This Week’s Ask Alice: Should a doubtful (but otherwise practicing) Catholic receive Holy Communion?

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Yaron asks: I am a Jew I wanted to ask two questions about your faith: 1. If there is a Catholic that was baptized as a baby in the Catholic church and he comes every week to the church and gives money to the church, however he does not believe that Jesus is God, can he take from the bread and wine in the church? 2. Will this Catholic enter paradise after he dies? I appreciate your reply.

Alice answers: You’ve asked two worthwhile questions which merit complicated answers. It’s interesting that a Jewish person like yourself, seems to have a clearer understanding of Catholic teachings than your Catholic friend does.

To licitly receive the Body (bread) and Blood (wine) of Christ a Catholic must: 1) Be in the state of grace, (i.e. have no unconfessed mortal sins); 2) Believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; and 3) Observe the Eucharistic fast.

If a baptized Catholic does not believe that Jesus is God, there would be no point to his receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, since that person would receive Holy Communion unworthily.

However, no human being fully understands how Jesus can be both God and man. This mystery is called the Incarnation. Faith means believing what we cannot see. If your friend struggles with doubts about Jesus being God he is like many other Catholics, even some saints, who suffer from what St. John of the Cross dubbed, “the dark night of the soul.” As long as your friend believes in God, prays, attends weekly Mass, and financially supports his church, we must be wary of judging his heart. That’s God’s job.

Just as the Incarnation remains a mystery to all of humanity, an even greater mystery is Divine Mercy. No one can guarantee exactly where your friend will spend eternity because God’s mercy is “astonishment for Angels, incomprehensible for Saints” (Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska: 949) Although you friend’s heart is riddled with doubts, God in His infinite mercy, can choose to forgive him and admit him to Paradise. That’s God’s choice.

“He says to Moses, ‘I will show mercy to whomever I choose; I will have pity on whomever I wish.’ So it is not a question of man’s willing or doing, but of God’s mercy……In other words, God has mercy on whom He wishes, and whom He wishes He makes obdurate.” (Romans 9:15)

Please pray for your Catholic friend, that God will enlighten his heart and increase his faith.

In Christ’s Love,

Alice

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Catholic common sense and the message of Fatima

Seen on the web…

Posted by Rich R:

I hear people getting so wound up about the Third Secret of Fatima, and focusing so much on a possible Chastisement that they neglect the guidance offered by Fatima.

It reminds me of when I tell my little boys to “clean their room, or else no Wii.” Their first response is not to start cleaning their room. It’s to nail down how long they will be without the Wii. “Is that just for today, Dad, or all week? Do we have to clean everything in the room?” IOW, they are not getting the point. The point is to clean their room and avoid the punishment. When someone focuses too much on determining the punishment, what they really are thinking is, “Is this punishment SO bad that I really need to change my behavior?” IOW, they don’t really want a change of heart.

I often think it regrettable that people are missing the call to repentance and reparation because they are so enamored with the mystery of the Third Secret.

Link

Easter mystery: A very public crucifixion, followed by a decidedly low-profile resurrection. Why so?

by Doug Lawrence

The constant Tradition of the Catholic Church, along with the Gospels … make it absolutely clear that Jesus did in fact, rise again (bodily) from the dead … by his own power.

But what never seems to have been sufficiently explained is … after such a public, humiliating, crucifixion and death … why wasn’t any other living soul permitted to observe/witness the resurrection … and why … even after the risen Christ physically appeared, and for 40 days, fully interacted with the apostles (and eventually, some 500 other witnesses) did Jesus decide to forego publicly confronting any of the men who had tortured and killed him?

Here’s a few possible explanations. Feel free to submit your own:

Explanation #1: Hebrews 9:27  And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.
Simple enough!

Explanation #2: Jesus came to destroy Satan’s power, to make possible the forgiveness of sins, and to open the gates of Heaven. That accomplished, his mission called for nothing more, so he left all the rest … supported by his Church and fortified by his grace … up to us.

Explanation #3: Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. He came to destroy Satan’s evil dominion of eternal slavery, sin, and death, and he couldn’t have cared less about getting even with the particular group of Jewish and Roman minions who put him to death.

Explanation #4 (my favorite): Jesus did confront the one primarily responsible for his death … and for the death of every other human being who ever lived. That person was Satan, the devil.

Satan … who held the power of death over every sinner, had no power at all over the sinless Jesus. Yet Jesus was put to death, just like nearly every “ordinary” prophet who ever came before him.

That was a big mistake … one for which Satan was subsequently judged … and which cost him everything he had earlier gained from Adam’s fall … including dominion over the whole earth .. and most … but not all … of the power he officially wielded, over men.

