has been established on Twitter instead of what it ought to be: #MyraimPrayForUs since it is appropriate for one who is holy to pray for those not-so-holy.


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__MJ8VwMOI
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A34&version=KJV

Holy Thursday Thought: The Unholy Religious

About a couple of millennia ago in the upper room the twelve disciples of Jesus had their Last Supper with the Lord who washed their feet.  Fast forward to today, an upper room tucked away from the masses is usually reserved for VIPs with money and status.  The privileged with their perks are a stark contrast to Christ and His humble existence but that is to be expected for there are not many true followers of Christ in the world.  What is not to be expected are the professed followers of Christ being more unholy than holy, who seem to be consumed more by the economics and politics of daily life than the spirituality of eternal life.

On the final Thursday of Jesus' life, Jesus instituted the Eucharist, a practice carried on by Catholic priests today, some of whom seem to have reduced the distribution of the Holy Communion to mere mechanics, a simple exercise of their motor and verbal skills without the depth of care, meaning and solemnity due the body of Christ, which turned out to be heart muscle in Lanciano, Italy [1].



[1] http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/lanciano.html

The Blind Atheist

There is not just a blind atheist or two.  In fact, all atheists are blind because they do not see God.

Atheists maintain that God does not exist because God's existence cannot be proven scientifically.  In fact, existence itself cannot be proven scientifically.  To prove that something exists, one must first prove the existence of a three-dimensional  ("3-D") universe.  The question to ask is how can something or someone, like an atheist, exist in such a universe when its existence is in doubt?

Assuming there is proof that such a 3-D universe exists, there is also proof that it does not [1], [2], at least not in its three-dimensional form.  The opposite conclusions cancel each other out which means that nobody can prove if a 3-D universe exists or not.  Without definitive and uncontroverted proof that a three-dimensional universe exists, the existence of whatever that is contained in it cannot be proven either.

Since atheists cannot prove beyond a doubt that their universe exists in three dimensions, they therefore cannot prove their own existence in it and as such, they have no standing to comment on God's existence.

Those who believe that God created the universe but who ask not for scientific proof can postulate that God's existence does not depend on the existence of the universe. In addition, they can argue that even if God's existence cannot be ascertained scientifically, it does not mean that God's non-existence is a scientific fact.  Accordingly, when an atheist states that God does not exist, he is stating a belief, not a fact.

Atheists also maintain that if there is a God, the world would not have pain and suffering, but because there is pain and suffering, there is no God.  They are partly right.  A place with only pain and suffering is called Hell,   In Hell, there is no God.

Indeed, the world has its share of pain and suffering [3], a result of Sin, but it also has love and joy to counterbalance pain and suffering.  Since love and joy come from God, God therefore exists.

There are many more arguments [4], some relying on unstated assumptions and others on the straw man approach [5], that atheists make to prove the non-existence of God.  It is not necessary to address them all, for atheists have the same gift from God as believers in God do: Free Will.  With it, atheists can choose freely to criticize God, reject God's existence and ignore the presence of evil, thereby tacitly allowing Satan to reign over them, to reduce God to nothingness and shut their eyes on the Truth.



[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2014/06/24/higgs-boson-seems-to-prove-that-the-universe-doesnt-exist/
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/29/space-hologram-experiment-two-dimensions_n_5726262.html
[3] Natural disasters are also a result of Sin.  In the Garden of Eden, before the fall of Adam and Eve, there were no natural disasters, no pain, no suffering and no death.
[4] http://www.nairaland.com/1150005/library-best-40-atheist-arguments
[5] The straw man approach: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man