The soon to be crucified Jesus confirmed that Satan had already been judged:

John 16:7-11  But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go. For if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he is come, he will convince the world of sin and of justice and of judgment. Of sin: because they believed not in me. And of justice: because I go to the Father: and you shall see me no longer. And of judgment: because the prince of this world is already judged.

Jesus … the “abused” party … was subsequently awarded total restoration and truly extraordinary “damages”, including (but not limited to) bodily resurrection, divine appointment as the new leader of all mankind (the New Adam), and all power in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth.

He was also awarded “us”. Now “we” belong to Christ, and “our” eternal destiny is in his hands. Yet, through him, with him, in him … in the unity of the Holy Spirit … we still remain free.

Explanation #5: Jesus simply took a “longer” view of things. In Matthew 24, Jesus predicts the future destruction of Jerusalem, and he also alludes to other similar types of destruction, to come.

A generation later, just as Jesus predicted, Jerusalem, along with the Temple, was indeed destroyed by the Romans. About 400 years later … after it had been converted to Christianity … the Roman Empire met a similar end … while the Catholic Church remained … picking up the broken fragments of civilization, and eventually rebuilding it, in the image of Heaven.

The greatest institutions of western society attest to this fact, along with some of the finest religious art ever conceived, and some of the most extraordinarily beautiful churches ever constructed, for the glory of God.

Judaism never recovered. The original, centralized, system of laws and priest-directed, sacrificial worship never returned. In its place was a scattered, irregular form of various Talmudic practices … based solely on the religious opinions of certain rabbis and sages. For more on this, see 2nd Timothy, Chapter 3.

The Romans too, are not likely to ever resume their conquests. To this day, Italy, as a nation, has been unable to successfully reconcile any new, aggressive, warlike impulses it might develop, with its apparent manifest destiny as a confirmed, Catholic country.

In short, however he managed to bring it about, Jesus not only accomplished all that he came to do … he also managed to turn “swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4) in some very unusual and unexpected ways.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church remains, both as the “Pillar and Ground of the Truth” (1st Timothy3:15) and the world’s oldest, continuous government, of any kind.

Explanation #6: Jesus did arrange for people to witness both the crucifixion AND the resurrection, through the institution of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist.

In fact, through their participation in the sacred liturgy, every Catholic of every generation has personally seen Jesus … both in death … and in his resurrected glory … made present for us on the holy altar, at Mass.

For almost two thousand years, that amazing event has been happening all around the world, in virtually every country on earth, every day of every year, every hour of every day. (See Malachi 1:11.)

Finally, if none of the above seems to make sense to you, try this:

Isaiah 55:1-13  All you that thirst, come to the waters: and you that have no money make haste, buy, and eat: come ye, buy wine and milk without money, and without any price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and your soul shall be delighted in fatness. Incline your ear and come to me: hear and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the faithful mercies of David. Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and a master to the Gentiles.

Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest not: and the nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God: for he is bountiful to forgive.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. And as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, and give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.

For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands. Instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the nettle, shall come up the myrtle tree: and the Lord shall be named for an everlasting sign, that shall not be taken away.

It’s clear. God knows exactly what he is doing, and he will most certainly bring about precisely what he wills, and all that he promises … in his own wonderful way.

Such are the advantages of having unlimited power, omniscience, absolute mastery over time and space, and of course, inestimable love.

Boy Born Without Brain Cerebellum Thrives. Doctors Baffled.

Heather and David Britton want everyone to understand a few things about their giggling, bespectacled 3-year-old son, Chase.

“He’s happy. We call him the Little Gremlin. He loves to play tricks on people. He loves to sing. His goal in life is to make people smile,” Heather Britton told AOL News.

“He’s got so much love around him. We’re an extremely happy family. His story is not tragic.”

But to an outsider, the Brittons’ story might seem heartbreaking.

[]… He has the MRI of a vegetable,’ one of the doctors said to us.”

Chase is not a vegetable, leaving doctors bewildered and experts rethinking what they thought they knew about the human brain.

Read more

The Miracle of Life – A Meditation on Mystery and Beauty of Life as we March

By: Msgr. Charles Pope

The magnificence of life is really too wonderful too describe. But I found this description some years ago which summons reverence by its very ability to baffle the mind:

MIRACLE OF LIFE– Consider the miracle of the human body.  Its chemistry is just as extraordinarily well tuned as is the physics of the cosmos.  Our world on bothsides of the divide that separates life from lifelessness is filled with wonder.  Each human cell has a double helix library of three billion base pairs providing fifty thousand genes.  These three billion base pairs and fifty thousand genes somehow engineer 100 trillion neural connections in the brain—-enough points of information to store all the data and information contained in a fifty-million-volume encyclopedia.  And then after that, these fifty thousand genes set forth a million fibers in the optic nerves, retinae having ten million pixels per centimeter, some ten billion in all, ten thousand taste buds, ten million nerve endings for smell, cells that exude a chemical come-on to lure an embryo’s lengthening neurons from spinal cord to target cell, each one of the millions of target cells attracting the proper nerve from the particular needed function.  And all this three-dimensional structure arises somehow from the linear, one-dimensional information contained along the DNA helix. Did all this happen by chance or do you see the hand of God?

Today, many of us march for life, here in Washington, on the West Coast,  and in other communities. Today we ponder the great mystery that is expressed in the 139th psalm:

For it was you who created my being,  knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you for the wonder of my being…Already you knew my soul my body held no secret from you when I was being fashioned in secret….every one of my days was decreed before one of them came into being. To me, how mysterious your thoughts, the sum of them not to be numbered! (Psalm 139 varia)

Read more. Or watch a fascinating video.

Exorcist priest exits public spotlight, mystifying many

It was a classic cable-TV shouting match.

After criticizing Fox Television commentator Sean Hannity for being soft on the abortion issue, Rev. Thomas Euteneuer said he would deny Hannity communion because of his views.

“Wow,” said Hannity, a Catholic and former seminary student, rendered temporarily speechless by the rebuke.

That was three years ago. Euteneuer was the president and the very public face of Human Life International, a worldwide anti-abortion organization. Friend and foe alike knew him as blunt-spoken when it came to defending his Church. He was a captivating public speaker, comfortable in the role.

His fierce and highly publicized 1999 campaign against a Fort Pierce abortion clinic became the subject of an HBO documentary, “12th and Delaware.”

He was also an exorcist. HLI, his publisher as well as his employer, was promoting his new book on its website.

But this summer, without warning, Euteneuer, 48, left his HLI post, saying he had been called back to the Palm Beach Diocese by Bishop Gerald Barbarito. His book on exorcism disappeared.

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Pope Benedict: Little sins and insensitivities lay the foundation for greater ones.

As one gives way to repeated sin and fails to repent, that sin becomes custom or habit. But having descended one rung on the ladder, the next rung now seems not so far, nor the one below that. And as one descends further into the darkness the eyes adjust to an increasing dimness, such that the light above now seems quite obnoxious. And behaviors once thought shameful, even impossible to one, now seem within reach and somehow plausible. As the memory of the light fades, the once unthinkable now becomes a daily fare. The descent on the moral ladder continues, one rung at a time, and the light gradually disappears.

St Augustine put it this way: Because of a perverse will was lust made; and lust indulged in became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity (Confessions 8.5). Evil does grow, hearts do harden, intellects do grow dark, very dark. 12-Step meetings often reference the “stinking thinking” that reinforces addiction, bizarre behavior,  and makes every form of lust one’s “God-given right.”  The only way to break this cycle is honest,  frequent confession and authentic accountability to others.

Link

Mystery advice from grandma: God made the Blessed Virgin Mary “plenty good enough”, so she never needed to draw attention to herself.

Our Lady was hidden, decreased and set aside most of her life, yet she is mysterious, beguiling, utterly lovely and loving. She carried the Mystery of the Incarnate Word – also hidden and set aside – in her womb.  She never sought affirmation or approval for their own sake, she didn’t try to convince those around her of her goodness, abilities or her “epic” Friday nights adventures.

Yet there aren’t enough superlatives in the world to describe her. There is no artist except One, who could ever attempt to capture her mystery or her loveliness. There is no one better at “making them wonder” than the Blessed Mother. We could wonder and wonder and wonder about her and never get tired of wondering.

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Submitted by Doria2

On the Role Of Women In Modern Society And the Church

Women who express a desire for the ministerial priesthood are doubtless motivated by the desire to serve Christ and the Church. And it is not surprising that, at a time when they are becoming more aware of the discriminations to which they have been subject, they should desire the ministerial priesthood itself. But it must not be forgotten that the priesthood does not form part of the rights of the individual, but stems from the economy of the mystery of Christ and the Church. The priestly office cannot become the goal of social advancement; no merely human progress of society or of the individual can of itself give access to it: it is of another order.

It therefore remains for us to meditate more deeply on the nature of the real equality of the baptized which is one of the great affirmations of Christianity: equality is in no way identity, for the Church is a differentiated body, in which each individual has his or her role. The roles are distinct, and must not be confused; they do not favour the superiority of some vis-a-vis the others, nor do they provide an excuse for jealousy; the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12-13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.

The Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance, both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.

Read INTER INSIGNIORES Vatican Document

Father Z, St. Augustine, and the Mystery of the Incarnation

“He is the One through whom all things have been made and, on Christmas, Who has been made in the midst of all things. He is the Revealer of His Father and the Creator of His mother, the Son of God through His Father without a mother and the Son of Man through His mother without a father. He is great in the eternal day of the angels but small in the time-conditioned day of men. He is the Word of God before all time and the Word made Flesh in the fullness of time. Maker of the sun, He is made under the sun. Disposer of all ages in the bosom of His Father, He consecrates Christmas Day in the womb of His mother. In Him He remains while from her He goes forth. Creator of the heavens and the earth, He is born on earth under the heavens. Unspeakably wise, He is wisely speechless (Ineffabiliter sapiens, sapienter infans). Filling the universe, He lies in a manger. Ruler of the stars, He nurses at His mother’s bosom. He is both great in the nature of God and small in the form of a servant, but His greatness is not diminished by His smallness nor His smallness overwhelmed by His greatness.”

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A neat thing about Christmas

Christmas, Christ’s birth in a carnal body, calls forth faith, perhaps precisely because it mystifies. Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholics, it’s sometimes said, put different emphases on the events of Christ’s life. The Orthodox supposedly focus on Easter, Resurrection, and Redemption, while Catholics emphasize Christmas, Incarnation, and Christian life in the world (with the implied criticism that this tends to make us worldly). But there can be no competition of this kind between real Christians. No one perfectly imitates Christ, who came into the world and lived virtually like everyone else for thirty years before his extraordinary public ministry, death, Resurrection, and Ascension. Without His birth and Incarnation, however, there could be no death and Redemption. Earth and Heaven come together in Him in ways that exceed all telling.

Speaking with holy and Christian accuracy, we believe in this without understanding it. It remains a mystery for even the greatest theologians. Why were we redeemed in this and no other way? The pagan and Jewish critics had a point about Christ’s life and death, as Paul says: for the pagans it was foolishness and for the Jews a scandal.

And yet there is the fact of Christ, a man of no high birth who came into the world, not at Rome or Athens or one of the great Asian capitals, but in a small village in an unimportant nation on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean in mid-winter. He won no public office, waged no military battles, developed no grand intellectual system – things we might understand as greatness. In human terms, only a fool would have expected such a person appearing in such a place and in such circumstances to turn the world upside down.

But he did, and does, which is why we ponder and prepare this month for His coming.

Read more about it

A shroud of mystery

The Shroud, a 4.36m by 1.10m linen cloth bearing the life-size imprint of a man, has a herring-bone pattern. It has traditionally been regarded as the burial cloth mentioned in the Gospels. Joseph of Arimathea bought a length of fabric with which to cover Christ’s body. The linen was wrapped around Jesus at his burial, only to be found, neatly folded in the tomb, after the Resurrection. This cloth would therefore bear witness not only to the physical presence of Jesus’ body, of His blood and the wounds provoked by His scourging and crucifixion, but also of His Resurrection. As such, it is an object of inestimable spiritual and scientific value.

Read the article

Submitted by Bob Stanley

Please explain the idea of FREE-WILL

Q: Please explain the idea of FREE-WILL.

I am a believer in God, but the concept of Free-will makes no sense—it is unexplainable?

A: This is an example of limited predestination, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God”

599 Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”393 This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.394

600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: “In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.396

Note the two different “threads” that operate in the above statement.

God does what only God can do, knowing all and seeing all, from eternity.

Man does whatever he chooses, but in the end, God’s will always prevails, because God is more than capable of taking into account all the feeble and ill considered actions of mankind.

Those who deny free-will are more in line with Calvin’s discredited theory of  “double predestination” which makes life meaningless, salvation unnecessary, judgment a joke, and the concept of a redeemer essentially superfluous.

Why does the Bible define itself as “allegory” and as “mystery” to solve by seek and find?

Saint Jerome

Q: Why does the Bible define itself as “allegory” and as “mystery” to solve by seek and find?Does the Bible think for you, or perhaps make you think?  

A: The Catholic Church produced the Bible. It remains a Catholic holy book, written by Catholics, for Catholics, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it truly reflects only authentic Catholic beliefs and practices.

What else would anyone expect?

The Catholic Church has also been very clear about how and why the Bible was written, and what factors the reader needs to understand and take into account, when studying the sacred scriptures.

Contrary to what some people believe, there is absolutely no assurance that anyone reading the Bible on their own is certain to able to discern the Bibles’s true meaning … and the 50,000 different, but all allegedly “Bible-based” protestant denominations, serve as absolute proof of this.

Read the official Vatican document for yourself. It’s fairly short and easy to understand, and it includes complete footnotes and related citations:

 

Dei Verbum – The Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Church on Divine Revelation

          

Deep Background On St. Jerome’s Great Work of Translating the Bible